📰 Dholavira in Gujarat on UNESCO World Heritage list
The ongoing 44th session of the World Heritage Committee of the UNESCO has already given India a new world heritage site in the form of the Rudreswara/ Ramappa Temple in Telangana
•The Harappan city of Dholavira, in present-day Gujarat, was on Tuesday named the 40th Indian site on UNESCO’s World Heritage list.
•UNESCO’s announcement came just days after another site, Ramappa Temple in Telangana, was admitted to the list on Sunday.
•“The ancient city of Dholavira is one of the most remarkable and well-preserved urban settlements in South Asia dating from the 3rd to mid-2nd millennium BCE (Before Common Era). Discovered in 1968, the site is set apart by its unique characteristics, such as its water management system, multi-layered defensive mechanisms, extensive use of stone in construction and special burial structures,” UNESCO said.
•A range of artefacts of copper, shell, stone, jewellery, terracotta and ivory had been found at the site. “The two newly inscribed World Heritage Sites offer great insight into the knowledge and ways of life of earlier societies, customs, and communities,” UNESCO said.
•Located in the Kutch district, Dholavira is the larger of the two most remarkable excavations of the Indus Valley Civilisation dating back to about 4,500 years ago. The site had been on UNESCO’s tentative list since 2014 and India had submitted its dossier in January 2020, a Culture Ministry statement said.
Delighted, says PM
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a series of tweets that he was delighted by the development.
•“Dholavira was an important urban centre and is one of our most important linkages with our past. It is a must visit, especially for those interested in history, culture and archaeology. I first visited Dholavira during my student days and was mesmerised by the place. As CM of Gujarat, I had the opportunity to work on aspects relating to heritage conservation and restoration in Dholavira. Our team also worked to create tourism-friendly infrastructure there,” Mr. Modi said.
•Union Culture Minister G. Kishan Reddy said the inclusion of Dholavira was another feather in India’s cap, putting it in the league of countries with 40 or more World Heritage sites. Ten of these sites had been added since 2014, when the Modi government first came to power, he said.
•“With this successful nomination, India has 40 world heritage properties overall, which includes 32 cultural, seven natural and one mixed property,” the Culture Ministry said.
•Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said via a tweet: “It is a matter of immense pride that the @UNESCO has conferred the World Heritage tag to Dholavira, a Harappan city in Kutch. This shows the firm commitment of our Honourable Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi ji towards promoting Indian culture and heritage.”
New data policy being framed, says Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.
•The Centre’s new National Farmers Database will only include land-owning farmers for now as it will be linked to digitised land records, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
•A data policy was being prepared specifically for the agriculture sector in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), he said.
•This exclusion of landless and tenant farmers becomes significant in light of the fact that, when asked whether the database would be used to select beneficiaries of government schemes, Mr. Tomar said, “Government can make use of the database for targeted service delivery with higher efficiency and in a focussed and time bound manner.”
•Mr. Tomar was responding to questions from the Telugu Desam Party’s Jayadev Galla, raising concerns about data protection and farmer inclusion in the Centre’s new Agristack initiative to create a digital ecosystem for agriculture.
•The database would be linked to the digital land record management system and would thus only include farmers who were legal owners of agricultural land. “In future, the possibility of including others may be considered in consultation with State governments and other stakeholders,” Mr. Tomar said, in response to a query about the large number of landless farmers in the country.
•Asked about the involvement of private companies and the kind of data that was being shared with them, Mr. Tomar claimed that “no private sector companies are involved as far as building of the Agristack is concerned”. However, the first step for the initiative was a “federated farmers’ database that would serve as the core of the Agristack.”
•The Agriculture Minister said that leading tech companies were invited to collaborate with the Centre to develop Proof of Concepts “based on small portions of data from the federated farmers’ database for certain identified areas”. These MoUs, signed with Microsoft, Amazon and Patanjali among others, were on a pro-bono basis for a one-year period, he said, adding that if they developed solutions that were beneficial to farmers, they would be scaled up to a national level.
•Mr. Galla asked whether the MoUs involved sharing land records of farmers, and what protection was being provided for sharing such data with private players. “As of now, the federated farmers’ database is being built by taking the publicly available data, as existing in the department and in various data silos in government, and linking them with the digitised land records,” said Mr. Tomar. “This department, in consultation with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, is in the process of bringing out a data policy for the agriculture sector. Government will ensure the privacy of the farmers’ personal data..”
•Apart from being used for government schemes, the database would “facilitate online single sign on facilities for universal access and usher in proactive and personalised services to farmers such as direct benefit transfer, soil and plant health advisories, weather advisories, irrigation facilities, seamless credit & insurance facilities, seeds, fertilizers and pesticide related information, nearby logistic facilities, market access information, and peer to peer lending of farm equipment,” said Mr. Tomar, indicating that all farm extension services currently being carried out by the Ministry would soon come under the Agristack initiative.
📰 Dangerous conflagration: On Assam-Mizoram border clash
The clash between Assam and Mizoram’s police forces was clearly avoidable
•Following a dangerous and avoidable escalation of an otherwise dormant border dispute, five policemen and a civilian from Assam were killed in the Mizo border town of Vairengte in clashes between police from the State and their counterparts in Mizoram, on Monday. The sequence of events, beginning October 2020, suggests that what began as skirmishes between residents close to the disputed border between Assam’s Cachar and Mizoram’s Kolasib districts has snowballed into a violent confrontation between police and residents. The events point to a failure of the constitutional machinery, empowered to de-escalate tensions at the border. The presence of central paramilitary forces should have helped maintain the peace, but it is curiously not the case. Besides, Assam and Mizoram are governed by the BJP and its ally, the Mizo National Front, respectively, and are part of North-East Democratic Alliance, of which the Assam Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, is a founder-convenor. The political bonhomie should have allowed the respective Chief Ministers to tamp down border tensions and to return to the status quo through joint fact-finding teams, involving the administrative officials in maintaining the peace over the border issue. Instead, both Chief Ministers have been exchanging allegations on Twitter, seeking the intervention of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and using videos to tell a story that suited their version of the events — a farcical means of communication. This also occurred just days after both Chief Ministers (along with others) met with Mr. Shah to discuss the resolution of inter-State border disputes. The unfortunate loss of lives has led to hardened stances, with Mr. Sarma announcing that Assam would deploy “4,000 commandos to guard its border”, even as Mizoram’s Chief Minister Zoramthanga has maintained that the casualties followed from the Assam police’s actions.
•Sectarian tribalism has been the bane of the North-eastern States, with underdevelopment acting as a catalyst in complicating knotty issues over land and other issues in the region. There is no sure-shot and quick solution possible to the border disputes between various States without a spirit of give and take and a civic engagement brokered by the Union government. But for that to happen, governments should, first, not condone violence of any kind and restrain partisans engaging in such activity in their respective States. A resort to one-upmanship will only prolong the disputes and harden stances. The Home Ministry must ensure that the Assam-Mizoram border situation is first subject to de-escalation and steps taken to return to the status quo that prevailed before the skirmishes began in October 2020 with the cooperation of the respective States.
📰 Needed: an anti-trafficking law
Human trafficking is a crime in itself, but it is also the propeller of several other crimes
•Sita was 13 years old when she was trafficked. Her parents worked in a tea garden in Assam for meagre wages. She was trafficked to a placement agency in New Delhi, and bought for about ₹20,000 as a domestic worker by a couple. Sita was not paid a single rupee. Instead, she was re-trafficked, raped, and exploited by employers and traffickers. Sita’s father and I found the young girl trapped in a house in Delhi three years later. But she did not step out when we found her. She hid behind a wall, crying. “I cannot show my face to my father. I am impure now. I want to kill myself,” she said.
•This is the reality of thousands of women and children from the poorest sections of our society. No nation can call itself civilised if it tolerates the buying and selling of its daughters. Of what meaning is the wealth, power or progress of a nation if its children are traded as though in medieval slave trade, at a lower price than cattle?
A comprehensive Bill
•Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) and various civil society groups have campaigned for decades for a strong law to end this menace of human trafficking. In 2017, Sita and thousands of survivors like her marched in the Bharat Yatra alongside students, governments, the judiciary, multifaith leaders, businesses and civil society to demand for such a law. We covered 12,000 km with over 1.2 million people on foot with the single demand that India must pass a comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation. The passionate chants of these brave hearts who survived trafficking still reverberate in my ears, “Bikne ko taiyaar nahi hum, lutne ko taiyaar nahi hum (We are not ready to be sold, we are not ready to be stolen)”.
•The Government of India has proposed the Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021. This Bill aims to tackle all aspects of trafficking including the social and economic causes of the crime, punishment to traffickers, and the protection and rehabilitation of survivors. This is achievable if the Bill has the necessary checks and balances against potential misuse of power by agencies, periodic reviews of the law, and adequate allocation of resources for effective implementation. The government must include these crucial provisions in the Bill and facilitate its smooth passage in the current session of Parliament.
A problem worsened by COVID
•COVID-19 has further intensified the need for the law. Traffickers are taking advantage of prolonged school closures and loss of family livelihood. BBA with government agencies has rescued almost 9,000 children from trafficking since the first lockdown. In comparison, about half this number of children were rescued during the same time period of 14 months preceding the pandemic. The gravity of the situation cannot be undermined. We will not recover from the effects of the pandemic without the wherewithal to address its human impact, which comes with this law and its associated budgets.
•Human trafficking is a crime in itself, but it is also the propeller of several other crimes. It creates a parallel black economy which fuels child labour, child marriage, prostitution, bonded labour, forced beggary, drug-related crimes, corruption, terrorism and other illicit businesses. The architects of our Constitution established the severity of the crime of trafficking by making it the only offence punishable under the Constitution of India itself, besides untouchability. A strong anti-trafficking law is the moral and constitutional responsibility of our elected leaders, and a necessary step towards nation-building and economic progress. It is non-negotiable for the realisation of an India that our Constitution-makers envisioned, our freedom fighters struggled for, our soldiers die for, and our children deserve. India is stepping into its 75th year of Independence. There can be no greater gift to India than the freedom of our children. I call on Parliament to urgently pass a strong anti-trafficking law.
📰 Needed, a more unified Asian voice for Afghanistan
Afghanistan’s future will impact Central Asia and South Asia more than the distant global powers involved with it now
•As the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) end their presence in Afghanistan and set off a churn in the neighbourhood, Central Asia is emerging as a key player that the global Troika of the United States, Russia and China are turning to. Three meetings this month, of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) contact group on Afghanistan and SCO Defence Ministers in Tajikistan, and the Central and South Asia conference on regional connectivity in Uzbekistan, are turning the spotlight on the region’s role in dealing with the situation in Afghanistan, and how India could build on that.
Factoring in the Taliban
•Put plainly, events of the past few years, and the decisions of the Troika have kept India out of a leading role in Afghanistan. Since 2019, the Troika has met with Pakistan (Troika plus) in order to discuss Afghanistan’s future, one in which the Taliban — with which New Delhi has had no ties — gains an important if not controlling role in Kabul. The same powers that invaded Afghanistan post 9/11, and declared the Taliban leadership as United Nations Security Council-designated terrorists, are now not only advocating talks with the Taliban, entreating their Pakistani hosts of the past two decades to help, but actively paving the way for the Taliban’s return to power.
•India’s efforts to build on trade with Afghanistan, shore up development projects and increase educational and training opportunities for Afghan youth have been appreciated, but these cannot grow bigger due to a number of factors. New Delhi’s original hesitation in opening talks with the Taliban, which even Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani had suggested, has cut India out of the current reconciliation process. The end of any formal dialogue between India and Pakistan since 2016 and trade since 2019, have resulted in Pakistan blocking India’s over-land access to Afghanistan. India’s alternative route through Chabahar, though operational, cannot be viable or cost-effective also long as U.S. sanctions on Iran are in place. India’s boycott of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2017, and now tensions at the Line of Actual Control after the Chinese aggression in 2020, make another route to Afghanistan off-limits.
•Meanwhile, the U.S. has announced a new, surprise formation of a “Quad” on regional connectivity — U.S.-Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan that does not include India, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is conducting trial runs of truck convoys from Tashkent to Karachi and back. With so many doors slamming shut, the hope is that the Central Asian window, with the “Stans” (as the five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are sometimes referred to) will open new possibilities, but here too, there are some caveats.
Uzbekistan’s view
•To begin with, it is clear that Tashkent (Uzbekistan) sees the rise of the Taliban in a different light from New Delhi. After a whirlwind round of negotiations in his own region since coming to power in 2016, where he mended relations and ended border disputes with each of the other Central Asian States, and outreaches to the U.S. and China to shift the traditional tilt towards Moscow, Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has made purposeful moves on Afghanistan. In 2018, his government became one of the first countries to publicly invite a Taliban delegation from Doha, Qatar to visit, while at the same time he has promoted a number of ambitious trade and connectivity initiatives with the Ashraf Ghani government.
A push for connectivity
•Speaking at the Central and South Asia conference in July, Mr. Mirziyoyev spelt out his plans for a modern version of the “the ancient northern trade route known as the Uttara Patha, connecting the Indo-Ganges Plain with the southern territories of the Eurasian continent through the historical cities of Takshila, Gandhara and Termez.” He spoke of the old Silk Routes that once bound Central and South Asia together, and called Afghanistan the key link in “practical connectivity” for them. Significantly, while he mentioned the salience of the Termez-Mazar-i-Sharif-Kabul-Peshawar railroad, the Trans-Afghan railroad to connect to China’s BRI, and the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) via the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas as key elements of the “architecture of connectivity”, he did not mention the Chabahar route that India has espoused. The Uzbekistan-Pakistan memorandum of understanding on Transit Trade — or the Agreement between Uzbekistan and Pakistan on Transit Trade (AUPTT) — was also signed the same day, which would give Uzbekistan access to the Pakistani seaports of Gwadar and Karachi, rather than Iranian ports.
•Uzbekistan’s calculations, and by extension, those of its other Central Asian neighbours, are three-fold: the first is that prosperity for these land-locked countries can only flow from access through Afghanistan to the closest ocean, i.e. the Indian Ocean. Second, that all transit through Afghanistan depends on guarantees of safe passage from the Taliban, backed by the group’s mentors in Pakistan. Third, each of the “Stans” are now a part of China’s BRI, and tying their connectivity initiatives with Beijing’s will bring the double promise of investment and some modicum of control over Pakistan.
Shared concerns
•Given the odds, New Delhi’s room for manoeuvre with these five countries on Afghanistan appears limited but not without hope. To begin with, India and the Central Asian States share common concerns about an Afghanistan overrun by the Taliban and under Pakistan’s thumb: the worries of battles at their borders, safe havens for jihadist terror groups inside Afghanistan and the spill-over of radicalism into their own countries.
•It is necessary for India to work with them, and other neighbours to shore up finances for the government in Kabul, particularly to ensure that the government structure does not collapse. It is only a matter of time before the COVID-19-weary international economies tire of funding Afghanistan, as the last donors conference in Geneva (November 2020) showed.
•As part of the SCO’s Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), India must also step up its engagement with the Central Asian countries on fighting terror. While the Narendra Modi government has made it clear it will not send Indian boots to the ground in Afghanistan, it can support the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) where it needs it most: in terms of air power. India’s previous gift of a few helicopters is far from adequate, given commitments made as Afghanistan’s first Strategic Partner 10 years ago, and there must be more that New Delhi can support, especially in conjunction with other countries that depend on Soviet-made arms, including helicopters and planes, weaponry, ammunition and spare parts.
Dealing with Pakistan
•Finally, South Asia must learn from Central Asia’s recent example in knitting together this region more tightly, a task that can only be completed with better ties between India and Pakistan. New Delhi’s furtive discussions with the Taliban leadership in Doha make little sense unless a less tactical and more strategic engagement with Pakistan is also envisaged.
•Most importantly, countries of Central Asia and South Asia need to find a more unified voice, as they have in recent weeks. Afghanistan’s future will affect both regions much more than it will the distant global powers that currently dominate the debate.
•Travelling to Kazakhstan in 2015, Prime Minister Modi spoke of why the Silk Road that connected the two regions faded away. “The end of the Silk Road did not just come about from the rise of sea-based trade of the new European powers,” he said, “It also happened because Central Asia was no longer a bridge between regions, but the new fault line between great empires to the east, west and south.” Ensuring a similar rupture is not wrought in Afghanistan is essential, which today has the potential to become that bridge or the biggest boulder between Central and South Asia.
📰 Let’s make room for the river
The floods in Europe are a wake-up call for us to adopt the Dutch mantra, ‘live with water, build with nature’
•“There are no words in the German language for this devastation... it is a surreal, eerie situation,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said when she visited the regions in Germany hardest hit by the floods which occurred as a result of heavy rains between July 12 and 15.
No escape for any country
•A month’s rain poured in just 24 hours in the worst-affected areas of Germany and Belgium. This caused multiple rivers to burst their banks and flood parts of the two countries as well as the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Switzerland. It is believed that these areas of Europe have not witnessed such heavy rainfall for more than a century. The floods showed that climate change spares none. Even if a country has adequate resources and advanced infrastructure (physical as well as organisational), it can find no escape from extreme climatic events. Reports say the death toll in Germany and Belgium has crossed 214. Hundreds more are unaccounted for, and authorities are still struggling to restore normalcy. A shocked flood victim told a reporter that he thought such disasters happened only in Asia.
•Heavy rainfall within a short period of time resulted in overflowing rivers, canals, and other water bodies flooding many towns and cities. The scenes of roads being washed away, houses getting inundated, and stranded people being evacuated by helicopters, earth movers and lifeboats were no different from what is normally witnessed in India during such disasters. It bore uncanny resemblance to what Kerala experienced in August 2018. Not surprisingly, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan reacted to the situation in Europe. He expressed condolences and asked the Indian community in Europe to stand in solidarity with the flood victims. He also recalled with gratitude the technical assistance extended by the Netherlands to the State following the 2018 floods and the visit of the Dutch King and Queen to Kerala in 2019 when they personally reviewed the joint efforts under way for long-term flood resilience.
•Superior organisation, better preparedness and an advanced flood management system helped the Netherlands, with its centuries of experience in dealing with floods, to avoid casualties. But many towns were submerged. Thousands of people had to be evacuated. Floodwaters breached a dike and entered the town of Meerssen. The Dutch military, however, managed to close the breach using hundreds of sandbags.
•Chancellor Merkel, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and other leaders were quick to attribute the cause of the floods to climate change and call for urgent action to arrest global warming. Experts say the more CO2 the world emits into the atmosphere, the warmer will be the air temperature. Warmer air holds more moisture and results in excess rainfall, which leads to flooding. Additionally, increasing temperatures at the poles result in slower movement of storms in the mid-latitudes. As a result, storms linger longer at a specific place. The combination of a slow-moving storm and the presence of surplus moisture in the atmosphere results in intense rainfall in one location within a short period of time. In 2018, Kerala, for example, witnessed 414 mm of rain in just three days between August 15 and 17. Rainfall for the period of August 1 to 19, 2018, in Kerala was 164% more than normal.
•Several have asked: what did the Netherlands do right in dealing with the floods and what did the others do wrong? The advanced flood warning system of Germany (which includes a network of sensors to measure river water levels in real time) did forecast heavy rains and the possibility of floods. But local authorities were unable to respond rapidly enough and communicate the warnings to the wider population. The rain and floods happened so fast that there was no time to evacuate all residents to safety and fully deploy the formidable rescue and relief infrastructure that they possessed. There are already demands that such warnings must be communicated to the general public in simple language. Rather than forecast the millimetres of rain expected, conveying specific information regarding the extent of damage to property and life would likely encourage affected communities to remain alert and respond quickly.
Lessons for India
•The floods in Europe call attention to the global need for countries to implement ecologically sensitive flood protection measures. The Dutch have gone beyond their conventional dependence on dikes, dams, walls and gates to protect themselves from floods. Their current disaster resilience mantra is to live with water, build with nature and make room for the river. They champion creating adequate space for rivers to overflow by protecting floodplains from human interference, deepening riverbeds and creating alternate channels for excess water. After two major floods in 1993 and 1995, the Dutch embarked on several projects to widen riverbanks and reshape the areas around rivers.
•The floods in Europe serve as a wake-up call to us in India to adopt pragmatic policies and practices that are nature friendly. We must recognise that we will have to learn to live with water in the long term. Flood-prone areas should be identified, and projects initiated on an urgent basis to create room for rivers. Low-risk areas such as playgrounds, maidans, or agricultural fields should be earmarked to store excess rainwater. Drains must be built for diverting water into these storage units. This will relieve the stress on the existing drainage infrastructure. The stored water can later be discharged back into the drainage channel once the high water subsides. The United Nations Development Programme-World Bank-European Union Post Disaster Needs Assessment report prepared for Kerala after the 2018 floods pointed out that the drainage capacity of the rivers and canals of the State must be increased by creating more room for the water to flow. It called for removing obstructions and encroachments from existing water channels, the proper maintenance of such channels and creating additional channels for water to flow.
•In the short term, strengthened disaster readiness, planning and preparation will help us deal with sudden, intense rain and consequent floods. Climate change and global warming will continue to cause extreme climatic events. Across the world, countries are being confronted with situations of either too little or too much water and droughts interspersed with floods. Rainfall has become unpredictable. While national and State disaster management authorities have grown in experience, competence and professionalism, there is need for a higher degree of coordination and preparation across all levels of government. Practice drills need to be conducted in flood-prone areas. We need to test the effectiveness of flood warnings. The warnings should be in local languages and in simple terms.
•Today, many are wondering how they can learn from the Dutch experience in preparing for floods and dealing with their aftermath. But the Dutch themselves are wisely not permitting themselves any complacence. Conscious of their vulnerability to water, they maintain a spirit of eternal vigilance to floods. Reflecting this approach, the Dutch Prime Minister has exhorted his countrymen to learn from the recent disaster and see what more can be done rather than stay satisfied that major damage and loss of lives was prevented.
