📰 Scientists see flaws in govt-backed model's approach to forecast pandemic
A parameter that was inaccurate and calibration errors may have led to predictions that did not signal the catastrophic second wave.
•With close to 4,00,000 cases being added every day, questions are being raised by many scientists on whether a government-backed model, called SUTRA, to forecast the rise and ebb of the COVID-19 pandemic, may have had an outsized role in creating the perception that a catastrophic second wave was unlikely in India.
•An official connected with the COVID-19 management exercise said, on condition of anonymity, that the SUTRA model input was “an important one, but not unique or determining”.
•The SUTRA group had presented its views to Dr. V.K. Paul, who chaired a committee that got inputs from several modellers and sources. “The worst case predictions from this ensemble were used by the National Empowered Group on Vaccines and the groups headed by Dr. Paul to take measures. However, the surge was several times what any of the modellers had predicted,” the official said.
•On May 2, the SUTRA group put out a statement, carried by the Press Information Bureau, that the government had solicited its inputs where it said a “second wave” would peak by the third week of April and stay around 1 lakh cases. “Clearly the model predictions in this instance were incorrect,” the group noted.
Past its peak
•SUTRA (Susceptible, Undetected, Tested (positive), and Removed Approach) first came into public attention when one of its expert members announced in October that India was “past its peak”. After new cases reached 97,000 a day in September, there was a steady decline and one of the scientists associated with the model development, M. Vidyasagar, said at a press conference then that the model showed the COVID burden was expected to be capped at 10.6 million symptomatic infections by early 2021, with less than 50,000 active cases from December. In October, at that time, there were 7.4 million confirmed cases of which about 7,80,000 were active infections.
•Computational biologist Mukund Thattai, of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, in a Twitter thread summarised instances of the SUTRA forecasts being far out of bounds of the actual case load. “The so-called Covid ‘supermodel’ commissioned by the Govt of India is fundamentally flawed,” he tweeted. “Based on Prof. Agrawal’s [Manindra Agrawal of IIT-Kanpur] own posts, it was quite clear that the predictions of the SUTRA model were too variable to guide government policy. Many models got things wrong but the question is why the government continued to rely on this model, than consult epidemiologists and public health experts,” he told The Hindu.
•Mr. Agrawal was one of the scientists involved in developing the model. In an email to The Hindu, Mr. Agrawal admitted that the model, which had multiple purposes, didn’t work well on a metric of “predicting the future under different scenarios”.
•He said unlike many epidemiological models that extrapolated cases based on the existing number of cases, the behaviour of the virus and manner of spread, the SUTRA model chose a “data centric approach”. The equation that gave out estimates of what the number of future infections might be and the likelihood of when a peak might occur, needed certain ‘constants’. These numbers kept changing and their values relied on the number of infections being reported at various intervals. However, the equation couldn’t tell when a constant changed. A rapid acceleration of cases couldn’t be predicted in advance.
Too many parameters
•Rahul Siddharthan, a computational biologist at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, in an email said no model, without external input from real-world data, could have predicted the second wave. However, the SUTRA model was problematic as it relied on too many parameters, and recalibrated those parameters whenever its predictions “broke down”. “The more parameters you have, the more you are in danger of ‘overfitting’. You can fit any curve over a short time window with 3 or 4 parameters. If you keep resetting those parameters, you can literally fit anything,” Mr. Siddharthan said.
•According to Mr. Agrawal, one of the main reasons for the model not gauging an impending, exponential rise was that a constant indicating contact between people and populations went wrong. “We assumed it can at best go up to pre-lockdown value. However, it went well above that due to new strains of virus,” he said.
•Further the model was ‘calibrated’ incorrectly. The model relied on a serosurvey conducted by the ICMR in May that said 0.73% of India’s population may have been infected at that time. “ I have strong reasons to believe now that the results of the first survey were not correct (actual infected population was much lower than reported). This calibration led our model to the conclusion that more than 50% population was immune by January. In addition, there is also the possibility that a good percentage of immune population lost immunity with time,” Mr. Agrawal said.
•In the SUTRA approach, the factor by which reported cases differ from actual ones is a parameter in the model that could be estimated from just reported data, (covid19india.org), according to Mr. Agrawal. “I understand it may appear a bit mysterious, but the math shows how. This, in fact, is one of our central contributions,” he told The Hindu. This has been described in a preprint research paper that has been available online since January.
•The modelling study called the “COVID-19 India National Supermodel” was the result of analysis by an expert committee consisting of mathematicians and epidemiologists — though in a research paper explaining how the model worked, there are three authors: Mr. Agrawal, M. Vidyasagar, a professor of electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad and Madhuri Kanitkar, paediatric nephrologist and Deputy Chief, Integrated Defence Staff (Medical) in the Army.
•While many groups of epidemiologists, disease experts and groups of mathematicians had developed several kinds of models to predict the outcome of the pandemic, this group was facilitated by the Department of Science and Technology and was the only one among several forecast groups, whose numbers were relayed using the government’s publicity channels.
•Until February, the model seemed more or less right, the curve was declining and as of mid-February while 10,000-12,000 new cases were added daily, the overall numbers were close to 10 million.
Overall caseload
•In an interview with this newspaper published on February 27, Mr. Agrawal asserted that a “second wave was unlikely” though a slight pick-up — to about 15,000 cases a day — had begun. India’s overall caseload wouldn’t extend beyond mid-March and only 3,00,000-5,00,000 new confirmed infections over the next 10 weeks were expected which would bring the overall load to 11.3 or 11.5 million infections by April 2021. This was premised partly on 60% of the population having been exposed to the virus.
•On April 2, he told the Press Trust of India that the new cases would “peak” by April 15-20 — in line with the SUTRA team’s public statement.
•On April 23, he again reported a new peak at May 11-15 with 3.3-3.5 million total ‘active’ cases and a decline by the end of May. India is currently at about 3.4 million active cases.
•Gautam Menon, a modeller and Professor, Ashoka University, Sonepat, Haryana, who also worked on estimating the spread of COVID-19 disagreed with the approach, on the grounds that it was “somewhat simplistic and insufficiently informed by epidemiological data and expertise”.
•At best, the SUTRA model could be used along with an ‘ensemble’ — where results from various scenarios were grouped. “The use of machine learning to forecast epidemic spread is a relatively recent advance. Some of those models do quite well. But the problems with those methods is that you can’t really figure out what they are doing and how sensitive they are to simply bad data. I would use those models, if we had them, along with an ensemble of other models, but would not repose utter faith in them.”
•The SUTRA model’s omission of the importance of the behaviour of the virus; the fact that some people were bigger transmitters of the virus than others (say a barber or a receptionist more than someone who worked from home); a lack of accounting for social or geographic heterogeneity and not stratifying the population by age as it didn’t account for contacts between different age groups also undermined its validity.
New variants
•Mr. Agrawal — who now regularly tweets on the evolution of the pandemic in States and districts — responded that new variants showed up in the SUTRA model as increase in value of parameter called ‘beta’ (that estimated contact rate). “As far as the model is concerned, it is observing changes in parameter values. It does not care about what is the reason behind the change. And computing new beta value is good enough for the model to predict the new trajectory well.”
•He conceded that a combination of good epidemiologists, data-centric modelling like SUTRA and time-series models worked best. “Time-series based predictions are good at detecting changes in data patterns. So they can flag, early on, phase changes. SUTRA-type data-centric models can explain the past very well [and in studying what was the effect of policy actions, leading to a better knowledge base for the future]. They are also very good at predicting future trajectory assuming phase does not change.”
•In 2002, Mr. Agrawal and two of his students developed a mathematical test called AKS primality that could efficiently determine if one could tell a big number was prime that won them global accolades. He used a computer science approach to solve a problem of pure math. “This is the second time I am entering a domain as a complete outsider. First was when I proved primality theorem. Mathematicians all over the world welcomed a computer scientist in their fold, and in fact went out of their way to celebrate it. Our paper was not written in standard math style, however, experts quickly shut down anyone who questioned the presentation or minor errors in the paper. In contrast, I am experiencing a hostile reaction from epidemiologists, at least in India,” he said.
First in-person talks held in two years
•The Group of Seven wealthy democracies on Tuesday discussed how to form a common front towards an increasingly assertive China in the Foreign Ministers’ first in-person talks in two years.
•Backing U.S. President Joe Biden’s calls for a deeper alliance of democracies, host Britain invited guests, including India, South Korea and Australia, for talks in central London stretched out over three days.
•After a welcome dinner on Monday focused on the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea, the Foreign Ministers opened formal talks at Lancaster House, a West End mansion, welcoming one another with Covid-friendly elbow-bumps and minimal staff.
•The G7 devoted its first session on Tuesday to China, whose growing military and economic clout, and willingness to exert its influence at home and abroad have increasingly unnerved Western democracies.
•“It is not our purpose to try to contain China or to hold China down,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters om Monday.
•“What we are trying to do is to uphold the international rules-based order that our countries have invested so much in over so many decades to the benefit, I would argue, not just of our own citizens, but of people around the world — including, by the way, China.”
•Mr. Blinken pledged “robust cooperation” with Britain in pressuring China over the Xinjiang region, where Beijing’s incarceration of one million Uighurs and other Muslims has been labelled genocide by Washington, and over a clampdown against civil rights in Hong Kong.
‘Respect commitments’
•British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab called for “holding Beijing to the commitments that they’ve made”, including on Hong Kong, which was promised a separate system before London handed over the colony in 1997.
•But in line with the Biden administration, which has shifted the tone if not substance of former president Donald Trump’s hawkish stance on China, Mr. Raab also called for “finding constructive ways to work with China in a sensible and positive manner where that’s possible” — including on climate change. “We want to see China stepping up to the plate and playing its full role,” Mr. Raab said.
•The nations of the G7 — which also include Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — mostly share concerns about China but some have different approaches.
•Japan has historic tensions with China but has held off on joining Western nations with sanctions.
•Italy has been seen as one of the most Beijing-friendly nations in the West, in 2019 signing up for China’s massive infrastructure-building Belt and Road Initiative. But Rome joined EU peers in March in summoning the Chinese Ambassador in a row triggered by concerns over treatment of the Uighurs.
•Russia, Myanmar, Libya, Syria and climate change and among other issues on the formal agenda for the Foreign Ministers.
📰 Govt. gives TSPs nod for 5G trials; Chinese tech giants left out
TSPs tied up with OEMs Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, C-DOT.
•The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Tuesday gave permission to Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) to conduct trials for the use and application of 5G technology.
•This formally leaves out Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE from the 5G race in India.
•“The applicant TSPs include Bharti Airtel Ltd., Reliance JioInfocomm Ltd., Vodafone Idea Ltd. and MTNL. These TSPs have tied up with original equipment manufacturers and technology providers which are Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and C-DOT,” a statement from the Ministry of Communications said. In addition, Reliance JioInfocomm Ltd. will also be conducting trials using its own indigenous technology.
•The duration of the trials is for six months, which includes a time period of two months for the procurement and setting up of the equipment. “The permissions have been given by DoT as per the priorities and technology partners identified by TSPs themselves,” it stated.
•Each TSP will have to conduct trials in rural and semi-urban settings also in addition to urban settings so that the benefit of 5G technology proliferates across the country and is not confined only to urban areas, the statement said.
•Stating that TSPs are encouraged to conduct trials using 5Gi technology in addition to the already known 5G technology, the statement said the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has also approved the 5Gi technology, which was advocated by India, as it facilitates much larger reach of the 5G towers and radio networks. The 5Gi technology has been developed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M), Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT) and IIT Hyderabad.
•According to the Ministry, the objectives of conducting the 5G trials include testing 5G spectrum propagation characteristics in the Indian context, model tuning and the evaluation of chosen equipment and vendors, testing of indigenous technology, testing of applications such as tele-medicine, tele-education, augmented, virtual reality and drone-based agricultural monitoring, and to test 5G phones and devices.
•With 5G technology data, download rates are expected to be 10 times that of 4G while giving up to three times greater spectrum efficiency. The trials will be on a non-commercial basis and the data generated during the trials will be stored in India, as per the statement.
•In addition to the experimental spectrum being given in various bands, TSPs are also be permitted to use their existing spectrum for conducting the trials, the statement added.
•The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), in a statement, welcomed the go-ahead for the 5G trials. “It will stimulate local Research and Development [R&D] ecosystem to develop innovative applications tailored to commercial needs. It will enable TSPs to validate 5G technologies and use cases such as IoT and Industry 4.0. We hope the government will also look into the industry’s call for revisiting the 5G spectrum pricing,” Lt. Gen. Dr. SP Kochhar, Director-General, COAI, said.
📰 How does an oxygen concentrator help?
The device can aid those whose oxygen saturation levels are between 88 and 92 by reducing the burden on the lungs.
•With the demand for medical oxygen continuing unabated and several States struggling to keep pace with demand, the oxygen concentrator has emerged as a sought after device. Unlike medical oxygen sourced from industrial units, which are supplied via cylinders, concentrators are devices that can be operated at home.
When is an oxygen concentrator needed?
•When blood saturation levels drop below 94%, it could be a sign of respiratory distress. Usually this merits hospitalisation, but due to the surge in COVID-19 cases and oxygen beds in short supply, the device could help those whose saturation levels range between 88-92 if they can’t access hospital services. Any lower would require more intensive oxygenation and any higher would mean that an improvement in lung function can obviate the need for such a device.
What does a concentrator do?
•An oxygen concentrator takes in air and separates the oxygen and delivers it into a person via a nasal cannula. Air is 79% nitrogen and 21% oxygen and a concentrator that works by plugging into a source of electricity delivers air that is upto 95% oxygen. In respiratory infections that causes oxygen saturation levels to dip below 90%, having an external device supply pure oxygen eases the burden on the lungs. However in cases of severe respiratory distress, it may be necessary to provide oxygen that is almost 99% pure and a oxygen concentrator is not up to that job.
How does it work?
•A concentrator consists of a compressor and sieve bed filter. The former squeezes atmospheric air and also adjusts the pressure at which is delivered. The sieve bed is made of a material called Zeolite that separates the nitrogen. There are two sieve beds that work to both release oxygen into a tank that’s connected to the cannula as well as release the separated nitrogen and form a continuous loop that keeps producing fresh oxygen.
Are all concentrators the same?
•These products come with a variety of specifications. There are those with varying oxygen outputs. For COVID-19 patients, a device with a 5L-10 L output is recommended. What’s important though is that it delivers air that contains at least 90% pure oxygen. The cost of these devices can range from ₹40,000-₹90,000. There are also pulse and continuous flow concentrators where the latter delivers oxygen at a constant rate and the other uses a sensor to deliver a puff of oxygen when a user is about to inhale.
📰 An issue of lives versus livelihoods
That the situations faced by India’s migrants are not a matter of concern in policy making is quite apparent
•Strict to moderate lockdowns are being imposed again, this time in April 2021, terminating jobs in many an establishment employing large numbers of informal workers.
•Of those employed in the informal category, large numbers include migrants who face, like they did in March-April of 2020, a bleak future, with job losses, loss of rented accommodations, a lack of sustainable income and savings to ensure food, transportation back to villages or any other emergency including falling victim to COVID-19.
Grim to grimmer
•Given their bitter experiences last year, migrants have already begun their journeys back to villages, paying exorbitant sums for their travel. Of course, no bright prospect awaits them there given the state of rural distress which initially pushed them to seek a better future in the urban areas. Nor do they expect new job opportunities, especially under shrinking National Rural Employment Guarantee Act allotments by the government.
•The continuing exodus unofficially records figures upward of 4 lakh (Western Railway) between April 1 and 12, while the Central Railways sent back 4.7 lakh migrants, all from Maharashtra, over the last few weeks. Such journeys will be recorded in history as those of destitution, offering no prospects of a better state.
•With multiple issues of serious sufferings on account of COVID-19- related distress, the country has less time to discuss the fate of these unwanted migrants on their path of reverse migration, fleeing from centres of livelihood toward dark holes of rural helplessness and poverty. To provide a narrative of who these people are, we may describe them as ‘mobile by default’, with growing rural distress and inadequate official policies failing to support the ailing rural economy.
•Providing a mirror image of the previous tragedy in 2020, this unwanted trek back to where they came from provides them no future worth mentioning. The conditions faced by these workers under a ‘curfew-to-lockdown’ status include the immediate termination of their livelihoods in terms of jobs, access to accommodation and near insolvency.
•That the situations faced by migrants are not a matter of concern in policy making is quite apparent. There has been no attempt to have an official estimate of such flows, either incoming or reverse. Nor has any thought, going by official announcements, been made visible to redress the miseries that await the returning migrants. The recent official announcement of free ration of 5 kg cereals to 80 crore families is the only sop visible so far.
Questions for the state
•Questions abound. It may not be too far-fetched to ask if this measure of using lockdowns and curfews to save lives also, simultaneously, take away the means of livelihood for the rootless and roofless migrants. If so, what are the measures the state has offered even to redress to some degree of their sufferings? Would it not have been more fair to provide for some short-term relief for these workers and their families not wanted any more in the urban areas?
•One can count the impact on urban centres. The flow provided a reserve army of cheap labour waiting to be hired at wages which, often, could dip lower than the statutory minimum, especially after meeting the demands of the mediating contractor who arranged for the migration from villages. With the formal organised industry employing as many as one half or more of employees with casual or informal status, it proved rather opportune for enterprises in factories, construction sites and other labour-intensive activities to make use of these migrants in their cost-cutting exercises. On the whole, the presence of the rural migrants benefited the urban economy by providing cheap labour to manufacturing units and cheap services to households. However, these jobs provided did not entail further obligations on the part of the employers or the state, given that the ‘footloose’ migrants never had any legal status as a working population.
No labour safeguards
•One last question. Has there been any attempt ever to ensure some legal safeguards to these people? Pieces of legislation, as available, do not provide any evidence of addressing the issue especially in the current crisis, a pattern indicative of a minimalist state with close alliances with capital in the process. The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970 conferred on casual labour a legal status by providing a mechanism for registration of contractors engaging 20 or more workers. While it was never effective, the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 has replaced all such Acts. Seeking, rather ineffectively, to regulate the health and safety conditions of workers in establishments with 10 or more workers, the Code has replaced 13 prevailing labour laws.
•One can raise questions as to what happened to the various laws still operative. It is thus more than obvious that none of the so-called corrective measures was of any significance in relation to what the migrants have been experiencing today since partial or total lockdowns have been imposed over the last few weeks.
•Can we justify the situation as a step to save lives when it does not work for large sections of migrant people who also experience a loss of their livelihoods at the same time? Could there be some safeguards for such people before sending them off to such a bleak future?
📰 A COVID blot on India’s foreign policy canvas
A direct consequence of the pandemic is that New Delhi’s claim to regional primacy and leadership could take a hit
•The second wave of COVID-19 and its agonising consequences, prompting the country to accept foreign aid after a gap of 17 years, is bound to have far-reaching strategic implications for India. While the world realises that India is too important to ignore, which perhaps explains the rush to help, there is little doubt that the country will not be the toast of the western world until it is able to get back on its feet. As a direct consequence of the pandemic, New Delhi’s claim to regional primacy and leadership will take a major hit, its ‘leading power’ aspirations will be dented, and accentuate its domestic political contestations. These in turn will impact the content and conduct of India’s foreign policy in the years to come.
Regional primacy
•COVID 2.0 has quickened the demise of India’s regional primacy. Regrettably, the country’s geopolitical decline is likely to begin in the neighbourhood itself, a strategic space which New Delhi has been forced to cede to Beijing over the past decade or so, a phenomenon that was intensified by the aggressive regional policies of Modi 1.0. India’s traditional primacy in the region was built on a mix of material aid, political influence and historical ties. Its political influence is steadily declining, its ability to materially help the neighbourhood will shrink in the wake of COVID-19, and its historical ties alone may not do wonders to hold on to a region hungry for development assistance and political autonomy. As a result, South Asian states are likely to board the Chinese bandwagon, if they haven’t already. COVID-19, therefore, comes at a time when India’s standing in the region is already shrinking: the pandemic will unfortunately quicken the inevitable.
•In July 2015, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, who was then the Foreign Secretary, stated that India aspires to be a “leading power, rather than just a balancing power”. How will COVID-19 impact India’s great power/leading power aspirations? Being boxed in a China-dominated region will provide New Delhi with little space to pursue its regional, let alone global, geopolitical ambitions except in the Indo-Pacific region. While the Indo-Pacific is geopolitically keen and ready to engage with India, the pandemic could adversely impact India’s ability and desire to contribute to the Indo-Pacific and the Quad. COVID-19, for instance, will prevent any ambitious military spending or modernisation plans (called for in the wake of the stand-off at the Line of Actual Control (LAC)) and limit the country’s attention on global diplomacy and regional geopolitics, be it Afghanistan or Sri Lanka or the Indo-Pacific. With reduced military spending and lesser diplomatic attention to regional geopolitics, New Delhi’s ability to project power and contribute to the growth of the Quad will be uncertain.
•While the outpouring of global aid to India shows that the world realises India is too important to fail, the international community might also reach the conclusion that post-COVID-19 India is too fragile to lead and be a ‘leading power’. New Delhi is pivotal to the Indo-Pacific project, but with India’s inability to take a lead role and China wooing smaller states in the region away from the Indo-Pacific with aid and threats, the Indo-Pacific balance of power could eventually turn in Beijing’s favour.
Domestic politics
•Domestic political contestations in the wake of the COVID-19 devastation in the country could also limit New Delhi’s strategic ambitions. General economic distress, a fall in foreign direct investment and industrial production, and a rise in unemployment have already lowered the mood in the country. The central political leadership, therefore, is likely to focus on COVID-19 recovery and the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in 2022. The U.P. election and the run up to the 2024 general election, both crucial for the Narendra Modi regime, could fan communal tensions in the country, triggering more political violence. A depressed economy, politically volatile domestic space combined with a lack of elite consensus on strategic matters would hardly inspire confidence in the international system about India. Domestic political preoccupations will further shrink the political elite’s appetite for foreign policy innovation or initiatives. Post-COVID-19, Indian foreign policy is therefore likely to be a holding operation.
•These strategic consequences of the pandemic will shape the content and conduct of India’s foreign policy in several important ways.
India-China equations
•One potential impact of COVID-19’s devastating return and the damage it has done would be that India might be forced to be more conciliatory towards China, albeit reluctantly. From competing with China’s vaccine diplomacy a few months ago, New Delhi today is forced to seek help from the international community, if not China, to deal with the worsening COVID-19 situation at home. For one, China has, compared to most other countries, emerged stronger in the wake of the pandemic. Second, the world, notwithstanding its anti-China rhetoric, will continue to do business with Beijing — it already has been, and it will only increase. Third, while one is yet unsure of the nature of China-U.S. relations in the days ahead, the rise of China and India’s COVID-19-related troubles could prompt Washington to hedge its bets on Beijing. Finally, claims that India could compete with China as a global investment and manufacturing destination would remain just that — claims.
•Thanks to its monumental mismanagement of the second wave, India’s ability to stand up to China stands vastly diminished today: in material power, in terms of balance of power considerations, and political will. This might require New Delhi to be more conciliatory towards China. If the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government’s rather muted response to the LAC stand-off in the summer of 2020 is anything to go by, we are likely to see a conciliatory China policy from here on.
Depressed foreign policy
•Post-COVID-19, Indian foreign policy is unlikely to be business as usual. Given the much reduced political capital within the Modi government to pursue ambitious foreign policy goals, the diplomatic bandwidth for expansive foreign policy goals would be limited, leading thereby to a much depressed Indian foreign policy. The remainder of Mr. Modi’s current term is unlikely to emerge unscathed from such acute foreign policy depression. This, however, might take the aggressive edge off of India’s foreign policy under Mr. Modi. Less aggression could potentially translate into more accommodation, reconciliation and cooperation especially in the neighbourhood, with Pakistan on the one hand and within the broader South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) framework on the other.
•The aftermath of the pandemic may kindle such a conciliatory tone in Indian foreign policy for other reasons as well. For one, COVID-19 has forced us to reimagine, to some extent at least, the friend enemy equations in global geopolitics. While the United States seemed hesitant, at least initially, to assist India even as the pandemic was wreaking havoc in the country, Moscow was quick to come to New Delhi’s aid. Even though New Delhi did not accept the aid offers from Pakistan and China, these offers sounded more than the usual diplomatic grandstanding that states engage in during natural calamities. The argument here is not that these will lead to fundamental shifts in India’s strategic partnerships, but that they could definitely moderate the sharp edges of India’s pre-existing geopolitical articulations.
Strategic autonomy
•Finally, the pandemic would, at the very least indirectly, impact India’s policy of maintaining strategic autonomy. As pointed out above, the strategic consequences of the pandemic are bound to shape and structure New Delhi’s foreign policy choices as well as constrain India’s foreign policy agency. It could, for instance, become more susceptible to external criticism for, after all, New Delhi cannot say ‘yes’ to just aid and ‘no’ to criticism. A post-COVID-19 New Delhi might find it harder to resist demands of a closer military relationship with the U.S.
•And yet, every crisis opens up the possibility for change and new thinking. What COVID-19 will also do is open up new regional opportunities for cooperation especially under the ambit of SAARC, an initiative that already saw some small beginnings during the first wave of the pandemic. New Delhi might do well to get the region’s collective focus on ‘regional health multilateralism’ to promote mutual assistance and joint action on health emergencies such as this. Classical geopolitics should be brought on a par with health diplomacy, environmental concerns and regional connectivity in South Asia. COVID-19 may have opened precisely such an opportunity to the world’s least integrated region.
