Commentary
Find our newspaper columns, blogs, and other commentary pieces in this section. Our research focuses on Advanced Biology, High-Tech Geopolitics, Strategic Studies, Indo-Pacific Studies & Economic Policy
Capacity is not what’s hindering India’s testing rate, government price caps are
India cannot control the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic unless the governmental authorities stay in mission mode and get better at the ‘test, trace and isolate’ strategy, as I wrote in my column a couple of weeks ago. The first and most important part of the epidemic control strategy is testing, for only when you test lots of people and get the results quickly will you be able to trace their contacts and isolate them all.
Covid-19 cases across India are rising because the country is just not testing enough people, and test reports are taking too long to come out. And the main reason why India is falling far short of its capacity to test is that governments have failed to engage private laboratories and healthcare facilities in a reasonable manner. How else can you explain the fact that while there are abundant numbers of test kits available in the country, India ranks among the lowest in terms of tests per capita? Philippines, Malaysia, Rwanda and Cuba test more people per day relative to population than India does.
ICMR should fast track coronavirus vaccine, not for 15 August but for science
There is absolutely no doubt that the world needs a vaccine for the novel coronavirus or SARS-nCOV-2 fast and the country that acquires one first will not only secure health and economic benefits but gain a geopolitical window of opportunity that it can exploit. For strategic reasons, therefore, I have previously argued that “India must accelerate efforts to develop an indigenous vaccine” and that “We should be prepared to manufacture sufficient doses for our own population and export large volumes to the rest of the world.”
To the extent that the Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) controversial letter to certain hospitals to “launch a vaccine for public health use latest by 15th August 2020 after completion of all clinical trials” indicates that the Narendra Modi government is serious about running the vaccine race, it is a good sign. However, as Warren Buffett once said, “No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” In fact, ICMR’s hope, demand, or injunction — whatever it was — is logically impossible to satisfy: all clinical trials simply cannot be completed by 15 August. It seems to have acknowledged this in its subsequent clarification.
India could afford to overlook economic inequality until now. Covid has changed that
How Ramdev’s Coronil makes social media’s fight against misinformation more difficult
This article was first published in The Print.Even as scientists around the world struggle to come up with a vaccine for the coronavirus, Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurveda announced this week that it has developed a ‘cure’ for Covid-19. According to Ramdev, ‘Coronil and Swasari’ medicine has shown promising results and ‘cured’ all coronavirus patients not on ventilator support who were part of the trial.The introduction of a ‘cure’ and the resulting reaction — the Narendra Modi government’s AYUSH Ministry has asked Patanjali to stop advertising Coronil, and the Uttarakhand Ayurveda Department has said the company did not mention ‘coronavirus’ in its application seeking licence — raises an important debate on information disorder on social media platforms. And the question of what medical misinformation constitutes during times of a pandemic and otherwise.
Public lockdown discipline fast eroding, India risks becoming lax in Covid fight
India is in a crucial and especially dangerous phase of the coronavirus pandemic. With the relaxation of the national lockdown, public attention, media focus and the priorities of political leaders have shifted to other things. There is a sense — strengthened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement — that the lifting of the lockdown is progressive and linear, and Unlock 2 is sure to follow Unlock 1.
Cases are rising almost everywhere in the country, and the doubling rate is back to 18 days. Now, lifting the lockdown was necessary for reasons of survival, but it demanded that the administrative focus expand to ensure adequate physical and social distancing, hygiene, and contact traceability. It also demanded that people be put on notice that in case the course of the pandemic worsens, we should expect more containment zones and lockdowns. These did not happen. So while an admirably large number of people and businesses are acting responsibly, our encounters with non-mask-wearing people and crowded public places are increasing. The public discipline of the lockdown period is fast eroding and way too prematurely.
Price controls are a terrible idea to tackle private-public healthcare gap in India
Even before the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, sticker shock with respect to private hospital charges was commonplace in India. The perception and fear of being overcharged by private hospitals, especially through ‘unnecessary’ diagnostic tests and treatments, is widespread. Adverse health outcomes are frequently attributed to negligence or malpractice, and violent attacks on medical personnel by distraught relatives were common enough to warrant special legislation. In India, there is an environment of mutual distrust among the government, hospitals, and patients.
The novel coronavirus has entered the scene in this backdrop. No wonder that it has sharpened the sense of distrust to a breaking point. Last week, the Supreme Court heard a PIL filed by advocate Sachin Jain who argued that private hospitals, which have been given land free of cost, should not charge for Covid-19 treatment. In response to the petition demanding price regulations on private hospitals, the Court asked if private hospitals “were ready to charge Covid patients the rates fixed under the Narendra Modi government’s Ayushman Bharat scheme for their treatment.” Lawyers then submitted that private hospitals are in a poor financial position as a result of the Covid-crisis and that there was “no business left” as there was a drop in people visiting hospitals for treatments and this could lead to the closure of hospitals. The Court’s retort to this was surreal. “That is good,” the Bench said “You are doing it for a good cause.” It is yet to rule on the matter, but this exchange exemplifies the problem we have with the governance of our healthcare sector
India is being forced to unlock during pandemic. But it’s no green zone yet
Unlike many other countries, India is gradually lifting the lockdown before the coronavirus curve has flattened. Covid-19 positive cases are now doubling every 17 days, a little slower than a week ago. With several state governments relaxing the lockdown, we should expect that the picture will worsen and that — at least initially — we will see faster growth in the number of cases.
Is the lockdown being relaxed too early? From a purely epidemiological perspective, yes. Yet, from an overall perspective, we have little choice but to reopen the economy and allow people to earn their livelihoods. With the Narendra Modi government unable or unwilling to provide income support and direct cash transfers to compensate people for the loss of income, the only option is to shift the balance towards greater economic activity at the cost of higher epidemiological risk.
Some out-of-the-box ideas for a fiscal stimulus
The pandemic and lockdown have deeply hurt the economy. This year the world’s economy will shrink by 3 percent, something that we have not witnessed in our lifetimes. India too may shrink as much if not more, since our lockdown has been more stringent than other nations. During April more than 120 million people lost jobs, and some of them permanently. More than ten million urban workers and their families reverse migrated to their villages or home towns, partly because they had lost their livelihoods. These workers will return to cities and factories after the re-opening of the economy, but also when there is an assurance of jobs. Else the rural areas are a better bet during the recession. There has been a bumper rabi crop (spring harvest). The procurement of wheat in Punjab, Haryana, and U.P. has been very successful, meaning farmers have received the minimum support price. Even Madhya Pradesh procurement is at record levels. Besides this income, the PM-KISAN scheme launched last year has been putting some money in farm households. Additionally, the small payment to rural women has helped, and so has the PDS foodgrain allocation through the ration shops, again benefiting the rural areas. Finally, there is the rural employment guarantee scheme (MNREGS) whose allocation has gone up to 1 lakh crore rupees, and which will certainly act as an additional income buffer for many families in rural areasRead more
Not vultures but watchdogs
The Supreme Court of India finally took up the issue of the plight of migrant workers and their families. It took up this issue suo moto. Meaning it was not in response to any public interest litigation. But surely it was affected by the extensive media coverage. And also by that sharp letter written by 20 senior lawyers from Delhi and Mumbai. That letter almost chastised the court for failing to protect the rights of the hapless migrants. It said that the court was showing undue deference to the government, and complete indifference to an enormous humanitarian crisis. Taking care of the migrants was not just a "policy issue" beyond the purview of the court but in fact, a constitutional issue to render justice. Whatever the influence, the court has taken notice, and asked governments, both the centre and states, what they are doing. It has also instructed that whether by bus or train, no fare should be charged to the travellers going home, and arrangements should be made for food and water, especially in this deadly heat.Read more
Advertising a tax on the poor, pandemic going to exacerbate it
Supply of endless addictive content is a feature and a bug of the attention economy. However, much like its traditional counterpart, the attention economy is harsher on the poor than on the rich. And the pandemic is likely going to make it worse. Your attention has a monetary value for streaming platforms. Given by the current monthly prices, Netflix values your time at ₹26.2/day, Prime Video at ₹4.2/day, Hotstar at ₹9.8 a day, and YouTube (Premium) at ₹4.2/day. Roughly the per capita income of an Indian is ₹1,35,048. A yearly subscription to Netflix would cost 7.1% of that figure; Prime Video would be 1.1%, Hotstar at 2.65%, and YouTube at 1.14%.Read more.
Lockdown Is Choking The Economy
When the national lockdown was imposed, with four hours notice, the country had less than 200 positive cases and a two percent fatality rate. The world marvelled at India’s determination in imposing such a strict control on a billion people. Two months later, the number of virus positive cases is nearing 1.5 lakh and the fatality rate has inched up to 3 percent. Now the world is not so sure whether the strict lockdown has achieved what it set out to do.The stated goal was to “flatten the curve”, that is decrease the upward slope of the spread of the virus. Since the virus mainly spreads from people to people contact, the method was to isolate people in their own homes, observe social distancing, restrict movement.Three fourth of the economy was shut down. It was as if collectively the nation was holding its breath. But after holding our breath for two months, we are feeling breathless, the economy is choking, having run out of its oxygen. The four-hour notice given on March 24, also meant that people did not have any time to plan their own lockdown. Many families suddenly found themselves separated, since one or two members were stuck in a different city due to office duty.Read more
India should prepare itself for realpolitik over a covid vaccine
Will We Really Find Out Where the Novel Coronavirus Came From?
This article first appeared in Science The Wire.The origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus remains mired in controversy. The virus was initially thought to have originated in a wet market in China’s Wuhan. But as it spread around the world, it fuelled many conspiracy theories in its wake. In the public imagination, the virus has often transformed (baselessly) into a bioweapon, a scientific experiment leaked from a laboratory and spread through the 5G network. Scientists have downplayed these ideas, quoting genomic analyses that clearly show the virus is of natural origin and jumped from some animal species to humans.Yet its origin remains unsettled and this ambiguity needs to be resolved soon – not to settle political agendas or conspiracy theories but simply and importantly in the larger interest of public health. Settling the question of the virus’s origins once and for all is key to take appropriate measures to prevent it from happening again, and to focus our efforts on the right things.This said, who can comprehensively investigate the origin of SARS-CoV-2?Read the full op-ed here.
Cities, both paradise and hell for migrants
Till the end of March, the world was marvelling at the success of Singapore for having controlled the spread of the pandemic. Its lockdown was not as severe as India, and yet with a combination of sanitising, social distancing, movement restrictions, testing and tracing protocols, it had managed to keep its numbers relatively low. It was flattening the curve. Even its schools and colleges were running.Then over the month of April, its numbers went up from around 1,000 to 15,000 and by the third week of May it has doubled further to 30,000. Singapore's population is about 5.6 million, so if the same infection rate would have happened in India, we would have 70 lakh virus positive patients. Today we barely have 1.2 lakh.But this is not about trumpeting our record. India needs to scale up its testing in any case. What is remarkable that even with relatively strict protocols, Singapore numbers have skyrocketed. Unlike countries of the West, Singaporeans do not mind strict controls, and curtailment of their personal liberties, if it is for their own safety, health or national interest. It is also one of the world's richest countries in terms of per capita income, and has a world class health care system and infrastructure. And yet the infection numbers have risen so dramatically? Why?Read more
Direct cash transfer best way to help poor in Covid crisis. If Modi govt can’t do it, let us
During as deep and as unprecedented a crisis as the coronavirus pandemic, the best way to help the largest number of people is to put money in their pockets. In most cases, cash allows people to purchase what they want: whether it is food grain, oil, medicine, a recharge on the mobile phone or a railway ticket home. Cash in hand also gives vulnerable people a little more confidence to deal with the many uncertainties of life during a crisis. Yes, in a country as large as India, there will be instances where cash won’t help, but for hundreds of millions of people, money is the single-most important helpful thing today.
And thanks to Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile (JAM), India today can process direct cash transfers to hundreds of millions quickly and efficiently.
So, it is disappointing that direct cash transfers do not form a significant part of the Narendra Modi government’s economic package announced last week. Towards the end of March, it re-assigned around Rs 62,000 crore for transfers to women Jan Dhan account holders, farmers and construction workers, but did not widen cash transfers after that. It is unclear if the PM CARES Fund will be used for the purpose either.Read more
Don’t let your dislike of Yogi Adityanath get in the way. Labour reform is a good idea
Unless you belong to the ideological Left — and even if you do — it is impossible to argue that India’s complex web of labour regulations serve the public interest.
Simply put, they are part of the reason why 90 per cent of India’s labour force is “informal”, without the basic protections that law ought to have given them. Our labour laws are part of the reason why we have failed our migrant workers, millions of whom have not been paid their wages, have been prevented from going home, were killed on the rails and are trying to walk the long distance home. Over the past few decades, both employers and workers have found a working optimum outside the Kafkaesque labour regime, which more or less worked during normal times, but showed its failings during the coronavirus pandemic-triggered lockdown.
Consider the counterfactual — if a greater proportion of our workforce had enjoyed the basic protections of employment, the migrant crisis might have been less acute.So, when Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, two Indian states that acutely need new economic engines, surprisingly announce that they intend to do away with a substantial chunk of their labour laws, they deserve the right kind of support.Read More
Crowds at booze stores reveal an addled approach to policy
Why govt must address the question of access inequity before making mobile apps mandatory during COVID-19
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The Issues
Several concerns have been raised about the implications on multiple fronts. Privacy, and the risk of its evolution into a vehicle for mass surveillance. Security, and the potential information security risks to individual users as well as a large centralised database of citizen data. Legal - whether the National Disaster Management Act confers the necessary powers to do so, as well as the absence of Data Protection legislation. Technological - efficacy of contact tracing apps/algorithmic risk detection and the associated issues with false positives and false negatives. Transparency - opaque processes and the fact that the code has not been open-source yet. Some reports suggest that this may happen when the app is considered to be 'stable'. It is unclear, though, how stability is defined.The Ada Lovelace Institute has published a rapid review titled "Exit through the App Store" which warns of the risks of 'rushed deployment of technological solutions without credible supporting evidence and independent oversight'.
On Equity
An aspect which is under explored is Equity, or the lack of it. In designing public policy, Equity is a crucial part of policy design. It deals with the social allocation of benefits and deals with the questions of 'who pays' and 'who benefits'. In the book 'Policy Paradox', Deborah Stone lists 3 dimensions and 8 issues and associated dilemmas with each distribution method. Ultimately, this is a complex undertaking and no matter what criteria is for distribution, some group or the other will feel that they have been left-behind by the policy.Read more
Amid COVID-19 Crisis, How Can Telemedicine Be Harnessed in India?
The Medical Council of India, in partnership with NITI Aayog, recently released guidelines for practice of telemedicine. Considering the current COVID-19 outbreak, the guidelines could not have been released at a more apt time. Using telemedicine is a safe way of screening and treating patients in times of infectious outbreaks. It ensures safety of doctors, as they do not need to be in the physical vicinity of the patient. Besides outbreak situations, telemedicine is also of great help where healthcare facilities are not easily available or accessible. It saves patient the time of going long distances for minor illnesses. While the telemedicine practice guidelines have paved the way for more efficient practices in healthcare, it is imperative to have the infrastructure and the funding in place, for their implementation on ground.Read more
Like an MEA to help NRIs in crisis, India needs a system for its internal migrants too
India’s treatment of its migrant population has been a disgrace. We must redeem ourselves by admitting our failures and devising policy approaches that are sensitive, humane and respectful of individual freedom and dignity.
Much of the blame on this issue that was directed at the Narendra Modi government immediately after the lockdown was unfair. The nationwide lockdown had to be imposed quickly and not every scenario could have been catered for. Sure, the government’s antennae failed to pick up the risk that millions of migrants would make a beeline for their homes. But as far as one can tell, few outside experts, activists or mediapersons had flagged it as an important factor ahead of the lockdown. So the Union and state governments had to react to the unfolding human tragedy, which they did to the level their administrative capacities allowed.