The roots of Europe’s refugee crisis

It was in pursuance of narrow political objectives that Western powers entered West Asian territories and destabilised them. They cannot now absolve themselves of all responsibility

Released in 2013, Elysium, a movie directed by Neill Blomkamp, was appreciated worldwide for highlighting socio-political and class dimensions related to migration. In this science fiction, the rich discard the poor on earth in 2154, and settle down in an advanced and sophisticated space station called Elysium. Earth is depicted as having several problems: it has no healthcare facilities and suffers from a high crime rate. As a result of this, its residents dream of entering Elysium one way or the other. For them, going to Elysium is a way to end all their miseries. But it isn’t such a simple task — the ruling class of Elysium is averse to the idea of sharing their prosperous space with the poor beings from earth.

The situation in and around the borders of Europe remind us of this film. The international community, for reasons beyond comprehension, opted to remain discreet about the European refugee crisis, but in reality this is one of the biggest human tragedies in the making in this decade. Statistics point in this direction. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 3,50,000 migrants and refugees have tried to cross the Mediterranean sea into Europe. Almost 2,600 refugees have died in the Mediterranean Sea from January to August 2015 alone. Most of them are from West Asia, particularly from the war-ravaged countries of Syria, Iraq and Libya; many are also from the disturbed areas of Africa. According to the the IOM statistics, a substantial number of refugees are also from Afghanistan and Pakistan, moving for reasons similar to their West Asian counterparts — Afghanistan is caught in an unending civil conflict and Pakistan’s socio-economic condition is continuously deteriorating. This is what makes people flee their own countries to other parts of the world, in search of peace, employment and stability.

Freedom from conflict

Europe is the most preferred destination for the people from these fragile regions as it is economically prosperous, socially secure and has better immigration laws. In other words, Europe is like Elysium. But this does not mean that this mass migration is only to explore the greener pastures of Europe; it is also due to adverse circumstances in the home country that are not within the control of the common people. Endless conflict has ruined the social, political and economical structures of some countries in West Asia, making it impossible for people to have a secure livelihood. On the other hand, faced with a situation of a heavy influx of refugees, Europe is unwilling to welcome people into its territory. European countries are increasing security patrolling around the Mediterranean Sea and in border areas, in order to check the infiltration of refugees. Due to this increased surveillance, refugees are being pushed back, but sadly most of them cannot return to their unsafe and war-torn countries. This situation of being neither here nor there is leading to a big humanitarian crisis, demanding immediate international attention.

To find a solution, we also have to critically examine the role of the Euro-Atlantic powers because they have been the main drivers of this present crisis. West Asia in the past was not like this; despite illusive democracy, there was political stability and economic activities flowed quite smoothly. But due to having an abundance of energy resources, West Asia was and is geo-economically extremely relevant for the U.S. and its allies, most of them being the European powers. It is because of this that Euro-Atlantic powers used coercive tools for prompting their narrow political-economic agendas in this region after the end of the Cold War. As a result, Iraq is in ruins, even though it does not possess any weapons of mass destruction. Libya was bombed by NATO in 2011 after getting sanctions through the United Nations Security Council Resolution, 1973, and is currently a battleground for different ethnic groups fighting to capture political power. There is enough evidence to prove that on the pretext of supporting pro-democratic forces in Syria, western powers ended up helping the radical groups, providing necessary fodder for the birth of the deadly Islamic State. Afghanistan, also one of the known battlefields of the Cold War, was deserted by the West after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. But it was revisited post-9/11 by the Euro-Atlantic powers to destroy Al-Qaeda’s terror network. Yet, even after the death of Osama bin Laden, political instability continues in Afghanistan, with the prospect of civil conflict ceasing in the near future seeming quite bleak.

Even if we ignore larger political economic questions of international relations, it will not be inappropriate to blame western powers for the present crisis. Their irresponsible acts for achieving narrow political objectives have destabilised West Asia, and now European countries cannot turn their backs to the problems of the refugees. The sheer number of people escaping from disturbed regions to Europe is massive, and pushing them back to their homeland will only aggravate the situation. These refugees will be vulnerable to attacks by warring groups and we cannot strike out the possibility of them even joining these groups for survival. The European Union has unveiled a refugee quota plan to address the crisis, but is already facing opposition from eastern members, with, for instance, the Czech Republic’s Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka stating that his country will not be compelled in any manner to accept a quota and that such a system “won’t work”. Thus, far more coordination between the EU and the international community is essential to resolve the crisis.

In this regard, it is also crucial for the EU to involve the U.S. Similarly, the stable countries of West Asia should be contacted to provide some respite to these refugees. Any negligence now will prove costly not only for Europe but for many other countries of the world.

(Dhananjay Tripathi is assistant professor, Department of International Relations, South Asian University, New Delhi. Email: dhananjay@sau.ac.in)

Keywords: migrants, refugee crisis

Source: The Hindu, 15-09-2015

The comprehensive healthcare alternative

Rescuing Maternal and Child Health-only systems, which have become under-resourced and have built a very high-cost but low-performance culture, will be a challenging task.

Given the rising burden of non-communicable diseases, there is an increasing demand to build health systems that can address these concerns. However, given how large the unfinished agenda of the Millennium Development Goals is, the Indian government has chosen to stay focussed on Maternal and Child Health (MCH). But is the most effective way to deliver on the MCH goals to build an MCH-only health system, or does it need a completely different approach?

Medical and staffing issues

Medically, since the most important drivers of infant, child, and maternal mortality are haemorrhage, sepsis, abortion-related complications and hypertensive disorders, it is clear that it is no longer adequate for a health system to focus on preventive-promotive messages and limited facility-based treatment options. Instead, at the community level, there needs to be clinic-based obstetric and emergency care on offer, and, within a reasonable travel distance, hospital-based emergency care. If recent data relating to infant mortality rate (IMR) and maternal mortality rate (MMR) are examined, it appears that higher availability of more advanced medical care at proximate hospitals in, for example, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, is indeed associated with much better MMR and IMR outcomes. Equally wealthy States such as Himachal Pradesh, which do not have these advanced facilities at proximate locations, are not able to show similar rates of improvement despite spending more money per capita on healthcare.

Recognising this issue, the Indian government has recently mooted the concept of a health and wellness centre (HWC) that is intended to be more comprehensive rather than merely connoting “first contact care or symptomatic treatment for simple illness with some elements of care for pregnancy and immunisation included”. And, if indeed the HWCs (the erstwhile sub-centres) are able to address all of the necessary MCH conditions, then it becomes possible for the next level centre to provide a much broader range of care upon referral by the HWC. Clearly, building such a system to serve only MCH needs will not be cost-effective nor will it keep all of the necessary personnel gainfully employed. Having a much wider range of conditions would be the only sustainable way to address this concern.

Building such a broad-based system will need a substantial amount of investment for which political commitment has not been very forthcoming. Because of this, in addition to resource shortage, front line personnel such as nurses and doctors often offer low-quality services and display a high degree of absenteeism without fear of political reprimand. While there are a number of reasons for this, one of them is the fact that the Indian (MCH-focussed) health system is currently able to cope only with conditions that account for fewer than 25 per cent of the Years of Life Lost (YLL). Even in high-fertility States such as Bihar, in a typical year, fewer than 20 per cent of the households are likely to have maternity-related needs. Broader health systems which are able to address a much larger proportion of conditions have the potential to engage a much larger number of voters. Arguably, the politician under such a system is much more likely to both allocate more resources as well as monitor performance. The health system thus develops the capability of handling a wider range of issues, while simultaneously positively impacting the MCH agenda.

The difficulty that health systems in India unfortunately face is that since they were designed as MCH-only systems, they have become chronically under-resourced and have now built a very high- cost but low-performance culture and a concomitant reputation. Rescuing these systems may now become very challenging. Politicians have shown a strong reluctance to provide additional funds to the government-run health system “driven by the idea that it does not make sense to throw money at a system that hardly works, performs or is a big black hole.” They instead prefer to put additional investments into fragmented and “cheap” in-patient insurance and ambulance schemes that are operated by the private sector but are funded by the government. Such an approach is resulting in significant fragmentation of the health system, with a low-quality, skeletal MCH-focussed government-run primary care and secondary care system. There is also a separate, private sector-owned secondary and tertiary care system with very high variations in the levels of quality, which is accessed by low-income families through government-sponsored insurance programmes and by everybody else using out-of-pocket payments. This prevents the evolution of both an integrated government health system or a privately run managed care system. This is an example of a situation where building an MCH-only health system has actually hurt our ability to grow it into a well-functioning health system of any kind, including one that fully serves MCH needs.

For various good reasons, 68 countries, including low income and middle income countries, have chosen to use health-specific taxation such as mandatory payroll deduction. For countries such as India and China, which also have a large informal sector, since mandatory payroll deduction is not an available option for a large segment of the population, the direct sale of healthcare packages or insurance becomes additionally necessary. This is much more difficult to do, but not impossible. This is because while it is clear that health shocks have a very large impact on those below the poverty line, it is also clear that even those at the 90th percentile are not very far above the poverty line, and a health shock can indeed quickly send such a family down to the lowest one per cent in terms of income and wealth. However, unlike families below the poverty line, those above it do have the financial ability to pre-pay for healthcare services because it is not their average out-of-pocket expenditure that is their problem, but their inability to obtain proper care when needed and the high variability of actual expenditures. However, getting the non-poor populations to participate in financing through pre-payment (by, for example, requiring the purchase of a comprehensive family health cover along with auto-insurance for all vehicles, including two wheelers), an integrated delivery system is going to need a much broader health system and one that performs at a much higher level than it currently does. But, unfortunately, once again the decision to build a MCH-only health system, which performs at a poor level of delivered quality, has left consumers with low confidence in government-run health systems. To now persuade the non-poor to pay-in to a health system that is operated by the government is likely to be an uphill task.

Historic opportunity

For the States, the larger availability of untied funds from the Centre presents a historic opportunity to design health systems that far more closely reflect their own objective ground realities. While centrally sponsored health schemes have offered a number of benefits, they also came with the associated baggage of standardised design. Bihar, for example, continues to battle with high levels of IMR and MMR and a high level of poverty. Tamil Nadu and Kerala have brought those rates under control but, unlike Bihar, are seeing a climbing suicide mortality rate, particularly amongst their 15-25 year olds. Himachal Pradesh, which has a much smaller and significantly wealthier population and over five times higher per capita income, has very similar IMR and MMR numbers to Bihar, combined with a high accident mortality rate. Building comprehensive healthcare systems which reflect the realities of each State will not only yield strong benefits on problems such as IMR and MMR but will also, over time, help build health systems that respond to a much a wider set of concerns. Narrowly focussed health systems on the other hand risk falling short not only on their goals but also make it difficult, if not impossible, to build broader health systems for the future.

(Nachiket Mor is a Chennai-based economist. Email: nachiket@nachiketmor.net)

Keywords: Maternal and Child Health, health systems, infant mortality rate

Source: The Hindu, 15-09-2015

Act with firmness

In a country that has seen much outrage over cases of rape and has passed strict laws in the past few years to check such crimes, it seems ironic that the Indian government must watch helplessly as a diplomat who has been accused of brutalising two women is able to evade police action. The Saudi Arabian official cannot even be taken in for questioning on the allegedly barbaric crimes he and some of his family members participated in at their residence in New Delhi. While it would be unfair and imprudent to pronounce him (and possibly others) guilty without going through due process of law, the facts of the case, the outcome of medical examination procedures and eyewitness accounts have led officials to admit that prima faciethere is evidence that the victims were repeatedly raped, sodomised, and held captive at knife-point over months. Regardless of the gravity of the crime, however, international diplomatic conventions must be followed, and unless the Saudi government can be prevailed upon to waive the diplomat’s immunity, he will no doubt be on a flight to safety and out of the reach of Indian authorities pretty soon. While Riyadh is unlikely to give up its diplomat, waiving immunity has been done in exceptional cases in the past. In 1997, Georgia did so for its deputy ambassador to the United States who was held guilty in a drunken driving accident that left his 16-year-old co-passenger dead. Other countries have also waived immunity when the crimes merited a full investigation. However, Saudi Arabia has always protected its diplomats, despite what one official termed a “disproportionately high” number of cases involving Saudi officials in heinous crimes. In the U.K. and the U.S., charges of enslaving women have been brought against Saudi Arabian diplomats — to no avail. There was particular anger in the U.K. in 2004 when a Saudi official was accused of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl, but he too got away.

India must push the Saudi government for accountability. India has an added responsibility, given that those involved are citizens of a third country and came here from earthquake-hit and impoverished parts of Nepal seeking livelihood opportunities desperately. India will need to be sensitive to Nepal’s concerns in the matter. If it fails to secure the Saudi government’s cooperation, New Delhi will still have several options to pursue the case at the bilateral level. Sustained pressure may bear results given that Saudi Arabia expects to host Prime Minister Narendra Modi this year. At the very least, if New Delhi shows its determination to pursue this case, that will serve as a deterrent to any others who may seek to use their diplomatic status to claim immunity from the consequences of their crimes.

Keywords: Saudi Arabia, diplomats, crimes against women, Ministry of External Affairs, rape

Source: The Hindu, 15-09-2015

The Maoist movement is down but not out

There is some good news coming out of Bihar as it heads for elections. The state used to be the hub of Maoist insurgency-related violence till the beginning of the last decade. A key Left-wing outfit, Maoist Communist Centre (MCC), had Bihar as its base.

At its peak, the outfit ran a semi-parallel state in parts of south Bihar, now called Jharkhand. Caste massacres were rampant — and MCC mobilised the Dalits to take on the upper-caste militias. The MCC then merged with the People’s War Group in 2004 to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and it was feared that the group would become more potent and destructive.

But even as Maoist violence remains an area of concern in other parts of the country, there has been a swing towards peace in Bihar. There are now about 20 deaths due to the insurgency annually, a sharp drop from almost 100 deaths in 2005. The caste-based tensions and violence have dimmed, if not disappeared.

The bifurcation of the state in 2000 led to the shifting of Maoist insurgency to Jharkhand. The new state has witnessed violent incidents and Maoists there have degenerated and fragmented considerably. The Nitish Kumar government deserves credit for a range of progressive political measures. By especially reaching out to Dalits and the more backward among Dalits, the government have deprived the Maoists a fertile constituency. Democracy in this sense is the best antidote to Left radicalism. The government shifted the discourse to development and kept a check on upper-caste militias.

The Centre too has become more serious about taking on the Maoists. The Maoists are in crisis; many top leaders have been arrested or killed; cadre morale is low; and there is lack of political and ideological clarity. But this is no time to be complacent. Maoists may be down, but they are not out. The structural factors that help them grow, still persist. Landlessness is acute. untouchability may have reduced but caste discrimination, especially in the case of Dalits, takes other forms. The state government has not taken action against perpetrators of earlier massacres — only adding to the sense of injustice, which can contribute to rise of the Maoists again. There is also a growing young demographic that is semi-educated, but unemployed, angry and restless — a neat group for the Maoists to indoctrinate. The next government in Bihar must build on the fragile achievements of the past decade and leave no reason for people to be attracted to Maoists.

Gujarat tops in biz reforms: Report

New Delhi: TIMES NEWS NETWORK





Gujarat has topped the list of states in rapidly implementing business reforms, a study conducted by the World Bank and the government's Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has shown.Key states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have been slow in making progress and even lag less-developed states such as Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
The first-ever such study which covers the country in an in-depth manner, ` Assessment of State Implementation of Business Reforms', took stock of reforms implemented by the states from the beginning of January this year to the end of June. It worked out its findings on the progress made on a 98-point action plan that had been agreed upon between various states, union territories and the DIPP towards the end of last year.
The report highlights how states are implementing reforms. “On an average, only 32% of the proposed reforms have been implemented across the country . The implementation of reforms regarding inspection and enforcement of contracts, which necessitate medium term actions, stands at less than 20%,“ the report said.
Other partners in the study, which saw states faring poorly in areas such as setting up electronic courts, included KPMG and industry cham bers CII and FICCI.
The study comes at a time when PM Narendra Modi is attempting to attract investment and create jobs through initiatives such as Make in India. The PM has often referred to the need to make significant progress on ease of doing business.
India ranks 142 among 189 nations in the World Bank's Doing Business report and investors complain about the slow pace of decision making and red tape on approvals.“Thus the need of the day is reform, and the reforms must be led by the government both at central and state levels,“ said Onno Ruhl, World Bank country director in India. Seven out of the top 10 sta tes in terms of imple menting business re orms have the BJP in office supporting the TDP as an al y in Andhra Pradesh). The non-BJP states that cracked he top 10 category included Odisha (ruled by the BJD, ranked 7), Karnataka (Congress, ranked 9) and Uttar Pradesh Samajwadi Party , ranked 10).
The study assessed the sta es on various key parame ers such as ease of setting up business; allotment of land and obtaining construction permit; complying with environment procedures; comply ng with labour regulations; obtaining infra-related utilities; registering and complying with tax procedures; carry ng out inspections and enforcing contracts.
The assessment shows hat none of the states could achieve distinction or cross he 75% mark (dubbed as `leaders category' in the survey) n the overall assessment on business reforms. The top seven states emerged in the aspiring leaders' category and these were Gujarat (71%), AP (70%), Jharkhand (63%), Chhattisgarh (62%), MP 62%), Rajasthan (61%) and Odisha (52%).
“What this report does ve ry well is to provide a roadmap for states serious about improving their business environment and creating jobs,“ Ruhl said. “But it's also important that the civil servants facilitate business, and make it easy for businesses. This requires a change in mindset.“
The report found that except for the top seven states, all the other regions need to speed up reforms. Nine states, including Delhi, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Ta mil Nadu, Punjab and West Bengal, were placed in the ca egory where acceleration is required in reforms implementation. A total of 16 states were placed in the bottom ca egory which need to “jump start“ reforms implementa ion and these included Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Nagaland and Andaman and Nicobar.
“Improving India's regu atory framework for business is a key pre-requisite for ncreasing investment in India and thereby creating obs,“ the report said.
Listing the areas where progress has been made, the report said the states have generally made good progress n terms of tax reforms, which includes mandating eregistration for VAT and cen ral sales tax (CST).
“... online filing and payment of VAT and CST seem to be popular reforms implemented in a vast majority of states. These are joined by clear timelines for building plan approval and construction permits, VAT registration and electricity connection.Finally , a majority of states have established dedicated single windows, backed by legislation or state notifica ions to establish and empower them,“ the report said.

Source: Times of India, 15 Sep 2015

Vedanta - Music and the Void

BINDU CHAWLA





In Indic tradition, in terms of basic numbers, what followed as we counted after the number nine was not 10, or even one, where the count begins again, but zero. The concept of zero is shunya, a state of everythingness, fullness or wholeness, and a condition of mind our gurus asked us to reach before the singing of any raga before its unconditional manifestation could begin.Shunya in the ancient texts is known as pujyam, or `worthy of being prayed to'. In classical music, it is symbolised by `sa', the first swara, the root note where all notes rest. Japa, or chanting, of the `sa' activates the shunyata of `sa', which then begins to manifest unconditionally . Whatever it manifests, provided it is unconditional, or pure, and not conditional, or sullied, is the active word of God, and his message for all.
Ashunyata stirs, so does the divine, opening out its light, along with nada, or sound, its initial manifestations or vibrations, which then formulate as swaras unfolding the Brahmanda, or universe, of the seven notes.
When the raga is sung by a pure soul, the notes will be accompanied by light -difficult to see by the ordinary listener -reflecting the colours and hues that the specific raga configuration shows up, with immense healing properties.
The raga and its colours are the celebration of intuition, the inner eye, having no reason as its manifestation, and that is why also, the classical raga in our music has to be sung without reason, or `conditionality', or nihilism, or empty zeros.

The End of Search
The question is not how to meditate, what system to follow, but to understand what meditation is. The `how' can only produce what the method offers, but the very inquiry into what is meditation will open the door to meditation.

In pursuing that enquiry , what becomes all-important is to understand the seeker himself, and not what he seeks.What he seeks is the projection of his own craving, of his own compulsions, desires. Then all searching ceases. Then the mind is no longer grasping at something beyond itself, there is no outward movement; but when seeking has entirely stopped, there's a movement of the mind that is neither outward nor inward. Seeking doesn't come to an end by any act of will, or by a complex process of conclusions.

To stop seeking demands great understanding. The ending of search is the beginning of a still mind. And a still mind acts like a clean slate, anything can be written on it and can also be expunged whenever one wants to wipe it out, for, only a clean mind has no ripples and is most receptive as well as contemplative. Otherwise, the mind's perpetually in turmoil.

Meditation is that extraordinary attention in which there's no maker of effort, no end or object to be gained. Effort is a part of the acquisitive process, it's the gathering of experience by the experiencer. The experiencer may concentrate, pay attention, be aware; but the experiencer's craving for experience must wholly cease, for the experiencer is merely an accumulation of the known.