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Type: Op-ed

  • As Indian economy grows, Centre and states must work together

    Context

    The ongoing discords between the Centre and states over issues ranging from the allocation of financial resources to fixing of GST rates has once again brought to the fore issues pertaining to our federal structure, the resolution of which is essential for the country’s growth.

    Combination of cooperative and competitive spirit

    • Positive competition: It is undeniable that cooperation is key to the smooth functioning of federal design.
    • However, if it is coupled with positive competition among the states, then the overall result would be large-scale economic development across the country.
    • The competitive aspect of federalism can positively be harnessed by encouraging states to adopt each other’s best practices.
    • Exclusivity and mutualism: Indian federalism today enables the Centre and states to function with both exclusivity and mutualism.
    • Vertical and horizontal level: Cooperation between the Centre and states is required at both vertical (between Centre and states) and horizontal (among states) levels and on various fronts.
    • What does it mean? This includes fine-tuning of developmental measures for desired outcomes, development-related policy decisions, welfare measures, administrative reforms, strategic decisions, etc.

    Steps in the direction of cooperation

    • Recent efforts in this direction, such as according greater leeway to states in the functioning of the NITI Aayog, frequent meetings of the prime minister with chief ministers as well as with chief secretaries and district magistrates, periodic meetings of the President of India with governors, and the functioning of “PRAGATI” to review the progress of developmental efforts have generated the requisite synergy between the Centre and states.
    • Positive efforts of states towards attracting investment can create a conducive environment for economic activities in urban and backward regions alike.
    • Healthy competition coupled with a transparent ranking system would ensure the full materialisation of the vast but least utilised potential of the federal framework.
    • Sector specific indices: In this direction, NITI Aayog’s initiatives such as launching sector-specific indices like the School Education Quality Index, Sustainable Development Goals Index, State Health Index, India Innovation Index, Composite Water Management Index, Export Competitiveness Index, etc. could prove to be a great contribution.
    • Central efforts toward synchronisation of cooperation and competition can be observed in the implementation of the 14th and 15th Finance Commission reports, which have greatly contributed to resource devolution.
    • Recent reform measures in the form of the New Labour Code and other amendments/enactments by the legislature also exhibit this trend.

    Conclusion

    The rising stature of the Indian economy on the world stage can only be strengthened by a tailored approach to cooperation and competition. The mandate to marry the two would inevitably be the collective responsibility of the Centre and the states. Any ideological differences between them will have to be inevitably put on the backburner for the great Indian federal structure to succeed and prosper.

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  • Structural interventions by state governments that can create higher-wage jobs

    Context

    The recent decision to deduct off-budget borrowings from state borrowing limits reminds chief ministers to be good policy ancestors.

    Financing welfare state

    • In A Brief History of Equality, economist Thomas Piketty suggests that “the world of the early 2020s, no matter how unjust it may seem, is more egalitarian than that of 1950 or 1900, which were… more egalitarian than those of 1850 or 1780”.
    • But how the welfare state is financed matters.
    • Changes in state borrowing limits: Adjusting state borrowing limits for their off-budget borrowings leads to transparency because they are routinely breached through vehicles for schemes whose bill comes due far in the future.
    • The confiscation of future spending — interest payments crowd out expenditure and revenue expenditure crowd out capex — matters because our prosperity problem is productivity, wages, not jobs.

    5 Structural interventions that can create high wage jobs

    1] Reduce regulatory hurdles

    • States control 80 per cent of India’s employers’ compliance ecosystem of 67,000+ compliances, 6,500+ filings and 26,000+ criminal provisions.
    • State governments that rationalise, decriminalise, and digitise their compliance ecosystem will reap lower corruption and higher formality.

    2] Fix government schools

    • The most powerful tool for social mobility and employability is free and quality school education.
    • State governments that undertake a significant overhaul of school performance management (the fear of falling and hope of rising for teachers) and governance (the allocation of decision rights around resources and hiring) will create an unfair advantage in human capital.

    3] Converge education and employability

    • States should set up skill universities that create qualification modularity (between certificates, diplomas, advanced diplomas, and degrees), delivery flexibility (equate online, apprenticeships, on-site and on-campus classrooms), and pray to the one god of employers.
    • Degree apprentices innovate at the intersection of employment, employability and education.
    • State governments that remove barriers in their path will see their population of employed learners exceed full-time learners.

    4] Devolution of money and power

    • Cities drive productive job creation — New York City’s GDP is higher than Russia’s.
    •  It took 70 years after 1947 for the budget of 28 states to cross the central government’s budget.
    • The combined budget of state governments now exceeds Rs 45 lakh crore, but 2.5 lakh municipalities and panchayats have a budget of only Rs 3.7 lakh crore.
    • Governments that devolve money and power from state capitals to their towns will avoid the curse of megacities and create the competition that drove China’s growth (they have 375 cities with more than a million people versus our 52).

    5] Civil service reforms

    • State governments must sell their 1,500+ loss-making public sector units, cut civil service compensation to less than 40 per cent of budget spending, and replace expenditure with capex.
    • Moving from outlays to outcomes needs a new human capital regime for civil servants via seven interventions; structure, staffing, training, performance management, compensation, culture, and HR capabilities.

    Shifting resources to protective and productive  version of states

    • Nobel Laureate James Buchanan said any state had three versions — the protective state (police, rule of law, defence, courts), the productive state (common goods like roads, power, health, education, etc.), and the redistributive state.
    • Too many state governments accept the status quo in the first two and “innovate” in the third version.
    • It’s time to shift resources to the first two.

    Conclusion

    Chief Ministers ought to create high wage jobs, and not borrow money future generations will have to repay.

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  • The constitutional battle between governor and government

    Context

    The Supreme Court’s action in ordering the release of A G Perarivalan, a convict in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, has resulted in mixed reactions.

    Background

    • After the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the assailants were tried under the notorious Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987 (TADA).
    • All 26 accused were given the death sentence by the Special Court for various offences, including under TADA (1998).
    • Fortunately, the SC held that the offences under TADA were not made out since there was no case to proceed for acts of terrorism.
    • It also modified the death penalty for 22 persons and confirmed the same only for Nalini, Perarivalan, Murugan and Santhan (1999).
    • Petition for mercy under Article 161: They petitioned the governor of Tamil Nadu for mercy under Article 161.
    • The then governor of Tamil Nadu dismissed their petition without any advice from the cabinet.
    • The Madras High Court ruled that the governor cannot exercise the power of pardon without the advice of the council of ministers.
    • The cabinet advised the governor to give reprieve only to Nalini Sriharan and rejected the case of the other three, including Perarivalan.
    • Perarivalan and the two other convicts appealed to the president with a mercy plea under Article 72. 
    •  Two successive presidents of India – K R Narayanan and APJ Abdul Kalam — did not pass any mercy orders.
    • But all of a sudden, their mercy pleas were rejected after a delay of 11 years by President Pratibha Patil.
    • When they were about to be executed, the convicts moved the Madras HC challenging the execution of the death warrant issued against them.
    • The cases were transferred to the SC, which decided that the president’s action in not considering the mercy plea within a reasonable time was improper and since the three prisoners had been on death row for 11 years, it was a fit case for commuting their sentence to life imprisonment.
    • Meanwhile, on February 19, 2014, the TN cabinet advised the governor to grant reprieve to all seven accused.
    • Once again, all of them applied for remission from the governor.
    • The state cabinet also advised the governor to grant pardon.
    • WhenPerarivalan’s mother, filed a case for parole, the court noting the inordinate delay observed: “the Governor of T N, a constitutional authority, cannot sit on the state’s recommendation on the release of all seven life convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case for so long” (July 2020).
    • The court was informed that the governor was awaiting the final report of the CBI’s Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA).

    Role of MDMA

    • The role of MDMA itself came up for criticism by the SC in January 2018 and it observed that the agency did not appear to have made “much headway”.
    • The court observed that the question of reopening the case against them will not arise as they had been already convicted for murder and conspiracy.
    • Article 20(2) of the Constitution guarantees that no person can be prosecuted and punished for the same offence more than once.

    Use of powers under Article 142 by the Supreme Court

    • Once again, the process of granting mercy to the seven accused began with a resolution passed by the T N Assembly on September 9, 2018.
    • On the same day, the state cabinet advised the governor to give reprieve to all seven prisoners.
    • On being compelled by the court, the governor stated that the matter was to be dealt with by the President.
    • It was at this stage the matter went back to the SC.
    • It was finally decided that the authority to grant pardon is with the governor and he is bound by the advice of the state government.
    • The court also ruled that the action of the governor in delaying the matter for more than 2.5 years was unacceptable.
    • Exercising its power under Article 142 as well as considering all the relevant circumstances, the SC ordered Perarivalan’s release.

    Limitations on governor’s power

    • Giving reprieve to persons sentenced to the death penalty, even in the exercise of the plenary powers by a governor, has limitations.
    • In 1978, Parliament amended the Criminal Procedure Code and introduced Sec 433A by which in such cases, prisoners cannot be released from prison unless they had served a minimum of 14 years in prison. 

    Reformatory penal system of India

    • India’s penal system is undoubtedly reformatory and not retributive.
    • The SC ruled on this issue by stating “a barbaric crime does not have to be visited with a barbaric penalty.”
    • It is also surprising that the successive governments at the Centre appeared to be guided in this case by geopolitical considerations rather than this country’s laws.

    Conclusion

    The question now is whether the six other prisoners will receive the same relief or will there be a confrontation between the state government and governor once again. Let us hope that wisdom prevails and the governor’s office is not manipulated for narrow political considerations.

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  • Bridging the health policy to execution chasm

    Context

    In April this year, the Union government released a guidance document on the setting up of a ‘public health and management cadre’ (PHMC) as well as revised editions of the Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) — for ensuring quality health care in government facilities.

    Background

    • The need for a public health cadre and services in India rarely got any policy attention.
    • Limited understanding: The reason was that even among policymakers, there was limited understanding on the roles and the functions of public health specialists and the relevance of such cadres, especially at the district and sub-district levels.
    • However, the last decade and a half was eventful.
    • The initial threat of avian flu in 2005-06, the Swine flu pandemic of 2009-10; five more public health emergencies of international concern between years 2009-19; the increasing risks and regular emergence and re-emergence of of new viruses and diseases (Zika, Ebola, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic fever, Nipah viruses, etc.) in animals and humans, resulted in increased attention on public health.
    • National Public health Act: In 2017, India’s National Health Policy 2017 proposed the formation of a public health cadre and enacting a National Public Health Act.
    • The COVID-19 pandemic changed the status quo.
    • In the absence of trained public health professionals at the policy and decision making levels, India’s pandemic response ended up becoming bureaucrat steered and clinician led.

    Different cadres and its implications

    • Lack of career progression opportunities: At present, most Indian States (with exceptions such as Tamil Nadu and Odisha) have a teaching cadre (of medical college faculty members) and a specialist cadre of doctors involved in clinical services.
    • This structure does not provide similar career progression opportunities for professionals trained in public health.
    • Limited interest: It is one of the reasons for limited interest by health-care professionals to opt for public health as a career choice.
    • The outcome has been costly for society: a perennial shortage of trained public health workforce.

    Public health cadre

    • The proposed public health cadre and the health management cadre have the potential to address some of these challenges.
    • With the release of guidance documents, the States have been advised to formulate an action plan, identify the cadre strengths, and fill up the vacant posts in the next six months to a year.
    • A public health workforce has a role even beyond epidemics and pandemics.
    • A trained public health workforce ensures that people receive holistic health care, of preventive and promotive services (largely in the domain of public health) as well as curative and diagnostic services (as part of medical care).

    Revised version of IPHS and significance

    • This is the second revision in the IPHS, which were first released in 2007 and then revised in 2012.
    • The regular need for a revision in the IPHS is a recognition of the fact that to be meaningful, quality improvement has to be an ongoing process.
    • The development of the IPHS itself was a major step.
    • The revised IPHS is an important development but not an end itself.
    • In the 15 years since the first release of the IPHS, only a small proportion — around 15% to 20% — of government health-care facilities meets these standards. .
    • If the pace of achieving IPHS is any criteria, there is a need for more accelerated interventions.
    • Opportunities such as a revision of the IPHS should also be used for an independent assessment on how the IPHS has improved the quality of health services.

    Implementation challenges

    • The effective part of implementation is interplay: policy formulation, financial allocation, and the availability of a trained workforce.
    • In this case, policy has been formulated.
    • Financial allocations: Then, though the Government’s spending on health in India is low and has increased only marginally in the last two decades; however, in the last two years, there have been a few additional — small but assured — sources of funding for public health services have become available.
    • The Fifteenth Finance Commission grant for the five-year period of 2021- 26 and the Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM) allocations are available for strengthening public health services and could be used  as States embark upon implementing the PHMC and a revised IPHS.
    • Availability of trained workforce: The third aspect of effective implementation, the availability of trained workforce, is the most critical.
    • As States develop plans for setting up the PHMC, all potential challenges in securing a trained workforce should be identified and actions initiated.

    Conclusion

    The public health and management cadres and the revised IPHS can help India to make progress towards the NHP goal. To ensure that, State governments need to act urgently and immediately.

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    Back2Basics: Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS)

    • IPHS are a set of uniform standards envisaged to improve the quality of health care delivery in the country.
    • The IPHS documents have been revised keeping in view the changing protocols of the existing programmes and introduction of new programmes especially for Non-Communicable Diseases.
    • Flexibility is allowed to suit the diverse needs of the States and regions.
    • These IPHS guidelines will act as the main driver for continuous improvement in quality and serve as the bench mark for assessing the functional status of health facilities.

  • On marital rape, regressive notions undermine autonomy of women

    Context

    On 11 May, two judges of the Delhi High Court handed down separate judgments in RIT Foundation v Union of India.

    Background

    • Section 375 of the IPC defines “rape” as when a man has sex with a woman without her consent.
    • Exception to Section 375 of IPC:  An exception to Section 375 provides that it is not rape for a husband to have sex with his wife, regardless of consent.

    The two judgements

    1] Violation of rights:

    • In his judgment, Justice Rajiv Shakdher concluded that the marital rape exception violated the rights to life, equality, non-discrimination, and freedom of speech and expression under the Constitution.
    • There is no reasonable basis to distinguish between married and unmarried women.
    • Marriage is a relationship of equals, and women do not forfeit their agency and sexual autonomy upon marriage.

    2] Issues with Constitutional validity of exception

    • Justice C Hari Shankar took a different view, concluding that the marital rape exception is constitutionally valid.
    • First, the judge held that it is the wrong starting point to assume that a husband who has sex with his wife without her consent “commits rape”.
    • 1] Exclusion from definition argument: The judge noted that the effect of the exception to Section 375 of the IPC is that any sex between a husband and wife, whether or not consensual, is excluded from the definition of rape.
    • That analysis does not bear scrutiny.
    • It makes little difference whether the starting point is that non-consensual sex within marriage should be characterised as rape or, for example, sexual assault.
    • The critical question is whether it is unconstitutional to exclude non-consensual sex from the definition of rape.
    • 2] Preservation of marital institution argument: The judge held that the marital rape exception was “aimed at preservation of the marital institution, on which the entire bedrock of society rests”.
    • The difficulty with that proposition is obvious — is it the policy of the law that marriage is to be preserved at all costs?
    • If so, does that withstand constitutional scrutiny?
    • 3] Impact argument: the judge rejected the challenge to the martial rape exception based on the right to equality on the spurious assumption that the impact on a woman who is raped by her husband cannot “be equated with the impact of a woman who is raped by a stranger”.
    •  No evidence is cited in support of those claims.
    • They also defy logic. Being raped by someone in whom you have reposed trust is likely to have an indelible emotional impact.
    • 4] Reluctance to file complaint: The judge concluded that, as a practical matter, a “majority of Indian women” would be reluctant to file a complaint of rape against their husbands in any event.
    • Even if that were true, it is no reason to disempower, by the operation of the law, women who do have the resolve to make a rape complaint against their husbands from doing so.
    • 5] Creation of new offence: Justice Shankar held that it is not within the court’s power to create a new offence, and striking down the marital rape exception would have that effect.
    • There is no question of creating a new offence — the court would simply be striking down an exception carved out of an existing offence.
    • The only principled basis for the judge’s objection is that it may be unfair to punish someone for rape for conduct that was excluded from the definition of rape when it was undertaken.
    • But that is not a reason to avoid striking down the marital rape exception.
    • The easy solution is for the court to declare that its judgment will apply only to conduct after the date of the judgment.

    Conclusion

    Whether the marital rape exception violates fundamental rights under the Constitution is a question that falls within the Court’s core competency. There is only one reasonable answer to that question.

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  • The ‘Roe’ draft ruling could affect other civil rights

    Context

    The leaked Roe vs Wade draft opinion has been in the news for its possible impact on abortion rights, but it also paves the way for the erosion of gay rights in America.

    Background of abortion rights cases in the U.S.

    •  Almost 50 years earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Roe vs Wade(1973) that it was unconstitutional for states to ban or restrict abortions before fetal viability.
    • Later, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania vs Casey (1992) reaffirmed Roe’s central holding on viability.
    • In December 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded oral arguments in Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an ongoing case that looks at a 2018 Mississippi law (The Gestational Age Act) that bans most abortions after 15 weeks.
    • Keeping Roe and Casey in mind, lower courts permanently enjoined the Mississippi law, but the case eventually moved up to the Supreme Court, with the following question: are all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions unconstitutional?
    • This question (and the court’s acceptance to answer it) is at the heart of Roe and Casey because the Roe court had already decided that answer in the affirmative back in 1973; and this was re-affirmed in 1992 by the Casey court.
    • The leaked first draft of the court’s majority decision in Dobbs, however, departs from precedent and signals a completely different turn.

    Originalist reading of the US Constitution

    • A running theme in this first draft of the Dobbs judgment was the court’s emphasis on originalism.
    • The very first page of the draft says that “the constitution makes no mention of abortion”.
    • On page 9 it reads “the abortion right, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is part of a right to privacy, which is also not mentioned.
    • An originalist reading of the Constitution and an application of similar reasoning as the one applied in this draft opinion (minus the emphasis on protecting “life or ‘potential life”) could invalidate all rights for gay and lesbian Americans.

    Implications for other rights

    • Gay rights do not have any place in American history and tradition; it is quite the opposite with American history.
    •  Simply put, a rollback of Roe and Casey could allow state legislatures across the country to re-instate bans or restrictions on gay rights such as limitations on same-sex couple adoptions or sexuality education in schools.
    • Moreover, because the Constitution makes no explicit mention of “privacy”, “sexual orientation”, “gay”, “lesbian”, or “gay rights” anywhere, these rights could be challenged further.
    • The constitutional recognition of same-sex marriage is, after all, only a recent phenomenon, both globally and nationally.
    •  In 1992, the Casey court affirmed what was already decided two decades ago in Roe — namely, that women in America had the “liberty” to an abortion under the Fourteenth Amendment.
    • However, the Dobbs draft ruling discards this right to “liberty” just as it does the right to “privacy”.
    •  By specifically re-defining “liberty” and calling into question its applicability in the case of abortions, the court paves the way for potentially reviewing other “liberty” rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution — such as the right to travel ( Kent vs Dulles, 1958), the right to inter-racial marriage ( Loving vs Virginia, 1967), and the right to engage in same-sex activity in private ( Lawrence vs Texas, 2003), among others.

    Conclusion

    The bottom line is that if 50 year-old constitutionally guaranteed rights could be revoked today, then more recent and similarly, situated rights could also be revoked under an originalist reading of the Constitution.

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  • Delimitation fallouts

    Context

    Four years from now, when the delimitation of the constituencies will take place, India’s electoral democracy will stand on an existential crossroads.

    Historical background of North-South tension

    • There was a time, not all that long ago, when English speakers in the south of India routinely referred to our north as ‘Upper India’.
    • The Imperial Legislative Council, with its Central Legislative Assembly as the Lower House and the Council of State as the Upper House, being located in Delhi pushed that upperness further up.
    •  Later, the Constituent Assembly continued the ‘India’s north as India’s peak’ image.
    • Role of Congress: The Indian National Congress was from the very start, aware of the need for India’s regions to be seen as equal, bereft of any asymmetry.
    • Its very third session after Bombay (1885) and Calcutta (1886) was held in Madras (1887, and many times later).
    • The All India Kisan Sabha, the peasant wing of the Communist Party of India, likewise, which had first met in a ‘founder-conference’ in Lucknow in 1936, met at its fifth session in 1940 in Palasa, Srikakulam.
    • These considered arrangements embody the opening Article 1 of our Constitution: India, that is Bharat.

    What would be the Impact of delimitation

    • A delimitation of the constituencies that will elect Members of the Lok Sabha, following the population figures returned by the next decennial Census, is to take place in 2026.
    • Need to increase number of members: We cannot have, should not have, the same number of Members of Parliament — 543 — representing a vastly increased population in the Lok Sabha.
    • Mathematically speaking, the higher the number of people per constituency, the lower the impact each voter has on parliamentary representation — clearly an undesirable situation.
    • Reduced representation to States that stabilised their population: Re-arranging and standardising the number of people per constituency through the scheduled delimitation exercise will inevitably lead to a reduced representation for States that have managed to stabilise their populations, and to a higher representation for States that have not stabilised their populations.
    • Considering the Census data for 2011, almost half (48.6%) of our population (of approximately 1.38 billion) is contributed by the States of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh.
    • Issues with population-based marking: A population-based marking out or re-arrangement of constituencies, as envisaged in Article 82 of the Constitution, will have the effect of giving more MPs to the States and Union Territories that have let their numbers grow, and will give markedly less MPs to those that have held their numbers in some check.
    • Realising the anomaly that a delimitation based on Census data would cause, a delimitation freeze was put in position by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi through the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution in 1976. 
    •  This was extended by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee through the 84th Amendment.
    • It is this extension that is to end in 2026, placing us at a crossroads.

    Way forward

    • There are two alternatives before us:
    • 1] Onother freeze: One, we go in for another freeze, this time not for any specific period but for until all States have achieved population stabilisation.
    • 2] Mathematically equitable formula: Two, we request demographic and statistical experts to devise a mathematical model along the lines of the ‘Cambridge Compromise’ based on a mathematically equitable “formula” for the apportionment of the seats of the European Parliament between the member-states.

    Conclusion

    The population-stabilising States of India that is Bharat, which include all the southern States, must continue to enrich our legislative and parliamentary processes as they have been doing since the time of the Imperial Legislative Council, with no penalties having to be paid for their sense of responsibility. We need to limit population, not representation.

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  • Ensuring a sustainable vaccination programme

    Context

    COVID-19, which disrupted supply chains across countries and in India too, marks an inflection point in the trajectory of immunisation programmes.

    UIP: Showcasing India’s strength in managing large scale vaccination

    • India’s Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP), launched in 1985 to deliver routine immunisation, showcased its strengths in managing large-scale vaccine delivery.
    • This programme targets close to 2.67 crore newborns and 2.9 crore pregnant women annually.
    • Full immunisation: To strengthen the programme’s outcomes, in 2014, Mission Indradhanush was introduced to achieve full immunisation coverage of all children and pregnant women at a rapid pace — a commendable initiative.
    • India’s UIP comprises upwards of 27,000 functional cold chain points of which 750 (3%) are located at the district level and above; the remaining 95% are located below the district level.
    • The COVID-19 vaccination efforts relied on the cold chain infrastructure established under the UIP to cover 87 crore people with two doses of the vaccine and over 100 crore with at least a single dose.

    Why strong service delivery network is essential?

    • While we have, over the years, set up a strong service delivery network, the pandemic showed us that there were weak links in the chain, especially in the cold chain.
    • Nearly half the vaccines distributed around the world go to waste, in large part due to a failure to properly control storage temperatures.
    • In India, close to 20% of temperature-sensitive healthcare products arrive damaged or degraded because of broken or insufficient cold chains, including a quarter of vaccines.
    • Wastage has cost implications and can delay the achievement of immunisation targets.

    Measures and initiatives in strengthening vaccine supply chains

    • The Health Ministry has been digitising the vaccine supply chain network in recent years through the use of cloud technology, such as with the Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN).
    • Developed with support from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and implemented by the UN Development Programme through a smartphone-based app, the platform digitises information on vaccine stocks and temperatures across the country.
    • This supports healthcare workers in the last mile in supervising and maintaining the efficiency of the vaccine cold chain.

    Way forward

    • Electrification: There is a need to improve electrification, especially in the last mile, for which the potential of solar-driven technology must be explored to integrate sustainable development.
    • For instance, in Chhattisgarh, 72% of the functioning health centres have been solarised to tackle the issue of regular power outages.
    • This has significantly reduced disruption in service provision and increased the uptake of services.

    Conclusion

    India has pioneered many approaches to ensure access to public health services at a scale never seen before. Robust cold chain systems are an investment in India’s future pandemic preparedness; by taking steps towards actionable policies that improve the cold chain, we have an opportunity to lead the way in building back better and stronger.

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  • On Section 124A Supreme Court has aligned itself with the collective conscience

    Context

    The Supreme Court’s seminal intervention in a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of section 124A of the Indian Penal Code is a watershed moment in the progressive expansion of human rights jurisprudence.

    Abuse of sedition law

    • The slapping of sedition charges against political opponents and others in Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have confirmed that the abuse of the sedition law is no longer an aberration.
    • It has become a norm that has hollowed out the constitutional guarantee of fundamental rights and exposed individuals to the rigour of draconian laws unjustly invoked, outraging national sensitivities as never before.

    Significance of the move

    • In what is seen as a first in judicial history, the Supreme Court has virtually rendered redundant the provision of a criminal law without expressly declaring it as unconstitutional.
    • In an example of judicial statecraft, the court has shielded individuals against a harsh law without trenching on Parliament’s legislative remit or the executive’s command over policy decisions.
    • Plenary jurisdiction: Exercising plenary jurisdiction, the Supreme Court is expected to see through its suggestions/orders to the government, particularly when these concern the non-negotiable fundamental rights of citizens.
    • Suggestive jurisdiction: As an organ of the state, the Supreme Court’s suggestive jurisdiction is clearly in accord with its declared law (Nagaraj, 2006) that the state (of which the court is an integral constituent), is under a duty not only to protect individual rights but is also obliged to facilitate the same.
    • Validating the nations role: The court-inspired initiatives would also validate the nation’s preeminent role in the shaping of a new world order.

    Implications of the law

    • Nudging the government towards anti-lynching law: As with the sedition law, it can nudge the government to enact an anti-lynching humanitarian law as suggested by it and a comprehensive law against custodial torture.
    •  Law against custodial torture: The absence of an anti-custodial torture law, a glaring gap in the architecture of the criminal justice system, is inexplicable considering the command of Article 21, recommendations of the Select Committee of Rajya Sabha (2010), the Law Commission of India (2017) and the Human Rights Commission and the judgments of the Supreme Court (Puttaswamy, 2017; Jeeja Ghosh, 2016; and Shabnam, 2015).
    • Implications for the UAPA: It is expected likewise from the court to intervene suitably and read down the UAPA and other criminal laws that have been repeatedly misused to trample upon the civil liberties and rights of the people.

    Conclusion

    This is indeed the moment to seize, as the government reviews the nation’s legal structures. The initiatives suggested above are in aid of democracy anchored in the inviolability of human rights and would enhance India’s soft power in our engagement with the international community.

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  • For a better South Asian neighbourhood

    Context

    Recent developments — in Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Pakistan — underline the geographic imperative that binds India to its neighbours in the Subcontinent.

    Need for intensive regional cooperation for managing the new dangers

    • Working with the logic of geography has become an unavoidable necessity amidst the deepening regional and global crises accentuated by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
    • As higher oil and food prices trigger inflation and popular unrest across the region, more intensive regional cooperation is one of the tools for managing the new dangers.

    Hope for transcending internal divide between India and Sri Lanka

    • India’s relations with Sri Lanka underline the importance of continuous tending of political geography.
    • Tradition of hosting political exile: India has had a long tradition of hosting political exiles from the region.
    • Whether it was the Dalai Lama from Tibet or Prachanda from Nepal, Delhi has welcomed leaders from the neighbourhood taking shelter in India.
    • Negative consequences: There is a dangerous flip side to this positive tradition in the Subcontinent.
    • India has paid a high price for the decision in the early 1980s to train and arm Sri Lankan Tamil rebels.
    • Hope for transcending internal divide: The current crisis in Sri Lanka raised hopes for transcending the internal ethnic divide in the island nation and rebuilding political confidence between Colombo and Delhi.
    • Material and financial support to Sri Lanka: Delhi’s unstinting support — both material and financial — for Colombo during this unprecedented economic and political crisis has generated much goodwill in Sri Lanka.

    Relations with Nepal and role of cultural ties

    • Possibilities in cultural geography: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha in Nepal, highlights the immense possibilities of cultural geography in reshaping the Subcontinent’s regional relations.
    • The idea of a “Buddhist circuit” connecting the various pilgrimage sites across the India-Nepal border has been around for a long time.
    • India and Nepal have come together in developing the Buddhist circuit.
    • Religion and culture are deeply interconnected in South Asia.
    • Developing all religious pilgrimage sites across the region, and improving the transborder access to them could not only improve tourist revenues of all the South Asian nations, but could also have a calming effect on the troubled political relations
    • That China has built a new airport near Lumbini and Modi is avoiding it points to the turbulent triangular dynamic between Delhi, Kathmandu, and Beijing.
    • Revitalising the shared cultural geography inevitably involves better management of economic geography.
    • Infrastructure development on Indian side: The last few years have seen the Indian government step up on infrastructure development on the Indian side and accelerate transborder transport and energy connectivity in the eastern subcontinent.

    Recent trends in India-Pakistan relations

    • Cultural ties: Despite their frozen bilateral political relationship, Delhi and Islamabad had agreed to open the Kartarpur corridor at the end of 2019 across their militarised Punjab border.
    • There is much more to be done on reconnecting the Subcontinent’s sacred geographies — including the Ramayana trail and Sufi shrines.
    • While parts of the region are aligning their policies with the geographic imperative, Pakistan would seem to be an exception.
    • Ignoring the geographic imperative: Given the depth of its macro economic crisis and massive inflation, one might have thought Pakistan would want to expand trade ties with India in its own economic interest.
    • But Pakistan’s politics are hard-wired against the logic of geography.
    • Delhi had little reason to believe that Pakistan’s new government can alter its self-defeating policy towards India.
    • But it must continue to bet that the geographic imperative will eventually prevail over Islamabad’s policies.

    Conclusion

    Realists might want to argue that current trends in the Subcontinent point to India’s growing agency in shaping its neighbourhood and that Pakistan will not forever remain an exception. For Delhi, the policy question is whether India can do something to hasten the inevitable change in Pakistan.

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