Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: SAMADHAN Challenge
Mains level: NA
A mega online challenge – SAMADHAN – has been launched to test the ability of students to innovate.
“Samadhan” Challenge
- The Innovation Cell of the Ministry of HRD and All India Council for Technical Education in collaboration with Forge and InnovatioCuris has launched this online challenge.
- Under the challenge, the students and faculty will be motivated for doing new experiments and new discoveries and provide them with a strong base leading to spirit of experimentation and discovery.
- The students participating in this challenge will search and develop such measures that can be made available to the government agencies, health services, hospitals and other services for quick solutions to the Coronavirus epidemic and other such calamities.
- Apart from this, through this challenge, work will be done to make citizens aware, to motivate them, to face any challenge, to prevent any crisis and to help people get livelihood.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- What will be the impact of the corona crisis on agriculture and food security?
Context
As global trade falls and supply disruptions persist, a prolonged lockdown will adversely affect food security.
Fears of food crisis and impact of COVID-19 on agriculture
- The COVID-19 pandemic has led to global concerns on the state of agriculture and food security.
- Warning of food crisis: On the one hand, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned of a “food crisis” if countries do not protect vulnerable people from hunger and malnourishment.
- On the other, farmers face a stalemate as they are unable to work on their land, earn remunerative prices and gain access to markets.
We can try to understand the impact of COVID-19 on agriculture with three questions.
- One, does the world have enough food to feed its people?
- Two, is food available at affordable prices?
- Three, how are farmers coping with the lockdown?
Food stocks and prices in the world
- Cereal stock in the world: According to the FAO, as on April 2, 2020, the total stock of cereals in the world was about 861 million tonnes. This translates to a stocks-to-use ratio (SUR) — i.e., the proportion of consumption available as stocks — of 30.7%.
- The FAO considers this “comfortable”. The SURs for wheat, rice and coarse grains were 35.3%, 35.1% and 26.9%, respectively.
- Variation among nations: World stocks are different from national stocks. About 52% of the global wheat stocks is held by China, and about 20% of the global rice stocks is held by India.
- Rice importers may suffer: If the major holders of global stocks decide to turn precautionary and stop exporting, and if the lockdown is prolonged, countries dependent on rice imports will suffer.
- Restriction on wheat export: Kazakhstan, a major wheat exporter, has banned exports. Russia, the largest wheat exporter, is expected to restrict its exports.
- Restriction on rice export: Vietnam, the third-largest rice exporter, has stopped its exports, which will reduce the global rice exports by 15%.
- If India and Thailand too ban exports, the world supply of rice will sharply fall.
- In March 2020, the Philippines and the European Union, major rice importers, had inventories of rice enough to feed their populations for about three months.
- Others, however, had inventories to hold on for about one month only. If the lockdown continues beyond a month, these countries will face food shortages.
Stocks with India and output projections
- India’s foodgrain output is projected to be about 292 MMT in 2019-20.
- Stock with FCI: On March 1, 2020, the total stock of wheat and rice with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) was 77.5 MT.
- Buffer stock norms: The buffer norms for foodgrain stocks — i.e., operational stock plus strategic reserves — is 21.04 MT.
- Similarly, for pulses, India had a stock of 2.25 MT in mid-March 2020.
- In both cases, the rabi harvest is slated to arrive in April 2020, and the situation is expected to ease further.
Price fluctuation of food in the world
- Fall in demand and supply and price fluctuation: There is always an element of uncertainty on how prices will behave if both demand and supply fall together.
- Prices in different markets fluctuate considerably given differences in the extent of production, stocks, arrivals and supply disruptions.
- According to the FAO, the world food price index fell by 4.3% and world cereal price index fell by 1.9% between February and March 2020 due to the weakening demand for food and the sharp fall in maize prices owing to poor demand for biofuels.
- Price rise in Western economies: Retail prices of rice and wheat have been rising in the Western economies in March 2020.
- The major reasons identified are panic buying by households, export restrictions by countries and continuing supply chain disruptions.
- Retail prices of beef and eggs have also been rising.
Demand and price fluctuation in India
- WPI and CPI for food in India were rising from mid-2019 onwards, reflecting a rise in vegetable prices, especially onion prices.
- January and February 2020 saw a moderate fall in these indices, but vegetable prices have remained high.
- If food prices rise due to the lockdown, it will be on top of an already rising price curve.
- However, unlike in the West, food prices in India have not risen after the lockdown.
- While supplies have declined, demand has fallen too. This is because there has been a sharp fall in the consumption of foodgrains and vegetables. Similarly, the consumption of milk has fallen by 10-12%.
The crisis in the harvesting and marketing of the crops
Harvesting and marketing of crops are in crisis across India, because of-
- Disruptions in the procurement of foodgrains by government agencies.
- Disruptions in the collection of harvests from the farms by traders.
- Shortage of workers to harvest the rabi crops.
- Shortage of truck drivers.
- Blockades in the transport of commodities.
- Limited operations of APMC mandis; and
- Shutdowns in the retail markets.
Conclusion
The world and India have adequate food stocks. But as global trade shrinks and supply disruptions persist, a prolonged lockdown will adversely affect food security in many countries. Concurrently, farmers face acute labour shortages, falling farmgate prices and lack of access to input/output markets. It is unclear who is benefiting, but farmers, workers and the poor are at their wits’ end.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Revival of SAARC is the need of the hour amid corona crisis.
Context
A tweet by Prime Minister Narendra Modi resulted in the first-ever virtual summit of SAARC leaders on March 15. What has happened to this innovative exercise in health diplomacy since then?
The follow-up after the video-conference of SAARC members
- Considering that SAARC has been dormant for several years due to regional tensions, it is worth stressing that the fight against COVID-19 has been taken up in right earnest through a series of tangible measures.
- First, all the eight member-states were represented at the video conference — all at the level of head of state or government, except Pakistan.
- The Secretary-General of SAARC participated. They readily agreed to work together to contain the virus and shared their experiences and perspectives.
- Second, India’s proposal to launch a COVID-19 Emergency Fund was given positive reception.
- Within days, all the countries, except Pakistan, contributed to it voluntarily, bringing the total contributions to $18.8 million. Although it is a modest amount, the spirit of readily expressed solidarity behind it matters.
- Third, the fund has already been operationalised. It is controlled neither by India nor by the Secretariat.
- It is learnt that each contributing member-state is responsible for approval and disbursement of funds in response to requests received from others.
- Fourth, in the domain of implementation, India is in the lead, with its initial contribution of $10 million.
- It has received requests for medical equipment, medicines and other supplies from Bhutan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Maldives, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
- Many requests have already been accepted and action has been taken, whereas others are under implementation.
- Fifth, a follow-up video-conference of senior health officials was arranged on March 26.
- The agenda included issues ranging from specific protocols dealing with the screening at entry points and contact tracing to online training capsules for emergency response teams.
- Technical cooperation: Steps are now underway to nurture technical cooperation through a shared electronic platform as also to arrange an exchange of all useful information among health professionals through more informal means.
Is the fund sufficient to deal with the grave threat?
- So far, South Asia has not exactly borne the brunt of the pandemic.
- Of the total confirmed cases in the world that stood at 12,89,380 on April 6 (according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resources Center), SAARC countries reported only 8,292 cases, representing 0.64%.
- Reasons of lower spread not known: Whether the low share is due to limited testing, a peculiarity of the strain of the virus, people’s unique immunity, South Asia’s climate, decisive measures by governments, or just good fortune is difficult to say.
- But it is evident that India’s imaginative diplomacy has leveraged the crisis to create a new mechanism for workable cooperation.
- It will become stronger if the crisis deepens and if member-states see advantages in working together. Seven of the eight members already do.
Is it the sign of revival of SAARC?
- To conclude that SAARC is now returning to an active phase on a broad front may, however, be
- In the backdrop of political capital invested by New Delhi in strengthening BIMSTEC and the urgings it received recently from Nepal and Sri Lanka to resuscitate SAARC, India’s foreign minister said that India had no preference for a specific platform.
- But India was fully committed to the cause of regional cooperation and connectivity.
- The challenge facing the region is how to relate to a country which claims to favour regional cooperation, while working against it.
- Clearly, India has little difficulty in cooperating with like-minded neighbours, as it showed by forging unity in the war against COVID-19.
- This is diplomatic resilience and leadership at its best.
Conclusion
Given the grave threat posed by the pandemic and other benefits that the multilateral platforms such as SAARC offers Both New Delhi and its friendly neighbours need to start preparing themselves for SAARC 2.0.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Is the globalisation past its peak? what will be the impact of corona crisis on the globalisation?
Context
Although all world leaders have acknowledged the global imperative in dealing with the virus, they have put the nation first without much consideration to the collective action.
The middle path between extreme globalisation and hyper-nationalism
- ‘Nation first’ approach: Although all world leaders have acknowledged the global imperative in dealing with the virus, they have put the nation first. Are all nations now for themselves? Not so fast.
- Sovereignty is certainly back. Solidarity is under stress, but not dead. The drift is towards a middle path between extreme globalism and hyper-nationalism.
- The last few decades have seen the growing awareness of “global problems” like climate change and the need for “global solutions”.
- Lack of collective action: The corona pandemic certainly adds to that consciousness. But as in the case of climate change, collective action is not easy to come by.
Closing of the borders and the idea of a “borderless world”
- One of the first steps most governments took during the current crisis was to shut down their borders.
- The idea of a “borderless world” had gained much acceptance in recent years but is now under serious questioning.
- For example, how the US, Canada and Europe are outbidding each other in buying medical material from China.
- They are ready to pay a hefty premium if Chinese suppliers break from an earlier commitment.
- Nations banning medicines: Meanwhile, many nations, including India, have banned the export of much-needed medicines and equipment to combat the virus.
- Washington, which initially criticised other countries for limiting exports of essential drugs, has had no option but to go down that path as the toll from coronavirus rose rapidly.
- Donald Trump is angry with 3M, one of the leading American producers of masks, for exporting to other nations at a time of huge domestic shortfall.
- The US ban on exports of medical supplies came just days after the G-20 affirmed that its member states “will work to ensure the flow of vital medical supplies, critical agricultural products, and other goods and services across borders”.
Globalisation and related ideas under stress
- A testing time for two ideas: The problem is not that governments are being hypocritical. They are simply trapped in a crisis that is testing two important assumptions that guided the world in the last three decades.
- One is that globalisation, with its long and transborder supply chains, generates prosperity through economic efficiency.
- The second was that economic globalisation based on the dispersal of production will serve the interests of all nations.
Opposition to globalisation in the West
- The new objections to economic globalisation are not coming from the traditional champions of sovereignty in the East and the South, but the West.
- It was North America and Europe that had preached the virtues of unhindered economic
- They also championed the idea of globalism that will transcend national sovereignty in terms of both institutions and values.
- New converts to nationalism and sovereignty began to appear in the West well before corona crisis.
- Brexit to take control own borders: Britain walked out of the European Union claiming the need to “take back control” of its borders.
- Storming the White House against all predictions in 2016, Trump has sought to push Washington away from the trinity of America’s post-war political commitments-to open borders, free trade, and multilateralism.
- Globalisation and corona crisis: For Trump and his team, the corona crisis is confirmation of the dangers of excessive globalisation.
- This argument is finding some resonance in Europe.
- Addressing workers at a factory that makes masks in France, President Emmanuel Macron echoed the same feelings.
Arguments against globalisation
- An argument against efficiency: The efficiency argument of the globalists has been countered in the West by many who say societies are not merely economic units; they are also political and social communities.
- The disadvantage to working people: While expansive globalisation has helped generate super-profits for the capital, it has put the working people at an increasing disadvantage.
- Uneven distribution of benefits: The uneven distribution of the benefits from the dispersal of production and free movement of labour has undermined political support for economic globalisation in the West.
- Role of China: Reinforcing this downward trend is the belief that China is misusing global economic interdependence for unilateral political advantage.
- There were indeed strategic consequences to China’s emergence as the world’s factory.
- After all, China is not a passive territory; it is an ancient civilisation with ambitions of its own.
Future of globalisation and the role of China
- The peak of expansive globalisation is over: While economic interdependence among nations can’t be eliminated, we might be past the peak of expansive globalisation and hyper-connectivity.
- Many countries are likely to move to the diversification of external production, short supply chains and stockpiles of essential materials to limit vulnerability during times of crises.
- China-West relations may change: The palpable anger against China in the US and beyond, for keeping the world in the dark about the spread of the coronavirus, has been magnified by Beijing’s “mask diplomacy” and political triumphalism after it got in control of the situation in Wuhan.
- This anger is bound to translate into long-term changes in the relations between China and the West and some rearrangement of multilateral mechanisms.
Conclusion
Out of this restructuring new international coalitions are likely to emerge. Even as world leaders put their own respective nations first, they will also explore new forms of solidarity. Like the instinct for self-preservation, solidarity too is part of human nature.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Bhilwara Model
Mains level: Agressive strategies to contain covid-19 spread
Bhilwara in Rajasthan was one of the early hotspots of the COVID-19 outbreak. The government responded with extraordinarily aggressive measures — and the ‘Bhilwara model’. The success of the model is attributed to the fact that Bhilwara, which was the first district in Rajasthan to report most number of covid cases has now reported only one positive case since March 30.
What is the Bhilwara Model?
- The Bhilwara COVID-19 containment “model” refers to the steps taken by the administration in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district to contain the disease, after it emerged as a hotspot for coronavirus positive cases.
- Bhilwara district was among the most-affected places in India during the first phase of the COVID-19 outbreak.
- The measures taken by the state govt. included imposing a curfew in the district which also barred essential services, extensive screening and house-to-house surveys to check for possible cases.
- It went for detailed contact tracing of each positive case so as to create a dossier on everybody they met ever since they got infected.
What did the administration do as part of the containment strategy?
- The “Bhilwara model” of tackling COVID-19 cases involves, simply, “ruthless containment”.
- Within three days of the first positive case the district health administration in Bhilwara constituted nearly 850 teams and conducted house-to-house surveys at 56k houses and of 280k people.
- Thousands were identified to be suffering from influenza-like illness (ILI) symptoms and were kept in home quarantine.
- Intense contact tracing was also carried out of those patients who tested positive, with the Health Department preparing detailed charts of all the people whom they had met since being infected.
- The state also took the help of technology, using an app to monitor the conditions of those under home quarantine on a daily basis along with keeping a tab on them through GIS.
- The administration backed up the surveys by imposing a total lockdown on the district, with the local police ensuring strict implementation of the curfew.
- The patients were treated with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), Tamiflu and HIV drugs.
What were the challenges the administration faced in imposing these extraordinary measures?
- The biggest challenge that the administration faced was containing the rising number of cases after the initial outbreak.
- The doctors of the private hospital who had tested positive had come into contact with numerous people including the staff and patients who visited the private hospital during the period when the doctors were already infected.
- Some of these patients had come from other states and after the first case of COVID-19 was detected.
- The government also had an uphill task ahead of them assembling the teams of doctors, auxiliary nurse and midwives and nursing students who went to conduct the house-to-house surveys.
- Owing to the fact that Bhilwara, a thriving textile city with an estimated population of 30 lakh, it was also a difficult task for the government to strictly impose the curfew uniformly in all areas.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Open Courts, Art. 142
Mains level: Transparency in judicial functioning
The Supreme Court has invoked its extraordinary Constitutional powers under Article 142 to step away from the convention of open court hearings. It deemed all restrictions imposed on people from entering, attending or taking part in court hearings as lawful in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
What are Open Courts?
- The Open court principle requires that court proceedings presumptively be open and accessible to the public and to the media.
- Open courts are normal court where proceedings of the court are conducted where every person is allowed to watch the proceedings of the court.
- There are instances where it is not practical to accommodate persons other than parties to the proceedings. Therefore, such proceedings are held in camera.
- This means that the proceedings are held in a closed room where the public will not have access to watch the proceedings.
- In criminal cases like rape, it is necessary to protect the identity and modesty of the victim.
Why did the Supreme Court deter Open Court’s norm?
- A Bench led by CJI said these restrictions were in tune with the social distancing norms and best public health practices advocated to contain the contagion.
- The court made it clear that public health takes precedence over conventions.
- Every individual and institution is expected to cooperate in the implementation of measures designed to reduce the transmission of the virus.
- Open court hearings would mean a congregation of large number of people. This would prove detrimental to the fight against the virus.
Conclusion
- Access to justice is fundamental to preserve the rule of law in the democracy envisaged by the Constitution of India.
- The challenges occasioned by the outbreak of COVID-19 have to be addressed while preserving the constitutional commitment to ensuring the delivery of and access to justice to those who seek it..
Way forward
- Indian courts have been proactive in embracing advancement in technology in judicial proceedings.
- Judiciary can bank on video-conferencing technologies in the wake of this unprecedented and extraordinary outbreak of a pandemic.
Back2Basics
Article 142 of the Indian Constitution
- Article 142 allows the Supreme Court to pass any order necessary to do “complete justice” in any case.
- It supplements the powers already conferred upon the Supreme Court under the Constitution to guarantee that justice is done and in doing so the Court is not restrained by lack of jurisdiction or authority of law.
- The phrase ‘complete justice’ engrafted in Article 142(1) is the word of wide interpretation to meet situations created by legal errors or result of operation of statute law or law.
- Thus Article 142 is conceived to give the apex court the powers to meet the situations which cannot be effectively tackled by existing provisions of law.
Also read:
Supreme Court Removes Manipur MLA Under The 10th Schedule
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: MPLADS
Mains level: MPLADS and its implementation
The Union Cabinet gave its nod to the temporary suspension of MPLAD Funds during 2020-21 and 2021-22 in view of the adverse impact of the outbreak of COVID-19 in India.
Why suspend MPLAD?
- The consolidated amount of MPLAD Funds for 2 years – Rs 7,900 crores – will go to Consolidated Fund of India.
- The Cabinet has also approved an ordinance to reduce the salaries, allowances and pensions of Members of Parliament (MPs), including the Prime Minister, by 30 per cent for one year.
- The amount so collected would be utilized in the fight against coronavirus.
What is the MPLAD scheme?
- The Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) is a programme first launched during the Narasimha Rao Government in 1993.
- It was aimed towards providing funds for developmental works recommended by individual MPs.
Funds available
- The MPs then were entitled to recommend works to the tune of Rs 1 crore annually between 1994-95 and 1997-98, after which the annual entitlement was enhanced to Rs 2 crore.
- The UPA government in 2011-12 raised the annual entitlement to Rs 5 crore per MP.
Implementation
- To implement their plans in an area, MPs have to recommend them to the District Authority of the respective Nodal District.
- The District Authorities then identify Implementing Agencies which execute the projects.
- The respective District Authority is supposed to oversee the implementation and has to submit monthly reports, audit reports, and work completion reports to the Nodal District Authority.
- The MPLADS funds can be merged with other schemes such as MGNREGA and Khelo India.
Guidelines for MPLADS implementation
- The document ‘Guidelines on MPLADS’ was published by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in June 2016 in this regard.
- It stated the objective of the scheme to enable MPs to recommend works of developmental nature with emphasis on the creation of durable community assets based on the locally felt needs in their Constituencies.
- Right from inception of the Scheme, durable assets of national priorities viz. drinking water, primary education, public health, sanitation and roads, etc. should be created.
- It recommended MPs to works costing at least 15 per cent of their entitlement for the year for areas inhabited by Scheduled Caste population and 7.5 per cent for areas inhabited by ST population.
- It layy down a number of development works including construction of railway halt stations, providing financial assistance to recognised bodies, cooperative societies, installing CCTV cameras etc.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Coronabonds, Eurozone
Mains level: Not Much
The coronavirus pandemic has revived the acrimonious debate between euro zone countries about jointly issuing debt through instruments called Coronabonds.
Coronabonds
- Coronabonds are proposed debt instruments amongst EU member states, with the aim of providing financial relief to Eurozone countries battered by the coronavirus.
- They aim to meet healthcare needs and address the deep economic downturn that is set to follow.
- The funds would be mutualised and supplied by the European Investment Bank, with the debt taken collectively by all member states of the European Union.
- The euro zone jointly issues debt through its bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism, which borrows on the market against the security of its paid-in and callable capital provided by euro zone governments.
Back2Basics
What is Eurozone?
- The Eurozone officially called the euro area is a monetary union of 19 of the 27 European Union (EU) member states which have adopted the euro as their common currency and sole legal tender.
- The monetary authority of the Eurozone is the Eurosystem.
- It consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CAWACH
Mains level: Not Much
Department of Science & Technology has approved setting up of a Centre for Augmenting WAR with COVID-19 Health Crisis (CAWACH).
What is CAWACH?
- CAWACH will help to address various challenges faced by country due to severe impact of COVID-19.
- CAWACH will identify up to 50 innovations and startups that are in the area of novel, low cost, safe and effective ventilators, respiratory aids, protective gears, novel solutions for sanitizers, disinfectants, diagnostics, therapeutics, informatics and any effective interventions to control COVID-19.
- The CAWACH’s mandate will be to extend timely support to potential startups by way of the requisite financial assistance and fund deployment targeting innovations that are deployable in the market within next 6 months.
- The Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE), a technology business incubator at IIT Bombay supported by DST has been identified as the Implementing Agency of the CAWACH.
- It will provide access to pan India networks for testing, trial and market deployment of these products and solutions in the identified areas of priority COVID-19 solutions.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Fiscal deficit and its relation with inflation, CAD etc.
Mains level: Paper 3- Should India consider a package to ease the sufferings inflicted by the covid-19 even at the cost of large fiscal deficit?
Context
The Centre can afford to step up its COVID-19 assistance to a higher scale; fiscal deficit is no worry.
Comparison with the US
- Unemployment benefit in the US: In the United States, for instance, where the lockdown has raised the number of persons filing unemployment claims from 2.8 lakh to 6.6 million in a matter of days, those affected can fall back on unemployment benefit.
- Comparison of packages: The US government has approved a package of ameliorative steps costing roughly 10% of that country’s GDP to cope with the crisis.
- In India by contrast, the Finance Minister’s package comes to less than 1% of its GDP; and much of it is just a repackaging of already existing schemes.
- New expenditure comes to just a little over half of the ₹1.7-lakh crore earmarked for the package.
- Migrant workers are not the beneficiary: Besides, none of the steps will help the migrant workers; not even the larger foodgrain ration which in principle could, because most of them would have ration cards back home rather than in the places where they stay.
What can be done?
Consider the cash transfer
- Many economists and civil society activists had suggested a cash transfer of ₹7,000 per month for a two-month period to the bottom 80% of households to tide over the crisis, in addition to enhanced rations of foodgrains and the inclusion of certain other essential commodities within the ration basket.
- The cost of their proposed cash transfers alone would come to ₹3.66-lakh crore, which is more than 10 times the cash transfers provided in the Finance Minister’s package.
- Providing assistance on the scale proposed by civil society organisations is necessary; it will no doubt pose logistical problems, but not financial problems.
- Two possible effects of cash transfer: Even if all of it is financed through a fiscal deficit for the time being, the economic implications of such an enlarged deficit would not be forbidding.
- These implications can manifest themselves in two ways: one is through inflation, and the other by precipitating a balance of payments problem. Let us consider each of these.
Effect of cash transfer on inflation
- As long as supplies of essential commodities are plentiful and these are made available through the Public Distribution System to the vast majority of the people so that they are insulated against the effects of inflation, any inflation per se should not be a matter of great concern. This is the case in India at present.
- Foodgrain stocks with the FCI: The supply of the most essential of goods, food grains, is plentiful. Currently, there are 58 million tonnes of foodgrain stocks with the government, of which no more than about 21 million tonnes are required as buffer-cum-operational stocks.
- This leaves a surplus of 37 million tonnes which can be used for distribution as enhanced ration, or for providing a cushion against inflation.
- The rabi crop is supposed to be good; as long as it is safely harvested, this would further boost the government’s food stocks.
- Rise in demand of other commodities: Likewise, the supplies of other essential commodities which consist of manufactured goods and where output has been demand-constrained all along will get boosted in response to higher demand; and in special cases, imports may have to be resorted to.
- There is in short no reason to think that inflation of a worrisome magnitude will follow if the fiscal deficit is increased.
- What about the multiplier effect? There is an additional factor here. The increase in total demand caused by an initial increase in demand, which is financed by a fiscal deficit, is a multiple of the latter.
- Now in a situation like the present, when even if the lockdown is lifted social distancing and restrictions on social activities will continue, the value of the multiplier will be lower than usual.
- People, in short, would hold on to purchasing power to a much greater extent than usual because of the continuing restrictions on demand, which would act as an automatic anti-inflationary factor.
- Of course, there will be shortages of some less essential commodities and also hoarding on account of such shortages. But since these shortages will be expected to be temporary, a result of the pandemic unlikely to last long, there will be a damper on hoarding.
Effect of cash transfer on deficit
- The price rise of non-rationed commodities: If inflationary expectations are strong and persistent, then the prices of non-rationed commodities may rise sharply for speculative reasons.
- How the government can prevent the price rise? But the government can prevent such expectations, by adopting measures such as bringing down petro-product prices, taking advantage of the collapse of world oil prices.
- A larger fiscal deficit, therefore, need not cause disquiet on account of inflation.
- Balance of payment issue: On the balance of payments front, the worry associated with a larger fiscal deficit is financial flight caused by frightened investors.
- Some financial flight is already happening, with the rupee taking a fall.
- Rush to dollar: This flight is not because of our fiscal deficit but because, whenever there is panic in financial markets, the tendency is to rush to dollars, even though the cause of the panic may lie in the United States itself.
- Using foreign exchange reserves: India has close to half a trillion dollars of foreign exchange reserves. These can be used, up to a point, to check the flight from the rupee to the dollar.
- Restriction on capital outflow: If the flight nonetheless persists, then India will have a legitimate reason for putting restrictions on capital outflows in the context of the pandemic.
Way forward
- The Centre must not worry about its fiscal deficit; and since the State governments will bear a substantial expenditure burden on account of the pandemic.
- The Centre must make more resources available to the states.
- The centre should raise their borrowing limits, perhaps double their current limits as a general rule, apart from negotiating the magnitude of fiscal transfers it should make towards them.
Conclusion
If the hardships of the people are not ameliorated through larger government expenditure, because of the fear that the larger fiscal deficit required for it would frighten finance into fleeing, then the privileging of finance over people would have reached its acme.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2-How steps government must take to ensure that the stranded labour are not left without food.
Context
The impact of the lockdown, effected from midnight of March 24, has been particularly severe on migrant workers. The state must utilise FCI stock for those who have ration cards and those who don’t.
India’s labour force and impact of lockdown on it
- Nearly one-fifth of India’s labour force consists of internal migrants.
- As per the 2011 census, a quarter of the urban population consists of migrants.
- These tend to be predominantly male, from the less developed northern states, in the lower-income strata, and dependent on daily wages or precarious livelihoods.
- The impact of the lockdown has been particularly severe on migrant workers.
- Uncertainty and reverse migration: Due to uncertainty over the duration of the lockdown, and about their own livelihoods and food security, the lockdown has led to massive reverse migration from cities back to villages.
- Further, due to the absence of train and bus services, many of these workers took to simply walking back.
- The ground reality of inadequate preparation or insufficient provision means that neither their anxiety nor plight is assuaged.
- Migrant workers tend to depend on public eating places or community arrangements for food.
- Under a lockdown, there is simply no choice for them, except to depend on the government’s efforts or charitable organisations.
Utilising the grain stocks with the FCI
- The government has a large stock of wheat and rice procured over the last three years.
- Stock in excess of buffer norm: The buffer norm for April 1 is 21.4 million tonnes, against which the country had about 7 million tonnes on March 1: This comprises 27.5 million tonnes of wheat and 50.2 million tonnes of rice.
- In most districts of India, the Food Corporation of India and state agencies have a storage capacity of more than the three months requirement of the public distribution system.
- The warehouses are spread across all the districts in every state.
- The government has already announced that an additional quantity of five kg of foodgrains will be provided, free of cost, to all ration card holders for the next three months.
- Most of the unorganised labour and families migrating back from their place of work will probably have their ration cards in the villages itself.
- So, it should not be much of a problem for them to find food during the period of lockdown.
What should the state do to feed those who do not have ration cards
- For those who do not have ration cards in the villages, it is the right time to use this extra stock of foodgrains.
- Using school and Anganwadi infrastructure: In villages, primary schools have facilities for cooking mid-day meals for children. Some Anganwadi also have this facility. This infrastructure can be used to provide cooked meals to those who do not have ration cards in the villages.
- The government can easily offer to meet their requirement of wheat and rice over the next three weeks and panchayats can be asked to meet a part of the expenditure required to purchase vegetables, spices and cooking oil.
- The village panchayats which take up such a feeding programme must be provided Rs 20 per person per day from State Disaster Relief Fund for the expenditure on vegetables, cooking oil, spices, which are not covered by the PDS.
- In some villages, the local community may also be willing to help the panchayats to feed such people.
- Efforts must also be made by the panchayats to raise donations in kind from the local community for rabi pulses like chana (chickpea), masoor (lentil), matar (field pea) which are available in plenty in pulse-growing states.
How to feed those who are stuck in the cities
- A number of labourers and self-employed: In urban areas, as per the Periodic Labour Force Survey, there were about 6 crore casual labourers and four crore self-employed persons in 2017-18.
- Even after the reverse migration to villages, there would still be millions of them who are stuck in cities at their place of work.
- These are people who do not have any savings or source of income which can sustain them during the period of the lockdown. These people living in slums, in the poorer areas of cities, are in need of urgent assistance for food, at least for the next three weeks.
- The most distressed at present are those stuck in the cities, or who have been walking hundreds of kilometres to reach their homes in small towns and villages.
- Allocating funds form relief funds: The district collectors should be allocated funds from the State Disaster Relief Fund to provide them with food and open all community buildings en route for them.
- Engaging various players: The states must engage NGOs, factories and charities including religious organisations to raise funds for meeting the expenditure on milk, eggs, cooking oil and vegetables, and even soaps and sanitisers.
- More than 67,000 NGOs are registered with the Niti Aayog on their NGO Darpan platform — which was created to bring about a greater partnership between the government and the voluntary sector and to foster transparency, efficiency and accountability.
- This is the time to use such a platform.
- The Centre can easily provide free rice and wheat to the NGOs from its stock and the NGOs can provide cooked meals in urban areas for the next three weeks.
- For one crore individuals, for three weeks, the government needs to provide just about 75,000 tonnes of rice. Since the milling of wheat would be difficult due to the closure of flour mills, only rice can be provided at this stage.
Conclusion
The rabi harvest is expected to be a bumper one. The utilisation of the FCI stock — for not only the ration card holders but also the non-ration cardholders, and for providing food to the poor stuck in urban areas — is the most appropriate use of the foodgrain stock with the government. This is urgent and must be done.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Oil war in international oil market and implications for India.
Context
In the post-COVID world, India will, once again, confront the challenge of oil and gas supply security. We should, therefore, ask: What will be the landscape of the petroleum sector, post-COVID? And what should India do now to prepare for an uncertain and contingent energy future?
Oil war and the death knell of OPEC
- The concept of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) deterred the nuclear powers during the Cold War. It has had no such effect on the oil powers.
- Implications of the decision of Saudi Arabia and Russia: At a time when the virus had pushed the global economy into recession, Russia and Saudi Arabia took a set of decisions last month that knocked the economic props from under the oil market.
- What were the reasons behind the decisions: The Saudis decided to flood the market to hold onto market share and the Russians accepted the consequent decline in prices to push the US shale industry to the wall.
- Future of OPEC: Both may achieve their objectives but they have sounded the death knell of OPEC and possibly that of the oil industry as well.
Two reasons for the decline in the oil prices
- Today, the price of oil, at just above $30/bbl , is at its lowest in a decade, and volatile downwards. The average price in 2019 was $64/bbl.
- The reason is two-fold.
- One, the Saudis have ramped up production from 9.8mbd (before the March meeting) to in excess of 12 mbd today.
- Two, there has been an unprecedented COVID-induced crash in demand. This is because of the lockdown of the two main drivers of oil consumption — transportation and industry.
- It is estimated that oil consumption in the current quarter will fall by approximately 25 mbd.
- This is almost as much as OPEC’s production.
- The Saudis and Russia may still come to an understanding that rallies the price.
- There will be three major implications for the oil-producing countries.
1. Budgetary crisis
- Every major oil-exporting country will face a budgetary crisis.
- Qatar has the most robust balance sheet of all OPEC members. But it still needs an oil price of around $40/bbl to balance its books.
- Algeria has the weakest. It needs an excess of $100/bbl.
- Saudi Arabia is at the Algerian end of the spectrum requiring a price of around $80/bbl.
- Abundant foreign reserves: This does not mean these countries are about to go financially belly up. Most of them, the Gulf producers, in particular, have abundant sovereign reserves.
- But what it does mean is they will be hard-pressed to sustain their social and economic commitments.
- They will have to cut back on subsidies, raise taxes and the citizens will be required to tighten their belts.
- What India should do? India should build into its oil supply plans with the likelihood of civil strife in these countries.
2. Reconfiguration of the oil industry will take place
- Already, at current prices, a large number of companies are finding it difficult to cover their cash costs and have been forced to cut production and shutter operations.
- At even lower prices, they will become bankrupt.
- Whatever the final outcome, one fact is clear. Those that survive the carnage will have substantially slimmed balance sheets and reduced valuations.
- Exxon’s market capitalisation has, for instance, halved over the past month.
- Implication for India: Against this backdrop, we should drop the expectation of international interest in BPCL. Or for that matter ME investment into India.
- Ratnagiri refinery: The $40-billion Ratnagiri refinery project by Saudi Aramco and UAE will certainly not see the light of day.
- We should also expect a drop in the intensity of domestic exploration.
3. Behavioural changes and uncertainties
- The world, post-COVID will be different from the world pre-COVID. Behaviours will shift and these will deepen uncertainties.
- “Social distancing” may change the dynamics of “shared mobility”.
- Teleporting may reduce business travel.
- Heightened awareness of the porosity of national boundaries may accelerate the push towards decarbonisation? These uncertainties will push the petroleum market deeper into no man’s land.
Way forward for India
- Whatever be the shape of the post- COVID international petroleum market, India will be dependent on it to secure its domestic energy requirement. The question should, therefore, be asked. What should the decision-makers do today to respond to such a contingent and uncertain future?
- 1. Increase the strategic reserves: It should fill the oil caverns with strategic reserves. Prices may fall further but rather than bottom fish, it should leverage the availability of capacity to secure discounted supplies.
- The world has run out of storage capacity and producers may pay premium dollar to find space for their unsold cargoes.
- 2. Reduce the dependency and risk: India should increase its imports of gas (LNG ) from Australia, Africa and the US.
- This will reduce the political risks of dependency on oil supplies from the Middle East.
- Gas is also now economically competitive. The landed price of LNG is low enough to kick-start some of the stranded gas-based power plants.
- 3. Increase operational efficiency of oil companies: It should unthread the “patchwork quilt of authority” exercised by bureaucrats, regulators and politicians, which today stifles management and operational efficiency of the petroleum companies.
- 4. Integrated energy policy: India should create an institutional basis for an integrated energy policy. If there is one message we must internalise from COVID, it is the importance of collaboration and coordination.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Read the attached story
(This newscard is the excerpt from an article published in the TOI, authored by former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. It discusses a series of reformative measures to boost our economy once the lockdown restrictions are eased.)
Context
- Economically speaking, India is faced today with perhaps its greatest emergency since Independence.
- The global financial crisis in 2008-09 was a massive demand shock but our financial system was largely sound, and our government finances were healthy.
- None of this is true today as we fight the coronavirus pandemic.
- With the right resolve and priorities, and drawing on India’s many sources of strength, it can beat this virus back and even set the stage for a much more hopeful tomorrow.
To begin with: 21 day Lockdown
- The immediate priority, of course, is to suppress the spread of the pandemic through widespread testing, rigorous quarantines, and social distancing.
- The 21-day lockdown is a first step, which buys India time to improve its preparedness.
- The government is drawing on our courageous medical personnel and looking to all possible resources – public, private, defence, retired – for the fight, but it has to ramp up the pace manifold.
- It will have to test significantly more to reduce the fog of uncertainty on where the hotspots are, and it will have to keep some personnel and resources mobile so that they can be rushed to areas where shortages are acute.
Restarting with caution
- The 21 day lockdown is about a week ahead to get lifted. It is hard to lockdown the country entirely for much longer periods, so we should also be thinking of how we can restart certain activities.
- Restarting requires better data on infection levels, as well as measures to protect those returning to work.
- Healthy youth, lodged with appropriate distancing in hostels at the workplace, maybe ideal workers for restarting.
Pacing up manufacturing
- Since manufacturers need to activate their entire supply chain to produce, they should be encouraged to plan on how the entire chain will reopen.
- The administrative structure to approve these plans and facilitate movement for those approved should be effective and quick – it needs to be thought through now.
Most crucial: Ensuring workforce sustenance
- In the meantime, policymakers need to ensure that the poor and non-salaried lower middle class who are prevented from working for longer periods can survive.
- Direct transfers to households may reach most but not all, as a number of commentators have pointed out.
- Furthermore, the quantum of transfers seems inadequate to see a household over a month.
- The state and Centre have to come together to figure out quickly some combination of public and private participation and DBTs that will allow needy households to see through the next few months.
- We have already seen one consequence of not doing so – the movement of migrant labour. Another will be people defying the lockdown to get back to work if they cannot survive otherwise.
Gearing up for fiscal shocks
- Our limited fiscal resources are certainly a worry. However, spending on the needy at this time is a high priority use of resources, the right thing to do as a humane nation.
- This does not mean that we can ignore our budgetary constraints, especially given that our revenues will also be severely affected this year.
- Unlike the US or Europe, which can spend 10% more of GDP without fear of a ratings downgrade, we already entered this crisis with a huge fiscal deficit, and will have to spend yet more.
- A ratings downgrade coupled with a loss of investor confidence could lead to a plummeting exchange rate and a dramatic increase in long term rates in this environment, and substantial losses for our financial institutions.
Channelizing expenditures
- So we have to prioritise, cutting back or delaying less important expenditures, while refocusing on immediate needs.
- At the same time, to reassure investors, the government could express its commitment to return to fiscal rectitude.
- The govt. must back up its intent by accepting the setting up of an independent fiscal council and setting a medium term debt target, as suggested by the NK Singh committee.
Boosting up Industries
1) MSMEs
- Many MSMEs already weakened over the last few years, may not have the resources to survive.
- We need to think of innovative ways in which bigger viable ones, especially those that have considerable human and physical capital embedded in them, can be helped.
- SIDBI can make the terms of its credit guarantee of bank loans to SMEs even more favourable, but banks are unlikely to want to take on much more credit risk at this point.
- The government could accept responsibility for the first loss in incremental bank loans made to an SME, up to the quantum of income taxes paid by the SME in the past year.
2) Large industries
- Large firms can also be a way to channel funds to their smaller suppliers. They usually can raise money in bond markets and pass it on.
- Banks, insurance companies, and bond mutual funds should be encouraged to buy new investment-grade bond issuances, and their way eased by the RBI.
- The government should also require each of its agencies and PSUs, including at the state level, to pay their bills immediately, so that private firms get valuable liquidity.
Looping in everyone’s participation
- The government should call on people with proven expertise and capabilities, of whom there are so many in India, to help it manage its response.
- It may even want to reach across the political aisle to draw in members of the opposition who have had experience in previous times of great stress like the global financial crisis.
- If, however, the government insists on driving everything from the PMO, with the same overworked people, it will do too little, too late.
Conclusion
- Globally, it is said that India reforms only in crisis.
- Hopefully, this otherwise unmitigated tragedy will help us see how weakened we have become as a society, and will focus our politics on the critical economic and healthcare reforms we sorely need.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Great Economic Depression, Slowdown vs. Depression
Mains level: Impact of the depression on colonial India
With the novel coronavirus pandemic severely affecting the global economy, some experts have begun comparing the current crisis with the Great Depression — the devastating economic decline of the 1930s that went on to shape countless world events.
Looming depression ahead
- Experts have warned that unemployment levels in some countries could reach those from the 1930s era, when the unemployment rate was as high as around 25 per cent in the United States.
- Currently, unemployment levels in the US are already estimated to be at 13 per cent, highest since the Great Depression.
What was the Great Depression?
- The Great Depression was a major economic crisis that began in the United States in 1929, and went to have a worldwide impact until 1939.
- It began on October 24, 1929, a day that is referred to as “Black Thursday”, when a monumental crash occurred at the New York Stock Exchange as stock prices fell by 25 per cent.
- Though the crash was triggered by minor events, the extent of the decline was due to more deep-rooted factors such as a fall in aggregate demand, misplaced monetary policies, and an unintended rise in inventory levels.
- In the United States, prices and real output fell dramatically. Industrial production fell by 47 per cent, the wholesale price index by 33 per cent, and real GDP by 30 per cent.
What caused Great Depression?
The causes of the Great Depression are extremely complex and disputed to this day. The three main factors are:
- Financial instability and credit cycles: A period of stability encouraged more borrowing and lending than prudent, sowing the seeds for future instability.
- Monetary contraction, the gold standard, and bank runs: Monetary policy, driven in large part by the gold standard, tightened credit at the wrong time fueling bank-runs and economic slowdown.
- Debt deflation: Excess private debt created a dangerous condition where no one wanted to spend, causing deflation and economic weakening.
Worldwide impact
- The havoc caused in the US spread to other countries mainly due to the gold standard, which linked most of the world’s currencies by fixed exchange rates.
- In almost every country of the world, there were massive job losses, deflation, and a drastic contraction in output.
- Unemployment in the US increased from 3.2 per cent to 24.9 per cent between 1929 and 1933. In the UK, it rose from 7.2 per cent to 15.4 per cent between 1929 and 1932.
Latent outcomes
- The Depression caused extreme human suffering, and many political upheavals took place around the world.
- In Europe, economic stagnation that the Depression caused is believed to be the principal reason behind the rise of fascism, and consequently the Second World War.
- It had a profound impact on institutions and policymaking globally and led to the gold standard being abandoned.
How did Great Depression impact India?
- The Depression had an important impact on India’s freedom struggle.
- Due to the global crisis, there was a drastic fall in agricultural prices, the mainstay of India’s economy, and a severe credit contraction occurred as colonial policymakers refused to devalue the rupee.
- The effects of the Depression became visible around the harvest season in 1930, soon after Mahatma Gandhi had launched the Civil Disobedience movement in April the same year.
1) Rural India mainstreamed into freedom struggle
- The fallout made substantial sections of the peasantry rise in protest and this protest was articulated by members of the National Congress.
- There were “No Rent” campaigns in many parts of the country, and radical Kisan Sabhas were started in Bihar and eastern UP.
- Agrarian unrest provided a groundswell of support to the Congress, whose reach was yet to extend into rural India.
2) INC gained momentum
- The endorsement by farming classes is believed to be among the reasons that enabled the party to achieve its landslide victory in the 1936-37 provincial elections held under the Government of India Act, 1935.
- This is marked as a significant event in the history of INC as it flourished the party’s political might for years to come.
Back2Basics
Slowdown vs recession vs depression
- Slowdown simply means that the pace of the GDP growth has decreased. During slowdown, the GDP growth is still positive but the rate of growth has decreased.
- Recession refers to a phase of the downturn in the economic cycle when there is a fall in the country’s GDP for two quarters. It is a period of decline in total output, income, employment and trade, usually lasting six months to a year.
- Depression is a prolonged period of economic recession marked by a significant decline in income and employment. It is a negative GDP growth of 10% of more, for more than 3 years.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: COVID-19 and its impact on climate change negotiation
Context
- Amidst the pandemic, people are breathing cleaner air and are witness to clearer, bluer skies as the human movement has been restricted due to lockdowns imposed by various countries.
- But while the air may be getting cleaner, the lockdowns are not exactly good news for climate change research.
- Climate talks are witnessing setbacks in the form of funding cuts, cancelled climate conferences and reduced political will to tackle climate change.
COVID-19 impacting climate change research
- The hard paced climate change research has been halted and it might become difficult to restart the conversation around it, even after the pandemic is brought under control.
- The major projects that were scheduled to gather environmental data have all been cancelled or postponed and the crisis has also cast a shadow on routine monitoring of weather and climate change.
- Further, because commercial flights are running at a lesser frequency, it has also become difficult to collect ambient temperatures and the wind speed, which is taken by in-flight sensors.
- The other reason that other research has more or less been halted is because of restrictions including lockdowns, insistence on working from home and other social distancing requirements.
Scope for a back seat
- Due to the looming health crisis, human kind’s immediate survival is the biggest concern at the moment.
- However, completely ignoring environmental policy may not be in humanity’s best interest.
- Largely we still view the environment, and life on earth, as separate. This separation is a dangerous delusion.
- We can and must do better if we want to prevent the next infectious pandemic.
Climate change and infectious diseases are not separate
- The two are not directly related, which is to say that climate change did not lead to the spread of the coronavirus.
- However, there is a possibility that climate change could have exacerbated the impact of COVID-19 by making the consequences worse for some humans.
- For instance, air pollution’s impact on human health could make some consequences of the disease more severe for a few humans.
- A 2003 study on air pollution and the case fatality rate for SARS showed that people exposed to air pollution were more likely to suffer severe consequences from the disease.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Amma Canteen
Mains level: Food subsidization and its impact
The Amma Canteen, a delivery system to provide urban food security in Tamil Nadu, has become an effective mechanism in reaching the needy during the lockdown.
AMMA Canteen
- Amma Unavagam better known as Amma Canteen is a food subsidization programme run by the Government of Tamil Nadu.
- Under the scheme, municipal corporations of the state-run canteens serving subsidised food at low prices.
- The dishes are offered at low prices: ₹1 for an idli, ₹5 for a plate of sambar rice, ₹5 for a plate of “Karuvapellai Satham” (Curry leaves rice) and ₹3 for a plate of curd rice.
Feeding the stranded
- Migrants usually benefit from this canteen scheme. It is not uncommon to see policemen, municipal workers and people from the media having their breakfast in these canteens.
- The system, in short, has ensured urban food security and is a boon to migrants during lockdown. There are, thus, unexpected but pleasant benefits from this scheme.
Reasons for success
- It is a delivery system with minimum leakages and has reached to its target group very effectively compared to the PDS system.
- People realized the benefits of the scheme in due course of time and thus it emerged popularly.
A lesson for all
- Welfare schemes are started with the intention to provide benefits to vulnerable sections of society.
- The success of any welfare scheme depends on the seriousness of the people at the helm of affairs, the efficiency of the scheme’s functionaries and the involvement of the people.
- During the process of implementation, some deserving people get excluded from the scheme, while some of those who were undeserving manage to enjoy its benefits.
- Welfare schemes deliver unexpected but pleasant benefits sometimes.
Way forward
- For such a welfare scheme to be successful, it must be launched in letter and spirit.
- The benefits of the schemes cannot be realized at pan India level in the absence of a good delivery system.
- These states should explore the possibility of utilising available infrastructure in existing private canteens and hotels (closed during lockdown).
- This measure would not only help migrant workers but also provide employment to workers who remained unemployed since the lockdown came into effect.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Drive-through Testing
Mains level: Coronovirus outbreak and its mitigation
To work around the challenges of home-based testing in the country, a New Delhi based firm has offered ‘drive-through test’ for COVID-19.
Drive-through Testing
- Those who feel sick drive up to a test centre where nurses wearing protective gear collect a nose or throat sample from the car itself.
- Results are mailed or messaged in a day.
- This method of mass testing has allowed reduced contact between patients and healthcare workers, thereby lessening the chances of transmission.
- South Korea has led the world in the number of tests per million to check for coronavirus infection through this method.
Germany: leading through examples
- Germany is conducting around 3,50,000 coronavirus tests a week, far more than any other country.
- It means that more people with few or no symptoms are reported thereby increasing the number of known cases and adequate quarantines.
Limitations (for India)
- We have seen so far is that many are uncomfortable with the home collection process.
- Some people are worried that lab personnel visiting home in full protective gear would scare the neighbours.
- There are also instances when spouses of some healthcare personnel have separated for a while.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Pink Supermoon
Mains level: NA
A supermoon is all scheduled to show up in the sky on April 7. It would be the biggest and brightest full moon of 2020.
Pink Supermoon
- According to NASA, a supermoon takes place when a full moon is at its closest to the Earth.
- When the full moon appears at perigee (closest point from the earth) it is slightly brighter and larger than a regular full moon — and that is what we call a “supermoon.”
- They are called Supermoons because they are 7 per cent bigger and 15 per cent brighter, compared to an average full Moon.
- The moon will not be originally pink in colour. It got its name from the pink wildflowers – Wild Ground Phlox – that bloom in the spring and are native to North America.
- It is also called Paschal moon because, in the Christian calendar, this is used to calculate the date for Easter – the first Sunday after the Paschal Moon is Easter Sunday.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- What are the possibilities that could be brought in the world by the epidemic.
Context
As COVID-19 spreads exponentially across the world, profound uncertainty and extreme volatility are wreaking havoc of a kind seldom encountered previously. It might, hence, be wise to start thinking of what next, if at least to try and handle a situation created by the most serious pandemic in recent centuries.
China’s important role
- No previous experience: The problem with the novel coronavirus is that with the exception of China, which battled another coronavirus epidemic in 2003 — SARS epidemic — there is little available for most nations on which to base their assessment of what next.
- Further drop in China’s growth rate: What is known is that China’s growth rate has further plummeted, even as it was confronting an economic slowdown which had been in the works for some time.
- Economic downturn internationally: The consequences for the global economy of China ceasing to be the world’s biggest exporter of manufactured goods are considerable.
- And with no country in a position to replace it, this development will precipitate a further economic downturn internationally.
Uncertainties before epidemic
- The COVID-19 pandemic could not have come at a more difficult time.
- Uncertain economic environment: The world was already having to contend with an uncertain economic environment, with industries in turn facing newer challenges such as having to adjust to a shift from cost efficiencies to innovation and breakthrough improvements.
- Added to this were: a global slowdown, increasing political and policy uncertainties, alterations in social behaviour, new environmental norms, etc.
- India’s position: Newly emerging economies, such as India, were even more affected by all this, than some of the older established ones.
Impact on India and what lies ahead?
- Estimate of cost by ADB: An early estimate by the Asian Development Bank, soon after the epidemic was declared, was that it would cost the Indian economy $29.9 billion.
- A recent industry estimate pegs the cost of the lockdown at around $120 billion or 4% of India’s GDP.
- May require six months to recover after epidemic: The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) had at one point warned that the COVID-19 impact, and the existing stress in the financial sector, meant that India would require up to six months even after the entire course of the COVID-19 epidemic is over to restore normalcy and business continuity.
- The COVID-19 Taskforce under the Finance Minister come up with measures to mitigate the economic hardship engendered by the pandemic, and finally a three-week-long lockdown.
- Several precautionary measures based on guidelines in vogue elsewhere in the world for preventing pandemics of this kind, have also been introduced including ‘home isolation’, ‘home quarantine’, etc.
- The prognosis as to what lies ahead is indeed bleak.
- On the economic plane, according to most experts, a global recession seems inevitable.
- The decline in demand: Uncertainty, panic and lockdown policies are expected to cause demand worldwide to decline in a precipitous way.
- Start of downward cycle: Decline in demand will inevitably lead to a vicious downward cycle, where companies close down, resulting in more lay-offs and a further drop in consumption.
- A precipitous decline in GDP would follow.
- Massive funds would be needed: To compensate for this loss, massive inflows of government funds would be needed, but most governments, India included, might find it difficult to find adequate resources for this purpose.
- Right time for fund: Equally important, if not more so, is that such massive inflows of funds (if they are to be effective) should be here and now, and not later, by which time the situation may well have spiralled out of control. Global coordination was a must in the extant situation.
Disruption in the global order- Implications for the position of the US
- COVID-19 is, in turn, expected to bring about major changes in the global order.
- Changes would get accelerated: Some of these changes have, no doubt, been in the making for some time, but would get accelerated.
- As of now, though the U.S. is no longer the global power that it once was, it is hardly in retreat.
- Retreat from Afghanistan, not the end: The US is, without doubt, increasingly disinclined to act as the world’s gendarme, as instanced by its retreat from Afghanistan after a dubious accord with the Afghan Taliban,
- But this was not the end of the road as far as U.S. power was concerned.
- The US would step back further: Post COVID-19, however, and given that the U.S. is among the countries badly affected by this pandemic, together with existing uncertainties affecting its financial markets, the U.S. can be expected to step back even further — from one of assertion to neutrality in global affairs.
- Already, U.S. command of the global commons has weakened. Meantime, China and Russia have strengthened their relationship and improved their asymmetric capabilities.
- US not the largest economy by PPP: The challenge from China is becoming more obvious by the day — measured by purchasing power parity, the S. is not the largest economy in the world as of now.
- Russian challenge: Even more daunting from a U.S. standpoint, and also representing a sea-change from the recent past, Russia has become far more economically and politically stable and an important power broker in West Asia.
- Impact on liberal international order: These shifts cannot but, and are likely to, have a direct impact on the liberal international order. It could, in turn, give a boost to authoritarian regimes and authoritarian trends.
Impact on social behaviour
- Moving away from the political and economic consequences of COVID-19 are other concerns arising from an extended lockdown, social distancing and isolation.
- The epidemic of despair: Psychologists are even talking of an ‘epidemic of despair’ arising from a fear of unknown causes, resulting in serious anxiety and mental problems.
- Problems due to extended isolation: Extended isolation, according to psychologists, can trigger a different kind of pandemic even leading to possible suicidal tendencies, fits of anger, depression, alcoholism and eccentric behavioural patterns.
Inequality and impact
- The impact is not the same for all: Another fallout from the current epidemic might well be the extent to which inequality in incomes impact segments of the population, facing a common malaise.
- Countries lacking a comprehensive nation-wide health system would find this an even more difficult situation to handle.
- Meantime, as the economy weakens, accompanied by job losses, those without high levels of skills would fall further behind.
- This is evident to some extent already given recent reports of mass migration across the Indian landmass.
- Out of work migrant labour, unable to find new jobs since they lack the necessary skills, are attempting to return to their normal habitat, bringing in their wake untold suffering and, perhaps even the spread of the virus.
- This has all the makings of a huge human tragedy. Existing curbs on their movement would further exacerbate the problem, and could even lead to a major law and order situation.
Possibility of the rise of digital authoritarianism
- One possible, and unexpected, aspect of the COVID-19 epidemic could be the thrust it could provide to ‘digital authoritarianism’.
- China’s authoritarian methods seem to have helped it to contain the spread of the virus — at least for the time being.
- Somewhat similar tactics are being employed by some other countries as well.
- In turn, leaders across many nations may find China’s methods, and the embracing of technology to refashion authoritarianism for the modern age irresistible, and a standard to be adapted, even if they profess to be democratic.
- The rise of digital autocracies could lead to digital repression, and in the age of AI-powered surveillance, create a capacity for predictive control, or what is often referred to as ‘social management’.
Conclusion
The pandemic even after it’s over could change the world in more than one ways and we must be cautious in our approach in accepting or rejecting these changes brought about by the epidemic.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Techniques used for detecting virus: RT-PCR, CRISPR and serological tests.
Mains level: Paper 3- Various techniques used in tests used to detect Covid-19 and their advantages.
Context
The present COVID-19 outbreak has brought to light the old struggle between humans and viruses.
The constant struggle between humans and viruses
- Hijacking the cell machinery of the host: Microbes, particularly viruses, have only one goal — to find a suitable host and multiply. Viruses, however, do not multiply by themselves. They need the cell machinery of the host for replication.
- Around two-thirds of all infections in humans are caused by viruses.
- The current COVID-19 outbreak caused by a coronavirus, SARS-CoV2, has brought this struggle to light once again.
- Coronavirus has the upper hand now: The virus seems highly successful because it spreads rapidly from human to human and has a lower rate of mortality.
- Humans have faced new viruses at regular intervals. These include the Ebola, Zika, HIV, the Flu virus H1N1, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) — the latter two are from the coronavirus family.
- Animal to humans: These viruses have all appeared in the last few decades, having jumped from their animal reservoirs to humans.
- Many of these viruses have a much higher mortality rate than the SARS-CoV2 that caused COVID-19.
- Victory would be at huge costs: Like before, humans will come out of the present crisis as winners but that will happen at a huge cost, in every sense of the word.
- The loss would include untimely loss of human lives, economic losses and a general loss of confidence in the human ability to deal with a tiny unknown enemy.
Steps involved in dealing with the virus
- It involves dealing with any new viral outbreak is to be able to accurately test, detect and track the spread of the virus, and isolate the infected persons to stop further spread.
- Knowing the genetic makeup of virus matters: In order to implement the first step, it is important to obtain information on the genetic makeup of the virus, which forms the basis of developing highly specific diagnostic tests.
- Three types of tests are being used which have different advantages associated with them and are based on different technologies. These are described below-
1. What is the RT-PCR technique?
- Currently, the most reliable and widely-used test is based on a technique called RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription Time Polymerase Chain Reaction).
- This test aims to detect the viral RNA, the genetic material of SARS-CoV2.
- The testing begins with the careful collection of swabs taken from the nose or the back of the throat of the patient and extraction of the viral RNA.
- However, this extracted viral RNA from the swab is too tiny an amount for direct detection.
- Amplification: The RT-PCR, through many different reactions that include the conversion of viral RNA to DNA — its amplification and detection — makes it possible to confirm the presence or absence of the virus.
- The testing kits contain all chemicals and materials required for carrying out the RT-PCR based tests, which are performed by government-approved laboratories such as India’s National Institute of Virology.
- However, many more testing centres, including those run by private players, have now been allowed to carry out the tests in many countries to bridge the huge demand and supply gap.
- Why testing matters? It is now clear that countries which were able to scale up the testing of the virus in patients at an early stage were able to control the spread of the disease far better than those which did not.
- Only viable control measure: Given that there is no cure or vaccine for the control of COVID-19, testing of infected patients much more quickly and tracking their contacts to isolate them till they clear off the virus is currently the only viable control measure.
2. How CRISPR is proving helpful in scaling up the testing?
- There is good news of a relatively new but powerful technology called CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats).
- CRISPR is highly specific in directly detecting viral RNA and confirming the presence or absence of the virus.
- Interestingly, viruses also attack bacteria and the discovery of CRISPR itself was based on understanding how bacteria cut off the viruses.
- What are the advantages of CRISPR-based test? The CRISPR-based test is quick and circumvents the need for both expert handling as well as PCR machines and can be done at multiple locations in about half an hour.
- It can also fend off delays and other logistic problems in collection and transportation of test samples.
- These tests are being validated and readied for approval.
- Two companies, separately founded by the two scientists who discovered the CRISPR technique, have also announced that they are ready with their CRISPR-based test for validation and approval.
- Test in 10 minutes: They have claimed that these tests can be performed within 10 minutes and can be conducted by using a paper strip format.
- Test in 5 minutes: Another company, Abbott Laboratories, has recently announced the approval of their portable test for coronavirus, which the company claims can provide the results in five minutes.
- Such a point of care test will not only greatly enhance the speed of large-scale testing but will also relieve the tremendous pressure faced by frontline healthcare providers.
3. Serological tests to detect the realistic information on the spread of the virus
- Why we need serological tests? The above described RT-PCR and the newly developed CRISPR based tests are needed for scaling up the testing.
- But many individuals infected with the virus do not show symptoms of the disease and recover completely.
- How to test these cases to gather realistic information on the spread of the virus?
- Such information will be necessary for designing future control strategies.
- How serological tests work? This is done with serological tests, which are carried out in blood samples collected from a large population and are based on the detection of antibodies that are produced in response to the viral infection.
- Advantage of the serological tests: These tests are relatively easier to develop and use, less expensive, and also do not need much sophisticated infrastructure or highly trained manpower.
- Serological tests for COVID-19 have already been developed by many groups and are already in use.
- India also plans to carry out serological tests to examine the actual spread of the disease in different parts of the country.
Conclusion
Lockdowns are essential to control the disease but long-term strategies to deal with the disease would be based on the knowledge of its actual spread. The newly-developed point of care tests should be successfully able to bridge the existing gap in the testing of the virus. This will also assist in gearing up facilities to treat the severely sick as well as relieve and protect frontline health providers. Meanwhile, hopefully, efficient drugs therapies and efficacious vaccines against COVID-19 will also be discovered soon.
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