📰 Understanding the process of issuing LOCs
Are the ‘accused’ allowed intimation of look out circulars issued against them? When were banks authorised to file LOCs?
•The story so far: On April 5, the Punjab and Haryana High Court while quashing a Look Out Circular (LOC) against petitioner Noor Paul passed omnibus instructions to the respondents including the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Bureau of Immigration (BOI) to serve a copy of the LOC to the affected person, state the reasons for issuing the LOC “as soon as possible” and provide a “post-decisional opportunity”. It asked the MHA to include these directions into the “Official Memorandum” or the guidelines that govern the opening of LOCs. The Government of India moved Supreme Court and the apex court stayed the particular paragraph of the High Court order. The High Court in its judgement has said that the action of the Bank of India to issue an LOC against Ms. Paul who was a guarantor to a loan procured by her father was “arbitrary, illegal and violative of Article 21 of the Constitution.” Ms. Paul got to know about the LOC when she was turned away from the Delhi airport on February 22 when she was there to travel to Dubai.
What is a look out circular?
•It is a notice to stop any individual wanted by the police, investigating agency or even a bank from leaving or entering the country through designated land, air and sea ports. The immigration is tasked to stop any such individual against whom such a notice exists from leaving or entering the country. There are 86 immigration check posts across the country.
Who can issue LOCs?
•A large number of agencies which includes the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Income Tax, State police and intelligence agencies are authorised to generate LOCs. The officer should not be below the rank of a district magistrate or superintendent of police or a deputy secretary in the Union Government.
What are the details required to generate an LOC and who issues it?
•According to a 2010 official memorandum of the Ministry, details such as First Information Report (FIR) number, court case number are to be mandatorily provided with name, passport number and other details. The BOI under the MHA is only the executing agency. They generate LOCs based on requests by different agencies. Since immigration posts are manned by the BOI officials they are the first responders to execute LOCs by stopping or detaining or informing about an individual to the issuing agency. The LOCs can be modified; deleted or withdrawn only at the request of the originator. Further, the legal liability of the action taken by immigration authorities in pursuance of LOC rests with the originating agency.
How are banks authorised?
•After several businessmen including liquor baron Vijay Mallya, businessmen Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi fled the country after defaulting on loans, the MHA in 2018 brought changes to the 2010 guidelines authorising the chairman, managing director and chief executives of all public sector banks to generate LOCs against persons who could be detrimental to economic interests of the country. Though an LOC generated by the CBI on October 16, 2015 to “detain” Mr. Mallya existed based on the preliminary enquiry in a ₹900 crore loan default case, it was downgraded to “inform only” on November 23, 2015 as there was no FIR yet against him. Mr. Mallya who was a Rajya Sabha member then was a frequent flyer and he fled to the U.K in March 2016. The Ministry recently told the Delhi High Court that banks were authorised to generate LOCs as “in the recent past there have been incidents where the willful defaulters or economic offenders of public financial institutions have left the country after usurping public money or defrauding such public financial institutions.”
Is there any other clause under which an individual can be stopped?
•The 2010 Ministry guidelines give sweeping powers to police and intelligence agencies to generate LOCs in “exceptional cases” without keying in complete parameters or case details against “suspects, terrorists, anti-national elements, etc, in larger national interest.” In 2015, Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai was stopped from travelling to London on a request by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) based on the “etc” provision in the 2010 order. The LOC was later quashed by the Delhi High Court. After the special status of J&K under Article 370 of the Constitution was read down by the Parliament in August 2019, LOCs were opened against several politicians, human rights activists, journalists and social activists to bar them from flying out of the country. The number of persons and the crime for which they have been placed under the list is unknown.
Are individuals entitled to any remedial measures?
•Many citizens have moved courts to get the LOC quashed. The MHA has asserted that “LOCs cannot be shown to the subject” at the time of detention nor can any prior intimation be provided. The Ministry recently informed the Punjab and Haryana High Court that the LOC guidelines are a secret document and the same cannot be shared with the ‘accused’ or any unauthorised stakeholder; it cannot be provided or shown to the subject at the time of detention by the BOI since it defeats the purpose of LOC and no accused or subject of LOC can be provided any opportunity of hearing before the issuance of the LOC.
•On January 12, a Delhi High Court bench led by Justice Rekha Palli had quashed an LOC against a Delhi businessman Vikas Chaudhary generated at the instance of the Income Tax department. The court said “no proceedings under any penal law had been initiated against the petitioner” and the LOC was “wholly unsustainable.” A Delhi court on April 8 while quashing an LOC against Aakar Patel, chair, Amnesty International India said that “there cannot be any unfettered control or restriction on the right to travel” and that it was part of the fundamental rights and asked the Director of the CBI to tender a written apology. As per norms, an LOC will stay valid for a maximum period of 12 months and if there is no fresh request from the agency then it will not be automatically revived.
India is yet to take a decision on joining trade partnership framework, but is keen to understand the ‘contours’ of the plan
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, May 23, 2022 arrived in Japan on a two-day visit to attend a summit of the Quad leaders which is aimed at further bolstering cooperation among the member nations of the influential grouping and discussing developments in the Indo-Pacific region.
•“Landed in Tokyo. Will be taking part in various programmes during this visit including the Quad Summit, meeting fellow Quad leaders, interacting with Japanese business leaders and the vibrant Indian diaspora,” Mr. Modi tweeted in both Japanese and English.
•“Ohayō, Tokyo! PM @narendramodi arrives to a warm welcome in Tokyo on what is his fifth visit to Japan in the last 8 years,” External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi tweeted.
•Besides Mr. Modi, the Quad summit in Tokyo on May 24 will be attended by U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Australian Prime Minister-elect Anthony Albanese.
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in U.S. President Joseph Biden’s unveiling of the “Indo-Pacific Economic Framework” (IPEF) in Tokyo on Monday, a US initiative for trade partnerships in the region, sources confirmed. Mr. Modi’s attendance of the event is a significant step towards building economic ties amongst Quad countries in the Indo-Pacific, although officials were hesitant to bill the IPEF as a counter the 15-nation Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the 17-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that China is a member of.
•Briefing the media ahead of the event, U.S. NSA Jake Sullivan said that the IPEF would have a “very wide-ranging membership”, adding, significantly, that the programme is “designed to put workers at the center — American workers,” with a focus on the digital economy, clean energy transition, infrastructure and resilient supply chains.
•India has not taken a decision on joining the framework, but is keen to understand the “contours” of the American plan said an official, confirming that Indian delegates would join the launch of negotiations expected on Monday as well. On Saturday, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said that “discussions and the conversations are still going on” on the IPEF draft.
•After landing in Tokyo on Monday, PM Modi is expected to meet Japanese business leaders in one-on-one interactions including heads of NEC corporation, Uniqlo garments, Suzuki motors, and the SoftBank Group, attend the IPEF event with Mr. Biden and other leaders, also attend a business roundtable. On Tuesday he will meet with US President Joseph Biden, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida and the just-elected Australian PM Anthony Albanese for the Quad summit after which he will hold bilateral talks with each of them.
•During the Quad summit on Tuesday officials have said the Quad focus is on areas of convergence like trade, infrastructure, climate change and critical technologies, it is clear that divisions over the war in Ukraine, food security, the vaccine initiative and a number of other issues including the US push to bring Taiwan back as an observer at the World Health Assembly this week will also come up at the meeting.
•“The second in-person Quad Leaders’ Summit will provide an opportunity for the leaders of the four Quad countries to review the progress of Quad initiatives. We will also exchange views about developments in the Indo-Pacific region and global issues of mutual interest,” said Prime Minister Modi in a departure statement.
•Mr. Modi’s reference to “developments in the Indo-Pacific” region indicates India’s consistent policy that it would not include comments on Russia in its diplomatic engagements with other countries. The position was underlined during the Quad leaders’ last interaction, a virtual meeting in March, where the joint statement did not reflect sharp criticism of Russia that marked the statements made by the other three leaders.
•In the past week, India has also run up against the US and Japan at G-7 meetings, as well as at the UN Security Council over its decision to ban wheat exports amidst global shortages of Ukrainian wheat.
•In a press briefing on Sunday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that Mr. Biden will continue to discuss the “impacts of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine on a wider set of concerns in the world, including this food security concern,” in his conversations with PM Modi in Tokyo.
•However, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said on Saturday that “there is a full understanding and appreciation of [India’s] policy [on Ukraine] in the world, including among [India’s] main partners”, and reiterated India’s food security needs are “paramount”, when asked about the US’s call to reverse the government’s wheat export ban.
•Mr. Kwatra said that the Quad will organise a special session on the sidelines of the World Health Assembly (WHA) on May 24, where the four countries will jointly tackle issues of disinformation during the pandemic and boosting vaccine confidence. The grouping is also expected to discuss and possibly review its Quad Vaccine Initiative project to disburse US-developed and funded, India-made distributed by Japan and Australia amongst Indo-Pacific countries that has been stuck due to what Mr. Sullivan called “regulatory issues” with India. The first Quad interaction last year had committed to distributing one billion of the vaccines, made at Hyderabad-based Biological-E by the end of 2022, but have made no headway on the project yet.
•Another issue the Quad is divided over whether to support Taiwan’s request to be included as an observer at the WHA, something China opposes. While the US, Australia and Japan have backed the Taiwanese request, India has made no statement thus far, and MEA officials did not confirm whether India would endorse it.
📰 The rise of AI chips
What are the different ways in which AI chips are being used in various sectors? What are the recent innovations in the industry?
•The adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) chips has risen, with chipmakers designing different types of these chips to power AI applications such as natural language processing (NLP), computer vision, robotics, and network security across a wide variety of sectors, including automotive, IT, healthcare, and retail. Market leader Nvidia recently announced its H100 GPU (graphics processing unit), which is said to be one of the world’s largest and most powerful AI accelerators, packed with 80 billion transistors. Earlier this month, Nvidia’s rival Intel launched new AI chips to provide customers with deep learning compute choices for training and inferencing in data centres. The increasing adoption of AI chips in data centres is one of the major factors driving the growth of the market.
What are AI chips?
•AI chips are built with specific architecture and have integrated AI acceleration to support deep learning-based applications. Deep learning, more commonly known as active neural network (ANN) or deep neural network (DNN), is a subset of machine learning and comes under the broader umbrella of AI. It combines a series of computer commands or algorithms that stimulate activity and brain structure. DNNs go through a training phase, learning new capabilities from existing data. DNNs can then inference, by applying these capabilities learned during deep learning training to make predictions against previously unseen data. Deep learning can make the process of collecting, analysing, and interpreting enormous amounts of data faster and easier.
•These chips, with their hardware architectures and complementary packaging, memory, storage and interconnect technologies, make it possible to infuse AI into a broad spectrum of applications to help turn data into information and then into knowledge. There are different types of AI chips such as application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), central processing units (CPUs) and GPUs, designed for diverse AI applications.
Are they different from traditional chips?
•When traditional chips, containing processor cores and memory, perform computational tasks, they continuously move commands and data between the two hardware components. These chips, however, are not ideal for AI applications as they would not be able to handle higher computational necessities of AI workloads which have huge volumes of data. Although, some of the higher-end traditional chips may be able to process certain AI applications.
•In comparison, AI chips generally contain processor cores as well as several AI-optimised cores (depending on the scale of the chip) that are designed to work in harmony when performing computational tasks. The AI cores are optimised for the demands of heterogeneous enterprise-class AI workloads with low-latency inferencing, due to close integration with the other processor cores, which are designed to handle non-AI applications.
•AI chips, essentially, reimagine traditional chips’ architecture, enabling smart devices to perform sophisticated deep learning tasks such as object detection and segmentation in real-time, with minimal power consumption.
What are their applications?
•Semiconductor firms have developed various specialised AI chips for a multitude of smart machines and devices, including ones that are said to deliver the performance of a data centre-class computer to edge devices. Some of these chips support in-vehicle computers to run state-of-the-art AI applications more efficiently. AI chips are also powering applications of computational imaging in wearable electronics, drones, and robots.
•Additionally, the use of AI chips for NLP applications has increased due to the rise in demand for chatbots and online channels such as Messenger, Slack, and others. They use NLP to analyse user messages and conversational logic. Then there are chipmakers who have built AI processors with on-chip hardware acceleration, designed to help customers achieve business insights at scale across banking, finance, trading, insurance applications and customer interactions.
•As AI becomes pervasive across different workloads, having a dedicated inference accelerator that includes support for major deep learning frameworks would allow companies to harness the full potential of their data.
What firms are making these chips?
•Nvidia Corporation, Intel Corporation, IBM Corporation, Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and Apple Inc. are some of the key players in the AI chip market.
•Nvidia, which dominates the market, offers a wide portfolio of AI chips including Grace CPU, H100 and its predecessor A100 GPUs, capable of handling some of the largest AI models with billions of parameters. The company claims that twenty H100 GPUs can sustain the equivalent of the entire world’s internet traffic.
•The American firm’s next-generation accelerated computing platform, announced in March, with Nvidia Hopper architecture is designed to power data centres, which “are becoming AI factories — processing and refining mountains of data to produce intelligence,” according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
•Intel offers AI hardware that can train massive, unstructured data sets, to extremely low power silicon for on-device inference. Intel’s Habana Labs launched its second-generation deep learning processors — Gaudi2 and Greco. Intel claims its Gaudi2 processor demonstrates two times throughput (the amount of material or items passing through a system or process) over Nvidia’s A100 GPU.
•IBM’s new AI chip, announced last year, can support financial services workloads like fraud detection, loan processing, clearing and settlement of trades, anti-money laundering and risk analysis.
What can be expected in the future?
•AI company Cerebras Systems set a new standard with its brain-scale AI solution, paving the way for more advanced solutions in the future. Its CS-2, powered by the Wafer Scale Engine (WSE-2) is a single wafer-scale chip with 2.6 trillion transistors and 8,50,000 AI optimised cores. The human brain contains on the order of 100 trillion synapses, the firm said, adding that a single CS-2 accelerator can support models of over 120 trillion parameters (synapse equivalents) in size.
•Another AI chip design approach, neuromorphic computing, utilises an engineering method based on the activity of the biological brain.
•An increase in the adoption of neuromorphic chips in the automotive industry is expected in the next few years, according to ResearchAndMarkets.
•Additionally, the rise in the need for smart homes and cities, and the surge in investments in AI start-ups are expected to drive the growth of the global AI chip market, as per a report by Allied Market Research. The Worldwide AI chip industry accounted for $8.02 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach $194.9 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.4% from 2021 to 2030.
📰 Food security does not need this ‘surgical strike’
India’s flip-flop on the export of wheat is an example of the Government lacking a coherent policy of food security
•The Government of India announced a sudden ban on export of wheat on May 13, 2022, a few days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had stated that “at a time when the world is facing a shortage of wheat, the farmers of India have stepped forward to feed the world”. Even a day before the export ban came into effect, Government officials were looking out for possible export locations, indicating that there were no plans for control of wheat exports. With the latest announcement, the Government has sent out confusing policy signals
Status of procurement
•The sudden turnaround in the export policy appears to be on account of fears that low public procurement would affect domestic food security.
•The system of public procurement has been in place since the mid-1960s, and has been the backbone of food policy in India. Progressive economists and social scientists have always argued that for a country the size of India, food security has to be ensured through domestic production. As part of the liberalisation policy, many other economists suggested that food stocks be run down in India and that needs of food security be met through world trade and the Chicago futures market.
•This summer, procurement of wheat by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has been very low. Last year, the FCI and other agencies procured 43.34 million tonnes of wheat. For the current season, procurement has only been 17.8 million tonnes, as of May 10, 2022. Given the low levels of procurement, the Government has reduced the procurement target for the current season from 44.4 to 19.5 million tonnes.
•Is there a concern on that front now, in particular in terms of availability of food grain? The answer is an emphatic “no”, but if and only if policy measures ensure adequate distribution through the food rationing network and open market operations are undertaken to ensure stable prices. (The assumption here is that both rice and wheat are now consumed in all parts of the country, and if needed, rice can be distributed in lieu of wheat. As of April 2022, there were 33 million tonnes of rice held as stocks.)
•While wheat production this year has been lower than estimated on account of high heat and other factors in March, there is not a big shortfall in production relative to previous years. Wheat production was 103.6 million tonnes in 2018-19, 107.8 million tonnes in 2019-20, and 109.5 million tonnes in 2020-21. It was expected to be a record 111.3 million tonnes for the ongoing year (2021-22). The most recent estimate of production for 2021-22, revised downwards from the earlier estimate, is 105 million tonnes.
•There is, of course, a projection of a global reduction in production and trade on account of the war in Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine were major exporters of wheat in the global market and disruptions from the war are affecting countries that relied on imports from these two countries, such as Egypt. India has been urged by developed countries to meet this shortfall and provide relief to importing counties. But it is also important to see that western countries, some of whom are much larger exporters of wheat, have themselves not increased their exports in the current context.
Need for effective PDS
•Stocks of wheat in the central pool as of April 30, 2022 were 30.3 million tonnes, much lower than the 52.5 million tonnes of last year, but comfortably higher than buffer stock norms. While the Government procurement in this marketing season has been lower than the previous two years, the stock position so far is similar to 2019, when we had 35.8 million tonnes of stock in April. The stock position does not appear to be alarming.
•In the two COVID-19 years (2020-21 and 2021-22), the Public Distribution System (PDS) played a stellar role, and, its role showed the wisdom of not dismantling it, as neoliberal economists advised. Total offtake of rice and wheat was 102.3 million tonnes in 2021-22 when distribution through the PDS and other welfare schemes is combined. Of this, 49 million tonnes were wheat (21.7 through the PDS and 27.3 through other welfare schemes). Not only is this a global record, but it kept people out of starvation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
•It is essential that the PDS and open market operations be used to cool down food price inflation. The rural consumer price inflation at the all-India level for April 2022 was 8.38%. Rural food price inflation was 8.5%. These were much higher than the inflation recorded in the previous year. While most States have high inflation rates, States with better PDS, such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu, have low inflation rates. The general consumer price inflation in April 2022 for Kerala was 4.82% and it was 5.64% for Tamil Nadu.
Increasing cultivation costs
•To promote production, a key aspect of food policy in India has been to provide remunerative prices to farmers. As is well known, after the reports of the National Commission on Farmers, the announced minimum support price (MSP) for wheat has often been inadequate to cover costs of cultivation for several regions and classes of farmers, especially if comprehensive costs (or Cost C2) are taken as the base. The year-long farmer protests were largely driven by the fear that the new Farm Acts were weakening public commitment to remunerative prices for agricultural produce.
•Over the last two years, costs of production have risen sharply, one important component being the spiralling price of fuel.
•Farmers are worried about the lack of involvement of the Government in procurement. After the export ban, and in light of higher input costs and yield losses this year, the All India Kisan Sabha and other farmer organisations demanded a bonus of ₹500 per quintal on current MSP of wheat. Rather than overcoming the shortfall in public procurement by increasing the procurement price and buying more, the Government has allowed traders to build up stocks of wheat. The benefits from future sales, domestic or in the export market, are thus likely to go to traders rather than farmers.
Farmers let down
•The flip-flop on export of wheat is one example that this government lacks a coherent policy of food security, and has, perhaps, been too influenced by climate alarmists. Food security is both an immediate and long-term concern and does not require “surgical strikes”. A well-functioning PDS can control prices and offer relief to consumers. At the same time, a procurement policy can and should offer a reasonable income to farmers. The Government has punished farmers and supported traders by not procuring food grain at higher prices, and letting private trade step in to buy up stocks for future gain.
📰 Wheat confusion: On India’s export restriction
Apprehensions of shortage in India are misplaced, and the Government must allow export
•India, which surprised the world with its decision to bar wheat export with immediate effect, appears to be on the defensive now after its May 13 announcement. Initially, the Centre had amended the order by allowing export consignments registered in the Customs Department’s systems and handed over for examination on or prior to May 13. Addressing a UN “Global Food Security Call to Action” ministerial meeting a few days ago in New York, Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan emphasised that the restrictions made allowance for countries that had food security needs, a position articulated earlier by Commerce Secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam. But, more than farmers, it is traders who stand to benefit from the limited easing of restrictions. From the start, indications of a mismatch in demand and supply were evident. Rising levels of wholesale and retail inflation, the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war and a lower opening balance of wheat (on April 1, 2022) in the Central pool for the public distribution system than a year ago were well known. After several parts of wheat-producing States in the north experienced unusually warm weather in March-April, the Government lowered marginally, early this month, the estimated wheat production, from 111.32 million tonnes to 105 million tonnes. As for international food prices, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, said that even before the war, prices had reached an all-time high due to market conditions and the high prices of energy, fertilizers and other agricultural services. By May 4, the Centre clarified that there was no move to curb wheat export, the reasoning being that this was the opportune moment for exporters to sell in the international market as wheat from Argentina and Australia would begin arriving next month. The higher prices in the domestic market compared to the minimum support price offered by the Government were projected as favourable for farmers. Also, just days before the Government’s decision, an official announcement was made that trade delegations would be sent to countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, and Indonesia to explore possibilities for wheat export. In addition to Egypt, Turkey had given its approval for the import of Indian wheat, and an announcement had been made that the current year’s target for wheat export had been fixed at 10 million tonnes, three million tonnes higher than last year.
•India’s decision has faced criticism from the G-7’s Agriculture Ministers. After its U-turn, the Government should not persist for too long with its current position of “restrictions” on the export of wheat, as the move seems to have hit the farmers, if reports of a fall in the price are any indication. Lessons must be gleaned from the experience 15 years ago when India took about two years to lift its ban on the export of non-basmati rice, by which time Thailand and Vietnam had moved in to take full advantage. Apprehensions of a food shortage are misplaced, and the Government would do well to lift the “restrictions” sooner rather than later.
📰 India needs to keep an eye on its myopia prevalence
Even though current estimates in the country do not reflect trends in the Asia-Pacific, India must be vigilant
•Millions of young children are growing up short-sighted every year because of myopia. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there were nearly two billion people with myopia in 2010 — a quarter of the human population. By 2030, they project myopia prevalence to reach 3.3 billion people. While East Asia and the Pacific have been reporting some of the highest numbers for a decade now, current estimates out of India do not yet reflect this trend. It may mean we have time to act and save the sight of our children.
‘Near-work’ is on the rise
•Myopia is commonly found in children. As they grow and their bodies change, the length of the eyeball and its power to refract light do not always align, leading to vision that is blurry. A pair of spectacles is enough to correct this mismatch. However, spectacles address the symptom and not the cause (eyeball length), so myopia can progress all through childhood. Progressive myopia, after a point, leads to ‘high’ myopia, increasing the risk of retinal detachment, glaucoma or macular degeneration that can cause permanent vision loss.
•A host of environmental and genetic factors determine the onset of myopia. It is believed that exposure to sunlight and a healthy balance between distance- and near-work can arrest myopia onset and progression. Many children, especially in urban environments, are spending more time indoors and on near-work. Be it at school or at home, the quantum of near-work — looking at books, television, phones or laptops — has increased over the decades. The COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated this trend by robbing children of outdoor playtime and exposure to sunlight. This big shift to near-work seems to be triggering an increase in myopia prevalence.
Epidemic or not is the issue
•Data from the East Asian countries have been particularly alarming. Even before the novel coronavirus pandemic, 80%-90% of high school children in East and Southeast Asia were presenting with myopia. Nearly 20% of them had high myopia. All these countries are racing to put in place systems to increase sunlight exposure and reduce near-work for children. The World Health Organization is warning of a global myopia epidemic, where millions of our children are at risk of vision impairment. Projections show nearly 50% of the world’s population will be myopic by 2050.
•India seems to be bucking this trend. Current studies are recording low myopia prevalence among schoolchildren when compared to East Asia. In India, one in 30 to one in five schoolchildren are presenting with myopia. In a large study that surveyed 1.2 million schoolchildren in Telangana and parts of Andhra Pradesh, public health optometrist Winston Prakash and his team found myopia prevalence of a little over 5%. Even including those already with glasses, the prevalence numbers are low. What explains these anti-climactic numbers?
The urbanisation link
•Despite a demographic shift towards cities and towns, nearly 65% of India’s population still lives in rural areas. As urbanisation increases, so does the burden of myopia. Myopia can be twice as high among urban children when compared to rural ones. One study found a higher prevalence among South Asian children in the United Kingdom compared to those living in rural India. So, it is likely that urban schools are harbingers of increasing myopia in children. Small studies are already finding that myopia prevalence in urban Indian schools is relatively higher, at nearly 35%. The spectacle power of urban children with myopia is also increasing year on year. Taking all these factors into account, prediction models are pointing to a myopia prevalence of nearly 50% in India too by 2050 — similar to global projections.
•There are many treatment strategies to constrain myopic progression, including pharmaceuticals and specialty spectacles or contact lens. But like all public health issues, prevention strategies that tackle myopia onset and progression are far more inexpensive and cost-effective. We need to encourage parents to take children out to parks and other outdoor spaces regularly. Schools must ensure adequate exposure to sunlight. We need educational methodologies at every school level that balances near-work with distance-work.
Encourage annual screening
•At the same time, we must make it easy to screen and provide spectacles for the many who will need them. Basic, annual screening can be performed by schoolteachers who can then refer myopic children to eye-care professionals. We must also tackle the social stigma around spectacle wear with tact and compassion. It is critical that we step up surveillance for myopia so that we are not caught unawares by a runaway epidemic that will destroy our children’s vision.
•It is likely that India’s myopia prevalence is still low because we are not yet on the ‘epidemic’ growth curve of East and Southeast Asia. The time to act is now.
📰 Nature has the answers
It is our rich, albeit declining, biodiversity that provides us with potential solutions to our sustainability challenges
•International Day of Biodiversity was celebrated on May 22. It gave us an opportunity to appreciate the wonder of biodiversity and renew our commitment to nurture and protect all the many forms of life with which we share our planet. We are a nation so defined by the richness of life around us that the words ‘diversity’ and ‘India’ have become synonymous. Our ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity has been greatly influenced by the unique features of our land, climate and geography, as well as the forces of migration and evolution. These forces have enriched our land with a multitude of species of plants, animals, and other organisms.
•We, the human species, are an integral and influential component of biodiversity. Our own bodies host living microbiomes of tiny organisms without which we cannot survive. Our cultures shape the biodiversity around us, and biodiversity shapes our cultures and our future here on Earth.
•Apart from the pandemic, the recent heat waves in much of northern India and floods in Meghalaya are stark reminders of worsening climate change and an uncertain future. The uncertainty is further fueled by the continuing degradation of lands and biodiversity, growing malnutrition and hunger, and inequities and environmental injustice.
Nature-based solutions
•Yet, it is our rich, albeit declining, biodiversity that provides us with potential solutions to our most pressing sustainability challenges. Nature-based solutions — the use of biodiversity and what we learn from the natural world to face our challenges — are emerging as the best path to take us forward.
•Climate change is arguably the most severe crisis we face today. Global deforestation is one of the main contributors to climate change. Thus, the restoration of deforested and other degraded lands can lead to mitigation of climate change. Restoring biodiversity on large tracts of land is one of the major commitments that India has made under the Paris Accords. This direct connection between biodiversity and climate change was strongly affirmed by most nations in the Conference of the Parties in Glasgow concluded six months ago. Similarly, rejuvenation of our soils and agriculture, elimination of hunger, and improvement of nutrition depends upon our prudent use of biodiversity in the prevailing agricultural systems. Fostering the return of biodiversity to degraded lands and enhancing blue carbon in oceans have immense environmental and considerable economic benefits. Restoration has the potential of creating millions of jobs, diversifying farming systems and agriculture-based livelihoods.
•Enterprises based on India’s biodiversity have huge untapped potential. For example, the sector based on the use of molecules of biological origin in biotechnology and healthcare was worth $70 billion in 2020. And we have barely begun to tap the potential of our rich medical heritage that includes thousands of medicinal plant species.
•Nature contributes not only to our economic and physical well-being, but also to our minds and spiritual enrichment. Our country is full of sacred landscapes, riverscapes, and seascapes. We can take refuge in nature for mental solace.
Strengthening biodiversity science
•The biodiversity that is all around us and inside us, that sustains us and protects us, is under assault. We have seen our natural landscapes and waterscapes decline and degrade at an unprecedented rate. Last year, in these pages, I briefly described an effort on the part of the government to launch a National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-Being, conceived and planned by the Biodiversity Collaborative pulling together public and private institutions. The Mission will embed biodiversity as a key consideration in all development programmes, particularly in the sectors of agriculture, health, bioeconomy, ecosystem services, and climate change mitigation. It will also seek to develop a system for assessing and monitoring, restoring, and enhancing biodiversity to enable the realisation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Public engagement is another key element of the Mission.
•The pandemic has placed this Mission among the most significant national initiatives. We must urgently address the issues laid bare by COVID 19: the emergence of infectious diseases; inadequate food and nutritional security; rural unemployment; and climate change which all place additional stress on nature and public health, and which are what the Mission seeks to address.
•Hundreds of professionals have participated in defining the road map for the Mission. International Biodiversity Day should serve as a reminder to our government and people to push forward the Mission and and reimagine our relationship with nature.
