📰 Researchers discover new frog species from western coastal plains
‘Euphlyctis Jaladhara’ termed as link between vertebrate life in water and land
•Researchers have discovered yet another new frog species from the freshwater bodies of the western coastal plains of India. The discovery has been made in a collaborative effort by scientists of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Mount Carmel College (MCC), Bengaluru, and the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar. ZSI scientist K. P. Dinesh said the frog had been scientifically named Euphlyctis Jaladhara with a common name “Jaladhara skittering frog”, suggestive of the frog’s habitat - a small body of water or reservoir. Initially, it was first spotted in fresh water bodies around the Thattekad Bird Sanctuary in Ernakulam, and then multiple populations were identified all along the western coastal plains from Kerala to Gujarat. He said that the amphibians were the “living link between the vertebrate life in water and land” and the new species was predominantly a freshwater frog. They were the first vertebrate organisms to get affected due to water pollution due to their primitive body plan. Although most of the amphibians discovered in the country were reported from forested areas, they were well protected in terms of species conservation. “But for the new species like ‘Jaladhara skittering frog’ special conservation plans need to be focused as their distribution is flanked between the salt waters of Arabian Sea and the foothills of the Western Ghats,” he said. Incidentally, this is the second new species of skittering frog detected from the locality. The earlier species, the Kerala pond frog (Phrynoderma Kerala), was also discovered in the same region by the same group of researchers in 2021. In the recent past, this is the first time that a wide range of new species of frog species has been discovered with its confirmed range in at least five States. The new species looks similar to the common skittering frog (Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis), which is predominantly distributed in the eastern coastal plains, Deccan Plateau and Western Ghats. This species was discovered 220 years ago. Members of the aquatic frog genus ‘Euphlyctis’ are important bioindicators for freshwater systems, and thus, this discovery strengthens the need to protect freshwater habitats around the country. The research finding has been published in the international journal Zootaxa, published from New Zealand. The discovery was part of the Zoological Survey of India’s (WGRC, Kozhikode) faunal exploratory and documentation programme in the Thattekad Bird Sanctuary.
Traditional statistical practices could be getting redefined, as an initiative by British campaigner Jack Monroe shows
•About three decades ago, when I learned about the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — that reflects changes in the retail prices of selected goods and services on which a homogeneous group of consumers spends a major part of their income — my immediate query was about how the ‘basket’ of commodities and their weights are selected. Are they constructed in some objective way, say, by some well-defined survey on income and consumption? Or do they mostly depend on the ‘wisdom’ of a few experts?
•Another important concern is that while the CPI corresponds to a “common man”, nobody knows who that common man is. Should we put a piece of imported chocolate, say, in the basket in the perspective of today’s India? And what should be its size? Well, as the consumption pattern widely varies across different economic classes, different CPIs may help understand how different economic layers of the society are affected by the increasing cost of commodities.
A series of CPIs
•However, we still have a distinct series of CPIs — for industrial workers (IW), for agricultural labourers (AL), and for urban non-manual employees (UNME). The CPI (IW), certainly, is the most popular one as the dearness allowance of Central government employees is calculated on the basis of movement in this index. The National Statistical Office (NSO) periodically releases the All India CPI and corresponding Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) for Rural, Urban, and Combined. Of course, India has no income survey and the last publicly available Household Consumer Expenditure Surveys’ data is a decade old. Hence, the choice of the ‘basket’ and fixing weights of its commodities are always tricky tasks.
Why it is skewed now
•A radical shift in paradigm has recently been initiated in the United Kingdom, by the British journalist, cookbook author, and anti-poverty campaigner, Jack Monroe. This new index is intended to provide a third-party alternative to CPI, “provided by the U.K. Government’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), charting the effect of inflation on consumer goods and services, and highlighting the profound impact inflation has had on low-income families and supermarket value ranges of food and other basic goods”, as an article by James Whitbrook says.
•Ms. Monroe was prompted “to create her index after the CPI measure for inflation in the U.K. rose to 5.4% in December 2021, the highest level for nearly 30 years”. Ms. Monroe was “infuriated” that the CPI “grossly underestimates the real cost of inflation as it happens to people with the least”, especially in the backdrop of the continuing economic effects of Brexit, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, prolonged lockdowns, and general supply chain issues, as the Whitbrook article highlights. She noticed, as a Guardian article highlights, that the price of rice, for example, in her local supermarket had increased from 45p a kilogram last year to £1 for 500g, a 344% increase! And the number of value products has also shrunk.
•Ms. Monroe realised that the ONS reports a skewed and unfair version of the cost of living, which is not representative of millions of people’s experiences. In consultation with economists, charities, and analysts, she soon compiled her own index “that will document the disappearance of the budget lines and the insidiously creeping prices of the most basic versions of essential items at the supermarket” and “serve as an irrefutable snapshot of the reality experienced by millions of people”.
•Ms. Monroe has been authorised by the Terry Pratchett estate to use the “Vimes Boots Index” as the name of a price index she planned to document inflation in prices of basic necessities.
An explanation
•In the 1993 novel, Men at Arms in his book series ‘Discworld’, English fantasy writer Sir Terry Pratchett crisply explained the “Sam Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness” in which Captain Samuel Vimes muses on the expensive nature of poverty! In reference to the captain, Sir Pratchett wrote: “A really good pair of leather boots cost $50. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about $10.” Good boots, however, last for years and years. Thus, “A man who could afford $50 had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in 10 years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.” Sir Pratchett’s work in ‘Discworld’ consists of ‘an insightful, often furious, view of class dynamics and social injustice’. “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money,” wrote Sir Pratchett. Worse, being poor traps you in a cycle of being poor.
•Sir Pratchett’s ‘boots theory’ is not new though. The adage “buy cheap, buy twice” is dated long back. Then, writer Paul Jennings divulged exactly the same idea in his column in The Observer, ‘Oddly Enough’ in 1954. And the character, Owen, in Robert Tressel’s 1914 classic The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists illustrated how the working classes are robbed: “Everybody knows that good clothes, boots or furniture are really the cheapest in the end, although they cost more money at first; but the working classes can seldom or never afford to buy good things; they have to buy cheap rubbish which is dear at any price.”
At the core of the index
•As Ms. Monroe observed, a collection of 700 pre-specified goods that are used to calculate CPI includes items such as “a leg of lamb, bedroom furniture, a television and champagne”, which are not applicable for millions of the U.K.’s poorest “who were forced by an array of desperate circumstances to use food banks in the last year”, as a Guardian article notes. The proposed Index “aims to be a record of prices of the lowest-cost staple foods over time, to demonstrate the disproportionate impact of inflation on the poor”.
•The index certainly gained prominence due to Ms. Monroe’s unorthodox name choice. The ONS is already been working on a radical overhaul of how it tracks prices, which “has the potential to kickstart an avalanche of change,” as Ms. Monroe believes. As the new price index is brewing, traditional statistical practices are getting redefined, for sure. And, who knows, the newly planned Boots index might eventually touch the horizon of societies of some other countries as well.
📰 Regulation, not prohibition
The online skill gaming industry hopes that a reform-oriented policy structure will soon be in place
•The Karnataka High Court’s verdict on February 14 declaring as unconstitutional certain provisions of the Karnataka Police (Amendment) Act, 2021, which prohibited and criminalised the offering and playing of online games, is the third significant judicial validation for the sector in the last seven months. This decision comes close on the heels of verdicts by the Madras and Kerala High Courts. All three High Courts have reaffirmed the Supreme Court jurisprudence that games of skill and games of chance (gambling) are two distinct legal concepts of constitutional significance, and that the former are legitimate business activities protected under our fundamental rights.
Bans despite precedents
•The Stare Decisis goes back to the famous Chamarbaugwala cases ( The State Of Bombay v. R.M.D. Chamarbaugwala and R.M.D. Chamarbaugwalla v. The Union Of India), wherein the apex court held that in any game, if the element of skill is dominant over the element of chance (a yardstick known as the preponderance test), then it is a game of skill and cannot be construed as gambling. Over the years, using this standard, the Supreme Court and various High Courts have held several games including rummy, fantasy sports, bridge, chess and horse racing to be games of skill. This position is also reflected in the Gambling Acts of most State governments, which often state: ‘Nothing in this act shall apply to any game of mere skill’.
•However, a few years ago, southern States started banning any game played for stakes, without making a distinction between games of skill and games of chance. Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and more recently Karnataka came with their respective embargoes. These decisions were appealed against, and the High Courts in the latter three States set aside the ban decisions as unconstitutional. The matters are sub judice in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
•Despite clear precedents of the Supreme Court and the various High Courts, why did these State governments issue these bans? One persistent argument is that the Chamarbaugwala cases, which go back to the 1950s, are outdated now; that technology has progressed significantly and most games are played online. The Madras and Kerala High Courts have held that games of skill do not metamorphise into games of chance if played online. The Karnataka High Court has gone a step further and held that it is fallacious to argue that Chamarbaugwala jurisprudence needs a relook, because it has been reaffirmed by a series of Supreme Court and High Court decisions since then.
•The courts have also held that the government’s argument that exposure to games of skill is leading to certain social evils such as addiction and financial distress is only anecdotal. It is pertinent that the courts have objected to the total ban of the sector and have left it to the governments to effectively regulate it. The online skill gaming industry too has urged the respective State governments to regulate the sector and come out with a policy structure that is based on checks and balances. A blanket ban is not only arbitrary, but also leads to untoward situations such as proliferation of illegal syndicates.
Reform-oriented policy structure
•With the judicial validation, as well as Central government in the Union Budget announcing that an Animation, Visual Effect, Gaming and Comics promotion task force will be set up, it is important that the State governments work towards introducing a reform-oriented policy structure in this sunrise sector which has immense investment, revenue-generating potential, and creates employment. The sector currently employs 40,000 people. Gaming also has multiplier benefits to several sectors that have been identified as focus areas by the Government of India, including semiconductors, telecom, fintech and animation/graphics.
•Another positive economic dimension is that the sector has received massive foreign investment. In the last five years, the online gaming sector has received around $1,700 million in venture capital and private equity. Global investors feel confident about the sector not only because of India’s favourable macro-economic and demographic indicators, but also because of unequivocal jurisprudence that differentiates games of skill from gambling. An attempt by some State governments to sidestep or ignore the judicial decisions may not only be impractical, but may also send a poor message to the international investor community about governments in India not respecting the sanctity of the judiciary. Having repeatedly won judicial validation, the online skill gaming industry and its investors hope that situation this time is different, and the sector and government can work together to create a policy structure based on principles of light touch regulation and not prohibition.
📰 Biden is risking his Indo-Pacific strategy
If the U.S. is to meaningfully pivot to the Indo-Pacific, it will have to exercise strategic restraint in Europe
•At a time when America’s global pre-eminence is being severely challenged by China, the future of the present U.S.-led international order and America’s own standing are likely to be settled in the Indo-Pacific region, especially Asia. This explains why Joe Biden is the third successive U.S. President to commit to shifting America’s primary strategic focus to the Indo-Pacific. Yet, it is far from certain that he will succeed where his two predecessors failed.
Strategy on the Indo-Pacific
•If anything, Mr. Biden is getting increasingly distracted from the Indo-Pacific by Russian moves. The escalating U.S.-Russia tensions over NATO’s forward policy, with Ukraine as the flashpoint, threaten to become the defining crisis of the Biden presidency. The crisis, which has the makings of a drawn-out and dangerous confrontation, could deepen the involvement of an already overstretched U.S.in European security.
•The White House released its long-delayed ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy’ document on February 11, the same day it publicly warned that Russia could launch an invasion of Ukraine within days. A Russian invasion into the Ukrainian heartland would leave Mr. Biden little time for the Indo-Pacific, which explains why the 19-page document was hurriedly released on a Friday afternoon, amid criticism that the President lacks clarity on an Indo-Pacific policy despite being in office for more than a year.
•Mr. Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy, as a bare-bones paper for public consumption, offers a bird’s-eye look at how his administration views the Indo-Pacific landscape. With its brief or nebulous references to key regional issues and challenges, the document does not provide adequate clarity on the thrust and direction of U.S. policy in the region.
•In fact, it reads more like a watered-down version of the ‘United States Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific’ of former President Donald Trump’s administration. More significantly, it comes without the assumptions, objectives and actions that were distinctly defined under each topic in that strategic framework, which was declassified in the final days of the Trump presidency with just light redactions.
•The fact is that Mr. Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy document is essentially an exercise in public diplomacy, while the Trump administration’s once-secret strategic framework was formulated to advance its policy of a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) — a concept originally authored by then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The strategic framework’s declassification was apparently aimed at underscoring that the successor administration was inheriting a coherent, comprehensive and realistic strategy on the Indo-Pacific.
•The FOIP vision remains the centrepiece of Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy. The document, however, confirms a Biden-initiated shift of the Quad toward geo-economic and other larger issues — from “global health security” and climate change (Mr. Biden’s pet concern) to “critical and emerging technologies, driving supply-chain cooperation, joint technology deployments and advancing common technology principles.” Such a broad and ambitious agenda threatens to dilute the Quad’s strategic focus on the Indo-Pacific.
A more conciliatory approach
•Mr. Biden thus far has not made his long-anticipated China strategy speech to lay out the administration’s approach to a country that is a military, economic and technological challenge on a scale that the U.S. has not seen before. While largely hewing to the China policy set by his predecessor, Mr. Biden’s approach, however, appears more conciliatory.
•While the Trump administration launched an ideological offensive against China as a predatory communist state without political legitimacy or the rule of law, Mr. Biden assured Chinese President Xi Jinping in a virtual summit meeting last November that the U.S. will not seek to change China’s political system. That reassurance is embedded in the Indo-Pacific strategy paper, which unequivocally states that, “Our objective is not to change the PRC [People’s Republic of China] but to shape the strategic environment in which it operates...”
•The Indo-Pacific strategy document acknowledges that China “seeks to become the world’s most influential power” and that “our allies and partners in the region bear much of the cost of the PRC’s harmful behaviour”. Yet it declares that the U.S. will seek to “manage competition with the PRC responsibly” and “work with the PRC in areas like climate change and nonproliferation”.
•The strategy paper, while supporting “India’s continued rise”, has couched its reference to China’s military actions against India since 2020 not as “aggression” (a term that the White House uses almost every day to describe Russia’s moves against Ukraine) but in neutral language — as “the conflict along the Line of Actual Control with India.” And the background press briefing on the paper’s release referred to “China’s behaviour in the Line of Actual Control.”
•Since taking office, Mr. Biden has treated China with more respect than Russia. For example, last year he imposed two rounds of sanctions on Moscow and even called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “killer”. While turning Russia’s troop buildup against Ukraine into a major international crisis, Mr. Biden has not uttered a word on a bigger military buildup — by China along the Himalayas — that threatens to unleash war on America’s strategic partner India.
Shifting focus
•Today, Mr. Biden is pouring military resources into Europe and focusing on containing Russia’s regional ambitions at the cost of countering China’s drive to gain global pre-eminence. And although Mr. Biden has deserted Ukraine to its fate by ruling out coming to that beleaguered country’s direct defence, Washington has been in the lead in sounding the drumbeats of war.
•If the U.S. is to meaningfully pivot to the Indo-Pacific, it will have to exercise strategic restraint in Europe, not ratchet up tensions with Russia through NATO expansionism or military drills. Last autumn’s U.S.-NATO military exercises near Russia’s Black Sea coast incensed Moscow, foreshadowing the present crisis.
•The U.S. should be addressing its strategic overstretch, not seeking to exacerbate it through greater entanglement in European security. With its relative power in decline, it must conserve its strength to focus on retaining its global pre-eminence, including by making the strategic trade-offs required to remain the leading power in the Indo-Pacific. Economically and strategically, the global centre of gravity is shifting to the Indo-Pacific. Building a stable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific has become more crucial than ever for international security. Yet, the U.S. still prioritises NATO so as to dominate European security, while the bulk of its economic aid and military assistance goes to West Asia and North Africa.
•Unless Mr. Biden prudently recalibrates foreign policy objectives with available resources and capabilities so as to mitigate America’s strategic overreach, he will not only sap U.S. strength to deal with the bigger challenges in Asia, including to American leadership, but also undermine his newly unveiled Indo-Pacific strategy that seeks to make the U.S. role in that most important region “more effective and enduring than ever”.
