📰 In Meghalaya, outrage over felling of heritage pine trees for road
The chopping coincided with an NGT ruling that construction of a road should not result in the destruction of biodiversity
•The felling of several iconic pine trees for widening a road in Meghalaya capital Shillong has triggered outrage, forcing the State government to intervene.
•Most of these coniferous trees, among the hill town’s USPs, were more than 100 years old.
•Green activists said the National Highway Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) took advantage of the COVID-19 lockdown to chop the pine trees locals were attached to. But the government swung into action on June 23 after photos and videos of the logs lying beside the road from the town’s Rilbong Bridge to Upper Shillong went viral.
•This stretch of the road is part of the 71 km Shillong-Dawki four-lane project estimated to cost ₹1,251 crore. Dawki is a trade point on the border with Bangladesh.
•Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma asked the NHIDC to immediately stop felling the trees until the government found a better solution. His instruction coincided with an observation of the National Green Tribunal on a Goa bypass that the construction of a road may be a necessity but should not result in the destruction of biodiversity.
•The Meghalaya Forest Department said it had received orders to cut down 4,447 trees for the road widening project after it was cleared by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
•The State’s Forest Minister, James Sangma, said the trees on one side of the road were felled as it was “totally unavoidable”. He also said the right of way for the project had been reduced from the standard 45-60 metres to 24 metres in order to minimise the damage.
•Forest officials said 10 trees would be planted in lieu of each tree felled. But locals said this would hardly make a difference as the site chosen for compensatory afforestation is in another district.
•“We would like to know if the government followed the Indian Forest Act, Biodiversity Act and the Meghalaya Forest Regulation Act before the trees were hewn. Who gave the land for the project and who is funding the destruction of the trees?” activist Agnes Kharshiing, president of Civil Society Women Organisation said.
First outreach meeting with political leaders held in cordial atmosphere.
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated his government’s commitment to fostering grassroots democracy in Jammu and Kashmir during his meeting with 14 leaders of eight mainstream political parties even as he sought their cooperation in first completing the delimitation exercise for Assembly seats in the Union Territory, which would eventually lead to elections.
•He said this at the first outreach meeting between the Union government and the mainstream political leaders, a meeting, which by all accounts was held in cordial atmosphere.
•Government sources said in his address, Mr. Modi said “Dilli ki doori kam honi chahiye aur Dil ki doori bhi” (the distance from Delhi — the seat of power — and the distance between hearts should both be removed) to convey the spirit in which the meeting was called.
•While every party spoke on restoration of statehood, the contentious issue of special status to J&K, which was removed by the reading down of Article 370, was also raised though many parties spoke of it as a legal fight as the matter was being heard in the Supreme Court. People’s Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti did, however, stressed on the need to restore special status.
•After the meeting, Mr. Modi, indicating that this was the first among many such outreach efforts, tweeted: “Today’s meeting with political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir is an important step in the ongoing efforts towards a developed and progressive Jammu and Kashmir, where all round growth is furthered.”
•He added that “delimitation has to happen at a quick pace so that polls can happen and J&K gets an elected government that gives strength to its development trajectory.”
•“The biggest strength of our democracy is the ability to sit across a table and exchange views,” he said.
•Government sources said the Prime Minister thanked all the participating leaders for making it to Delhi for the meeting.
•National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, in a presser after the meeting said, “We told the Prime Minister that we don’t stand with what was done on August 5, 2019. We are not ready to accept it. But we won’t take law into our hands. We’ll fight this in court. We also told the Prime Minister that there’s been a breach of trust between the State and Centre. It is the Centre’s duty to restore it.”
•Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said, “Almost 80% of parties spoke on Article 370 but the matter is sub judice.” Both Mr. Azad and Mr. Abdullah stressed on the restoration of statehood and reversal of many executive and legal changes related to land rights protection and restoration of a Jammu and Kashmir cadre in bureaucracy.
•Ms. Mufti focused on restoration of Articles 370 and talks with Pakistan. “The people of Jammu and Kashmir are in a lot of difficulties after August 5, 2019. They are angry, upset and emotionally shattered... I told the Prime Minister that the people of J&K don’t accept the manner in which Article 370 was abrogated unconstitutionally, illegally and immorally,” she said.
•She added that her party would “struggle constitutionally, democratically and peacefully” for the restoration of Article 370.
•BJP leader Kavinder Gupta said any thought of restoring Article 370 should not even be considered. “Elections will be held after the delimitation process, and an Assembly constituted once again... Article 370 has been abrogated. It should not even be thought that it will ever come back,” he said.
Polls first: Shah
•Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was present at the meeting, said the “delimitation exercise and peaceful elections are important milestones in restoring statehood as promised in Parliament”, making it clear that Assembly polls had to be a percussor to any talk of restoring statehood. Some political parties, however, did stress that statehood should be restored before polls can be held.
•Minister of state for the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Jitendra Singh, in an official statement after the meeting, said the next step in strengthening democracy in J&K would be swiftly completing the delimitation process so that Assembly polls could be held, and that Prime Minister Modi stressed the need for “constructive engagement” of all political parties with the delimitation process.
•Among those who attended the meeting were four former Chief Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir — Farooq and Omar Abdullah of the National Conference, Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress, and Mehbooba Mufti of the PDP. People’s Conference leaders Muzzaffar Baig and Sajjad Lone also attended as did Kavinder Gupta and Ravinder Raina of the BJP and Bheem Singh of the Panthers Party.
📰 Russia, U.K. spar over Black Sea incident
First outreach meeting with political leaders held in cordial atmosphere.
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated his government’s commitment to fostering grassroots democracy in Jammu and Kashmir during his meeting with 14 leaders of eight mainstream political parties even as he sought their cooperation in first completing the delimitation exercise for Assembly seats in the Union Territory, which would eventually lead to elections.
•He said this at the first outreach meeting between the Union government and the mainstream political leaders, a meeting, which by all accounts was held in cordial atmosphere.
•Government sources said in his address, Mr. Modi said “Dilli ki doori kam honi chahiye aur Dil ki doori bhi” (the distance from Delhi — the seat of power — and the distance between hearts should both be removed) to convey the spirit in which the meeting was called.
•While every party spoke on restoration of statehood, the contentious issue of special status to J&K, which was removed by the reading down of Article 370, was also raised though many parties spoke of it as a legal fight as the matter was being heard in the Supreme Court. People’s Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti did, however, stressed on the need to restore special status.
•After the meeting, Mr. Modi, indicating that this was the first among many such outreach efforts, tweeted: “Today’s meeting with political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir is an important step in the ongoing efforts towards a developed and progressive Jammu and Kashmir, where all round growth is furthered.”
•He added that “delimitation has to happen at a quick pace so that polls can happen and J&K gets an elected government that gives strength to its development trajectory.”
•“The biggest strength of our democracy is the ability to sit across a table and exchange views,” he said.
•Government sources said the Prime Minister thanked all the participating leaders for making it to Delhi for the meeting.
•National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, in a presser after the meeting said, “We told the Prime Minister that we don’t stand with what was done on August 5, 2019. We are not ready to accept it. But we won’t take law into our hands. We’ll fight this in court. We also told the Prime Minister that there’s been a breach of trust between the State and Centre. It is the Centre’s duty to restore it.”
•Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said, “Almost 80% of parties spoke on Article 370 but the matter is sub judice.” Both Mr. Azad and Mr. Abdullah stressed on the restoration of statehood and reversal of many executive and legal changes related to land rights protection and restoration of a Jammu and Kashmir cadre in bureaucracy.
•Ms. Mufti focused on restoration of Articles 370 and talks with Pakistan. “The people of Jammu and Kashmir are in a lot of difficulties after August 5, 2019. They are angry, upset and emotionally shattered... I told the Prime Minister that the people of J&K don’t accept the manner in which Article 370 was abrogated unconstitutionally, illegally and immorally,” she said.
•She added that her party would “struggle constitutionally, democratically and peacefully” for the restoration of Article 370.
•BJP leader Kavinder Gupta said any thought of restoring Article 370 should not even be considered. “Elections will be held after the delimitation process, and an Assembly constituted once again... Article 370 has been abrogated. It should not even be thought that it will ever come back,” he said.
Polls first: Shah
•Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was present at the meeting, said the “delimitation exercise and peaceful elections are important milestones in restoring statehood as promised in Parliament”, making it clear that Assembly polls had to be a percussor to any talk of restoring statehood. Some political parties, however, did stress that statehood should be restored before polls can be held.
•Minister of state for the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Jitendra Singh, in an official statement after the meeting, said the next step in strengthening democracy in J&K would be swiftly completing the delimitation process so that Assembly polls could be held, and that Prime Minister Modi stressed the need for “constructive engagement” of all political parties with the delimitation process.
•Among those who attended the meeting were four former Chief Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir — Farooq and Omar Abdullah of the National Conference, Ghulam Nabi Azad of the Congress, and Mehbooba Mufti of the PDP. People’s Conference leaders Muzzaffar Baig and Sajjad Lone also attended as did Kavinder Gupta and Ravinder Raina of the BJP and Bheem Singh of the Panthers Party.
📰 Can the CBSE’s plan objectively assess students of Class 12?
A school-leaving exam should be based on what a child has learnt right throgh two years at least
•The CBSE has prepared a tabulation scheme to determine the marks that students of Class 12 will be awarded in this pandemic year, upon completion of schooling. How reliable is such a scheme against the backdrop of the digital divide, and can it be improved? In a conversation moderated by G. Ananthakrishnan, Anita Rampal and Uday Gaonkar discuss the road ahead for assessing students. Edited excerpts:
Were the students adequately prepared for the assessment system proposed by CBSE?
•Anita Rampal: I know in Delhi, for instance, students who could not even access online classes. So, for them, it’s important that CBSE is looking at assessment over a longer period, not just this pandemic year, and what marks they got in Class 10 and 11. They have yet to see how their schools are going to be marking them for their internal assessment in Class 12. I have spoken to some who did not understand much of what happened in Class 12 because they barely had a shared phone between the siblings or not even that. This has been a very challenging year. I think this was the fairest that the CBSE could have worked out at the given moment, especially since it was done very late and under court orders.
You would have a different experience in a rural setting, Mr. Gaonkar. What do you think?
•Uday Gaonkar: I’m working in a state-run school for Classes 8 to 10. Last year, only 80-85 days of physical classes were held. Normally, the academic year should have 200 working days. The syllabus was reduced by 30%. So, that is a mismatch: school days were reduced to 50% and the syllabus cut only by 30%. We were forced to teach hurriedly. Meaningful learning involves a lot of interaction between students, teachers and the community. In this scenario, we are just forced to complete the syllabus. The Government of Karnataka tried broadcasting classes: video classes were broadcast on Doordarshan and even on YouTube, but ours is a very remote location in a rural area. Only 30% students have smartphones. Others have keypad phones. Students found it very difficult to get access to those YouTube videos.
On TV and the Internet, what’s their efficacy in terms of pedagogy?
•Anita Rampal: Very poor. For decades, we have struggled to move beyond just chalk and talk and staring at the blackboard. That itself is not pedagogy. We seem to be losing a lot of the work that we may have done in the last few decades. Learning happens through discussions with others, through engagement with activities or with the world around you.
•Now, asking students to stare at a screen is worse than even staring at a blackboard. This is not learning; this is just a kind of coaching. You have learnt something, but you are told that you can have a person or a machine to help you revise it. Digital coaching has been pushed relentlessly by the industry of education technology. This time they really had it big. You can see the kinds of billionaires who have come out of this industry. For at least two decades, most educators in India have tried to resist the pressures of the computer industry which said that you must have smart boards and computers in the classroom. We have said that these can only be add-ons in places where there are essential resources for actual teaching and learning; they cannot be a substitute for activities and discussions among learners.
•The pandemic has not only devastated the lives and livelihoods of a majority of our children, but has exacerbated divides. During a board exam, we know that children from disparate backgrounds take the exam and are marked for the same questions, irrespective of the kinds of resources, schools and teachers they’ve had. Now, this is an added layer to that divide. And this digital divide seems to be overwhelming, so much so that the government is bringing out guidelines on home learning and homeschooling, almost putting the responsibility on the learner and the family instead of the system.
•That is going to be damaging. When the Right to Education (RTE) law was enacted, the Ministry had appended to the Act a significant note, a justification for each of the clauses. One important justification was that if a child is not able to learn, it is not the failure of the child but of the system. Today, what is going to happen when the system is going to take responsibility for all these lapses, for the inability to connect with our students? We need to not just push the syllabus, but also emotionally support their agency, give them the confidence to continue despite all the odds, because many students are going to drop out after the pandemic is over. So, it’s not just a matter of what marks we will give them for Class 12.
What can feasibly be done this year?
•Anita Rampal: All the State Boards should make sure they’ve looked at assessments, at what students have done. I don’t like the term ‘learning loss’ because again, it puts the responsibility on the student. I think the youngest children have learned a lot. They’ve learned the difficult lessons of life, so we shouldn’t be calling it learning loss. Boards are very distant, remote entities. Schools should really make that intimate and compassionate connect. First, look at students and support them, relieve them of their traumas and anxieties, and then assess them over a longer period. Look at their Class 10, Class 11, look at all the work and projects that they may have done, or can do even now, and then assess them. Of course, if students have not had online classes at all, the school will need to take a call on that: how do they do an internal assessment? I think they will have to be empathetic, careful and fair. The RTE Act says that up to age 14, there should be continuous and comprehensive assessment, but the system never heeded that. What it did, instead, was a poor substitute, what the CBSE called continuous assessment. We need a rethinking on continuous assessment. It’s not just a mark on a paper. It is the assessment of abilities — students’ expression, writing, observation, ability to critically think and experiment.
During the pandemic how can you provide instruction to students?
•Uday Gaonkar: Last year, the Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samithi (BGVS), most of them teachers, started Vatar Sala, a neighbourhood school [in Karnataka]. Students here interact even during a lockdown period and because they know each other, they interact, they share one playground. We thought that one teacher or volunteer will help the students learn. One activity that we have developed is for children to collect electricity bills from their friends in their neighbourhood and transfer that data into another table for that information to be tabulated. They use that information to get various inferences, for example, per capita electricity consumption in that area. We have developed worksheets and activity sheets this year also.
The system is set around one school-leaving examination. Is the situation conducive to having a standardised exam, besides entrance exams?
•Anita Rampal: Exams meant as entrance exams are selective. You have a large number of people, you have fewer seats. But a school exam does not have to be selective. It should be a school-leaving exam based on what you have learnt right through the period or right through two years. That is much more healthy. It does not have to be standardised, which is never a very good format for children because education is really rooted in a child’s environment. The more decentralised the assessment, the more rigorous and better it is, the more it discerns what students have learned. You could have a common textbook, but the best way to assess is to be more decentralised. The RTE Act says don’t take a centralised assessment for selecting/ admitting students into school or for any other purpose. All our assessment theories tell us that better assessment is done in a trusting environment. We have statistical ways of seeing that these are not unfair, or can be moderated in ways that do not get skewed towards any particular State or district or school.
CBSE has stipulated results committees in schools. Is that a sound approach, with 40% of the marking at Class 12 level?
•Anita Rampal: It is okay to have some external component of the committee, some people who can understand assessment and who also look at fair distributions. For instance, in our university assessment for the four-year B.El.Ed teacher education programme run by many colleges under our faculty, there is a large component of internal assessment. We have a good system of moderation, where all colleges actually look at samples of work, of their highest and lowest marks, and then decide whether they fall within a fair marking distribution. If some college marking is skewed, those marks are moderated by consensus. This is a challenging process, it needs time and patience and careful rigour, which could be developed within the school system.
Mr. Gaonkar, could you tell us about your report on education reform?
•Uday Gaonkar: BGVS submitted a report last year to the committee set up by the government on online classes. Our experience with Vatar Sala was very helpful. We gave some data collected by a national sample survey about Internet access and availability of devices. We said that it is injustice to have online classes for school students because it will not reach all the students, and recommended some paper-based activity sheets. Even learning kits were tried.
What did you find from the survey and recommend as remedy?
•Uday Gaonkar: Of the 70% of the students living in rural areas, only 6%-7% or even 2% have computers at home — laptops or computers — and only 10%-12% know how to handle the computer and Internet. Students who don’t have a mobile phone have to share the phones of their friends. Most of the students have only basic keypad mobiles, no smartphones, and more than 20% of the students don’t have a mobile phone. So, we said that is unjust. Even though Chandana television reaches more than 60%-70% students, these are PPTs (power point presentations) without any interaction. That is not learning.
If conditions don’t really improve for children to go back to physical classes, what would you do for 2022?
•Anita Rampal: We should be prepared to run schools only when there are lean periods between COVID-19 waves when it is safe. And in that time, try and maximise the time to keep them engaged, not just give them memory-based information. More importantly, we need to keep in touch with them at home. Maybe give them some handouts, worksheets. Assessment should be closely tied to learning.
•Uday Gaonkar: This year is an opportunity to look into this matter differently. Board exams made the schools tuition centres. Now, we can make schools learning spaces again by providing real experiences rather than virtual experiences. Students gather knowledge in a fragmented way, whether it is language or the sciences or maths. Classes are fragmented age-wise. We can club them as far as possible and children can learn with their elders’ help. It is time to rethink school education.
📰 Staging a comeback, re-energising India’s Africa policy
New Delhi needs to make new commitments, developing and deepening links in health, space and digital technologies
•Africa is considered a foreign policy priority by India. The Narendra Modi government designed a forward-looking strategy to deepen relations with African countries. Its implementation was managed quite well, with much political will invested in expanding the multi-faceted engagement. Even as the COVID-19 era began in March 2020, New Delhi took new initiatives to assist Africa through prompt despatch of medicines and later vaccines.
•But now the policy implementation needs a critical review.
The macro picture
•The latest economic data confirms what was apprehended by experts: India-Africa trade is on a decline. According to the Confederation of Indian Industry, in 2020-21, India’s exports to and imports from Africa stood, respectively, at $27.7 billion and $28.2 billion, a reduction of 4.4% and 25% over the previous year. Thus, bilateral trade valued at $55.9 billion in 2020-21, fell by $10.8 billion compared to 2019-20, and $15.5 billion compared to the peak year of 2014-15.
•India’s investments in Africa too saw a decrease from $3.2 billion in 2019-20 to $2.9 billion in 2020-21. Total investments over 25 years, from April 1996 to March 2021, are now just $70.7 billion, which is about one-third of China’s investment in Africa. COVID-19 has caused an adverse impact on the Indian and African economies.
•India’s top five markets today are South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and Togo. The countries from which India imports the most are South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Angola and Guinea. India’s top three exports to Africa are mineral fuels and oils (processed petroleum products), pharmaceutical products and vehicles. Mineral fuels and oils, (essentially crude oil) and pearls, precious or semi-precious stones are the top two imports accounting for over 77% of our imports from Africa. The composition of the India-Africa trade has not changed much over the two decades.
Global competition
•These latest trends in bilateral economic relations should be assessed against two broad developments.
•First, COVID-19 has brought misery to Africa. As on June 24, 2021, Africa registered 5.2 million infections and 1,37,855 deaths. Given Africa’s population (1.3 billion) and what happened elsewhere (the United States, Europe and India), these figures may not have drawn international attention, but Africans have been deeply affected and remain ill-equipped. A recent World Health Organization survey revealed that 41 African countries had fewer than 2,000 working ventilators among them. Despite these shortcomings, Africa has not done so badly. Experts suggest that the strength of community networks and the continuing relevance of extended family play an important supportive role. Besides, Africa has some of the protocols in place, having recently suffered from Ebola, and managed it reasonably well. Sadly though, with much of the world caught up in coping with the novel coronavirus pandemic’s ill effects, flows of assistance and investment to Africa have decreased.
•Second, as a recent Gateway House study, Engagement of External Powers in Africa; Takeaways for India, showed, Africa experienced a sharpened international competition, known as ‘the third scramble’, in the first two decades of the 21st century. A dozen nations from the Americas, Europe and Asia have striven to assist Africa in resolving the continent’s political and social challenges and, in turn, to benefit from Africa’s markets, minerals, hydrocarbons and oceanic resources, and thereby to expand their geopolitical influence. A mix of competition and contestation involving traditional and new players, especially the United States, the European Union (EU), China, Japan and India, has attracted much attention from governments, media and academia.
•While China has successfully used the pandemic to expand its footprint by increasing the outflow of its vaccines, unfortunately India’s ‘vax diplomacy’ has suffered a setback. This came in the wake of the debilitating second wave of COVID-19 in the country and the shortage of vaccine raw materials from the U.S. Geopolitical tensions in Asia and the imperative to consolidate its position in the Indo-Pacific region have compelled New Delhi to concentrate on its ties with the United Kingdom, the EU, and the Quad powers, particularly the U.S. Consequently, the attention normally paid to Africa lost out.
India’s role
•This must now change. For mutual benefit, Africa and India should remain optimally engaged. It was perhaps this motivation that shaped the substantive intervention made by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on May 19 in the UN Security Council’s open debate on conflict and post-pandemic recovery in Africa. Touching on politico-diplomatic dimensions, he regretted that “the voice of Africa is not given its proper due” in the Security Council. He highlighted India’s role in peacekeeping in Africa, in lending support to African counter-terrorism operations, and contributing to African institutions through training and capacity-enhancing assistance. India’s aid for economic development in the African continent is set to continue, he assured. His visit to Kenya (June 12-14 ) has helped to re-establish communication with Africa at a political level.
•It is time to seize the opportunity and restore Africa to its primary position in India’s diplomacy and economic engagement. The third India-Africa Forum Summit was held in 2015. The fourth summit, pending since last year, should be held as soon as possible, even if in a virtual format. Fresh financial resources for grants and concessional loans to Africa must be allocated, as previous allocations stand almost fully exhausted. Without new commitments, India’s Africa policy would be like a car running on a near-empty fuel tank.
Areas with promise
•The promotion of economic relations demands a higher priority. Industry representatives should be consulted about their grievances and challenges in the COVID-19 era. It is essential “to impart a 21st century complexion to the partnership with Africa”, as the above-mentioned study argues. This means developing and deepening collaborations in health, space and digital technologies.
•Finally, to overcome the China challenge in Africa, increased cooperation between India and its international allies, rates priority. The recent India-EU Summit has identified Africa as a region where a partnership-based approach will be followed. Similarly, when the first in-person summit of the Quad powers is held in Washington, a robust partnership plan for Africa should be announced. For it to be ready in time, work by Quad planners needs to begin now.
📰 Protecting prisoners’ rights
Overcrowding in prisons has put several inmates at risk of COVID-19 infection and death
•The catastrophic surge in COVID-19 cases across India in April and May led to a great number of deaths (still being counted) and put an enormous strain on the healthcare system and governments.
•In the midst of the surge, prisoners were largely forgotten. The failure of the authorities to reduce severe overcrowding in prisons left thousands of prisoners at risk of infection and death. According to data, there are 12,715 inmates lodged in 11 sections of Tihar Jail alone as against the lodging capacity of 7,425. Out of them, 11,077 are undertrials.
Violating human rights
•As was expected, given the poor state of prisons in India, hundreds of prisoners got infected during the pandemic and a number of them died. This vitiates a fundamental right derived from Article 21 of the Constitution. Overcrowded jails are a violation of the human rights of prisoners (Re-Inhuman Conditions in 1382 v. State of Assam, 2018). As the court said in Charles Sobraj v. The Suptd., Central Jail, Tihar, 1978, “imprisonment does not spell farewell to fundamental rights”.
•The aim of imprisonment is not merely deterrence of crime but also reformation. Apart from risking the lives of inmates, ignorance of the poor conditions of prisons has also added to the misery of the families of those in jail. Since physical meetings between the inmates and family members were suspended, many families have been unaware of the conditions of their loved ones in prison. While the Supreme Court ordered that prisons adopt video conferencing technologies to overcome the lack of physical meetings, this has not been properly implemented, according to Amnesty International. A report of the organisation noted that prisoners in Jammu and Kashmir were allowed a phone call to their family only once in 15 days.
•In May, prominent Hurriyat leader and chairman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai, died in detention in Jammu. Sehrai had been jailed under the Public Safety Act, a detention law that allows detention of any individual for up to two years without a trial or charge. He had tested positive for COVID-19 posthumously. His son said that Sehrai had complained of ill-health when the family had spoken to him 10 days earlier but there had been delay in his treatment till death became inevitable. Sehrai’s death has exposed the condition of prisons in Jammu and Kashmir. It has also exposed the condition of political prisoners who often languish in jail for years and are rarely convicted.
Political prisoners
•Ever since the pandemic outbreak, human rights activists have demanded the immediate release of political prisoners on humanitarian grounds but this has fallen on deaf ears. There are several Kashmiris kept in preventive detention in jails in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and other parts of India. A number of them are undertrials. According to Article 14 (3)(c) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, an accused has the right to be tried without undue delay. The state is bound to provide legal assistance to prisoners, ensure their safe and timely release and safeguard their rights to a fair and speedy trial (Hussainara Khatoon v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar, 1979). But this is not the reality of a large number of prisoners.
•Taking cognisance of this issue, the Supreme Court directed the States to examine releasing inmates, convicted or facing trial on non-serious charges, from jails either on regular bail or on parole. It also directed them to provide transport facility to the prisoners to reach home. It is hoped that States will comply. Some have said that they have begun reviewing prison occupancy. Given that States have started vaccinating prisoners too, the situation may improve soon. But India cannot ignore the problem of overcrowding, pandemic or no pandemic.
📰 The rural economy can jump-start a revival
The Government needs to reverse its neglect and policy missteps as key indicators show the sector has resilience
•The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic could be slowly receding with a decline in the official estimates of daily infections and deaths. The economy is also very gradually getting back to normal, with many States beginning to ease some of the restrictions imposed in their lockdowns. However, the challenge of an economic recovery is far more serious than the health pandemic despite official claims of there being an economic recovery. Last month, the National Statistical Office (NSO) released the estimates of the Indian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for the fiscal year 2020-21. The decline in GDP, at 7.3%, was slightly better than expectation, even though this is a gross underestimate of the reality given the methodological issue of underestimation of the economic distress in the unorganised sector.
Making things worse
•But what makes economic recovery challenging is that this decline followed three years of sharp decline in GDP even before the novel coronavirus pandemic hit the country. Economic growth had already decelerated to 4% in 2019-20, less than half from the high of 8.3% in 2016-17. Since then, the slowdown in the economy has not only made things worse as far as economic recovery is concerned but also come at a huge cost for a majority of households which have lost jobs and incomes. The pandemic has only worsened an already fragile economic situation. The sharp decline in GDP was partly a result of the trend of a slowdown in economic activity since 2016-17. But a large part of the economic outcome in the first year of the pandemic is also a result of a mishandling of the economic situation.
•While a strict national lockdown certainly hit economic activity last year, what made matters worse was the less than adequate response from the Government in increasing fiscal support to revive demand in the economy. Many of the grand announcements remained largely on the monetary side without the enabling policy framework to help small and medium enterprises as well as the large unorganised sector which bore the brunt of the restrictions in economic activity.
Agriculture, a key driver
•Despite the lack of fiscal support, an important contributor to the better-than-expected economic performance was the resilience of the rural economy, particularly the agricultural sector. While rural areas were the first point of refuge for a majority of migrants who walked back thousands of kilometres from urban metropolitan areas, agriculture was the only major sector (other than electricity, gas, water supply and other utility services) which reported an increase in Gross Value Added (GVA) in 2020-21. It not only provided jobs to returning migrants but also sustained the economy in the rural areas.
•Agriculture has not only been the biggest saviour during the period of the pandemic but has consistently been an important driver of the economy throughout the last five years which has seen the economy slow down sharply. The average growth rate in agriculture GVA in the last five years, at 4.8%, is significantly higher than the GVA growth of the economy as a whole, at 3.6%, in the last five years.
•But can the rural sector play saviour again? Unlikely, in the present context. And it will not be due to any natural calamity such as drought but a result of the neglect and policy missteps by the Government. Even though the lockdowns imposed by the State governments at the beginning of the second wave were less severe when compared to last year, they did impact the non-agricultural economy as is evident from the high frequency data for the last two months. The expectation of positive growth in this fiscal year may suggest recovery. However, given that the economy has already suffered last year, any recovery will largely be a statistical artefact driven by the low base of last year rather than a real recovery. The fact that a majority of households have already suffered job losses and income decline which are yet to regain their pre-pandemic levels suggests caution in making any inference on an economic recovery.
•However, even the aggregate data are unlikely to capture the actual extent of devastation in the rural areas. While this is true for even the basic estimates of death and the health catastrophe caused by the pandemic, it is even more severe in its economic impact. Similar to the official statistics which have underestimated deaths due to the pandemic in most States — as has been brought out recently in several newspapers — the economic distress in rural areas is also largely unreported and underestimated.
•The second wave affected rural areas disproportionately, in terms of health but also in terms of livelihoods. Many households have lost an earning member and an equally large number have spent a large sum on private health care expenditure in dealing with the infection. It will not be surprising if rural areas now witness a sharp rise in indebtedness from non-institutional sources.
•However, the response from the Government has not been commensurate with the scale of the pandemic in rural areas. Unlike last year, the Government has not increased the allocation this year for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). For the country as a whole, despite an increase in employment demand in NREGS, the person-days generated in May 2021 was only 65% when compared to May 2020. While the free food-grain scheme has been extended this year as well, it does not include pulses as was provided last year. Similarly, there has not been any cash transfer to vulnerable groups, unlike last year.
Decline in jobs, income
•The impact of declining incomes and job losses on demand is now visible even in rural areas. While real wages have continued to decline with the latest estimates of April 2021 showing a decline in rural non-agricultural wages by 0.9% per annum in the last two years, agricultural wages continue to stagnate. One indicator of declining demand is the decline in wholesale prices of most of the agricultural commodities. Cereals and vegetables, which together account for more than half of crop output, have seen prices decline on a year-on-year basis for more than six months now. This is happening at a time when international agricultural prices are at an all-time high.
•Some of this is reflected in the rise in inflation in pulses and oilseeds groups, both of which are largely imported. The net result is a peculiar situation where output prices for dominant agricultural commodities in the domestic market are declining while consumer prices of essentials such as edible and pulses are contributing to rising inflation.
Inflation threat
•Rising inflation further threatens to reduce the purchasing power of the rural economy struggling with declining incomes and job losses. This is further compounded by the shift in terms of trade against agriculture which has put agricultural incomes under strain. The rise in input prices for diesel has already contributed to rising input costs but the recent increase in fertilizer prices for most of the complex fertilizers have also added to the misery of farmers. Rising inflation in international commodity prices also threatens the rural non-farm economy. A majority of the rural non-farm sector already struggling from low demand has now seen its profit margins getting impacted due to the increase in the cost of raw material.
•Despite these setbacks, the rural economy including the agricultural economy continues to remain crucial for any strategy of economic revival. But for that, it will require proactive intervention from the Government to protect the rural population by speeding up vaccination. Unfortunately, so far, the rural areas have been lagging behind in the overall rate of vaccination. At the same time, rural areas will also need greater fiscal support, both in terms of direct income support to revive demand in the economy but also through various subsidies and protection from the rising inflation in input prices. This urgent intervention is not just necessary to support economic revival but also prevent another humanitarian crisis, this time as a result of economic mismanagement.
