Only 1% of R&D funds for HIV, TB, malaria: WHO

Sushmi Dey

New Delhi:





Investments in health research and development (R&D) are poorly aligned with global public health needs, the World Health Organisation has said, highlighting that merely 1% of the total funding on health R&D was allocated towards neglected diseases like HIV , tuberculosis and malaria which account for over 12.5% of the global disease burden. “Investments in health R&D are still insufficiently aligned with global public health demands and needs,“ the UN agency said in its assessment which showed that high-income countries had 352 times more health researchers than low-income ones.
According to the Global TB Report-2016, India accounts for 24% of global TB cases. Six countries --India, China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa account for 60% of the global total. India is also a hub of multi-drug resistant TB with nearly 480,000 contracting it in 2015.
India is under international pressure to tackle the TB problem, as it accounts for 1,400 of the 5,000 TB deaths daily. Though the number of TB deaths has come down in the past few years globally and in India, a huge rural population living with poor sanitation and poor nutrition makes elimination of the disease look like a distant dream.
The HIV and malaria burden is also significantly high. In 2015, the number of people living with HIV in India was estimated at 21.17 lakh, with 86,000 new HIV cases in that year.
India also accounts for the highest malaria burden outside Africa. Around 7.5 lakh cases and 188 malaria deaths were recorded till September 2016.
Recently , gaps in R&D investments and the pipeline for antimicrobial medicines have become a cause of global concern in the context of increasing antimicrobial resistance. The WHO's assessment also seeks higher funding for in the area of antimicrobial resistance, which impedes treatment of critical diseases including TB, malaria, urinary tract infection and even HIV .
The WHO assessment shows that R&D investments on neglected diseases in 2014 was around $3.5 billion. Though the investment has increased by 25% since 2007, the growth has declined from 2009.

Source: Times of India, 24-01-2017

How Babasaheb rejected and criticised the Vedas

Contrary to RSS official Krishna Gopal's claim that Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar had immense faith in the Vedic religion, the framer of India's Constitution not only never believed in the Vedas or Vedic faith but severely criticised it several times, once going to the extent of writing, in his canonical work ` Annihiliation of Caste', that “you have got to apply the dynamite to the Vedas and the shastras, which deny any part to reason; to the Vedas and shastras, which deny any part to morality .“
The first eight of the 22 vows that Ambedkar administered to his followers on the day he embraced Buddhism in Nagpur on October 14, 1956, were also an open repudiation of the Vedic religion, said scholar Hari Narke, who edit ed volumes 17 to 22 of Ambedkar's writings and speeches, published by the Maharashtra government.
In 1936, Ambedkar wrote, “The Hindu religion, as contained in the Vedas and the Smritis, is nothing but a mass of sacrificial, social, political and sanitary rules and regulations, all mixed up. What is called religion by the Hindus is nothing but a multitude of commands and prohibitions.“
Offering a radical solution to the problem of too many scriptures in Hinduism, he said the “Vedas, Shastras and Puranas, which are treated as sacred and authoritative, must by law cease to be so and the preaching of any doctrine, religious or social contained in these books should be penalised.“ Describing the great work of the Buddha, Ambedkar stated that the founder of Buddhism had “repudiated the authority of the Vedas“.When Buddha condemned “karma kanda“ (rituals) and Yagnas, Ambedkar stated, the “counter-revolutionaries“ opposed him saying these things “were ordained by the Vedas, the Vedas were infallible.“
But, he wrote, “People who had accepted the gospel of social equality and who were remaking society on the basis of each one according to his merits--how could they accept the Chaturvarnya theory of gradation and separation of man based on birth simply because the Vedas say so?“ In at least four of his works in addition to the controversial `Riddles in Hinduism -Caste in India' (1916), `Annihilation of Caste' (1936), `Who were the Shudras' (1946) and `The Untouchables' (1948) -Ambedkar offered a strong indictment of the earliest known Hindu texts.


Source: Times of India, 24-01-2017

60% of vehicles on Indian roads don't have insurance





Over 5 Lakh Accidents In 2015 Killed 1.5 Lakh People

Nearly 60% of the vehicles plying on Indian roads are uninsured, most of them motorcycles and scooters. The data has been complied by General Insurance Council (GIC), which represents the country's general insurers. In 2015-16, India had around 19 crore registered vehicles; of these, only 8.26 crore were insured, said GIC secretary general R Chandrasekaran on Monday . The situation was similar in 2012-13, when the total number of vehicles, including two-wheelers, cars and heavy vehicles, registered in the country stood at 15 crore, of which only 6.02 crore were insured. The figures are alarming since India's roads are notorious for their high accident rate, with 2015 alone recording over 5 lakh road crashes. Two-wheelers were in volved in 29% of the accidents in 2015, cars and jeeps in 23%, and buses in 8.3%.
Transport experts point out the need for every vehicle to be insured as those without an insurance cause “huge liability to mishap victims“.

Source: Times of India, 24-01-2017

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Vol. 52, Issue No. 3, 21 Jan, 2017

Editorials

Monstrous Inequality

A Clarion Call

Naga Women Fight Back

Law and Society

Surrogacy and the Laws on Maternity Benefits

Alok Prasanna Kumar

From 50 Years Ago

From 50 Years Ago: Be It a Showdown

Commentary

Question of ‘Honour’ - Revisiting ‘One Rank, One Pension’

Gautam Navlakha

The Predicament of Humour in a Metropolis

Sachin Nikarge

Problematic Uses and Practices of Farm Ponds in Maharashtra

Eshwer Kale

Travails of the Punjab

Manohar Singh Gill

Punjab—Exploring Prospects

Tracking Punjab - Rich but Not Developed

Pritam Singh

Demographic Dynamism of Punjab, 1971–2011

Mehar Singh Gill

Cropping Pattern in Punjab (1966–67 to 2014–15)

R S Mann

Water Use Scenario in Punjab - Beyond the Sutlej–Yamuna Link Canal

Ranjit Singh Ghuman

Addressing the Agrarian Crisis in Punjab - Role of Agro-markets and Policy

Sukhpal Singh

Punjab’s Drug Problem - Contours and Characteristics

P S Verma

Punjab Politics - Contesting Identities and Forging Coalitions

Pramod Kumar

Evaluation of SAD–BJP Government (2007–17)

Jagrup Singh Sekhon, Sunayana Sharma

Internal Caste Cleavages among Dalits in Punjab

Ronki Ram

Promise of Punjabi Diaspora - Rhetoric and Reality of Failed Engagement

Shinder S Thandi

Casteism amongst Punjabis in Britain

Meena Dhanda

Sustainability Crisis - A Critical Evaluation of Green Energy Policies

Nadia Singh

Book Reviews

India’s Rotten Democracy andthe Maoist Movement

Bernard D’Mello

A Man for All Seasons

Arvind Krishnaswamy

Insight

The Hidden Universe of Non-profit Organisations in India

Rajesh Tandon

Special Articles

From Nautch to Nritya - Dance and Subversion in Tagore’s Dance Drama

Nilanjana Mukherjee

Perfect Strangers - The State and NGOs in Pakistan

Muhammad Ahsan Rana

Current Statistics

Current Statistics

Appointments/programmes/announcements 

Appointments/Programmes/Announcements

Letters

Incomplete Disclosures

Virendra Jain

A Response to Meera Nanda’s Article

M V Nadkarni

Demonetisation Hits Farmers

A Amarender REddy

Web Exclusives

Aam Aadmi Party as Third Player in Punjab Politics

Second green revolution

The first green revolution, helmed by visionary scientists like Norman Borlaug and M.S. Swaminathan, born of a near-death food crisis, turned around Indian agriculture through an increase in farming land, development and use of grains hardened against pests, use of fertilizers and pesticides, multiple cropping, higher farmer credit and better irrigation techniques.
While it rescued India from starvation in the 1960s, there are dark clouds over Indian agriculture again. Over the years, our gross domestic product (GDP) has grown by 7.5% annually, but agricultural growth has severely lagged at 3%. In another 30 years’ time, India will have 1.5 billion people, with growing incomes, and the demand for foodgrain is expected to almost double to 450 million tonnes. Moreover, our farmers are dying; 8,000 of them committed suicide last year, that is 22 farmers every single day. Moreover, in the first four months of 2016, 100 farmers committed suicide every month in Marathwada alone.
Why is this happening?
Our farmers do not earn enough to feed themselves and repay their debts. Calculations show that the average farmer household in India makes Rs6,426 a month, and needs to have at least 1 hectare of land to make ends meet. However, 65% of farmers have less than one hectare, and so must take debt to make ends meet. More than 50% of farmers are indebted, and the average outstanding loan of a farmer is Rs47,000, usually at a usurious interest rate.
Our current farming practices are not going to solve it. To feed our population, we need to double agricultural yield, store and transport it better, and enable it with the right insurance and credit. And to make this next quantum jump happen, what we need is a second green revolution—one not based on land, chemicals, or water but on data, digital technologies and drones. Agriculture technology, or AgTech, will fuel the digital transformation of this most ancient of all industries.
I believe the second green revolution will be based on five transformative digital agritechnologies:
Technology-enabled advisory:
Information is power; for the farmer, it is gold, and can mean the difference between a bountiful harvest and a disastrous crop. When to harvest, where to sell the produce, how much to sell it for, what to sow next, which inputs (seeds, fertilisers, etc.) are needed, where to get them at the best price, when is it likely to rain, when will the water come—for all these questions, answers traditionally have come from a farmer’s experience, or the neighbouring farmer’s, and sometimes, an extension worker provided by the government, or a private service like Mahindra Shubhlabh.
However, the new advisor for the farmer will be his mobile phone. Imagine a techenabled advisory app on the phone, with image-recognition, speech-enablement, vernacular languages, and powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, and cloud databases. Think of a farmer who sees a diseased leaf, clicks its picture and sends it to a cloud, where the image is analysed and the details of the leaf disease sent back to the farmer, with suggested remedies, places to procure these services, and possible government subsidies available for the same. An advisory service which can answer a farmer’s questions on the go will be the single most powerful tool to drive up yields and productivity.
Precision farming:
This is a data-driven approach to raise farm yields by using GIS (geographical information system) data, soil information, and weather and environmental conditions for a specific small piece of land, by optimising the choice of crop, the use of pesticides, water and fertilisers, and the decision as to when and how to spray, till, and harvest the crop.
The precise nature of this technology is especially useful for India’s very small farm holdings; 65% of land holdings are less than 2 hectares (the average in the US is 180 hectares.) It is estimated that precision farming has been responsible for more than 80% of total increase in yields of wheat, rice and maize over the last 50 years.
In fact, a large pilot in India, the Tamil Nadu Precision Farming Project, raised crop yields by 60-80% for 23 different kinds of crops. Precision farming works with the use of GPS (Global Positioning System) and GIS (global information system) data, cheap IoT (Internet of Things) sensors in the soil which track moisture, Nitrogen levels, etc. and feeds the data back to an analytics engine in the cloud, which then recommends the right timing and techniques of inputs.
Real-time market information:
The Indian farmer sells most of his produce to a middleman for price lower than he can get, because he does not have the right, current market information.

He cannot make the right decision on what to plant, since he does not know the patterns and forecasting of price.
Mobile phones and cheap data plans can change all that. The e-Choupal network of ITC, for instance, has created more than 6000 e-Choupals and networked four million farmers, who exchange information with each other. A query-able content repository in the cloud can make real-time market information and analytics available to individual farmers.
Tech-enabled supply chain:
The farm supply chain in India is broken; we can store only 10% of the fresh produce we grow—30% of it rots. Building more warehouses and cold chains will certainly help; however, technologies like IoT, bar coding and blockchain can help monitor the produce from farm to market and cut down the extent of spoilage and loss.
Tech-enabled insurance:
While crop insurance exists, an overwhelming majority of crops are not insured, leaving the farmer severely indebted when his crop fails.
Technology and information, from sources like IBM’s Weather Company and Skymet, can be used to predict weather patterns and therefore derive more precise premiums and insurance covers for small farmers. Smart contracts on blockchain-based technologies can be used for automatic pay-outs, discouraging on-ground field assessment.
There are a bunch of startups and large companies operating in the AgTech area. Before Monsanto bought an AgTech company called Climate Corp. for close to $1 billion, no one paid much attention to this part of the digital wave.
Climate Corp, set up by two ex-Googlers, is a digital agriculture company that examines weather, soil and field data to help farmers determine potential yield-limiting factors in their farms, and then suggests ways to ameliorate them. In India, too, scores of AgTech startups are coming up.
Agrostar and Bighaat enable e-commerce and doorstep delivery of seeds, chemicals and accessories; Ninjacart, FarmerUncle and MeraKisan enable e-commerce of produce for a direct farmer-todoorstep delivery. Cropin and Airwood are making the ‘enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management of agriculture’; Stellapps makes dairy management tools integrated with IoT, cloud, mobility and analytics; Flybird is in precision farming while Trringo, from the Mahindra Group, is building an ‘Uber for tractors and farm machinery’. AgTech specific funds and accelerators like Omnivore Partners, Villgro and Village Capital are coming up, reflecting the bullishness in the sector. The government, too, has stepped into the act with the Prime Minister launching eNAM (electronic National Agricultural Market), which aims to link 200 wholesale markets or mandis to achieve the ambitious goal of doubling farmers’ income by 2022.
Data is the new soil
For these tech companies, data is the new soil—to be mined and analysed. There is a new mathematics of farming— what was measured in acres is now measured in square foot, enabling more micro-farming and precision agriculture. Agriculture is being platformized, with platform models being applied to create market places and on-demand models for machinery, inputs and produce.
As the digital revolution rolls across India, agriculture is its last, and most important, frontier. Today, we are seeing perhaps the dawn of the second green revolution. While there is a long way to go, the true success of Digital India will be if it helps 70% of our population—agricultural workers and farmers.
The archetypal impression of the Indian farmer has been a wizened, gnarled man sitting in his parched field, shading his eyes from the merciless sun and gazing at the clouds, willing them to rain. Perhaps, soon, that will change to him expectantly looking at the data cloud through his mobile phone, waiting for it to spew out the information and knowledge, to add to his wisdom. That is when we will know that the Second Green Revolution has arrived.
Jaspreet Bindra is senior vice- president of digital transformation at Mahindra Group. Views are personal.

Source: Mint epaper, 23/01/17

In defence of globalization

Despite the challenges it has created, globalization has made the world a better place. And we still need it to eradicate poverty

Are critics— those who consider it a zero-sum game—against eradicating global poverty?

Iwas recently in beautiful Chile for a Futures Congress, and I had a chance to travel south to the very tip of Latin America. I also recently made a BBC radio documentary called Fixing Globalization, in which I crisscrossed the UK in search of ideas for improving certain aspects of it and discussed topical issues with well-known experts. In both cases, I saw things that convinced me that it is past time for someone to come to globalization’s defence.
Chile today is Latin America’s richest country, with per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of around $23,000—similar to that of Central European countries. This is quite an achievement for a country that depends heavily on copper production, and it sets Chile apart from many of its neighbours. Chile is facing economic challenges, and its growth rate leaves something to be desired; but it also has many promising opportunities beyond its borders.
For example, when I led a review on antimicrobial resistance, I learnt that copper has powerful anti-bacterial properties and is an ideal material for use in healthcare facilities where bacteria often spread. This means that copper producers such as Chile, Australia and Canada can improve global health—and boost exports—by introducing affordable copper infrastructure into hospitals and other clinical settings.
Chile is also a storehouse of knowledge for managing earthquakes and tsunamis. While I was there, I visited La Serena, which in 2015 experienced the sixth-strongest earthquake ever recorded. But the ensuing tsunami killed only 11 people, though it surely would have killed far more in many other places. Chilean officials’ advanced preparation and rapid response seems to have made the difference. With so much institutional experience, Chile can be a valuable resource for other countries threatened by seismic events.
Beyond Chile, it is interesting that Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos this year. Now that Donald Trump has been elected president of the US, and the UK is withdrawing from the European Union, I had assumed that such an elitist event’s glory days were behind it. Xi’s presence suggests that China is exploring where it can position itself on the world stage, and which elements of globalization it can harness to its advantage.
Indeed, as the Chinese ambassador to the UK pointed out, China is already the largest importer —yes, importer —for at least 70 countries, and accounts for about 10-11% of all imports globally. Despite its supposed economic challenges, China will likely be a bigger importer than the European Union before this decade is over, and it will probably surpass the US soon thereafter.

Moreover, economic inequality among countries has declined sharply in the past 20 years, owing partly to China’s rise, as well as to economic development across Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere. By 2010, the UN had already achieved its Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty by 2015, and recent projections suggest that, by 2050, poverty will be eradicated everywhere except Africa.
This will not happen without globalization. African countries, in particular, will need to trade more with one another, and there is talk of creating an African free-trade area. But this could prove difficult now that anti-trade sentiment is on the rise. Are globalization’s critics—those who wrongly consider it a zero-sum game—against eradicating global poverty?
Policymakers can take action to alleviate anxieties about globalization. For starters, the seemingly endless growth of profits as a share of global GDP must stop. Anyone who thinks this sounds radical needs to brush up on economics. Higher profits should attract new market entrants, which would then erode incumbents’ profits through competition. The fact that this isn’t happening suggests that some markets have been rigged, or have simply failed. Policymakers need to address this with stronger regulation. For example, the current climate is far too permissive of share-repurchase programmes.
At the same time, policymakers need to pursue measures to increases wages for the lowest earners, which could boost productivity as capital becomes less expensive relative to labour. And, as World Bank president Jim Yong Kim pointed out to me, we need to strengthen enforcement of laws governing trade deals, and do more to help challenged domestic sectors that lose out as a result of those deals.
This reminds me of a sad story I heard from some laid-off Goodyear tyre workers in Wolverhampton, in England’s West Midlands. They told me that job listings for their lost positions were posted on a noticeboard, and they could reapply if they wanted to move to Mexico. The workers surmised that it was easier for the company to close its factory in the UK than to close even less productive factories in France or Germany. Surely changes like this can be handled better.
Lastly, policymakers need to prioritize development projects such as the UK’s “northern powerhouse” and “Midlands engine”. And more such initiatives should be launched elsewhere.
Despite the many challenges it has created, globalization has made the world a better place than it otherwise would have been. And we still need it to eradicate poverty and generate higher living standards for all.

Source: Mintepaper, 23-01-2017

 

Living in a hotter world 

The world has turned the page on 2016 with the worrying revelation that it was the warmest year on the instrumental record since the late 19th century, and the hottest of three record-breaking years in a row. While the rise in global average surface temperature by about 1.1º C last year over the pre-industrial era was aggravated by the El Nino phenomenon of 2015-16, the trend is a warning to all countries that they cannot afford to rely on carbon-intensive growth any longer. Explaining the scientific view, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies points to the rise in temperature as being driven “largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere.” The warming pattern must be seen in the context of declining sea ice cover in the Arctic, compounding the loss of ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic. In the Arctic, which is witnessing a decline in the extent of sea ice in the lowest month at the rate of about 13% every decade, melting creates a vicious circle of more exposure of ‘dark areas’ to sunlight, higher melting and more dark surface absorbing heat. Such phenomena accelerate the rate of global warming, with consequences through climate change for coastal areas, access to water, farming and human health.A warming globe with changes to the climate in the form of altered rainfall, drought, floods, lost biodiversity and reduced crop yields would particularly affect millions in China and India. It is heartening that Chinese President Xi Jinping asserted the importance of the Paris Agreement on climate change at the Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum, and virtually cautioned incoming U.S. President Donald Trump against reneging on it. India’s own commitment to the climate accord must be strengthened with clear and unambiguous actions. This should lead to a scaling up of renewable energy and measurable decline in use of fossil fuels. Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal has promised a steady increase in solar power capacity, going beyond the target of 100 gigawatts by 2022, but such goals become more credible when there is action in individual States to make the average citizen a partner in the effort. States should be ranked on their policies that help unlock investment in the sector, including domestic rooftop installations, and the weak service infrastructure for solar should be upgraded without delay. India’s water stress is heightened by extreme weather episodes, and this requires an enhanced policy response to protect farmers, livestock and vulnerable communities.

Source: The Hindu, 21-01-2017