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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • Spanish Plan for Phased Easing of Lockdown

    • Spain’s Prime Minister has presented a four-phase lockdown exit strategy for the country.
    • It’s imperative for India to learn from global examples for easing lockdown without doing away with health concerns.

    With the nearing end of nationwide lockdown, various exit strategies are being discussed for a smooth restart.

    Spain’s exit strategy

    • The opening up of the lockdown will begin with phase 0 throughout Spain, except for a few islands that will already be in phase 1 by then.
    • A week later, provinces will enter phase 1, which will last for two weeks and the remaining phases will also last for two weeks each.
    • In total, the de-escalation will take at least six weeks to be complete.

    Phase 0: The preparation phase

    • De-escalations in this phase include opening up of takeaway facilities at restaurants and opening up of some other establishments such as hair salons.
    • From May 2, individuals will be able to go out for a walk or to exercise alone or with people they stay with. In this phase, professional athletes will be able to access individual training sessions.
    • Children aged 14 years or younger have been allowed to go out for walks from April 26.

    Phase 1: The initial phase

    • Begins on May 11. Small businesses will be allowed to open under strict security measures.
    • For instance, gyms can open for people who want to train individually and by appointment.
    • Further, hotels and tourist accommodations will be allowed to open, excluding the common areas and with certain restrictions in place.
    • Places of worship will also be allowed to open, limiting their capacity to one-third. Owners of terrace bars can open their establishments but with 30 per cent capacity.
    • In this phase, some degree of social contact with a limited number of people may also be allowed, subject to what the conditions are then.

    Phase 2: The intermediate phase

    • Begins on May 25.Will include the resumption of hunting and sport fishing, and the opening of cinemas and auditorium theatres at one-third of their capacity.
    • Visits to monuments and cultural facilities, such as exhibition halls and conference rooms, will resume with one-third occupancy.
    • Cultural shows will be allowed with less than 50 people in closed spaces. In the outdoors, shows and events can be held with less than 400 people provided they are seated.
    • All places of worship will have to limit their capacity to 50 per cent.

    Phase 3: The advanced phase

    • Begins on June 8 and provided the situation is under control, general mobility will be made more flexible.
    • Wearing masks will be recommended when people venture outside, especially on public transport. In commercial settings, capacities will be restricted to 50 per cent.
    • Beaches may also open in this phase. The movement of people into other provinces or islands is restricted until the de-escalation process is complete.

  • Religious Freedom and India

    The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has downgraded India to the lowest ranking, “countries of particular concern” (CPC) in its 2020 report.

    Religious freedom in India has been a contested issue since decades. Recent moves by the govt. since the abrogation of Art. 370 which triggered the riots in Delhi has left a big scar on the secular fabric of India.

    About USCIRF

    • It is a U.S. federal government commission created by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998.
    • Its principal responsibilities are to review the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally.

    Accusing India of religious intolerance

    • USCIRF has placed India alongside China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
    • India was categorised as a “Tier 2 country” in last year’s listing.
    • This is the first time since 2004 that India has been placed in the CPC category.
    • The commission also recommended that the U.S. government take stringent action against India under the “International Religious Freedom Act” (IRFA).

    What led India to lower its religious freedom?

    • India took a sharp downward turn in 2019 due to concerns about the Citizenship Amendment Act, the proposed National Register for Citizens, anti-conversion laws and the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
    • The report accuses India using its strengthened parliamentary majority to institute national-level policies violating religious freedom across India.
    • The panel reported harassment and violence against religious minorities to continue with impunity, and engaged in and tolerated hate speech and incitement to violence against them.

    India’s reaction

    • The Centre reacted sharply to the USCIRF report terming it “biased and tendentious” and rejected its observations.
    • The biased and tendentious comments against India are not new. But on this occasion, its misrepresentation has reached new levels.
    • Major panellists of USCIRF dissented with the recommendation on India as being ‘too harsh’ and that ended up placing the country alongside what they termed as “rogue nations” like China and North Korea.
    • India regards the accusations as inaccurate and unwarranted and questioned the body’s “locus standi” in India’s internal affairs.

    US’s religious activism: Unwelcomed by all

    • The US earlier this month has announced the launch of a 27-nation International Religious Freedom Alliance, which aim to adopt a collective approach in protecting and preserving religious freedom across the world.
    • Among the prominent countries to join the alliance are Brazil, the United Kingdom, Israel, Ukraine, the Netherlands and Greece.
    • The USCIRF has been accused worldwide of being biased towards focusing on the persecution of Christians and of being anti-Muslim & Hinduphobic. It panels various controversial personalities.

  • What are the concerns around the AarogyaSetu app?

    • Recently the AarogyaSetu app — for pan-India use was launched as the main contact tracing technology endorsed by the Central government.
    • Soon it became one of the most downloaded apps globally and has crossed the 75 million mark.
    • However, there are concerns for more transparency on the inner workings of an app that seeks the personal details of millions.

    RIght to Privacy is a very much contested topic for GS. The Aarogya Setu app which has a lot more to offer, is under the radar due to underlying vacuum of Privacy Law in India.

    AarogyaSetu App

    • The App enables people to assess themselves the risk of their catching the Corona Virus infection.
    • It is designed to keep track of other AarogyaSetu users that a person came in contact with and alert him or her if any of the contacts tests positive for COVID-19.
    • It achieves this using the phone’s Bluetooth and GPS capabilities.
    • Once installed in a smartphone through an easy and user-friendly process, the app detects other devices with AarogyaSetu installed that come in the proximity of that phone.
    • The app can then calculate the risk of infection based on sophisticated parameters if any of these contacts has tested positive.
    • The personal data collected by the App is encrypted using state-of-the-art technology and stays secure on the phone till it is needed for facilitating medical intervention.

    Issues with the app

    • The AarogyaSetu app faces the same issue as every other contact tracing technology that has come up during the pandemic period — it is people dependent.
    • It needs widespread usage and self-reporting to be effective.
    • Given that any number of total users will be a subset of smartphone owners in India, and there are bound to be variations in the levels of self-reporting, the efficacy is not bulletproof.
    • The terms of use of the app also say as much, distancing the government from any failure on the part of the app in correctly identifying COVID-19 patients.

    Are there privacy concerns?

    • First of all, the app exists in the privacy law vacuum that is India.
    • With no legislation that spells out in detail how the online privacy of Indians is to be protected, AarogyaSetu users have little choice but to accept the privacy policy provided by the government.
    • The policy goes into some detail on where and how long the data will be retained, but it leaves the language around who will have access to it vague.
    • As per the policy persons carrying out medical and administrative interventions necessary in relation to COVID-19” will have access to the data.
    • This suggests interdepartmental exchanges of people’s personal information and is more excessive than countries like Singapore and even Israel.

    Technical issue

    • Beyond the legal loopholes, there are technical loopholes as well.
    • The unique digital identity in AarogyaSetu is a static number, which increases the probability of identity breaches.
    • The abundance of data collected is also potentially problematic.
    • AarogyaSetu uses both Bluetooth as well as GPS reference points, which could be seen as overkill whereas other apps such as TraceTogether make do with Bluetooth.

    Other issues

    • Experts emphasise that automated contact tracing is not a panacea.
    • They caution against an over-reliance on technology where a competent human-in-the-loop system with sufficient capacity exists.

  • Public policy dilemma of choosing between lives and livelihood

    This article deals with how the different sections of a society assign different weightage to the various factors they are faced with in life. In the case of Covid-19, one section of society which is well-off might care more about the possible loss of life while other section might end up attaching more weightage to the loss of livelihood than to the possible loss of life due to infection. The article discusses this issue in detail.

    Difference between risk and uncertainty

    • Since the days of Frank Knight, economists have differentiated between the two.
    • Risk has a known probability distribution.
    • For uncertainty, the probability distribution is unknwon.
    • COVID-19 makes us confront uncertainty, not risk.
    • For uncertainty, there is a subjective probability distribution, which can, and does, vary from individual to individual.

    So, how the subjective probability distribution is devised by a person?

    • Through information and experience, one already possesses.
    • There are various rationality assumptions used by economists. They are often violated.
    • Otherwise, behavioural economics wouldn’t have come into existence.
    • Typically, given a situation, when your decision doesn’t agree with someone else, you say they are being irrational.
    • However, with uncertainty, the problem may not be with rationality assumptions, but with differences in subjective probability distributions.

    Lack of data for various factors

    • Because of COVID-19, there is a certain risk of getting infected. Let’s call this the infection rate — total infections divided by the total population.
    • We don’t know this infection rate for India or for any other country for that matter.
    • No country has done universal testing.
    • No testing for random sample: No country has done universal testing for a proper random sample either.
    • The ICMR has told us more than 75 per cent of Indian patients will be asymptomatic.
    • Who do we test? Those who show symptoms, those who have been in contact with confirmed patients and those who suffer from severe respiratory diseases.
    • Most countries do something similar.
    • Sampling bias: In other words, when we work out an infection rate based on those tested, there is a sampling bias.
    • This isn’t a proper infection rate.
    • The only country where we have had something like a random sample is Iceland.
    • There, the infection rate was 0.8 per cent.
    • Data for death rate: There are similar caveats about the death rate.
    • If we mechanically divide the number of deaths by the number of confirmed cases for India, we will get a death rate just over 3 per cent.
    • The global figure is a little less than 7 per cent.
    • But neither of these is a death rate for the total population since only those with severe symptoms are included in infection numbers.
    • Three per cent or seven per cent are over-estimates.
    • In a controlled environment like Diamond Princess, death rate as a ratio of total passengers, and not those infected, was less than 0.4 per cent.
    • The true infection rate and true death rate are not alarming numbers.

    How the lack of data is reflected in subjective probability distribution?

    • There are slices in India’s population pyramid with rural/urban and other spatial differences too.
    • Consider two extreme types-type A and type B.
    • Type A, who are globalised in information access and morbidity.
    • Life expectancy is 80 plus and there are lifestyle diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure.
    • This co-morbidity increases possible death rates and thanks to globalised access to information, certainly increases perceptions about death rates, making them out to be higher than they are.
    • Some of them have fixed incomes, regardless of what happens to lockdown.
    • The high probability assigned to loss of life: In terms of maximising expected payoffs with a subjective distribution, high probability is attached to loss of life and low probability to loss of livelihood.
    • How type B forms a subjective probability?
    • Type B, someone whose life expectancy is 60, without a fixed income stream and whose health concerns are tuberculosis and water-borne diseases, not COVID-19.
    • Nor is access to information that globalised.
    • The high probability assigned to loss of livelihood: High subjective probability will be attached to loss of livelihood and low probability to death from COVID.
    • Both types reflect subjective probabilities. Neither is “irrational”.
    • The tension between the two: Type A would like the lockdown to continue indefinitely, until the long tail of the infection curve tapers off, perhaps beyond September.
    • Type B would like lockdown to be eased soon, with necessary restrictions in hotspots.
    • There is indeed tension between lives and livelihood.
    • Even if health outcomes and information access are like Type A, but income is contingent on growth, preferences might mirror Type B.

    The issues highlighted here can be broadly used in the various scenario where there is uncertainty involved and various stakeholders perceive the probable outcomes in entirely different ways. Various points here can be used to answer the question based on policy making.

    Balancing the differential individual preferences in public policy

    • One set of individuals imposes its choice on the rest.
    • Type A disproportionately influences policy.
    • This determination of aggregate preferences is a dynamic process.
    • Therefore, sooner or later, Type B contests this and as the lockdown is prolonged and livelihood costs mount, discontent surfaces, as it has across a range of countries.
    • There were also welfare economics notions that pre-dated social choice theory, such as compensation principles of Kaldor, Hicks and Scitovsky.
    • The point can be made using the two stereotypes. Specifically, Type A need to compensate Type B for their losses.
    • To state it starkly, livelihood losses suffered by Type B need to be compensated by the government through redistributive measures and this has to be financed by higher taxes imposed on Type-A.
    • The right question for the Type A is not whether they want the lockdown to continue, but whether they are willing to pay a COVID-tax to support lockdown extension.

    A question based on policy formation issues explained here can be framed, for ex. “Risk has a known probability distribution. For uncertainty, the probability distribution is unknown. COVID-19 makes us confront uncertainty, not risk. In this context, there is a debate between saving lives and saving livelihoods. In such a scenario, what can be the most probable solutions that public policy must delve into, in order to maintain the balance between this uncertainty and risk.”

    Conclusion

    Extending or ending the lockdown decision represent the public policy dilemma. Without a revival in growth, the tax-paying capacity of Type B is limited and with job losses, some Type As become Type Bs. The choice is starker.

  • Stress test of leadership in pandemic

    The article discusses the three stages involved in successfully dealing with the pandemic. In the next part, it goes on to explain the factors that determine the success or failure of the governments. In the last week, we read about the success story of Kerala and underlying reasons. This article is also written on similar lines.

    Stages in the pandemic response

    • Disease outbreaks, even global pandemics, are scarcely new. The playbook for dealing with them, therefore, is well understood and has been honed by practices and lessons gleaned from hard-fought battles.
    • A first stage is an early clear-eyed recognition of the incoming threat, and, in the case of COVID-19 at least, requires the unpalatable decision to lock down society.
    • Ideally, this is done with full consideration of how to support the most vulnerable members of society, especially in a country such as India, where so many survive hand-to-mouth.
    • This is a phase aimed at buying time, of flattening the epidemic curve, so that public health facilities are not overwhelmed.
    • And, for using this time, paid for by collective sacrifice, to secure the personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical supplies necessary to save lives.
    • The second phase of the pandemic response is slowly to ease the burden on the economy by permitting a measured return of business activity so that livelihoods and supply chains can be restored.
    • This stage can only be safely executed if accompanied by a war-footing expansion of testing capacity so that new infections can be identified and isolated at once, allowing contact tracing to be implemented by masses trained to do this crucial and painstaking work in communities across the country.
    • The final stage, which for COVID-19 seems a lifetime away, is a mass vaccination programme and then the full rebuilding of economic and social life.
    • None of this is easy, but, like an examination in a dreaded subject, one’s only hope is early and persistent preparation and, at crunch time, remembering the lessons learned.

    The above-mentioned stages are sort of a template that seems to have gained acceptance for dealing with the pandemic. A question based on it, like “What are the various stages involved in government’s response to deal with a pandemic?”

    Following three factors make the difference between successful and failed response

    1. Leadership problems in global politics

    • The defensive finger-pointing, opportunistic politicking and xenophobic posturing are shown by some leaders amid pandemic.
    • This is not a crisis that can be tackled without robust and multidimensional international cooperation between nations.
    • We are watching in real-time the benefits of intellectual collaboration that does not stop at national borders.
    • From the epidemiologists to the medical community identifying more effective treatments, to the research scientists racing to find a vaccine, we are benefiting from collaboration.
    • But the nationalistic turn in global politics over the past two decades has reduced investment in and undermined the legitimacy of the very institutions that facilitate international partnership at the very time they are needed most.
    • Prime Minister Narendra Modi did well to convene the leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations in mid-March to discuss the possibility of a regional response.
    • But that video-conference call also highlighted that there have been no summit-level meetings of SAARC since 2014.
    • Similarly, United States President Donald Trump demanded that the U.S. end funding of the World Health Organization (WHO).
    • This not only endangers American lives by cutting off his own administration’s access to vital international data.
    • But also directly affects India which receives significant funding and expertise from WHO with ~10% of its overall WHO financing in 2019 coming directly from the U.S.

    2. The whole-of-the-government strategy

    • Pandemic response requires a whole-of-government strategy, for which political will and legitimate leadership are vital to convene and maintain.
    • Germany and Kerala provide two powerful though different examples of this in action.
    • In Germany, in spite of a high level of federalism that gives its States (Länder) a lot of power, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ability to mobilise the entire system has allowed Germany to emerge as a success story in Europe.
    • In Kerala, State Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan convened a State response team at the earliest possible moment and has provided the full weight of his office in support of a coordinated public health strategy that has been accepted by the State’s citizens who have learned to trust the government in such situations.
    • Yet these two examples stand out in part for how rare they are.
    • Consider again the cautionary tale of the U.S. where some State Governors have yet to issue stay-at-home orders.

    3. The robust public health system

    • We are seeing first hand the consequences of starving public health systems of necessary funds and resources.
    • The comparative advantage of the private sector is efficiency; the need of the hour in pandemic response is redundancy, or, more precisely, excess capacity.
    • Most hospitals do not need invasive ventilators normally, just as they do not need vast stocks of PPE and extra intensive care units beds, but these are essential goods right now as we brace ourselves for a flood of sick patients into hospitals.
    • Watching the advanced health-care system of northern Italy buckle under the unimaginable pressures to which it was exposed over the past six weeks should be a cautionary tale for all countries that thought turning health care over to private actors was responsible governance. It is not.
    • Again, consider Kerala, which has consistently ranked at the top of State rankings for health expenditures.
    • Kerala has, a well-functioning local public health system capable of implementing the test-isolate-trace protocols critical for fighting COVID-19.

    Conclusion

    With the central role of leadership and governance underlined in the successful dealing with the pandemic, leadership across the world need to come together to coordinate at all levels in dealing with the problems that are not bound by any border.

  • SWAMITVA Scheme to map rural inhabited lands

    The Prime Minister has launched the Swamitva Scheme and e-Gramswaraj Portal & mobile app as a portal to prepare and plan Gram Panchayat Development Plans.

    Swamitva Scheme

    • SWAMITVA stands for Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas.
    • Under the scheme, the latest surveying technology such as drones will be used for measuring the inhabited land in villages and rural areas.
    • The mapping and survey will be conducted in collaboration with the Survey of India, State Revenue Department and State Panchayati Raj Department under the Ministry of Panchayati Raj.
    • The drones will draw the digital map of every property falling in the geographical limit of each Indian village.
    • Property Cards will be prepared and given to the respective owners.

    Benefits

    • The scheme will create records of land ownership in villages and these records will further facilitate tax collection, new building plan and issuance of permits.
    • It will enable the government to effectively plan for the infrastructural programs in villages.
    • It would help in reducing the disputes over property.

    What is e-Gramswaraj Portal?

    • E Gram Swaraj portal is the official portal of central govt for the implementation of Swamitva scheme.
    • By visiting this portal people can check their Panchayat profile easily. It will also contain the details of ongoing development works and the fund allocated for them.
    • Any citizen can create his or her account on the portal and can know about the developmental works of villages.
    • The user of E Gram Swaraj portal can also access all work of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj.
    • This single interface will help speed-up the implementation of projects in rural areas from planning to completion.

  • Highlights of the World Press Freedom Index, 2020

     

    India has dropped two places on a global press freedom index to be ranked 142nd out of 180 countries in the annual World Press Freedom Report.

    Press freedom  especially after the abrogation of Art. 370 in J&K was profoundly debated back then.  We can expect a mains question like-

    “Reasonable restrictions to the freedoms enjoyed by media are necessary while addressing the concerns of national security.  Critically comment.”

    World Press Freedom Index

    • The Press Freedom Index is an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders.
    • It is based upon the organization’s own assessment of the countries’ press freedom records.
    • It intends to reflect the degree of freedom that journalists, news organisations, and netizens have in each country, and the efforts made by authorities to respect this freedom.
    • The report is partly based on a questionnaire which asks questions about pluralism media independence, environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, and infrastructure.

    Highlights on India

    • The report said that with no murders of journalists in India in 2019, as against six in 2018.
    • However, there have been constant press freedom violations, including police violence against journalists, ambushes by political activists, and reprisals instigated by criminal groups or corrupt local officials.

    Global scenario

    • Norway is ranked first in the Index for the fourth year running.
    • India ranked better than its neighbours Pakistan (145) and Bangladesh (151), but worse than Sri Lanka (127) and Nepal (112).
    • China at 177th position is just three places above North Korea, which is at 180th.

    Various threats to press freedom

    • Across the world, press freedom is under pressure from aggressive authoritarian regimes.
    • The media is also facing a technological crisis, due to a lack of democratic guarantees and a democratic crisis following polarization and repressive policies, the report reads.
    • In addition comes a crisis of trust following growing suspicion and even hatred of the media, and an economic crisis and impoverishing of quality journalism.
    • Among other issues, the report has listed coordinated social media hate campaigns against journalists reporting on issues that “annoy right-wing followers”, criminal prosecutions to gag journalists critical of authorities and police violence against journalists.

  • [pib] VidyaDaan 2.0 Programme for e-learning content contributions

    The Union HRD Ministry has e-launched VidyaDaan 2.0 program for inviting e-learning content contributions.

    There are various web/portals/apps with peculiar names such as YUKTI, DISHA, SWAYAM etc. Their core purpose is similar with slight differences. Pen them down on a separate sheet under the title various digital HRD initiatives.

    Add one more to this list.

    VidyaDaan

    • ‘Vidya Daan’ is a digital program to enable contributions to improve teaching & learning.
    • It encourages the sharing of high quality, curated, relevant & curriculum-linked digital content.
    • This program attempts to synergize countrywide developments in the field of education by providing schools all over India, from the Metro cities to the smallest villages with good quality e-content.

    How does it work?

    • VidyaDaan has a content contribution tool that provides a structured interface for the contributors to register and contribute different types of content (such as, explanation videos, presentations, competency-based items, quizzes etc.), for any grade (from grade 1 to 12), for any subject as specified by the states/UTs.

    About phase 2.0

    • The programme has been re-launched due to the increasing requirement for e-learning content for students especially in the backdrop of the situation arising out of COVID- 19.

  • [pib] ‘COVID India Seva’ platform for citizen engagement on COVID-19

    The Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has launched the COVID India Seva platform to establish a direct channel of communication with millions of Indians amid the pandemic.

    We can take this initiative as an example while answering mains questions like – “India’s fight against Coronavirus pandemic is a public movement at large. Discuss.”

    COVID India Seva

    • This initiative is aimed at enabling transparent e-governance delivery in real-time and answering citizen queries swiftly, at scale, especially in crisis situations like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
    • Through this, people can pose queries @CovidIndiaSeva and get them responded to in almost real time.
    • @CovidIndiaSeva works off a dashboard at the backend that helps process large volumes of tweets, converts them into resolvable tickets, and assigns them to the relevant authority for real-time resolution.
    • The dedicated account will be accessible to people be it local or national in their scope.
    • The Ministry will respond to broader queries and public health information. This does not require the public to share personal contact details or health record details.

  • A virus, social democracy, and dividends for Kerala

    This article is an analysis of Kerala’s success in dealing with the Covid-19. Factors that emerge are-strong emphasis on the social democracy, the participation of civil society and strong social compact between the government and citizenry. We have also covered the same subject in a previous article but focus there was more on the administrative level.

    Kerala’s success story

    • Kerala was the first State with a recorded case of coronavirus and once led the country in active cases.
    • It now ranks 10th of all States and the total number of active cases (in a State that has done the most aggressive testing in India) has been declining for over a week and is now below the number of recovered cases.
    • Given Kerala’s population density, deep connections to the global economy and the high international mobility of its citizens, it was primed to be a hotspot.
    • Yet not only has the State flattened the curve but it also rolled out a comprehensive ₹20,000 crore economic package before the Centre even declared the lockdown.

    Why does Kerala stand out in India and internationally?

    • Kerala’s much-heralded success in social development has invited endless theories of its cultural, historical or geographical exceptionalism.
    • But taming a pandemic and rapidly building out a massive and tailored safety net is fundamentally about the relation of the state to its citizens.
    • From its first Assembly election in 1957, through alternating coalitions of Communist and Congress-led governments, iterated cycles of social mobilisation and state responses have forged what is in effect a robust social democracy.
    • The current crisis underscores the comparative advantages of social democracy.

    Kerala’s success is built on social democracy in the state. Following are the factors that constitute the social democracy in the state which is helping it fight against the Covid-19 pandemic with considerable success. These factors are also important from the Mains point of view if the question is framed on Kerala’s success story.

    How social democracy is practised in Kerala?

    • Social democracies are built on an encompassing social pact with a political commitment to providing basic welfare and broad-based opportunity to all citizens.
    • In Kerala, the social pact itself emerged from recurrent episodes of popular mobilisation.
    • Popular mobilisations include the temple entry movement of the 1930s to the most recent various gender and environmental movements.
    • These movements nurtured a strong sense of social citizenship.
    • These movements also drove reforms that have incrementally strengthened the legal and institutional capacity for public action.
    • Second, the emphasis on rights-based welfare has been driven by and in turn has reinforced a vibrant, organised civil society.
    • This civil society demands continuous accountability from front-line state actors.
    • Third, this constant demand-side pressure of a highly mobilised civil society and a competitive party system has pressured all governments in Kerala.
    • The pressure made governments to deliver public services and to constantly expand the social safety net, in particular a public health system that is the best in India.
    • Fourth, that pressure has also fuelled Kerala’s push over the last two decades to empower local government.
    • Nowhere in India are local governments as resourced and as capable as in Kerala.
    • Finally, all of this ties into the greatest asset of any deep democracy, that is the generalised trust that comes from a State that has a wide and deep institutional surface area.
    • That on balance treats people not as subjects or clients, but as rights-bearing citizens.

    How the built-in social democracy is helping in dealing with the pandemic?

    • A government’s capacity to respond to a cascading crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic relies on a very fragile chain of –(1)mobilising financial and societal resources, (2)getting state actors to fulfil directives, (3)coordinating across multiple authorities and jurisdictions and maybe, most importantly, (4)getting citizens to comply.
    • First, an effective response begins with programmatic decision-making.
    • From the moment of the first reported case in Kerala, Chief Minister convened a State response team that coordinated 18 different functional teams.
    • The CM held daily press conferences and communicated constantly with the public.
    • Kerala’s social compact demanded no less.
    • Second, the government was able to leverage a broad and dense health-care system.
    • The health-care system, despite the recent growth of private health services, has maintained a robust public presence.
    • Kerala’s public health-care workers are also of course highly unionised and organised, and from the outset the government lay emphasis on protecting the health of first responders.
    • Third, the government activated an already highly mobilised civil society.
    • As the cases multiplied, the government called on two lakh volunteers to go door to door, identifying those at risk and those in need.
    • A State embedded in civil society — the women’s empowerment Kudumbasree movement being a case in point.
    • Kudumbasree movement was in a good position to co-produce effective interventions, from organising contact tracing to delivering three lakh meals a day through Kudumbasree community kitchens.
    • Fourth, you can get the politics right and you can have a great public health-care system, but its effectiveness in a crisis like this will only be as good as the infamous last kilometre.
    • And this is where two decades of empowering local governments have clearly paid off.

    Conclusion

    At a time when India is dealing with this unprecedented crisis, it is important to be reminded that Kerala has managed the crisis with the most resolve, the most compassion and the best results of any large State in India. And that it has done so precisely by building on legacies of egalitarianism, social rights and public trust. Other states and the Central government must learn from Kerala’s experience.