India did well in transition to digital learning: Oxford report

 

The pandemic has paved the way for a hybrid model in education, combining digital and traditional methods of teaching and learning, but governments need to act so that progress from the past year is not lost, according to the report "Education: The Journey Towards a Digital Revolution".

The transition to online learning during the coronavirus-induced lockdown in India was done rather well, though unequal access to digital learning devices as well as lack of internet connectivity were major issues, according to the findings of a new report from Oxford University Press (OUP).

The pandemic has paved the way for a hybrid model in education, combining digital and traditional methods of teaching and learning, but governments need to act so that progress from the past year is not lost, according to the report “Education: The Journey Towards a Digital Revolution”.

It captured insights from experts across seven markets — India, the UK, Brazil, South Africa, Pakistan, Spain, and Turkey — as well as from hundreds of teachers globally, and extensive secondary research. With the pandemic affecting more than 1.7 billion students worldwide over the past 12 months, the report analyzed how teachers, students, and parents adapted to new ways of delivering education and will continue to utilise digital learning tools and resources to shape educational practice in the future.

“In India, compared to other countries, respondents felt that the transition to online learning was done rather well, scoring 3.3/5. However, a major issue identified by respondents was unequal access to digital learning devices, as well as a lack of internet connectivity and little familiarity around the tools required to facilitate online learning,” the report said.

“The majority of respondents in India (71 per cent) also felt that shifting to online has been detrimental to wellbeing. The priority for the government is to provide more funding, as well as addressing connectivity issues, particularly in rural areas,” it said.

The top three issues identified as having a negative impact on digital learning were: socio-economic barriers, lack of professional development opportunities for teachers, and disruption or uncertainty in day-to-day life caused by the pandemic. When asked what steps the government should take to support digital learning, the respondents sought support for improving connectivity, increased funding for technology and more professional development opportunities for teachers.

Speaking about the research, OUP CEO Nigel Portwood said the pandemic has, unsurprisingly, prompted a rapid increase in the adoption of digital learning.

“As we start to reimagine what education may look like in the future, it is imperative that the governments learn from those who have been on the frontline, delivering and receiving learning. We have a huge opportunity to learn from all our experience to develop education systems that will work for both local and global society,” he said.

Source: Indian Express, 9/04/21

Jobless growth: the pandemic has revealed India’s crisis of unemployment

 COVID-19 infections are once again on the rise with daily infections crossing 60,000 per day last week. This is considerably higher compared to the reported infections during the same period last year when the numbers were less than 500 per day. What is obvious is that the pandemic is far from over despite the availability of vaccines. However, unlike last year, the response this time has been muted with no nationwide lockdown. One of the reasons for the differing responses is the lesson from the unintended consequences on the economy of the strict lockdown last year. While aggregate estimates on the growth rate of GDP showed a sharp contraction in economic activity (the economy shrunk by 24 per cent in the April-June quarter of 2020) the impact on lives and livelihoods is still unfolding even though the sharp contractionary phase seems behind us.

The extent of the loss of lives and livelihoods is becoming clear only now, with detailed data from the Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS) — the latest round of which is for the April-June quarter of 2020. This is the first official report on the estimates for the quarter, which witnessed the worst impact with the lockdown in force until the middle of May. Visuals of thousands of migrants walking back to their villages are still fresh in the mind. While many have returned to urban areas in the absence of jobs in rural areas, many did not. The PLFS, which captures the employment-unemployment situation in urban areas, provides some clues to what happened.

The estimates from PLFS are broadly in line with estimates available from other privately conducted surveys, notably the unemployment surveys of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). According to the PLFS April-June 2020 round, the urban unemployment rate for the population above the age of 15 was 20.8 per cent, which is close to the monthly average for the same quarter from CMIE at 19.9 per cent. The CMIE data, however, does suggest a sharp decline in June compared to April and May. Similar to the CMIE data, the PLFS data also shows a sharp rise in the unemployment rate which more than doubled compared to the unemployment rate in the preceding quarter of January-March 2020 at 9.1 per cent and 8.8 per cent in the same quarter (April-June) of 2019. While one in five persons above the age of 15 was unemployed during April-June 2020, the unemployment rate among the 15-29-year-olds was 34.7 per cent — every third person in the 15-29 age group was unemployed during the same period.

These are staggering numbers, but not surprising. While the lockdown certainly contributed to the worsening of the employment situation, particularly in urban areas, the fact that the economy was already going through severe distress as far as jobs are concerned is no longer surprising. Between 2016-17 and 2019-20, growth decelerated to 4 per cent, less than half the 8.3 per cent rate in 2016-17. The fact that the economy has not been creating jobs predates the economic shocks of demonetisation and the hasty roll-out of GST. The PLFS data from earlier rounds have already shown the extent of the rise in unemployment compared to the employment-unemployment surveys of 2011-12. The unemployment rates in urban areas for all categories increased by almost three times between 2011-12 and 2017-18. On an internationally comparable basis, the unemployment rate among the 15-24-year-olds in 2017-18 was 28.5 per cent, which makes the youth unemployment rate in India amongst the highest in the world, excluding small countries and conflict-ridden countries. Since then, it has only worsened or remained at that level.

The worsening situation is partly a result of the long-term neglect of the employment issue in policy circles. It is also a result of policy decisions such as demonetisation and GST implementation, which affected the informal/unorganised sector adversely. It is these enterprises in the unorganised sector that are the drivers of employment creation. Since 2016-17, most of these sectors have suffered as a result of policy choices. The decline in the number of workers by 15 million between 2011-12 and 2017-18 is only a partial reflection of the jobs crisis. The decline in jobs was accompanied by a decline in the quality of employment, with an increase in precarious jobs and a decline in access to social security for a majority of workers. The deceleration in the growth rate of economic activities also meant that real wages of casual workers in rural areas by January 2021 have declined compared to two years ago. Regular salaried workers were already suffering from a decline in real wages at 1.7 per cent per annum between 2011-12 and 2017-18. More recent data after the pandemic is not available but sectoral surveys do suggest that the decline in real earnings of regular salaried workers has continued. The lockdown only aggravated an already fragile employment situation.

Since the PLFS is also a longitudinal panel data, it is possible to examine what happened to different categories of households during the April-June 2020 quarter compared to the pre-lockdown January-March 2020 quarter. While the lockdown affected all workers, the most vulnerable were casual wage workers. Among casual wage workers employed during the January-March quarter, 50 per cent joined the ranks of unemployed and another 10 per cent exited the labour force. Only one out of three casual workers in urban areas could hold on to their job with another 5 per cent moving into the self-employed category. The regular salaried workers fared better but even among them 10 per cent lost jobs and another 5 per cent moved out of the labour force. Among those who were fortunate to retain their jobs, most suffered declines in earnings.

More recent data from the PLFS is awaited, but estimates from the CMIE data suggest that the unemployment rate has fallen 7 per cent for the 15 and above age population in recent months. While this may suggest that the economy is returning to the pre-pandemic levels, the rate is still very high. This level of unemployment is not just a symptom of the “jobless” model of economic growth that has been followed in the last two decades, but is also a recipe for political and social instability. The pandemic and the subsequent crisis in the employment-unemployment situation has only highlighted the fragile situation of the labour market. The real crisis of unemployment and jobless growth is a bigger pandemic that is unlikely to be resolved with the current model of economic growth which prioritises capital over labour.

Written by HIMANSHU

his article first appeared in the print edition on March 29, 2021 under the title ‘A bigger pandemic’. The writer teaches economics at JNU

How Covid-19 can transform health care

 The pandemic disrupted life, livelihoods, education and health like little else in recent history.The pandemic disrupted life, livelihoods, education and health like little else in recent history. The world found innovations and adaptations to minimise some of the disruptions for some people, but not all. Health care disruptions, less amenable to home-based solutions, ranged across a very broad continuum — a shift in health-seeking behaviour, limitations in health infrastructure, difficulties in outreach to community members, lack of availability of human resources and interruptions in supply chains. Not all of these were limited to the context of the pandemic — some have pre-existed but got magnified in the context of the pandemic.

Covid-19 saw health care workers diverted to the much-needed task of preventing and dealing with infections, taking them away from their regular tasks, and thus, further reducing the availability of health care workers. Health care facilities were deployed for testing and treating patients, but this made them unavailable for regular services. Supply chains were disrupted due to lockdowns. When health facilities were functioning, citizens were either fearful or unable to travel to them or were unaware that facilities were functioning. All this led to significant disruption in the provision of essential health services such as routine immunisation, testing and treating tuberculosis (TB) patients, maternal and child health care and nutrition-related interventions.

But India is no stranger to innovation. A few months into the pandemic, there were a variety of interventions, which sought to address some of these barriers related to health human resources, demand for and access to services, and provision to the last mile. Innovations were found in at least four categories — leveraging technology, leveraging community platforms, strengthening frontline workers and augmenting supply chains.

Extensive interventions leveraged the digital platform such as remote counselling and consultation in several states; a child growth-monitoring app for remote monitoring of severely acute malnourished children in Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh; an Interactive Voice Response System-based solution in Uttar Pradesh for reminder calls to the community about immunisation sessions; digital surveillance applications for front-line workers for TB and Covid-vulnerability assessment in states such as Gujarat, Kerala and Punjab for simultaneous TB and Covid assessment; an artificial intelligence-based diagnostics solution to scan chest X-rays and detect abnormalities.

Various organisations leveraged digital platforms to conduct training and information sessions for frontline workers. The range of such services and their providers is vast including e-Sanjeevani, Swasth, Practo, Portea, TeCHO, Anmol, to name just a few.

The involvement of community-based organisations in the form of self-help groups (SHGs) and village organisations reinforced their potential for last-mile services. Active TB case finding by community health volunteers through outreach and awareness; demand generation for services and provision of timely information to pregnant women by volunteer groups through helpline numbers; support for essential health service delivery through panchayati raj institutions contributed to strengthening health services.

The Indian postal department was leveraged for its extensive postal network as an alternative logistics chain for delivery of family planning commodities. Social franchising model for TB diagnosis and drug dispensation via e-pharmacies to the doorsteps of patients was also utilised.

India saw many innovations rolled out, although not necessarily at scale and most not evaluated for impact. Based on rigorous impact evaluations, there is potential for scale and convergence. It is not that this potential is not recognised by the government. The introduction of telemedicine guidelines and the launch of the National Digital Health Mission provide a foundation for greater leverage of the digital platform. Admittedly, limited internet penetration in rural India, gender disparity in internet usage, data privacy and data-sharing ethics concerns limit the impact of digital platforms, but an increasing focus on health technology platforms can address, to some extent, the needs of information, triaging, counselling, consultation, scheduling visits, home delivery of drugs, and remote follow-up reducing some of the demand- and supply-side challenges.

Similarly, a stronger policy environment can enable the 70 million SHG women members to play an institutionalised role in health service functions, such as behaviour change interventions, demand for essential services, community-led accountability of health systems and services.

The pandemic saw multiple innovations surface, some deployed in small geographies, some by private organisations and others by the government, most not evaluated for impact. These innovations merit policy attention — in assessing their impact, in their geographic scale, in convergence of currently fragmented services, and in developing meaningful partnerships with private innovators for public adoption.

Scaling innovations requires attention to at least three aspects. One, assessment of innovation impact and certification, which, in turn, will require institutional mechanisms that can enable this. Second, a policy environment that encourages and facilitates public contracting of innovations, in a context where the benefits of purchasing existing, tried-and-tested products/services in the public system are large. Third, grant-and-loan mechanisms that enable innovators to address the needs of the health care system. The platforms on which these innovations are deployed are under-leveraged, with the pandemic demonstrating the opportunity to build on these innovations, leading to a stronger health systems response.

Sandhya Venkateswaran is fellow, Lancet Citizen’s Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System

Source: Hindustan Times, 10/03/21

How Indian students stayed at foreign varsities during pandemic

 As the coronavirus pandemic swept the world, students across the globe were asked to return to home countries. Educational institutes and hostels shut down physically and began functioning online. While most of the students made it back home, many were either stuck or willingly stayed back at their campuses.

Here is a look at the experiences of Indian students who were at foreign campuses as the world came to a halt due to the pandemic:

Roshini Bahri, University of East Anglia

The 22 -year-old Jaipur native is currently studying medicine in England. She opted to stay at the campus despite the country being badly hit by the Covid-19. “When it started we thought that it would not last beyond two weeks and we did not want to face a shortfall in our attendance when the varsity would reopen. By April, the situation reversed and there was a need for healthcare workers. Since I had already worked at some healthcare facilities as part of my course, it was a no-brainer when I decided to stay back and help,” said Bahri.She attended her lectures online along with helping at local facilities four days a week. While she terms it to be emotionally as well as a physically draining experience, she insists she was lucky to have been busy and at work during the time.

“It was hard to convey the loss of a loved one over the phone when people could not even be with their family during their last moments,” recalls Bahri, who said the pandemic was noy only a learning curve in her career but also gave her a new perspective towards life.

She also said that working in a PPE kit for hours due to shortage of masks was a challenge. “We realised how real was the issue of shortage of PPE kits and masks when we would not have water or go to pee because we did not want to remove/ discard the one we were wearing.”

Tithi

Tithi Gandhi is from Gujarat and is pursuing biomedical science in New Zealand. Her degree is more research-based which is expected to have more relevance after the pandemic is over. What made things worse for Gandhi was that she lost her job soon after the pandemic struck.

“I had invested in my rent and other expenses here and decided to stay as there was no clarity about coming back to the campus. I did not want to return home and lose the chance of rejoining physical campuses when they reopen,” she said of her choice to stay back despite job loss.

Calling her journey hard, Tithi said, “It was very difficult as I lost my part-time job and I did not like relying on my parents. Now that the situation is getting better, I am hopeful of working harder during my summer break and making it up for the lost hours.” She also said that even though it was emotionally difficult staying away from parents, however, both she and her family were confident that as New Zealand has a small population, it would recover faster. She, however, missed community bonding in India during the pandemic.

A couple of months after the lockdown, she along with other students was allowed to work on campus for research-related work. Calling it a “fresh breath” during her pandemic struggle, she said that online practical classes are not as good as the real hands-on experience and her staying back had been of some help.

Richa Berde, University of Otago

For Richa Berde who is studying masters of tourism at the University of Otago, staying back in New Zealand was a way of making the most of her one-year course. She joined her course in February 2020 and the lockdown was imposed in March. She decided to stay back even if it meant attending online classes while on campus.

Hailing from Mumbai, Berde had missed on travel and field trips as part of her degrees. “The teaching and delivery, the overall education scenario is very different here. That made me stay back. I am happy about it,” she said.

Now close to finishing her course, Berde is worried about the job scenario. “I might not get a suitable job as the borders are still closed. Domestic tourism, however, has started and there is a lot of scope to grow in a smaller hotel or domestic space,” she said.

During the pandemic, she recalls having her “moments of doubts” as she felt alone. She says she would apply for a PhD after gaining some experience. She says that despite the pandemic, “the course has given her a survival kit to get over the worst of circumstances”.

Soumil Roychowdhury

When the pandemic struck, Shoumil, a 19-year-old resident of Kolkata, had returned home and did his classes online. However, as soon as the classes resumed, he headed back to Hong Kong University (HKU) where he is pursuing physics at the undergraduate level.

“I had spent nearly a year at home and was eager to start face-to-face classes. From second-year onwards, I have to work as a research assistant and the professor wanted me to be here. When I decided to return, Hong Kong had the situation under control, so my parents were also assured that I would be safe,” he said.

During Soumil’s stay in Kolkata, he not only had to balance the time difference and low internet bandwidth but also had to face Cyclone Amphan. He said his teachers in Hong Kong were supportive.

While the campus now is very different from what it was in the first year, it is still better to be here, said Roychowdhury who was in a 21-day quarantine after rejoining college. “While the classes are still going on in hybrid mode, it is better to be on campus as we are getting access to labs and meeting friends. Students who are planning to join as freshers should rather take the opportunity and get accustomed to the atmosphere here now than waiting for later. The digital infrastructure here is also better,” he said.

Source: Indian Express, 27/02/21

Fight against pandemic taught me to listen more, value of collaborative leadership

 It is January 8 again, a year since the first meeting of the Joint Monitoring Group under the Director General Health Services was convened by director, emergency response, to formulate the government’s stand on COVID-19, a fast-emerging health threat then. A national task force with experts was also constituted.

Thus began India’s battle against a pandemic, which was not just a public health crisis but also one with economic and social consequences.

Backed by scientific advice and led by the Prime Minister, India’s proactive, pre-emptive and graded response exemplified the myriad fronts on which the central government coordinated policy and implementation across multiple departments and states.

The first advisory was received on January 17, 2020. DG, ICMR, colleague secretary in the ministry, always a phone call away, ensured that testing was arranged at the ICMR’s NIV laboratory. India’s first case came on January 30, a student returnee from Wuhan. Personally, till I handed over charge as health secretary to an able successor in end-July, these seven months were life changing. I had served as commissioner, disaster management, in the combined state of Andhra Pradesh, handled two cyclones, seven floods, a drought, and Zika and Nipah outbreaks, but this was unimaginably different. COVID was an evolving challenge, with no known “right way”, health infrastructure and human resources constraints, no treatment guidelines or training modules, high dependence on imports for essential protective equipment and testing probes/reagents. There was also an “infodemic” to counter.

These seven months taught me much — from lessons in humility to listening more than speaking, the value of collaborative leadership, and admiration for the selfless work of colleagues in central and state governments. I came away with respect and gratitude for the efforts of doctors, nurses, ASHAs, frontline workers, including police personnel and the armed forces, who apart from assisting in emergency operations, opened their facilities to civilians, compensating for infrastructure shortages. There was pride at the capability of our scientists and researchers, the pharma and related industry, which quickly re-engineered their processes to “Make in India” the essentials needed to fight the pandemic. Young journalists on the MoHFW beat kept awake all night to cover the news sent by our team, a media shy joint secretary became the face of the MoHFW. More importantly, I was filled with respect for our people who, ungrudgingly, made sacrifices, and a renewed faith in our resilience and ability to stand together.

Led personally by the PM, the states and the Centre worked in harmony to meet the COVID-19 challenge in a spirit of cooperative federalism. Regular interactions of the PM with the chief ministers, Group of Ministers chaired by the health minister, committee of secretaries under the Cabinet Secretary, 11 empowered groups led by secretaries/member/CEO NITI Ayog, and almost daily video conferences of the minister, secretary and officers of MoHFW with states, enabled a focused response.

Guidance for public health teams, health facilities and service providers and the lay public was given. Testing, quarantine and isolation norms were framed and surveillance and case management protocols drafted. Guidelines were issued for the use of protective equipment, maintaining essential non-COVID health services, wearing masks and maintaining do gaz ki doori. Free helpline numbers were set up for COVID-related queries, specifically for mental health issues. Training resources for volunteers and frontline workers were created via the iGOT platform and human resources were moblised through covidwarriors.gov.in. Safety net packages for the vulnerable were organised (PM Garib Kalyan Yojana, a Rs 1.70-lakh-crore relief package). Guidelines were also issued for highlighting the inspirational work of COVID health professionals, development of the Arogya Setu App, redesigning e-Sanjeevani for teleconsultation, uploading real-time testing data on the ICMR portal and indigenous manufacturing of Trunat and rapid antigen testing kits. Once an importer of PPEs, masks and ventilators, the country became an exporter of these items.

Today, with a population of 135 crore, we have a case fatality rate of 1.45 per cent, a recovery rate of 96.3 per cent, over 15 lakh isolation, 2.7 lakh oxygen and 80,557 ICU beds and 40,627 ventilators. From one lab at the beginning of the pandemic, the country has 2,305 labs, and an enhanced testing capacity of 12 lakh tests per day. Behind this is the untiring work of experts, search for global best practices and consensus-building across stakeholders.

On January 3, India approved two indigenously manufactured vaccines, concurrently making extensive arrangements to rollout the world’s largest vaccination drive. I am sure, as always, together we can.

Written by Preeti Sudan

Source: Indian Express, 8/01/21

How did slums survive during the lockdown?

 

The pandemic has shown that slums need sustained engagement between crises

Usually, when Adeel Kureshi contacts government officials, it is to demand paved roads, sewers, and streetlights for Pahari Nagar, a sprawling slum settlement in eastern Jaipur. This past April, though, Kureshi was seeing to more pressing needs—making sure residents have enough food and fuel during the raging coronavirus pandemic and stringent lockdown. Kureshi, an informal leader and resident of Pahari Nagar, told us over the phone: “I have tried to make a list of households who are the rozkamane vale, roz khane vale. If they don’t work for one day they will go hungry. So I made sure they got supplies…”

Six hundred kilometers away in Bhopal, Om Prasad, another slum leader, was scrambling to ensure residents were keeping the settlement clean and understood how easily the virus can jump from person to person. “The first thing I did [following the lockdown’s announcement] is get the settlement cleaned. The second thing was to build awareness about how the disease can spread between neighbours.”

India’s slums received substantial media attention for being potential coronavirus hotspots. Journalists note that slum communities are especially vulnerable to the spread of the virus, and the economic consequences of restrictive mitigation strategies. Slum residents are susceptible given most work in the informal sector and live in crowded conditions, often with inadequate access to essential public services like water and sanitation.

Despite widespread concerns, we have little systematic information from slum residents about their pandemic-time experiences. Most reporting has focused on conversations with residents in ‘famous’ slums in megacities like Dharavi in Mumbai. These city-sized slums are unrepresentative of most settlements, which are smaller and in less metropolitan cities.Media accounts also tend to render settlements as uniformly vulnerable and helplessly passive in the face of the pandemic.These portrayals ignore significant variation across slums in their levels of infrastructural development, and neglect the internal structures of self-governance through which these communities solve problems during ‘normal times’.

To better understand how slum residents were affected by the lockdown and pandemic, we conducted a phone survey with 321 slum leaders across 79 slums in Jaipur and Bhopal, at the height of the lockdown in April and May 2020. To our knowledge this is the first such effort to canvas these important leaders during the pandemic. What did we find?

First, our survey demonstrated that slum leaders are not idly watching the virus spread and economic distress deepen.Roughly six in ten leaders contacted a local politician during the lockdown to request assistance. However, the focus of their lobbying efforts shifted dramatically from ‘normal’ times. 91% of requests during the lockdown were for food rations, instead of more usual demands for public infrastructure. This reorientation makes sense given leaders estimated the average household in their settlement had only enough savings to survive for 24 days.This shift in focus highlights a hidden cost of the pandemic—a reduction in the time leaders have to address pre-existing deficiencies in basic public services.

Second, pre-pandemic disparities in infrastructural development also shape the extent to which residents can abide by public health guidelines. 39% of the 1594 households we surveyed across the same 79 settlements in 2015 lack domestic water taps. Accessing water requires them to congregate at communal sources like public taps and truck-fed tanks, where intermittency in water supply creates uncertainty that forces long waits. Slum leaders in settlements with sparser household connections are nearly twice as likely to report public water sources as a problem for social distancing than leaders in settlements with more widespread connectivity. As Vikram, a slum leader in Jaipur told us, “people understand it is dangerous to come to a crowded place for water, but they have to do it.” Approaching‘slums’ as a homogenous category misses how disparities across settlements matter during the crisis.

Third, slum leaders are not uniform in their ability to help residents. We asked leaders to enumerate any relief schemes that had been initiated or expanded during the lockdown that slum residents might benefit from. 47% of leaders correctly identified zero or 1 scheme, while 25.5% of leaders correctly identified 3 or more schemes. Slum leaders also varied in their reported ability to get requested assistance from politicians. Two key factors underpinned their influence with city leaders: education and their embeddedness in political party networks. In prior, pre-pandemic research, we found these exact traits corresponded with effectiveness in everyday problem-solving. Leaders who were effective before the pandemic remained more effective during it.

Public health experts have called for community-driven solutions to slow transmission and soften the economic blow of containment measures. In India’s slums, such participatory efforts will encounter informal leaders like Kureshi, Om Prasad, and Vikram. Our findings reveal active forms of leadership even in the most underserved areas of India’s cities. However, we also document that slum leaders are deeply dependent on party networks, and that nine in ten are men. These traits inevitably bias the types of residents that leaders are most likely to hear and help. Rather than flatten and simplify slum communities, participatory efforts must recognize these complexities within them.A small silver lining to the pandemic has been in rendering visible the Indian state’s inadequate understanding of important urban communities, ranging from circular migrants to slum residents. Acting on this realization requires more than calls for making cities inclusive. It requires sustained engagement between crises, not a flurry of recognition during them.

Adam Auerbach is an assistant professor in the School of International Service, American University and author of Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India’s Urban Slums (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Tariq Thachil is an associate professor of Political Science, and Madan Lal Sobti Chair of Contemporary India, and Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania.

Source: Hindustan Times, 14/12/20

Creating an inclusive welfare architecture

 

Cover all of India’s poor; and merge welfare programmes under one umbrella scheme

The recently announced Atmanirbhar 3.0 package offers important insights into the Centre’s approach to welfare spending in response to the economic shocks caused by Covid-19. The choices point to critical limitations in India’s current welfare architecture and the politics that shape spending choices. With the focus now shifting to the 2021 budget, there is an urgent need to reflect on these choices and articulate a road map for the next year. A robust, inclusive welfare architecture is both a moral imperative as well a critical component for economic recovery.

First, the good news. India’s existing welfare architecture has proved resilient and capable in preventing deep distress in rural India. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and the Public Distribution System (PDS) proved to be lifelines as central and state governments were able to mobilise the administrative machinery and expand the welfare net, at relative speed. By October, nearly two-thirds of the MGNREGS budget had already been spent while demand for work remains unabated. In response, Atmanirbhar 3.0 has increased allocations by a further ₹10,000 crore; this may not be enough given the scale of demand but continued budgetary expansion highlights the essential role of MGNREGS.

For those with ration cards, the PDS was a vital source of relief. Independent surveys point out that a large number of eligible beneficiaries (the numbers range from 63% to above 90%) received grains allocated through the Atmanirbhar package. That the central government extended the expanded PDS scheme till November 2020 (just in time to reap benefits from the Bihar elections) is a good indicator of its effectiveness. The problem with the PDS was not its failure to deliver but rather the failure to universalise the PDS.

For years, policy debates on India’s welfare architecture have sought to pit MGNREGS and PDS as inefficient schemes against the deceptively elegant promise of cash transfers. That both schemes have proved effective in responding to the large-scale shock of Covid-19 should put this debate to rest. The emphasis now needs to shift to expansion and strengthening delivery.

Urban India, however, has not been well served. India’s welfare architecture is simply not designed to respond to the needs of the urban poor, especially migrant workers. With the exception of the PDS (available only to residents) and a smattering of insurance and pension programmes (accounting for a mere 6% of total central government spending on social protection), social protection for urban India is conspicuously absent.

The urban (largely casual, daily wage) worker has paid a heavy price for this absence. Yet, the horrific images of millions of workers walking home, and surveys repeatedly highlighting the sharp income drop amongst urban workers have failed to elicit an adequate policy response.

Absent a pre-existing scheme, the Centre had few instruments at its disposal to deploy to respond to urban distress, although, with a little imagination, this was not an insurmountable hurdle. The emphasis has thus been limited to portability of ration cards under the one nation, one ration card scheme. Reports indicate that a welcome proposal to launch an urban MGNREGS was discussed but later abandoned in favour of increased expenditure in the urban housing scheme and boosting urban employment through incentives for EPFO-registered firms. Given the realities of India’s informal economy — in recent months, the number of EPFO registered firms has dropped — it is unlikely that the latter will be able to respond to the scale of unemployment and associated urban distress.

The lesson to be drawn from the Covid-19 induced economic distress and the Centre’s response is the urgent need to transform India’s social protection architecture into a dynamic system that ensures universal coverage of all of India’s poor. Several interlocutors have argued for a universal (or quasi-universal) cash transfer as the critical missing link that can bridge this gap between rural and urban social protection. However, this debate misses the dynamic nature of the social protection needs of India’s poor. Fifty per cent of India’s population is vulnerable, ie can slip back into poverty with one income shock. This population needs a dynamic basket of social protection instruments — pensions, life insurance, health insurance and distress-linked cash or employment in times of crisis or sluggish growth. Prioritisation will depend on local labour market conditions.

The only effective strategy is to build a decentralised social protection system that allows states and even districts to design schemes to their specific conditions. Some states have begun experimenting, but urban schemes need fiscal support. This is where politics trumps first principles. The impulse to centralise and seek direct credit for welfare is entrenched in our politics.

There is one way to balance politics and first principles. As recommended by the World Bank, the Centre can, alongside core national schemes like the MGNREGS and PDS, repurpose its 400+ social protection transfer schemes into one umbrella scheme but leave states to design interventions to their needs, political credit and blame can be apportioned across Centre and states. The 2021 budget is an opportunity to implement this much-needed reform. Sensible rationalisation and expenditure repurposing can serve as the foundation of an agile, dynamic and inclusive social protection architecture.

Yamini Aiyar is president and chief executive, Centre for Policy Research

Source: Hindustan Times, 18/11/20

Movement of peoples in South Asia calls for building solidarities, collective action

 

Shared-destiny of migrants in the region has become all the more prominent during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The failure of state mechanisms to provide a modicum of income support, social security benefits and healthcare to migrants was glaring.

Labour migration is a central phenomenon in South Asia, where a large number of citizens of various countries in the region (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Afghanistan) are continuously on the move, essentially in search of a living. While a good chunk of these job seekers move within their countries, some of them travel across borders.

The countries in South Asia have many commonalities in their migration profiles. Internal migration is a striking feature for all South Asian countries. In recent decades, intensified poverty and widening inequalities have been propelling large-scale urban-bound migration from rural areas. Though employment prospects and higher wages boost such migration, the most palpable driving force is the deepening employment-crisis in rural labour markets. The recent spike in rural distress throughout the region is destabilising the erstwhile rhythms of seasonality in rural-urban migration. Landlessness, debt-bondages and farmer suicides have increased considerably. In some countries, socio-political tensions, climate change and resource-depletion have compounded the agrarian crisis.

Familial/societal norms based on deep-rooted patriarchal values shape the patterns and trends of women’s migration. The governance frameworks of migration in South Asian countries are also influenced by gendered notions. The controls imposed on women’s migration range from banning migration for certain categories of employment to keeping job-specific age-restrictions for women. Even in countries like Sri Lanka, where women migrants outnumber their male counterparts in the international migration stream, the situation is not different. The recently introduced Family Background Report (FBR) system in Sri Lanka stipulates that the women obtain clearance from a local official. Due to restrictive practices, women’s migration (especially international migration) is considerably low in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan. In other countries (Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) such restrictions are found prompting employment-aspiring women to take illegal routes. Often, these undocumented migrants fall prey to pernicious practices of illegal recruiters, including trafficking and sexual abuse.

GCC countries are the most prominent migrant destinations for most South Asian countries, with the exception of Maldives and Bhutan. In the Gulf countries, migrants from different parts of South Asia are found competing for jobs by mutually under-cutting wages and accepting deplorable working and living conditions. In many other destinations (for example, Jordan, Singapore), workers from different South Asian countries share work-conditions and worries.

Inadequate support from the state to facilitate informed and rights-based migration is yet another feature of South Asian countries. Most of these countries do not even have reliable data on migrants. Inadequate social security systems, absence of effective protective legislations and regulatory systems are also common features.

Shared-destiny of migrants in the region has become all the more prominent during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The failure of state mechanisms to provide a modicum of income support, social security benefits and healthcare to migrants was glaring.

Large scale migrant-receiving countries in the region like India, Pakistan and the Maldives can ensure that immigrants from their South Asian neighbours are provided fair conditions at work. Ensuring dignity to intra-regional migrants also requires considerable efforts in terms of establishing peace within the region and finding amiable solutions on long-standing disputes around legality and citizenship of cross-border migrants within South Asia.

These countries could collectively negotiate with major migrant-receivers like the GCC countries. For this, there is a need for reviving larger solidarities in the line of SAARC. Strengthening of protective frameworks, including labour laws, and signing/honouring of relevant international labour conventions and guidelines on migration are equally important.

This article first appeared in the print edition on September 10 under the title “We The Migrants.” The writer is Dean, School of Development Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi and lead author of the recently released ‘SAAPE South Asia Migration Report, 2020’.

Source: Indian Express, 10/09/20

What is Oxford university’s ChAdOx1 Covid-19 vaccine?

 

Oxford University Coronavirus (Covid-19) Vaccine: The Oxford shot is one of the front runners in the vaccine race and is already undergoing a combined Phase II/III trials in the UK, Brazil and South Africa.

Oxford Coronavirus (Covid-19) Vaccine: In a significant development, the Covid-19 vaccine jointly developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford has been found to be safe and induced an immune response in early-stage clinical trials. The AZD1222 vaccine, based on a chimpanzee adenovirus called ChAdOx1, elicited antibody and T-cell immune responses, according to results published in The Lancet medical journal on Monday.

The Oxford shot is one of the front runners in the vaccine race and is already undergoing a combined Phase II/III trials in the UK, Brazil and South Africa. AstraZeneca has signed deals to produce 400 million doses for the US and 100 million for the UK if it is successful in human trials.

According to the World Health Organization’s latest count, over two dozen experimental vaccines are being tested in humans and more than 160 are in earlier stages of development.

What is Oxford’s ChAdOx1 Covid-19 vaccine?

Oxford’s AZD1222 vaccine is made from a genetically engineered virus that causes the common cold in chimpanzees. However, the virus has been modified so that it doesn’t cause infection in people and also to mimic the coronavirus.

Scientists did this by transferring the genetic instructions of the coronavirus’ “spike protein” – the crucial tool it uses to invade human cells – to the vaccine. This was done so that the vaccine resembles the coronavirus and the immune system can learn how to attack it.

Earlier, the Oxford vaccine was tested on monkeys in a small study and had shown some promising results on them. Researchers involved with the ChAdOx1 vaccine trials said the candidate had shown signs of priming the rhesus macaque monkeys’ immune systems to fend off the deadly virus and showed no indications of adverse effects.

Moreover, research by Britain’s Pirbright Institute revealed that a study in pigs has found that two doses of the Oxford vaccine produced a greater antibody response than a single dose.

For phase I in April, 1,102 participants were recruited in multiple study sites in the UK. On May 22, Oxford announced that 1,000 immunisations “have been completed and follow-up is currently ongoing”.

Last month, Professor Adrian Hill, the director of the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford, told a webinar of the Spanish Society of Rheumatology that the “best scenario” would see results from “clinical trials in August and September and deliveries from October”.

Source: Indian Express, 20/07/20

When fear leads to faith: The disease Gods of India

Resorting to faith in times of distress has been an inherent human reaction since the beginning of civilisation. In India worship of Goddess Hariti, Sitala, Ola Bibi has been prevalent to ward off diseases.

“I am worshipping the coronavirus as a goddess and doing daily pujas for the safety and well being of healthcare professionals, police personnel and scientists, who are toiling to discover a vaccine.” Anilan, a temple priest at Kadakkal in Kollam district of Kerala, gives the reason behind the ‘Corona devi’ idol he’s now offering daily prayers to. Faraway, in Biswanath district of northern Assam, a group of women recently assembled on the banks of a river to perform a puja to ‘Corona ma’, who they believe will destroy the virus that has killed thousands across the globe. Similar images of women offering prayers to Goddess ‘Corona mai’ have also emerged from Sindri and Bokaro in Jharkhand as well.

While these images from Kerala, Assam and Jharkhand have resulted in angry social media responses, resorting to faith in times of distress has been an inherent human reaction since the beginning of civilisation. The British polymath Bertrand Russell had in his famous lecture titled ‘Why I am not a Christian’ delivered in 1927 at London, expressed that “fear is the foundation of religion’.

“Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown, and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing—fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death.”

One of the most common religious manifestations of fear is that of the snake God. “Throughout history, humans have had an uneasy relationship with serpents. Snakes are important in many religions including the Judeo-Christian tradition, Hinduism, Egyptian and Greek mythology, and Native American religions, among others. This prominence in so many religions may be the result of humans’ fear of snakes,” writes Jonathan W. Stanley in his research paper, ‘Snakes: Objects of Religion, Fear, and Myth’. In Indian religious tradition too, snakes are worshipped in different parts of the country in different ways.

Yet another example of fear giving rise to religion is that of the multitude of war deities. While Indra and Kartikeya have been associated with war in Hinduism, Mars was the God of War in ancient Roman religion, Ogun is the God of war in several African religions.

The fear of diseases and the resultant suffering, have also given rise to several religious manifestations. The first plague in human history, also known as the Justinian Plague in the sixth century CE, was seen as an act of angry Gods. “There is no single or predictable response to epidemic disease. Nor is it correct to assume that religious responses are always apocalyptic,” writes historian Duane J. Osheim in his research paper, ‘Religion and epidemic disease’. “It might be better to recognise that religion, like gender, class, or race, is a category of analysis. The religious response to epidemic disease may best be seen as a frame, a constantly shifting frame, subtly influencing illness and human responses to it,” he adds.

One of the earliest iconographic traditions we have of a Goddess being worshipped to ward off a disease is that of Hariti. Several statues of Hariti with her brood of children have been excavated from territories ruled by the Kushana dynasty in the early centuries in the Christian era. The Kushanas had inherited the Graeco-Buddhist religion from the Indo-Greek kingdom they replaced, which explains the popularity of Hariti in Buddhist tradition.

The first smallpox outbreak in the world is known to have been in the fifth century BCE in Europe. When it first occurred in India is hard to tell, but records of Chinese visitors to India I-Tsing and Xuanzang in the sixth and seventh century CE, shows the popularity of Hariti statues across every Buddhist monastery in the subcontinent. Given that smallpox was often considered to be a disease that primarily affected children, Hariti was worshipped for the overall wellbeing of children, childbirth, fertility, as well as for warding away diseases afflicting children.

However, scholars have remarked upon the fact that Hariti was introduced into Buddhist tradition from rural and tribal folklore wherein smallpox Goddesses were worshipped from much before. Historian Sree Padma, in her work, ‘Hariti: Village origins, Buddhist elaborations, and Saivite accommodations’, notes that Goddess Hariti had folk origins in Andhra Pradesh where she was known as Goddess Erukamma. “The Goddess of smallpox and other contagious diseases who are also regarded as guardian deities are ubiquitous in Andhra. The names of these smallpox Goddesses might vary from region to region. Some of these are called Mutyalamma, Pochamma, Peddamma, Nukalamma, Ankalamma etc.,” she writes. Padma goes on to explain that “some smallpox Goddesses are deified human women who died during their pregnancies or when delivering children. Devotees believed that the spirits of these women would bring destruction and death to their children unless they are approached with proper offerings and prayers.”

The folk Goddess was later incorporated into Buddhist tradition where she was revered for protection of children and fertility. Archaeological evidence shows that images of Hariti appeared during the period of Mahayana Buddhism between 150 BCE and 100 CE, and spread beyond the Indian subcontinent to be part of the Buddhist cultural world in central, east and south-east Asia.

Belgian priest and scholar of Buddhism Entienne Lamotte, in his 1988 book ‘History of Indian Buddhism’, notes that “she is still invoked in Nepal as the Goddess curing smallpox, and the monks are expected to ensure her daily nourishment”. He goes on to elaborate that images of Hariti are widespread, the most famous one being at a site in Peshawar. “She carries a standing child in her hand and two others on her shoulders; the plinth is engraved with an inscription, from the year 179 (or 139) of an unknown era, begging the Goddess to take smallpox away into the sky,” he notes.

Sitala: The cooling Goddess of Smallpox

By the 19th century, British physicians in India ranked smallpox among the most prevalent and destructive of all epidemic diseases. Historian David Arnold in his book, ‘Colonising the body: State medicine and epidemic diseases in nineteenth century India’ notes that “Smallpox accounted for several million deaths in the late nineteenth century alone, amounting on average to more than one hundred thousand fatal cases a year.”

Believed to be an incarnation of the Hindu Goddess Durga, Sitala, or simply ‘mata’ (mother), was widely worshipped in the 19th century in Bengal and North India, as one who can cure smallpox. Anthropologist, Ralph W. Nicholas in his research paper, ‘The Goddess Śītalā and Epidemic Smallpox in Bengal’ observes that “there is no evidence of the Goddess of Smallpox before the tenth to twelfth centuries, and she appears to have attained her present special significance as goddess of the village in southwestern Bengal abruptly in the eighteenth century”.

Despite the fact that there were several other Goddesses of smallpox in 18th-19th century Indian folklore, Sitala seems to have enjoyed a special position. What is interesting is that while she was revered as a Goddess, Smallpox was believed to be a manifestation of her personality. “The burning fever and pustules that marked her entry into the body demanded ritual rather than therapeutic responses. To some Hindus, recourse to any form of prophylaxis or treatment was impious, likely to provoke the Goddess and further imperil the child in whose body she currently resided,” writes Arnold.

Sitala, meaning the ‘cool one’, was to be pacified with cooling substances such as curd, plantains, cold rice, and sweets. “Similarly, when an attack of smallpox occurred, cooling drinks were offered to the patients as the abode of the Goddess, and his or her feverish body was washed with cold water or soothed with the wetted leaves of the neem (or margosa), Shitala’s favourite tree,” explains Arnold.

It is fascinating to note that despite smallpox being eradicated from India in the 1970s, Sitala continues to hold a place of reverence in large parts of the country.

Ola chandi/bibi: The Cholera Goddess

Yet another deadly epidemic of 19th century India was Cholera. Even though references to Cholera occurs in ancient medical works of Hindus, Arabs, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans from the fourth century BCE, the disease acquired a whole new status in the nineteenth century, when a total of five Cholera pandemics claimed the lives of millions across the world.

Consequently, the ritualisation of Cholera is believed to have started after the pandemic of 1817. “Only in deltaic Bengal, is there known to have been worship of a specific Cholera deity, called Ola Bibi by Muslims, and Olai-Chandi by Hindus,” writes Arnod. He adds that “before 1817 the Goddess enjoyed far less popular devotion than Sitala, but she was thereafter extensively propitiated during the season when cholera was most prevalent.”

Reports by European missionaries mentioned in Arnold’s book suggests that reverence for the Goddess often manifested itself in young girls dressing up as Ola Bibi/ Chandi to receive her worship. Apart from Bengal, she is also worshipped in Rajasthan as the deity who saves her devotees from cholera, Few other deities invoked by the fear of diseases include Ghentu-debata, the God of skin diseases, and Raktabati, the Goddess of blood infections.

While resorting to religion has been a natural human response to fear, scientific intervention has started obliterating the same. As Russell noted in his lecture: “Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look round for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in.”

Further reading: 

Religion and epidemic disease by Duane J. Osheim

Hariti: Village Origins, Buddhist Elaborations and Saivite Accommodations by Sree Padma

History of Indian Buddhism by Etienne Lamotte

Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India by David Arnold

The Goddess Śītalā and Epidemic Smallpox in Bengal by Ralph W. Nicholasjaundice, diarrhea, and other stomach related diseases.

Source: Indian Express, 22/06/2020