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Type: op-ed snap

  • The world cannot ignore the Palestinian question

    op-ed snap | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Effect Of Policies & Politics Of World On India’S Interests

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Al-Aqsa Mosque

    Mains level: Paper 2- Israel-Palestine conflict

    The article discusses the types of response the recent violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict would invoke across the world and also explains the perils of ignoring the conflict.

    Three types of responses

    • The deadly riots in Israel and the war in Gaza, is likely to evoke three kinds of responses: The indifferent, the imperial, the humanitarian.

    1) Moral indifference

    •  Instead of becoming the symbol of the unfinished tasks of decolonisation, and a human rights catastrophe, the Palestinian question is now mostly an occasion to vent cynicism.
    • The moral questions the oppression of Palestinians poses is avoided by claiming that in this conflict we can assigning rights and wrongs equally to both sides.
    • There is the spectacle of civilians on both sides living in terror.
    • There is the fanaticism of the right-wing in Israel and there is the fanaticism of Hamas and Fatah.
    • Blaming both sides also whitewashes the fact that there is a monumental injustice to the Palestinians at the heart of the problem.

    2) The imperial response

    • The events leading up to the recent clashes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque can be seen as part of a long pattern of pushing out Palestinians from territory Israel wants to claim.
    • American administration has not been able to significantly roll back this project of pushing the Palestinians out.
    • Palestine will once again be the site where the Biden administration’s liberal internationalism will face challenge.

    3) Humanitarian response

    • This third response is to dig beneath the politics and find bridges in shared humanity and suffering.
    • This is also the tack of the peace movements that use culture and a history of shared suffering to build bridges.
    •  They emphasise that dispossession and exile is something both communities share; they, of all the people, should be able to understand each other.
    •  Humanity and culture, even when deeply internalised, collapse quickly when subject to fear.
    • And they always fall short of acknowledging the core issue at stake: Political equality between two peoples.

    Geopolitical implications of conflict

    • The violence of Israel will beget more terrorist violence of Hamas and Fatah, with every world power from Russia to Iran influencing the chaos.
    • Israel needs to be reminded of the blowback of imperial politics: The ultimate consequence of trying to dominate a people is that you end up destroying the moral legitimacy of your own claims.
    • No amount of military capacity can compensate for the images of lynching, rioting, and provocations that we have seen this week.

    Conclusion

    We continually risk conflict if the Palestinian question is simply treated as an object of geo-political opportunism, not as a question of basic dignity and justice.

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  • Coronavirus – Health and Governance Issues

    Black marketing during the pandemic

    op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Governance, Transparency & Accountability, Citizens Charters

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Drugs and Cosmetics Act

    Mains level: Paper 2- Blackmarketing during pandemic

    The article highlights the issue of black-marketing of drugs during the pandemic and the factors responsible for it.

    Problem of fake and sub-standard drugs

    • There have been reports of fake remdesivir amid the Covid pandemic.
    • It is difficult to quantify the morbidity and mortality effects of fake or sub-standard drugs, but they are substantial.
    • Legally, the Drugs and Cosmetics Act (DCA) has different categories of misbranded, adulterated and spurious drugs.
    • In 2003 Mashelkar Committee noted that although the Drugs and Cosmetics Act has been in force for the past 56 years, but the level of enforcement in many States has been far from satisfactory.
    • The committee also noted that the problems in the regulatory system in the country were primarily due to inadequate or weak drug control infrastructure at the State and Central level.

    Steps taken to deal with the issue

    • Assistance has also been provided under the World Bank assisted Capacity Building Project to upgrade testing facilities and to establish new drug testing laboratories.
    • The Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940 has recently been amended in 2008 for providing more stringent penalties to those involved in the trade of spurious drugs.
    • There are specially designated courts and regulatory infrastructure has been strengthened.
    •  There is also a whistle-blower scheme.

    Distinction between hoarding and black-marketing

    • A hoarder is anyone who stocks up items.
    • The crime isn’t hoarding per se but of selling a drug without a licence.
    • Data on prosecutions, and convictions when prosecuted, of crimes under Drugs and Cosmetics Act, are not encouraging.
    • Incidentally, courts have ruled police officers can’t register FIRs, arrest and prosecute (for cognisable crimes) under this law.
    • That’s the job of drugs inspectors.
    • The notion of a black market is different, though the two can be related.
    • In this context, it means charging a premium when there is a shortage.
    • A black market occurs when the price at which a product is sold is higher than an administratively determined price.

    Conclusion

    Action not taken in the best of times now strikes back at us in the worst of times.

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  • Right To Privacy

    EdTech needs an ethics policy

    op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Governance, Transparency & Accountability, Citizens Charters,Health & Education

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 2- Need for ethics policy in EdTech

    The article highlights the privacy concerns associated with EdTech apps in the absence of a regulatory framework.

    Privacy risks associated with EdTechs

    • Since the onset of the pandemic, online education has replaced conventional classroom instruction.
    • This has given rise to several EdTech apps which have become popular.
    • To perform the process of learning customisation, the apps collect large quantities of data from the learners through the gadgets that the students use.
    • These data are analysed in minute detail to customise learning and design future versions of the app.
    • The latest mobile phones and hand-held devices have a range of sensors like GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer and biometric sensors apart from the camera and microphones.
    • These provide data about the learner’s surroundings along with intimate data like the emotions and attitudes experienced and expressed via facial expressions and body temperature changes.
    • In short, the app and device have access to the private spaces of the learner that one would not normally have access to.

    Informed consent in research

    • Researchers dealing with human subjects need to comply with ethics rules along with global standards.
    • One of the cardinal rules that should never be broken is informed consent.
    • Before any research on human subjects is undertaken, researchers have to submit detailed proposals to their respective ethics committees and obtain their permissions.
    • Further, a researcher working with children, for example, would also have to convince schoolteachers, parents, and school managements about the nature of the research to be undertaken, type of data to be collected, method of storage, the potential harmful effects of such data, etc.

    Minimal safeguards in EdTech

    • The safeguards that traditional researchers are subject to are either missing or minimal in research that the EdTech industry promotes.
    • The concept of informed consent is not meaningful since there are no proper primers to explain to stakeholders the intricacies in layperson terms.
    • Since India does not have protection equivalent to the GDPR, private data collected by an EdTech company can be misused or sold to other companies with no oversight or protection.

    Way forward

    • Given these realities, it is necessary to formulate an ethics policy for EdTech companies.
    • Such a policy draft should be circulated both online and offline for discussions and criticism.
    • Issues of fairness, safety, confidentiality and anonymity of the user would have to be dealt with.
    • EdTech companies would have to be encouraged to comply in the interest of a healthier learning ecosystem.

    Consider the question “What are the challenges associated with the adoption of online education mode? Suggest the ways to deal with these challenges.”

    Conclusion

    The lack of a regulatory framework in India along the lines of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe could impinge on the privacy of students. What we need is ethics policy in online education space.

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  • Foreign Policy Watch: India-China

    Evaluate the Ladakh crisis

    op-ed snap | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and agreements involving India

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 2- Managing the strategic competition with China

    The article highlights the need for a critical assessment of the stand-off with China last year and offers key lessons in managing the strategic competition with China.

    Year after stand-off

    • After over a year, the stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh shows no signs of resolution.
    • More broadly, the India-China bilateral relationship has ruptured.
    • Reversing a long-held policy, India will no longer overlook the problematic border dispute for the sake of a potentially lucrative wider relationship.
    • Even if disengagement continues, the relationship will remain vulnerable to destabilising disruptions.
    • Therefore, the Ladakh crisis offers India three key lessons in managing the intensifying strategic competition with China.

    Three key lessons

    1) Military strategy based on denial are more useful

    •  Military strategies based on denial are more useful than strategies based on punishment.
    •  The Indian military’s standing doctrine calls for deterring adversaries with the threat of massive punitive retaliation for any aggression, capturing enemy territory as bargaining leverage in post-war talks.
    • But this did not deter China from launching unprecedented incursions in May 2020.
    • In contrast, the Indian military’s high-water mark in the crisis was an act of denial — its occupation of the heights on the Kailash Range on its side of the LAC in late August.
    • This action served to deny that key terrain to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and gave the Indian Army a stronger defensive position.
    • A doctrinal focus on denial will give the Indian military greater capacity to thwart future land grabs across the LAC.
    • Over time, improved denial capabilities may allow India to reduce the resource drain of the increased militarisation of the LAC.

    2) Political cost matters more

    • China is more likely to be deterred or coerced with the threat of political costs, rather than material costs.
    • The material burden of the crisis would not disrupt its existing priorities.
    • In contrast, India successfully raised the risks of the crisis for China through its threat of a political rupture, not military punishment.
    • A permanently hostile India or an accidental escalation to conflict were risks that China, having achieved its tactical goals in the crisis, assessed were an unnecessary additional burden.
    • The corollary lesson is that individual powers, even large powers such as India, will probably struggle to shift Beijing’s calculus alone.
    • Against the rising behemoth, only coordinated or collective action is likely to be effective.

    3) India should accept more risk on LAC

    • India should consider accepting more risk on the LAC in exchange for long-term leverage and influence in the Indian Ocean Region.
    • From the perspective of long-term strategic competition, the future of the Indian Ocean Region is more consequential and more uncertain than the Himalayan frontier.
    • At the land border, the difficult terrain and more even balance of military force means that each side could only eke out minor, strategically modest gains at best.
    • In contrast, India has traditionally been the dominant power in the Indian Ocean Region and stands to cede significant political influence and security if it fails to answer the rapid expansion of Chinese military power.

    Conclusion

    As these three lessons show, the future of the strategic competition is not yet written. If India’s leaders honestly and critically evaluate the crisis, it may yet help to actually brace India’s long-term position against China.

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  • Child Rights – POSCO, Child Labour Laws, NAPC, etc.

    Legal issues involved in adoption pleas for Covid-19 orphans

    op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Laws, Institutions & Bodies Constituted For The Vulnerable Sections

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Juvenile Justice law

    Mains level: Paper 2- Child adoption procedure

    The Covid pandemic has orphaned many children. As a consequence there has been an increase in pleas on social media for adoption. However, such pleas go against the legal provisions. The article deals with the issue.

    Legal provisions for protection of children

    • Today, some people are offering infants for instant adoption by stating how the children have lost their parents to pandemic.
    • However, such adoptions are illegal.
    • The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) law was enacted in 2015.
    • The Juvenile Justice Act is a secular law, all persons are free to adopt children under this law.
    • The Juvenile Justice Rules of 2016 and the Adoption Regulations of 2017 followed to create the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).
    • CARA is a statutory body for the regulation, monitoring and control of all intra-country and inter-country adoptions.
    • CARA also grants a ‘no objection’ certificate for all inter-country adoptions, pursuant to India becoming a signatory to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoptions.
    • India is also a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
    • Thus, protections afforded to children became a legal mandate of all authorities and courts.
    • Persons professing the Hindu religion are also free to adopt under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act of 1956.
    • Rehabilitation of all orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children is regulated by the strict mandatory procedures of the Adoption Regulations.

    Procedure for adoption

    • The eligibility of prospective adoptive parents living in India, duly registered on the Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS), irrespective of marital status and religion, is adjudged by specialised adoption agencies preparing home study reports.
    • The specialised adoption agency then secures court orders approving the adoption.
    • All non-resident persons approach authorised adoption agencies in their foreign country of residence for registration under CARINGS.
    • Their eligibility is adjudged by authorised foreign adoption agencies through home study reports.
    • CARA then issues a pre-adoption ‘no objection’ certificate for foster care, followed by a court adoption order.
    • A final ‘no objection’ certificate from CARA or a conformity certificate under the adoption convention is mandatory for a passport and visa to leave India.

    Way forward

    • CARA must conduct an outreach programme on social media, newspapers and TV, warning everyone not to entertain any illegal adoption offers under any circumstances whatsoever.
    • The National and State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights must step up their roles as vigilantes.
    • Social activists, NGOs and enlightened individuals must report all the incidents that come to their notice.
    • Respective State Legal Services Authorities have the infrastructure and machinery to stamp out such unlawful practices brought to their attention.
    • The media must publicise and shame all those involved in this disreputable occupation.
    •  At the same time, the police authorities need to be extra vigilant in apprehending criminals.

    Conclusion

    Tough times call for tough measures. This business of criminal trading of children must be checked with an iron hand.

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  • Health Sector – UHC, National Health Policy, Family Planning, Health Insurance, etc.

    Digital Technologies and Inequalities

    op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 2- Growing inequality in access to health and education

    Impact of pandemic

    • The novel coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the use of digital technologies in India, even for essential services such as health and education, where access to them might be poor.
    • Economic inequality has increased: people whose jobs and salaries are protected, face no economic fallout.
    • Well-recognised channels of economic and social mobility — education and health — are getting rejigged in ways that make access more inequitable in an already unequal society.

    Growing inequality in access to education

    • According to National Sample Survey data from 2017, only 6% rural households and 25% urban households have a computer.
    • Access to Internet facilities is not universal either: 17% in rural areas and 42% in urban areas.
    • Surveys by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the Azim Premji Foundation, ASER and Oxfam suggest that between 27% and 60% could not access online classes for a range of reasons: lack of devices, shared devices, inability to buy “data packs”, etc.
    • Further, lack of stable connectivity jeopardises their evaluations.
    • Besides this, many lack a learning environment at home.
    • Peer learning has also suffered.

    Inequality in access to health care

    •  India’s public spending on health is barely 1% of GDP.
    • Partly as a result, the share of ‘out of pocket’ (OOP) health expenditure (of total health spending) in India was over 60% in 2018.
    • Even in a highly privatised health system such as the United States, OOP was merely 10%.
    • Moreover, the private health sector in India is poorly regulated in practice.
    • Both put the poor at a disadvantage in accessing good health care.
    • Right now, the focus is on the shortage of essentials: drugs, hospital beds, oxygen, vaccines.
    • In several instances, developing an app is being seen as a solution for allocation of various health services. 
    • Digital “solutions” create additional bureaucracy for all sick persons in search of these services without disciplining the culprits.
    • Platform- and app-based solutions can exclude the poor entirely, or squeeze their access to scarce health services further.
    • In other spheres (e.g., vaccination) too, digital technologies are creating extra hurdles.
    • The use of CoWIN to book a slot makes it that much harder for those without phones, computers and the Internet. 

    Issues with the creation of centralised database

    • The digital health ID project is being pushed during the pandemic when its merits cannot be adequately debated.
    • Electronic and interoperable health records are the purported benefits.
    • For patients, interoperability i.e., you do not have to lug your x-rays, past medication and investigations can be achieved by decentralising digital storage say, on smart cards as France and Taiwan have done.
    • Given that we lack a data privacy law in India, it is very likely that our health records will end up with private entities without our consent, even weaponised against us.
    • For example, a private insurance companies may use health record to deny poor people an insurance policy or charge a higher premium.
    • There are worries that the government is using the vaccination drive to populate the digital health ID database.

    Way forward

    • Unless health expenditure on basic health services (ward staff, nurses, doctors, laboratory technicians, medicines, beds, oxygen, ventilators) is increased, apps such as Aarogya Setu, Aadhaar and digital health IDs can improve little.
    • Unless laws against medical malpractices are enforced strictly, digital solutions will obfuscate and distract us from the real problem.
    • We need political, not technocratic, solutions.

    Conclusion

    Today, there is greater understanding that the harms from Aadhaar and its cousins fall disproportionately on the vulnerable. Hopefully, the pandemic will teach us to be more discerning about which digital technologies we embrace.

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  • Foreign Policy Watch: India-United States

    What does US departure from Afghanistan mean for South Asia?

    op-ed snap | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Effect Of Policies & Politics Of World On India’S Interests

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 2- US withdrawal from Afghanistan and its implications for the region

    The article highlights the important role played by the US in the geopolitics of the region and the impact of the US retreat on the region foreign policy landscape.

    How the US shaped the regional politics of South Asia

    • Since it replaced Britain as the major external power in Greater Middle East half a century ago, America has been the pivot around which the regional politics has played out.
    • Many regional actors sought alliances with America to secure themselves against ambitious or troublesome neighbours.
    • Others sought to balance against America.
    • Israel’s security, ensuring oil supplies, competing with other powers, making regional peace, promoting democracy, and stamping out terrorism are no longer compelling factors demanding massive American military, political and diplomatic investments in the region.

    Region now has to learn to live with neighbours

    • As America steps back from the Middle East, most regional actors either need alternate patrons or reduced tensions with their neighbours.
    • Although China and Russia have regional ambitions, neither of them bring the kind of strategic heft America brought to bear on the Middle East all these decades.
    • Turkey has figured that its troubled economy can’t sustain the ambitious regional policies.
    •  After years of challenging Saudi leadership of the Islamic world, Erdogan is offering an olive branch to Riyadh.
    • After years of intense mutual hostility, Saudi Arabia and Iran are now exploring means to reduce bilateral tensions and moderate their proxy wars in the region.
    • Saudi Arabia is also trying to heal the rift within the Gulf by ending the earlier effort to isolate Qatar. 
    •  These changes come in the wake of the big moves last year by some Arab states — the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan — to normalise ties with Israel.

    How India’s approach helped maintain ties in the region

    • India’s emphasis on good relations with all the regional actors without a reference to their conflicts has been vindicated by the turn of events.
    • Barring Turkey, which turned hostile to India under Erdogan, India has managed to expand its ties with most regional actors.
    • Hopefully, the new regional churn will encourage Turkey to take a fresh look at its relations with India.

    Effect on India-Pak relations

    • The regional reset in the Middle East has coincided with efforts by Delhi and Rawalpindi to cool their tensions.
    • The ceasefire on the Line of Control in Kashmir announced at the end of February appears to be holding.
    • The US withdrawal from Afghanistan poses major challenges to the Subcontinent.
    • India and Pakistan, for very different reasons, would have liked to see the US forces stay forever in Afghanistan.
    • For India, American military presence would have kept a check on extremist forces and created conducive conditions for an Indian role in Afghanistan.
    • For Pakistan, American military presence in Afghanistan keeps the US utterly dependent on Pakistan for geographic access and operational support.

    Challenge of terrorism

    • The prospect of trans-border links between the Taliban and other extremist forces in the region is a challenge that South Asian states will have to confront sooner than later.
    • Soaring levels of violence in Afghanistan and attack on the former president of Maldives, underlines South Asia’s enduring challenges with terrorism.
    • Unless the South Asian states collaborate on countering extremism and terrorism, every one of them will be weakened.

    Consider the question “How US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan will influence the regional geopolitics of the region?”

    Conclusion

    The region needs to focus on the peace and harmony in the region while resolving the bilateral issues through dialogue.

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  • Intellectual Property Rights in India

    A TRIPS waiver is useful but not a magic pill

    op-ed snap | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Intellectual Property Rights

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: Not much

    Mains level: Paper 3- Challenges after TRIPS waiver

    The article highlights the challenges countries could face despite the patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccine.

    TRIPS waiver for Covid-19 vaccine

    • The United States has finally relented and declared its support for a temporary waiver of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement for COVID-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
    • Hopefully, the U.S.’s decision would cause other holdouts like Canada and the European Union to give up their opposition.
    • While the U.S.’s decision is to be welcomed, the devil would be in the details.

    The challenges after waiver

    1) Conditions of the waiver

    •  If the experience of negotiating such waivers, especially on TRIPS, were anything to go by, it would be too early to celebrate.
    • In the aftermath of the HIV/AIDS crisis the WTO adopted a decision in 2003 waiving certain TRIPS obligations to increase the accessibility of medicines.
    • However, this waiver (later incorporated as Article 31 bis in the TRIPS agreement) was subject to several stringent requirements such as the drugs so manufactured are to be exported to that nation only; the medicines should be easily identifiable through different colour.
    • Given these cumbersome requirements, hardly any country, in the last 17 years, made effective use of this waiver.

    2) Countries will protect the interest of pharma companies

    •  India and South Africa proposed a waiver not just on vaccines but also on medicines and other therapeutics and technologies related to the treatment of COVID-19.
    • So, the U.S. has already narrowed down the scope of the waiver considerably by restricting it to vaccines.
    • Medicines useful in treating COVID-19 and other therapeutics must be also included in the waiver.
    • While the U.S. would not like to be seen as blocking the TRIPS waiver and attracting the ire of the global community, make no mistake that it would resolutely defend the interests of its pharmaceutical corporations.

    3) Lack of access to technology

    • The TRIPS waiver would lift the legal restrictions on manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines.
    • But it would not solve the problem of the lack of access to technological ‘know-how’ related to manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines.
    • Waiving IP protection does not impose a legal requirement on pharmaceutical companies to transfer or share technology.
    • While individual countries may adopt coercive legal measures for a forced transfer of technology, it would be too draconian and counterproductive.
    • Therefore, governments would have to be proactive in negotiating and cajoling pharmaceutical companies to transfer technology using various legal and policy tools including financial incentives.

    4) Domestic IP regulation

    • While a TRIPS waiver would enable countries to escape WTO obligations, it will not change the nature of domestic IP regulations.
    • Therefore, countries should start working towards making suitable changes in their domestic legal framework to operationalise and enforce the TRIPS waiver.
    • In this regard, the Indian government should immediately put in place a team of best IP lawyers who could study the various TRIPS waiver scenarios and accordingly recommend the changes to be made in the Indian legal framework.

    Conclusion

    Notwithstanding the usefulness of the TRIPS waiver, it is not a magic pill. It would work well only if countries simultaneously address the non-IP bottlenecks.

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  • Foreign Policy Watch: India-United States

    What patent waiver in the COVID fight mean for global health equity

    op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and agreements involving India

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: TRIPS

    Mains level: Paper 2- Implications of patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccine

    The article highlights the implications of patent waiver for Covid-19 for global health equity.

    Where the opposition to waiver proposal came from

    • Recently, the US agreed to support the India-South Africa proposal, seeking a waiver of patent protection for technologies needed to combat and contain COVID-19.
    • Response to the proposal was divided during earlier debates at the WTO.
    • While many low and middle income countries supported it, resistance came from the U.S., the United Kingdom, the European Union, Switzerland, Australia and Japan.
    • Since the WTO operates on consensus rather than by voting, the proposal did not advance despite drawing support of over 60 countries.
    • Predictably, the pharmaceutical industry fiercely opposed it and vigorously lobbied many governments.
    • Right-wing political groups in the high income countries sided with the industry.

    Issues with the reasons given for opposition to the waiver proposal

    1) Quality and safety of vaccine production in low and middle-income countries

    • It was argued that the capacity for producing vaccines of assured quality and safety was limited to some laboratories.
    • So, it is argued that it would be hazardous to permit manufacturers in low and middle-income countries.
    • However, pharmaceutical manufacturers have no reservations about contracting industries in those countries to manufacture their patent-protected vaccines for the global market.

    2) Licenced manufacturing

    • The counter to patent waiver is an offer to license manufacturers in developing countries while retaining patent rights.
    • This restricts the opportunity for production to a chosen few.
    • The terms of those agreements are opaque and offer no assurance of equity in access to the products at affordable prices, either to the country of manufacture or to other developing countries.

    3) Supplying vaccines through COVAX facility

    • It was also stated that developing countries could be supplied vaccines through the COVAX facility, set up by several international agencies and donors.
    • While well-intended, it has fallen far short of promised delivery.
    • Some U.S. states have received more vaccines than entire Africa has from COVAX.

    4) No availability of extra capacity for vaccine production

    • Critics of a patent waiver say there is no evidence that extra capacity exists for producing vaccines outside of firms undertaking them now.
    • Even before the change in the U.S.’s position, manufacturers from many countries expressed their readiness and avidly sought opportunities to produce the approved vaccines.
    • They included industries in Canada and South Korea, suggesting that capable manufacturers in high income countries too are ready to avail of patent waivers but are not being allowed to enter a restricted circle.
    • The World Health Organization’s mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub has already drawn interest from over 50 firms.
    • Instead of arguing that capacity is limited, high-income countries and other donors should be supporting the growth of more capacity to meet the current and likely future pandemic.
    • They should learn from the manner in which India built up capacity and gained a reputation as a respected global pharmacy by moving from product patenting to process patenting between 1970 and 2005.

    5) Time required to utilise patented technology is long

    • Patent waivers are also dismissed as useless on the grounds that the time taken for their utilisation by new firms will be too long to help combat the present pandemic.
    • But many countries have low vaccination rates and variants are gleefully emerging from unprotected populations.
    • This makes it difficult to put the end date for the pandemic to end

    6) China factor

    • An argument put forth by multinational pharmaceutical firms is that a breach in the patent barricade will allow China to steal their technologies, now and in the future.
    • The original genomic sequence was openly shared by China, which gave these firms a head start in developing vaccines.

    Issue of rewarding innovation financially

    • Much of the foundational science that built the path for vaccine production came from public-funded universities and research institutes.
    • Further, what use is it to hold on to patents when global health and the global economy are devastated?
    • It is often argued that for defending patent protection, is that innovation and investment by industry need to be financially rewarded to incentivise them to develop new products.
    • Even if compulsory licences are issued bypassing patent restrictions, royalties are paid to the original innovators and patent holders.

    Way forward

    • Developing countries must take heart from his gesture and start issuing compulsory licences.
    • The Doha declaration on TRIPS flexibilities permits their use in a public health emergency.
    • High-income countries and multilateral agencies should provide financial and technical support to enable expansion of global production capacity.

    Consider the question “Why are the implications of patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccine for the global health equity? What were the reasons for opposition to waiver proposal?” 

    Conclusion

    The U.S.-supported patent waiver in the COVID fight has the potential to bring in much-needed global health equity.

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  • Trade Sector Updates – Falling Exports, TIES, MEIS, Foreign Trade Policy, etc.

    Atmanirbhar Bharat & the informal sector

    op-ed snap | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

    Note4Students

    From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:

    Prelims level: GVA

    Mains level: Paper 3- Role informal sector can play in Atmanirbhar Bharat

    The article highlights the important role the informal sector can play in the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat.

    Economic development through Atmanirbhar Bharat

    • The vision of the Atmanirbhar Bharat is rooted in the classical paradigm of economic development, based on demand injection in the economy via two sources, domestic and external.
    • ‘Vocal for local’ exhorts a distinct and decisive shift in consumer preferences towards locally-produced goods and services.
    • ‘Make for the world’ is more ambitious and resembles the export-led growth strategy adopted in East Asia.
    • Thus, the Atmanirbhar Bharat categorically bestows the Indian economy with twin engines of growth.

    Important role informal sector can play

    • The strategy is based on an assumption of lack of adequate demand.
    • So a prognosis of supply side with respect to the ability of domestic producers of goods and services to seize the opportunity at the requisite scale and scope is pertinent.
    • The nature, character, structure and contributions of the informal sector require retrospection.
    • The size of India’s informal sector is massive, it accounts for about 50% of GVA and a major share in the export basket.
    • This position proffers it with growth opportunities emanating from domestic as well as external sources.

    Constraints faced by informal sector

    • Most firms are micro in size and deploy little capital.
    • They have a small scale of production, substandard/unbranded quality of products, and localised scope of procuring raw material and marketing their products.
    • They are vulnerable to business downturns and other market uncertainties, as reflected in high mortality.
    • Their access to cheap, reliable and long-term credit sources is highly restricted.
    • The sector also endures a lack of official identity and recognition of its existence and contribution.

    Three transformations informal sector need to adopt

    • Atmanirbhar Bharat promises enhanced demand for domestically-produced goods and services, but the exposure to stiff global competition, especially for informal sector units, is imminent.
    • In such a scenario, the informal sector must embrace for three tectonic shifts with respect to internal transformation, strategic positioning and labour-market dynamics.

    1)  Internal transformation

    • Enterprises must undergo drastic internal transformation, progressively converging at incremental formalisation through spontaneous and self-propelled transition into economically-viable units.
    • It requires infusion of capital to ensure enhanced labour productivity and higher wages.
    • A systemic disruption, fostering natural growth must be ushered in, which would also curb the birth of new informal enterprises.
    • Moreover, internal consolidation in the sector via merger and acquisitions of units would bring benefits accruing from scale economies.

    2) Strategic positioning

    • Two, because the vision of the Atmanirbhar Bharat exposes the informal sector to global competition, entrepreneurs must embrace the subtle art of strategic positioning in global mega-supply chains.
    • They must pick their products and markets with utmost care, and engrain two mantras of success at the global stage in the DNA of their business strategies.
    • Global mega-supply chains demand ultra-flexibility in production cycle in addition to heightened resilience to withstand headwinds emanating from not just domestic factors but also global.

    3) Labour market dynamics

    • The informal sector employs more than 80% of India’s workforce.
    • The changes in the first two spheres i.e. higher capital intensity-led enhanced labour productivity and ultra-flexibility in production cycles may have severe repercussions on the availability and quality of jobs in India.
    • To alleviate these concerns, the first assumption is that the proportionate increase in expected demand must be more than the enhanced labour productivity to at least retain the currently employed workers.
    • To generate good quality jobs, diversification (both horizontal and vertical) must be encouraged.
    • Vertical diversification entails products not just be partly produced or assembled in India, they must be the end-products of fully indigenised and integrated production and supply chains, from design to made in India.
    • Horizontal diversification involves expansion into newer products and markets, smartly aligning with India’s comparative advantage of surplus labour.

    Consider the question ” India’s vast informal sector is poised to play an instrumental, decisive and intriguing role in the vision of the Atmanirbhar Bharat.  But the sector, in its current form, appears severely constrained to harness the opportunities. In lights of this, examine the constraints faced by the sector and suggest the measures needed to transform the sector.” 

    Conclusion

    The vision of the Atmanirbhar Bharat is an inflexion point for India’s informal sector, which stipulates adroit manoeuvring between contrasting forces of continuity and change.

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