Reducing farm distress during a pandemic (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3:Economy 
Prelims level: PM-KISAN scheme
Mains level:Farm distress impact on agricultural income 

Context:

• Social distancing and living under a lockdown appear to be the only effective ways of dealing with the pandemic. 
• As India lacks the resources to significantly ramp up testing, imposing a lockdown was the government’s preferred option. 
• Although there is limited evidence to suggest that this strategy may be working in containing the spread of the virus, its after-effects on thousands of migrant workers is already out in the open. 
• Distrustful of the government’s promise of providing support, most migrant workers decided to walk back to their home States despite efforts by the state machinery to prevent them from moving out.

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Impact on agricultural income:

• Migrants are not the only ones who are facing the after-effects of the lockdown. With the economy coming to a complete halt in most of the informal and formal enterprises in urban areas, the lockdown is also likely to affect the large population in rural areas, a majority of whom are dependent on agriculture.
• At a time when the rural economy was witnessing declining incomes, both for casual workers and self-employed workers, even before the pandemic broke out, this lockdown is only going to hurt the agricultural economy further. 
• Even before the lockdown, rural wages were declining in real terms but there were hopes for agricultural incomes rising with food prices rising until January 2020. 
• However, recent data on prices suggest that the trend is reversing with the decline in agricultural prices in most markets.
• In the short run, we will likely witness a breakdown of supply chains of agricultural produce with no facilities for transportation of produce. 
• This is likely to hurt those engaged in the production of fruits and vegetables, which are perishable goods and cannot be stored. With horticultural production exceeding foodgrain production in the last decade, many farmers are likely to face uncertain or no markets for their produce. 
• Media reports have already confirmed that farmers are finding it difficult to dispose horticultural produce. Some of them have taken the extreme step of destroying their produce.

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Short-term impact:

• Some of the short-term impacts may affect price realisation by farmers but the real worry for farmers is going to be the decline in prices for the majority of agricultural produce. There are already signs of a collapse in agricultural prices, which predates the outbreak of the pandemic.
• The food price index of the Food and Agricultural Organization, which was showing a rising trend in food prices until January 2020, reported a 1% decline in prices month-on-month in February 2020. This is likely to worsen further, particularly for cash crops. 
• It is well-known that commercial crop prices follow a similar pattern as other primary commodities, particularly petroleum prices. With the sharp decline in petroleum prices, most of the commercial crops have seen a downward pressure on prices, which is likely to worsen in the coming months. 
• But even for food grains and other crops, there is likely to be downward pressure on prices due to declining demand. The slowdown in the economy domestically and the expected recession worldwide will contribute to lower demand for agricultural commodities. 
• At a time when the agricultural sector was already battling declining demand and lower prices, the faint hope of better prices appears unlikely to materialize. 
• It is the decline in prices which is likely to hurt the income of farmers in the long run more than the short-run supply disruptions and labour shortages.

What the government can do?

• While it is clear that agriculture will be affected due to short-term disruptions and the long-term economic impact of the pandemic, there is an opportunity for the government to help farmers through state support. 
• Political expediency and fiscal concerns led the government to stock up food grains, with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) reporting 77 million tonnes of cereals in stocks as against the buffer requirement of 21 million tonnes as on April 1. 
• However, with the lockdown forcing a humanitarian crisis and with most migrants heading back to the rural areas, it is also time for the government to release the food stocks through the public distribution system. 
• The Central government has already announced that for the next three months, 5 kg of free grains will be distributed in addition to what people are entitled to under the National Food Security Act, but this has not yet reached the State governments due to the lockdown. 

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Major schemes:

• One way of ensuring this is to reduce the input costs through existing schemes of subsidies such as the fertilizer subsidy and through price reduction in petrol/diesel meant for agricultural purposes. 
• But for the immediate short-term, farmers need to be compensated for the loss of income and the best way to do it is through the PM-KISAN scheme. 
• Unfortunately, the only announcement in this regard is the disbursal of the first installment of the transfer which is due in April. 
• However, the scheme only used two-thirds of its budget allocation for 2019, so efforts should be made to not only enhance the coverage monetarily but also include tenant farmers and wage labourers who are as much dependent on agriculture as the land-owning cultivators. 

Conclusion:

• Such a step is necessary not just for the survival of the agricultural sector but also for the overall economy which is expected to see a sharp slowdown and decline in demand. 
• While income transfers may not be the best way of supporting the agricultural sector at times like these, they are the best available instruments to raise rural incomes and create demand.

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Mockery of justice : On Daniel Pearl murder case acquittals(The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:International 
Prelims level:Daniel Pearl murder case
Mains level:Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure

Context:

• Thursday’s ruling by the Sindh High Court that overturned the conviction of Omar Saeed Sheikh, and three others, of murdering American journalist Daniel Pearl, for lack of evidence is scandalous in its utter disregard for criminal jurisprudence. 
• The court observed that no evidence had been brought before it by the prosecution to link any of the four — the others being Fahad Saleem, Syed Salman Saqib and Sheikh Muhammad Adil, whose convictions were similarly overturned — to the killing of Pearl.
• Pakistan’s commitment to punishing those involved in terror acts remains suspect.

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Killing of Pearl:

• This is sophistry at its best and speaks eloquently of the systematic way the case has been diluted from the beginning. 
• Pearl, then South Asian Bureau Chief of The Wall Street Journal, was abducted in Karachi in January 2002, in an operation managed by Omar Sheikh, who had demonstrated links to, among others, Pakistani militant groups as well as to al-Qaeda. 
• Pearl had been baited while investigating links between al-Qaeda and the British ‘Shoe Bomber’ Richard Reid, who tried, in mid-air on a flight, to light explosives in his shoes on December 21, 2001, just two months previously. 
• Many ransom demands later, a video was handed over on February 21, 2002, wherein Pearl was shown being methodically beheaded with a knife. 
• When the Americans began to squeeze Pakistan to go after the perpetrators, Omar Sheikh ‘surrendered’ to Ijaz Shah, a former Intelligence Chief, then Home Secretary of Punjab; he is now the country’s Interior Minister. Even more curiously, it was after many days that Sheikh’s arrest was shown.

Pakistan’s record of leniency: 

• The Sindh government has extended Sheikh’s detention and the provincial prosecutor has said that the High Court ruling will be appealed in the Supreme Court. 
• But these moves could be aimed at blunting growing international opprobrium, including at the FATF, the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, that has already put Pakistan on its ‘grey list’, and where India has said it will bring this matter for discussion. 
• It is likely that once the pressure eases, Sheikh and his cohorts will be let off as has happened with others before them. 
• Pakistan’s record of leniency on this has been as consistent as it has been alarming. 

IC 814:

• In 2015, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, who supervised the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, was released from detention, and remains free. 
• Just last month, Pakistan’s Economic Affairs Minister Hammad Azhar revealed that Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar had conveniently gone “missing” along with his family. 
• Masood Azhar, Omar Sheikh, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar had been released in exchange for hostages of Flight IC 814 in December 1999 into Taliban/ISI custody in Kandahar. 

Conclusion:

• Pakistan needs to be persuaded to move beyond tokenism and demonstrate a much higher order of commitment to deal with such terrorists than it has hitherto shown.

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Enemy at the gates : On Kerala-Karnataka border row (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:Governance 
Prelims level:Kerala Epidemic Diseases Ordinance 2020
Mains level:Inter states disputes relating to health pandemic 

Context:

• Kerala’s grievance over Karnataka sealing its border to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has brought under focus the extent and the possible limits, of restrictions that may be imposed by the government to deal with a public health emergency. 
• Kerala High Court directed the Centre to ensure free vehicular movement for those requiring urgent medical treatment on the national highway that connects Kasaragod in Kerala to Mangaluru in Karnataka. 
• Post it, the Supreme Court too has directed the Centre to confer with the States and formulate the norms for creating a passage at Talapadi, the border. 

Need to open the border:

• An amicable solution is possibly round the corner, as there are reports of Kasaragod district suffering due to the highway closure. 
• Many here depend on medical facilities in Mangaluru for emergencies, while others rely on inter-State movement for essential medicines to reach them. These include those battling endosulfan poisoning for many years. 
• Karnataka’s objection is based on the fact that Kasaragod has Kerala’s largest number of positive cases. It has a reasonable apprehension that allowing vehicles might result in the disease spreading to its territory. 
• It is clear that those who may travel across the border for urgent medical needs are patients other than those who are pandemic victims. 

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Kerala Epidemic Diseases Ordinance 2020:

• The Kerala Governor promulgated the ‘Kerala Epidemic Diseases Ordinance, 2020’ to arm itself with extraordinary powers to deal with the pandemic. 
• One of its clauses says the State can seal its borders for such period as necessary, while another empowers it to restrict the duration of essential or emergency services, including health, food supply and fuel. 
• Karnataka may have reason to believe that it is equally entitled to seal its borders and restrict essential services. 
• It is a moot question whether Kerala’s new law would weaken its case that its neighbour cannot shut down its border and deny medical access to its residents. 

Conclusion: 

• Inter-State migration and quarantine are under the Union List, while the prevention of infectious diseases moving from one State to another is under the Concurrent List. 
• This can only mean that while States have the power to impose border restrictions, the responsibility to prevent a breakdown of inter-State relations over such disputes is on the Centre.

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Do OTT platforms provide more space for sociopolitical content? (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3:Science and Tech 
Prelims level:OTT platforms
Mains level:Impact of OTT platforms in socio-economic scenario 

Context:

•  With India under a lockdown, and with museums, movie theaters, malls, restaurants and bars closed, people now spend a lot of time watching films and shows on OTT (Over The Top) platforms such as Hotstar, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video. 
•  Over the last few years, with OTT platforms providing an opportunity to filmmakers and screenwriters to think and write differently, there has been a significant rise in content on these platforms. 
•  Filmmakers Anurag Kashyap and Vetrimaaran speak of why these platforms are liberating, and what the digital future looks like, in a conversation moderated by Radhika Santhanam. 

Edited excerpts:

Mr. Kashyap, you said once, “Digital platforms are giving me the freedom and the budget that they won’t give anyone else.” What kind of freedom do these platforms give you? Are you referring to the fact that there is no censorship on these platforms or do you mean freedom even in terms of the subjects you can explore?

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Anurag Kashyap:

•  The kind of freedom I’m getting on OTT platforms is the kind of freedom that Vetri demands and takes [even otherwise] — he brings sociopolitical content into every film, which is alien to Hindi films. 
•  For the [theatre-going] audience, the moment anything becomes sociopolitical, they stay away from it. And it becomes increasingly difficult to find money for such films. 
•  For example, when I made Mukkabaaz, I could not find money for it for two years because of the subject and because of the rural... The actor was also [not mainstream]. But now I’m doing a new film for Netflix, Choked, which deals with sociopolitical content and has Roshan Mathew and SaiyamiKher. 
•  I am getting the right amount of money for it and I can say what I want to say. So, it’s not just about censorship; it’s about the multi-fold pressures [that come with theatrical films and don’t come with OTT]. 
•  First, there’s the producer who says there is no audience. Stars don’t want to do anything political because they want to keep safe. Your budget is cut down. Then because the film is not high-profile, I generally try to send it to some festival so that it gets some kind of a profile. 
•  With OTT platforms I don’t feel like I’m making something for TV, I’m just making my film. People are choosing to watch it on an OTT platform and I have the budget and freedom to do what I like.

Mr. Vetrimaaran, you’ve often said that cinema is a dying art. Today, more people are watching cinema than ever before because of digital platforms. They also watch different kinds of cinema – Tamil, Malayalam, Korean, etc. These platforms also provide an opportunity to create different content. So, isn’t cinema thriving more than ever before and haven’t digital platforms, as a medium, been one of the reasons for that?

Vetrimaaran:

•  When I said cinema, I mentioned cinema in the theatre, experience-giving cinema. I did not mean cinema as a language or medium. That medium that you go and watch on, the big screen, that is a dying art. Because, if you see the last six-seven years, whatever made headlines in terms of big money in Hollywood was a superhero film. 
•  I don’t find any art in these films. Also, in the Indian scenario, you have a Baahubali doing big numbers, but how does it matter to a common man or his problems? 
•  So, the representation of the common man has been taken out of the theatre-going experience. You need a superstar or a superhero film to make people go to the theatres.
• But today a lot of people do go and watch films like Vada Chennai and KaakaMuttai or Badhaai Ho and Article 15. And Asuran was Dhanush’s top-grossing film.

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Vetrimaaran:

•  Sometimes it happens. But predominantly it is more hero-driven. Also, for the kinds of films that I make, I have an actor like Dhanush to support me, which makes it easier for me. 
•  At any point, when I say, I have a story to say, he says, okay, I will back you, you do the film you want to do. And he has a considerably good market. I can have a good budget. And I’m able to do the film.
•  Asuran, I feel, if you take out all the sociopolitical factors in it, deep down you see a Baashha-like idea. So, that way after my first film, Asuran was the next film I made that centred on one particular character and the journey of that character. So, it was a hero film. 
•  All the other films are not typically hero films. So, I feel, the more the star value of the film or the more visually exciting the film, those are the films that predominantly make money and are backed by investors. 
•  If you want to make serious films, they have questions to ask you such as, how will I get back the money?
•  Now, with the advent of OTT platforms, it is the golden era of the screenwriter. We have always been curtailed by writing for a two-and-a-half-hour film. I had five-and-a-half-hours of [script] for Vada Chennai. But I could only show 2 hours and 39 minutes. That is a major limitation. 
•  When it comes to OTT, you have the liberty to write as much as you can imagine and as much as the budget you can get allows. I’ve done a 30-minute film for Netflix; it’s part of an anthology. And when I made it, I realised how liberated Anurag must be feeling. 
•  I did not have any kind of pressure. When I’m editing for a theatrical film, I think every minute, how will the audience react to this scene, is the length enough, should I reduce it, add some more? 
•  I keep someone else in mind when I’m making a theatrical film. For this one I didn’t have anyone in mind; I just wanted to make a film. I wanted to bring out something and I did that without any pressure. I have never been as relaxed in an edit room as I was while making this.

You spoke of investors. Is there any interference from these platforms when you pitch an idea to them?

Anurag Kashyap:

•  I have never faced any interference. They always give you feedback, but they always leave it to you. It’s also something you earn over a period of time. So far, I have had a very good time. 
•  [For theatrical films], I have always faced prejudice from the distributors. They say people don’t want to watch what you’re doing. But I know that people do watch my films. 
•  The only difference is that people watch it later, whereas for a distributor, the first three days are what matter at the box office. 
•  Most of my audience is an educated, working audience and not those who line up on Fridays and Saturdays to watch a film the way people line up to watch a Salman Khan or Shah Rukh Khan film. My audience watches my films at their own time.
•  What has happened with OTT is that my old films, like That Girl in Yellow Boots, got an audience much after they were released. It translates very well for me because I get direct feedback, which puts me in a much better space... 
•  Platforms let me be because they know that whether it’s my politics or it’s what I’m trying to say, people are responding to it, reacting to it and engaging with it. So, they let me be because they have data and all that.

What kind of feedback do you get from people?

Anurag Kashyap:

•  For example, with Ghost Stories, there was a bad backlash in India, but I had the freedom to do something I had never done before. The feedback that I got from the genre audience from around the world was very encouraging, constructive. This makes you better and sharper as a filmmaker.

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Mr. Vetrimaaran, why do you think the Tamil film industry’s foray into this has been slow?

Vetrimaaran:

•  When it comes to Tamil, the problem is marketing. The kind of stories I want to tell on OTT require a certain budget. But OTT platforms have a limited budget for a limited market like Tamil. 
•  The primary target for a Tamil original film or a series would be the Tamil audiences worldwide. And then they would be looking at other international viewership, so they have limited investments. 
•  Now they are opening up, coming up with some good budgets. I have been wanting to do the prequel to Vada Chennai as a series. I’ve been talking to a lot of people… they felt the budget was too much, now they’re able to give it.

Are well-known actors more willing now to do digital content?

Anurag Kashyap:

•  A lot of them are, not everyone. Actors who are having a good run in the box office are not ready to act in films or a series made for digital platforms. They are willing to produce it, but not willing to act in these yet.

Vetrimaaran:

•  This space is for women actors who have the potential to be stars in the box office industry as well, but they’re given more space here. 
•  For theatrical films, mostly you end up writing for men. Here I would like to write stories with more women characters — women with proper representation. 
•  Not every star wants to be in an original. They want to have a theatrical release and then they want to be in digital.

Mr. Kashyap, what do you find fulfilling on these platforms in a way that the theatre experience doesn’t give you? And what do you find challenging?

Anurag Kashyap:

•  The biggest problem I have faced as a filmmaker is that they don’t let me explore subjects that matter to me: sexuality, religion and politics. These are the three big nos for the cinema experience. But Netflix doesn’t shy away from that. 
•  Second, I can tell the whole story. I don’t have to censor it. I can tell a story for seven hours. If Sacred Games was a movie, it would have been about Nawaz [Nawazuddin Siddiqui] and Saif [Ali Khan], but on Netflix, I could flesh out characters like Bunty, Kukkoo and Subhadra.
•  There is no difficulty, but the only aspiration it doesn’t cater to is that we all want to see things on the big screen. But that’s a choice we make.

Vetrimaaran:

•  For the liberty that’s given there, this is a small compromise.

Anurag Kashyap:

•  In the U.S., Netflix films get a limited theatrical release. It doesn’t happen here — not because Netflix doesn’t want to do it but because exhibitors don’t want to support it.
• Vetrimaaran:
•  If you have a bigger star in it, it may happen. Regarding subjects, I would like to explore the same topics, especially politics and policies. The anti-people policies, like what’s happening in Tamil Nadu, and how they affect the common man.

What is the immediate future like in terms of content?

Vetrimaaran:

•  The theatrical experience is going to become more and more shallow and momentary [in terms of Tamil]: there will be 10 heroes and 25 directors to cater to the audience. And all the others will have to move to these platforms and start making films with the content that we want to discuss. 
•  The only problem is when you put it out in the theatre, the common man comes face-to- face with it. With OTT it’s a choice. It’s like going to a library and reading a book instead of reading a daily that gets delivered at home. 
•  We make films that we want the common man to watch, but it’ll take time to take it to him. That’s a small setback. He has to watch it on his mobile phone where he’d rather watch YouTube than Amazon or Netflix.

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A million and counting : On global coronavirus spread(The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:International 
Prelims level:SARS-CoV-2
Mains level:On global coronavirus spread

Context:

• On April 2, the number of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) infections in 181 countries/regions crossed one million, and deaths passed 50,000. 
• On April 3, the total number of cases and deaths stood at 10,39,166 and 55,092, respectively. 
• With 2,45,646 cases, the U.S. accounts for 24% of the global total, while Italy, with 13,915 deaths, has over 26% of total mortality. 
• Four countries — the U.S., Italy, Spain and Germany — have more cases reported than China. 

Time taken:

• The exponential increase becomes striking considering that the time taken to report 1,00,000 more cases has been reducing. 
• If it took 12 days to double to 2,00,000, it took just three days each to cross 0.3 and 0.4 million. 
• Thereafter, 0.1 million more cases have been reported every two days except on two occasions — the increase from 0.6 million to 0.7 million and 0.9 million to 1 million happened in a single day. 
• Yet, the cases reported so far might be a small percentage of the actual numbers in mostcountries. The main limiting factor in knowing the true spread has been the restricted number of tests done in most countries, India included. 

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Under reporting:

• Besides missing out those exhibiting mild symptoms and under-reporting by countries, the actual number of infections might be manifold higher as most countries have not made attempts to test those who do not show symptoms. 
• There is accumulating evidence suggesting that a “substantial fraction” of people infected with the virus are asymptomatic. 
• For instance, in South Korea, more than 20% of asymptomatic cases did not develop symptoms during hospitalisation. 
• If in Italy the virus was spreading silently for about 50 days before the first case was reported on February 20, in Iceland, nearly half of the 20% who tested positive for the virus were either asymptomatic or showed only mild symptoms. 

Asymptomatic reports:

• The South China Morning Post said more than 43,000 people in China who tested positive by end-February were asymptomatic and unreported. 
• Since April 1, China has been reporting new cases that are asymptomatic. China’s National Health Commission reports that as on March 31 there have been 1,541 asymptomatic cases. 
• The World Health Organisation maintains that the virus mainly spreads through droplets and contact with contaminated surfaces, and the risk of getting infected by an asymptomatic person is “very low”. 
• In India, it is important to test travellers and trace and monitor their contacts. Otherwise, there remains the risk of continued spread once the lockdown is withdrawn.

Conclusion:

• The global spread of the virus is continuing despite mitigation efforts.

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Only through the prism of science (The Hindu) 

Mains Paper 3:Science and Tech 
Prelims level:COVID-19
Mains level:Principle of collective consciousness on COVID-19

Context:

• On Friday, April 3, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his third COVID-19 address to the nation. To raise the people’s morale, Mr. Modi asked them to light up candles, diyas (lamps), torchlights and mobile flashlights for 9 minutes at 9 p.m. this Sunday. 
• Soon after his address, the citizens outreach portal of the Government of India tweeted a video explaining the ‘science’ behind the Prime Minister’s request.
• The video had a former president of the Indian Medical Association claiming that the request was based on a yogic ‘principle of collective consciousness’. 
• The doctor said that if the people collectively thought that they would not be afflicted by the coronavirus, then their collective consciousness would ensure that this happens. 
• This, he said, was based on a ‘quantum principle’. The tweet was soon deleted. But the incident shows how pseudoscience may be endangering India’s public health policy at this critical moment.

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Need for scientific temper:

• At no point in its modern history has India needed its people as now to urgently understand how microbiology impacts public health. 
• The Central and State governments are making huge efforts to give us a crash course on the spread and arrest of COVID-19. 
• But in our country, the Prime Minister’s voice on national issues carries the most weight. In this hour of national crisis, India needs its top leader to make the people realize why science has no substitute in battling the virus. 
• How has Mr. Modi fared as a promoter of scientific temper?
• In October 2014, the Prime Minister made two claims linking cutting-edge life sciences to Indian myths, including the Mahabharata. 
• In a speech delivered in Hindi, he said that Karna’s birth was a result of stem cell science and technology. 
• He also said that the world’s first plastic surgery was performed on Ganesha, giving the deity his elephant head. And, he made these remarks while inaugurating a hospital in Mumbai.

Invoking Mahabharata:

• On March 25 this year, a day after announcing the national lockdown, Mr. Modi interacted with the residents of Varanasi. 
• Invoking the Mahabharata again, he told them that the Mahabharata war was won in 18 days and India would win its war against the virus in 21. 
• In his English translation of the epic, Bibek Debroy, the Chair of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, doubts that the war of the scale described in the epic took place. Or that “miraculous weapons and chariots were the norm”.
• The Prime Minister’s 2014 remarks mixed up science and mythology, and sent out the following public message: our epics are historical truths; the fantasies within them are records of our ancient accomplishments in cutting-edge science and technology;  And since the ‘knowledge’ they contain has come down to us as part of our unbroken tradition, our indigenous wisdom can solve the problems that the life sciences currently face. 
• One wonders how those who believed his 2014 remarks would have responded to his projection of winning the war against the pandemic in 2020.
• Since Mr. Modi’s 2014 remarks, a number of Central and State leaders as well as lawmakers belonging to his party have peddled pseudoscience and untenable claims that fracture the backbone of the life sciences. 

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Dispelling the darkness:

• It is not surprising therefore that a ‘theory’ that sound vibrations kill the virus recently found a large number of takers. 
• Nothing but the acceptance of this myth masquerading as science explains the outrageous interpretation of the Prime Minister’s call to thank the nation’s essential service providers with applause, bell-ringing and banging of metal thalis (plates). 
• Several groups of people hit the streets on the evening of March 22 to ‘celebrate’ the ‘Janata Curfew’. They practised intense social proximity and banged metal utensils merrily and mercilessly. Did these actions increase the danger of the community spread of the virus? 
• If they did not, then why did the Prime Minister tweet the next day that many people had not taken the lockdown seriously?
• Mr. Modi did not ask people to erupt on the streets and endanger public health. However, it is not implausible that it happened because his message was interpreted by groups of people influenced by the present anti-science ecosystem. 
• Dozens of pseudoscientific solutions to the pandemic are floating within this ecosystem. 
• After Mr. Modi’s Friday morning address, claims about the prowess of light to fight the virus have begun circulating on social media. 

Conclusion:

• The Prime Minister has for years had the authority to crack down on this ecosystem. We would have been better placed in the fight against COVID-19 had he done so.
• And thus, the challenge: we are confronting a pandemic that only science and technology can fight in an ecosystem rife with belief in pseudoscience. 
• The 20th century philosophers of science, Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos, argued that pseudoscience was a great danger to liberal societies. 
• We can only hope that it is not irreversibly damaging India’s public health in this moment of crisis.

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Light and sound: On Narendra Modi’s 9-minute light ceremony (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: National 
Prelims level:9-minute light ceremony
Mains level:Social issues 

Context:

• Full of sound and piety but signifying little, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third and latest address to the nation on the COVID-19 pandemic hardly calmed frayed nerves. 
• Anxieties among the sections of society:
• Anxieties triggered by the pandemic are on the rise among all sections of society. The lockdown enforced on March 24 has brought the economy to a halt: small businesses are bleeding, and companies are scurrying to keep their heads above water. 
• Migrant labourers are stranded and hungry; health workers and security personnel are already stretched. 
• The extent of the pandemic itself remains uncertain, meanwhile. It is only natural that 130 crore Indians, the audience that the Prime Minister calls out to in all his speeches, have a lot of angst regarding all this. 

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Lack of accountability:

• Chief executives of many democracies have personally addressed the people with detailed and material plans of action since the outbreak. 
• They have also kept the interaction alive, and two-way. The political leadership at the Centre has largely remained aloof. Mr. Modi himself continues with his monologues, shunning all questions.
• Rhetoric to rally the nation in a moment of crisis can actually do good. Unifying and galvanising the country is very critical in combating the pandemic. 
• To the extent that it sought to achieve those goals, the Prime Minister’s message was purposeful. But gong and cymbals that drown out substantive conversations can be counterproductive. 
• If the pandemic itself was not mind-boggling enough, now the country has a unique puzzle to resolve — which is about the nine-minute light ceremony at 9 p.m. on Sunday, April 5, that the Prime Minister has called for. 
• Unsurprisingly, an industry has instantly sprung up online interpreting the choice of number nine as a stroke of celestial genius, forcing the Press Information Bureau to issue a clarification. 
• “Don’t fall for the rumours and unscientific reasoning on the appeal for lighting diya…,” it said. The Prime Minister himself has repeatedly asked people to stay away from rumours and misinformation about the pandemic, and rely only on trusted media platforms. 

Conclusion:

• Mr. Modi has a formidable following among the Indian public and his words carry weight. But no country can talk its way out of a pandemic and an economic collapse. 
• If words are all one has, the virus is not going to be kind. Nor is an economy going to stop its free fall at the sight of candles. 
• Symbolism is infused with meaning only through corresponding action. Symbolism has its place, but it must be part of a sustainable action plan.

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Time for India Inc to step up (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 4:Ethics 
Prelims level:Personal Protective Equipment
Mains level:Corporate social responsibility to address the pandemic 

Context:

• The coronavirus pandemic has brought about a moment that has no precedence in our lifetime. 

Background: 

• We are dealing with a situation that is fast-evolving, and merits our immediate attention and action. 
• Time has arrived to bring all our resources to the public square and to collectively resist and take affirmative action against the fallout from the pandemic. 
• In peace time, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is seen as doing some social good somewhere. 
• If it is done well, and in compliance with the government guidelines, it is seen as having accomplished its mission. 
• In war time though, as is the case now, CSR needs to acquire a new sense of urgency and indeed responsibility.

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CSR activities done: 

• The finance minister announced that CSR funds can be spent on activities related to addressing Covid-19 impact. 
• Even before this announcement was made on March 23, we saw some examples of benevolent individual corporate leaders offering resources to combat Covid-19. 
• Anand Mahindra, the chief of automobile giant Mahindra has offered to convert Mahindra Resorts into care facilities for Covid-19 patients. Anil Agarwal, the chief of the natural resources conglomerate Vedanta has pledged 100 crore for the fight against Covid-19. 
• Reliance has set up a 100-bed hospital in Mumbai and offered healthcare facilities through Jio platform and free fuel for emergency vehicles.

Need collective efforts from both sides: 

• While these individual efforts are laudable, we need to nevertheless give serious thought as to how we can collectively add value to the overall societal effort to combat the virus impact.
• We need to now apply all the strategic thinking we teach in our business schools. 
• We need to collectively identify our priorities first and then see where the resources are to be deployed. 
• The government will do what it normally does in its own way. The corporate sector can bring its unique way of doing things albeit in a strategic way. 
• The corporate sector is good at innovation. This is their forte and must be exercised at this moment. Here are some of the key priorities that need urgent addressing and more importantly funds.

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Increase testing capacities: 

• We just have 118 government labs and 12 private labs. Many of them are still equipping themselves. 
• This is one critical gap where CSR can contribute very effectively. 
• Start-ups such as Mylab Discovery Solutions that are making indigenous test kits is a case in point. 
• They may have secured the funding for development but lack the resources to scale it to areas where they are needed the most. 
• In the North-Eastern region (NER), for a population of over 50 million there are just eight labs, and half of them are in Assam. 
• The state of Bihar has nearly 100 million people, but there is just one lab in Patna. 
• With the lockdown in place it is not easy to send samples from Sikkim to Guwahati. It will be weeks before the results come. 
• We need mobile testing labs and deploy them in large numbers. For epidemiological reasons also, a mobile testing lab has many advantages. 
• CSR is quick and an effective instrument to ensure that this happens.

Procurement of Personal Protective Equipment:

• The second area of intervention is addressing the severe shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). 
• This shortage has the serious risk of healthcare workers getting exposed to the virus. 
• More than 12% of all those who are infected and indeed dying are healthcare workers in Spain. They have just run out of all PPEs. 

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Way forward:

• We are dealing with a potential disaster scenario and we need to work on a war footing to resolve the issues and increase the manufacturing and supply of PPE wherever it is needed. 
• CSR can ensure that enough supplies reach these epicentres to protect our health and front-line workers.
• It is equally important for CSR to reach out to the most vulnerable sections of our society with an emergency basic income. 
• Cash relief to those who are daily wage earners and must stay home due to lockdown can get the priority. This is to ensure that no one dies of hunger.

Conclusion: 

• Corporates can start this at least in their own catchment areas where they are working. 
• The challenge here is to design a fool-proof and leak-proof method of transferring cash to people in need.

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Threat to cancer patients from coronavirus (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2:National 
Prelims level:Cancer patients
Mains level:Threat to cancer patients from coronavirus

Context:

• The number of people infected with COVID-19 across the world has now reached a million. It is well known now that while people of all age groups are vulnerable to infection from the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the people likely to develop severe COVID-19 are those above the age of 60 years.
• Especially vulnerable are those people who have comorbidities such as heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease and cancer.
• For some cancer patients receiving treatment, the global pandemic poses a different set of challenges, even if they do not have COVID-19. Here’s a look at some of those challenges and how doctors and cancer specialists have been advised to alter treatments during this time.

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Are cancer patients at higher risk of developing serious illness due to COVID-19?

• Yes, a subset of cancer patients are more vulnerable to developing serious illness due to COVID-19. 
• This subset includes people with cancer who are undergoing active chemotherapy, those undergoing radical radiotherapy for lung cancer, people with cancers of the blood or bone marrow such as leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma (at any stage of treatment), those getting immunotherapy or antibody treatments for cancer, those having other types of targetted cancer treatments which may affect the immune system and cancer patients who have undergone bone marrow or stem cell transplants in the last six months or who are still taking immunosuppressive drugs.
• Further, a cancer patient who is over the age of 60 and has comorbodities such as cardiovascular or respiratory issues will also be especially vulnerable to illness due to COVID-19. 
• As per a recent analysis of patients in Italy, 20 percent of those who died in the country had active cancer.

Why are cancer patients more vulnerable to Covid-19?

• Some cancer patients are more vulnerable because of their weakened immune systems. The immune system has an important role to play to fight off infection or repair an injured tissue. 
• With COVID-19 as well, the role of the immune system is to try and fight off the virus. 
• The immune system should not be overstimulated so as to cause hyper inflammation caused when more than necessary number of white blood cells are deployed by the immune system, which can lead to sepsis or even death. The immune system should also not be weak that it is unable to fight off the infection.
• Some cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy might weaken the immune system of the patient, since such treatments can stop the bone marrow from making enough white blood cells.
• Due to this, the immune system is weakened, reducing the person’s ability to fight off infection.

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What about cancer patients who do not have COVID-19?

• The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) has placed guidelines for treatment of cancer patients who do not have COVID-19. 
• These guidelines state that cancer patients may need to consider if the risks of beginning or continuing their cancer treatment could outweigh the benefits, since patients receiving therapies are more at risk from becoming seriously ill if they were to contract COVID-19. 
• When deciding on whether a particular cancer treatment should be undertaken, doctors may also take into account the exposure of the patient to the virus during hospital visits.

Way ahead:

• Further doctors dealing with cancer patients will also have to consider the overall impact of the coronavirus on health services, Cancer Research UK points out. For example, it’s likely that there will be staff and bed shortages. 
• This means they might need to delay or rearrange treatments. Because of this, they might need to prioritise some treatments over others.

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Quarantine and the law (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:Polity 
Prelims level:Quarantine
Mains level:Quarantine and its Judicial review 

Context:

• It was about 196 years ago (1824) that the U.S. Supreme Court, in an en banc sitting led by Chief Justice John Marshall, affirmed the powers of the state to enact quarantine laws and impose health regulations. 
• The world has since faced many health emergencies caused by dangerous diseases. This virus crisis is also not new.

Quarantine:

• Quarantine is considered the oldest mechanism to reduce the rapid spread of bacterial infections and viral onslaughts. 
• It has been legally sanctioned by all jurisdictions in the world for the maintenance of public health and to control the transmission of diseases. 
• Since ancient times, societies have practised isolation, and imposed a ban on travel or transport and resorted to maritime quarantine of persons.
• These measures were often forcibly enforced to prevent or reduce the wider spread of disease and to safeguard the health of citizens not yet exposed to such diseases. 
• In the list of diseases that may require quarantine, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome that can go on to become pandemic has been recently added to the existing ones — cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever and viral hemorrhagic fever. 

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Trentino to Quarantine:

• The first law on medical isolation was passed by the Great Council in 1377, when the plague was rapidly ruining European countries. Detention for medical reasons was justified and disobedience made a punishable offence. 
• The law prescribed isolation for 30 days, called a ‘trentino’. Subsequently, many countries adopted similar laws to protect the people. 
• When the duration of isolation was enhanced to 40 days, the name also changed to ‘quarantine’ by adopting the Latin quadraginta, which referred to a 40-day detention placed on ships.
• In common parlance, ‘quarantine’ and ‘isolation’ are used interchangeably, but they convey two different meanings and are two different mechanisms in public health practice. 
• Quarantine is imposed to separate and restrict the movement of persons, who may have been exposed to infectious disease, but not yet known to be ill. 
• But, isolation is a complete separation from others of a person known or reasonably believed to be infected with communicable diseases.
• The current COVID-19 crisis, with its closure of shops, academic institutions and postponement of public examinations, has put the people in a de facto quarantine. Nonetheless, the question whether a public authority or state can promulgate an order for quarantine is a legal issue.

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Individual rights:

• But in matters involving a threat to the health of the community, individual rights have to be balanced with public interest. 
• In fact, individual liberty and public health are not opposed to each other but are well in accord. The reason assigned by the High Court to uphold the quarantine was that even if there was a conflict between the right of an individual and public interest, the former must yield to the latter.
• In 2014, Kaci Hickox, a nurse and health worker who voluntarily rendered service to Ebola patients and returned to New Jersey, was quarantined in the U.S.
• It was opposed by her peers serving in public health. But the dreadful consequences of the disease, and the possibility of its spreading at an alarming rate, made the forcible isolation rational and reasonable.
• In India, the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, a law of colonial vintage, empowers the state to take special measures, including inspection of passengers, segregation of people and other special steps for the better prevention of the spread of dangerous diseases. 
• It was amended in 1956 to confer powers upon the Central government to prescribe regulations or impose restrictions in the whole or any parts of India to control and prevent the outbreak of hazardous diseases. 
• Quarantine is not an alien concept or strange action and it has been invoked several times during the bizarre situations caused by the cholera, smallpox, plague and other diseases in India.

Judicial review:

• The Director of World Health Organization (WHO) on March 30 determined that the outbreak of COVID-19 constitutes a public health emergency of international concern and issued interim guidance for quarantines of individuals. 
• The guidance permitted the restriction of activities by separation of persons who are not ill, but who may have been exposed to an infectious disease within the legal framework of the International Health Regulations (2005). 
• It also distinguished quarantine from isolation, which is the separation of ill or infected persons from others, so as to prevent this spread of infection or contamination. 

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Way forward: 

• Therefore, courts have exercised their jurisdiction and powers to review and reverse quarantine orders.
• The Supreme Court suo motu took cognisance of fears over the COVID-19 pandemic affecting overcrowded prisons in India, on March 16. 
• The difficulties in observing social distancing among prison inmates, where the occupancy rate is at 117.6%, were highlighted and directions issued to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in prisons in India.
• The setting up of isolation cells within prisons across Kerala, and the decision of the Tihar Jail authorities to screen new inmates and put them in different wards for three days are appreciated as reasonable preventive measures. 
• Further, notices were issued to all States to deal with the present health crisis in prisons and juvenile observation homes.

Conclusion:

• Quarantine rooms may have strong closed doors or may be water and air tight compartments, but the rays of justice from the courtrooms have the powers to intrude in them.
• Of course, under the sun every object is subject to judicial review and quarantine orders are not exempted from it.

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Looking east to contain COVID-19 (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:International 
Prelims level:COVID-19
Mains level:COVID-19 preventive measures taken by eastern countries 

Context:

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s extraordinary decision to impose a nationwide lockdown for three weeks to contain COVID-19 is without precedent. 
• Even at the peak of the outbreak — and lockdowns — in China, 600 million fewer people were confined to their homes. 

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Decision – A welcome one:

• Overall, the decision is a welcome one, but it should have almost certainly been taken much earlier — even if the true fatality rate of SARS-CoV-2 turns out to be orders of magnitude smaller.
• An extreme restriction on population movement is not a silver bullet, however. Like border shutdowns, it can buy time to slow down the spread of the virus but not eliminate it altogether. 
• To eliminate the virus, community transmission must be prevented. Key to such transmission prevention is (early) detection and, thereafter, aggressive and systematic quarantining. 
• Given India’s slow start on the diagnostic and detection front, it is all the more urgent that the government ramp up its act on the isolation and quarantining front.
• Lessons from the successful prevention and containment strategies employed by South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and China are instructive here. 
• Following the outbreak, each of the first four went their own way on border controls. 
• While Singapore barred the entry of all visitors from mainland China, South Korea continued to receive 20,000 visitors from China even at the peak of the outbreak, limiting arrivals only from Hubei province and its capital Wuhan.

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Breaking the chain:

• Yet all four countries did two things that were key to breaking the chain of transmission. First, each instituted a widespread and rigorous regime of early testing and contact tracing. South Korea has conducted 4,31,743 diagnostic tests. 
• Each confirmed patient’s contacts were then exhaustively traced and offered free testing. This has been reflected in unusually low fatality rates. 
• Second, all four deployed information and communication technology to trace contacts, keep track of aggregations of movement, and provide real-time notifications on virus spread. Taiwan set the bar here. 
• After integrating its public health databases with border controls, household registry and the national identification system, it linked private mobile phones to the government’s epidemic control centre, enabling enforcement of quarantine. 
• As a result, the rate of local transmission cases to imported infections is among the lowest in the world.
• The case of China may be more relevant to India given the somewhat similar capacity shortfalls, its forthwith sealing off of whole population centres and, most importantly, the fact that community transmission had already exploded before authorities had a firm handle on the spread. Quarantining was key in China. 
• Makeshift hospitals, schools, hotels, etc. were re-purposed as quarantine centres on an industrial scale to house all but the most severe and critical cases (who were hospitalised). 

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Three lessons:

• As India looks ahead, three lessons are key. 
• First, the government must stay prepared to re-purpose existing facilities and massively scale up its quarantine square footage. 
• Next, without detection and patient classification, there can be no intelligent quarantining; the government must use the interval to get its act together on testing. 
• The tide in Wuhan was only turned after testing was expanded from the low hundreds in end-January to the several thousand by mid-February. 
• Finally, it is time for India to avert its perennial Westward gaze. Many of the most innovative deployment of ideas and systems are being birthed right here to India’s east.

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Break from tradition : On Wimbledon cancellation (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:International 
Prelims level:Wimbledon
Mains level:Impact of Wimbledon cancellation 

Context:

• A yellow ball glides past the net, the players grunt, the grass twitches and under azure blue skies, the applause from the stands ranges from the muted to the ecstatic. 
• Wimbledon is tennis at its best, and it remains the sport’s holy grail, blending history and nostalgia with a massive global fan base. 
• There are the other Grand Slam Opens — French, U.S. and Australian — but Wimbledon towers above all. 

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Impact of Wimbledon: 

• Geographically fused to London, Wimbledon’s appeal is truly universal. 
• It is a feel-good genie let loose every year during the British summer, while cricket provides an echo from Lord’s and other grounds across England.
• Last year, while Wimbledon uncorked its magic at The Championships as it is formally called, the cricket World Cup raced towards its climax. It was a sporting high and life was good. 
• But since then, much water has flowed down the Thames and humankind is at another point, struggling to cope with the coronavirus pandemic that brooks no borders, weakening bodies and even pausing the most elementary of courtesies — the good old handshake, as social distancing is the preventive norm. 
• When life is in peril, indulgences vanish, albeit for a while, and close on the heels of the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics to next year, Wimbledon too bit the dust. The announcement on Wednesday evoked one word from Roger Federer: “devastated!”

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Denouement:

• The denouement wasn’t a surprise and this perhaps is the new-normal where what is often taken for granted can no longer be presumed permanent. 
• Still, this is heartbreak for the die-hards, who will be forced to discard their annual rituals specific to Wimbledon. 
• The debates, about who is greater among Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Serena Williams or reliving the fabled rivalries: Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe; Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker; Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi; and the current one among Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, can wait. 
• Wimbledon had even elevated strawberries and cream into a rarefied zone and those pink-paper reports on how many kilograms were consumed near the courts, will also have to wait for another year. 
• This might sound trivial, but to the centre court faithful, this was tradition not to be messed with, just like the all-white attire that players donned and the courtesy of taking a bow when royalty turned up in the audience. 

Conclusion: 

• With the French Open rescheduled from May to September and the US Open authorities insisting that the event will stick to its August start, tennis fans have some room for hope. Still, Federer will be on the cusp of 40 when Wimbledon resumes next year and Serena would be 39. Will the legends last till then? Only time will tell.

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Safe forests, safe people: On diseases of animal origin (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3:Environment 
Prelims level:SARS-CoV-2 virus
Mains level:Key factors for spreading vulnerability contagion

Context:

• The rapid spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus across the world has focused attention on the seemingly invisible processes that help pathogens originally found in wild animals make the leap to humans. 
• Diseases of animal origin such as Ebola, HIV, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, bird flu and swine flu have raised alarm over potential pandemics in recent years, and the COVID-19 pandemic has confirmed the worst fears of scientists. 

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Key factors: 

• The contagion, thought to have originated in a wet market that kept live animals in Wuhan, China, points to many underlying factors.
• The destruction of forests and trapping or farming of wild species has brought these animals closer to humans, and the viruses they harbour find ready hosts in domestic animals, moving to humans. 
• There is concern also about rising economic activity, such as road building and mining cutting through forests, bringing more people in close contact with animals.
• Another dimension is the global trade in wild species — in Wuhan, they reportedly ranged from wolf pups to rats, civets and foxes, among others — and their sale in markets along with domestic animals. 

Valuable ecosystem:

• The well-documented histories of the lethal Nipah and Hendra viruses, involving transfer from bats to pigs in the former, and bats to horses in the latter, underscore the value of maintaining viable ecosystems, and eliminating the need for wild bats to colonise human surroundings.
• Biodiversity in forests harmlessly retains dangerous viruses and other pathogens among a vast pool of wild animals, away from people. 
• What this phenomenon makes clear is that governments should stop viewing undisturbed landscapes as an impediment to economic growth. 
• As COVID-19 has proved, these short-term high growth trajectories can come to an abrupt halt with a pandemic. 
• Such a terrible outcome could be witnessed again, potentially caused by reckless exploitation of the environment. 

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Government’s apathy: 

• In spite of repeated warnings of crippling pandemics waiting in the wings, governments paid little attention.
• Now, a novel virus that can move effortlessly from human to human has found a large reservoir of hosts in a globalised world. 
• Unlike previous epidemics, the latest one has extracted a staggering toll, killing people, forcing a lockdown and causing economic devastation. 
• This should serve as a dire warning to the government that hasty permissions granted for new roads, dams, mines and power projects in already enfeebled forests can unleash more scourges. 
• It would do well to roll back its dilution of the environmental clearance system, strengthen it with a mandate to the States, and leave protected areas to scientific experts. 

Conclusion: 

• There is mounting evidence that environmental protection confers health protection. 
• Pristine forests with diverse species keep viruses virtually bottled up, out of man’s way. They should be left undisturbed.

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The battle to set oil prices (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: International 
Prelims level: Rosneft
Mains level:  Downfall of oil prices economic impact 

Context:

• The global economy, grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, is now facing an energy war, with crude oil prices crashing in the international market. 

No production cuts:

• Crude oil prices tanked, as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its alliance partners failed to reach any consensus on cutting back production to levels that would enable prices to remain stable. 
• The U.S., as the largest oil producer today, has stayed away from the OPEC-plus arrangement, hoping that production cuts by OPEC-plus countries will help it increase its market share.
• Russia refused any production cuts, unleashing an energy war with Saudi Arabia. 
• There has been a spectacular fall of around 30% in crude oil prices. 
• The International Energy Agency (IEA) has scaled down global demand for oil, a move not taken by the energy watchdog since 2009. 
• Demand for oil had already weakened owing to the global economic slowdown, and this weakening has become more pronounced due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hit China’s economy and reduced consumption by the world’s largest importer.
• Russia’s decision to reject any production cuts is driven directly by its strategy of denying market share to American shale oil producers. 
• The latter rely on higher prices in the range of $50-$60 to remain profitable because of higher production costs. At $31 per barrel, not more than five American shale oil producers can remain profitable.

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Sanctions on rosneft:

• Russia also remains resentful of sanctions imposed on Rosneft, which is building the gas pipeline project Nord Stream 2 across the Baltic Sea, carrying Siberian gas to Germany, a major consumer. 
• This pipeline was delayed due to opposition from Denmark’s environmental activists and could not be completed before the U.S. sanctions kicked in. 
• Moscow has accused Washington of using geopolitical tools for commercial reasons. 
• Russia had promised to retaliate at a time of its own choosing. The energy war over prices is Russia’s revenge, to cripple the American shale oil industry. 
• President Donald Trump has scrambled to put together a rescue package for the shale oil companies. 
• Russia is also signaling to Saudi Arabia that its American patrons can do little to protect its oil interests and it would be prudent for Saudi Arabia to reach some understanding with Russia. 
• Both Saudi Arabia and Russia depend heavily on oil revenues — upwards of 80% of export revenues accrue from crude oil. 
• Both are also fighting to retain market share. It has been reported that Saudi Arabia has agreed to supply crude oil at lower rates to refiners in India and China, two primary customers, but refused to supply to other refiners in Asia. This will impact on India’s oil procurement from the U.S.

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Benefit to importing countries:

• Lower crude oil prices are not necessarily bad news for oil importing countries like India, which is the world’s third-largest importer of crude oil and the fourth largest importer of LNG. 
• There are, however, collateral adverse consequences like the battering of the stock markets worldwide. 
• The global economy, already impacted by President Donald Trump’s trade war with China and other countries, including India, and the COVID-19 pandemic, may find lower energy costs helpful in overall growth.
• From a high of $147 per barrel in 2008, crude oil prices have fallen to around $24 per barrel and may even go further southwards. 
• India, with 80% of its energy requirements met by imports from the international market, stands to save ₹10,700 crores for every $1 drop in prices. 
• While this may help manage the current account deficit, fiscal deficit and inflation, there are non-oil related collateral factors that can cause countervailing adverse economic impact.

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Conclusion:

• Saudi Arabia’s production cost is the cheapest in the world and it can ramp up production to around 12 million barrels a day. By offering discounts, it can undercut other producers, including Russia. Domestic considerations also matter.
• Meanwhile, oil importing countries, like India, can enjoy a breather and cushion the adverse impact of COVID-19 and other factors.

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Thinking national, acting local (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Governance 
Prelims level: SARS-CoV-2
Mains level:  National planning for combating pandemic 

Context:

• The attack by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has highlighted, once again, both the bad shape of the Indian economy and the precariousness in the lives of millions of people. 
• Citizens have been ordered to stay in their homes to prevent the pandemic. 
• But many have no homes. They are being urged to wash their hands frequently, when many do not have access to enough clean water to drink. 
• The public health system is woefully inadequate. GDP growth rates may have been good for sometime. But many systems in the country are fragile.

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Failure of planning institutions:

• National planning, by whatever name it is called (Planning Commission or NITI Aayog), has failed to produce all-round development of India’s economy so far. An all-round plan for recovery from the pandemic is required. 
• As Einstein said, “you cannot solve intractable problems with the same thinking that produced the problems”. Therefore, it is time to consider the weakness in India’s national planning.
• Any planning institution in a federal and democratic system faces two basic challenges when it comes to performing a long-term role — a constitutional challenge, and the challenge of competence.

The constitutional question:

• The fundamental issues a national plan must address, such as the condition of the environment, the shape of the economy, and pace of human development, need consistent action over decades. 
• Therefore, policies must continue beyond the terms of governments that change in shorter spans in electoral democracies. 
• Moreover, if the planning body does not have constitutional status independent from that of the government, it will be forced to bend to the will of the latter. Planning in China does not face this disruption.
• Short-termism in policymaking is a weakness of electoral democracies everywhere, as citizens of California have realised. 
• California is suffering from great environmental stress. 
• Its vaunted public education system has been underfunded for years. A group of concerned citizens in California, convened by the Berggruen Institute, formed a Think Long Committee.  

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Inefficacy of long-term planning:

• Debates have begun amongst economists about the inefficacy of long-term planning in India and the performance of NITI Aayog. 
• They say that planning is weak when planners do not have the powers to allocate money for national priorities, which NITI Aayog does not have. 
• They forget that the Planning Commission had such powers and yet was considered ineffective in bringing about all-round progress.
• Moreover, they glide over constitutional issues in granting powers to institutions that allocate public money in democracies. 
• A fundamental principle of democratic governance is that the power to allocate public money must be supervised by elected representatives. 
• Therefore, a planning body that allocates money must be backed by a constitutional charter, and also accountable to Parliament.
• India’s national planning process must address the constitutional relationship between the Centre and the States. In India’s constitutional structure, elected governments in the States are accountable to the people. 
• They are expected to improve human development, create infrastructure, and make it easy to do business in the State. They must manage their financial resources efficiently and balance their budgets. 
• Constitutionally established Finance Commissions determine the sharing of Centrally raised resources with the States. What then is the role of a national planning commission?

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Need for competence:

• Whether a planning institution allocates money, or advises others how to, it must have the necessary competence. 
• A national planning institution must guide all-round progress. It must assist in achieving not just faster GDP growth, but also more socially inclusive, and more environmentally sustainable growth. For this, it needs a good model in which societal and environmental forces are within the model. 
• Economists who have been advising policymakers do not have comprehensive models of socio-environmental systems. 
• Their models are inadequate even to explain economic growth, because they have not incorporated the implications of economic growth on inequality, for example, which has become a contentious issue.
• An economy is a complex system, which sits within an even larger and more complex system of human society and the natural environment. 
• The globalisation agenda has been driven by an economic agenda, with policies promoting global trade and finance to maximise global economic output. 
• It has paid too little attention to the impact of the ‘GDP agenda’ on the well-being of communities where employment declines when production moves to lower cost sources elsewhere. Or to the total environmental impact of global supply chains. Now the system is reacting and stalling globalisation.
• A feature of complex systems, in which all the parts are connected, is that the system cannot be healthy if any part becomes very sick — even if the others are in robust health. Even if all other organs in a human body are functioning, if one fails, the whole-body dies. 

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Way forward:

• These insights into systems structures, as well as considerations of democratic governance in which governance should be devolved to national governments, and, within them, to State governments, and even to the third tier of city and district governance, have implications for the role and competencies of a national planning institution for India. 
• It must be a systems reformer, not fund allocator. And a force for persuasion, not control centre. Because its role must be to promote local systems solutions to national problems.
• A planning institution must be a systems reformer and a force of persuasion, not just a control centre.

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Beyond the blame game: On the Tablighi Jamaat episode (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: National 
Prelims level: Tablighi Jamaat
Mains level:  Social issue 

Context:

• Nizamuddin in Delhi has turned into a large cluster of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) cases after a big religious congregation was held in mid-March by the Tablighi Jamaat at the Alami Markaz Banglewali Masjid. 
• More than 400 people showing symptoms have been hospitalised in Delhi alone and nearly 240 have tested positive; at least 10 have died. 
• The spectre of large-scale community spread by a few hundred attendees from different States cannot be ruled out. 

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Health emergency:

• That the three-day event began on a day when the Health Ministry said that it did not consider the novel coronavirus as a health emergency despite 81 cases being reported cannot be an excuse. 
• After all, WHO had called COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11. The organisers should have been very much aware that a similar congregation organised by them in Malaysia in end-February led to a spike in cases there and the attendees had carried the virus to other countries. 
• But the Delhi government is equally culpable as nothing was done to stop such a meeting except issuing an order on March 13 prohibiting the assembly of more than 200 people. 
• What prevented the State government from following the Centre’s March 6 advice to States to avoid or postpone mass gatherings till the pandemic was contained? 

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Spread of virus:

• But India failed despite being aware how global congregations — some linked to religion — had led to an alarming spread of the virus, examples being the large outbreaks in South Korea, Singapore, southern Italy and Spain.
• States that already have cases with a link to the Nizamuddin event should now use the lockdown period to actively engage in finding everyone who has attended the event, trace their contacts, quarantine, test and treat them without losing time. 
• Both South Korea and Singapore have demonstrated how meticulous tracing of contacts of a church event, isolation and aggressive testing helped prevent the highly infectious virus from spreading widely in the community. 

Conclusion:

• Ideally, the remaining period of the shutdown should be used to expand the testing to at least limited community level to find every suspected case linked to the attendee. 
• The last thing that India can afford in the war against the virus is the disease acquiring a religious or class colour. 
• Community leaders have been irresponsible, but those in the government have been lax too.
• India must use the lockdown for full contact tracing, especially after the Nizamuddin scare

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Uncritical endorsement: On exodus of migrant workers and the Supreme Court (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: National 
Prelims level: migrant workers
Mains level:  Key highlights of the court order on migrant workers 

Context:

• There are two aspects to the Supreme Court’s limited intervention in response to the humanitarian crisis set off by the exodus of migrant workers, following the announcement of a country-wide lockdown. 
• Key highlights of the court order:
• In a brief order, the highlight of which is its full endorsement of the Centre’s response to the pandemic, the Court has, first, underscored the need for kindness by the police and the authorities in the way they treat the workers and their families. 
• Second, it has uncritically accepted the official narrative that “fake news” about the duration of the lockdown being “three months” caused a panic reaction from migrant workers across States. 
• In the light of this finding — if it can be described thus — the Court has chosen to “direct the media to refer to and publish the official version about the developments”, with a disclaimer that it does not intend to interfere with the free discussion about the pandemic. 
• It has noted an offer from the Solicitor-General to bring out a daily bulletin to clear people’s doubts. 

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Supreme Court’s statement:

• It recorded its expectation that the media, including social media, would “maintain a strong sense of responsibility and ensure that unverified news capable of causing panic is not disseminated”. 
• Significantly, the order flags the penal provisions in the law for punishing those who disseminate information amounting to false alarm or disobedience to a public servant’s instructions.
• It would be an exaggeration if anyone sees in this direction or appeal to the media for responsible journalism any attempt at censorship, but it is disappointing that the Court finds credible the government’s claim about “fake news” being the main factor behind the exodus. 
• It was quite obvious that the short notice of just four hours for the lockdown to take effect, the lack of planning and coordination with the States, the fears of the people about being left without cash and running out of food, and worries about their families back home were the principal reasons. 
• A welcome feature of the Court’s approach is that it did not concede the government’s ill-advised request for a direction to restrain the media from reporting or publishing “anything” without ascertaining the factual position from the government. 

Control information:

• Implicit in this prayer was an attempt to control information, the very antithesis of the current need for the government to ensure proactive disclosure and dissemination of accurate data. 
• To an extent, the Court’s restraint is understandable; as, dealing with a pandemic, be it in the form of framing a strategy for prevention and treatment, or limiting its devastating economic fallout, is primarily the duty of the executive. 
• However, as it has chosen to examine the humanitarian dimension to the crisis, it would be in the fitness of things if it asked more searching questions of the government and ensured greater accountability in these distressing times.

Conclusion:

• Supreme Court must ask more probing questions on the way the government is handling the pandemic.

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Tamil Nadu CM writes on how the State is stopping the pandemic in its tracks (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Health 
Prelims level: COVID-19
Mains level:  Functions and responsibilities of the Union and the States

Context:

• The COVID-19 pandemic has spread around the world — 204 countries/regions/territories so far. 
• In India, the first case was reported from Kerala on January 30, 2020. The first case in Tamil Nadu was reported on March 7 —a person in Kancheepuram who had travelled abroad.

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Action taken:

• Realizing the nature of this virus quite early on and even when this dreaded infection was confined to one country alone, in January 2020, I directed the State Health Department to screen all the international passengers who had arrived in the State. 
• To curtail community spread, Amma’s [Jayalalithaa’s] government wasted no time in closing down educational institutions and all high-risk areas such as big commercial complexes, malls, theatres, places of worship and so on, on March 15. 
• When positive cases began showing up in the neighboring States, I announced the closure of the State’s borders as well, again on March 15.
• The Tamil Nadu government made a life-saving decision on March 24, which was announced by me in the Legislative Assembly — of a complete ‘lockdown’ and the imposition of Section 144 of the Code Of Criminal Procedure throughout the State till March 31. 
• Our call for social distancing was further strengthened when the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India made the announcement of a national-level lockdown till April 14, 2020 on the same evening which was intended to break the infection chain. 
• The participation by 1.3 billion Indians in this national exercise once again proves our unity in diversity.
• Tamil Nadu shares its boundary with States which reported COVID-19 positive cases in the early days of infection in India. 
• The four international airports and four major ports in the State also compounded the risk of infection in the State. 
• But the Tamil Nadu government was ready and around 2.09 lakh international passengers have been screened besides screening data obtained from the Immigration Department on persons who are natives of Tamil Nadu but who have entered the country through an airport other than Chennai. 
• As a result of this screening, around 43,537 people are under home quarantine and observation as on date for a period of 28 days. 
• The houses of this high-risk category have been identified and stickers were pasted in front of their residences. 
• They are being monitored through audio/video calls made from a dedicated district control room by doctors posted there round the clock. They have also been given medical advice and counselling.
• Since Tamil Nadu is right now transiting to Stage II of COVID-19 transmission, the State government has in place a detailed ‘Local Containment Plan’ of conducting door-to-door surveillance in the zones where positive cases have been identified. 
• People who are identified through active surveillance will be facility quarantined. Passive surveillance to trace the contacts of positive persons outside the zone is also being undertaken in parallel.
• Augmenting infrastructure:
• The first exclusive block to treat COVID-19 patients has been set up at Chennai’s Omandurar Government Medical College Hospital, with a capacity of 500 beds; ₹10 crore has also been allocated for the required medical equipment. 
• There are also dedicated COVID-19 hospitals in each district to treat confirmed cases. All medical college hospitals and district headquarters hospitals have been designated as hospitals for the management of suspected patients. 
• Quarantine facilities have also been arranged for passengers arriving from affected countries. These are at Poonamallee, Madurai, Coimbatore and Tiruchi, which are close to all four international airports in the State. 

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Addressing fundamentals:

• The national lockdown will have a telling impact on the poorest and daily-wage workers in the unorganised sector. 
• An immediate and comprehensive relief package of ₹3,280 crore has been announced. All rice card holders will receive rice, sugar, dhal and edible oil free for April along with ₹1,000 each. 
• Besides, as a mark of addressing their undue hardship, workers in the unorganised sector including auto-rickshaw drivers will get 15 kg rice, 1 kg dhal, 1 kg oil free and ₹1,000 each. 
• Pavement vendors will get an extra ₹1,000 each. Also, migrant workers from other States will receive the commodities in equal measure. 
• For those migrant labourers who are without shelter, community halls/marriage halls are being utilised, where hot, nutritious cooked food is being provided, apart from medical facilities.
• The nationally acclaimed State initiative, “Amma Canteens”, which provide meals at subsidised rates, will serve the needy. Keeping in mind the well-being of Anganwadi children, dry ration for 15 days is being provided in advance to families to meet nutritional requirements. 
• Those under isolation are also provided with nutritious and vitamin-rich food. Senior citizens, who are being served by Anganwadi centres, will be provided food at their places of stay.
• I have announced an additional two days wages to cover those rural households which are dependent on their employment under MGNREGA for their livelihood. 
• Around 1.5 lakh pregnant women who are due in the next 60 days are under close monitoring. Necessary steps have been taken to provide medicines for the next two months to patients with hypertension, diabetes mellitus, HIV and TB.

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Ensuring physical distancing:

• The failure of many advanced countries in handling the pandemic has given us enough wisdom not to take the lockdown lightly. Since India has a large number of densely populated urban areas, the world is watching us to know how we are going to tackle the deadly virus.
• However, to make this happen, the singular message of social distancing should percolate to every individual citizen. 
• Several effective communication materials have been circulated in the media and displayed in all the public places highlighting the necessity of isolation and staying at home. 
• The State government has a dedicated website (https://stopcorona.tn.gov.in/) to pass on verified and valuable messages. Severe legal action is being taken against violators and those spreading rumours on the spread of the infection and its treatment.
• There are several initiatives to increase the number of field functionaries to create awareness and to monitor the home quarantine individuals; as on date, around 38,809 volunteers have registered themselves and the count is increasing every day.
• For active enforcement of the lockdown and to address the important issues , we have constituted 11 co-ordination teams with senior-level IAS officers. I have also constituted a State-level task force headed by Chief Secretary to monitor the preventive measures.
• Using video-conferencing, we are frequently reviewing the District Collectors for effective and timely implementation of all the steps. 
• With all the schools, colleges, shopping malls, and cinema theatres closed, adequate supply of daily basic necessities including groceries, agricultural products, milk and medicines are being ensured. 
• Petrol bunks will operate till 2.30 p.m. Only parcel services are being allowed from restaurants. Call centres are operating 24x7 to offer assistance. 
• I have also set up a ‘Crisis Management Committee’ in all districts under the chairmanship of District Collectors, with representatives from the Chambers of Commerce, private hospitals, NGOs and other stakeholders. 
• I have directed all the Ministers to coordinate prevention and treatment aspects in the districts.

Ensuring the economy:

• It is the responsibility of State governments to ensure the welfare of the poor and the vulnerable. Like many State governments, Tamil Nadu too has also announced relief packages. 
• The Centre has supported these measures with its Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana relief package. The timely intervention of the Reserve Bank of India in announcing liquidity and interest rate reduction measures will also help the economy. 
• However, the economic impact of this unprecedented lockdown is likely to be very severe and State governments will suffer substantial reductions in tax and revenue receipts. 
• A lot of measures will have to be taken to revive economic growth and to stimulate consumption and investment demand. 

Conclusion:

• The Centre should help the States continuously in this regard. 
• To overcome this crisis, I have therefore written to the Prime Minister, requesting the Centre to allocate a special grant of ₹1-lakh crore to all the States including ₹9,000 crore to Tamil Nadu; relax, as a one-time measure, the fiscal deficit norm of 3% of GSDP for 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 and permit, during 2020-21, additional borrowing of 33% above the previous year’s level.
• At this juncture, our priority is to fully focus on the eradication of the pandemic. After achieving this primary goal, I hope the country as a whole will join hands and provide the necessary thrust to the economy.

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A pandemic in an unequal India (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: National 
Prelims level: COVID-19 pandemic
Mains level:  Social issues

Context:

• If the COVID-19 pandemic lashes India with severity, it will not be just the middle class who will be affected. India’s impoverished millions are likely to overwhelmingly bear the brunt of the suffering which will ensue. 
• The privileged Indian has been comfortable for too long with some of the most unconscionable inequalities in the planet. But with the pandemic, each of these fractures can decimate the survival probabilities and fragile livelihoods of the poor.
• The measures adopted by the government to stymie the progress of the virus were first to introduce a ‘work from home’ measure, to urge people to wash their hands frequently, physical distancing, and then an unprecedented 21-day lockdown.

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Deeping a social divide:

• Public health experts are divided about whether this lockdown was absolutely necessary and indeed implementable. 
• It should have been clear that a total lockdown was possible only for the rich and the middle class with assured incomes during the period, homes with spaces for distancing, health insurance and running water supply. 
• But how can we justify the choice of a strategy which throws the dispossessed, who lack all of the above, to both hunger and infection?
• When ordering the lockdown, did the government not remember the millions of informal workers and destitute people who would have no work if they stayed home, many of them circular migrants, estimated at 100 million? 
• These include casual daily-wage workers; self-employed people such as rag-pickers, rickshaw pullers and street vendors; and people forced to survive by alms.
• Many among them are people whose earnings each day barely suffice to enable them to eat and feed their families. 
• Does the government expect them to voluntarily starve and let their children die to prevent the spread of the infection? 
• This crisis of hunger is even more dire for older people without caregivers, and persons with disability. 
• The government also seems to be in amnesia about hundreds of thousands of children, women and men in every city whose only home is the pavement or the dirt patches under bridges.

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Feasibility:

• How is this feasible for large extended families who crowd into narrow single rooms in slums and working-class tenements? 
• Or for the homeless people who have no option except to sleep in overcrowded unsanitary government shelters, veritable breeding centres for infections? 
• Or for destitute people in beggars’ homes? Indeed, prisoners in overcrowded jails? And I cannot forget those confined to detention centres in Assam, which are jails within jails.
• And then consider the capacity of the health system to deal with the pandemic if (or when) it actually submerges India. 
• India’s investments in public health are among the lowest in the world, and most cities lack any kind of public primary health services. 
• A Jan Swasthya Abhiyan estimate is that a district hospital serving a population of two million may have to serve 20,000 patients, but they are bereft of the beds, personnel and resources to do this. 
• Few have a single ventilator. India’s rich and middle-classes have opted out of public health completely, leaving the poor with unconscionably meagre services. 
• The irony is that a pandemic has been brought into India by people who can afford plane tickets, but while they will buy private health services, the virus will devastate the poor who they infect and who have little access to health care.

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Steps needed to be taken:

• Most of the official strategies place the responsibility on the citizen, rather than the state, to fight the pandemic. 
• The state did too little in the months it got before the pandemic reached India for expanding greatly its health infrastructure for testing and treatment. 
• This includes planning operations for food and work; security for the poor; for safe transportation of the poor to their homes; and for special protection for the aged, the disabled, children without care and the destitute.
• For two months, every household in the informal economy, rural and urban, should be given the equivalent of 25 days’ minimum wages a month until the lockdown continues, and for two months beyond this. 
• Pensions must be doubled and home-delivered in cash. There should be free water tankers supplying water in slum shanties throughout the working days. 
• Governments must double PDS entitlements, which includes protein-rich pulses, and distribute these free at doorsteps. 
• In addition, for homeless children and adults, and single migrants, it is urgent to supply cooked food to all who seek it, and to deliver packed food to the aged and the disabled in their homes using the services of community youth volunteers.
• To ensure jails are safer, all prison undertrial prisoners, except those charged with the gravest crimes, should be released. 
• Likewise, all those convicted for petty crimes. All residents of beggars’ homes, women’s rescue centres and detention centres should be freed forthwith.

Way forward:

• India must immediately commit 3% of its GDP for public spending on health services, with the focus on free and universal primary and secondary health care. 
• But since the need is immediate, authorities should follow the example of Spain and New Zealand and nationalise private health care. 
• An ordinance should be passed immediately that no patient should be turned away or charged in any private hospital for diagnosis or treatment of symptoms which could be of COVID-19.
• While one part of the population enjoys work and nutritional security, health insurance and housing of globally acceptable standards, others survive at the edge of unprotected and uncertain work, abysmal housing without clean water and sanitation, and no assured public health care. 
• Can we resolve to correct this in post-COVID India? 
• Can we at least now make the country more kind, just and equal?

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Weaker, later: On Olympics postponement (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: International 
Prelims level: Olympics postponement
Mains level:  Significance of the Olympics postponement decisions 

Context:

• Sport at its best is a glorious indulgence that blends adrenaline rush, exultant joy and mind-numbing grief both for the athlete and the expectant fan. 
• However, in its worst form, sport is war minus the shooting while the cause of nationhood whips up jingoistic passions. 
• But whatever be its intrinsic nature governed by context and history, sport can never exist in a vacuum and it needs a functional society to serve as its bedrock. 
• In these distraught times of the pandemic and the resultant social distancing, basic survival takes precedence over moving limbs and the frenzied applause from a thrilled audience. 
• And it was no surprise that sports events have been postponed or cancelled and the latest to face a disruption in its schedule is the Olympics.

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Postponement and Boycott:

• Football continues to be the beautiful game but the Olympics remains the world’s greatest congregation adhering to its eternal ‘faster, higher, stronger’ motto. 
• Originally slated for a July 24 to August 9 slot at Tokyo this year, the high-voltage event got derailed once the coronavirus took flight from Wuhan’s wet market and coursed through the veins of an inter-connected globe. 
• Initially, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and host Japan were in denial and Australia and Canada threatened to boycott the event before better sense prevailed and the Olympics was pushed to a July 23 start, next year.
• A postponement is a first in the chequered history of the modern Olympics since its inception at Athens in 1896. 
• But worse has happened, especially the cancellations, during 1916, 1940 and 1944, when the World Wars drew vicious lines of hate. 
• There were also the Cold War years when the United States and its allies boycotted the Moscow Games in 1980 and the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics retaliated along with the Eastern Bloc by skipping the 1984 Olympics at Los Angeles. 
• The most heart-rending was the ‘Munich Massacre’ during the 1972 edition in then West Germany when a Palestinian terrorist group, Black September, killed 11 members of Israel’s squad. 

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Conclusion:

• Seen through that prism of a bloodied past, the latest postponement seems a mere quibble. IOC president Thomas Bach and Tokyo 2020 president Yoshiro Mori concurred that fresh logistics had to be worked out and ideally a year’s preparation was mandatory. 
• Initially estimated to cost about $28 billion, a delayed Olympics will have to factor inflation and a shrinking economy coping with a pandemic. 
• Over the next 12 months, it is hoped the virus will wane and a semblance of normalcy will set the stage for the Olympics. Sport then would be a welcome balm. But for now, universal health is the overriding priority.
• The postponement is better than cancellation, but Olympics is not on anyone’s mind now.

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