India Last Week #15
India Last Week #15
A round-up of research & reportage on India across climate, energy, foreign policy, politics & more over the last week
Climate, Energy & Environment -
“India’s Ministry of the Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) recently launched a Green Credit Programme (GCP), originally drafted in June 2023 and formally unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at COP28 in Dubai in December 2023… The GCP establishes a new financial market wherein individuals can register the completion of these climate-friendly activities to earn tradable credits that offer financial rewards, with a fixed value for each designated activity. The program’s objectives are to improve sustainable habits, move toward a greener India, and avoid some of the issues traditionally associated with voluntary offset markets.” Read more: Caroline Mallory, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
“Water divining, or “dowsing,” is a traditional practice largely regarded as pseudoscience by geologists and hydrologists… However, for many living in areas with hard rock, water divining is believed to be the only reliable method to locate groundwater… The history and origins of water divining in India remain largely obscure. Science historian Kapil Subramanian found through archival research that water divining had been in practice in the country since at least the mid-20th century.” Read more: Simrin Sirur, Mongabay
“While heat is often thought of as an indiscriminate killer, not everyone is impacted by heat equally. Women bear a disproportionate burden of heat’s physical, social, and financial effects as temperatures rise… Heat often creates a “double burden” for women as they are not only more physically susceptible to its effects but also tend to be expected to care for other heat-vulnerable household members, including children and the elderly. A report by HomeNet South Asia, a regional network of home-based workers, found that 43 percent of women surveyed reported an increase in caregiving due to extreme heat.” Read more: Ella Jisun Kim, World Bank Blogs
“India’s reliance on imported crude oil to meet its domestic consumption needs climbed to over 88 per cent in the first four months of the current financial year due to rising demand for fuel and other petroleum products amid flagging domestic oil production… Heavy dependence on imported crude oil makes the Indian economy vulnerable to global oil price volatility, apart from having a bearing on the country’s trade deficit, foreign exchange reserves, rupee’s exchange rate, and inflation… In early 2015, the government had set a target to reduce reliance on oil imports to 67 per cent by 2022 from 77 per cent in 2013-14, but the dependency has only grown since.” Read more: Sukalp Sharma, Indian Express
Economy -
“In the class of emerging markets, India is unusual in that it has near zero overseas borrowing from commercial sources… One main finding of this paper is that the bulk of lending to the government comes from financial firms who are forced to lend to the government. The true voluntary lenders – private firms, mutual funds and FIIs – make up about 5.1% of the lending to government. The institutional journey to engagement with voluntary lenders has, then, largely not commenced.” Read more: Aneesha Chitgupi, Ajay Shah, Manish K. Singh, Susan Thomas, and Harsh Vardhan, XKDR
“Cycling to school improves access to education for children, provides them physical activity benefits, and gives them independence in mobility. There is a poor understanding of the levels of cycling to school, who cycles, and how these behaviours have changed over time in India… We also gathered information on bicycle distribution schemes (BDS) implemented in multiple Indian states, under which school-going children are provided free bicycles by the government, and tested the impact of such schemes on cycling levels. Nationally, cycling to school levels increased from 6.6% to 11.2% over the decade (2007 to 2017). These levels nearly doubled in rural India (6.3% to 12.3%) while remaining stable (7.8% to 8.3%) in urban areas.” Read more: Srishti Agrawal, Adit Seth, and Rahul Goel, Journal of Transport Geography
“In a recent paper (Dasgupta et al. 2024), my co-authors and I make use of the variation in the paved roads in India arising from the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) to study how road access impacts fertility decisions and investments in child health…. We find that the provision of paved roads enhances households’ access to healthcare facilities, increases immunisation rates among children, and reduces infant mortality. Importantly, we find that fertility falls in response to the improvements in road connectivity, which is consistent with previous studies (Kalemli-Ozcan 2003, Ranganathan et al. 2015). What is interesting is that fertility falls despite the decline in female employment following road construction, while male employment increases.” Read more: Aparajita Dasgupta, VoxEU
“The Union Budget 2024-25 reiterated the government’s commitment towards fiscal prudence by budgeting a reduction in the gross fiscal deficit (GFD) to 4.9 per cent of GDP in 2024-25, in line with the medium-term target of GFD below 4.5 per cent of GDP by 2025-26… Gross tax revenues in 2023-24 (PA) exceeded the budget estimates by ₹1.04 lakh crore. Net tax revenues in 2023-24 (PA) were, however, marginally below the budgeted amount attributable to higher tax devolution to the States.” Read more: Aayushi Khandelwal et al., Reserve Bank of India
Foreign Policy & Security -
“Our greatest strategic challenge is China. Not just the boundary dispute—the largest in the world covering 138,000 sq. km—or China’s presence in the subcontinent and IOR, but also the fact that China now sees us, along with the US, as an impediment to her rise and dominance in Asia… Today, India and China are in a military and political impasse with over 100,000 troops strung out along that line. Worse, there is no sign of the kind of political process between India and China that is required to address this situation, since this cannot be solved or managed purely by the military. Both countries are led by leaders who base their legitimacy on an appeal to nationalism and their strong-man image, so the compromise, give and take, and bargaining that is the staple of diplomacy seems difficult or absent.” Read more: Shivshankar Menon, Centre for Social and Economic Progress
“A grainy picture of an ostensibly ‘Made in India’ bomb part in Gaza created a social media maelstrom in June, amid growing concern about India’s arms exports exacerbating the suffering of Palestinian civilians… This is not the first time India’s nascent, yet growing, arms export industry has been linked with harm to civilians. In 2023, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar noted that India’s arms exports to the country amounted to at least $51 million, that some of these may have been lethally used against civilians, resulting in ‘probable war crimes’, and likely in breach of India’s obligations under the Wassenaar Agreement — a self-regulating, non-binding framework among 42 arms-exporting countries.” Read more: Sarah Khan, Deccan Herald
“According to the World Bank, the cost of reconstruction in Ukraine is close to $500 billion. A significant portion of this funding will need to come from the G7, the European Union and multilateral organizations. However, to make this project truly international, important players like India need to be involved. So far, India has mainly occupied itself in humanitarian assistance activities in Ukraine. According to official sources, India has provided 16 consignments of humanitarian aid.29 The inventory in these consignments largely comprises various medical equipment, essential medicines, tents, blankets, food items, etc. Some of the key beneficiaries include Sumy Oblast Clinical Hospital, Krolevets City Council Hospital and Lyiv Regional State Administration.” Read more: Gulshan Sachdeva, Freidrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom
“With Bangladesh, the shock of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s dramatic departure and her arrival in India is all the more palpable, because of how heavily New Delhi invested in the Hasina government. It has now been left scrambling to reach out to her successors… Perhaps the first big lesson is that the government cannot be caught napping by events in its own neighbourhood. India’s presence in Bangladesh, with four consulates in Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna and Sylhet, apart from the High Commission in Dhaka and a slew of agencies working on various projects there, should have ensured that the groundswell of anger against the Hasina government was well documented and relayed to Delhi… The government must learn, sooner rather than later, is that it is a mistake to reduce ties in the neighbourhood to communal binaries… The assumption that good ties are somehow linked to religion in any way, is faulty. Hindu-majority Nepal has been one of India’s most difficult relationships, while Buddhist-majority Bhutan and Muslim-majority Maldives have often been its best allies.” Read more: Suhasini Haidar, The Hindu
“The Commission of Inquiry set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs to inquire into the Manipur violence has been provided with an audio file – claimed to be a recording of chief minister N. Biren Singh – which, if correct, would be evidence of official complicity in the ongoing civil war that has been raging in the state since May 3, 2023…. The official death toll as of May 2024 is 226 with another 39 missing while around 60,000 people belonging to both the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities are still displaced and unable to return to their homes. Despite official assurances, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s governments, both in the state and in Delhi, have failed to end the bloodshed. More importantly, they have done little to bridge the gulf between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities.” Read more: Sangeeta Pisharoty, The Wire
People & Politics -
“A section of caste Hindus demolished a Kaliamman temple near Gemmankuppam village in KV Kuppam taluk last week, after Dalits of the village defied their decision to disallow people from Scheduled Caste (SC) communities from participating in the temple’s Aadi month festivities. After a delay of more than a week, based on the Dalits’ complaint, KV Kuppam police have registered a case under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against one person from a caste Hindu community.” Read more: Rajalakshmi Sampath, The New Indian Express
“Shivraj Singh Chouhan shone in his new role as Union Agriculture Minister. In a Cabinet packed with former chief ministers who needed rehabilitation—Manohar Lal Khattar, Jitan Ram Manjhi, HD Kumaraswamy, Sarbananda Sonowal—the former Madhya Pradesh CM, Chouhan, was in a different league… The NDA constituents remained mere curious onlookers whenever BJP MPs got into heated exchanges with the INDIA bloc. While the INDIA bloc reacted in unison, the BJP was left to fight its own battles. The allies’ message to the BJP was: “You mind your own business, we will handle ours.” By the end of the monsoon session—just two months into Modi 3.0—durability of the Fevicol bond in the NDA, as put by Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde, appeared to be subject to future weather conditions.” Read more: D. K. Singh, The Print
“In 2015, the Government of India launched Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP), a flagship gender-based awareness campaign program, to promote girls’ survival and education in India… We examine the impact of the BBBP program on girls’ educational and learning outcomes. Using data from multiple large nationally representative surveys, we estimate the impact of the BBBP program by employing difference-in-differences framework. We do not find any statistically significant impact of the program on girls’ enrollment, their grade completion, and girl-specific educational expenditure. Our empirical results also suggest limited impact of the BBBP program on girls’ learning outcomes. These results are robust to alternative empirical specifications.” Read more: Jyoti Mukhopadhyay, Sona Mitra, Sayli Javadekar & Narbadeshwar Mishra, The Journal of Development Studies
“Under Modi’s leadership, experts have also been systematically replaced with appointed loyalists by dismantling or co-opting advisory committees, universities and established research institutions… In April, Modi made a speech at an election rally in Banswara, Rajasthan, where he claimed the opposition Congress party wanted to distribute peeople’s wealth to “infiltrators” who are claiming more benefits than they deserve. He was widely seen as referring to India’s Muslim minority. This stereotype of Muslims “stealing” from the welfare state was then reinforced by appointed experts from Modi’s Economic Advisory Council. The council published a questionable research paper in May arguing that Muslim birthrates are rising much faster than any other demographic.” Read more: Anuradha Sajjanhar, The Conversation
“Reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in educational institutions, public employment, and legislative bodies is constitutionally mandated. These two historically disadvantaged categories consist of a large number of subgroups of different ethnic origins, living in different spatialities and social relations… Census data show that different sub-groups continue to have uneven exposure to urbanisation. Across States, while some sub-groups are marked by a decent level of urbanisation, others are overwhelmingly rural-based. Differential urban exposure shows a high correlation with opportunities for life chances. Invariably, sub-groups with higher urbanisation demonstrate higher levels of educational attainment and lower level placement in precarious forms of employment.” Read more: Sanjeer Alam, The Hindu
Tech -
“Reimagining and re-energising the bureaucratic machine that sometimes sits in silos across New Delhi should be as much of a strategic priority as pumping further funds into strategic incentive schemes and signing new defence agreements. Speak to those who have been there and done it, “getting the bureaucracy right” is an old and tiring song that never stops playing in the background. That might be so. But it does not take away from the need for change… The Indian government could consider a new cadre of technology envoys. Many countries have these to good effect. We do not. Envoys need to coordinate. A Special Envoy, potentially in the MEA, could work alongside the NSCS in delivering results.” Read more: Rudra Chaudhuri, India Today
“In March 2022, Microsoft announced that it intended to build a data center on a 22-acre plot in the village. As of July this year, 70% of the construction of the building had been completed, according to the company. However, in July 2023, a group of 56 local residents filed a petition against Microsoft and 35 other companies and government bodies in Telangana’s High Court. The petitioners claim that Microsoft has illegally occupied land beyond the boundaries of its property and dumped industrial waste into a nearby lake. They blame the local industry for environmental contamination, which they say hurts residents’ cattle and livelihood, and want the government to compel Microsoft and other companies to stop the alleged encroachment.” Read more: Almaas Masood and Ananya Bhattacharya, RestofWorld
“Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday accused large e-commerce players, such as Amazon, of indulging in predatory pricing to grab a bigger share and violating FDI rules, while calling for a review of policies to ensure that small shops were not put out of business because of the rapid growth of online commerce. Goyal alleged that Amazon was passing off fund infusion to write off losses as investments into the country… Current FDI rules do not allow foreign-owned entities such as Amazon or Walmart controlled Flipkart to sell directly to consumers or hold inventory.” Read more: Times of India
“The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has put the draft Broadcasting Bill, 2023, on hold, Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw, indicated to reporters on Monday (August 19, 2024), saying there would be a wider consultation with creators and other stakeholders… The move to set the law aside comes as a significant development, following criticism from civil society on the potentially wide scope of the Bill, which would have added regulatory burdens to news content creators on sites like YouTube, while also increasing compliance requirements on streaming platforms, who already have to self-regulate in accordance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.” Read more: The Hindu
Watch/Listen -
Garibi Hatao? Poverty, Development and the State in India's Long 1970s: Lecture by Srinath Raghavan at Azim Premji University