From Jobless Growth to Job-Loss Growth

This is the eleventh edition of The Jobscape, our weekly round-up of news and opinion on the state of employment and job creation in India. In this edition, we look at recruitment in the armed forces, women and jobs in STEM, artificial intelligence, and the woes of youth.Read more

To war or not to war with Pakistan: Strategy, not public mood, should drive Modi govt

More than fear and insecurity, it is the outrage that is driving public opinion after the terrorist attack on a CRPF convoy in Pulwama. There is widespread expectation that the Narendra Modi government retaliate using military force and further, conversationally at least, many people want to go to war with PakistanTo the extent that such a state of public opinion allows the government greater leeway in terms of options, it’s a good thing. On the flip side, to the extent that it compels the government to respond to the popular mood, it is dangerous. Politics might almost always be a popularity contest, but statecraft is not. If India must retaliate against Pakistan, it must be for reasons of strategy, not to assuage outraged public opinion.The strategic reason for India to retaliate is to impose costs on the Pakistani military-jihadi complex so as to deter further attacks to the extent possible. If an attack on India goes without punishment, the military-jihadi complex will be encouraged to carry out more. Retaliation is also necessary to persuade the Pakistani military establishment that it cannot use its nuclear shield and Chinese political cover to attack India with impunity.Read More

Narendra Modi’s ‘free hand’ to armed forces is misleading and problematic

When dealing with a nuclear-armed country, even the political leadership’s freedom to direct use of maximum force is curtailed.Treading discreetly, staying vigilant and having an unambiguous diplomatic goal may be better options to extract meaningful revenge. A ‘free hand’ is a hazardous approach that promises no happy endings.Read more

Reliability of GDP data

In terms of the reliability of official data, India is getting dangerously close to Chinese territory. The year that witnessed demonetisation, when 86% of the cash in circulation was declared as illegal tender overnight and which was perhaps one of the greatest assaults on private property in recent history, is now being touted as the year of highest GDP growth in the last eight years. This was the year when all other macroeconomic indicators took a nose-dive, but the GDP for that year has been inexplicably revised upwards to 8.2%, which has left everyone confounded.Good policy-making requires reliable data. Collecting and publishing data has always been a difficult affair in India, given the magnitude of the task, compounded by the presence of a large informal and unorganised sector. We do not need deliberate manipulation and withholding of data to make the task even harder.Read more

DNA bill is designed to fail

The promise of delivering speedy justice has moved members of the Lok Sabha to okay the, 2018, early last month. In response to concerns about privacy violations, the Bill proposes constituting a regulatory board, which will have the difficult task of finding ways to secure informed consent from people who may not understand what their DNA is, or its value.But even if the privacy and consent issues are adequately addressed, would the Bill deliver on speedier justice?In its current form, the Bill is a potpourri of good intentions aimed at governing too many outcomes without focusing on one thing. However, by trying to achieve too much, the Bill may end up subverting its own aims.. [Read more]

Nuclear No-First Use: Revisiting Hawks, Doves and Owls

Is it possible to consider no-first-use as a means of bridging trust deficits between nuclear states?The present international system is as dangerous as it was in 1953 – at the start of the nuclear arms race. At least that’s what the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists believes, as the Doomsday Clock remains at two minutes to midnight in the “new abnormal” of 2019. Central to this sense of heightened risk is the danger posed by nuclear weapons use, evident through weakening arms control efforts, duplicitous international commitments to non-proliferation, and emerging military doctrines that have the potential to erode the nuclear taboo.Integral to India’s nuclear doctrine is the idea of minimum credible deterrence, as well as a policy of nuclear no-first-use (NFU). NFU has been the subject of intense domestic debate between doves, hawks, and owls.Hawks see nuclear deterrence as a numbers game and advocate for the strengthening of arsenals to bolster deterrence. Doves prefer to avoid the use of force, seeking recourse to diplomacy or other kinds of incentives. Owls, however, present a “middle path.” They prefer a realistic approach to force but remain cautious about situations that heighten risks and increase the chance for accidents. NFU is very much an owl’s view – pragmatic, yet cautious.If this is the case, then why has NFU remained on the fringes of international security debates in this period of heightened risk?NFU remains on the marginsThe main reason is that NFU is quite difficult to operationalise. NFU succeeds in contexts where the sole purpose of nuclear weapons is only to deter a nuclear attack by a nuclear-armed adversary. Historically, however, it is the threat of nuclear force, even in a pre-emptive attack, that has remained the preferred grounds for maintaining deterrence. Proponents of this logic argue that fear of superior Soviet conventional forces led to US deployment of nuclear weapons through NATO in 1979.This deterred a Soviet invasion and maintained peace in Western Europe (the Soviet Union’s NFU pledge in 1982 is to be understood as mere rhetoric!) Interestingly, when the Soviet Union collapsed and NATO countries were momentarily at a conventional military advantage, Russia dropped her NFU pledge in 1993. In this historical pattern, the threat of first-use is the preferred deterrence posture for a weaker state, while NFU requires a secure state with a strong conventional capability.However, can NFU be considered more than just the end of the deterrence calculus? Is it possible to consider it a means of bridging trust deficits between nuclear states?Denuclearisation of the Korean PeninsulaThe Korean peninsula presents a compelling case for this question since it was one of the high-risk areas for nuclear miscalculation last year. With 2019 promising another big-ticket meeting between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, the actual mechanisms by which denuclearisation will be achieved remain uncertain.For the United States, CVID (comprehensive, verifiable, irreversible, dismantling) has been the maximalist mantra. For North Korea, denuclearisation means withdrawal of threatening US forces from neighbouring South Korea’s borders, and possible withdrawal of the US nuclear umbrella over the region. These positions are untenable in practice, and acrimonious rhetoric from both parties notwithstanding, both sides have been urged to arrive at a compromise this year, by no less than Xi Jinping.Hawks will argue that Kim will be keen to avoid the fate of Muammar Gadaffi and Saddam Hussein. From the North Korean point of view, a nuclear arsenal remains the best insurance policy against invasion. Complete nuclear disarmament, though unlikely in the near term, is not entirely out of the picture. Doves might point to South Africa in 1989-91 or the Treaty of Tlatelolco signed in 1967 to imagine a non-zero-sum endgame to the stalemate on the peninsula.If the spectacle of the Singapore summit last year is anything to go by, the next meeting between the two leaders may well build on the high-visibility/vague-outcome template. Declaring the end of the Korean war and a North-South reconciliation with great fanfare seems to be the low hanging fruit (the Korean War was fought between 1950-1953 and ended with an armistice but no official peace treaty.) This will ensure a great show, but will also mean that in long-term North Korea will have no reasons at all to give up her nuclear arsenal – an outcome that will have far-reaching consequences in East Asia. The region may experience a “domino effect,” where Japan and South Korea are also compelled to go nuclear.An owl’s approachAn owl’s approach is to introduce an NFU pledge as part of the denuclearisation agenda. An NFU pledge would signal North Korean sincerity, and provide a “holding position” from which to explore further improvement in ties with South Korea and Japan or bargaining with the US. The pledge can function as the minimum concession Kim Jong-un can make towards ending nuclear sabre-rattling and threats, retaining a nuclear arsenal, while also advancing aims of “normalisation.” If the North Korean arsenal is indeed defensive, an NFU pledge is not outside the realm of possibility.North Korea as a conventionally weaker state might look to history to find no instance to substantiate the adoption of an NFU in this context. But then again, if history is going to be made, it ought to be in a manner that does not repeat the mistakes of the past. Cold War thinking in the current international system, will recreate the same instability.An interim position like NFU that signals defensive intentions is preferable to an indefinite position that relies on nuclear threats. In both cases, uncertainty remains, but the interim position is far more likely to lead to a practical negotiation and a discrete outcome that builds trust, while the indefinite position merely increases uncertainty at all levels. While the second may produce an uneasy and unreliable deterrence, it only the first that addresses the larger questions of regional order.If the world is as dangerous as it was back in 1953, perhaps an end to the Korean war can be the start of something new.Ram Ganesh Kamatham is an Associate Research Fellow at Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru. His research occurs at the intersection of culture and strategy. He holds double master's degrees in the Anthropology of Media from SOAS, and International Relations from RSIS, NTU. He can be followed on Twitter @RGKwriting

Reservations may turn out to be vacuous

Both these are part of the fundamental rights conferred by the Constitution upon the citizens of India. The reservation bill amends both these articles by inserting sub-clauses. That these articles were amended with very little prior notice and almost no debate among people’s representatives is alarming, to say the least.Read more 

Why India must worry about splitting the internet. Ask the Chinese

The cookie dropped yesterday. After weeks of suspense, the US government charged Huawei, a Chinese networking equipment manufacturer, with violating US sanctions and stealing trade secrets from its American partner. The specific charges apart, US officials have made no secret that the action has two broader dimensions — the ongoing trade war with China and the wider geopolitical contest for dominance in the Information Age.On the other side of the drama, last week Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, suddenly became inaccessible to users in China. A day or so later, just as mysteriously, it was back online. Now, unlike Google — which once decided to stay out of the Chinese market rather than accept censorship of its search results — Microsoft has made its peace with Beijing and Bing only throws up sanitised, party-approved hits. It commands a tiny share of the Chinese internet search market. Why Beijing would want to turn off an almost insignificant search engine — and a pliant one at that — is hard to fathom; even if the word has been put out that it was due to a ‘technical error‘ it is impossible to rule out political motives. Neither Microsoft nor the Chinese government has explained why Bing went down for a day.For many years, companies and governments would roll their eyes after incidents like this and concede that ‘that is the cost of doing business in China.’ It is only now that it is dawning on many Western countries, mainly the United States, that censorship is a feature that China has introduced on the internet. Furthermore, China has now acquired enough economic, political, and technological power to be able to shape the future of the internet in its own image, and according to its own interests. The Trump administration is waking up to this reality in alarm.Read more

Modi calls Constitution a ‘holy book’ but his government violates its letter and spirit

On the surface, it might appear to be paradoxical that while Prime Minister Narendra Modi once declared that the Constitution is a “holy book”, his government has presided over the weakening of several important institutions: the Council of Ministers is now fully subordinate to the PMO, and once relatively independent RBI, Central Information Commission, and Election Commission have been weakened, not to mention the further deterioration of the CBI and CVC.Furthermore, in many cases — for instance during the formation of the government in Goa and Karnataka — what governors did was quite different from what the Constitution required them to do. How is it that on the one hand we say the Constitution is our holy book, and on the other hand increasingly violate its letter and spirit?Because, first of all, it is wrong to declare the Constitution of India a “holy book”. Second, the idea of a “holy book” is foreign to India’s largely Hindu culture. Finally, in India, symbolism is frequently used as a substitute for the substantial.Read more

As China Fights For Huawei, Should India Be Wary of Its 5G Entry?

After the Canadian government arrested Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer and daughter of the founder of Huawei, a Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer, upon an extradition request by the United States, relations between China and Canada have taken a nosedive.In barely concealed retaliation, China arrested two Canadians over the past month, and then summarily re-sentenced a third, a convicted drug smuggler to death. The official rhetoric from Beijing has become increasingly strident, like what we saw during the Doklam stand-off. Beijing has taken off its gloves and is baring its teeth.Such political aggression is part of President Xi Jinping’s foreign policy, and the Chinese establishment might well justify the impatient, aggressive, gangster-like diplomacy as befitting a great power of its stature.Read more

What All Those Ministers Say!

This is the ninth edition of The Jobscape, our weekly round-up of news and opinion on the state of employment and job creation in India. In this edition, we look at the ministrations of Modi’s ministers, Ambani vs Bezos, jobs for trans men, and unfair taxes on angel investors.Read more

How India Should Respond to Trump’s Barbs on Afghanistan

An article on Trump's barbs that India is only building 'libraries' in Afghanistan. We find that though conveyed crudely, there is some truth in his argument - India has not done much since August 2017 when Trump announced his previous Afghanistan approach. So we look at some options for India on the security, political, and cultural fronts in this piece. Finally, it is for India’s own national interest that we need to do a lot more and help build a strong, resilient, democratic and peaceful Afghanistan.Read more on TheWire.in

Forget Job Creation, India is LOSING Jobs

This is the eighth edition of The Jobscape, our weekly round-up of news and opinion on the state of employment and job creation in India. In this edition, we look at lost jobs, the new reservations, sexism, and much more.Read more

No first use, for us and for all

In my previous column "Towards global no-first-use"(November 20), I had argued that as India acquires a reliable nuclear triad — the ability to carry out retaliatory strikes by land, air, sea, and under-sea — we must adopt a new approach to our nuclear policy: “The completion of the triad calls for a profound review of India’s policy on nuclear weapons. Now that we are close to achieving credible second-strike capability, we must shift focus from negotiating our way through international nuclear weapons control regimes to shaping a world where these weapons of mass destruction are not used.”I go on to advocate that India persuade China and other nuclear powers and champion a “global no-first-use” (GNFU) policy, wherein all the world’s nuclear states declare that they won’t carry out first strikes. Obviously, this is going to be very hard. Obviously merely declaring no-first-use won’t be enough to prevent the outbreak of nuclear war. Yet the GNFU is the only feasible first step in avoiding a nuclear catastrophe, intended or accidental.India is perhaps the only nuclear power that can credibly champion GNFU because we ourselves are doctrinally committed to NFU. If our commitment to NFU were to weaken, our ability to champion it globally would weaken even more. So it is with some concern that I read a very well-argued piece by Kunal Singh in Hindustan Times that drew attention to the new strains on India’s NFU doctrine.Singh gives three reasons why India’s NFU doctrine must be reviewed. First, India would need to rely on nuclear weapons to counter China’s growing conventional superiority. Second, that Pakistan’s acquisition of lower-yield battlefield nuclear weapons demands India neutralise them before they are used against our forces. Third, that India has access to technologies makes it easier to adopt a first-strike posture today, than 15 years ago, when the doctrine was first promulgated.Let’s examine each argument in turn. First, China’s conventional military advantage is real but can be countered without changing the nuclear doctrine. Not all of its firepower and forces can be concentrated against us — for it has other, stronger, strategic adversaries — so what concerns is the fraction it can dedicate in and around the Indian subcontinent. What this implies is that we must cooperate with China’s adversaries to ensure that it remains engaged in many places elsewhere. What it also implies is that we must take our own conventional military modernisation seriously: Fixing the dysfunctional procurement system and getting out of the fiscal hole of ballooning revenue expenditure ought to be top priorities.In my view, we can continue to manage China’s military preponderance in such ways.Also, let me be a little naughty here and say that the strategists in Beijing don’t entirely believe our solemn declarations that we won’t use nuclear weapons first. In an earlier column on nuclear doctrine, I had pointed out “any declaration of no first use by one side cannot avoid being seen by its adversary as a deception for a surprise first strike. It is the fear of unacceptable damage caused by being at the receiving end of a nuclear attack that prevents either side from using them first. This is the essence of nuclear deterrence.”Second, should we threaten first strikes to counter Pakistan’s well-advertised readiness to use battlefield nuclear weapons? There is no reason to believe that the Pakistani military-jihadi complex will be deterred from using cross-border terrorists should India adopt the first-strike posture.In fact, it would make terrorism a far more valuable instrument. If the space between a terrorist attack and a nuclear attack is reduced, the Pakistani establishment will find it much easier to blackmail us and scare the rest of the world. Instead of ending up in such a situation, it is far better to stick to our current position: That a nuclear attack will invite massive retaliation. It doesn’t matter if the Pakistanis call their weapons “tactical”, “theatre” or “battlefield”— if used against our territory or troops, they must expect certain massive retaliation.Third, the availability of new technology and the modernisation of India’s arsenal does not in itself call for a change of doctrine. Few proponents of first-use are conscious of the costs of a first-strike arsenal and the command and control infrastructure required to manage it. Fewer still are conscious of the arms race this will set off, without a commensurate increase in national security or planetary safety. The folly of American and Soviet nuclear strategy during the Cold War ought to warn us against getting onto a slippery slope where nuclear weapons will be abundant, but security scarce.Without a doubt, the Indian government must conduct regular, official reviews of its nuclear weapons policies. Academic debate on the merits of retaining or abandoning no-first-use is very important. At this time though, no fundamental change is warranted. On the contrary, it is far more in India’s interests to invest in the diplomacy that reduces the salience of nuclear weapons.This piece was originally published in Business Standard

How the lack of ‘dharma’ caused the CBI crisis

To untangle the sordid controversy over the removal, restitution, and re-removal of Alok Verma as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director, it is useful to look at the affair from the perspective of ‘dharma’.Now the word ‘dharma’ is derived from the root ‘dhr’, which means ‘to hold together, to preserve, maintain or keep’. Dharma, therefore, is a set of norms, rules, behaviours, thoughts, and actions that keep something together. It is contextual, depending on what the ‘something’ is.Of course, the word ‘dharma’ is also used to refer to righteousness, duty, morality, law, and religious denomination. But at the heart of it, dharma is still about holding things together: from day-to-day interpersonal affairs to human relationships to political institutions. It follows that ‘adharma’— that is non-dharma or anti-dharma — would cause things to break up or collapse. The CBI controversy is an example.Indeed, it is impossible to diagnose the steady collapse of governance and public administration in India without reference to ‘dharma’. The simple question is: Are the individuals concerned acting in ways that hold the institution together? Are they acting in ways that preserve the trust that people have placed in them? Are they acting in ways that the social contract between the government and the governed is maintained?Read more

Go Easy on Amazon and Flipkart

The FDI in e-commerce policy clarifications made by the DIPP was done in order to help the small retailers from getting exploited at the hands of the big e-commerce players. While it may help them in the short run, an atmosphere that is not conducive to investment in this sector is bound to hurt them in the long run.Both Amazon and Flipkart have planned to approach the government together to reconsider these provisions. If they fail to convince the government, they will shrink the size of their future investments. This can have a significant negative effect on the entire e-commerce sector and can lead to job losses due to the closing of their private labels. Not to mention the loss of the number of jobs they would have created by their extension plans. Cities in the US are fighting with each other to provide incentives and attract Amazon’s second headquarters, while the Indian government is driving away from the investment.Finally, the decision is bound to hurt the Indian consumers. By limiting the number of discounts given by the private labels, the consumers will have to pay a higher price for their purchases. It will also reduce the variety of goods that are available to the consumers for online purchases.Vertical integration can have anti-competitive practices but can be dealt with in a far more efficient manner than outright bans on such operations. Antitrust authorities across the world have tools to recognise and prevent practices that can hurt consumers and small retailers. The competition commission can be given the mandate to develop these tools and implement them instead of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.Finally, this would also be the right time to revisit the policy of not allowing FDI in multi-brand retail. The parochial fears of potential harm to small retailers are overplayed in the public discourse. All of the small retailers in question have benefited massively from the presence of these platforms. They are now able to reach an unimaginable number of customers because of the platform. Similarly, multi-brand retail can have a massive positive effect on economic growth and job creation.Read More

The three elements of China’s innovation model

In November 2018, the New York Times published a series that began with a story titled, The Land that Failed to Fail. The central argument of the piece is that defying Western expectations, the Communist Party has maintained its control in China while adopting elements of capitalism, eschewing political liberalisation, and pursuing innovation. The last of these three — innovation — is the subject of this piece.What drives innovation in China? This is not merely a question about the mechanics of policy, the might of capital, the determination of dogged entrepreneurs, or the brilliance that is conjured up in university dormitories. Increasingly, it is a question that has acquired geopolitical significance, not just in the context of power politics but also in the debate over fundamental values about the political and economic organisation. In other words, the question that China’s march towards becoming a “country of innovators” raises is whether a political system that prioritises control can foster genuine innovation.Answering this requires an understanding of the key elements of the Chinese model of innovation. To my mind, there are three key components of this model—state support, a systems approach towards the development of new technologies and businesses, and building an effective “bird-cage.” There are, of course, other factors like the pursuit of prestige, the desire to rebalance the economy, the need to enhance the effectiveness of governance, and the size of the consumer market, which supports innovation. But it is the first three components that form the key pillars of China’s innovation model.Read More...

Safeguarding Liberty Against Mobilised Violence

The Bulandshahr incident of December 2018 bears all the hallmarks of mobilised violence: an undisguised political purpose, backing from well-organised groups, and a disregard for the lives of civilians and police personnel alike. In addition to the loss of life and property, such violence undermines a state of liberty in the country. For the violence is often directed against a diversity of opinions, be it on grounds of religion, language, eating habits, caste, or any of the other aspects of our lives that set us apart from each other and that form the basis for our richly plural society. The principle of liberty requires us to respect these differences and to let individuals determine for themselves the way they want to live. Mobilised violence strikes against this principle. It prevents individuals from expressing themselves in the present through brute force and creates a chilling effect that prevents more expression in the future for fear of reprisal. This erosion of liberty leaves our society poorer.Any intervention to alter this status quo will not be an easy one. The change that is most needed is an enlightened citizenry, one that respects the liberty of others. After all, every individual acting as part of a mob has a choice to not engage in violence. We must move towards a society where more individuals make the right decision when faced with this choice.Read more

Understanding Witch Hunts

One of the signs of good literature is the ability to stay relevant with the passage of time. Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, written in the 1950s, uses the Salem witch trials as an allegory for the paranoia surrounding Communism in the US after the end of the Second World War. It is a testament to the strength of the play that it resonates just as strongly in the world of today, with the fears around fake news and the targeting of individuals and communities.The play has a fairly straightforward narrative (minor spoilers to follow): a group of young women lie and claim that certain members of their town are indulging in witchcraft. This sets off a chain of events both absurd and scary, with the accused being presumed guilty until they either confess (leading to a loss of reputation and property) or refute the charge (leading to a death sentence).Read more

Beyond Modi waves, Ravana airports: What media failed to report on Indian Science Congress

The amount of information in a message, American engineer-mathematician Claude Shannon realised, is closely associated with its uncertainty. Shannon’s pioneering work on information theory follows from the simple insight that the more surprising a message is, the more information it carries. If you get a text message saying ‘the sun will set around 6 pm this evening’, you are likely to ignore it. But if the message reads ‘expect heavy snowfall tonight’, you would be jolted into attention.That’s because it is almost certain that the sun will set in the evening, but the chances of snowfall in India anywhere south of the Himalayas are almost zero.That’s why bad news makes headlines. Conversely, we should start worrying if good news is considered headline-worthy. That’s why most of what was reported about the 106th Indian Science Congress last week was about ancient Indians possessing stem-cell technology and the need to rename gravitational waves as Modi waves. As Roshni Chakrabarty, a journalist covering the Congress, wrote there were ‘hundreds of mind-blowing, groundbreaking lectures’ but what caught public attention were the two making outlandish claims.Read more