Let us not dilute law on cheque bouncing

The Indian court system is notoriously clogged. There are more than three crore cases pending at various levels and stages. Justice delayed is justice denied. What do we do? Experts and bodies such as law commissions and industry chambers have recommended several judicial reforms. A big part of the solution is filling out all the vacancies in the judiciary so that there is a speedy resolution of cases. We also have to encourage parties to settle out of court as far as possible, a process called arbitration or mediation. If a case goes to trial in a court, what are the chances of the plaintiff winning? In India, it is not even 50-50. The process itself takes so long that the plaintiff loses at the beginning itself. Often the accused, or the defendant, can tell the plaintiff: go to court if you want. As if admitting a trial into court, means getting into a permanent traffic jam – the ‘taareekh pe taareekh’ syndrome. Imagine the following: what if the chance of the defendant being found guilty, or losing the case is 90 per cent?Then the defendant will try hard to settle out of court. This can happen if the pre-trial preparation is watertight and of excellent quality. So shoddy investigation and badly done prosecution can also cause the trial to fail. Indeed the pendency ratio of courts in India would vastly come down if the trials were speedy, and almost surely end up with the defendant losing, because of excellent pre-court preparation.Read More 

The role that compassion could play in India’s economic revival

To rebuild the economy, we must focus on rebuilding social capital. To rebuild social capital, we need greater compassion across society. So many of the humanitarian tragedies that unfolded over the past few months could have been avoided or mitigated had we shown more compassion: in making migrants feel safe, making food available, saving small businesses, and giving money directly to those who are in most need. This is not merely an indictment of our Union and state governments. It is an indictment of our society as a whole. Read more

When should Indian schools physically reopen? The best answer is: not yet

The winding down of the national lockdown in India and the devolution of coronavirus pandemic management to the states will change daily life as we have known it for the past few months. While the reopening of the economy is rightly the subject of public interest, the reopening of schools and educational institutions will require greater attention in the coming weeks. The lockdown was less disruptive than it might otherwise have been because it came at the tail end of the academic year in many states and students spent the better part of the period at home. But now the questions of if, when, and how to reopen schools and colleges can no longer be put on the back burner. How should state governments proceed?

From the public health perspective, there are two principal considerations: protecting children and their families from the disease and preventing transmission through school children.

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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 

India Can’t Be Self-Reliant & Prosperous With Price Caps, Quotas

A lot of people around the world will retweet you if you blame the coronavirus pandemic on ‘neoliberal capitalism’. In an excellent article in Boston Review, Alyssa Battistoni outlines the case. “(The) pandemic,” she argues “can hardly be understood as exogenous to capitalism: the virus itself is the outgrowth of the peri-urbanisation that has accompanied rapid development, the commodification of once-wild subsistence foods, new encounters between humans and nonhumans driven by industrial food production, and the global movement of both people and commodities.”Read more

What 300 Days of Internet Winter in Kashmir Tell Us About Erecting a Digital Wall

This is an extract from the full article published on The Wire.....What is the cost of this protracted disruption?There is no shortage of real-life stories about the economic impact this prolonged Internet disruption has had in the union territory. Media reports are replete with such examples.Given that we are still in the midst of these events, an academic exercise to estimate the economic costs has not been published.Still, using available numbers regarding internet subscribers (38% from TRAI for the service area of Jammu and Kashmir) and a rough estimate of time connected drawn out from reports on patterns of internet usage by people in India (different sources peg the ‘active consumption’ time between 90 minutes and 150 minutes. Let’s use the higher end of that range. Note that there is no measure of passive consumption impacted), it is possible to arrive at a back-of-the-envelope ‘estimate’ of how many hours of Internet access have potentially been disrupted since August 4, 2019.

Between August 4 and January 14, when there was a complete shutdown, this number amounted to ~1.9 billion hours. In the period from January 14 to March 4, when there was whitelisted access another ~600 million hours were added. And the 87 days between then and May 30, will have accounted for another ~1 billion hours. That adds up to around 3.5 billion hours of disrupted internet access for approximately 12.25 million people. Let that sink in.

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

What the Modi Govt Could Learn From Kautilya and His Take on the Role of Experts

The decisions that the Narendra Modi government makes in the coming months could save the lives of thousands and also whether the economy holds up.The stakes have never been this high. The initial decision of a complete lockdown garnered popular support in the wake of confusion and fear of the unknown.But as the panic eases and fatigue sets in, every decision of the political leadership will be judged minutely. Kautilya’s Arthashastra offers a ready guide to sound decision making based on knowledge; an aspect of power which the political realist rates higher than armed might and raw energy.You can find the article here

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.

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Kautilya Can Help to Resolve a Basic Policy Dilemma During COVID-19

Prime Minister Modi is set to make an important decision on May 3. India’s Lockdown 2.0 is nearing its end with much conjecture and debate about its successive version. The pros and cons of the lockdown are in the open, and this time, more than the previous two, people are awaiting the verdict with much anxiety and impatience. The once-in-a-century pandemic has put a premium on decision making, the political leadership’s greatest test yet. While the situation is quite unprecedented, Modi could do well by taking a leaf out of Kautilya’s Arthashatra.You can find the article here

States Must Be Given More Ownership of India's COVID-19 Containment Strategy

COVID-19 has been instrumental in testing the structural cohesiveness of human systems at the global level. Its shadow over India’s federal system is getting longer by the day and could accentuate the tensions that are endemic to it.Constitutionally, health is a state subject but a pandemic allows the Centre to assume charge. The Centre has used the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 to take control of public health. Understandably, centralisation has been the defining characteristic of India’s efforts against COVID-19.You can find the full article here

Stay safe and go back to the newspaper this pandemic

This article was first published in Deccan Chronicle. Views are personal.It is arguably easier to deal with the coronavirus than it is to deal with misinformation about it. The key difference is that when dealing with the former, you have your work cut out for you. Maintain social distancing, close borders, flatten the curve, and build capacity in the national healthcare system. When it comes to dealing with misinformation there is no one set of steps you can take to definitively win the battle.We did not need a global pandemic to realise how big a challenge misinformation is, but it helps. In India and abroad, we have seen some spectacular consequences of spreading misinformation. In the UK and Netherlands, conspiracy theorists spread misinformation claiming that 5G cell towers were spreading coronavirus. As a result of which, some 50 towers were burnt in the UK and 16 in the Netherlands.

 Closer to home, when PM Modi asked citizens to light candles and make noise for 10 minutes, WhatsApp was rife with networks of misinformation. People claimed that the rise in temperatures or the chance in decibel levels would kill the virus. Even if you have not been subject to any of these messages, you have likely heard that Indore locals or Muslim mobs attacked health staff and attacked doctors who went to treat them.  To put it mildly, it does not make any sense to attack doctors during a pandemic. Until you read Indian Express’ report that fake WhatsApp videos were circulated in localities claiming that healthy Muslims are being taken away and injected with the virus were doing the rounds of Tatpatti Bakhal and adjoining localities.Misinformation is so potent because social media is an excellent tool to spread narratives and reinforce beliefs, as opposed to television. Imagine a scenario when you are viewing protests live through news on a television screen. In all likelihood, all you can see is a hoard of people fighting with the police or marching down an aisle with slogans printed on charts.  The information you take in is largely what is visible on the charts or what the anchor at the time is saying.Compare that to how you observe a protest on social media. On Twitter, when you follow a trending hashtag, it will show you the video of the protestors or the slogans they carry. In addition, you will also be able to look at what most people are saying or thinking about during the protests. This helps absorb a narrative a lot more quickly than a news anchor would.In times of panic, like protests or a pandemic, the narratives thrive and get a larger audience. This leads to more engagement and more content. It is a vicious cycle that reinforces itself. That’s how it becomes easy to believe that 5G towers are spreading the virus or that doctors have come to inject you with the virus and not to treat you.It’s hard to say whether most misinformation is a result of malice or stupidity. But when it comes to tackling the infodemic, there are not a lot of generally accepted truths in the area.  The broad goal is clear. We need to re-evaluate the importance we afford to social media in our news diet. To anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock, it is evident that WhatsApp is not a credible source of information.In that spirit, it is easy to go to news sources that are free and convenient to access, such as Twitter and Facebook. It is even better when the news comes to you through push notifications on WhatsApp. However, when we rely on these sources for the news, there is no assurance that we actually get the news.Quality journalism and information that comes as a result of it is a commodity. Like most commodities, it might make sense to pay for it with money (not with privacy). Paying for the news is inherently not a foreign concept. We have paid for newspapers before, and a significant number of us still do so. It may not make sense to physically hold a newspaper everyday right now, but paid digital access is a more convenient and ironically, a more natural alternative.The trade-off is worth it. There is no end in sight to the lockdown and the pandemic. In times such as these, the value we attribute to information will increase on average. You may have a gripe with the editor about the stories s/he curates for you, but in a good news agency, there is genuine effort involved in fact checking and ensuring that consumers get both sides of a story. Any person who sends you a forward on WhatsApp will not go through any of these pains.So this lockdown, consider paying for the news or be critical of what you consume for free.As 5G towers in the UK and injured doctors in Indore will tell you, it is worth it. 

Individual Rights and Collective Good: A Historical Perspective

In an article published recently in the Times of India, author Rohini Nilekani expresses her concern, rather persuasively, about the gradual shift away from “primacy of the individual” to a world where surveillance and privacy infringement for the collective good of the society are becoming more acceptable. The turn away from individualism, she argues, was largely caused by developments such as the 9/11 terror attacks and 2008 economic meltdown that have necessitated the broadening of the state’s role aided by technology tools, which ironically had given wings to the netizens in the first place.You can find the link to the article here

Dear young IRS officers, taxing the rich in Covid times is bad economics

The Narendra Modi government did well to promptly dismiss a proposal put up by a group of young Indian Revenue Service officers that recommended raising a number of taxes to make up for the government’s revenue shortfall amid higher spending requirements as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. A prompt and public rejection of the proposal was warranted because even the whiff of an increase in taxes can deepen the crisis and prolong the recovery, because the already-mauled individuals and businesses will choose to play it safe by holding back on spending and investment.

That said, the government should not have gone further and taken disciplinary action against the intrepid officers. They were clearly acting in good faith. Barking up the wrong tree is not an offence and should not be penalised. A crisis is an especially important time for top leaders and civil servants to keep ears and minds open, and encourage fresh thinking within the government’s ranks.

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Get India back at work to secure the economy and employment

As we near the end of an extended national lockdown, our policy discourse must broaden from containing the outbreak to addressing the three ‘R’s for the economy as well: of relief, revival and reconstruction. While the pandemic will haunt us for a few years, it is also true that complete lockdowns will harm Indian society as much—if not more—than the disease.

Unlike rich countries, India’s government simply does not have the resources to pay people to stay at home. Most businesses are staring at insolvency after having to keep and pay employees over the past four weeks. Even if they manage to stay afloat, their distress will compound our unemployment crisis. According to Mahesh Vyas of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, 140 million people, or 14% of India’s working age population, have lost their jobs during the lockdown. Both urban and rural India have been hit hard.

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COVID-19: Localise efforts to tackle water shortage

This article is written by Rohan Seth and Rashi Sharma, was first published in Deccan Herald. There have been plenty of debates and discussions around what is being done to manage the threat of coronavirus. A lot of that attention has been focused on using technology to deal with the problem. Apple and Google announced that they will be working on developing software to enable contact tracing in phones. In a similar vein, the Indian government has rolled out its own contact tracing application in Aarogya Setu. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while extending the nationwide lockdown, urged the public to download the app. While most of the discourse has been focused on how technology fits into the picture, we have ended up missing more fundamental means of coping with the problem. Ubiquitous elements, particularly water, have been overlooked and taken for granted. Water is going to be an essential part of any country’s strategy when dealing with COVID-19. If you are reading this, there is a significant chance you have been told about the importance of washing hands or have watched a video of how to do so properly. Healthcare professionals, essential workers, and law enforcement have and will be subject to a higher risk of exposure to the virus. As our most important line of defence against the pandemic, they will need to sanitise themselves regularly. This involves washing their clothes and taking regular showers. Unfortunately for India, in recent years, the country has been dealing with acute water shortages. While major Indian cities have increased in size and their water consumption, villages lack water for basic sanitation, bearing witness to lowering levels of groundwater. Keeping in mind the lack of access to clean water for nearly 163 million people in 2018,  the Union Government created the Ministry of Jal Shakti in 2019 to integrate water resource management efforts. Under the Jal Shakti Abhiyan, the Ministry plans to ensure the availability of running tap water for domestic purposes in all households across the country. While the mission of the Ministry of Jal Shakti has been off to a promising start, there is only so much it has been able to accomplish in a year. Due to lack of both administrative will and centre-state politics, much of the water projects could not be successfully completed before the outbreak of the virus. COVID-19 and the water crisis A summer induced water crisis is not a new phenomenon for India. The depleted water levels and the already exploited government managed resources have made India rank 13 of the 17 water-stressed countries. Access to freshwater is now important and urgent. Without water to sanitise, villages once exposed to COVID-19, will find it harder to recover and to contain the virus. In the recent past, an inexorable rise in the population residing in clustered areas makes self-isolation a privilege that not many can afford. Given the historically limited state capacity, necessary demands for social distancing, and a time-sensitive situation, it is going to be a lot harder to ensure clean tap water reaches water-scarce areas. The lack of adequate supply, particularly during a lockdown, will prevent households from ensuring domestic sanitisation and lead to an increase in open defecation during this period. This socio-economic standing of the larger Indian community is a ticking time bomb which may be scheduled to explode at Stage 3 of social transmission of the virus. Importance of finding local solutions This brings us to what should be done to mitigate the crisis. There have been some attempts to allocate scarce resources amongst states across the world. Most notably, the Federal Government in the US created competition among states, creating a bidding war for medical equipment. As a result, it created an environment where medical equipment was not distributed based on need but on the purchasing power of states. Of course, a bidding war for medical equipment leaves open the risk for poor areas impacted by the disease not getting enough medical supplies to manage the spread. Learning from the US, and instead of turning to a market to mitigate an impending water crisis, it might make sense to take a different approach. The stakes now have abruptly been raised. What the spread of the pandemic has done is to leave the inadequacies in Indian infrastructure exposed. They needed to be fixed yesterday, and they need to be fixed now. Communities must mobilise their efforts to find solutions to the water crisis locally. The Union government cannot be expected to build adequate infrastructure overnight if doing so has not been possible in over 70 years. Given the social distancing requirements, time and capital constraints, these inadequacies cannot be fixed using a top-down approach. Instead, changes need to be made at the grassroot level so that the water available is optimised for usage. Along with local efforts, nudges towards desired behavioural changes for water optimisation might be the most viable option. Water optimisation thus, involves promoting the usage of greywater for irrigation, and when possible, collecting rainwater in previously built infrastructures. Along with revisiting traditional methods of preserving water, reusing already existing structures like dried-up ponds, reservoirs, tube-wells etc. can also be a low-cost source of clean water. At this point May 3, 2020 is a line in the sand. The pandemic will not end on May 4, neither will the need for water across India. Local efforts may not be enough to meet the surged demands, but steps taken today should contribute to a better scenario tomorrow. (Rohan Seth is a technology policy analyst at the Takshashila Institution and Rashi Sharma is a research assistant at the Observer Research Foundation)

When Does a Crisis Become a Policy Opportunity?

Barring the ultra-pessimist, many public policy opinion pieces are likely to advance one narrative over the next few months: The economic and humanitarian crisis unleashed by COVID-19 is also an opportunity to undertake long-pending reforms in <insert one’s favourite research area/sector>.Inherent in this view is a deep-seated belief that it’s only a crisis that can jolt India to resolve its political economy constraints while in normal times such issues aren’t to be touched with a barge pole.Read the full article in Deccan Herald here.

Consumers should get the benefit of falling oil prices

At a time when even deficit hawks are clamouring for an expansive fiscal policy to fight the severe economic consequences of Covid-19, it will be tempting for the government to exploit every opportunity to fund the welfare programmes. When oil prices first dropped to less than $30 per barrel, the Modi government had promptly increased the central excise duty. However, this will not result in increased revenue due to the enforced lockdowns and halting of economic activity.If the objective is to help the economy rebound and bolster government finances, there are better ways than raising petrol taxes. In fact, lowering it will increase the disposable income of consumers, who will go out and spend more on other goods and services. Apart from increasing incomes, it will also help the government collect higher indirect taxes. Many businesses, which are reliant on petrol, such as transport and logistics, will get a much-needed fillip by reduced petrol prices.Since the price of oil has a cascading effect on the general price level in the economy, maintaining petrol and diesel prices at the same level or increasing it can lead to higher inflation and can further dampen their demand. Moreover, additional revenue gained by the government is offset by increased subsidy payments and revenue foregone from sectors dependent on oil. Further, since petrol is outside the purview of GST, states will want their fair share as well and will competitively increase VAT on petrol.The additional amount that can be raised by petrol taxes is about Rs 30,000 crore, which will not make a dent to the Rs 8-10 lakh crore required for the post-pandemic economic revival package. It’s time to pass on the benefit to the consumers.This appeared in The Print's Talkpoint

Use the oil price crash to boost India’s strategic reserves

One area in which India can definitely use the lower oil prices to its advantage is to stock up on the commodity for future use. Like many other countries, India maintains strategic petroleum reserves (SPR), which is an inventory of oil for emergency purposes. To mitigate supply-side risks and cover for vulnerability to external oil shocks, India holds an emergency oil stockpile in underground salt caverns, which can provide around 4.5 days of import cover. There is additional capacity for five days of oil import cover, which must be filled up at this time when oil prices are at historic lows. Indian petroleum refineries hold an additional 65 days of import cover.India has been delaying the start of phase two of its SPR plans, which was to add another 12 days of oil storage capacity. This was to be done in partnership with either ADNOC (Abu Dhabi) or Saudi Arabia’s Aramco. It is probably the right time now to get this off the drawing board.Alternatively, we can also look at options outside India. We could persuade the Sri Lanka government to kick-start the utilisation of oil storage facilities at Trincomalee. This could be done in a mutually beneficial manner. We could also shop around for storage space in Oman (Ras Markaz) or the United Arab Emirates (Fujairah). Right now, we are in a bizarre situation where the storage space is more expensive than the commodity itself, but things will revert, and any investments now will help India in the long run when oil prices rise again.Finally, the private sector should look at this as an opportunity to lock into long-term contracts with oil suppliers based at current prices. The government can help the struggling Indian airline industry, for instance, by providing it lines of credit to enter into or renegotiate oil contracts.Here's the full article