Kautilya and COVID-19

Author: Dr Kajari Kamal, Research Faculty, Takshashila Institution.Why is it that Kautilyan principles are invoked only when India tries to outdo its neighbor through an unconventional military endeavour (recent India-Pakistan conflict), or when devising novel ways to upgrade India’s modern warfare capabilities, or when the nation witnesses a dramatic twist  in domestic politics, often by resort to clever means? Surely, the expansion and maintenance of a political entity as large as the Mauryan Empire would have necessitated a wider, more comprehensive, understanding of governance and statecraft.Continue reading the article here

As Chorus of 'Chinese Virus' Rings Loudly in India, Is the Stage Set For an Info-Ops Tussle?

This article was originally published on The WireUsers of Indian Twitter, for want of a better term, will not have been able to escape the term ‘Chinese virus’ trending on the platform in the form of different hashtags over the last 10 days.What seemingly started off as agitprop by the American right has transcended boundaries and resonated in India as well, echoing sentiment that Beijing and the Chinese should be severely penalised for the COVID-19 pandemic.This sentiment was backed by what appeared to be some coordinated activity on Twitter from March 24 onward, around the time of India’s lockdown, all with the purpose of taking aim at China.#ChineseVirus19, #ChineseBioterrorisn, #Chinaliedpeopledied and #ChineseVirusCorona were some of the hashtags being used in favour of this narrative around March 24 and March 25.Read more

What Zoom’s rise tells us about future of work culture

This article was first published in Deccan Herald.The shift to working from home would have happened in an organic manner, but the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the speed of change; important to think about the precautions we must take to make this on-going experiment successfulThe coronavirus pandemic has become the reason for the largest work from home experiment in history. This phenomenon has meant an increased use of video conferencing and collaboration platforms that allow many people to simultaneously interact and collaborate in a virtual setting.Not surprisingly, the company that has benefited most from this on-going experiment is Zoom, a video conferencing platform that is being used by millions of users. Zoom’s share price has more than doubled since the new coronavirus began to spread in December 2019. There has also been a rise in trolling and graphic content on Zoom, an almost definitive sign that it is rising in popularity among teenagers and not just working professionals.Zoom’s rise (along with other video conferencing platforms like Skype and Slack) is indicative of a broader shift in the work culture. This shift to working from home or working remotely would have likely happened in an organic manner anyway, but the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated its speed.There isn’t much value in arguing about whether this phase will lead to a permanent shift in terms of a bulk of jobs being performed remotely from now. That question depends on too many variables, and it is impossible to predict.But the shift itself needs to be understood as part of an evolving trend. Workspaces for the most part have moved from cubicles to open-plan offices. As Chris Bailey notes in Hyperfocus, it is contentious to conclude that open-plan offices improved productivity across the board. What open-plan offices did was to make employees think twice before interrupting their colleagues, and made them more respectful of each other’s time.The future of the office space, moving on from open-plan offices, is the virtual office (widely anticipated and now catalysed by the COVID-19 threat), with people logging in and conducting meetings from home. This brings us to what the characteristics of this new work from home culture will be and what broad precautions we must take to ensure that remote working is successful for us as a people.Thinking through the idea of working remotelyThe first and most important thing to look out for here is going to be the impact this is going to have on the attention economy. With an increasing number of people working from home today, there is going to be a significant reduction in friction. Let me explain, the attention economy runs on the idea of manipulating people to spend more time on platforms. Companies do this by eliminating friction between the user and the content This is why the feed on Instagram is endless, or why the default option on Netflix is to keep watching more instead of stopping. Because everything is either free or so easy to access, attention becomes the currency.But when in office environments, for example, during a meeting, there is a certain amount of friction in accessing these apps. Using Instagram while talking to a colleague is going to have a social cost on your relationship. However, when working from home, it is going to be significantly easier for employees to give in to their distractions instead of focusing on tasks at hand. It is no wonder that Zoom has begun offering a feature that allows hosts to check if participants are paying attention based on whether or not the Zoom window is active on their screens.In addition, this also opens a can of worms for privacy breaches and the issue of regulating non-personal data. Because a huge number of people are shifting to working online for the foreseeable future, the value of online meetings increases in terms of the data being shared on them. This gives video conferencing and collaboration platforms the incentive to collect and share an increased amount of data with advertisers. For example, information on when users open the app, details about the user’s device – such as the model, time zone, city, phone carrier, and the unique advertiser identifier (a unique number created by user devices which are then used to target ads).In addition, increased workloads being transferred online will also generate increasing volumes of non-personal data, making the debate on how that should be regulated more relevant. For context, non-personal data is a negative term that is used to refer to all data that is not personal. This includes data like company financials, growth projections, and quite possibly most things discussed in office meetings.It is unlikely that COVID-19 has transformed offices forever. In this regard, its role in history is likely to be seen as a catalyst, accelerating the shift from offline offices to online offices. But as it does so, we need to take precautions by introducing friction in the attention economy, being conscious of the privacy trade-offs being made to facilitate new features, and installing regulation for the governance of non-personal data.(Rohan Seth is a technology policy analyst at The Takshashila Institution)

सोशल सिक्योरिटी को एक नए सिरे से सोचने का समय आ गया है

An edited version of this article appeared first on The Print Hindiअगले कुछ दिनों में कोविड-१९ के फैलाव को जल्द से जल्द रोकना केंद्र और राज्य सरकारों का प्राथमिक उद्देश्य रहेगा | साथ ही साथ यह भी बेहद ज़रूरी होगा कि लॉकडाउन से क्षतिग्रस्त ग़रीब लोगों के जीवन को फिर से संवारा जाए | अच्छी ख़बर यह है कि जनधन-आधार-मोबाइल की त्रिमूर्ति के रूप में भारत के पास एक ऐसा प्रभावशाली औज़ार है जिससे ज़रूरतमंद लोगों तक तेज़ी से सहायता पहुँचाई जा सकती है |इस महामारी से भारतीय अर्थव्यवस्था को इतनी बड़ी क्षति पहुँचेगी कि उसकी भरपाई सिर्फ सरकार नहीं कर पाएगी | मसलन, मोदी सरकार ने फुर्ती से १.७ लाख करोड़ के राहत पैकेज की घोषणा तो कर दी लेकिन सही माइनों में ज़रुरत है कई गुना बड़े पैकेज की - कम से कम पाँच प्रतिशत जीडीपी के करीब की | मतलब अगर आप सरकार के स्वास्थ्य, रक्षा, और मनरेगा पर सालाना खर्च को जोड़ कर एक राहत पैकेज बनाए तो वह भी अपर्याप्त होगा |अगर सरकार ऐच्छिक खर्च मसलन राष्ट्रीय राजधानी की रीमॉडलिंग को टाल भी दे, फिर भी उसके लिए 10 लाख करोड़ से ज़्यादा की रकम जुटाना मुश्किल होगा| करों में वृद्धि या सेस (cess) बढ़ाने से लेने के देने पड़ जाएँगे क्योंकि ऐसे साधनों से अर्थव्यवस्था को अपने पैरों पर खड़ा करना और भी मुश्किल हो जाता है |साधन १: पीएम-केयर फंडपीएम केअर के नामकरण को लेकर बेवजह का विवाद खड़ा किया जा रहा है | ठंडे दिमाग से सोचें तो ऐसे कोष नए नहीं हैं| राज्यों में मुख्यमंत्री राहत कोष हो या पीएम-केअर फंड, सरकार द्वारा प्रशासित यह राहत कोष उस जमाने की देन है जब हमारे पास ऐसी तकनीक नहीं थी कि हम ज़रूरतमंद की सटीक पहचान कर उन तक सहायता पहुंचा पाते|जैसा कि अर्थशास्त्री अजय शाह लिखते है, भारत में एक रुपये के सरकारी खर्च के लिए उसे समाज से तीन रुपए लेने पड़ते है | यह भारत की प्रशासनिक हालात को दर्शाता है | इस संख्या का मतलब यह कि पीएम/सीएम राहत कोश लोगों को राहत राशि पहुंचाने का सबसे बेहतरीन तरीका तो नहीं है | इसका मतलब यह कतई नहीं है कि हमें इन कोषों की ज़रूरत ही नहीं | कुछ ऐसे क्षेत्र है जहां सरकार का खर्च किया गया एक रूपया समाज को तीन रुपये से ज़्यादा का फ़ायदा पहुँचा सकता है | उदाहरण के लिए सार्वजनिक स्वास्थ्य, टीकाकरण, आपातकालीन खाद्य प्रावधान, सार्वजनिक आश्रय कुछ ऐसे खर्च है, जिनके प्रावधान से सरकार समाज से लिए हुए पैसों को सूद समेत वापस कर देती है |इसके आलावा दूरदराज़ के स्थानों में या आर्थिक रूप से कमजोर राज्यों में सरकार शायद एकमात्र एजेंसी है जो आर्थिक संरचना में निवेश कर सकती है | इसलिए इस तरह के कोष काम में आ सकते है, खासकर आज के हालात में | अच्छा होगा अगर व्यवसाय, दान-संस्थाएं, और आम नागरिक सब मिलकर इस पूँजी में अपना योगदान कर पाएँ |साधन २: २१वीं सदी का सोशल सिक्योरिटी अकाउंटइस पारम्परिक तरीक़े के अलावा, अब एक और ज़रिया है जिससे समाज के सभी हिस्से ज़रूरतमंदों तक सीधे पहुँच सकते है| मोदी सरकार को जल्द ही एक नागरिक-से-नागरिक हस्तांतरण योजना शुरू करनी चाहिए जिसके तहत कम्पनियाँ, दान-संस्थाएं, और आम नागरिक सीधे लाभार्थियों के बैंक खातों में पैसा डाल पाए |  देखा जाए तो हम यह काम अनौपचारिक रूप से करते ही हैं जब हम अपने घर में काम करने वालों और पड़ोसियों को कुछ अतिरिक्त पैसा देते हैं |  लेकिन जनधन-आधार-मोबाईल और यूपीआई की मदद से यह हस्तांतरण बहुत बड़े पैमाने पर किया जा सकता है |ज़रा सोचिए: एक ऐसा मल्टी-कंट्रीब्यूशन सिस्टम जिसमें किसी भी ज़रूरतमंद के जनधन अकाउंट को कई योगदान के स्त्रोत से टॉप-अप किया जा सके | एक ऐसा सामाजिक सुरक्षा खाता जिसमें राज्य सरकारें केंद्र के योगदान को टॉप-अप कर सकती हैं, या फिर सीएसआर (CSR) फंड्स निजी योगदान को टॉप-अप कर सकते है, या फिर एक एनजीओ (NGO) संस्था किसी आम नागरिक के योगदान को टॉप-अप कर सकती है | इन स्त्रोतों से इकट्ठा की गयी राशि आपके एक  जान-पहचान वाले व्यक्ति के जन-धन खाते में यूपीआई से सीधे डाली जा सकती है, या एक अज्ञात व्यक्ति के खाते में, जिसे आप जनसांख्यिकीय मानदंडों (आयु, स्थान, आय) के आधार पर परिभाषित कर सकते हैं | साथ ही इस हस्तांतरण के बदले में आपको टैक्स कटौती का लाभ भी मिल सकता है | यह सही मायनों में २१वी सदी की सामाजिक सुरक्षा प्रणाली होगी |  सामाजिक रूप से हस्तांतरित इस रूपये की समाजिक लागत 3 रुपए से कम होगी जो कि एक सरकारी चैनल के माध्यम से किए जाने वाले ट्रांस्फर से होती |  इस टेक्नोलॉजी से ज़रूरतमंदों की बेहतर पहचान कर सकते हैं बजाय किसी अनजान सरकारी कर्मचारी की उदारता पर निर्भर होने के | वैसे तो ये एक मूल ढाँचा है और इसका दुरुपयोग न हो, उसके लिए कुछ संशोधन ज़रूर करने होंगे | टैक्स कटौती की सीमा तय की जा सकती है और एक निश्चित सीमा से ऊपर के डोनेशन को सेवानिवृत्ति / स्वास्थ्य सेवा खातों में डाला जा सकता है| मानदंड-आधारित दान स्कीम भी शुरू की जा सकती है | मुझे यकीन है कि ऐसे सौ तरीकें है जिनसे इस तरह की व्यवस्था का दुरुपयोग किया जा सकता है लेकिन इसे हमें इन कारणों को एक बेहतर सामाजिक सुरक्षा प्रणाली की ओर अग्रसर होने में रूकावट नहीं बनने देना चाहिए |वास्तव में, समाज को खुद की मदद करने के लिए सक्षम बनाना भारतीय परंपरा का एक अटूट अंग रहा है |  राजनीतिक सिद्धांतकार पार्थ चटर्जी रवींद्रनाथ टैगोर के इन्हीं तर्ज पर विचार को कुछ इस तरह से पेश करते हैं: “भारत में अंग्रेजों के आने से पहले, समाज अपनी पहल से लोगों की जरूरतों को को पूरा करता था | वह जरूरी कार्यों के लिए राज्य की ओर नहीं देखा करता था| राजा युद्ध या शिकार करने जाते थे, कुछ राजा राजकार्य छोड़ अपने आनंद और मनोरंजन में ही व्यस्त रहते थे और रियासतों को उसके हाल पर छोड़ देते थे | ऐसे समय में भी समाज में कष्ट भुगतने की बजाय कर्तव्यों को अलग-अलग व्यक्तियों के बीच में ही आवंटित कर दिया जाता था| जिस व्यवस्था से यह सारा काम किया जाता था उसे धर्म कहा जाता था|”कोरोनोवायरस महामारी से बनी परिस्तिथि ने एक आवश्यकता को वह अब एक अनिवार्यता में बदल दिया है | मोदी सरकार को अपने ही विचारों को तार्किक निष्कर्ष की ओर ले जाना चाहिए: सामाजिक सुरक्षा को वास्तव में सामाजिक बनाना बनाकर| कोरोनोवायरस और लॉकडाउन से प्रभावितों को राहत देना इस नई सोच के लिए एक शुभ शुरुआत होगी|(Translated by Pranay Kotasthane)

We must avert an economic disaster due to Covid-19

Indian economy will suffer due to COVID-19, but govt can ease the pain for individuals and firms with decisive and meaningful action nowFor businesses, the union government should think of delaying GST payments, tax credits, and any other policy that could support employers to keep their staff on board.  As on March 24, the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has announced a few measures to ease the compliance and regulatory burden for businesses: increasing the threshold of default that triggers the insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings from 1 lakh to 1 crore, easing some of the rules for corporate affairs, and extending extending the deadline to pay excise and customs duty and GST. Government should ensure that the flow of critical supplies and services are uninterrupted, including food, healthcare, security, groceries and other provisions, electricity, telecom, ATM and banking.Most importantly, we need to think about how to protect the unorganised and informal workforce. While the salaried class, small as it may be, can afford to work from home and be assured of payments at the end of the month, the daily wage earner does not have the same luxury. A limited form of targeted Basic Income (not universal) using the JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) trinity could be used to ensure sustenance. The union government can use the unexpected bonanza from the lowering of oil prices to fund some of these programmes.It is important, however, that any policy made for these emergency purposes come with sunset clauses. If not, the extraordinary measures to combat the disease and its impact will linger on far after the disease has faded from human memory.Read more here

Modi govt needs to open the JAM for public contributions. PM Cares alone can’t deliver

If containing the coronavirus outbreak is the primary national policy prerogative at this time, a close second is the task of providing relief to those who have been hardest hit by the lockdown. With advances in financial inclusion, reliable identification and mass mobile internet, the so-called JAM or Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile trinity, Indian society has efficient ways of delivering aid to those most deserving of it.

State will fall short

The economic damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak will be so large that the government alone will not be able to ameliorate all the suffering and setbacks in society. The Indian economy is large and complex, and the pandemic will have direct and indirect consequences over a long period of time.

Read more

Why WHO Must be Partly ‘Blamed’ For Coronavirus Global Pandemic

The World Health Organisation (WHO), founded to reduce health risks for all, is facing international criticism for its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak. WHO’s Director-General (DG), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has been accused of forwarding China’s interest rather than ensuring the containment of the virus through awareness procedures.WHO’s assessment, finally characterised COVID-19 as a pandemic on 11 March 2020, almost three months after its outbreak in Wuhan, China.

By then, there were already 118,332 confirmed cases globally with 4, 292 deaths. Coronavirus had already impacted people across 113 countries when the WHO declared it as a pandemic.

The article was originally published in The Quint.

Look ahead of the current crisis to plan for an economic revival

Even as we grapple with the anxieties and uncertainties of the Covid-19 pandemic, two things are clear. First, its impact on Indian society will be unprecedented. Second, the crisis will pass, leaving us with the task of recovery, reconstruction and rejuvenation. While much of our management of the coronavirus outbreak has been reactive in nature, it is both possible and incumbent upon us to start planning for life after the pandemic. It might sound presumptuous to say this at a time when the energies of our Union and state governments are focused on the gargantuan task of managing the consequences of the outbreak and subsequent lockdown.

But if India is to emerge from this crisis with the best prospects of resuming on its development path, it is crucial that we align relief measures and economic stimulus efforts with a medium-term reconstruction plan. With last week’s announcement of a ₹1.7 trillion relief package, amounting to under 1% of gross domestic product (GDP), the government has set the ball rolling on a fiscal response. The Reserve Bank of India followed with a reduction in interest rates. These measures are primarily intended to provide relief to individuals, families and firms affected by the current lockdown.Read more

Public sharing of home quarantine addresses a bad idea

This article originally appeared in Deccan Herald

On March 24, several WhatsApp groups catering to apartment associations started buzzing with excel files containing addresses of those who were placed under home quarantine. The source was a website run by the Government of Karnataka which contained details for all districts in Karnataka (deleted ‘purportedly’). This author was eventually able to access the website which contained approximately 30 files. It is unclear whose decision it was to make these details public. Statements from government officials indicate this was a deliberate step. However, it seems to be at odds with how sensitively matters are reportedly being handled by teams on the ground, who were informing nearby residents as needed.

Why is this a bad idea?

On March 14, a leading English daily misreported a story that the spouse of a patient who had tested positive for COVID-19 had skipped quarantine and traveled to another Indian city. There were several calls for exemplary punishment, but it later turned out that the person in question had not violated quarantine instructions at the time of travelling. Sure, certain questionable decisions were made subsequently. But we need to be aware that these are unprecedented times and no one is really prepared to deal with the situation. The fear and self-preservation instinct is apparent. But there is also a danger of uncontrolled reactions by the general public in such a scenario.

Over the last few days we have also seen disturbing reports of airline crew and healthcare professionals facing a backlash at their respective places of residence. Videos have also emerged showing people physically abusing fellow citizens for coughing in public and not wearing masks. Regrettably citizens from the North-East have been subject to racial abuse.

This is why it is ill-advised to publicly share this kind of information. While individual names and phone numbers have not been shared, an address is enough to enable targeting (changed slightly).  In information security terms, it can be considered a form of  doxing people (publicly posting personal information). The individuals living at those addresses have been put at risk of being on the receiving end of discriminatory and abusive behaviour. While some of them may have violated their quarantine instructions, treating all of them as potential criminals is not an acceptable response (changed slightly).

Unwittingly aiding the flow of information

Another important aspect to consider is the role of unaffected individuals in circulating this information. The Bengaluru version of the list was doing the rounds on WhatsApp since the evening of March 24. And it continued to be circulated by people even if they disagreed with the practice or could not vouch for its authenticity. As expected, the link to the website eventually made its way onto Twitter and was shared by users with a large number of followers. Others shared it with the intention of being helpful and sharing information. Unfortunately, in such a situation, these actions only aided the virality of the information. 

There is also a tendency to believe that since the information is already out there, individual sharing actions do not matter. However, when the information in question can put someone else at risk, we must consider the downstream implications of that individual action too.

What is the right way to react?

Understanding how to react to minimise the risk to others in such situations is important. Although it is tempting to share such information with acquaintances or  Tweet about specifics while disagreeing with the action, it is necessary to consider if the unintended consequence of the action.

If the intention is to raise awareness about the lack of sensitivity, then the act itself can be highlighted without sharing the location/source of such information. It must be remembered that this action can have the second order effect of nudging others to look for it.

Another possible course of action is to reach out directly to the authorities who have made this information public. This  may not be possible in all situations but can be an effective strategy. It should be noted that their actions or decisions are not always taken with bad intentions. Those responsible may react positively to such interventions if the risks are clearly highlighted to them. 

Why is sharing-hygiene important?

This sharing hygiene is especially important as we see more [information disorder] flooding our lives. The large platforms where this information proliferates are attempting to take measures to tackle this but such content moderation at scale is impossible to do well. It is as much a demand-side problem as it is a supply-side problem. Passively sharing information may have more consequences than we realise. We have a collective role to play in curbing information disorder.

Is the government doing enough to fight Corona on health & economic fronts?

The events of the past few weeks have served as a grave reminder of the challenges of living in a globalised world. The benefits of globalisation and its impact on human progress can never be understated. However, every once in a while, through global financial crises or through pandemics such as the one we are currently witnessing with COVID-19, we are also reminded of its perils. What started in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 has within a few months, impacted over 267,000 people in 185 countries, unfortunately killing more than 11,000 people as of 22nd March 2020 already.The economic and social impact of this pandemic will only unfold over time but the early signs are not comforting. An estimated 25 million jobs are likely to be lost due to the COVID-19 crisis, pushing millions more into underemployment and working poverty. With supply chain disruptions impacting almost every sector including Information Technology, Manufacturing, Entertainment, Travel, and Retail, stock markets across the world have witnessed their worst performances since the 2008 global financial crisis. Global income is expected to shirk by as much as US $ 2 trillion in 2020, with developing economies alone bearing as much as US $ 220 billion of the impact. The resulting economic shock and looming financial crisis is expected to push the global annual growth below 2.5% in 2020.The full article is published in and available on The Quint

Saving Our Own: COVID-19 Presents Challenges and Opportunities in Technology

With the pandemic existing at this scale, state capacity alone may not be enough to respond effectively. Struggling in the face of an invisible threat, states have to co-opt technology to augment their arsenal for a long-haul fight against coronavirus.The unprecedented spread of the COVID-19 outbreak is overwhelming healthcare systems across the world. In less than three months, the virus has impacted 177 countries or territories (including cruise ships) infecting over 2,30,000 people and killing over 11,000. The rapidity of community spread has left policymakers and bureaucrats scrambling for ways to bolster an overworked healthcare system. Another impending concern is of people who are struggling to adjust to a self-isolation way of life.With the pandemic existing at this scale, state capacity alone may not be enough to respond effectively. Struggling in the face of an invisible threat, states have to co-opt technology to augment their arsenal for a long-haul fight against coronavirus.There are three phases in which technology can be effective - one in the detection of COVID-19 positive individuals; second in enforcing quarantine conditions and finally on facilitating the non-infected individuals to stay-at-home.Technological developments of the last few decades are helping the testing regime that has been currently applied for COVID-19. There are two stages for detection: thermal screening that we see at airports or public places and the confirmatory test. The thermal screening is a crude process - it can only identify if someone has a fever. While the confirmatory test usually determines if the virus is present in the sample by searching for the virus’s RNA.However, this depends on an adequate amount of virus being present in the sample which further depends on the way the sample was taken. An alternative way to test for COVID-19 is to identify antibodies that the human body makes in response to the virus. This is a better method because antibodies can stay in the body long after the infection is over and therefore can be used to determine a history of infection.The first serological tests based on antibody testing are now being made available. These tests will make identifying susceptible people easier and hopefully reduce the ambiguity brought on by the other methods.Quarantine and self-isolation seem to be a difficult way to contain viruses, even celebrities have chosen to defy quarantine, setting bad examples for the general public. China, one of the world’s most technologically advanced societies, was quick to adopt self-isolation and asked its residents to stay indoors.Through AliPay (one of the most popular mobile apps in China), the Chinese State has attempted to regulate the movement of its people. The idea is that based on a number of factors, each person’s app is going to be assigned a QR code to signify a risk of exposure. The code itself has three categories; green - unrestricted movement, yellow- self-quarantine for a week, and red - self-quarantine for two weeks. The system is being rolled out nationwide and is going to make it extremely hard for people to go around town without having a code.There are concerns with these measures, such as privacy violations (though some of the data being collected is not permanent in nature, for instance, location data). But it has unintended but anticipated consequences. In China, people were not informed about what variables their QR codes were being calculated. So people who were returning home from work and had their codes turn red were not allowed entry in their apartment complexes and were exposed to a higher degree of risk. Or for people departing high-risk areas having their codes turn red meant they could not get on flights or take exits on highways. Yet effective quarantine measures are required and the compromise on privacy may be essential to ensure wider public health. In India particularly, this appears to have been brought on by public behaviour itself endangering public health should be a crime, and safeguards against such lapses should not be undermined.Finally, technological innovations need to help individuals working from home maintaining social contacts. There hasn’t been a lot of discussion around how extended periods of isolation could impact mental health. With longer work-from-home durations and quarantine, there is a significant chance that we might be looking at increased cases of depression. Communities being isolated at this level is unprecedented, and if the situation continues like this for a longer period, people will miss physical contact, social validation, and also the endorphins from a gym session. This is a gap that tech can and may need to address if things continue the way they are.Given the anticipated long-term effects of this viral outbreak, we are going to need technological interventions to curb it as soon as possible and help us adjust to a new way of life in the long term.Shambhavi Naik is a research fellow at the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru. Rohan Seth is a policy analyst at the Takshashila Institution, Bengaluru. Views are personal.This article was first published in News 18.

Antitrust is already working. Here’s why.

With the United States Congress taking aim at Google’s Search in anti-trust hearings, anti-trust is in the spotlight again. It is still unclear whether tech platforms privileging their products is enough to build and win an anti-trust case against big tech. We will find the answer to that question in the times to come. Until then, let us remember that 2019 displayed two memorable sides of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The first where he made the US Congress look stupid while explaining to them how Facebook made money. Remember, “Senator, we run ads”. The other side was visible when he talked about Elizabeth Warren being an existential threat to Facebook.Warren had not been the favorite to win the Democratic ticket for a while, let alone the Presidency, but was big enough to get herself heard. And a big part of her message was opposition to Big Tech and her call to break up Amazon, Google, and Facebook. Even if Warren goes on to win the Presidency (she has dropped out of the race now) and launches her anti-Big Tech campaign, it is unlikely that any of the Big Four (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google) would be broken up so easily.Actually, there are a bunch of reasons why it is unlikely that Big Tech would be broken anytime soon. For starters, all of them have the capital and expertise at hand to handle an anti-trust challenge. Also, you could well argue that anti-trust (or at least the way it operates) wasn’t built for this. And finally, a significant part of America views these companies as symbols of success, and at times engines of economic growth.So how is anti-trust working? Is it because it seems to have successfully threatened Facebook to merge its messaging services, making it harder to separate them? No. Anti-trust would still apply to a more interoperable messenger. If it could break up AT&T, one of the largest and most complex networks known to mankind, then consider it capable enough to mandate the decoupling of a complex messaging service.Instead, anti-trust works today as a deterrent, and a fairly effective one at that. Through the threat of breaking up Big Tech, it has ensured that these massive corporations think thrice before acquiring smaller firms. Instead, it has unknowingly been responsible for establishing a new approach to dealing with competition in Silicon Valley: The slow burn.The idea is that bigger tech companies slowly eat into their competitor’s market share or refrain from entering into new markets for fear of anti-trust. Professor Scott Galloway explains this well through Star Wars. Here is a slightly paraphrased version of his analysis:The Death Star’s multiple reactors can cause the total and rapid destruction of a planet. But, firing a single reactor on a planet is enough to be overkill for a city or a base, but nowhere near enough power to destroy an entire planet. That is basically what Big Tech has also adopted as a strategy.Prime Microsoft (1990s) was absolutely ruthless as a company. During the first browser wars, it killed its closest competitor, Netscape, and ended up inviting anti-trust. Since then, Microsoft has learned. Now, for instance, it has decided to compete against Slack with its latest offering, Teams. Turn on the single reactor. Microsoft began by offering Teams at a marginally lower price point than Slack. It has gradually upped the ante since then. Now bundling Teams with the Office 365 bundle, it has passed Slack in terms of users (13 million v 10 million, according to the most recent reports). Had Microsoft wanted to turn on the death star, it could have begun with retailing Teams for free and added in support for the G-Suite and say, Zoom. Making Teams interoperable would have taken away much of Slack’s USP.Once you begin thinking in terms of this analogy, a lot of Big Tech’s actions (and non-actions) begin to make sense. Think Amazon and FedEx.Amazon sits upon arguably the world’s best physical distribution networks. With some significant tweaking, they can also perform FedEx’s functions of transporting packages between cities. This would easily eat into the market share of FedEx. Plus, since it is Amazon, it is likely that replacing FedEx would happen at break-even or loss, beating FedEx’s price point. Amazon somewhat turned on the single death ray recently when it blocked its sellers from using FedEx ground for Prime shipments during the holiday season,  citing a dip in performance levels. Had it chosen to turn on the Death Star, it could have banned their express service from Prime Shipments and both express and ground services on Non-Prime Shipments.Amazon has also perfected its software over the years. So, when you order something on the platform, it feels frictionless. When was the last time you used the FedEx app? For Amazon, this market is low-hanging fruit – One that it won’t go for (at least with all its push) in the foreseeable future.And that in itself is how anti-trust is working. Yes, it wasn’t built keeping in mind Big Tech. Who could have predicted that we would have such companies back then? Big Tech likely has the capacity and expertise to navigate an anti-trust challenge. Anti-trust may not have been built for this, but the current version of it seems to have unintentionally been repurposed. It is now akin to a tool of deterrence against Big Tech. To some extent, we may have Warren to thank for it.Rohan Seth is a Policy Analyst at the Takshashila Institution. Views are personal.This article was first published in Deccan Chronicle. 

Wrong to say coronavirus has doomed world economy

The pandemic, like any other economic event, will throw up its own set of winners and losers; best if the debate around the economic impact of coronavirus builds a measure of nuanceThe global conversation about the coronavirus pandemic has focussed on a few things. Firstly, that the outbreak of the virus can largely be considered a Black Swan event, which is an unanticipated problem with severe unintended consequences. Secondly, that there is a need to ‘flatten the curve’ so that healthcare systems can cope, and thirdly, that its impact on the economy and markets everywhere will be debilitating and that everyone is a loser here.As far as the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic goes, there are two problems with the common assessments making the rounds: One, they are an understatement. The global economy is doing badly and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The pandemic will play into this existing matrix in ways that are not entirely clear as yet. Two, when we abstract the analysis to the point that our main takeaway is that everything is going to hell, the analysis itself loses most meaning and its nuance. In short, while it may seem callous to put it like that, the pandemic will have its own set of winners and losers.The tech industry should be Exhibit ‘A’ for this hypothesis. If you ask yourself for a moment who the biggest winners from this pandemic might be, a preliminary response from many will be that tech giants like Facebook, Google, Apple, etc. will stand to gain. Things are not quite as simple as that though. Apple, for instance, is not in the running because their supply chains run through China and are likely to be severely impacted. So is the case for Samsung. Basically, any company with a complex supply chain that may or may not run through China is going to be hit.We need to also consider the fact that we are in the middle of the biggest work from a home experiment in history. Zoom, the US-based video conferencing service, for instance, has gained a lot from this, without actually making a lot of significant changes. Since the beginning of December 2019, its stock price has gone up by $40 to about $ 115 (from approximately $70). It peaked earlier in March at about $125.Moreover, tech platforms, per se, are better suited to navigating this outbreak as compared to more traditional firms. They have fewer components in their supply chains relative to, say, a phone or a tablet. People are likely to depend on the conveniences offered on their screens, given that travelling is going to be restricted. Spending more time at home also means slipping more frequently into distractions of social media and online streaming.Now let’s turn to another aspect of the current economic conundrum. The spread of the virus does not bode well for the gig economy. The current situation puts workers at a huge risk of exposure, especially in developing countries like India. It is not effective to self-quarantine in informal settlements. It is hard to stock up on essentials or food when most of one’s family is living hand to mouth and it is near impossible to provide for families when the small/medium businesses temporarily shut down.Most huge platforms rely on the gig economy to sustain themselves. Let’s take the case of Amazon. While it has its product and management teams, which work from their HQ and other regional offices, there is a huge part of the company that is run by the gig economy, i.e., people working in warehouses and drivers who deliver the products to the consumers. It needs to see to what extent companies with such business models are affected by the current disruptions.Let’s turn to another industry that is likely to be impacted -- Entertainment. Box offices across the world are facing huge losses and will continue to do so. Cinema halls and popcorn machines have already been facing threats from online streaming. Netflix and HBO have been winning golden globes and Academy awards, giving the ‘traditional’ film industry a run for its money. Enter coronavirus and the release dates for most movies have been postponed. The longer social distancing and self-quarantine last, the worse it is going to get for cinema halls. People are likely to get more hooked to streaming and a significant percentage might end up realising that they can do just fine without making that extra trip to the hall.The world is a net loser from coronavirus, there are no two ways about that. But while many industries will be impacted and a large number of firms are likely to shut down due to the lack of demand, this is not reason enough to make abstract, generalised claims about how the economy is going to suffer.We live in a complex, interconnected world where effects are not equally bad for everyone. Let us treat this as a complex global economic event and accord it the nuance it deserves. It would be best to avoid broad generalisations when speaking of the economic impact of the coronavirus and build our beliefs on reason, not dogma.(Rohan Seth and Nischitha Suresh are analysts with the Takshashila Institution)This article was first published in Deccan Herald.

If India has to control coronavirus pandemic, it must contain 4 other contagions as well

The infodemic and the behavioural contagion feed off each other, and higher levels of social anxiety exacerbate the process. Similarly, the psychological and economic contagions reinforce each other and are in turn amplified by informational, behavioural and viral contagions. The complex interactions among five contagions make it much harder to contain the spread of the coronavirus that triggered this cascade. This why a governmental response focused on public health alone (with some information management thrown in) will not suffice.Just like there are war cabinets during wartime, the multiple pandemics call for a pandemic cabinet. If there ever was a time for the cliched whole of government approach, it is now.Read more

Xinjiang in danger of severe Covid-19 outbreak

The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic this week. That designation implies an epidemic that has spread over several countries or continents, affecting a large number of people.The Chinese government initially tried to conceal the severity of the problem by hiding facts about the outbreak, which in turn contributed to the spread of the virus across the world. But the state machinery swung into action on January 23 by quarantining Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province, where the outbreak was first observed. Some cities on the east coast were also partially locked down as the number of cases increased.Though a lot of effort has gone into containing the spread of the virus across China, the situation in the westernmost Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, which is one of the most vulnerable regions for reasons detailed below, remains largely ignored and underreported.

The article was originally published in Asia Times

COVID-19 & China: Crisis to opportunity

Three events last week underscore how the narrative has shifted around China’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak. The first of these is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Wuhan, which coincided with the country’s health authorities confirming that the outbreak had peaked there. Second, the World Health Organisation’s declaration of Covid-19 as a pandemic for which the epicentre had shifted to Europe. And third, the Donald Trump administration’s initial ham-handed response to the outbreak in the US.Read the full article in Deccan Herald here

China-style lockdown not the only way to deal with COVID-19. Democracies, learn from Taiwan

The manner in which the Chinese government managed the COVID-19 outbreak is being favourably compared to the general mess that Europe and the United States have made of it so far. Now that China seems to have contained the initial outbreak while Western countries are struggling with a massive surge in cases, Beijing’s propagandists and apologists have started asserting that the Chinese one-party, one-leader “system” is superior to a messy liberal democracy that is incapable of acting with the coherence, speed, and efficiency required to contain the pandemic.

But here’s a strange thing: prominent Chinese individuals who criticised President Xi Jinping and the Chinese “system” for botching up the initial response to the Wuhan outbreak have been arrested or mysteriously disappeared. In contrast, Americans, British, and Europeans are criticising their leaders, governments, and public health policies without the smallest risk of arrest or detention. If the Chinese system is really as good as it is cranked out to be, why the need to silence the critics?

Read more

Why the current pandemic may perhaps be the world’s last one

Viruses can be deadly but are pretty simple things. They are composed of a few proteins and a small amount of genetic material and can be completely characterized fairly easily. Back in 2003, it took a few months for scientists to fully sequence the 29,727 nucleotides of the SARS virus genome. In comparison, it took around a month for Chinese scientists to do the same for the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus, the genome of which is comparable in size to the SARS virus. That’s because the technology used for sequencing improves with advances in computing power, and today’s machines are orders of magnitude more powerful than the ones we used two decades ago. This is also why testing a patient for coronavirus today takes a few hours and costs around ₹5,000.Read more

Is India’s Rising Defence Pension Bill Affecting Modernisation of Military? 5 Myths Busted

Business, as usual, is no longer an option. India must tackle the rising defence pension bill.

Lt Gen Prakash Menon and Pranay Kotasthane bust five myths of the defence pensions debate. Read the full article on ThePrint here.

SC Verdict: A positive step to realise VC's potential

On March 4, a historic day for the cryptocurrency industry in India, the Supreme Court of India quashed the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) prohibition on the trade of virtual currency (VC). The road towards the day of the verdict has been long and arduous. Even this verdict is a small win and how the cryptocurrency industry moves ahead remains to be seen. The Supreme Court concluded that the interdiction of VCs failed the four-pronged proportionality test and violated the fundamental right of the cryptocurrency exchanges to carry out any occupation, trade, or business. The Court believed that there were less intrusive measures to achieve the purposes that RBI intended. It also added that the RBI had not presented any empirical evidence to show that entities regulated by it suffered harm due to VC exchanges.

Nevertheless, the Court refuted almost all other arguments made by the petitioners. It upheld the right of the RBI to regulate VCs and commented that the RBI could regulate/prohibit anything that may impact the financial system of the country. On the claim by the petitioners that the circular was an executive action by the RBI and did not afford similar judicial acceptance as legislative action, the Court observed that the RBI was an autonomous institution responsible for maintaining the financial integrity of the country and enjoyed broad powers to govern activities that impact the monetary, credit and payments systems in India.

The latest judgment came almost two years after the RBI, through a circular, had prohibited the use of virtual currency. The circular forbade entities regulated by the RBI from dealing with or providing services to individuals or business entities dealing with or settling virtual currencies. All entities which were already involved in the provision of the aforementioned services were asked to wind down in three months. Cryptocurrency tokens could undermine international policy frameworks such as the AML (anti-money laundering) and FATF (Financial Action Task Force), designed to counter money laundering and terrorist financing, RBI had posited. It could also adversely impact market integrity and capital control, RBI’s deputy governor, BP Kanungo had further explained at a press conference on April 5th, 2018.

This led to the closing of many fledgling crypto exchanges within the country. Koinex, India’s largest crypto exchange was shut down because of the circular.  Unocoin, one of the early entrants in the bitcoin space in India, resumed fiat deposits on March 5, 2020, after suspending it in the summer of 2018. Unocoin had to lay off 50 percent of its employees after the ban. India has already lost valuable time, money, talent in a promising industry.

It is believed that the government and the RBI have similar opinions on cryptocurrencies. In February 2018, in his budget speech, then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had categorically said that ‘the government does not recognise cryptocurrency as legal tender or coin and will take all measures to eliminate the use of these crypto-assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payments system’. An inter-ministerial committee also submitted its recommendations on July 22, 2019, and suggested banning private cryptocurrencies and criminalisation of activities related to VCs. The committee also submitted a draft bill - Banning of Cryptocurrency & Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2019. The current Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that ‘countries will have to show extreme caution on cryptocurrencies.

It will take much more to kickstart a decimated industry. Sensing the inclinations within the Finance Ministry and the RBI, and having been at the receiving end once before, the banks are likely to be circumspect in lending to the crypto exchanges.

A consistent policy framework needed

Coherent policy action by the government is required now. The government must identify the policy objective it wishes to achieve. These objectives would be a combination of checking money laundering, preventing terrorist financing, promoting greater financial inclusion, and ensuring financial stability. Evaluating all options and analysing empirical data and then choosing the most effective and less invasive measure is necessary.

RBI set up a sandbox for testing fintech products in April 2019. Opening this sandbox to cryptocurrencies as well would enable companies to live-test their new products in a controlled environment. This would not only promote innovation but also enhance the knowledge and awareness about cryptocurrency projects amongst the government officials, allowing them to take appropriate regulatory measures if and when global players such as Facebook launch their products in India.

The government should set up a specialised cryptocurrency advisory council that would liaise with multiple stakeholders in the government, industry, academia and suggest enabling regulation for the industry in India. The advisory council would be cognisant of the legislations in different parts of the world and conduct India-focused studies and recommend measures suited to the Indian landscape.

The Supreme Court judgment is a small step in the long road towards realising the immense potential of cryptocurrency and the government should leverage this opportunity to inspire confidence and implement progressive legislation.

 (Utkarsh Narain is a technology policy researcher at Takshashila Institution, a centre for research and education in public policy in Bengaluru. This commentary was published in Deccan Chronicle on March 12. The views expressed are personal.)