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Half a million and counting: Minor irrigation water bodies in India

OWSA Staff

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7 February 2022

Half a million and counting: Minor irrigation water bodies in India

The minister for jal shakti provided a list of tanks, reservoirs or ponds counted as part of an ongoing census from various states.

India has over half-a-million water bodies that provide minor irrigation, the minister of state for jal shakti, Bishweswar Tudu informed the Rajya Sabha today.

According to the minister, the department of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation of the ministry of jal shakti has been conducting a census of minor irrigation structures every five years since 1986-87.

Though the minor irrigation census does not count the number of water bodies in the country directly, data on water bodies is indirectly compiled from the census. The number of water bodies in villages used for minor irrigation derived from fifth minor irrigation census (with 2013-14 as the reference year) was 5,16,303.

Maharashtra led the list of states with the maximum (1,14,988) number of such water bodies. The state of Jharkhand with 48,144 minor irrigation installations came next and was followed by Andhra Pradesh that has 41,209 such water bodies providing minor irrigation.

The census did not find any such minor irrigation water bodies in the states of Delhi and Sikkim and in Chandigarh.

The census of water bodies, according to the minister’s reply, covered all natural or artificial units with some or no masonry work in rural parts of the country that have been used for storing water for minor irrigation – known variously as tanks, reservoirs or ponds – or water bodies functioning as surface flow schemes.

The minister informed that the department has launched the first census of water bodies in convergence with the sixth round of minor irrigation census (with 2017-18 as the reference year) under the centrally sponsored scheme “irrigation census”.

Encroachments happening

“The objective of the census of water bodies is to develop a national database for all water bodies by collecting information on all important aspects of the subject including their size, condition, status of encroachments, use, storage capacity etc.,” the minister said in a written reply.

Presently, the field work and data processing activities of the first census of water bodies is nearing completion in various states and urban territories the minister said.

As per currently available data of first census of water bodies, Andhra Pradesh leads the list of states where encroachments on water bodies have been reported. 3,920 water bodies were encroached upon in the state. Punjab follows with 1,578 encroachments on minor irrigation water bodies. The minister has listed 14 states reporting from where encroachments over water bodies have been reported. Arunachal reported just one encroachment and the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim and Chandigarh reported no encroachments.

The minister said in the Rajya Sabha that work related to enumeration of water bodies, their protection from encroachment or their diversion for use for other purposes comes under the purview of the state governments.

His ministry, he said, has been sensitising state governments regarding the importance of water bodies for socio economic development and sustainable water security to the local population. Need for taking necessary steps for keeping all the water bodies encroachment free, such as inclusion of water bodies in land records and making them integral part of town planning process, removal of encroachments is also being emphasised to the state governments from time to time, the minister said.

Image: Development Alternatives

Bail for Lankan lawyer, “prisoner of conscience”

OWSA Staff

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7 February 2022

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Bail for Lankan lawyer, “prisoner of conscience”

The criminal investigation department of the Sri Lanka police had detained Hejaaz Hizbullah, an attorney-at-law under the island nation’s Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Sri Lankan lawyer, Hejaaz Hizbullah has obtained bail from a court of appeal after 20 months in detention under the country’s prevention of terrorism act (PTA).

Hizbullah has been under detention since April 2020 when he was picked up under the provisions in following the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings that killed 269 and injured over 500. The criminal investigations department of the Sri Lankan police did not charge him for any offence for 10 of the 20 months he was held captive.

(Health authorities had advised him to stay at home since the suspected he had come in contact with people with COVID-19. This was a ruse so to apprehend him.)

Hizbullah’s trial has been controversial. His lawyers argued that Hizbullah is being charged because of his work as a lawyer and a defender of human rights. They said that he was being blamed for his association with a businessman whose sons were suspected to have carried out the Easter Sunday bombings.

As calls for his release grew within and outside Sri Lanka, the government shuffled charges and accused him of inciting racial disharmony.

Abusive law

Besides not being provided free access to his lawyers or to meet with his family, the police was even pulled up by a Colombo magistrate for botching up an identification parade by acquainting school-going children with his picture before the exercise. The investigating team had alleged that Hizbullah was involved in preaching hate.

Sri Lanka’s prevention of terrorism act (PTA) allows authorities to detain any suspect without charges and without producing a suspect before a judge.

In 2021, Amnesty International declared Hizbullah a prisoner of conscience. “He is a prisoner of conscience and must me immediately and unconditionally released and all charges against him dropped,” the UK-based international human rights organisation said on July 14.

Amnesty International said Hizbullah was detained on “trumped-up charges” under the “draconian” PTA. “He has been targeted for his work, and his advocacy for the rights of Muslim minorities in the country,” the organisation said.

Human rights defenders have criticised the use of PTA to crush dissent and justify the forcible disappearance of people.

Image: Hippopx licensed under Creative Commons Zero – CC0

A Clash of Alms

Inter Press Service

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7 February 2022

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Driven by unprecedented hardship to pass round the begging bowl, Sri Lanka has become the centre of a tussle between India and China.

By Neville de Silva

There was a time in Asia’s predominantly Buddhist countries when saffron-robed monks walked from house to house in the mornings, standing outside in silence as lay people served up freshly cooked food into their ‘alms bowls’. The food was then taken to the temples, where it was shared among the monks.

That religious tradition has now largely given to other ways of serving alms to monks.

Today, governments and their aggrandising acolytes have converted this respected and virtuous tradition into one of begging richer nations to rescue them from economic deprivation, brought on largely by failed promises and disjointed and ill-conceived foreign and national policies.

This ‘begging bowl’ mentality in search of ‘alms’ is more likely to succeed if a nation is strategically-located in an area of big power contestation. Sri Lanka is just that, situated in the Indian Ocean and only a few nautical miles from the vital international sea lanes carrying goods from West to East and vice versa.

The country’s economy has been caught in a bind. Buffeted by the COVID pandemic on the one hand and, on the other, ego-inflating economic and fiscal policies introduced by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa shortly before the country was pounded by the pandemic, Sri Lanka now has to beg or borrow to keep its head above water.

By December, Sri Lanka’s parlous foreign reserves situation had dropped to a perilous $1.2 billion – enough for three weeks of imports. The foreign debt obligation of $500 million that needed to be met last month was only the beginning. Another $1 billion is due in July. The total pay-off in 2022 will amount to some $7 billion.

Botched green agriculture agenda

Meanwhile the pandemic has virtually killed tourism, one of the country’s main foreign exchange earners, driving the hospitality industry into free-fall. If this was not bad enough, the Central Bank’s attempts to put a tight squeeze on incoming foreign currency led the country’s migrant labour remittances to drop drastically as overseas workers turned to the black market to earn real value for their money sent to families at home.

But nothing has had such widespread political repercussions as the government’s ill-advised policy of banning overnight chemical fertilisers last May, ahead of the country’s main agricultural season between October and April.

Its over-ambitious agenda of trying to turn Sri Lanka into the world’s first totally ‘green agriculture’ was laudable enough, but was botched when the sudden ban on chemical fertilisers and other agro-chemicals – used by farmers for the last 50 years or so – left rice farming and other cultivation in disarray and farmers inevitably confused.

While agricultural scientists and other experts warned of an impending food scarcity due to failed harvests and sparsely cultivated fields, the government ignored the warnings, sacking heads of the agriculture ministry and removing its qualified agricultural experts for spreading doom and gloom.

Against this backdrop of confused governance, probable food shortages due to poor harvests and slashing of imports and even essential medicines for lack of foreign currency, growing public unrest has seen even farmers take to the streets.

Consequently, a once-buoyant government confident of public popularity, especially among the Sinhala-Buddhist voters and the rural community, began to look beyond its faithful ally and ‘all weather’ friend China for ‘alms’ to pull it out of the morass.

Enter China

China has already planted a large footprint in Sri Lanka, with massive infrastructure projects such as sea and airports in strategic areas, which allowed a monitoring of international sea lanes to make neighbouring India worry.

A major Chinese presence in Sri Lanka could endanger India’s security at a time when China continues to militarily pressurise India in the Himalayas.

From the early 1950s Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon, and China had established close ties. Despite threats of sanctions by the US, Colombo sold natural rubber to China – then involved in the Korean war – in exchange for rice, marking the beginning of the long standing ‘rubber-rice pact’.

As long as China’s immediate concern was the Pacific theatre, where the US and its allies remained dominant, and China faced territorial disputes in the South China sea and elsewhere, India was not overly concerned with China-Sri Lanka bilateral ties.

But as soon as China began to expand into the Indian Ocean, challenging what India considered its sphere of influence, New Delhi’s concerns multiplied considerably, as did its disquiet over China’s growing influence over Colombo.

The 70th anniversary of that Sino-Ceylon agreement, which cemented bilateral relations at a time when the People’s Republic of China was not even a member of the UN, was commemorated last month when China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Colombo in early January during an influence-building visit to Africa, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

This is the third high level visit by a Chinese official in little over a year, beginning with former foreign minister and politburo member Yang Jiechi in October 2020, and followed last April by Chinese Defence Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe, a visible signal to India and US-led ‘Quad’ countries the importance that China attaches to its relations with Sri Lanka.

Balancing with India

But Sri Lanka’s struggle against dwindling reserves, the need for foreign investment and expansion of trade relations at a time of economic hardship has shown the Rajapaksa regime that reliance on China alone will not suffice.

A more balanced foreign policy and an equidistant relationship between Asia’s two superpowers cannot remain at the level of diplomatic rhetoric. It is an imperative, given Sri Lanka’s geographical location in close proximity to India and the historical, cultural and ethnic ties with it huge neighbour.

Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Beijing, Dr Palitha Kohona, said recently that Colombo should not depend on China forever – a valid piece of advice Colombo should seriously consider.

India also cannot ignore that, security-wise, Sri Lanka lies in India’s underbelly, whose vulnerability was exposed during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. So a major Chinese presence in Sri Lanka could endanger India’s own security at a time when China continues to militarily pressurise India in the Himalayas.

Last December finance minister Basil Rajapaksa’s hurried visit to New Delhi, even as his maiden budget was still being debated in parliament, was indicative of Sri Lanka’s anxiety to seek India’s economic and financial assistance, without depending solely on Beijing.

That visit led to the two countries agreeing on ‘four pillars’ of cooperation in the short term, including emergency support of a US$1 billion line of credit for importing food and medicines and a currency swap to bolster Colombo’s dwindling foreign reserves.

Other assistance included investment in an oil tank farm for oil storage in northeastern Trincomalee, close to the vital natural harbour that served the British well during the Second World War.

Benefiting from power tussle

An Indian company, the Adani Group, has already won a stake in the Colombo port, where it will engage in developing the western terminal while the Chinese build the eastern wing.

Meanwhile, Colombo is having talks with China for a new loan besides the $500 million loan and a $1.5 billion currency swap.

While the two major Indian Ocean powers tussle for supremacy in this vital maritime region, Sri Lanka is beginning to understand that it sometimes pays to dip one’s oars in troubled waters.

Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was, till recently, Sri Lanka’s deputy high commissioner in London

This piece has been sourced from Inter Press Service

Image: Sri Lankan Buddhist monks at the UN General Assembly session commemorating Vesak (courtesy, Sri Lanka’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations)

China struggles with socio-environmental standards in Latin America

Inter Press Service

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6 February 2022

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China struggles with socio-environmental standards in Latin America

Conflicts with indigenous people underline the need for Chinese corporations and banks to include socio-environmental safeguards in their projects in Latin America and the Caribbean.

By Emilio Godoy / Inter Press Service

In southeast Mexico, work on the Yucatan Solar Park, owned by the Chinese company Jinko Solar, has been halted since 2020 for lack of proper consultation with indigenous communities, after affected local residents filed an injunction against the project.

In February 2019, residents of several Mayan indigenous villages in the municipalities of Cuncunul and Valladolid, in the state of Yucatan, demanded a halt to work on the park, run by Jinko Solar Investment Pte Ltd. Months later, a court ordered the suspension of the 71.5 million dollar project.

The conflict illustrates the need for Chinese corporations and banks to include socio-environmental safeguards in the financing, design, construction and operation of works in Latin America and the Caribbean, where there are at least 983 conflicts over mining, energy, transportation and communications projects, including those financed by Chinese firms.

Paulina Garzón from Ecuador, director of the non-governmental Latinoamerica Sustentable (LAS), said that although standards exist in China, they have not been internalised by the institutions.

“China has not included the economic cost in its developmentalist and extractivist vision, a cost that is paid in the long term by the affected populations and by the debtor countries. But these costs are not taken into account when the viability of granting the loan is assessed,” the head of LAS’ China-Latin America Sustainable Investments Initiative (CLASII), told IPS.

CLASII is about to publish research on the application of the environmental guidelines of the China Development Bank (CDB). These guidelines, established in 2004, are secret and there is no channel for denouncing the negative impacts of projects.

Pending impact assessments

The organisation found eight Chinese guidelines for companies and investors, nine for financial institutions and seven sectoral guidelines for infrastructure, mining and forestry. The Chinese government will soon publish new regulations for the ministries of trade and environment on outbound investment.

In Argentina, the hydroelectric power plants under construction, named “Presidente Néstor Kirchner” and “Gobernador Jorge Cepernic”, with a combined capacity of 1,310 megawatts on the Santa Cruz River in Patagonia, in the south of the country, represent another emblematic case of the vicissitudes of projects that have Chinese financing.

In 2016 the Argentine Supreme Court halted work on the project, financed by the CDB and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), until a public hearing and a new environmental impact assessment were conducted. The project was thus suspended for two years.

In a 2016 letter, the BDC Corporation reminded the Argentine Ministry of Finance and Treasury of several force majeure clauses for approving the power plants and their dams, such as the necessary approval by the lender of any contractual modifications.

The parties signed the US$4.7 billion financing agreement in 2014 and linked it to a similar one in 2012 for a US$2.1 billion upgrading of the Belgrano Cargas railway, which runs across northern Argentina.

“We wish to insist that the ongoing and successful implementation of the project is not only mutually beneficial and a bilateral win-win, but will also lay the foundation for deeper future economic cooperation,” the 2016 letter states, while warning of the risk of cross-default, should Argentina default on the 2014 agreement for the dams.

Gradual adherence to multilateral guidelines

Although several Chinese financial institutions have signed up to various voluntary socio-environmental guidelines, in practice none of the ones with a significant presence in infrastructure projects in Latin America have adhered, with the exception of ICBC, the largest of its kind in China and with operations in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Panama and Peru.

Three Chinese institutions have adhered to the United Nations principles for responsible investment, a set of six socio-environmental safeguards.

Nine Chinese banks signed the principles of responsible banking, with six other standards on environmental impact, sustainability, participation and transparency.

In addition, seven Chinese banks adopted the equator principles, a framework for defining, assessing and managing the socio-environmental risks of projects.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), founded in 2015 to finance the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), has only validated one project in Latin America.

Although several Chinese banks, such as the BDC and ICBC, signed the “Green Investment Principles” (GIP) in 2019 to assess the potential social and environmental effects of BRI investments, there is still no evidence of their application by this initiative that emerged to promote a maritime and rail network from the Asian powerhouse to the western end of Europe and to Latin America.

For Enrique Dussel, director of the Centre for China-Mexico Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the debate on safeguards is a novel one in the Asian giant.

“Historically, Chinese companies have shown great political pragmatism, the banks are interested in doing business and it did not matter if it was in activities that could be questioned from an environmental standpoint. The question was to mark a presence and participate in the Latin American market. Chinese pragmatism in these aspects practically leaves the responsibility up to the counterpart,” Dussel told IPS.

A magnet

The region attracted 138 Chinese infrastructure projects worth 94.09 billion dollars for the 2005-2020 period, according to the “Monitor of Chinese Infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean 2021“, drawn up by the Latin American and Caribbean Academic Network on China.

South America has been the biggest pole of attraction for Chinese investment, as Ecuador obtained 11 of the 40 infrastructure projects during the 2010-2014 period, while from 2015 to 2020 Argentina and Brazil accounted for 23 and 11 of the 92 projects in the region, respectively.

Chile, Colombia and Mexico carried out infrastructure projects with Chinese companies and financing for the first time in the 2015-2020 period.

Energy, transportation, communications and telecommunications are among the main areas of Chinese involvement in the region. The incursion of the Asian giant has been based on public and some private companies, backed by funds from Chinese banks.

To shore up its foothold in Latin America, Beijing has created instruments into which it has injected multimillion-dollar funds, such as the Special Loan Programme for China-Latin America Infrastructure Project and the China-LAC Industrial Cooperation Investment Fund and bilateral cooperation funds.

Social license or a serious practice?

That strategy is linked to the BRI, which several Latin American countries have joined, in an attempt to draw investment, and which is helping China fill the void left by the United States since 2016.

In December 2020, a group of international advisors to the BRI suggested that China adopt stricter environmental controls for its foreign investments.

According to this scheme, projects that could cause significant and irreversible environmental damage would be marked red, works of moderate and mitigable impact would be marked yellow, and projects without significant negative effects would be marked green.

Garzón and Dussel said there have been some changes.

“It is a process that we are going to see gradually. The institutions recognise the need to improve things and have taken a step to improve environmental behaviour. The worrying thing is if this at some point becomes just a slogan that aims to improve the ability to approve projects and obtain a social license, rather than a serious practice,” said the head of CLASII.

Dussel noted, for his part, that “the AIIB is explicitly seeking to integrate environmental issues. There are many initiatives in this regard in China itself, to evaluate projects, attempting to compare the criteria for evaluation and implementation of Chinese infrastructure versus Western ones, specifically the World Bank’s. There is clearly a learning process.”

As the Chinese Infrastructure Monitor anticipates, infrastructure initiatives in the region will grow, with their attendant social and environmental fallout.

This piece has been sourced from Inter Press Service

Image – courtesy of Government of Argentina: Projection of hydroelectric power plants financed by Chinese institutions in southern Patagonia, Argentina

Increased investment critical to end female genital mutilation as COVID-19 rages on

Inter Press Service

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6 February 2022

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Increased investment critical to end female genital mutilation as COVID-19 rages on

In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly designated 6 February as the international day of zero tolerance for female genital mutilation, with the aim of amplifying and directing the efforts on the elimination of this practice.

By Natalia Kanem and Catherine Russell

Multiple overlapping crises are putting millions of girls at increased risk of female genital mutilation. Countries already grappling with rising poverty, inequality and conflict are seeing the COVID-19 pandemic further threaten years of progress to end the practice, creating a crisis within a crisis for the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized girls.

Even before COVID-19, 68 million girls were estimated to be at risk of female genital mutilation between 2015 and 2030. As the pandemic continues to shutter schools and disrupt programmes that help protect girls from this harmful practice, an additional two million additional cases of female genital mutilation may occur over the next decade.

Rapid population growth in some countries is expected to further increase the number of girls at risk, adding urgency to the global effort to eliminate the practice by 2030 as set out in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Female genital mutilation harms girls’ bodies, lives and futures. It is also a violation of their human rights. Only united, concerted and well-funded action can end the practice everywhere.

As the global community adopts programmes to reach girls and women impacted by the pandemic, there is an urgent need to accelerate investment to end female genital mutilation. Some $2.4 billion are needed to eliminate this practice in 31 high-priority countries. Specifically:

1. Investment in the empowerment of girls and women, and in adequate services and response for those affected and at risk of female genital mutilation
2. Investment in building partnerships and mobilizing allies – including men and boys, women’s groups, community leaders and even former practitioners of female genital mutilation – to help eliminate the practice.
3. Investment in developing and enforcing national-level laws and strengthening institutions.

So far, progress has been clear and measurable. Today, girls are one third less likely to be subjected to female genital mutilation than 30 years ago, and in the last two decades, the proportion of girls and women in high-prevalence countries who oppose the practice has doubled.

Those gains now face an unprecedented challenge. Global efforts must keep the momentum moving forward and build on years of progress to end this harmful practice completely.”

Dr. Natalia Kanem is UNFPA Executive Director and Catherine Russell is UNICEF Executive Director.

This piece has been sourced from the Inter Press Service

Everest’s South Col glacier is thinning 80-times faster, says new study

OWSA Contributor

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5 February 2022

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Everest’s South Col glacier is thinning 80-times faster, says new study

Mount Everest is very much part of the earth we live in and is not spared by climate change. But a new study unveiled today says that a glacier on the world’s highest peak is melting far too fast.

Climate change is not sparing Mount Everest either. A study unveiled by researchers at the University of Maine has found that the highest glacier on the world’s tallest peak is melting at a rapid pace.

Researchers say that the South Col glacier has lost more than 180 feet (54 metres) of thickness over the past 25 years due to climate change and wind that have weathered its surface, melting the glacier.

The South Col is a sharp-edged col between Mount Everest and Lhotse, the highest and fourth-highest mountains in the world, respectively. It is situated around 7,906 metres (25,938 feet) above sea level and is relatively flat.

The researchers who undertook the study say that the glacier is thinning 80-times faster than the time it initially took the ice to form on the surface.

The 80-times rate of decline has been attributed to climate change – more precisely to warmer temperatures than what existed earlier atop Everest peak together with strong winds. This has led to the ice vanish. The researchers point out that the quantity of ice that has turned into water since the 1990s would, under normal circumstances, take around 2,000 years to melt.

The research involved a team of 10 scientists to visit the glacier and install two weather monitoring stations. They also extracted samples from a 10-meter-long (around 32 feet) ice core.

This showed that the glacier’s thick snowpack too has been eroded, exposing the underlying ice to the sun, they say. This has, in turn, accelerated the melting process.

Global scale implications

Expedition leader Paul Mayewski told the BBC that the study findings add a “high elevation understanding that has not previously been available and that drives home the remarkable sensitivity earth systems have to even relatively small change.”

According to Mayewski, the rapid melting could have a wide variety of “significant regional to global scale implications”.

The Himalayas are a source of water for all of Nepal and Bhutan and large parts of India and Bangladesh, besides Afghanistan and Pakistan. So, the scientists feel that the melting of glaciers can be ominous on life in the SouthAsia region.

The findings suggest that the “South Col Glacier may be on the way out – it may already be a ‘relic’ from an older, colder, time,” says another author of the study, Mariusz Potocki.

Study co-author and climate scientist from London’s Kings College, Tom Matthews was quoted by the BBC as saying that there had been no single change in the region’s climate to cause the surge in melting.

“Instead, the steady uptick in temperatures eventually pushes the glacier across a threshold, and suddenly everything changes,” he told the broadcaster.

While glacier melt has been widely studied, this study on the impact of climate change on a glacier on the world’s highest peak is a new revelation.

Image: Hippopx images licensed to use under Creative Commons Zero – CC0

Budget 2022: Optimism of policy makers may be misplaced

Policy Circle

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5 February 2022

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Budget 2022: Optimism of policy makers may be misplaced

Those drawing confidence from the mountain of reserves should know well that the central banks would not dare to run down the reserves even when capital outflows occur, lest a speculative attack against the currency sets in.

By Krishnakumar S

There is an overwhelming sense of optimism in the Economic Survey 2021-22, released a day before Budget 2022, surprisingly at a time when various international agencies have been airing words of caution. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Narendra Modi government’s tenth budget amid three risk factors — the steep rise in crude prices in the international market to $90 per barrel, the imminent risk arising from the reversal of bond purchases by the central banks of advanced economies, and the totally unpredictable trajectory of COVID-19.

The Economic Survey tries to downplay these risks that threaten the economy and Budget 2022 takes off from there. Rather than taking cognizance of these immediate challenges that hold true for most of the world, the Survey has portrayed a rosy picture of the economy, providing a false sense of security by citing the rising stock of foreign exchange reserves, a large increase in GST collection and the ability of the economy to attract capital from everywhere, which pushed the BSE Sensex to an all-time high.

In fact, the sense of optimism which emanates from these is hugely problematic. Forget about economists that are critical of the government; even the mandarins in policy circles from the Bretton Woods institutions, various central banks and the Reserve Bank of India have cautioned against these factors.

India Inc.’s foreign debt exposure

India is not alone in being inundated with capital inflows. Ever since the unprecedented expansion of the central bank balance sheets in early 2020, there has been a flight of capital in search of yield. Emerging market economies like India and China have been able to attract large amounts of external capital. A number of Indian companies have issued unprecedented amounts of international debt securities. Recently, RIL had successfully mobilised US$4 billion abroad at very competitive rates. In fact, there has been a large mobilisation of funds through the issuance of green bonds by a number of Indian corporates.

Even edtech start-ups like Byju’s have mobilised funds for making acquisitions abroad. There has been unusual froth in the private equity market with start-ups getting hefty valuations. Inflows from foreign institutional investors coupled with the rise in the number of retail investors in India, evident from the steep increase in the number of demat accounts, have pushed the Sensex to record highs in 2021.

The bull run has been triggered by the abysmally low rates of interest in the global economy. To expect that these days of favourable capital flows would continue unabated irrespective of the decisions made by the Federal Reserve and the ECB would be wishful thinking. It is wishing away the volatile nature of such flows.

The entire emerging market universe, that has transformed itself into a casino for carry traders is awaiting the decisions of advanced country bankers. But compared with the rising tide of global liquidity between 2003 and 2008 that witnessed steep increase in investment ratios within the country, the economy is edging only to the investment ratios witnessed seven years back.

Budget 2022 optimism and market surge

The soaring market and the rise in other asset prices have resulted in a wealth effect of sorts, pushing consumption by the highest deciles of the Indian population. This has resulted in a steep rise in GST collections. Even when the picture on the employment front continues to be grim, this rise in tax collections has been conveniently misread by the government and its advisors to be real signs of recovery. The mandarins at the finance ministry, who were waiting for an excuse, have been quick to reduce the allocation for MGNREGA to Rs 73,000 crore. Making the government even more excited is the rise in tax collections on account of global crude prices.

It is sad to see how the government looks at the pandemic as if the danger is over. Even as the whole of Europe is reinventing its public health delivery systems through funds mobilised through corona bonds to make them robust enough to withstand any future shock, we are busy trying to revert all action on the health front. The gaps in public health infrastructure became evident in India like never before. Restoring public institutions and enhancing accessibility should be an immediate priority.

The confidence from the rising stock of foreign exchange reserves which at present is over $600 billion could prove to be misplaced. Since 2000, there has been a deficit on our current account but for three or four years. A large part of the forex reserves is from the inflows on the financial account. Most importantly, the external borrowings which have a residual maturity of less than one year account for 40 per cent of our reserves. Those drawing confidence from the mountain of reserves should know well that the central banks would not dare to run down the reserves even when capital outflows occur, lest a speculative attack against the currency sets in.

We should be prepared for the worst – that is what economic policymaking is all about. In the eventuality of a reversal of the current trajectory of capital flows resulting in a depreciation of the rupee, the exchange risks would push the corporates to another round of deleveraging. This would be too large a cost for the country to bear. It would be appropriate if a stress test is done on the corporate balance sheets to reassure that they have hedged against such risks, else it will be like 2013 all over again.

Dr Krishnakumar S teaches economics at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi.

This piece has been sourced from Policy Circle — policycircle.org

Nepal investing in health care but equality of access lags

Inter Press Service

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5 February 2022

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Nepal investing in health care but equality of access lags

High quality health care is not universally accessible in Nepal, and is generally enjoyed by only a relatively small and elite portion of the population, and generally, access to health care in the country is unequal.

By Marty Logan / Inter Press Service

As the Omicron wave of COVID-19 rose ominously in Nepal recently, to entice more people to get tested the government reduced the cost of PCR tests from Nepali Rs 1,000 ($8.37) to 800 ($6.70) in government facilities and about double that in private ones.

“People with limited incomes can’t afford to get the test, and imagine if four members of a family have symptoms, the PCR tests alone will make a hole in their income,” Baburam Marasini, former director of Nepal’s epidemiology and disease control division, told the Kathmandu Post.

Income per capita in Nepal in 2020 was $1,190, according to the world bank.

Noting that free treatment of conditions like tuberculosis, malnutrition and malaria had saved many lives in the country, Marasini argued that “the government should make PCR tests free across the country for those who have symptoms.”

While the government has not taken that step, in recent years it has provided free treatment for a growing number of chronic conditions to members of groups in need, such as the elderly, young children and the poorest in society. Yet equality in health care remains a paper promise.

In a briefing paper on the right to health in Nepal during COVID-19, the international commission of journalists argued that the government must “ensure that health services, facilities and goods are available to all without discrimination” and “ensure access to at very least the ‘minimum essential level’ of health services, facilities, and goods.”

Elites

Originally released in November 2020 and updated in September 2021, the ICJ paper notes that a plan was made to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to members of vulnerable groups first, but “According to various media reports, for example, some of the vaccines allocated for older persons were instead used to inoculate political party leaders, local level representatives, army personnel, their family and friends, administrators, businessmen’s families and their relatives.”

The Constitution of Nepal guarantees “the right to health care,” and its third provision states: “Each person shall have equal access to health care. ” The constitution’s directive principles, policies and obligations of the State also require that Nepal “keep on enhancing investment necessary in the public health sector by the State in order to make the citizens healthy” and “ensure easy, convenient and equal access of all to quality health services.”

Yet as ICJ points out, research done prior to COVID-19 found that “high quality health care was not universally accessible in Nepal, but was generally enjoyed by only a relatively small and elite portion of the population, and generally, access to health care in the country is unequal and the health system faces perennial shortages of resources, essential drugs and necessary medical infrastructure.”

Senior cardiologist Dr Prakash Raj Regmi says he sees the impact of inequality in health care daily. “In the process of investigation, in the process of treatment, even middle-class people face some difficulty.”

Regmi notes that most of his patients are burdened by multiple non-communicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and kidney and heart issues, whose diagnosis requires extensive testing. Afterwards, these patients often need multiple treatments. “Patients need to undergo several investigations: laboratory tests, x-rays, ultrasound, echo-cardiography. People may need coronary angiography or a CT scan or MRI — all these investigations are expensive.”

Need to invest in prevention

While the quality of available drugs is improving, they are also getting more expensive, so some patients discontinue their use prematurely, says Dr Regmi. “For example, a patient is given a follow-up time of three months, but they come only after six months. in that time they have stopped using two out of four drugs, so they develop complications.”

While he can provide financial support, both at his private clinic and at the non-profit community clinic where he serves, Regmi isn’t sure how many other doctors do the same. “I call myself a social worker… in my private clinic also, people who come for treatment, if they can’t afford their tests and treatment I find some way out; I support those patients.”

Despite the need for these informal mechanisms, Dr Regmi says that fewer patients require financial support today than in previous years, and that those who can afford it usually opt to visit less crowded private facilities.

Various developments have helped improve services in the government system: a new national health insurance scheme, devolution of some health care responsibilities to provinces and municipalities following Nepal’s transition to federalism in 2017, and free treatment of some chronic illnesses for the poorest of the poor, children and the elderly.

“A huge amount of money is being invested in this… This is very good for patients who cannot afford treatment: most of the patients are poor and these NCDs require lifelong treatment.” But the doctor says one thing is missing: “The government should focus on prevention in parallel with providing treatment, but it is not investing in prevention,” he argues.

Minimal to zero progress

Inequality is also obvious in maternal health services. For example, Sindhupalchowk is a mostly rural district three hours’ drive from the capital Kathmandu. Despite it having 79 health facilities, families who can afford to do so travel to the capital to have their children delivered or to larger facilities in neighbouring districts. In fact, in 2020 more than 70 percent of pregnant women left Sindhupalchowk to have their babies outside the district.

About one-half of Nepal’s hospitals, including centres for specialised care, such as the national maternity centre, are located in the Kathmandu Valley.

A recent report analysing data from 2001 to 2016 found a growing “remarkable improvement” in maternal health progress nationally, in all wealth groups. But drilling down into the statistics revealed that the poorest of Nepal’s seven provinces “have made minimal to zero progress.”

“Special investment to address barriers to access and utilization in provinces that are lagging to make progress in reducing inequality is urgent. Further studies are needed to understand the strategies required to address the gaps in these provinces and bring about fair improvement,” added the study.

This piece has been sourced from Inter Press Service

Image: Marty Logan / Inter Press Service

Duty calls to alleviate suffering in Afghanistan

OWSA Contributor

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5 February 2022

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Duty calls to alleviate suffering in Afghanistan

Imagine for a minute that you are in those conditions; you need to put food on the table for your starving children, it is freezing cold, and you have no money because you lost your job or because there is no money to pay you. What would you do?

By Xavier Castellanos

A few years back I witnessed extreme humanitarian need across Afghanistan. One of Asia’s poorest countries, millions of people were living below the poverty line. It was heartbreaking to see first-hand the impacts of one the highest child mortality rates in the world. To witness one of the most disaster-prone countries on earth routinely enduring severe droughts, earthquakes and flash floods.

This year I returned to see that these humanitarian needs have intensified. One of the worst droughts in decades has crippled food production across the country, livestock has perished, and millions of families in rural and regional areas are going without adequate food on a daily basis.

Around 23 million people are experiencing high levels of acute food shortages – more than one in two Afghans. Among those most at risk are 3.2 million children under five suffering acute malnutrition.

International sanctions imposed on the country have deepened economic hardships being experienced by millions of families. Many have not been paid for months, essential services are not being delivered, and large parts of the healthcare system are on the brink of collapse. Public hospitals, which treat the most vulnerable, lack fuel for heating, medicine, and basic medical supplies.

The crisis in Afghanistan has not transitioned since my previous visit, rather it has grown: the country’s most marginalised – the mentally ill, widows, orphans – are in desperate need of support. I have seen how poverty has deepened in these latest humanitarian crises. Yet the Afghan spirit remains strong.

COVID-19 is further compounding social and economic hardship, as heath systems struggle to cope and the risk of another wave of the virus looms large, while a bitter winter hits the most vulnerable communities harder than ever.

The Red Cross is doing its best to respond to these multiple crises, supporting people in the hardest to reach areas, hand in hand with the Afghanistan Red Crescent Society. It is overwhelming but it does not need to be this way.

Imagine for a minute that you are in those conditions; you need to put food on the table for your starving children, it is freezing cold, and you have no money because you lost your job or because there is no money to pay you. What would you do?

I am sure you would start selling any possessions of value on the market or trading them for food. To warm your already poorly maintained house, that is leaking and damp, you would most probably start burning whatever was available, to bring some comfort at home. Some of those materials might be highly polluted, affecting you and your family’s lungs and respiratory system, the symptoms only appearing in several years’ time. But the task is to survive today; that is what is happening in Afghanistan.

Imagine all the stress that this creates on individuals that live every day in those conditions. All the stress on humanitarians who want to do more but lack the funding to increase support. We, the humanitarian community are leaving behind millions of people. They are not just numbers, they are people with dreams, values, hope, and ambitions like you and me.

Is the International Federation of Red Cross doing the best it can? We have been in Afghanistan for 30 years, supporting the Afghanistan Red Crescent Society across the country, providing comprehensive relief, delivering essential medical care through mobile health clinics, and addressing the economic impacts of COVID-19 with income generation projects and community education.

Can we do more? Absolutely yes if financial conditions would allow us to do so. But it is essential that our work focuses on the most acute needs, placing local action at the core of everything we do. It’s critical that there is more investment in supporting livelihoods initiatives to reactivate the local economy, providing solutions for farming families to produce food, improving access to safe and reliable drinking water, and reinforcing health and sanitation services.

Amid the immense hardships felt by so many Afghans, it is crucial that the most vulnerable have dignity and hope and find ways to alleviate miserable living conditions. Alleviating poverty is an imperative. Reinforcing and increasing mobile health clinics and comprehensive services is critically important for women and children and everyone across Afghanistan.

We must invest heavily in supporting the people of Afghanistan to have positive coping mechanisms to help meet these immense challenges. We must applaud the passion, commitment and action of thousands of aid workers and volunteers in Afghanistan, both men and women, who work from dawn to dusk to support their local communities.

The world must not stand by and allow the humanitarian crises to deepen in Afghanistan. We need to promote a spirit of global empathy recognising the immense human suffering and we must be there with humanity when it is needed most.

Xavier Castellanos is Under Secretary General, National Society Development and Operations Coordination, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Image: Hippopx, license to use under Creative Commons Zero – CC0

Making RNA vaccines easier to swallow

OWSA Contributor

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4 February 2022

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A pill that releases RNA in the stomach could offer a new way to administer vaccines, or to deliver therapies for gastrointestinal disease.

Anne Trafton / MIT News Office

Like most vaccines, RNA vaccines have to be injected, which can be an obstacle for people who fear needles. Now, a team of MIT researchers has developed a way to deliver RNA in a capsule that can be swallowed, which they hope could help make people more receptive to them.

In addition to making vaccines easier to tolerate, this approach could also be used to deliver other kinds of therapeutic RNA or DNA directly to the digestive tract, which could make it easier to treat gastrointestinal disorders such as ulcers.

“Nucleic acids, in particular RNA, can be extremely sensitive to degradation particularly in the digestive tract. Overcoming this challenge opens up multiple approaches to therapy, including potential vaccination through the oral route,” says Giovanni Traverso, the Karl van Tassel Career Development Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

In a new study, Traverso and his colleagues showed that they could use the capsule they developed to deliver up to 150 micrograms of RNA — more than the amount used in mRNA Covid vaccines — in the stomach of pigs.

Oral drug delivery

For several years, Langer’s and Traverso’s labs have been developing novel ways to deliver drugs to the gastrointestinal tract. In 2019, the researchers designed a capsule that, after being swallowed, can place solid drugs, such as insulin, into the lining of the stomach.

The pill, about the size of a blueberry, has a high, steep dome inspired by the leopard tortoise. Just as the tortoise is able to right itself if it rolls onto its back, the capsule is able to orient itself so that its contents can be injected into the lining of the stomach.

In 2021, the researchers showed that they could use the capsule to deliver large molecules such as monoclonal antibodies in liquid form. Next, the researchers decided to try to use the capsule to deliver nucleic acids, which are also large molecules.

Nucleic acids are susceptible to degradation when they enter the body, so they need to be carried by protective particles. To test the particles, the researchers first injected them into the stomachs of mice, without using the delivery capsule. The RNA that they delivered codes for a reporter protein that can be detected in tissue if cells successfully take up the RNA. The researchers found the reporter protein in the stomachs of the mice and also in the liver, suggesting that RNA had been taken up in other organs of the body and then carried to the liver, which filters the blood.

Next, the researchers freeze-dried the RNA-nanoparticle complexes and packaged them into their drug delivery capsules. Working with scientists at Novo Nordisk, they were able to load about 50 micrograms of mRNA per capsule, and delivered three capsules into the stomachs of pigs, for a total of 150 micrograms of mRNA. This is the more than the amount of mRNA in the Covid vaccines now in use, which have 30 to 100 micrograms of mRNA.

In the pig studies, the researchers found that the reporter protein was successfully produced by cells of the stomach, but they did not see it elsewhere in the body. In future work, they hope to increase RNA uptake in other organs by changing the composition of the nanoparticles or giving larger doses. However, it may also be possible to generate a strong immune response with delivery only to the stomach, Abramson says.

“There are many immune cells in the gastrointestinal tract, and stimulating the immune system of the gastrointestinal tract is a known way of creating an immune response,” he says.

Immune activation

The researchers now plan to investigate whether they can create a systemic immune response, including activation of B and T cells, by delivering mRNA vaccines using their capsule. This approach could also be used to create targeted treatments for gastrointestinal diseases, which can be difficult to treat using traditional injection under the skin.

“When you have systemic delivery through intravenous injection or subcutaneous injection, it’s not very easy to target the stomach,” Abramson says. “We see this as a potential way to treat different diseases that are present in the gastrointestinal tract.”

Novo Nordisk, which partially funded the research, has licensed the drug-delivery capsule technology and hopes to test it in clinical trials. The research was also funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships Program, a PhRMA Foundation postdoctoral fellowship, the Division of Gastroenterology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Reprinted with permission of MIT News (http://news.mit.edu/)” in the footer

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