📰 China launches second space station module
Wentian to host space for experiments, serve as short-term living quarters
•China on Sunday launched the second of three modules to its permanent space station, in one of the final missions needed to complete the orbiting outpost by year's end.
•A live feed on state broadcaster CCTV showed the 23-tonne Wentian (“Quest for the Heavens”) laboratory module launching on the back of China’s most powerful rocket, the Long March 5B, at 2:22 p.m. (0622 GMT) from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre on the southern island of Hainan.
•Space agency staff, seen on the live feed observing the progress of the launch from a control room, cheered and applauded when the Wentian separated from the rocket about 10 minutes after the launch.
‘Complete success’
•The launch was "a complete success", CCTV reported shortly after.
•China began constructing the space station in April 2021 with the launch of the Tianhe module, the main living quarters, in the first of 11 crewed and uncrewed missions in the undertaking.
•The Wentian lab module, 17.9 m long, will provide space for experiments, along with the other lab module yet to be launched — Mengtian (“Dreaming of the Heavens”).
•Wentian features an airlock cabin that is to be the main exit-entry point for extravehicular activities when the station is completed.
•It will also serve as short-term living quarters for astronauts during crew rotations on the station, which is designed for long-term accommodation of just three astronauts.
•Mengtian is expected to be launched in October and, like Wentian, is to dock with Tianhe, forming a T-shaped structure.
‘Source of pride’
•The completion of the structure, about a fifth of the International Space Station (ISS) by mass, is a source of pride among ordinary Chinese people and will cap President Xi Jinping's 10 years as leader of China's ruling Communist Party.
•On board the space station are Shenzhou-14 mission commander Chen Dong and team mates Liu Yang and Cai Xuzhe. They are slated to return to Earth in December with the arrival of the Shenzhou-15 crew.
📰 MC12 over, it’s ‘gains’ for the developed world
India, which found itself on the losing side at the 12th Ministerial Conference of the WTO, needs to course correct
•Global trade negotiations are about striking bargains. You lose some and win some. So, who were the main winners and losers in the recently concluded 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) of the World Trade Organization (WTO)? Even a cursory examination of the outcomes of the meeting leaves us in no doubt that the European Union (EU) and some other developed countries are the overwhelming winners, while India finds itself on the losing side.
The COVID-19 fight
•The ministerial outcome on the so-called TRIPS waiver represents the biggest gain for the EU. It is relevant to recall the sequence of events. In October 2020, India and South Africa put forth a proposal seeking to temporarily suspend the protection of intellectual property rights such as patents, copyrights, industrial designs and trade secrets, so that the production of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics could be ramped up to help overcome the crisis and fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposal garnered the support of almost 100 countries at the WTO. It also caught the imagination of many Nobel laureates, academicians, civil society organisations, former Prime Ministers of many developed countries, the former Secretary General of the United Nations and even Hollywood celebrities.
•The opponents of the proposal, i.e,. Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, Switzerland and the United States, found themselves on the wrong side of the global opinion on this issue. In a guileful move, in June-July 2021, the U.S. gave its support to the proposal, but limited it to vaccines. In the process, it bought peace with its domestic constituents, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Other developed countries, particularly Germany and the U.K., found themselves at the receiving end of the ire of their civil society organisations and prominent opinion makers.
Advantage EU
•Pushed into a corner, the European Union (EU) unleashed its masterstroke. It made a counter-proposal to undermine the proposal made by India and South Africa. This counter proposal provided a cosmetic simplification in certain procedural aspects of compulsory licensing in patent rules. With the active support of the WTO’s Director-General, it also launched a process in December 2021 to reach a compromise. In a completely opaque process, by March 2022, India and South Africa were corralled into accepting the EU’s proposal. This formed the basis of the final outcome at the MC12. The ministerial outcome adds very little to what already exists in the WTO rulebook. To make matters worse for developing countries, it adds stringent conditions that are not in the WTO rulebook.
•The outcome of the TRIPS waiver has provided a facesaver to the EU, as it can now look in the eye of its civil society organisations and confidently say that it has done its bit to save the world from COVID-19. The final outcome is almost unworkable; a big public relations victory for the EU.
•The EU has also scored important gains in two other areas — WTO reform and environment issues. In the name of WTO reform, the EU sought to make fundamental changes to the institutional architecture of the WTO. It also sought to give a formal role to the private sector in WTO processes. And, it has secured both these objectives in the ministerial outcome. The EU has also managed to create a window to pursue negotiations on issues related to trade and environment at the WTO, an issue of concern for many developing countries.
No traction for India
•Turning to India, the issue of a permanent solution to public stockholding was identified by the Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, as being its top most priority and nothing more important than it for the world. Despite having the support of more than 80 developing countries, this issue has not found mention anywhere in the ministerial outcome. Instead, the WTO members have succeeded in diverting attention from India’s interest by agreeing that food security is multi-dimensional, requiring a comprehensive solution.
•India has also failed in many of its other objectives, such as securing the right to raise revenues by taxing electronic transmissions. In the area of fisheries subsidies, it gets two years to have suitable regulatory mechanisms in place to monitor fish catch and reporting. Otherwise, subsidies to traditional fishermen will be prohibited. Although it has secured a temporary reprieve to provide subsidies for enhancing its fishing fleets, it will have to fight an uphill battle on this issue in future negotiations. Further, the outcome on the TRIPS waiver bears no resemblance to its proposals.
•Overall, the path ahead for India at the WTO is difficult. India’s negotiators need to undertake soul searching to learn lessons from the dynamics at the MC12, and make course corrections.
📰 Out of bounds
Unusual or onerous bail conditions ought to have no place in judicial orders
•The Supreme Court has struck the right note by voicing its stern disapproval of the tendency among some courts to impose unusual conditions for bail. In the case of Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, the Allahabad High Court had granted interim bail in a ‘land-grabbing’ case, but made regular bail contingent on his fully cooperating with the measuring, walling and barb-wiring of a piece of property measuring 13.842 hectares. The allegation against him is that land vacated by a person who went to Pakistan at the time of Partition had been “grabbed” and a university built on it by a trust headed by him. However, in the interim bail order, the District Magistrate, Rampur, was asked to take possession of the property and, after putting up a boundary wall and barbed wire around it, deliver it to the Custodian, Evacuee/Enemy Property, Mumbai. The top court had taken exception to the proclivity among some judges to venture beyond the confines of a given case and imposing conditions that went beyond what were necessary to ensure the presence or attendance of an accused during the trial. It is fairly well-established that conditions for grant of bail have specific objectives: preventing the accused from fleeing justice and precluding any scope for tampering with evidence or influencing witnesses. These objectives are usually secured by directing them to stay in a particular place and asking them to record their presence before a police officer or a court at a specified frequency. Courts are normally not expected to impose any condition that may impinge on other freedoms of the accused or be too onerous for compliance.
•It is not uncommon for bail courts to add some unusual conditions in some cases. Being asked to do a spell of community service, apologising to victims, reading a moral treatise or chapters from Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography are some recent examples. In 2020, the Madhya Pradesh High Court had ordered a man accused of molesting a woman to visit the victim at home and agree to her tying a ‘rakhi’, a condition that appalled the Supreme Court which denounced the attempt to convert a ‘molester’ into a ‘brother’ by judicial mandate. The top court’s restatement of its disapproval in yet another case ought to have a salutary effect on courts below. Similarly, unusually harsh oral observations and the inclusion of personal opinions in judicial orders are also not unknown. Examples are legion of judges wading into matters of religion and culture and making controversial remarks. While sharp observations, whether oral or part of detailed orders, can often help in conveying a sense of the judicial conscience, their perfunctory use in a manner that undermines public confidence in the court’s impartiality is best avoided. A judicial order can be trenchant and temperate at the same time, and it needs no unusual condition or gratuitous obiter dictum to prop up its reasoning.
The Supreme Court’s recent observations on indiscriminate arrests and the reluctance to give bail are pertinent
•In Satender Kumar Antil v. Central Bureau of Investigation (2022), the Supreme Court expressed its unhappiness with the current state of India’s criminal justice system. The court said there was scant regard for the violation of basic human rights. It was categorical that indiscriminate arrests are indicative of a colonial mindset and create the impression of India being a “police state”.
•It is not as if the court said something that has not been said before. But the vital message that agencies must be civilised towards both crime suspects and convicts was clear. The court’s words were emphatic and practical. The highlights of the court’s observations were the accent on safeguarding basic human rights, the emphasis on quickening the pace of trials and the suggestion for a new Bail Act, analogous to an existing U.K. legislation.
The court’s role
•The gravamen of the court’s charge was that law-enforcement agencies make far too many arrests in violation of basic human rights. The fact, however, is that members of the lower judiciary often ask investigating officers why they did not arrest some suspects while arresting others. Often, courts suspect that the police lack integrity in discriminating between the accused. One often wonders whether a Magistrate or judge has the right to question police discretion in the matter, unless there is prima facie injustice to the person arrested. Caustic comments by courts evoke fear in the lower echelons of the police and drive them to take impulsive and questionable action even where arrests are not warranted. Judges sometimes go into the nitty-gritty of an ongoing investigation, which is undesirable if police action has to be balanced.
•Arrest and confinement to police custody or judicial custody often smacks of vindictiveness. An average police officer invariably believes that it is only in the rigour of custody that a suspect will cough out the truth. This is unfortunate. It is distressing that the practice of arresting suspects at the drop of a hat remains the style of policing in our country. The need for a cultural change at all levels in the police has never been felt more than now. Justice Krishna Iyer had said in State of Rajasthan,Jaipur V. Balchandalias Baliay (1977): “The basic rule is bail, not jail, except where there are circumstances suggestive of fleeing from justice or thwarting the course of justice or creating other troubles in the shape of repeating offences or intimidating witnesses and the like by the petitioner who seeks enlargement on bail from the court.” That bail is the rule and jail the exception has been reiterated in several judicial and other forums. This has been violated by the police in cases where they enjoy discretion as well as by the lower courts, some of which are downright rude to those arraigned before them. The Supreme Court’s latest order should awaken their conscience and make them understand that when they grant bail, they are not doling out charity but implementing the dictates of law.
•The apex court’s reference in the Satender Kumar case to the Bail Act of the U.K. is appropriate. The essence of that law is that arrests should be rare, and bail provisions should be uncomplicated even to the unlettered citizen. There is a provision for electronic surveillance of those released on bail. This is something novel, but practicable, at least in urban India. The court’s recommendation that India should consider a similar enactment is welcome. One cynical view, however, is that existing legal provisions, especially those of the Criminal Procedure Code, are adequate to curb the overzealous practices of law enforcement agencies.
Problem of overcrowding
•The Supreme Court also drew attention to the problem of overcrowding of prisons, which has attendant issues such as corruption, crime and hygiene within prisons. An overwhelming majority of the inmates are undertrials. There are two ills here. One, there is an insistence during trial on judicial custody, which is different from what prevails in many countries, especially the U.K., where grant of bail is much more liberal. And two, court proceedings are tortuous as a result of the collusion between principal players in the scene. This situation has been discussed with only a marginal impact.
•Ultimately, it all boils down to a change of mindset, which cannot happen unless the political and bureaucratic leadership are convinced of the role of ethics, which is in short supply these days in public life, in shaping and administering the criminal justice system. The inescapable impression of a majority of Indians is that we have a system that is arbitrary and cruel and this must change.
📰 Indian sports bodies under scandal and scrutiny
What are the various controversies in the football and hockey organisations of India? Why are international bodies unhappy with their functioning?
•FIFA would ban AIFF if the amendments to the AIFF’s new constitution and elections to the national football body were not completed by the given deadlines. The IOA and Hockey India have also been warned by their respective international bodies for the delay in elections. All bodies are also under legal scrutiny for violation of the Sports Code.
•The Sports Code was introduced in 2011 by the Central government, which wanted good governance practices in the management of sports.
•If a body is found to be violative of the sports code, it can be put under a Committee of Administrators (CoA).
•The story so far: The sports administration in India was in the headlines frequently these past few weeks all for the wrong reasons. Both the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) face potential ban/suspension if elections to the executive body are not done immediately. Hockey India has also come under scrutiny by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) for the delay in conducting elections.
What happened?
•A seven-member delegation of the world football governing body FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation had come to the country last month for a meeting with the Committee of Administrators (CoA). The CoA was entrusted with the running of football by the Supreme Court after the executive committee of the AIFF was dissolved for violating the Central government’s sports code. It was mandated that by July 31, the amendments to the AIFF’s new constitution have to be made and the elections for the national football body completed by September 15. If not, India would face a FIFA ban.
•The IOA is also being warned of a possible suspension by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The IOA elections, scheduled to have been held last December, have not been conducted yet. The recent letter from the IOC to the executive council members of the IOA expressed concerns about the multiple legal proceedings that caused delays and created unnecessary complications.
•The FIH wrote to the CoA, which is currently administrating hockey in the country as the Delhi High Court found Hockey India’s executive board in violation of the National Sports Code. The letter from the FIH stresses on the need to have elections based on the rules laid down by the Indian government. It also raised concerns about Hockey India getting its act together before the 2023 World Cup, which India is scheduled to host in January.
What is the Sports Code?
•The Sports Code, or National Sports Development Code of India to be precise, was introduced in 2011 by the Central government, which wanted good governance practices in the management of sports at the national level without interfering in the autonomy of the national sports bodies. It was widely accepted that such a sports code was needed as it was felt that most of the sports federations had become personal fiefdoms of certain individuals — many of them politicians — as they continued to remain in power for long periods. The National Spots Code laid down restrictions regarding age and tenure.
What happens when a sports body is found to be in violation of the Sports Code?
•The respective federations can be put under a CoA. That is what happened with the football and hockey associations. Last May, the Supreme Court had appointed a three-member CoA led by former Supreme Court judge A.R. Dave to run the AIFF, whose president Praful Patel had to resign. The Sports Ministry in an affidavit had said that Mr. Patel continuing in his post would be in violation of the Sports Code as he had been the president for more than 12 years.
•In a similar fashion, the Delhi High Court observed that the Sports Code was violated by Hockey India and a CoA was formed to run the game’s administration in India.
Why was Narinder Batra, a veteran Indian sports administrator, in the news recently?
•On July 18, Mr. Batra resigned from the IOC, IOA and FIH. He was the president of FIH and the IOA and a member of the IOC. He cited personal reasons for his resignation, which came a couple of weeks after the Delhi High Court refused to stay the order that had barred him from officiating as the IOA president. The court had earlier ruled his appointment as a life member of Hockey India as illegal. Mr. Batra has been one of India’s most influential sports administrators in recent times, but things aren’t going well for him now. On the day of his multiple resignations, the CBI registered a case against him for alleged misappropriation of Hockey India’s funds (₹35 lakh).
What have been the previous instances where a CoA was formed for administering sports bodies?
•In February, the Delhi High court appointed Gita Mittal as the chairperson of the CoA to run the Table Tennis Federation of India, which was suspended following an inquiry into the match-fixing allegations raised by one of India’s leading players, Manika Batra. She had alleged that national coach Soumyadeep Roy had asked her to throw her match to Sutirtha Mukherjee so that the latter could qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.
•In 2017, the Supreme Court had appointed a CoA to implement the reforms in the administration of cricket in the country suggested by the Justice R.M. Lodha committee. The CoA consisted of Vinod Rai, Ramachandra Guha, Vikram Limaye and Diana Edulji. However, Mr. Guha resigned the committee a few months later. The Lodha committee had been appointed in 2015 following the report submitted by the Justice Mukul Mudgal Committee that investigated the IPL spot-fixing scandal in 2013. The CoA’s tenure came to an end in 2019 with former India captain Sourav Ganguly being elected as the BCCI president and Jay Shah as its secretary.
📰 Weighing in on India’s investment-led revival
Prospects of sustaining investment recovery are likely to get harder with a depreciating rupee and rising inflation
•The Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitaraman, said recently that India’s long-term growth prospects are embedded in public capital expenditure programmes. She added that an increase in public investment would crowd in (or pull in) private investment, thus reviving the economy. The Minister was speaking at the third G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting hosted by Indonesia in Bali.
Lag in investment
•Public investment-led economic growth has a respectable academic pedigree, and forms a credible strand of explanation for India’s post-Independence economic growth. Here is an illustration. When it was faced with a slow-down after the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee led-National Democratic Alliance government initiated public road building projects. In the form of the Golden Quadrilateral (to link metro cities using a high-quality road network) and the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (to ‘provide good all-weather road connectivity to unconnected habitations’), these initiatives sowed the seeds of economic revival, culminating in an investment and export-led boom in the 2000s; GDP grew at 8%-9% annually.
•In comparison, the investment record during the 2010s has been dismal. However, a recent uptick is evident in the real gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) rate — the fixed investment to GDP ratio (net of inflation). The ratio recovered to 32.5% in 2019-20 from a low of 30.7% in 2015-16 (figure).
•Ms. Sitaraman has claimed that the Government sustained the investment tempo even during the novel coronavirus pandemic (2020-21 and 2021-22). As in the June edition of the Ministry of Finance’s Monthly Economic Review, the fixed investment to GDP ratio was 32% in 2021-22. However, there is need for caution in reading the most recent data, as they are subject to revision. Moreover, the budgetary definition of investment refers to financial investments (which include purchase of existing financial assets, or loans offered to States) and not just capital formation representing an expansion of the productive potential.
On gross capital formation
•The National Accounts Statistics provides disaggregation of gross capital formation (GCF) by sectors, type of assets and modes of financing; over 90% of GCF consists of fixed investments. The upturn in the investment rate is welcome, though its productive potential depends on its composition. Contrary to Ms. Sitaraman’s contention, the investment distribution has hardly changed over the last decade, with the public sector’s share remaining 20%.
•The table shows the distribution of GCF by agriculture, industry and services (columns 1 to 3); within services transport (column 3.1) and within transport, roads (the single largest expenditure item; column 3.1.1).
•Between 2014-15 and 2019-20, the shares of agriculture and industry in fixed capital formation/GDP fell from 7.7% and 33.7% to 6.4% and 32.5%, respectively. Services’ share rose to 52.3% in 2019-20 compared to 49% in 2014-15. The rise in the services sector is almost entirely on transport and communications. The share of transport has doubled from 6.1% to 12.9% during the same period. Within transportation, it is mostly roads.
•As roads and communications are classic public goods, investment in them is welcome. But over-emphasising it may be lop-sided. For healthy domestic output growth, there is a need for balance between “directly productive investments” (in farms and factories) and infrastructure investments. And this balance was missed. Moreover, the share of agriculture and industry shrank even as the economy’s gross capital formation rate trended downwards (see figure).
Import dependence grew
•The case of manufacturing is distressing. Its share in the investment ratio (column 2.1) fell from 19.2% in 2011-12 to 16.5% in 2019-20. It is not surprising that ‘Make in India’ failed to take off, import dependence went up, and India became deindustrialised. Import dependence on China is alarming for critical materials such as fertilizers, bulk drugs (active pharmaceutical ingredients or APIs) and capital goods. This became acute during the COVID-19 pandemic, as China imposed export restrictions — prompting the Prime Minister to announce the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ campaign.
•Instead of boosting investment and domestic technological capabilities, the ‘Make in India’ campaign frittered away time and resources to raise India’s rank in the World Bank’s (questionable and contested) Ease of Doing Business Index. India’s position did go up, from 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2019, but it failed to boost industrial investment, let alone foreign investment.
•The contribution of foreign capital to financing GCF fell to 2.5% in 2019-20 from 3.8% in 2014-15 (or 11.1% in 2011-12). With declining investment share, industrial output growth rate fell from 13.1% in 2015-16 to a negative 2.4% in 2019-20, as per the National Accounts Statistics.
Public investment
•The Finance Minister has claimed that public investment is the pivot of the ongoing investment-led economic revival. The recent upturn in the aggregate fixed capital formation to GDP ratio is positive, though the rate is still lower than its mark in the early 2010s. The claim that the investment revival is public sector driven is not borne out by facts. The jury may still be out on the suggested rise in public investment during the COVID-19 pandemic. The budgetary figures refer to financial investment, not estimates of capital formation, indicating expansion of the economy’s productive capacity.
•During the 2010s, the investment shares of agriculture and industry fell but rose sharply in services. The percentage share for roads has doubled. The expansion of roads and communications is surely welcome. Considering such a skewed investment priority, the ‘Make in India’ strategy failed to take off, accentuating India’s import dependence, especially on China, leading to deindustrialisation.
•The lack of domestic capacity for essential raw industrial materials and capital goods could prove costly. It will likely test India’s ability to withstand external economic challenges. With a depreciating currency and rising (imported) inflation, prospects of sustaining investment recovery are likely to get harder. The deficit on balance of payment is already well above policy makers’ comfort level of 2.5% of GDP.
📰 Adding digital layers of indignity
Dehumanisation is the likely outcome when humane aspects of governance get outsourced to technologies
•The right to live with dignity is a constitutional imperative. However, it rarely manifests in discussions surrounding digital initiatives in governance. Centralised data dashboards — valuable as they are — have become the go-to mode for assessing policies, relegating principles such as human dignity and hardships in accessing rights to its blind spots. Often when technological glitches prevent one from accessing rights, there is a tendency to make the rights-holder feel responsible for it. For instance, I recall being in Rajasthan with Natho Ba, an old MGNREGA worker with severe speech impediment. Despite repeated attempts at a bank to get his e-KYC, he wasn’t able to access his own MGNREGA wages because his biometrics wouldn’t work. The bank manager said in Hindi, “His fingers are defective”. Natho Ba felt humiliated, but was physically unable to voice his humiliation. The bank official was not intentionally insensitive, but had internalised spouting dehumanised technocratic vocabulary. Dehumanisation is the likely outcome when trust and humane aspects of governance get outsourced to opaque technologies.
Two technocratic initiatives
•Two recent technocratic initiatives by the Union government underscore these issues again. The Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), launched in 1975, is one of the world’s largest early childhood care and development programmes. An important component of ICDS is supplementary nutrition for children in the 0 to 6 years age group, pregnant women and lactating mothers. This became a legal entitlement when it became part of the National Food Security Act in 2013. As per this, the rights-holders get hot cooked meals or take-home rations at the local Anganwadis. In 2021, the Union government launched the Poshan Tracker, a centralised platform, to monitor all nutrition initiatives, including ICDS. A recent article by Tapasya of The Reporters’ Collective highlights some alarming technocratic proposals for ICDS. As per Union government circulars, the updating of Aadhaar of ICDS rights-holders, including children, on the Poshan Tracker is mandatory, and subsequent Central funds for supplementary nutrition to States is being made contingent on this. Nearly three-fourths of children between the ages of 0 to 5 years do not have Aadhaar cards, and Supreme Court orders specify that children cannot be denied their rights for lack of Aadhaar. The government has responded saying that only the Aadhaar of mothers need to be authenticated at Anganwadis. However, it does not provide any data or evidence to show how many “fake” or “ghost” children exist. In our study of Common Service Centres (CSC), even CSC owners reported that biometrics of 42% of the users don’t work on the first attempt. This is borne out in other studies too.
•As per the recent National Family Health Survey, 36% of children under the age of five are stunted and nearly one-third of children in this age group are underweight. These are pre-pandemic numbers and this would have worsened since the pandemic. In such light, creating new hurdles for children — migrants or otherwise — and young mothers to access food in the name of digitisation appears cruel. It is also unclear what impact such a move will have on the psyche of a child whose mother’s Aadhaar authentication fails. For instance, a pensioner whose biometrics failed repeatedly had poignantly remarked, “I feel humiliated that my own body is rejecting my identity.” Tackling grave structural issues with technocratic fixes is like putting band aid on a person having a heart attack.
•The Union government has issued an order introducing the National Mobile Monitoring Software (NMMS) app to record attendance of MGNREGA workers at worksites. As per the order, the app will record “two time-stamped and geo-tagged photographs of the workers in a day” which “increases citizen oversight of the programme besides potentially enabling processing of payments faster.” In worksites with 20 or more workers, the app will replace physical attendance registers. A recent article by Chakradhar Buddha and Laavanya Tamang in The Hindu and a letter to the government by People’s Action for Employment Guarantee articulates the perils of such a move. Here is a short summary. MGNREGA workers could complete their share of work and leave. This gave them time for household work or for other work that gave them supplementary income. The app makes this hard as they have to now stay back at the worksite even after completing their work only to get photographed and geo-tagged. Even from a hard economic standpoint, this move deters workers’ contribution to the GDP. The attendance at worksites is taken by Mates who are usually local women in charge of worksite supervision. Now, Mates have to carry smartphones which many don’t own. Another ground report by Vijayta Lalwani shows that many Mates are forced to take loans to buy smartphones to use the app. It also demonstrates how a worker has lost more than ₹1,100 of her wages because the app failed to upload her attendance. It has also been a bane for many officials. A district MGNREGA official told me how he is relentlessly getting phone calls regarding glitches on the NMMS app from 6 a.m. The very need for an app, its failures plus other impediments such as unstable network connectivity are likely to discourage women from MGNREGA work. So, the basis for the government’s claims of how such an app will assist in “increasing citizen oversight” and in making payments faster are misleading. No doubt that cases of corruption in MGNREGA need to be addressed. But for that, social audits need strengthening instead of making already overburdened women struggle more.
•Both these technocratic initiatives point to a digital avatar of panopticon with no evident positives for the rights-holders. The sense of being constantly watched induces fear among people. This normalises and exacerbates the power asymmetry between the rights-holders and the government as the rights-holders begin to internalise and accept this form of coercion. Moreover, the rights-holders will be made to take the blame for technical reasons blocking their participation. This further alienates and erodes the political capacities of rights-holders who usually get addressed in patronising terms such as “beneficiaries.” In the process, violations of dignity get buried in the calculus of technocracy and opacity of government actions.
‘Seeing’ government actions
•One thing that routinely strikes me during my frequent visits to parts of rural India is the absence of people wearing spectacles. One rarely sees opticians in most block headquarters, let alone in panchayats. We have made huge technological strides in the country, but have paid scant attention in ensuring that the poor get to see clearly. This extends at a metaphorical level too. While the Indian state has put so much weight behind ‘seeing’ its people, the majority are unable to see and scrutinise government actions. Democratic dictum suggests that people should be able to ‘see’ the state clearly, not the other way around. It is the dignity and trust of people at stake otherwise.
📰 The challenges of fiberisation ahead of India’s 5G deployment
Why are optical fibre cables necessary for accessing 5G technology?
•The process of connecting radio towers with each other via optical fibre cables is called fiberisation. It helps provide full utilisation of network capacity, and carry large amounts of data once 5G services are rolled out.
•Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his 2020 Independence Day speech, laid out the vision to connect every village in the country with optical fiber cable (OFC) in 1,000 days. To reach the targeted level of fiberisation, India requires about ₹2.2 lakh crore of investment to help fiberise 70% towers.
•Satellite communication also can facilitate 5G broadband connectivity to areas where it is not feasible to deploy terrestrial infrastructure like remote villages, islands or mountainous regions.
•The story so far: India is preparing to auction off about 72 Ghz of airwaves to rollout 5G services in the country. However, the infrastructure needed for such a rollout requires existing radio towers to be connected via optical-fibre cables. The work of connecting the towers could prove to be a huge challenge for the country.
What is fiberisation?
•The process of connecting radio towers with each other via optical fibre cables is called fiberisation. It helps provide full utilisation of network capacity, and carry large amounts of data once 5G services are rolled out. It will also aid in providing additional bandwidth and stronger backhaul support. The backhaul is a component of the larger transport that is responsible for carrying data across the network. It represents the part of the network that connects the core of the network to the edge. As a result, fibre backhaul remains an important part of transport across all telecoms, Sajan Paul, Managing Director & Country Manager, India & SAARC, Juniper Networks, a telecom infrastructure company, told The Hindu.
•Fibre-based media, commonly called optical media, provides almost infinite bandwidth and coverage, low latency and high insulation from interference. With 5G, it will also be necessary to increase the density of mobile towers to provide better coverage to consumers and businesses. This calls for increased requirements for fibre deployment, Mr. Paul said.
Where does India stand with respect to tower fiberisation?
•To transition into 5G, India needs at least 16 times more fibre, according to estimates by STL, a technology company specialised in optical fibers and cables.
•In India, currently only 33% of the towers are fiberised, compared to the 65%-70% in South Korea and 80%-90% in the U.S., Japan and China, according to a 2021 report by India Infrastructure Research. The fibre kilometer (fkm) per capita in India is lower than other key markets. Ideally, a country needs 1.3 km of fibre per capita to ensure good fiberisation. India’s fkm is just .09 compared to 1.35 in Japan, 1.34 in the U.S. and 1.3 in China, the report noted.
•There is also a need to increase data capacity in the fiberised towers. These tower sites which are connected via fibre are called fibre point of presence (POP). Currently these fibre POPs at a tower site can handle data at one to five Gbps speed, Nitin Bansal, managing director, India & head – Networks, Southeast Asia, Oceania & India, Ericsson, told The Hindu.
What are the challenges?
•To reach the targeted level of fiberisation, India requires about ₹2.2 lakh crore of investment to help fiberise 70% towers. About ₹2.5 lakh crore will be needed to set up 15 lakh towers in the next four years, according to estimates by the National Broadband Mission and Cellular Operator Association of India (COAI).
•Government programmes like BharatNet and Smart Cities will further add to the demand of fibre deployment, necessitating a complete tower fiberisation. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his 2020 Independence Day speech, laid out the vision to connect every village in the country with optical fiber cable (OFC) in 1,000 days. To achieve that vision, cables must be laid at a speed of 1,251 km a day, around 3.6 times the current average speed of 350 km a day, according to a report by EY, a global professional services company.
•One of the biggest issues in the way of fiberisation remains the Right of Way (RoW) rules. The Indian Telegraph RoW Rules 2016 were gazette notified by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Govt. of India on November 15, 2016. The rules aim to incorporate nominal one-time compensation and uniform procedure for establishment of Overground Telegraph Line (OTL) anywhere in the country.
•While all States/UTs are required to implement these rules, they are not in complete alignment and still require certain amendments to align, the EY report pointed out. Further, several districts and local bodies have not agreed to the RoW policies as notified in those respective States. These places are following their own bylaws overriding the State RoW policies aligned with the RoW rules, 2016, EY said.
•Other central Ministries like the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, National Highway Authority of India, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Civil Aviation, Department of Post, etc. have not yet adopted these Rules, citing their own departmental rules, EY said.
•Global network intelligence firm Ookla highlighted the DoT’s GatiShakti Sanchar online portal as a way to simplify RoW approvals and help deploy cables for 5G. "This initiative will enable centralisation of RoW approvals for telecom infrastructure projects, including 5G and help operators to deploy required infrastructure for the upcoming 5G rollout in a timely manner," Sylwia Kechiche, Principal Analyst, Ookla, said to The Hindu. In October 2021, the DoT revised the RoW rules, making it easier to install aerial optical fibre cable in the country. This can enable infrastructure providers to deploy cables overhead via street light poles and traffic light posts.
•Pilot projects are underway in a few locations like the Delhi airport. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has also published a consultation paper on using street furniture for small cell and aerial fiber deployment. This along with the findings from the pilot projects will help to inform the regulatory and policy framework, Ms. Kechiche added.
Can satellite communication help in 5G deployment and improve network backhaul?
•Processing power needs to be distributed from centralised data centres to edge servers closer to users.
•Satellite communication can provide high-capacity backhaul connectivity to large numbers of edge servers over wide areas, thereby complementing the terrestrial network with cost-effective scalability, according to a report by Intelsat, a satellite service provider.
•Satellite communication can facilitate 5G broadband connectivity to underserved areas where it is not feasible to deploy terrestrial infrastructure like remote villages, islands or mountainous regions. Satellite-based networks are the only means for delivering 5G broadband to users on board moving vessels, including cars, ships, airplanes and high-speed trains. In addition, space-based broadcast capabilities support over-the-air software updates for connected cars anywhere in the world, the Intelsat report said.
•Space-based backhaul will also provide disaster relief services, support emergency response teams as well as deliver broadband connectivity for one-off entertainment or sports events anywhere in the world, Intelsat said.
•The low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites will be well-suited to offer not only backhaul, but also direct connectivity. As the 5G standard is adopted, new markets will open up for satellite operators, including IoT, private 5G, and cellular backhaul for densification to enable more cell sites and edge devices, Ms. Kechiche added.
📰 Study on snow leopard and its prey
Strong link between habitat use by mountain cat and Siberian ibex, blue sheep
•A recent study by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) on snow leopard (Panthera uncia) has thrown up interesting insights on the elusive mountain cat and its prey species.
•The study underthe National Mission on Himalayan Studies revealed a strong link between habitat use by snow leopard and its prey species Siberian ibex and blue sheep.
•Scientists used camera traps and sign surveys to evaluate the co-occurrence patterns of snow leopards and its prey species in Spiti Valley of Himachal Pradesh. Details of the study have been published in the journal Plos One.
•“We found that the snow leopard detection probability was high if the site was used by its prey species — ibex and blue sheep. Whereas, in the case of the prey species, the probability of detection was low when the predator was present and detected. Besides this, our results suggested that both species were less likely to be detected together than expected ...,” it states. Lalit Kumar Sharma, lead author of the publication, said that snow leopards use rugged mountainous areas or non-forested areas covering an altitude between 3,200 metres to 5,200 metres.
•Dr. Sharma, who heads the GIS & Wildlife Section of the ZSI, said that the study suggested that habitat covariates such as barren area, grassland, aspect, slope and distance to water were important drivers of habitat use for the snow leopard as well as its prey species. He added that the Spiti Valley possessed a good habitat in and outside the protected areas which could support a viable population of both threatened snow leopard and its prey species.
•Classified as ‘Vulnerable’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red list and listed in Schedule-I species of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, snow leopards are elusive mountain cats.
•Dhriti Banerjee, Director, ZSI, said that protecting snow leopards may result in a cascade of benefits to the ecosystem as a whole.
