📰 ‘Advantage New Delhi’ in Sri Lanka’s India lifeline
There is much potential in the humanitarian aid link now to deepen trade and investment linkages
•Ranil Wickremesinghe’s election as the President of Sri Lanka in a crucial Parliament vote on July 20, 2022, gives India an opportunity to take the lead in the foreign aid game in its neighbourhood. Sri Lanka has been facing economic turbulence since its pre-emptive default on its foreign debt obligations in mid-April this year — the mass protests in its wake eventually forcing the former President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to flee the country on July 12.
Deepening woes
•Following the debt default and a shortage of dollars, the Sri Lankan economy is experiencing stagflation. Inflation has spiralled to over 50%, translating into higher food and fuel prices. Many families are surviving on one meal a day. The economy could contract by at least 6% in 2022. Some three-quarter of a million people are becoming the ‘new poor’. Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis since its independence in 1948 is due to a tepid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine conflict shock and economic mismanagement under the administration of the Rajapaksas.
•Sri Lanka is also facing challenges in getting foreign aid, as 60% of the world’s poorest countries are also experiencing debt distress; further, the prospect of a second global recession in three years could dampen enthusiasm to support Sri Lanka.
•There are questions by some on why taxpayers in another country should bail out a failed economy such as Sri Lanka, when the perception is that Sri Lanka’s debt default is largely one of its own making — the result of mismanagement and corruption.
Opportunity for India
•India was the first responder to Sri Lanka’s desperate calls for foreign aid to help tackle its crippling debt and economic crisis. India has been motivated by the unfolding humanitarian crisis affecting the Sri Lankan people and the political pressure from South India for Indian intervention. In the first six months of 2022, Indian aid worth $3.8 billion has flowed to Sri Lanka through loans, swaps and grants. This is India’s largest bilateral aid programme in recent times.
•Supporting Sri Lanka could be in India’s best interests. Stabilising Sri Lanka’s economy could prove to be a major win for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘neighbourhood-first’ policy. Moreover, once the Sri Lankan economy stabilises, India can deepen its trade and investment linkages with Sri Lanka, transcending the current humanitarian aid relationship. This could spur regional integration and prosperity. On the other hand, an unstable Sri Lankan economy could pose security risks to India and lead to a flood of refugees across the Palk Strait. This is an opportunity for India to strengthen bilateral and regional partnerships.
Dimensions to Chinese aid
•In recent years, China has emerged as a major partner for Sri Lanka, especially for infrastructure projects, many of which are under scrutiny now. This provides an opportunity for India to upscale its aid and cement its first mover advantage over China by leading an aid consortium for Sri Lanka, working closely with other friendly countries such as the United States, Japan and the European Union as well as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Back of the envelope calculations suggest that Sri Lanka would require financing that falls between $20 billion to $25 billion over the next three years to ensure essential imports of food, medicine and fuel for its people and help in stabilising the economy.
•Despite gaining benefits from commercial loans for Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Sri Lanka which has fuelled a ‘debt trap’ narrative, China faces a dilemma in bailing out Sri Lanka. China worries that unilaterally restructuring Sri Lanka’s debt or giving it moratoria would set a new precedent in its lending practices, leading to a queue of similarly distressed countries seeking debt relief from Beijing. Furthermore, China, which is a G2 economy, and wanting to challenge the U.S., does not want its reputation to be tarnished by bailing out a floundering economy.
Steps to take
•There are five important items in the in-tray of the new administration under President Wickremesinghe.
•The government must show that it is serious about stabilising the economy by concluding talks on an IMF programme which will increase taxes and utility prices to raise revenue and increase interest rates to control inflation while preserving social welfare expenditures to protect the poor.
•It has to implement structural reforms to make the economy more open to trade and investment and allow market forces to determine resource allocation. This means reducing barriers to trade and investment, cutting red tape hampering business and privatising loss-making state-owned enterprises such as Sri Lankan Airlines and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation.
•It has to build national consensus on implementing the IMF programme and reforms by explaining that this is the only solution to the crisis.
•It has to restore the rule of law and enforce strong anti-corruption policies (including asset declarations for all parliamentarians and a strong anti-corruption office supported by the United Nations). Later, the executive presidency should be abolished.
•It has to reset foreign policy towards a more neutral direction and away from the pro-China stance of the Rajapaksas.
•With political will and the right set of policies, Sri Lanka stands a sporting chance of achieving some economic normalcy within the next three years. India stands to gain by supporting Sri Lanka in its hour of need. A friend in need is a friend indeed.
Report suggests steps to secure a place among top 25 nations in the Global Innovation Index
•Karnataka has bagged the top rank in NITI Aayog’s India Innovation Index, 2022, which determines innovation capacities and ecosystems at the sub-national level. The State has held this position, under the Major States category, in all three editions of the Index so far.
•In the Index released on Thursday, Manipur secured the lead in the Northeast and Hill States category, while Chandigarh was the top performer in the Union Territories and City States category.
•Karnataka was followed by Telangana, Haryana, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar and Gujarat were at the bottom of the index.
•Pointing out that India’s average innovation score is insufficient, given the country’s ambitious targets to be named among the top 25 nations in the Global Innovation Index, the report by the government think tank has recommended measures, such as increasing Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GDERD), promoting private sector participation in R&D and closing the gap between industry demand and what the country produces through its education systems.
•The report went on to state that countries that spend less on GDERD fail to retain their human capital in the long run and the ability to innovate is dependent on the quality of human capital; India’s GDERD as a percentage of GDP stood at about 0.7%.
•“Therefore, GDERD needs considerable improvement and should touch at least 2%, which would play an instrumental role in India achieving the goal of 5 trillion economy,” it suggested.
•It added that the private sector needs to pick up pace in R&D.
•Taking evidence from countries such as South Korea, and the U.S. where the presence of private players is evident, the report noted that public expenditure is productive up to some extent; once the growth follows a trajectory, it is desirable to shift to R&D mostly drive by the private sector. “Therefore, it is important for India to find that inflexion point after which private sector takes over the government sector,” it added.
📰 Kerala’s fight against monkeypox
What are the various steps being taken by the State Health department to stop transmission? How does it help other States?
•On July 14, Kerala detected the first case of monkeypox in the country in a 35-year old returning from UAE. Four days later, the authorities confirmed a second case also in a passenger from UAE.
•A Standard Operating Procedure prepared by the Kerala government with regard to monkeypox is a detailed document which outlines the steps that need to be followed with regard to the isolation, treatment and sample collection of suspected and probable cases of the disease which are reported to the healthcare facilities of the State.
•All districts were asked to strengthen field-level surveillance of cases with fever and rashes along with one or more of these symptoms — enlarged lymph nodes, headache, bodyache and profound weakness.
•The story so far: On July 14, Kerala detected the first case of monkeypox in the country in a 35-year-old, who had flown into Thiruvananthapuram from the UAE. Four days later, the authorities confirmed a second case, this time at Kannur again in a passenger from the UAE. While both patients are in isolation and treatment, the State Health department has strengthened surveillance and control measures across all districts.
Why did cases first surface in Kerala?
•As a State with four international airports, a sizeable expatriate population and being a globally favoured travel destination, the probability of any newly emerging pathogen first arriving at the shores of Kerala has always been high. The State Health authorities are, therefore, relieved that the health system managed to pick up the first two cases of monkeypox, an affirmation of the robustness and efficiency of the State’s disease surveillance mechanism.
•In Thiruvananthapuram as well as Kannur, the patients themselves had approached the doctors/authorities, raising the suspicion that they might have contracted monkeypox. Doctors point to the increased public awareness, the high level of clinical suspicion maintained by the medical fraternity about the new disease and the social commitment of the people that led to the detection of the monkeypox cases.
What are the steps being taken by Kerala?
•One of the first public health messages sent out by the Health department was that there was no need for the public to panic as monkeypox was not a disease which could spread through the air like COVID-19.
•However, the public needed to be vigilant about maintaining all universal precautions that were put in place when COVID-19 was first reported.
•As soon as the patient was isolated, close contacts were also isolated. A list of primary contacts for contact tracing was also drawn up. The contacts were put on symptom surveillance for 21 days and the respective districts were asked to monitor them closely.
•Furthermore, monkeypox advisories were sent out to districts which resulted in the setting up of State and district-level monitoring cells. All districts were asked to set up isolation facilities in select hospitals and special ambulances to transport sick persons.
•Next, all districts were asked to strengthen field-level surveillance of cases with fever and rashes along with one or more of these symptoms — enlarged lymph nodes, headache, bodyache and profound weakness. Help desks were set up at all airports, with trained health workers manning them.
•The official confirmation of both monkeypox cases came from the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune. However, as part of the surveillance network, strengthening of in-house diagnostic facility was important to avoid delays in treatment. A monkeypox testing facility was thus made available at NIV’s field unit at Alapuzha.
How should monkeypox cases be treated?
•The Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) prepared by the Kerala government with regard to monkeypox is a detailed document which outlines the steps that need to be followed with regard to the isolation, treatment and sample collection of suspected and probable cases of the disease which are reported to the healthcare facilities of the State.
•All healthcare institutions in the State in the public and private sector are expected to strictly follow the SOP when dealing with monkeypox or cases with similar symptoms. A person having a history of travel to monkeypox-affected countries within the last 21 days and presenting an unexplained acute rash with one or more of the earlier mentioned symptoms is defined as a ‘suspected case’ under the SOP.
•The SOP details how the samples are to be collected as per NIV’s directives and the precautions that health personnel have to take when a case has to be transported in an ambulance.
What does this mean for other States?
•The fact that monkeypox has not been documented in other States does not mean that the virus has not reached other parts of the country. Kerala detecting the first two cases from international travellers is a signal to other States to strengthen their surveillance networks, especially surveillance among travellers, so that source cases can be identified at the earliest and prevented from establishing other contacts in the community.
•States will have to focus on creating more awareness about monkeypox and its transmission dynamics among the public, the medical community and health workers so that they learn to maintain a high index of suspicion when encountering cases of fever with rashes. While airport surveillance has a huge role, monkeypox has a long incubation period and it is possible that some passengers who may have been infected, may develop symptoms only much later. These cases can be detected from the community only if adequate awareness is created.
Is Kerala worried about community transmission of monkeypox?
•Public health experts point out that given the transmission dynamics of monkeypox, the secondary attack rate of the virus is less than 10%, indicating that even amongst close family contacts of confirmed cases, the chances of monkeypox spreading are remote. In fact, the Health department confirmed that two of the close contacts of the very first case of monkeypox had tested negative for the virus ( they will however remain in surveillance for 21 days).
•What is now worrying the health experts are reports from the U.K. and some other European nations that many recent cases of monkeypox have been presenting with atypical symptoms — sometimes with no fever at all and the lesions few or confined to the genital region. It was reported that for many of the recent cases, health authorities had no idea how the person contracted the virus. In Belgium, asymptomatic cases were also detected.
•Extreme high-risk skin-to-skin contact seems to be the way in which the virus is getting transmitted and hence the Health department will also be tapping into its HIV surveillance network to sharpen surveillance and sensitise MSM (men who have sex with men) communities about the threat of a sustained transmission of monkeypox.
📰 In Pegasus battle, the fight for surveillance reform
The gaps in an intrusive surveillance framework are causing severe harm to India’s democratic ideals
•A year has passed since the disclosures about the Pegasus Project revealed the threat to India’s democracy. A leading digital news platform reported that the cellphones of at least 300 Indians had been hacked with Pegasus, the spyware from the Israel-based NSO Group; 10 of the cases were confirmed by Amnesty International’s Security Lab using forensic analysis. The victims, important members of India’s constitutional order, included cabinet Ministers, Opposition leaders, journalists, judges and human rights defenders.
•India has been aware of the existence of Pegasus since October 30, 2019 when WhatsApp confirmed that the spyware has been used to exploit a vulnerability in its platform to target activists, academics, journalists and lawyers in India. Since then, NSO has been able to advance its technology, and Pegasus can now infect devices without any action on the user’s part. Considering the severity of the threat posed by these disclosures, and the credibility of the evidence which backs them, it is important to examine how each branch of the Indian state has responded, or failed to respond, in protecting the privacy of citizens.
Official apathy, opaqueness
•The expectation is that the executive will provide the first response and that government agencies will respond with action given the serious nature of the disclosures. But on July 19, 2021, the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, referring to “press reports of 18th July 2021”, refused to directly address the claims made by the Pegasus Project; he stated that the existing legal framework prevents unauthorised surveillance.
•On November 28, 2019, the former Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, had responded similarly to allegations over the use of Pegasus. A report by The New York Times of January 31, 2022 contradicted both their statements and stated that ‘India has bought Pegasus in 2017 as part of a $2-billion’ defence package. The apathy shown by cabinet Ministers has been mirrored by specialised agencies.
•In response to disclosures by the Pegasus Project, CERT-IN, the nodal agency, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, that deals with cybersecurity threats, has remained silent. However, WhatsApp’s statement in 2019 did compel CERT-In to issue notices to NSO and WhatsApp on November 26, 2019. But the agency has not provided any updates on what has transpired.
•Under India’s constitutional scheme, the legislature is responsible for holding the executive accountable. However, practice has failed to match principles. When on July 28, 2021, the IT Committee sought to question officials from the IT Ministry and the Home Ministry on Pegasus, members (primarily from the ruling party), according to news reports, abstained as a bloc and prevented a quorum. Previously, on November 19, 2019, those who had been targeted by Pegasus using a vulnerability in WhatsApp, wrote to the IT Committee which even discussed the issue. However, it has not provided any updates on its findings. Separately, in every parliamentary session since the revelations, the Opposition has sought a discussion and a probe. Both demands have been ignored.
Judicial response
•When it became evident that no answers were forthcoming from the executive and the legislative branches, the victims turned towards the judiciary to seek redress. Thus, on August 5, 2021, the victims approached the Supreme Court of India where they demonstrated that forensic analysis had found their phones to have been infected.
•On October 27, 2021, the Court constituted a technical committee to examine whether the spyware had been used on Indian citizens. Eight months have passed but the committee has yet to arrive at any findings. In this period, the committee has been examining the phones of the victims and seeking comments from the public on surveillance reform. On May 20, 2022, it placed an ‘interim report’ before the Court asking for time to place the final report; this was granted. The case is now listed for the end of July 2022. While the top court is waiting for the technical committee to submit its report, on December 16, 2021 it restrained a Commission of Inquiry (constituted by the Government of West Bengal) from investigating whether the spyware had been used on residents of West Bengal.
No accountability
•Perhaps commentators jumped the gun when they made the remark that Pegasus was India’s ‘Watergate Moment’. In the aftermath of Watergate, the institutional response in the United States held President Richard Nixon and others involved accountable, in which all branches of the state acted to check the abuse of power. But in India, the story continues to persist as one of official stonewalling with no accountability in sight.
•Unlike the polity in India, other countries have responded to the Pegasus disclosures. Israel, for example, set up a senior inter-ministerial team to begin an investigation while the Foreign Minister, Yair Lapid, said that the government would work to ensure that Pegasus did not fall into the wrong hands. France ordered a series of investigations within a day of the revelations; on September 25, 2021, its cybersecurity agency confirmed that the spyware had been used to target French citizens. On November 3, 2021, the United States added NSO to its ‘Entity List for Malicious Cyber Activities’, which restricted the ability of U.S. companies to export goods or services to NSO. In the United Kingdom, the spyware company implemented a change to ensure that Pegasus could no longer target U.K. numbers after revelations, in 2021, that Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, had used the spyware to hack the phones of his wife, Princess Haya, and her divorce lawyers, Baroness Fiona Shackleton and Nick Manners, amid an ongoing custody battle.
•The lack of accountability has spurred further violations. While the Pegasus victims in India wait for answers, there are documented instances of the advanced spyware being used in India against human rights defenders. Reports by a digital forensics consulting company, Arsenal Consulting (dated February 8, March 27, and June 21, 2021) revealed that two of the 16 accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, Rona Wilson and Surendra Gadling, had been targeted by a commercially available spyware, ‘NetWire’, for almost two years. The spyware was used to surveil and plant incriminating documents on their devices — documents which now form the basis of the National Investigation Agency’s case against them.
•The Indian ‘surveillance for hire’ industry is growing. These firms offer their services to anyone who can pay, following which they proceed to spy on indicated targets by hacking their devices. A Reuters report from June 30, 2022 termed these firms as “Indian cyber mercenaries” who were being used by litigants around the world to sway litigation battles. One such Indian company, BellTroX, was engaged in surveillance-for-hire activities and was one of the several entities Facebook investigated, identified, and removed from its platforms in December 2021. Much like what happened with the Pegasus Project, there has been no official response to both these reports.
Overhaul the laws
•An overhaul of surveillance laws is necessary to prevent the indiscriminate monitoring of people and entities by the state and private actors. The Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 which empower the Government to surveil, concentrate surveillance powers in the hands of the executive, and do not contain any independent oversight provisions, judicial or parliamentary. These legislations are from an era before spyware such as Pegasus were developed, and, thus, do not respond to the modern-day surveillance industry.
•Unfortunately, legislative proposals by the Union Government for surveillance reform do not exist. The proposed data protection law does not address these concerns despite proposals from members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee. Instead, the proposed law provides wide exemptions to the Government relating to select agencies from the application of the law; one which might be used to exempt intelligence and other law enforcement agencies. This gap in the surveillance framework has led to severe harm being caused to India’s democratic ideals.
Endangered right
•The past year has showcased why the need for comprehensive surveillance reform is so urgent. The Freedom House ‘Freedom in the World’ report — it tracks global trends in political rights and civil liberties — changed India’s status from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’ in 2021. It has cited the alleged use of Pegasus on Indian citizens as one of the reasons for the downgrade. From targeting activists and journalists for civil and political purposes, to the targeting of litigants for commercial benefits, the surveillance industry is becoming increasingly accessible, and the nature of surveillance, exponentially intrusive. In the absence of immediate and far-reaching surveillance reform, and urgent redress to those who approach authorities against unlawful surveillance, the right to privacy may soon become obsolete.
