AAPI: June 2020

DELHI, 20th JUNE 2020

Index of this Newsletter

INDIA

INDIA & THE WORLD

21. As India unlocks, here are six ways our lives have changed forever
22. Paradise lost: The exodus from Gulf
23. Move over G7, it's time for a new and improved G11
24. Amit Gupta of Yulu is riding the change
25.1. Learning from Lockdown
25.2. On the frontlines, the Indian dream factory is turning into a nightmare

* * *

DELHI, 20th JUNE 2020

NEWSLETTER, 20-VI-2020

INDIA

– GENERAL POLICY, INFRASTRUCTURES, COUNTRY FINANCES, ETC.

1.1. Opinion | Too much inequality tends to retard economic growth

Livemint, Jun 2020, Ajit Ranade

Income should be somewhat equitably distributed to ensure effective demand and spur investment

Inequality in society is like air pollution. Everyone is affected by it to a varying extent. It’s also an inevitable consequence of economic activity; i.e., people pursuing their dreams, some of them racing ahead, some falling behind. Inequality also arises and persists because of past factors that entrench disparity between social classes across generations. Kids from lower-income families do not have access to good-quality schools and can be trapped in low-paying jobs, or worse, fall into drug use and crime. The cycle can perpetuate. If inequality, measured by income, wealth, opportunity, or access to quality public services, is inevitable and much of it is inherited, should we worry about it? Depends on your perspective. If you are a diehard free market proponent who roots for small government, you may say let economic growth generate wealth, and let the rich do philanthropy to take care of the less fortunate. In this perspective, inequality is beyond the domain of economic policy, though it’s a moral issue. State interference only makes it worse, they say. The other perspective is of the “bleeding heart liberal", who will insist on a large role for government in taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. Their motivation is also morality and fairness, but unlike free marketeers, they see a solution only in coercive tax-and-spend policies.

There is a problem with both perspectives. Leaving the rich to freely decide on philanthropy is no guarantee that inequality will reduce. And insisting on government intervention through redistributive taxation might reduce growth itself, shrinking the available pie for transferring money to the poor. Is there a way a more scientific, reasoned approach to inequality?

Yes, there is. Thankfully, this debate has been informed by a rich body of literature from the field of political economy over at least six decades. A doyen of this field, Harvard economist Alberto Alesina passed away last month. His contribution through research, writing and mentorship of students has vastly improved our understanding of many aspects of political economy. In particular, his work sheds light on the interconnection between economic growth on one hand, and the health of democracy, political instability and inequality on the other. Based on his work, and that of several others, we can safely conclude that too much inequality hurts economic growth.

It works in several ways. It can cause social instability, leading to crime, and insecurity of private property, which could slow down investment and growth. Or it can cause the polity to get so divided that voting outcomes almost always deliver “left wing" high-tax policies, which reduce economic growth. If a vast majority of voters are poor, not themselves subject to a tax burden, they would vote for high government expenditure, which implies heavy taxation of the rich or high taxes on capital. This leads to lower investment and growth. For instance, in India we have only seven payers of direct taxes for every 100 voters. This ratio is among the most skewed in the world. Either our income tax system is too forgiving, or there are too many people below the minimum threshold. If, however, the underlying income distribution were less unequal, we might get electoral outcomes that favour growth and moderate levels of taxation and spending on redistribution.

Thus, inequality affects growth through political channels. Is this a possible explanation for India’s stagnant investment to gross domestic product ratio for the past four years? There is also a non-political channel of influence. If income distribution is highly concentrated, then it limits effective aggregate demand and investment in capacity creation. If rural purchasing power were too low, you would not see growth in sectors such as consumer goods and two-wheelers. Income should be somewhat equitably distributed to ensure effective demand and thus induce optimum growth. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India’s strengths were democracy, demography and demand, he meant “effective demand" that is armed with sufficient purchasing power, which is impossible if income inequality is too skewed.

So, just how much inequality is too much? When does it call for redistribution and/or higher public spending? This is usually a question that society answers through its collective choice mechanism of elections. But given the covid pandemic and economic crisis, it is clear that we need to address it as a top priority. The effort starts with the universal distribution of foodgrain, pulses, oil and even soap. It includes cash injections into households for a period of four to six months. It calls for clearing the pending dues of tens of millions of small businesses; access to future loans is not the same as getting paid for past services.

Paying for such a necessary stimulus would mean borrowing from current or future generations, which is what deficit financing is all about. Keynesian policies only talked about filling gaps of aggregate demand, not fixing an income distribution skew. But we must acknowledge that a better distribution today creates conditions for faster overall growth tomorrow. Which in turn will make today’s debt more affordable, because tomorrow’s pie will be much bigger. Inequality reduction can be through explicit transfers, or by increases in the level and quality of public goods and services. The key insight of Alesina et al is that inequality reduction is just as important for growth as measures like the ease of doing business.

Ajit Ranade is an economist and a senior fellow at The Takshashila Institution

1.2. Opinion | The unpleasant arithmetic behind India’s relief package

Livemint, 15 May 2020, Jahangir Aziz

A close look at India’s financial relief package raises questions over the true size of the stimulus and the potential effectiveness of the measures announced by the government

The apocalyptical drop in April’s Purchasing Managers’ Index and the staggering 16.5% drop in March industrial production when only one week was under lockdown should be ominous indicators of the unprecedented scale of economic damage India might face. Quarantine measures are being eased, but the lockdown in the “red zones", which account for a large part of India’s gross domestic product (GDP), could well be extended as the covid infection rate has shown no discernible sign of peaking.

Against such a portentous backdrop, it is easy to understand the clamour for policy support and the reason why the government announced this week a 10%-of-GDP relief package. Before one starts unpacking the details, it might be instructive to compare the size to what other countries have announced. And not to the US or Europe, but to India’s peers. For example, taking together central bank and government support, as has been bundled in India’s package, Brazil so far has announced support of 20% of GDP. Despite this much larger support, this year GDP in Brazil is expected to decline 7% and the fiscal deficit widen to 15% of GDP from 6% in 2019.

So, is the 10%-of-GDP support adequate? It depends on the depth of the collapse in growth and the pace of the recovery, which we will only know over time. However, what we do know from previous such crises is that the single-biggest factor that undermines a recovery is the damage to households’ and firms’ balance sheets. The larger the damage, the longer and slower the recovery. Thus, relief packages need to focus almost exclusively on ensuring that such damage is minimized. This means providing direct cash support now and not promises of support at some uncertain time in the future.

So, did the relief package do that? From what has been announced and what one can infer, the bulk of the support is in the form of liquidity already injected by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) into banks, and credit guarantees for bank lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This is somewhat ironic. Despite the cheap liquidity provided by RBI, banks have refused to take on the credit risk and lend to SMEs. Now the government has been pushed to provide credit guarantees to nudge the same banks to lend. Taking these, and similarly-aimed programmes, the total support amounts to 4.2-5.7% of GDP.

But several things have to fall in place if these schemes are to be effective. The cash injection, including a “special liquidity scheme" that would purchase non-bank financial companies’ debt, the expansion of the rural unemployment guarantee scheme, and direct cash transfers via Jan Dhan and Mudra accounts, etc., amount to just about 0.8-1% of GDP.

This is consistent with the earlier announcement that the Central government will borrow an additional 2% of GDP this year. If this is the line on the sand (of course, the government can change its mind later), then the potential revenue shortfall and cash relief measures (including those that might be announced later) must add up to 2% of GDP. Otherwise, planned spending will need to be reduced. Put differently, given the covid-related cash outlay of 1% of GDP, any revenue shortfall of more than 1% of GDP will require budgeted spending to be cut. If the shortfall is more than 2% of GDP, then even total spending will need to be cut. This is the unpleasant arithmetic of the relief package. To provide some context, in Brazil and South Africa, which had similar-sized deficits in 2019 (compared to India’s Central and state budgets taken together), the deficits for 2020 are expected to more than double to around 15% of GDP on just revenue shortfalls, with all relief spending offset by cuts elsewhere.

In the light of India’s limited fiscal space, one understands the need to minimize the cash outflow and push much of the relief package onto future liabilities and RBI liquidity provisions. But the latter has a far less chance of being effective than the former. Did it have to be this way? A simpler solution was to take the entire tax shortfall as a revenue loss and focus on income support as determined by the size of the economic shock. This support could have been provided via Jan Dhan and Mudra accounts to households and SMEs whose incomes do not fall under any tax bracket and through tax credits for 2019-20 obligations to those who do have tax liabilities. The income support would then need to be offset by cutting budgeted spending, including on infrastructure. Reasonable estimates suggest that the total public sector deficit would then rise by 4 percentage points, which could be financed by RBI bond purchases. In addition, and taking a leaf out of the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank playbooks, RBI could provide liquidity directly to corporates, instead of through banks supported by government guarantees, as proposed now.

Eyebrows are likely to be raised at such a proposal. But the need of the hour is income support, not more spending. And in India, as elsewhere, the central bank is now the only entity that has a strong enough balance sheet to provide that support. This is an unprecedented shock. It calls for unprecedented responses. The crisis has not been caused by bad economic policies, but a weak and ill-conceived policy response could worsen it.

Jahangir Aziz is chief emerging markets economist, J.P. Morgan. These are the author’s personal views

2.1. Adani wins world's largest solar project; to invest Rs 45,000 cr

IBEF, Jun. 10, 2020

Adani Green Energy won a major tender to set up 8 Gigawatt (GW) of manufacturing-linked solar energy projects with an investment of Rs 45,000 crore (US$ 6.38 billion).

Mr Gautam Adani, the chairman and founder of the Adani Group, said that the group is looking for potential equity and strategic partners for solar equipment manufacturing, where technology is changing at a fast pace. The group has a track record of being the only Indian business house with a series of 50:50 ventures with international players such as Total and Wilmar.

Adani Green Energy aims to become the world leader by 2025 with a capacity of 25 GW, which will exceed the thermal capacity of Adani Power that would be 18-20 GW by then, he said.

The latest project consists of 8 GW of solar power and 2 GW of solar cell and module manufacturing capacity. It is expected to create 400,000 jobs.

He added that the country was rapidly moving towards self-reliance in the sector. “The 90 per cent import of Chinese equipment will fall to 50 per cent, and ultimately zero. In 3-5 years, it will be negligible,” Mr Adani said.

He is positive about investment in the expansion to become world’s top company.

“Our financial planning is fully geared up to raise funds to achieve 25 GW. Adani Green is the only renewables company outside the OECD countries which has a sovereign rating. International rating agencies know our track record and our abilities,” he said.

The group’s target is in aligned with the country’s aim formulated by the Prime Minister, who initially set a target of 175 GW by 2022 and raised it to 450 GW of renewable energy by 2030.

“You have to realise that you need to pay some more price to build up the capacity. So as a country, we have to be prepared to pay a little more for self-reliance. How to pay? The government cannot give cash incentives, so there has to be policy intervention such as safeguard duty, anti-dumping duty, customs duty,” Mr Adani said. In the latest tender, the Government allowed 15-20 paise higher tariff for projects using local equipment.

“This 15-20 paise is not a permanent feature. Once you have capacity, you can also compete with China. But initially, you have to sacrifice somewhere,” he said.

Although, the company had successfully bid for the project on its own but may get in partnership for manufacturing. “Technology is also changing fast. It is better to bring in a good global giant, who also wants India as a market. We are working on bringing in partners,” he said.

“Whoever wants to come to India will find a good partner in Adani. We have several 50:50 ventures. It is unique how we manage partnerships. Like the 22 years of Adani-Wilmar partnership — it is running beautifully. We are so proud of having our partners. No other group has such longstanding partners, that too 50:50, not 51:49. We know how to nurture and respect partners, how to work and deal with partners.”

Adani added that Indian entrepreneurs, ranging from street vendors to big industrialists, were resilient enough to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic although the lockdown had created uncertainty and many companies had invoked the ‘force majeure’ clause.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

2.2. PFC signs MoU with NBPCL to fund projects worth Rs 22,000 crore ($3,12 bn) for 225 MW hydro-electric projects & Multipurpose projects in Madhya Pradesh

IBEF, May 27, 2020

Power Finance Corporation (PFC), the central PSU under Ministry of Power and India's leading NBFC, today entered into an agreement with Narmada Basin Projects Company Ltd. (NBPCL), a wholly-owned company of Govt. of Madhya Pradesh, to fund projects worth Rs 22,000 crore (US$ 3.12 billion) for 225 MW hydro-electric projects & multipurpose projects in the State of Madhya Pradesh.

The funds will be deployed by NBPCL for setting up hydroelectric projects of 225 MW and power components of 12 major multipurpose projects in Madhya Pradesh. The MoU was signed on a virtual platform by Mr Rajeev Sharma, CMD, PFC and Mr I.C.P. Keshari, Managing Director, NBPCL. The Government of Madhya Pradesh has conducted the pre-feasibility study of these projects and has provided approval for their execution. The disbursal of the amount will be linked to the execution of the projects.

The MoU will help PFC to actively partner with NBPCL and provide finance for hydro-electric plants totalling 225 MW along with power components of multipurpose projects as part of state government’s endeavour to implement twelve major multipurpose projects.

Some of the major multipurpose projects that will be financed under the MoU are Basaniya Multipurpose Project Dindori, Chinki Boras Multipurpose Project Narsinghpur Raisen Hoshangabad, Sakkar Pench Link Narsinghpur Chhindwara, Dudhi Project Chhindwara Hoshangabad, etc.

PFC will consider the financial assistance to NBPCL based on due diligence and on mutually acceptable terms.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

3. Why India’s migrants deserve a better deal

Livemint, 18 May 2020, Priya Deshingkar

Roughly 100 million migrant workers are directly responsible for 10% of the GDP. Why are they still so invisible?

There has been an unwillingness to collect better data on circular migrants and understand how they affect the economy. This is shocking for a country that runs on migrant labour

BRIGHTON/LONDON: Images of stranded migrants and their long arduous journeys back home will remain seared in our collective memories of the covid-19 pandemic in India. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), an estimated 122 million people lost their jobs in April alone and three-quarters of these were small traders and wage labourers.

No doubt circular migrants formed a significant proportion of those affected. While earlier government responses seemed to offer little or nothing, the government appears to have woken up somewhat to the unfolding human tragedy, announcing a ₹3,500 crore food support programme for migrants last week. Exactly how the government will implement the programme is not clear, obsessed as it is with establishing identity and registration when most circular migrants lack these documents.

Equally crucial is the lack of critical data on circular migrants in terms of who they are, where they work, how they are recruited, and what their vulnerabilities are to shocks such as covid-19.

Governments in India clearly have no systematic understanding of their existence and had not anticipated the scale of the migrant exodus. The crisis should spur the government to collect better data and work closely with other stakeholders who have their ear to the ground.

Because, in the face of a pandemic, it is sound economics to offer India’s migrants a better social safety fall back. Interstate migrants, in particular, are unlikely to return unless they are guaranteed protection.

Just over a decade ago, my colleague and I released an estimate of 100 million circular migrants in India by extrapolating industry estimates. The purpose of this exercise was to convey the significance of circular migration to India’s economy at a time when official statistics had been criticized for consistently underestimating numbers and there was also little discussion of migrants’ economic contribution.

We collated a number of empirical studies which indicated that the major sub-sectors using migrant labour are textiles, construction, stone quarries and mines, brick-kilns, small-scale industry (diamond cutting, leather accessories, etc.), crop transplanting, sugarcane cutting, rickshaw-pulling, fish and prawn processing, salt panning, domestic work, security services, sex work, small hotels and roadside restaurants/tea shops and street vending. Our calculations based on these estimates indicated that the economic contribution of migrants was around 10% of India’s gross domestic product (GDP).

In a later study, we showed that internal remittances in India totalled $7.485 billion in 2007-08, highlighting the poverty and inequality reducing potential of internal migration as the money flows directly to families in poorer parts of the country.

Yet, there has been an unwillingness to collect better data on circular migrants and understand how they are incorporated into the economy. This is a shocking state of affairs in a country that runs on migrant labour, but it is symptomatic of the marginalization of migrants who are drawn predominantly from poor and socially disadvantaged communities. The question before us now is: Will covid-19 result in at least some positive change?

Who are India’s migrants?

Living and working conditions of an average Indian migrant, despite their substantial numbers, often fall well below the standards of decent work and there is little political commitment to improving them. Formal contracts are non-existent and working and living conditions are determined by contractors rather than the welfare state.

Few workers are aware of their rights as migrants and workers, never mind as citizens of India. Migrants are the perfect flexible workforce.

According to the Census of 2011, there were 139 million interstate migrants (who moved for all manner of reasons ranging from education to marriage, not just employment). The data reconfirm the dominance of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar as well as other Hindi-speaking states as main source states, while Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana absorbed half of the migrants. (See map.)

The migrant hotspots

However, there is still a major gap in that these data simply do not or cannot count circular migrants (who move short-term mainly for employment-related reasons) because of complex subcontracting practices and placement by recruitment agents such as dalals and thekedars, where migrant workers never appear on the books of employers. Data on circular migration of women for work are particularly weak because they are often in less visible forms of work or occupations such as household maids.

Even in some districts which record the highest migration rates in the country, the number of interstate female migrants is suspiciously low. Take the case of South Delhi, which, according to the census, has 1.1 million interstate migrants but only around 27,000 female migrants who stated their main reason for migration as work/employment. This is most certainly an underestimate.

According to the International Labour Organization, there are between 20 and 90 million domestic workers in India and many are migrants. Women’s work is often unrecognized, and even more so if one is a migrant (another reason for the underestimation of women’s circular migration is the failure to go beyond the primary reason for movement, which is marriage, and recognize that many work after marriage).

The long-term effects

Helping migrants who are in debt and weakened by starvation is vital not only because it is a moral duty, but also because a failure to do so will spell disaster for the country as a whole. We know that when the poor become poorer, there can be serious long-term impacts on economic growth. Studies have shown that one of the main mechanisms through which inequality affects growth and development is by limiting educational opportunities for children from poorer backgrounds, reducing their prospects for social mobility and breaking out of caste-based occupations.

With remittances no longer flowing to rural areas, for the time being, the poor will struggle to invest in education and other ways of enhancing their children’s life chances.

The government has made a fundamental miscalculation in the way it has treated migrants. Already, there are indications that migrants have lost faith in urban administrations and employers as they continue to leave in hordes despite the economy starting to reopen slowly. For example, reports from 11 May estimate that 200,000 migrants had crossed the Madhya Pradesh-Maharashtra border on foot the previous day alone.

Had employers done more to retain their workers immediately after the lockdown started, they would have been well placed for a sound recovery in the post-covid period. Indeed, the experience of the 2008 economic downturn showed that those industries that retained their workers were quicker to recover. But not all industries have the capacity to keep their workers as many operate on very tight profit margins and support from the government has come all too late.

It is unlikely that those migrants who survive this calamity will forget what happened to them during the pandemic and they are unlikely to return to places far away from home unless there are accessible insurance mechanisms in place for circular migrants in the informal economy. Again, this means that the Centre will need to relax its stance on establishing proof of identity and residence as well as registration for schemes.

With faraway places being perceived as highly risky, we are more likely to see an increase in intrastate migration and a drop in long-distance interstate migration, a trend that has already been picked up by the census.

The way ahead

In the absence of reliable, nationally representative statistics on circular migrants, the government will need to rely on industry, NGO and academic estimates of migrant numbers and work with them to provide relief efficiently to minimize suffering. The immediate need is for a minimally bureaucratic response to the current migration crisis that is not constrained by proof of citizenship or domicile status.

The government should adopt a rapid universal benefits approach so that everyone has the right to support for basic needs of food and shelter regardless of their documentation status.

The involvement of NGOs is also important to instil a sense of trust and confidence in relief efforts as faith in government welfare programmes is at an all-time low. Already, the ₹20 trillion stimulus package has been nicknamed “tera zero" for the 13 noughts but the meaning is evident.

In the medium-term, there is a need to improve understanding of migrant men, women and children’s lived experiences of inclusion/exclusion, and the reasons for their migration which are highly varied. For example, many adolescent girls leave rural areas to earn an independent income and have more control over their life course with regards to marriage and childbearing. Domestic work is one of the most accessible forms of work for women and girls from poorer backgrounds without formal educational qualifications. It holds the potential to reduce poverty through the remittances they send. But the policy rhetoric about their migration usually portrays them as victims without recognizing their agency and the poverty-reducing impacts of their migration. While there is plenty of rich ethnographic research on such issues, the evidence is not informing policy which fails to differentiate between the vastly different experiences of different groups of migrants.

In conclusion, circular migration must be given the recognition that has long been overdue, both in terms of understanding its patterns but also the huge role it plays in the country’s development.

Priya Deshingkar is a professor of migration and development at the University of Sussex and the author of Circular Migration and Multilocational Livelihood Strategies in Rural India, published by Oxford University Press.

4.1. Tata Power's Skill Development Institute trains 23k individuals in FY20

IBEF, Jun. 04, 2020

Tata Power’s Skill Development Institute (TPSDI) has trained close to 23,000 individuals in FY20.

With this, total of 69,700 individuals have been trained across five centres of Tata Power’s not-for-profit technical training institute.

In 2015, TPSDI started with providing skilling programs for the blue-collared workforce and underprivileged sections of the society in India and offers over 160 courses across electrical, mechanical, instrumentation, renewables, safety, and other areas.

“We have always believed that in order to succeed, professionals need to boost their employability by developing skills demanded in the industry. Reaching the milestone of 69000 trained candidates last year within just four years of our inception is a testament of our easy-to-access market-driven and employment-oriented training programs that have changed so many lives. We look forward to reach more such milestones and will ensure a substantial set of skilled workforces for the Indian power sector,” said Mr Jayvadan Mistry, Chief, TPSDI.

Around 208 trainees were enrolled in initial period and this not-for-profit integrated technical training institute by Tata Power crossed the mark of 69,000 trainees last year and trained over 22,858 individuals in FY20 across five training hubs in India. These training hubs includes- Shahad – Mumbai; Trombay – Mumbai in Maharashtra Mundra – Kutch, in Gujarat, Maithon – Dhanbad, and Jojobera – Jamshedpur in Jharkhand. Currently, around 160 courses are offered by TPSDI across Electrical, Mechanical, Instrumentation, Renewables, Safety, Allied sectors, etc.

It also consciously works towards providing greater access to its courses to the unemployed youth, women, members of disadvantaged sections of the society including those in the below-poverty-line (BPL) category as part of its Affirmative Action Policy offering them opportunities to enhance their livelihood.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

4.2. NFL has started tying up with ITI to train youth in various trade

IBEF, Jun. 11, 2020

To give thrust to the "Skill India", initiative of the Government of India, National Fertilizers Limited (NFL), a CPSE under the Union Department Of Fertilizers, has started tying up with Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) located near to its plants to train youth in various trades so as to enhance the chances of their employability in heavy and process industry.

The Nangal plant of the company in Punjab has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ITI, Nangal to train youth in 12 trades. The students will be skilled under Dual System of Training Scheme under which they will learn theoretical skills in the institute and on-the-job training in NFL Nangal plant.

The MoU was exchanged between Ms Renu R P Singh DGM (HR) I/c, NFL Nangal unit and Sh Lalit Mohan, Principal of ITI, Nangal.

ITI, Nangal is one of the oldest institutes in Punjab. With the signing of this MoU with ITI, NFL becomes first CPSE to take this initiative in the state of Punjab.

The company plans to explore more such options in future to give impetus to Skill India by training more youth from institutes.

NFL has five gas-based Ammonia-Urea plants viz. Nangal & Bathinda plants in Punjab, Panipat plant in Haryana and two plants at Vijaipur at District Guna, in Madhya Pradesh.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

5. Opinion | The Gandhian economic model could see us through this crisis

Livemint, 27 May 2020, R. Jagannathan

Ideas that seemed antiquated for about half a century are ironically relevant to a post-covid world

Mahatma Gandhi has not been taken very seriously as an economic thinker. His forte was moral ideas. But, in a post-covid world, economic ideas must have an ethical quotient. The way the world economy is crumbling and inequities rising, we should give his ideas a second look. We may find some answers to our current situation in his ideas, even if he arrived at those conclusions intuitively rather than through empirical observations.

Core Gandhian ideals include swadeshi, self-reliance at the individual and village community levels, an abhorrence of mass production and mindless industrialization, a dislike for the amoral extremes of capitalism and communism, and a reduction of mutual antagonisms between the rich and poor. He believed that wealth must be held in trust by the rich on behalf of the poor. Unlike Marx, who saw the interests of workers and capitalists as irreconcilable, Gandhi sought a new convergence of interests. Marx saw labour handicapped as it did not own the means and tools of production; Gandhi’s charkha visualized the opposite reality. A worker can and should be able to provide for his or her basic needs through his or her own tools and ability to earn a living.

Gandhi’s vision did not materialize during his lifetime, and his instincts on technology were overly negative. But today, as we adopt work-from-home norms and refocus on basics, we find that digital technology has enabled what Gandhi envisioned: empowerment at the individual and village level.

While we are unlikely to revert to the village republics he would have liked, we can see that web-linked villages can indeed earn enough for themselves by offering goods and services from remote places. If you can work from home, you can work from your village too. As the world de-globalizes partially, countries are going for self-sufficiency; local supply chains are less likely to be disrupted by global events. As renewable energy sources grow, a country endowed with sun and wind can produce power locally; today, even housing colonies feed solar power to grids. Much else can be decentralized.

Gandhi was right to take a dim view of both capitalism and communism. Today, the middle path is looking increasingly attractive, not only in welfarist Scandinavia, but also in the US, where redistributive justice is being sought to counter-balance the excesses of unbridled capitalism. As wealth gets more concentrated, wealthy capitalists are displaying new concern for the poor, from Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to Azim Premji and Shiv Nadar. The Tatas, of course, arrived here much earlier. They are giving up a large part of their wealth for social causes, even though they will stay wealthy. Gandhi got it right again, and Marx wrong. “No doubt capital is lifeless," said Gandhi, “but not the capitalists, who are amenable to conversion."

Many entrepreneurs are developing and offering software for free, even as they use other means to make money off their inventions (consider Linux, Google Docs, etc). The “Collaborative Commons" will drive a lot of innovation in the future. One should not be surprised if the discoverer of a covid-19 vaccine offers it for a very low licensing fee, or even free.

Even at the macro level, high income inequalities and growth without jobs are forcing economists to think whether an obsession with gross domestic product (GDP) is healthy. The quality of growth matters. An understanding of who benefits or loses from globalization is becoming a critical issue for policy-makers everywhere.

Gandhi’s maxim that there is enough for everybody’s need but not for everybody’s greed makes a lot of sense today, as we focus on what is truly important to live a dignified life and what we can do without. Once we have seen the back of covid-19, maybe some of the old greed will return. But it’s a fair bet that it will not be the sort of unbridled greed that caused the dotcom bust of 2000 and the 2008 global financial crisis.

Gandhi did not have much to say about the excessive financialization of the global economy, for it did not exist when he was around. But it’s more than likely that he would have criticized it as excess greed. Nor would he have liked the speculation and debt-fuelled spending by governments and individuals that brought the house down in 2000 and 2008. His advice for economic adversity would have been to limit your needs. Parsimonious to a fault, his message would have been commonsensical: If you want to spend more, save first. Gandhi valued thrift, and a post-covid world will have to relearn its virtues.

A counter-point: If today Gandhian virtues are looking distinctly achievable, we have to acknowledge that this has happened only because we went in the opposite direction and saw both its benefits and costs. Today’s digital economy and remote-working would not have been possible if we had remained village republics and millions had not congregated in cities to earn and innovate. Nor would food and energy have been available in plenty without opting for polluting technologies (inorganic fertilisers, solar photo-voltaics, storage batteries, and so on).

Gandhi has come good today because over the last half-century, he turned out to be wrong.

R. Jagannathan is editorial director, ‘Swarajya’ magazine

- AGRICULTURE, FISHING & RURAL DEVELOPMENT

6.1. 177 new mandis from 10 States & UTs integrated with the e-NAM platform for marketing of Agricultural produce

Press Information Bureau, May 13, 2020

The Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Mr Narendra Singh Tomar today launched integration of 177 new mandis with the National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) to strengthen agriculture marketing and facilitate farmers to sell their harvested produce through the online portal. The mandis integrated today are as follows: Gujarat (17), Haryana (26), J&K (1), Kerala (5), Maharashtra (54), Odisha (15), Punjab (17), Rajasthan (25), Tamil Nadu (13) and West Bengal (1). With the launch of 177 additional mandis, the total number of e-NAM mandis across country is 962.

Launching the new mandis through video conferencing, Mr Tomar said efforts should be made to strengthen e-NAM further to benefit the farmers. He said e-NAM portal has been envisioned by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi as an ambitious use of technology for the benefit of farmers.

Earlier, 785 mandis were integrated with e-NAM across 17 States and 2 UTs, with a user base of 1.66 crore farmers, 1.30 lakh traders and 71,911 commission agents. As of 9th May 2020, total volume of 3.43 crore MT & 37.93 lakh numbers (Bamboo & Coconut) collectively worth more than Rs 1 lakh crore (US$ 14.19 million) has been traded on e-NAM platform. Digital payment worth Rs 708 crore (US4 100.44 million) have been done via e-NAM platform, benefitting more than 1.25 lakh farmers. e-NAM facilitates trade beyond mandi/ state borders. A total of 236 mandis participated in inter- mandi trade across 12 States whereas 13 States/UT have participated in the inter-state trade allowing farmers to interact directly with distantly located traders. At present, 150 commodities, including food grains, oilseeds, fibers, vegetables and fruits, are being traded on e-NAM. More than 1,005 FPOs have been registered on e-NAM platform and have traded 2900 MT of agri-produce worth Rs 7.92 crore (US4 1.12 million).

To de-congest mandis during COVID-19 lockdown situation, FPO trade module, Logistics module and e-NWR based Warehouse module were launched by the Union Agriculture Minister on 2nd April 2020. Since then, 82 FPOs from 15 States have traded on e-NAM with total quantity of 12048 Quintals of commodities worth Rs 2.22 crore (US4 0.33 million). Nine (9) Logistics Service Aggregators have partnered with e-NAM having 2,31,300 transporters providing availability of 11,37,700 trucks to service transportation need of e-NAM stakeholders.

National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) is a highly ambitious and successful scheme of Government of India which networks the existing APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities with a vision to promote uniformity in agriculture marketing by streamlining of procedures across the integrated markets, removing information asymmetry between buyers and sellers and promoting real time price discovery based on actual demand and supply.

On 1st May 2020, Shri Tomar had launched integration of 200 e-NAM mandis from 7 States including 1 new state of Karnataka being added on e-NAM to help Indian farmers. In addition, the Union Agriculture Minister had also launched inter-operability between ReMS (Unified Market Portal-UMP) of Karnataka & e-NAM portal. It provides an opportunity to access more markets for trade to traders and farmers of both the platforms, using inter-operability feature between these two platforms and vice versa.

While looking at the achievements of e-NAM in its Phase-I (integration of 585 mandis), it is heading on a path of expansion by spreading its wings with additional 415 mandis planned to be on-boarded before 15th of May’2020, taking the total number of e-NAM mandis to 1,000 across 18 States & 3 UTs to achieve “One Nation One Market” vision of the Prime Minister.

National Agriculture Market (e-NAM), a pan-India electronic trading portal with the objective of integrating the existing Mandis to “One Nation One Market” for agricultural commodities in India, was launched on 14th April 2016, by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) is the lead agency for implementing e-NAM under the aegis of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India.

The NAM portal provides a single window service for all APMC related information and services which includes commodity arrivals, quality & prices, provision to respond to trade offers and electronic payment settlement directly into farmers’ accounts and helping them for better market access.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

6.2. Farmers turn to agri-tech platforms as virus disrupts traditional sales channels

Livemint, 19 May 2020, Prasid Banerjee

Platforms such as Fraazo, Agri10x and AgriBazaar help farmers avoid middlemen and sell their produce to hotels, restaurants

This trend is expected to gain more momentum from the Centre’s plan for a ₹1 trillion fund for farm gate infrastructure

NEW DELHI: Indian farmers have been turning to tech-enabled platforms to sell produce like never before with the covid-19 pandemic shrinking the channels for physically marketing agricultural produce.

“We have seen farmers coming to our platform in bulk as an alternative supply chain is not available for product pickup," said Atul Kumar, co-founder and CEO of FreshVnF, the company that runs Fraazo. The platform has seen a threefold surge in customers and has hence had to reach out to more farmers.

Two other startups, AgriBazaar and Agri10x, said they have seen similar trends. AgriBazaar saw a five-fold increase in registrations on its app in April. Pankajj Ghode, CEO of Agri10x, said the platform got 150,000 new farmers since March, whereas it took them six months to acquire 100,000 farmers before covid.

Platforms such as Fraazo, Agri10x, and AgriBazaar help farmers avoid middlemen and reach customers in one way or another. This includes individuals, hotels, restaurants, and other places where farmers can sell their produce.

This trend is expected to gain more momentum from the Centre’s plan for a ₹1 trillion fund for farm gate infrastructure, announced as part of the stimulus package.

“The stimulus package’s framework gives a push to e-trading of agriculture produce and will ensure that an agri-tech startup such as AgriBazaar benefits from the move," said Amith Agarwal, co-founder and CEO, AgriBazaar. “From an industry perspective, it will attract serious players such as large Indian corporations and investments into the sector and give current players opportunities for scale and better sector recognition."

Indian farmers have perishable value chains and get less than 30% of the retail price, unlike developed countries where farmers get up to 70%, said Kumar. This is because of the lack of storage infrastructure at the farm gate and unavailability of cold-supply chains, which many agri-tech firms provide. Stakeholders say that the stimulus package will put money in the hands of farmers and let them take advantage of their solutions.

7. Made in India: 25 Indian food brands that are world class!

Conde Nast Traveller, May 13, 2020, Smitha Menon

From organic honey and chocolate, to gut-friendly drinks, this list of brands are sure to feature soon in your pantry

L-R: Coffee cherries being processed in Araku. Photo: Rahul Nath, Begum Victoria's cheese, Ether chocolates

If there was ever a time to go local, it is now. While we’ve been talking about the value of appreciating our home turf for a while now, the closed borders and the lockdown are now making us truly appreciate what we have. Here are 25 stellar made-in-India brands that are helping create employment opportunities for local communities, championing Indian produce, and using sustainable practices to create world-class products. Here are our top picks:

Chocolate brands that are made in India

Mason & Co

Puducherry-based Jane Mason and Fabien Bontems founded the company in 2014, with the idea of making good quality bean-to-bar, organic chocolate a reality in India. Mason & Co sources its organic cacao beans from farmers in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Every step in the chocolate making process is executed by an all-woman assembly line in their factory in Auroville. The results are delicious bars of chocolate in flavours that range from rosemary and sea salt, to black sesame and raisin. Also on offer now are cacao nibs, butter and powder.

Pascati

Launched in 2015, Pascati is India’s first USDA organic and fair trade compliant chocolate brand. The chocolatier uses cacao from Kerala’s Idukki district for its wide range of bars, truffles and bonbons. We suggest the lemon ginger dark chocolate bar, and if your taste buds are feeling adventurous, the mango dark chocolate that features freeze dried bits of mango in the bar.

Ether Atelier Chocolat

Would you believe that this chocolate brand was started by someone with a background in chemical research? Chef Prateek Bakhtiani eventually found his passion for all things pastry and pursued it whilst studying at some of the most prestigious culinary schools across the globe. The result is a magical blend of his backgrounds: deliciously rich and incredibly complex chocolate with flavours that read like the back of a perfume box: juniper and raspberry, burnt maple, bergamot and oak.

Kocoatrait

With a focus on zero-waste everything, this Chennai-based chocolate brand uses upcycled cocoa husk paper, non-refined organic muscovado sugar and ensures their ingredients travel a minimum distance to manufacture tasty chocolate bars in flavours like sukku coffee, banana, lemongrass, coconut milk and cinnamon.

Spice brands that are made in India

SPRIG

The Kochi-based brand’s USP is that it introduces young, urban Indians to local, age-old spices, blends and sauces by making them hip and easy to use. Think bhut jolokia and mango jalapeño sauces, banoffee and ginger marmalade, sweet spreads and natural spice blends.

Devbhumi

The Uttarakhand-based company is owned by spice farmers and producers, who are primarily rural women from remote villages in the upper Himalayan region. You can buy a variety of whole or powdered spices such as turmeric, chilli, ginger and coriander.

Earthon

Employing fair-trade practices, the brand works with farmer associations across India to produce and sell organic spices. Think cloves, rosemary, black pepper, cinnamon.

Cheese brands that are made in India

The Cheese Collective

The star of the fromager Mansi Jasani’s cheese collection is the fresh chevre rolled in dried herbs, lemon zest or red chilli flakes. The company also curates cheese from cheese makers across India, conducts cheese appreciation and pairing workshops, as well as customised cheese platters and gift baskets.

Begum Victoria

This brand of organic cheese spearheaded by chef Manu Chandra of the Olive Group is handmade, uses traditional methods and A2 milk from domestic cow breeds. The cheese is manufactured in a cave in the heart of Bengaluru and offers a wide variety of handcrafted cheese such as Brie, Gruyere, Feta, a proprietary orange-rind Bel Paese, Fontina, cloth-wrapped Cheddar, Parmesan and more.

Himalayan Cheese

Operated by Dutchman Chris Zandee and his wife Kamala, Himalayan Cheese is an organisation that creates natural artisan cheese in Pahalgam, Kashmir. The cheese is made using fair trade practices, eliminating middle men for over 400 farmers in the region. The milk comes from the Himalayan range where the cows and buffaloes graze in the natural habitat of grass, herbs and wild Himalayan plants. The organic produce helps in differentiating the cheese—Gouda, cheddar and Kalari—in terms of richness and taste and has resulted in the overall prosperity of the region.

The Spotted Cow Fromagerie

In 2014, when Prateeksh Mehra, a food photographer, and his brother Agnay began experimenting with Brie- and Camembert-inspired cheeses with basic equipment and local ingredients (in the basement of their suburban Mumbai bungalow), it was something no cheesemaker was doing in India then. From about 60kg a month, Spotted Cow now sells over 200kg, with Bombrie and Camembay being their best-selling products. The brand also caters to restaurants and hotels in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Kolkata and Goa and sells spreads and dips off the shelves at supermarkets.

Coffee brands that are made in India

The India Bean

Founder Kunal Ross sources fair-trade, single-origin coffee from Coorg, Malenadu and BR Hills in Karnataka and delivers all across the country.

Blue Tokai

What started in a plantation is now a multi-city coffee chain with cafes across cities in India. The brand produces single-origin as well as speciality, small-lot coffees. You can also sign up for annual coffee subscriptions.

Araku Coffee

Once a Naxal hotbed, the Araku valley in Andhra Pradesh is now producing award-winning gourmet coffee, thanks to a few good men and women. In 2018, Araku Coffee was awarded the Prix Epicures gold medal in France for the best coffee pod. The Naandi foundation’s coffee brand, Araku Coffee grows beans across 25,000 acres of land in the Araku valley and produces blends such as Microclimate, Signature, Selection and Grand Reserve.

Honey brands that are made in India

Under The Mango Tree (UTMT)

This social enterprise promotes beekeeping in rural areas of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, among others. They’re helping improve agricultural ecosystems and give farmers a steady income. Pick from 100 percent natural, organic-certified single-flora honey (made largely from the nectar of one plant species) such as eucalyptus, litchi, tulsi and Himalayan flora honey.

Organica Forest Honey

Sourced from the hilly forests of Uttarakhand, the honey has no chemical additives or antibiotics and is certified organic. Get ginger, cinnamon and clove infused organic honey from here. And if you’re interested, they also do a range of pickles with olive oil, spices and teas.

Kapiva Moringa Honey

From the armour of Ayurvedic foods brand Kapiva, this limited edition of pure moringa honey is a rare breed of honey that has medicinal properties and health benefits such as cancer-fighting flavonoids, antibacterial and antifungal properties.

Dairy brands that are made in India

Pride of Cows

In a country where milk adulteration is a huge concern for households, Pride of Cows has been able to deliver on its promise of hygiene and quality control. Using a fully automated milking process, no preservatives and tamper-proof bottles, the farm-to-table milk brand has more than 2,800 Holstein Friesian cross-breed cows that are nurtured and pampered (with water sprays and fans) to supply milk untouched by humans from milking to packaging.

Sarda Farms

This Nashik-based dairy farm produces organic milk, yoghurt, ghee and unsalted butter which is untouched by hands, contains no additives and comes packaged in tamper-proof bottles.

Beverage brands that are made in India

No. 3 Clive Road

Founder Radhika Chopra travels to Assam and other destinations in India to source leaves for tea, which is then hand-blended with herbs and flowers, packed in beautiful boxes and named after destinations such as Maheshwar and Madurai.

Tea Trunk

Owner and tea sommelier Snigdha Manchanda’s childhood fascination with tea led to her studying under a Japanese master in Sri Lanka. The brand is an extension of her love for tea. Try the Rose Oolong, Marigold Green and Hibiscus green tea blends.

MAVI’s CommBucha

With all the talk about immunity building right now, kombucha is having another moment in the sun, especially since it’s easy to make your own at home. Mumbai-based CommBucha is a brand of the fizzy drink that is made with tea sourced from organic tea estates in Tamil Nadu and fermented with very minimal sugar. Pick from their chemical-free line of drinks that come in flavours such as kokum, blueberry and rosewater, ginger and date, pomegranate, watermelon and mint.

Mo’s Kefir

Moina Oberoi, a chef and champion of the ‘good gut’ cause, launched her own version of kefir, a fermented milk drink that protects against indigestion, inflammation and nerve related problems, in 2015. An advocate for Indian superfoods and immunity building via natural ingredients, Oberoi has helped many young Indians figure out why they’ve had a bad gut feeling.

Moonshine Meadery

This product is truly mead in India. The first ever manufacturers of mead in the country, this alcoholic beverage is created by fermenting honey with fruits and spices. What started as a fun garage project in Pune is now a beverage made with Indian ingredients that’s available off the shelves at supermarkets across the country.

Svami

Launched by experts in the Indian drinks market—namely Aneesh Bhasin, Sahil Jatana and Rahul Mehra— Svami was conceptualised using their skills and know how to launch a line of flavoured tonic waters and ginger ale, that have fast become essential drinking companions for young tipplers across the country.

8. Highest ever allocation of Rs 101,500 crore ($14,4 bn) made under Mahatma Gandhi NREGS during financial year 2020-2021; a sum of Rs 31,493 crore ($4,47 bn) has already been released

IBEF, Jun. 09, 2020

A provision of Rs 1,01,500 crore (US$ 14.40 billion) has been made under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in the current financial year 2020-2021. It is the highest ever provision of funds under the programme.

A sum of Rs 31,493 crore (US$ 4.47 billion) has already been released in 2020-2021, which is more than 50 per cent of the budget estimate of the current Financial Year.

A total of 60.80 crore person days has been generated so far and work has been offered to 6.69 crore persons. Average number of persons to whom work offered in May 2020 has been 2.51 crore per day, which is 73 per cent higher than the work offered in May last year, which was 1.45 crore persons per day.

A total of 10 lakh works has been completed so far during the current Financial Year 2020-2021. A sustained focus is on taking up works related to water conservation and irrigation, plantation, horticulture and Individual Beneficiary works for livelihood promotion.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

9. Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) aims to enhance fish production to 22 million MT with an investment of over Rs 20,000 crores in next five years

IBEF, May 27, 2020

The Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) aims to enhance fish production to 220 lakh metric tons by 2024-25 from 137.58 lakh metric tons in 2018-19 at an average annual growth rate of about 9 per cent. The Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Mr Giriraj Singh, today said the ambitious scheme will result in doubling export earnings to Rs 100,000 crore (US$ 14.19 billion) and generate about 5,5 million direct and indirect employment opportunities in fisheries sector over a period of next five years. Dedicating the PMMSY to fishers, fish farmers, fish workers, fish vendors and other stakeholders associated with the fisheries sector, Mr Giriraj Singh said that insurance coverage for fishing vessels is being introduced for the first time.

Addressing a press conference on the “PMMSY - A scheme to bring about Blue Revolution through sustainable and responsible development of fisheries sector in India”, approved by the Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi on 20th May, 2020, Mr Giriraj Singh said that the scheme envisages an estimated investment of Rs 20,050 crore (US$ 2.84 billion) comprising Central share of Rs 9,407 crore (US$ 1.33 billion), State share of Rs 4,880 crore (US$ 692.30 million) and Beneficiaries contribution of Rs 5,763 crore (US$ 817.56 million). He added that the PMMSY will be implemented over a period of five years from FY2020-21 to FY2024-25 in all States/Union Territories.

Mr Giriraj Singh said that under the PMMSY thrust will be given towards enhancement of fish production and productivity, quality, sustainability, technology infusion, post-harvest infrastructure, modernisation and strengthening of value chain, standards and traceability in fisheries sector from ‘catch to consumer’, establishing a robust fisheries management framework, fishers’ welfare, enhancement of fisheries export competitiveness. He further mentioned that PMMSY will create a conducive environment for private sector participation, development of entrepreneurship, business models, promotion of ease of doing business, innovations and innovative project activities including start-ups, incubators etc. in fisheries sector. The Minister further mentioned that PMMSY being a fisher centric umbrella scheme, fishers, fish farmers, fish workers and fish vendors are the key stakeholders in the developmental activities envisaged and enhancement of their socio-economic status is one the core objectives of this scheme.

The Fisheries Minister said that about 42 per cent of the total estimated investment of the PMMSY is earmarked for creation and upgradation of fisheries infrastructure facilities. Focus areas include Fishing Harbours and Landing Centers, Post-harvest and Cold Chain Infrastructure, Fish Markets and Marketing Infrastructure, Integrated Modern Coastal Fishing Villages and Development of Deep-sea Fishing. Besides creating critical fisheries infrastructure by attracting private investments in fisheries sector, the scheme plans to reduce post-harvest losses from the present high of 25 per cent to about 10 per cent by modernizing and strengthening value chain. Under the Swath Sagar plan, activities envisaged with a view to modernize the fisheries sector include promotion of Bio-toilets, Insurance coverage for fishing vessels, Fisheries Management Plans, E-Trading/Marketing, Fishers and resources survey and creation of National IT-based databases.

Underlining the need to enhance domestic fish consumption with corresponding health benefits, the Minister said that the Government will register “Sagar Mitra” and encourage formation of Fish Farmers Producer Organizations (FFPOs) to help achieve the PMMSY goals. Youth will be engaged in fisheries extension by creation of 3,477 Sagar Mitras in coastal fisher villages. Large number of Fisheries Extension Services Centers will be set up in private space to create job opportunities to young professionals.

The scheme will also focus on several new activities and areas such as Traceability, Certification and Accreditation, Aquaculture in saline/alkaline areas, Genetic improvement programmes and Nucleus Breeding Centres, Fisheries and Aquaculture start-ups, promotional activities for fish consumption, branding, GI in fish, Integrated Aqua parks, Integrated coastal fishing villages development, State-of-art wholesale fish markets, Aquatic Referral Laboratories, Aquaculture Extension Services, Biofloc, support for new/upgradation of fishing boats, disease diagnostic and quality testing labs, Organic Aquaculture Promotion and Certification and Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) devices.

Mr Giriraj Singh said that the PMMSY provides thrust for infusing new and emerging technologies like Re-circulatory Aquaculture Systems, Biofloc, Aquaponics, Cage Cultivation etc. to enhance production and productivity, productive utilization of wastelands and water for Aquaculture. He added that some activities like Mariculture, Seaweed cultivation and Ornamental Fisheries having potential to generate huge employment especially for rural women will be promoted.

Stressing on attaining self-sufficiency in availability of quality seed at affordable price, Mr Giriraj Singh said that the scheme will result in increasing aquaculture average productivity to five tons per hectare from the current national average of three tons per hectare. This will be achieved through promotion of high value species, establishing a national network of Brood Banks for all commercially important species, Genetic improvement and establishing Nucleus Breeding Centers for self-reliance in Shrimp Brood stock, accreditation of Brood banks, Hatcheries, Farms and also addressing diseases, antibiotics and residues issues, aquatic health management. These steps are likely to ensure quality, higher productivity, improve export competitiveness and fetch higher prices to fishers and farmers.

Constituting about 7.73 per cent of the global fish production and export earnings of Rs 46,589 crore (US$ 6.61 billion) (2018-19), India today has attained the status of the second largest aquaculture and fourth largest fish exporting nation in the world. Mr Giriraj Singh that the country has high potentiality to attain the first highest fishing producing and exporting nation in the world in the coming years, and his Ministry is committed to take the fisheries sector to newer heights.

The Minister said that the Fisheries sector has shown an impressive growth in terms of fish production and export earnings during the past five years. The sector recorded an Average Annual Growth Rate of 10.88 per cent during 2014-15 to 2018-19, 7.53 per cent average annual growth in fish production and 9.71 per cent average annual growth in export earnings, with 18 per cent share in agricultural exports. He further added that the Gross Value Added (GVA) of Fisheries sector in the national economy during 2018-19 stood at Rs 2,12,915 crore (US$ 30.20 billion) which constituted 1.24 per cent of the total National GVA and 7.28 per cent share of Agricultural GVA.

Foreseeing the huge scope for development of fisheries, the Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi, in December 2014, had called for “a revolution” in the Fisheries sector and named it as “Blue Revolution”. The Union Government has taken several initiatives to harness the potential of the Fisheries sector in a sustainable and responsible manner towards ushering the Blue Revolution in Fisheries as envisioned by the Prime Minister.

Some of the major reforms and steps taken by the Union Government include:

Creation of a separate Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying in the Union Government.
Setting up a new and dedicated Department of Fisheries with independent administrative structure.
Implementation of the Centrally Sponsored Scheme on Blue Revolution: Integrated Development and Management of Fisheries during the period 2015-16 to 2019-20 with a central outlay of Rs 3,000 crore (US$ 425.59 million).
Creation of Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) during 2018-19 with a fund size of Rs 7,522.48 crore (US$ 1.07 billion).
Launching of PMMSY with an investment of Rs 20,050 crore (US$ 2.84 billion), the scheme with highest ever investment for fisheries sector.

The Ministers of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Mr Sanjiv Kumar Baliyan and Mr Pratap Chandra Sarangi, and Secretary, Department of Fisheries, Dr Rajeev Ranjan, were present during the press conference. On the occasion, the dignitaries released a booklet on the PMMSY.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

10. Hope and a prayer as reform rains down on India's farms

Livemint, 12 Jun 2020, Sayantan Bera

Prior to the monsoon, agri reforms have begun to shower down on India’s farms. Will it improve rural lives?

Most farmers were anticipating immediate relief, instead of long-term reforms. The prospects for new private investments to improve market access is also bleak in the midst of a recession

NEW DELHI: Abhishek Raghuwanshi, a young farmer from Vidisha district in Madhya Pradesh, is a keen follower of any policy announcement that affects agriculture. Being a large farmer, with over 200 acres of land, Raghuwanshi often stock grains and pulses for months in order to sell them at a later date, unlike small growers who sell their produce at harvest time when prices are often low. In short, Raghuwanshi tries his best to time the market for a better price.

However, the timing of a new set of laws liberalizing India’s internal trade regime in agriculture surprised Raghuwanshi. Farmers like him were anticipating more immediate relief, instead of long-term reforms which may take many months or even years to begin impacting lives.

On 5 June, a set of three related ordinances came into effect—which amended the Essential Commodities Act, allowed barrier-free trade and movement of farm produce across state lines, and introduced a new model of contract farming which could potentially result in assured prices on harvest for farmers based on a pre-decided contract.

The ordinances came on the back of supply disruptions due to the covid-19 pandemic which has devastated fruit and vegetable growers’ business.

On paper, India’s 145 million farmers now have legal backing to look beyond the nearest state-regulated wholesale markets, where they were forced to sell until now, and find a new set of buyers and more remunerative prices. The reforms in the Essential Commodities Act, the government hopes, will lead to more investments in storage infrastructure leading to stable prices, while the new law on contract farming will reduce price risks for growers.

But all of these are mere hopes for now and will take time to show any results, Raghuwanshi said. “Just because the government has allowed buyers to directly purchase from farmers, they are not going to queue up in front of my farm. In a depressed market, when demand is already low, traders are unwilling to even stock," Raghuwanshi said.

What disappointed Raghuwanshi more was this: even as the government framed a new set of laws to empower farmers, it also reduced import duties on lentils, a winter pulse, which has immediately led to lower farm gate prices.

The scepticism of farmers like Raghuwanshi is not misplaced—they bore the brunt of long years of low crop prices, lost their harvests to recurrent climate events like droughts and floods, and paid a heavy price for a consumer-centric food policy which depressed farmer incomes.

Of course, the new set of reforms may eventually benefit growers by eroding the monopoly of trader cartels which control the wholesale markets. The question is: how long will farmers have to wait? Can they expect better prices by October when Kharif crops are ready to harvest?

The new regime

The most significant of the three ordinances is “The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce Ordinance, 2020" which aims to create an ecosystem where farmers and traders have the “freedom of choice", and trade within and between states are not only free from all barriers but also exempt from taxes and fees.

Currently, farmers are only allowed to sell their produce in regulated mandis—also known as Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMC), which are governed by state APMC Acts. In these mandis, a set of licensed traders dictate and often collude to keep prices low. Farmers have no choice but to sell their produce at the mandi at whatever price is offered to them.

These state-level regulated mandis are largely responsible for India’s fragmented markets; for instance, a farmer may be selling potatoes at say ₹5 a kg at the Agra mandi in Uttar Pradesh, while a few-hours ride away, consumers in Delhi may be purchasing the same produce for ₹15 per kg.

The new ordinance makes it possible for anyone with a PAN card to travel to Agra and pick up a truckload of potatoes and sell them in Delhi. Earlier, a buyer would need to be a registered trader in the Agra mandi or have a state license. The new set-up holds the promise of a freer trade regime with no entry barrier for buyers, and can potentially benefit both farmers and consumers.

Importantly, the ordinance opens up an alternative trade channel without dismantling the existing APMCs. It also allows businesses to set up electronic trading platforms, which will make it easier for farmers to access traders in other states. However, an electronic national agriculture market, or eNAM, launched by the Centre in 2016 failed to take off due to a lack of quality assessment and grading facilities in APMC mandis.

The ordinances are a substantial step forward without any doubt, said S. Sivakumar, group head, agri and IT businesses at ITC, adding, “We still have some way to go to see how the ordinances translate into rules and how states get aligned."

Will the small size of the organized retail trade in India—less than 5% of the total production of grains and pulses and less than 1% for perishables—be a limiting factor?

According to Sivakumar, one reason for the small size of retail food trade was the current regulatory structure. “Certainly, we are not going to see a substantial scale-up overnight... but what happens when competition comes in is that the minute there is an alternative, dominant channels like APMCs start improving their systems. This has happened to every other sector like insurance, automobiles and telecom."

“While it is largely true that these reform measures are medium-to-long-term in nature, once the field is opened up, you cannot underestimate the possibility of innovation (say, when it comes to reaching small farmers directly). That may come as a surprise in the short-term," Sivakumar added.

Till now, a small set of traders had a disproportionate influence on the agri value chain and the new ordinances in a way democratizes the supply chain, said Vipul Mittal, national head of the fruits and vegetable business at Bigbasket, an online retailer which currently operates 50 collection points across India where produce is directly procured from farmers.

“But one cannot assume the new system will (automatically) translate into better prices for farmers... we will have to use technology to find alternate mechanisms of price discovery which is going to be the single most challenging task ahead," Mittal added, referring to the reality that new buyers may continue to depend on APMCs for a benchmark price. If inefficiently determined mandi prices serve as the only benchmark in the new system, farmers are unlikely to benefit.

According to Mittal, it is crucial to understand that the new legislations were not the only factors holding back investments in agriculture. “The Indian farming ecosystem is unique in the sense that it has a large number of farmers with a small landholding and you have to leverage this reality... The success of Amul (India’s largest dairy cooperative) did not happen overnight."

The loose ends

While there is an obvious buzz and at least some optimism about the legal changes paving the way for a national market for farm produce, it remains to be seen how state governments react to the Centre framing laws on agriculture marketing, which, so far, was an exclusive domain of the states. Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh has already termed the move as a “brazen attempt to destabilize the country’s federal structure." More Opposition-ruled states may toe a similar line.

According to M. Govinda Rao, former member of the 14th Finance Commission and former director of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, the new ordinances were necessary for economic efficiency and competitive markets but the Centre could have discussed these with states. “Along expected lines, BJP-ruled states like Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat did not protest. Punjab which stands to lose the most in mandi taxes did so and states like Maharashtra are too busy fighting the pandemic... West Bengal does not have a significant marketable surplus to be impacted," Rao said.

Even if the Centre manages to get the states on board, there are several pain points going forward. Reaching the doorstep of millions of small growers (or connecting them to distant markets in other states) will be a herculean task.

APMCs currently aggregate a large chunk of India’s farm produce. A new buyer who wants to purchase directly from farmers will have to set up the physical infrastructure—or a private mandi—close to the farm gate where produce can be weighed, sorted and graded.

“You cannot carry out trade on a highway crossing. Someone has to pay for the physical infrastructure and businesses may not be willing to invest in physical assets in a depressed market," said Himanshu, associate professor at the Jawaharlal University, adding, “the chaos in Bihar after it abolished the APMC Act serves as a warning for the free-trade enthusiasts."

A November 2019 study by the National Council of Applied Economic Research flagged the sordid experience of small farmers in Bihar, whose poor economic condition often compels them to sell at a lower price.

Despite the abolition of the APMC Act in 2006, private investment in the creation of new markets and strengthening of facilities in existing ones did not take place in Bihar, leading to low market density, the study found. Farmers did get to sell the crop at their doorstep but at the cost of being fleeced by traders.

Inadequate market facilities and institutional arrangements (coupled with low government procurement at support prices) were responsible for low price realization and instability in prices.

The learnings from the Bihar example, therefore, will be crucial before the Centre frames rules under the new ordinances. Moreover, if transactions between traders and farmers which take place outside APMC market yards are not recorded, there will be no way to track distress sales. Also, policymakers will have no estimate of stocks lying with private traders since warehouses can now function as a “trade area" outside APMCs. “The government should make it mandatory for warehouses to register themselves with the regulatory authority and issue electronic receipts. This will make it easier to have an idea regarding stocks," said Siraj Hussain, a former agriculture secretary and visiting senior fellow at Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (Icrier).

The farmers’ share

A long chain of intermediaries—beginning with the village-level aggregator and ending with the roadside push-cart seller—coupled with inefficient APMCs is often blamed for eating into the profit margins of the Indian farmer, giving credence to the argument that APMCs need to be abolished for better price realization.

But, interestingly, data on the share of the consumer rupee (or a rupee of consumer spending on food) earned by the farmers depicts a somewhat different reality. Despite inherent market inefficiencies, Indians farmers who grow pulses received as much as 60-68% of the consumer rupee, according to a 2019 Reserve Bank of India survey. The ratio for rice is a more muted 49% and it crashes substantially for perishables (28% for potato and 33% for onion).

Comparative numbers from the US department of agriculture show that, in 2018, US farmers received even less—roughly 14.6 cents of each food dollar spent by the end consumer.

But since the US food market is weighted much more toward processed foods—where end product prices are generally higher—a farmer could hope to recoup investments even by garnering a lower ratio of the consumer dollar.

Ultimately, when retail prices are kept artificially low for years due to inflation targeting and trade policy decisions, a marginal rise in the share which goes to the farmer may not help much. So, liberalising internal trade alone might not unlock an era of prosperity for the Indian farmer.

Naturally, farmer organizations which are otherwise vocal chose not to respond publicly to the ordinances. Some were even scathing. “There is no evidence to show that de-regulation of markets, as is the case with Bihar or Kerala, have actually ensured remunerative prices for farmers," said Kavitha Kuruganti from the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, a farm policy advocacy group.

“Small and marginal farmers can neither go in search of distant markets (in other states or via electronic trading platforms) nor can they expect better farm gate prices as long as they are trapped in the clutches of local traders who double up as credit agents."

- INDUSTRY & MANUFACTURE

11.1. Bajaj Auto to enter Thailand with premium motorcycle brands

IBEF, May 22, 2020

Bajaj Auto Ltd plans to enter Thailand with its premium motorcycle brands, including KTM, Husqvarna, Dominar and Pulsar NS series, by July 2020, said a senior company executive.

“Asean in an important geography for us wherein, apart from Philippines, we are not really present in the other countries. We are now focusing on Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Mayanmar, Cambodia, Laos and others," Mr Rakesh Sharma, executive director at Bajaj Auto said.

"We plan to enter that market (Thailand) by July combining our forces with KTM. We are delayed due to the pandemic as earlier the plan was to enter that market in April," added Mr Sharma.

The company intends to enter the sports category with premium brands such as Dominar and the Pulsar NS range leading the charge, he added.

A new distributor for Thailand has been appointed by Bajaj Auto who will be responsible for setting up the local network and build the business for KTM as well as other brands.

“We have also identified some dealers and dealer appointment and setting up of the network is underway," said the senior company executive.

The company targets to strengthen its presence in the region, which is largely dominated by the Japanese automakers.

Bajaj Auto has local subsidiary PT. Bajaj Auto Indonesia in the country for local presence, which overlooks operations of the local distributor appointed for retail and distribution of KTM bikes.

“We are front-ending KTM and Husqvarna brands in Indonesia and will venture with premium Bajaj brands in a year from now," Mr Sharma said.

The company also has a strong presence in Philippines where it is present along with its partner Kawasaki. He added that Bajaj Auto entered Malaysia 18-20 months ago with the Pulsar series, which is doing well.

“On the three-wheeler business, we have created the market in Philippines, Cambodia and Mayanmar," Mr Sharma said.

Mr Aditya Jhawar, auto analyst at Investec Capital Services (India) Pvt Ltd said, some of the African countries are facing stress, which are key export markets for Bajaj Auto, and the risk of currency devaluation, the company is aiming on ramping up its presence in the other important regions.

“Asean countries are horizon-one markets for Bajaj Auto, which means they are being looked at with urgency," Mr Jhawar said.

The company’s domestic sales in FY20 was supported by a 10 per cent growth in motorcycle exports. Though, Bajaj Auto reported 8 per cent y-o-y decline in its consolidated revenues for the March quarter at Rs 6,816 crore (US$ 966.95 million). There was also a drop of 4 per cent y-o-y at Rs 1,354 crore (US$ 192.08 million) in consolidated net profit for the period.

For FY20, Bajaj Auto reported 6 per cent growth in its consolidated net profit at Rs 5,212 crore (US$ 739.40 million) despite a decline of 1.44 per cent in its revenue from operations, which stood at Rs 29,919 crore (US$ 4.24 billion).

The company exported 47 per cent of motorcycles and 45 per cent of three-wheelers produced in FY20.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

11.2. DICV to invest Rs 2,277 crore ($323 million) to expand commercial vehicle production at Oragadam plant

IBEF, May 29, 2020

Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) will invest Rs 2,277 crore (US$ 323.02 million) to expand commercial vehicle production at its Oragadam plant near Chennai.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the company and Tamil Nadu government, covering Rs 2,277 crore (US$ 323.02 million) of investments designed to expand its commercial vehicle production, said DICV in a statement.

This investment is expected to generate around 400 jobs, it added.

"This is the second MoU that DICV has signed with the Government of Tamil Nadu. It demonstrates our unshakeable confidence in the long-term potential of India as a market for commercial vehicles, and our ongoing commitment to the country as a whole," DICV MD and CEO Mr Satyakam Arya said.

DICV has already invested Rs 5,500 crore (US$ 780.25 million) on its Oragadam plant.

In 2012, the company launched its made-for-India CV brand and has sold well over 1 lakh trucks and buses in India and abroad till now.

It also exports to around 50 countries and has exported more than 30,000 vehicles and 1.25 crore parts.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

12.1. Mandatory Public Procurement of Chemicals and Petrochemicals to boost Manufacturing and Production of Goods, Services and Works to promote Make in India

IBEF, June 03, 2020

Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has recently revised the Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order, 2017 on 29.05.2019 to encourage Make in India and to promote manufacturing and production of goods, services and works in India with a view to enhance income and employment.

While identifying Chemicals and Petrochemicals, prescribing minimum local content and the manner of calculation, the Department of Chemicals & Petrochemicals has assessed the domestic manufacturing available capacity and the extent of local competition. As many as 55 various types of Chemicals, Petrochemicals, Pesticides and Dyestuff have been identified.

The minimum local content for these Chemicals & Petrochemicals has been prescribed by the Department beginning with local content percentage at 60 per cent for the year 2020-2021 and thereafter, raising it to 70 per cent for the years 2021-2023 and 80 per cent for the years 2023-2025. Out of the 55 Chemicals & Petrochemicals identified by the Department, local suppliers shall be eligible to bid for the estimated value of procurement of more than Rs 5 lakh (US$ 7,093) and less than Rs 50 lakh (US$ 70,932) for 27 products and in respect of remaining 28 Chemicals & Petrochemicals, the procuring entities shall make procurement only from local supplier irrespective of bid amount as there is sufficient local capacity and local competition.

This step will strengthen #Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan launched by the Prime Minister and will also boost domestic production under “Make in India”.

Lauding the important decision, Shri Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State - Mos (i/c) for Shipping and MoS for Chemicals and Fertilizers said, "Mandatory Public Procurement of Chemicals and Petrochemicals to boost Manufacturing and Production of Goods, Services and Works will promote Make in India"

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

12.2. Make in India gets a big boost; MoD places indent for supply of 156 upgraded BMP Infantry Combat Vehicles of value Rs 1,094 crore on OFB

IBEF, Jun. 03, 2020

In a major boost to ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Government, Acquisition Wing of Ministry of Defence (MoD) with the approval of Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh, has today placed an Indent on Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) for supply of 156 BMP 2/2k Infantry Combat Vehicles (ICV) with upgraded features for use of the Mechanised Forces of the Indian Army. Under this Indent, the ICVs will be manufactured by Ordnance Factory, Medak in Telangana at an approximate cost of Rs 1,094 crore (US$ 155.20 million).

The BMP-2/2K ICVs are going to be powered by 285 horsepower engines and are lower in weight which will make them highly mobile to meet all tactical requirements of mobility in the battlefield.

These ICVs will be able to reach a speed of 65 kilometres per hour (kmph) with easy steering ability in cross country terrain. They will have amphibious capabilities to travel at 07 kmph in water. These are designed to overcome slope of up to 35° cross obstacles of 0.7 metre and have lethal firepower capability.

With the induction of these 156 BMP 2/2K ICVs, planned to be completed by 2023, the existing deficiency in the Mechanised Infantry Battalions will be mitigated and the combat capability of the Army will be further enhanced.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

13. India as a major country of the world with appropriate technology, capital including FDI and extraordinary human resource contributing significantly to the global economy

IBEF, Jun. 03, 2020

The Government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always believed in transformative programs be it Digital India, Make in India and Startup India. These initiatives have empowered ordinary Indians, led to digital inclusion, encouraged innovation and entrepreneurship, and raised the stature of India as a global digital power.

Promotion of electronics manufacturing has been a key component of Make in India program. With efforts such as the National Policy on Electronics, 2019, Modified Special Incentive Scheme (MSIPS), Electronics Manufacturing Clusters and Electronics Development Fund etc., India’s production of electronics grew from US$ 29 billion in 2014 to US$ 70 billion in 2019. The growth in mobile phone manufacturing has been remarkable during this period. From just 2 mobile phone factories in 2014, India now has become the second largest mobile phone producer in the world. Production of mobile handsets in 2018-19 has reached 29 crore units worth Rs 1.70 lakh crore (US$ 24.12 billion) from just 6 crore units worth Rs 19,000 crore (US$ 2.70 billion) in 2014. While the exports of electronics have increased from Rs 38,263 crore (US$ 5.43 billion) in 2014-15 to Rs 61,908 crore (US$ 8.78 billion) in 2018-19, India’s share in global electronics production has reached 3 per cent in 2018 from just 1.3 per cent in 2012.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a clarion call for Aatma Nirbhar Bharat - a self-reliant India. Minister of Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad has often elaborated that this does not mean India in isolation but India as a major country of the world with appropriate technology, capital including FDI and extraordinary human resource contributing significantly to the global economy.

With a view to building a robust manufacturing ecosystem which will be an asset to the global economy we are looking forward to developing a strong ecosystem across the value chain and integrating it with global value chains. This is the essence of these three Schemes namely, the

Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) for Large Scale Electronics Manufacturing,

Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors (SPECS)

Modified Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC 2.0) Scheme

The PLI Scheme shall extend an incentive of 4 per cent to 6 per cent on incremental sales (over base year) of goods manufactured in India and covered under the target segments, to eligible companies, for a period of five years subsequent to the base year. The SPECS shall provide financial incentive of 25 per cent on capital expenditure for the identified list of electronic goods, i.e., electronic components, semiconductor/ display fabrication units, Assembly, Test, Marking and Packaging (ATMP) units, specialized sub-assemblies and capital goods for manufacture of aforesaid goods. The EMC 2.0 shall provide support for creation of world class infrastructure along with common facilities and amenities, including Ready Built Factory (RBF) sheds / Plug and Play facilities for attracting major global electronics manufacturers, along with their supply chains.

The triology of Schemes entail an outlay of about Rs 50,000 crore (US$ 7.09 billion). The Schemes will help offset the disability for domestic electronics manufacturing and hence, strengthen the electronics manufacturing ecosystem in the country. The three Schemes together will enable large scale electronics manufacturing, domestic supply chain of components and state-of-the-art infrastructure and common facilities for large anchor units and their supply chain partners. These Schemes shall contribute significantly to achieving a US$ 1 Trillion digital economy and a US$ 5 Trillion GDP by 2025.

The three new Schemes are expected to attract substantial investments, increase production of mobile phones and their parts/ components to around Rs 10 lakh crore (US$ 141.86 billion) by 2025 and generate around 5 lakh direct and 15 lakh indirect jobs.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

14. Govt woos phone makers with sops, ready-to-use facilities

Livemint, 03 Jun 2020, Prasid Banerjee

The plan, which has an outlay of ₹50,000 cr, will initially aim to attract five global suppliers and five domestic firms

India will offer financial incentives and other ready-to-use facilities as part of a strategy to make the country a global manufacturing base for mobile phones and their parts.

The plan, which has an outlay of about ₹50,000 crore, will initially aim to attract five global suppliers as well as five domestic companies.

Of this, the biggest chunk of about ₹40,000 crore will be offered as production-linked cash incentives of 4-6% on incremental sales of mobile phones and related parts made in India for a period of five years, with 2019-20 as the base year, according to the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY).

The government will also reimburse 25% of capital expenditure for companies producing electronic parts, semiconductors and other components under the Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Components and Semiconductors (SPECS).

This is aimed at promoting local manufacturing of components and reduction in imports of electronic parts, which the industry currently has to do to assemble products. Separately, electronic manufacturing clusters with ready-to-use facilities will be offered to companies.

Addressing reporters, Ravi Shankar Prasad, minister for electronics and information technology, said the government’s decision can potentially turn India into a global hub for mobile phone production and make it the largest exported item out of the country, while generating half a million jobs.

The schemes were approved by the Union cabinet in March, and companies can start applying for them from Tuesday.

The steps underscore efforts by Asia’s third-largest economy to lure global corporations seeking to diversify their production bases beyond China amid a trade war with the US and large-scale disruptions to supply chains from the coronavirus outbreak.

The Modi administration hopes that these steps would help lift the fortunes of the economy that is headed for a contraction this fiscal year due to the pandemic and an extended lockdown.

“The PLI (production-linked incentive) instituted on mobile phones is indeed the first ever scheme announced by the government in the post-independence period, whereby, similar PLI is extended for both domestic Indian champions and global supply," said Pankaj Mohindroo, chairman, India Cellular and Electronics Association.

Under the modified electronics manufacturing cluster scheme (EMC 2.0), infrastructure support such as ready built factory sheds and plug-and-play facilities will be offered.

This is aimed at not only attracting global mobile phone makers but also their supply chains.

The production of mobile handsets in 2018-19 reached 290 million units worth ₹1.7 trillion from 60 million units in 2014 worth ₹19,000 crore, according to data from the minister for electronics and information technology. India’s share in the global electronics market grew to 3% in 2018 from 1.3% in 2012.

“At the moment, the electronics industry is one of the fastest growing sectors; it’s expected to reach $400 billion by 2025 with potential import opportunity of $150 billion, which can be leveraged locally," said Manish Sharma, president and chief executive of Panasonic India.

The SPECS scheme will help “overcome disabilities of manufacturing electronic components in India", said Muralikrishnan B., chief operating officer of Xiaomi India.

15.1. Biocon arm Syngene develops ELISA test kits, ties up with HiMedia for production

IBEF, Jun. 03, 2020

Syngene International Ltd has developed its own ELISA antibody testing kits at its research facility in Bengaluru and has partnered with bioscience firm HiMedia Laboratories for manufacturing and distribution of the testing kits.

The testing kit is developed by Biocon Ltd’s contract research arm. The kit claims that it has a capacity to test multiple samples together in a single run and generates results within 3 hours. Although, details about number of samples that can be tested simultaneously was not given by the firm.

The test kit will be launched under the brand name ‘ELISafe 19’ and will be manufactured by HiMedia at its facility in Mumbai and be distributed across India, said Syngene.

Though, Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Virology in Pune must first validate any testing kit before they are mass produced and commercialised, and Syngene’s test kit has to start the process.

“We will be sending the testing kits for validation soon. The process will start now," said a spokesperson for HiMedia.

ELISA, an acronym for enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, is a test which measures IgG antibodies present in the blood against the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. ELISA test kits have routinely been used to detect HIV infection in patients.

COVID-19 can be diagnosed by RT-PCR tests, whereas, antibody tests are crucial to understand the proportion of population exposed to the infection, and are used for surveillance purposes.

This development comes a few days after the ICMR advised states to conduct a survey of exposure of their population to the novel Coronavirus, officially called SARS-COV2, using the ELISA antibody test.

An indicative list of different groups has been listed by India’s apex biomedical research body for adequate representation in the survey, which includes immuno-compromised patients, healthcare workers, security personnel, journalists, among others.

“At a time when the number of COVID-19 cases is increasing at an alarming rate across the country, there is an urgent need to make available reliable testing kits using advanced technology to test patients and identify positive cases. To fill this gap, Syngene, with its expertise across diverse scientific domains, has developed an ELISA kit that allows higher throughput and generates faster results," Syngene International chief operating officer Mr Mahesh Bhalgat said.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

15.2. RNA extraction kit Agappe Chitra Magna launched commercially for detection of COVID

IBEF, May 22, 2020

Dr VK Saraswat, NITI Aayog member and President of Institute body of Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) announced here today the commercial launch of Agappe Chitra Magna, a magnetic nanoparticle-based RNA extraction kit for use during testing for detection of COVID-19. The announcement was made by Dr VK Saraswat, at a programme attended by Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, DST, Dr Asha Kishore, Director SCTIMST, Dr HK Varma, Head Biomedical technology and scientists of the institute, through a video conference.

The RNA extraction kit was developed by Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), Trivandrum, an Institute of National Importance of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) along with Agappe Diagnostics Ltd, an in vitro diagnostics manufacturing company based in Cochin.

“The commercial launch of the kit is a major step to make India self-reliant in detecting COVID-19 and can help increase the rate of testing and bring down its costs, a crucial step for combating the pandemic. It can also be an example of rapid commercialization and implementation of a state-of-the-art technology for the world to emulate,” said Dr Saraswat while announcing the launch.

He said, “The transformation of R&D from purely generation of knowledge to generation of value demands increased investment and a strong, empowered R&D management system. Synchronising the efforts of academia, national laboratories and industries would be most essential in this transformed ecosystem. Only when this symphony is played, India will emerge as a technologically and economically strong nation”.

Professor Ashutosh Sharma said, “this is an example where scientists and industry worked in tandem with a purpose to serve an urgent need. The innovative process of conjugating the RNA with magnetic nanoparticles and increasing their concentration in one place by applying a magnetic field is a breakthrough that allowed the high sensitivity of RT-LAMP test from SCTIMST. Multidisciplinary lateral thinking and industry involvement right from the beginning allowed the technology to be developed into a product that was suited to meet the need of the hour”.

Dr Sarawat and Prof Sharmacongratulated the entire team of Sree Chitra and AgappeDiagnostics for coming out with such a wonderful solution for addressing the need ofthe country.

“Promotion of indigenous medical technologies is the primary mandate of the Institute.Besides in vitro diagnostics and development of point of care, devices is a segment that we recently forrayed into. The molecular medicine division headed by Dr Anoop Kumar, Senior Scientist, has been working on such diagnostic platforms and we are excited at the prospect of having developed the magnetic nanotechnology-based RNA extraction technology that will reduce our import dependence and facilitate cost-effective confirmatory testing of COVID-19” said Dr Asha Kishore, Director, SCTIMST.

The launch programme was organized by SCTIMST in collaboration with Agappe Diagnostics Ltd at the Biomedical Technology Wing of SCTIMST, and it was followed by the first sale of the product by Mr Thomas John, Managing Director, Agappe Diagnostics, to officials from Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi.

Inexpensive, fast, and accurate testing for COVID-19 virus is the cornerstone of containing its spread and providing appropriate help to the infected. The Chitra Magna, an innovative RNA extraction kit developed by SCTIMST under the leadership of senior scientist, Dr Anoop kumar Thekkuveettil, was transferred to Agappe Diagnostics in April 2020, and will now be available in the market as Agappe Chitra Magna RNA Isolation Kit. This product has been independently validated at National Institute of Virology for Covid19 RNA isolation. Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has given approval for the commercialization of this kit. The kit can be used for RNA extraction for RT-LAMP, RT-qPCR, RT-PCR and other isothermal and PCR based protocols for the detection of SARS-COV-2.

It uses an innovative technology for isolating RNA using magnetic nanoparticles to capture the RNA from the patient sample. The magnetic nanoparticle beads bind to the viral RNA and, when exposed to a magnetic field, give a highly purified and concentrated RNA. As the sensitivity of the detection method is dependent on getting an adequate quantity of viral RNA, this innovation enhances the chances of identifying positive cases.

It is estimated that India would require about 8 lakh RNA extraction kits per month during the next six months, and Agappe Chitra Magna RNA Isolation Kit priced around Rs 150 (US$ 2.12) per kit is expected to reduce the cost of testing and the country’s dependence on imported kits which cost around Rs 300 (US$ 4.25). Agappe Diagnostics has a manufacturing capacity of kits for performing 3 lakh kits per month.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

- SERVICES (Education, Healthcare, IT, R&D, Tourism, etc.)

16.1. How the sales pitch is changing in the covid age

Livemint, 02 Jun 2020, Goutam Das

The art of selling is going through a massive disruption. Some of these changes will outlive the pandemic
While digital sales have become a global phenomenon, some feel the trend may not be sustainable when the pandemic is contained

NEW DELHI: It looks like a bulky stainless steel water filter. The device has two taps wedded to a basin and two pedals at the bottom. Press one pedal by foot, and soap is dispensed. The second pedal lets out water.

Shree Shakti Enterprises Pvt. Ltd, a company that sells pressure cookers, frying pans, bowls and plates under the brand name PNB Kitchenmate, quickly modified its manufacturing lines in Haryana’s Sonipat district to come up with this “Handsfree Handwash System". This was bang in the middle of India’s lockdown— in April. The paranoia about touching anything in public was just about peaking.

The commercial viability of the product, which costs between ₹15,000 and ₹25,000, was tested by Walmart, to whom Shree Shakti supplies kitchenware. And then, Walmart procured 15-20% of the manufactured machines. “We have crossed 1,100 orders and have supplied more than 800 machines thus far. Besides corporates in India and para military canteens, there are export orders from Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka," Rahul Bajaj, managing director of Shree Shakti Enterprises said.

Shree Shakti Enterprises is a small company—it generated revenues of ₹140 crore in 2019. Larger companies too have changed direction when demand for their traditional products and services fell.

The blueprint for selling in the post-covid age includes seeking out new product lines, of course, but also switching over to newer channels to hold on to consumers and experimenting with different store formats. There has been a large-scale digitization of sales operations—and remote selling through webinars and gamified virtual walk-throughs in sectors such as real estate and technology services.

Digital sales, in fact, is now a global phenomena. McKinsey and Co. surveyed B2B businesses across 11 countries recently. In a report titled The B2B Digital Inflection point: How Sales Have Changed During Covid-19, the company stated: “Almost 90% of sales have moved to a video conference/phone/web sales model, and while some skepticism remains, more than half believe this is equally or more effective than sales models used before Covid-19".

In India, the pandemic has provoked a lot of companies to re-examine their existing distribution strategies, Lloyd Mathias, a business and marketing strategist, said. “A lot of selling will be certainly disrupted because of new concerns about hygiene, physical contact, social distancing, going to places that are not so sanitized," he explained.

While some of this is evident currently, there are some wider questions. How sustainable will this trend be when the pandemic is contained? Wouldn’t people go back to their old ways?

Modifications in the sales processes may stay on for good, Mathias believed. “The human need for physical contact, that seeing is believing, won’t go away. Certain businesses require physical presence, one-on-one convincing, live demonstrations. However, these would reduce to a considerable extent," he said. “Automobile selling for instance, would still require a car inspection, a test drive. But a consumer would do a lot of the research online and the test drive would be like a finale."

Pivot 1: new channels

A product description for Christian Dior’s popular perfume, Poison, recommends it for romantic wear, with top notes that include coriander, wildberries, orange honey, and tuberose (rajanigandha). The tuberose extract comes from Mysuru. “My first art is perfumery," Arjun Ranga, partner of Mysuru-based NR Group, the makers of Cycle Agarbatti, said. “There is huge excitement about Indian flowers in the global markets and we were one of the first companies to make tuberose flower extract."

Because of the lockdown, the company is facing headwinds in getting products to distributors and in material movement. You see, fragrance ingredients are procured globally.

Front line selling techniques, meanwhile, have changed for domestic products like incense sticks. From physical sales, orders are being taken on phone. More significantly, the firm’s e-commerce website (cycle.in) has witnessed a 100% jump in traffic. “We would have more orders from Bigbasket and Grofers. E-commerce sales are negligible now, but are growing at over 500%," Ranga said.

He added that going ahead, large-format stores would be an important target. Why is that?

Consumers are consolidating purchases while reducing visits to physical stores. “People would consolidate buying into one or two times a month rather than four times a month which was the average earlier in India," he said. Bigger-format stores and aggregators will therefore flourish.

Food storage and kitchen solutions company Tupperware India is pressing the accelerator on a multi-channel approach to selling, too. The firm relied on a direct-selling model for years where thousands of women sold its products among their peer groups such as colleagues, relatives and neighbours. Last year, the company began e-commerce sales and opened physical stores. With the outbreak, physical interactions will take a back seat. The firm is switching over from direct selling to what it calls “social selling".

“We are bringing all our sales force, our 70,000 direct sellers, on a digital platform. We are giving them the tools to interact digitally," Deepak Chhabra, managing director of Tupperware India, said.

Every direct seller gets an URL, which they can circulate among their peer group. Direct sellers usually send them to their WhatsApp and other social media contacts. Once clicked, the URL takes buyers to the company’s web store. “All the product offerings and promotions are linked to this URL. They can choose, select and buy. We deliver directly to the customers and the salesforce gets paid on the basis of the sale. This way, our sales force gets continuity of business without going out physically," Chhabra explained.

This mode of selling is likely to continue even after the pandemic. Direct sellers reached 30-100 households earlier. With social selling, they can reach thousands. They can make more money, and the company, more revenues. “This mode was lying as a concept with us but we were not very agile. The day the lockdown was announced, we moved very fast—on technology, content, the training part," Chhabra added.

Pivot 2: remote selling

Paints and coatings company AkzoNobel India Ltd operated out of DLF Cyber City, Gurugram’s buzzing business district. But it was getting expensive—leases in Cyber City come at a premium. In November 2019, the company moved its office to another Gurugram business hub, Golf Course Extension Road. “We have a 30% savings in office rentals and ancillary services such as maintenance and car parking charges. All these measures helped us on the bottom-line and cash. That is what is standing us in good stead," Rajiv Rajgopal, managing director of the company said.

Covid-19 is refashioning how the company manages its retailers and distributors at this moment. Digital is replacing a predominantly physical ordering process. Until a few months ago, the company’s sales teams scheduled regular face-to-face meetings with various stakeholders to understand their requirements. They included retailers, distributors, contractors, and real estate developers among others. Customers placed orders using CRM (customer relationship management) tools or through the call centre. The use of technology in the overall sales process was 30%.

“Currently, we are developing an app which will provide the customer with an easy-to-use interface wherein details of the order placed, its status, and any current promotions that are running will be displayed. This will digitize the sales process by as much as 80%," Rajgopal said.

Selling real estate is ripe for a digital spin as well. A company such as PropTiger, a real estate advisory, generates leads on its website. Customer service representatives next get in touch with interested property buyers through phone or mail. Brokers from the company meet the potential buyers who subsequently visit real estate sites before choosing a property to invest in. Part of this buying process has moved remote. PropTiger organises webinars for developers where potential buyers are shown videos of the property, the locality.

“About 250 to 500 potential customers log in for these webinars. All their questions are answered," Dhruv Agarwala, CEO of PropTiger, Housing.com and Makaan.com, said. Each of these webinars have representation from the developer of the property. Their marketing and sales executives take questions from customers.

PropTiger has facilitated over 50 webinars for different developers, including one for Godrej Properties. “We can drive amazing volumes. It is a change in the model of how we generate enquiries and hot demands," Agarwala said and added that the company has made progress in walk throughs and 3D visualisations of a property. “The number of site visits go down significantly. If you are an investor, you need not physically visit the site any longer," he said.

Pivot 3: new demand

In a promotional video, a masked Arul Jyoti speaks in short sentences. “I am from Pondicherry. I went to the UK for my studies. I returned from London on May 15. The government allocated me to FabHotel Flamingo (in Chennai)."

Jyoti is quarantined. In Tamil Nadu, it is mandatory for those returning from abroad to be tested for covid. Those testing positive are taken to hospitals. When the results are negative, people have to undergo institutional or hotel quarantine for seven days before they are tested a second time.

For FabHotels, a budget hotels brand, the pandemic has flung open the gates to a new demand when everything else slumped. The company is working with state administrations to accommodate the quarantined as well as suspected patients. On the other hand, it is generating business from large hospitals, hosting their front line workers such as doctors and nurses. “We are in the direct line of fire. Travel and hospitality was the first to get hit as the epidemic spread and would be the last sector to recover. Out of our 600 hotels, 450 are non-operational right now," Vaibhav Aggarwal, founder and CEO of FabHotels, said. Catering to the new demand keeps the head above water for some of his properties. About 150 of his hotels are tapping the quarantine and hospital demand in top metros.

Five star and luxury hotels, meanwhile, are doing the unthinkable. Pre-covid, they mostly dismissed home deliveries of food as unbecoming of their stature. Unlike smaller independent restaurants, they offered a gastronomical experience, difficult to replicate at home. That tide has turned.

Upmarket hotels are partnering with delivery companies to send delicacies at home. “Take whatever business comes your way," said a veteran hotelier who did not want to be identified. “Such is the pressure right now." One of the five star hotels in Gurugram makes around ₹75,000 every weekday from home deliveries. “That covers the salary expenses for many in the hotel," he added.

While both the quarantine demand and the home delivery opportunity for luxury hotels appear short-term—this business may not hold six months from now—a few corporates are looking at potential new revenue opportunities that are more sustainable. Desperate times is about preparing for a longer contraction in the economy.

ELGi Equipments Ltd, a Coimbatore-based industrial air compressor manufacturer, is working on two economic scenarios. The first is a V-shaped impact, where there is a significant drop and a reasonably quick recovery. The second scenario is where there is a sharp drop and then a protracted recovery, or a U-shaped one.

The company runs a modern foundry that produces castings for its own use. “In the past, we never got distracted trying to sell castings to outsiders. But in the event of an elongated U scenario, that business model does not hold water," Jairam Varadaraj, managing director of the company said. “We may start looking for customers for this facility because it would be significantly under-utilized."

Similarly, a large number of corporates are likely to recalibrate their business models if they haven’t done it already. Selling will never be the same again.

16.2. Patenting of Innovative Low Cost PPE developed by Indian Navy Paves way for Rapid Mass Production

IBEF, May 15, 2020

In a major step towards rapid mass production of the Medical Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) developed by the Indian Navy, a patent has been successfully filed by the Intellectual Property acilitation Cell (IPFC) of Min of Defence, in association with National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), an enterprise under Min of Science & Technology.

The low-cost PPE has been developed by a Doctor of Indian Navy, posted at the recently created Innovation Cell at Institute of Naval Medicine (INM), Mumbai. A pilot batch of PPEs has already been produced at Naval Dockyard Mumbai.

The PPE developed by the Navy is made of a special fabric which affords high level of protection along with high ‘breathability’ as against other PPEs available in the market and is therefore more suitable for use in hot and humid weather conditions as prevalent in India. The technology has also been tested and validated by ICMR approved Testing Lab.

Concerted efforts are now ongoing by a core team of Navy, IPFC and NRDC to commence mass production of this low-cost PPE. Eligible firms are being identified by NRDC for taking up licensed production of the PPEs on a fast track. A very significant and urgent requirement in the fight against the Corona Virus is the need to equip our front-line health care professionals with comfortable PPEs, which can be produced indigenously at an affordable cost without much capital investment. The firms / start-ups interested to take up licensed production may approach cmdnrdc@nrdcindia.com.

The team of Innovators from Navy is working in close coordination with IPFC which was set up under Mission Raksha Gyan Shakti. Since its launch in Nov 2018, around 1500 IP assets have been created under Mission Raksha Gyan Shakti.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

17. Opinion | Regulate air safety but leave those fares alone

Livemint, 22 May 2020

Strict hygiene rules will make flying safer but arbitrary ticket price bands could make it hard for the industry to recover from the corona blow. Allow airlines strategic flexibility

Airline stocks soared on Thursday after the government declared our skies open for domestic flights again, starting Monday, even as a collective sigh of relief was heaved by people stranded in cities away from home and others with urgent business to conduct in person elsewhere. For now, only about a third of India’s 7,800-odd scheduled flights are expected to resume, prompted by the need to keep airports free of crowds. As aircraft immobilized by coronavirus for two months prepare to roll onto runways, a long list of dos and don’ts has also been issued. The safety aspects of these guidelines are mostly sensible. They cover norms to be followed from end to end, all the way from local points of departure, past airport checks, aboard aeroplanes and disembarkation routines to passenger conveyance bound for eventual destinations. Residents of containment zones and people who have tested positive for covid are barred. All other flyers must submit a self-declaration form as an avowal of good health. A “safe" sign flashed by our official infection-tracing app Aarogya Setu is a must for all those aged above 14. The other rules are broadly as one would expect, be it the masks to be worn or the distances to be maintained between one person and the next.

Those who need to fly can draw additional reassurance from experts who have endorsed aviation industry claims that cabin air is filtered for microbes often enough to prevent airborne infection. What seems overdone, however, are the arbitrary price controls imposed by the Centre for three months. In an effort to contain extortionate pricing as repressed demand is let loose, it has issued airfare bands. A seat on a Delhi-Mumbai flight, for example, must sell only between ₹3,500 and ₹10,000, as reported, with 40% of all seats sold at a price lower than the midpoint. This sounds pro-consumer, but may do more harm than good if it distorts the market’s ability to balance demand and supply. Or pushes weak carriers out of business. The burden of safety protocols has made air services costlier, the shutdown has squeezed finances, and private airlines gasping for survival need all the strategic flexibility they can get. This should include the freedom to respond to dynamic conditions.

Aviation fuel may be relatively cheap at the moment, thanks to global oil prices being low, but there is no saying what might happen over the next quarter. Moreover, once the initial spurt of flying is over, actual demand for air tickets in the weeks ahead cannot be foretold. Consumer anxiety may persist. Price controls under high volatility would make it difficult for airlines to optimize operations. If too few seats are sold on a flight, then rather than fly mostly empty, or cancel it, deep fare cuts may be an airline’s best option. On the other hand, if a company would like to experiment with, say, an offer of alternate seats kept vacant for substantially higher fares, such an idea should not be thwarted by fare caps.

It is not as if the government’s price concerns are not valid. But then, any attempt by private airlines to collude in pushing fares too high could be moderated by fair-priced tickets available on our public carrier, Air India. Its very presence as an option for passengers would serve to keep private operators in check. In general, markets work best with minimal intervention. Our special need for safety calls for strict rules, no doubt, but the government should refrain from taking control of aviation variables that are likely to work better if they go by what buyers and sellers want—and the fares their market interactions yield.

18. The coming of age of e-health platforms

Livemint, 25 May 2020, Mihir Dalal

Most healthcare startups are seeing an unprecedented surge in demand. Is a unicorn around the corner?
Despite the regulatory environment becoming clearer and increasing customer interest, startups could face opposition from local pharmacy groups

MUMBAI: Two decades ago, Alexander Kuruvilla launched the telemedicine business for Narayana Hrudayalaya, a hospital chain in Bengaluru. But because of poor internet access and a generally low-technology infrastructure—patients would often make payments through demand drafts—the business struggled to take off. “What was missing was instant gratification—patients wouldn’t instantly get consultations, doctors wouldn’t get the fees due to them on time," Kuruvilla said.

In his present position as chief healthcare strategy officer at online healthcare platform Practo Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Kuruvilla has no such problems. Since the first week of March, Practo has registered a five-times jump in daily doctor consultations from customers, with general physicians, gynaecologists, dermatologists and psychiatrists most in demand.

To cope, Practo was forced to shift dozens of employees from other business lines to the consultation team. “We’ve been working 15-16 hours every day for the past eight weeks. We wake up to this. We sleep to this," Kuruvilla said.

Like Practo, many other healthcare startups are seeing an unprecedented surge in demand. Unlike the past, people are increasingly willing to pay for digital health services.

At 1mg Technologies Pvt. Ltd, until March, only 8% of customers in the company’s doctor consultation business used to pay for the service. Over the past two months, that number has risen to 70%. In the same period, as many 10,000 doctors have shown interest in signing up with 1mg to treat patients. Before March, 1mg had just 150 doctors on the platform.

“Because of covid, patients are afraid to go to clinics, and doctors are afraid to see patients, so a lot of doctors and hospitals that previously saw telemedicine as an unnecessary service are now embracing it," 1mg chief executive officer (CEO) Prashant Tandon told Mint.

Across the world, the coronavirus outbreak has provided a turbocharge for the expansion of digital health services. Countries across the board are trying to shift healthcare delivery on to the internet, incentivise telemedicine, encourage online medicine bookings and use chatbots to answer patient queries.

In India, too, after years of treating online healthcare platforms with suspicion, the government has “notified" online medicine bookings and online doctor consultations as essential services during the lockdown that began on March 25.

The abrupt change in the attitude of the government, together with the very real need felt by doctors, patients and pharmaceutical companies to use the internet for healthcare delivery in the new environment, has presented an unexpected gift for health startups that have lagged their peers in other sectors in the startup ecosystem.

A medical unicorn?

India has a unicorn in most sectors: e-commerce, transportation, food delivery, travel and hospitality, content, financial technology, logistics and business software. Health is perhaps the only major space that has so far failed to throw up a billion-dollar-plus internet firm.

Not for too long, entrepreneurs and investors said.

According to RedSeer Consulting, India’s digital health market will expand to $4.5 billion in this financial year, compared with $1.2 billion in FY20. The consultancy has upped its estimate of the digital health market to $25 billion in FY25, compared with its pre-covid estimate of $19 billion. Medicine delivery will continue to comprise a large majority of the market, according to RedSeer.

To be sure, India’s most valuable healthcare startup, CureFit Healthcare Pvt. Ltd, valued at nearly $750 million, has been badly hit by the coronavirus outbreak. CureFit’s online-to-offline model, which was a strength in pre-covid times, is now a liability as its core business of fitness centres is likely to be hit for a long time. CureFit was forced to cut about 10% of its staff earlier this month after revenues vanished.

That said, bigger healthcare firms—like Practo, 1mg, Medlife, PharmEasy, Netmeds—as well as smaller startups—like BeatO and mfine—are registering increasing user interest and demand with each passing week. Post covid, people want to know more about healthcare, spend on boosting their immunity, treat illnesses through online consultations and buy medicines online.

Even diagnostic startups—like KlinicApp and Portea Medical—whose businesses have taken a hit as people have put off non-urgent blood tests and other diagnostic check-ups, are expected to fare better over the coming months compared with offline diagnostic centres.

“One of the biggest challenges for any internet business is to get people to try their service, and then it’s up to the merit of the experience. This phase has enabled trial at a massive scale for us and for the ecosystem. It’s not just consumers that are moving online. The entire ecosystem—from doctors, hospitals, pharma companies, government—everyone clearly believes that digital health is a key part of the health delivery architecture of the country and it’s not just an add-on," 1mg’s Tandon said.

Apart from doctor consultations, 1mg’s medicine delivery orders have risen by 45-50% and viewership of its healthcare content has spiked since the coronavirus outbreak. In addition, 1mg has cut marketing spending to “nearly zero" because customers are coming anyway.

The delivery imperative

At Medlife, another large digital health firm, demand for medicine delivery has also increased by 50%. Further, because customers are presently more motivated by safety concerns than lower prices, Medlife has cut discounts by as much as 7 percentage points.

The company’s doctor consultation business has jumped to 8,000 daily bookings from 3,000 earlier. Earlier this month, Medlife started asking customers to pay for consultations for speedier responses and other benefits. The company expects to register 8,000 daily paid consultations within a year. And like 1mg, Medlife has cut marketing spending, by 30% since the outbreak.

“Digital health is becoming mainstream because people believe that this is a safer way to access health services," said Ananth Narayanan, co-founder and CEO of Medlife.

Like grocery delivery firms, healthcare startups expect that much of the new business will remain, particularly as social distancing becomes the norm, perhaps for years to come.

Medlife expects order volumes in its medicine delivery and doctor consultation to be “easily more than 150%" in October compared with January, Narayanan said. “It’s a long-term structural boost. The trend is here to stay," he said.

Pradeep Dadha, founder and CEO of Netmeds, added that going forward, customers may become “far less demanding" in terms of their service expectations from online health platforms. “Everyone seems to have acquired a new-found sense of patience," Dadha said.

For now, medicine delivery firms are still inching back up to full capacity, as lockdowns in cities like Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Chennai continue to hit operations.

The lockdown has also brought a sharp, temporary increase in costs for medicine delivery firms.

For instance, Medlife said that since March the company is ploughing back more than 2% of revenues toward covid-related expenses. Additional costs include paying for doctors to visit all its fulfilment centres, arranging for masks and sanitisers and offering free doctor consultations for operations and logistics staff, and paying for their transportation because of the ban on public transport. The company expects to continue incurring these additional costs through June.

In addition, healthcare startups expect their diagnostic businesses to take another six months to fully recover to pre-covid levels.

Still, over the long term, however, entrepreneurs said that margins may increase once the peak of the pandemic passes, largely because spending on marketing (including discounts), which is one of the two highest areas of expenditure, may not need to return to pre-covid levels.

Companies like 1mg and Medlife are also making their supply chains more efficient. During the first month of the lockdown, companies faced severe disruptions in supply chains and shortage of labour even as demand spiked. This forced them to deliver more packages through fewer logistics staff. Medlife’s Narayanan said that the company’s delivery “productivity almost doubled because of route optimization."

To capitalize on the surging customer interest, healthcare startups are also entering new businesses. 1mg is signing up with companies to offer them advice and protocols on how to keep employees safe in fulfilment centres, factories and warehouses and how to handle situations if their staff contract the virus.

Medlife has begun discussions with insurance companies to devise customized insurance products. “Insurance, historically, has been actuarial, based on statistics. Whereas now we have real consumption data. So we’re working with insurance players on how we can use this data and create customized insurance products for our customers," Narayanan said.

Coming boom

So far, healthcare startups have lagged other internet companies partly because sectors like e-commerce, transportation and food delivery have hogged capital. But now, with the healthcare sector expected to be one of the beneficiaries of the pandemic, investors and entrepreneurs expect an investment boom in the space.

“Like we had an e-commerce boom, a hyperlocal boom and a fintech boom in the last decade, we’ll see an investment boom in health tech and education over the next five years," said Anup Jain, managing partner, Orios Venture Partners, an early-stage fund. Jain expects new startups to come in spaces like nutrition and fitness, health insurance, digital therapeutics and healthcare lending.

“In these kinds of categories there is a lot of scope for direct-to-consumer platforms that will capture data, do customer profiling and then offer the right kinds of products to each customer. Each of these segments look very promising after covid. We should see new startups coming up in such spaces in the next three to six months," Jain said.

Already, interest is rising in the space. Reliance is in talks to buy Netmeds as the conglomerate seeks to build a large, integrated healthcare offering, a person familiar with the matter said. Both companies have declined to comment.

Medlife, which has been trying to raise $150 million for nearly a year, said that investors have become much more bullish on the sector after the pandemic.

“Now there is a recognition among investors that this is a sunrise sector. The expansion in digital health that was expected to happen in five years is now going to be two to three years—that’s the kind of acceleration investors are now expecting," Narayanan said.

Regulatory issues

In the past, healthcare startups have been hampered by regulatory problems. The Delhi high court and the Madras high court had separately banned online medicine sales, though their orders were stayed later. The country’s drugs regulator, Drugs Controller General of India, too, has been ambivalent about e-pharmacies.

But after the pandemic, online health startups said that the regulatory environment has become clearer, which will spur investments into the sector.

“Big investors have been very concerned about regulatory issues in health tech, but now that both telemedicine and e-pharmacy have been legally notified by the government, one of the major reservations of investors has been removed," 1mg’s Tandon said. “When you add to this, things like a fast-growing market, lower discounts, better unit economics—there will be big investments coming into the sector. We’ll see a unicorn very soon."

Despite the optimism and customer interest, though, startups could face opposition from local pharmacy groups.

Recently, The Economic Times reported that the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD) has requested the government to remove e-pharmacies from the Aarogya Setu platform in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The AIOCD represents more than 850,000 pharmacy outlets across the country.

19.1. IBM bets big on hybrid cloud in India

Livemint, 10 Jun. 2020, Ayushman Baruah

In India, top telecom players Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel have recently signed up with IBM to build and modernise their telecom network cloud
Clients across industries in India, including Honda, Maruti, NSE, State Bank of India, Berger Paints, and Amul have deployed IBM’s cloud

BENGALURU: Technology major IBM is betting big on hybrid cloud in India as clients embark on their artificial intelligence (AI)-led digital transformation journeys.

“We want to ensure IBM leads in the two major transformational journeys of cloud and AI our clients are pursuing. IBM has already built three key platforms – mainframe, services, and middleware. The fourth one is hybrid cloud," said Sandip Patel, general manager, IBM India & South Asia.

“Clients, however, need more than just a platform. They need deep industry expertise. This is why the services that clients rely on, to build and manage the hybrid cloud platform, is a massive opportunity for IBM. It's nearly half of the $1.2 trillion hybrid cloud opportunity," Patel said.

IBM which acquired Red Hat in 2019 believes together they hold a “unique opportunity" to lead the hybrid cloud market. “We can make Red Hat OpenShift the default choice for hybrid cloud in the same way Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the default choice for the operating system. We can provide the end-to-end solution that only the two of us can build," said Patel.

In India, top telecom players Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel have recently signed up with IBM to build and modernise their telecom network cloud. “Our work together with clients like Vodafone Idea and Airtel to help them prepare for 5G by embracing edge computing and hybrid multi-cloud will redefine how businesses operate," said Patel.

Besides the telecom sector, clients across industries in India, including Honda, Maruti, National Stock Exchange, State Bank of India, Berger Paints, and Amul, have deployed IBM’s cloud in some form or the other as part of their digital transformation journey.

“As of now, only 20% of the easy workloads have moved over to the cloud but the majority of mission critical workloads for enterprises still reside within the enterprises' firewalls. So, the opportunity is huge," said Patel.

IBM is also working with the Indian government in several areas as it digitally transforms to deliver services to citizens. For instance, the National e-Assessment Centre of Income Tax Department has deployed artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the tax assessment process which is built on IBM technologies including IBM Cloud Private, application platform for developing and managing on-premises, containerized applications.

The National Health Mission, under the government of Andhra Pradesh, has collaborated with IBM to implement a “virtual agent" to provide covid-19-related information for citizens on the state’s national health portal. The Watson virtual agent, known as Watson Assistant for Citizens, on the IBM public cloud combines different technological capabilities to understand and respond to common questions about covid-19 in English, Telugu and Hindi.

Like most other technology companies, IBM has withdrawn its full-year 2020 guidance in light of the covid-19 crisis. However, IBM’s cloud business continued to grow as total cloud revenue stood at $5.4 billion, up 19% y-o-y for the first quarter ended March.

19.2. Cloud spending grows but there's lack of IT professionals with right skills

Livemint, 25 May 2020, Prasid Banerjee

About 55% of respondents said they are focusing on reskilling their staff but that could slow down the rate of adoption for cloud infrastructure
Requirements include professionals who can work in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), cybersecurity, blockchain, analytics

NEW DELHI: The covid-19 pandemic has driven investments in cloud infrastructure across companies, but so has the need for skilled personnel who can work with these new systems. India is among countries in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region which will face a skill gap.

“Many organizations lack the cloud expertise that could help their initiatives get off the ground quickly," said a recent study by the Boston Consulting Group and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

About 55% of respondents in the study said they are “focusing on reskilling their staff", but that could slow down the rate of adoption for cloud infrastructure, which is the need of the hour. Requirements include professionals who can work in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), cybersecurity, blockchain, analytics and more.

“More important than adaptation (of cloud) is that organisations are quickly exposed to assets like the security framework, flexibility and scalability framework etc. where cloud adoption comes up in a big way," said Monesh Dange, Partner and National Leader, Advisory Markets, EY India.

“At the scale at which this is going to happen, the requirements for skill have gone up in a big tangent," he added. Dange said professionals need to be skilled in cloud architecture, cloud security, remote data center management, managing heavy duty applications on the cloud. He pointed out that simple applications like Word etc. can be done from anywhere, but when it comes to things like CAD designs etc, it requires more skilled professionals. “There’s a dearth of these certified professionals," he said.

However, Dange also added that the existing base is actually available in India. The matter is more about upskilling of existing professionals, which has to be done by both enterprises and the professionals themselves. “A cybersecurity professional today isn’t spending as much time on AI, ML etc. as they were spending on their core. In the current world, the cross skilling is needed," he said.

“There are multiple types of skill gaps here," said Jayanth Kolla, founder and partner, Convergence Catalyst.

“If you look at it globally, there are two primary areas where the talent comes from — universities and industry. In India, except for IISC and a few IITs, not many institutions do much in depth research on using these technologies. Even in bigger companies, it’s not product oriented, it's service oriented. So it doesn’t require a lot of core deep tech engineers on the panel," he added.

Kolla pointed out that most of this talent is focused on the startup space, which is more product oriented. In addition, innovation in deep tech happens really fast and people need to keep abreast of everything too. “If you’re not keeping abreast yourself, you’re really not keeping up with the times. Especially in deep tech like AI, ML, blockchain and IoT," he said.

While the shortage of such professionals is more evident now, it’s not necessarily new. According to a 2019 study by ed-tech company Great Learning, India had nearly doubled its AI workforce from 40,000 in 2018 to 72,000 in 2019, but 2500 positions were still left open. The report also had 3000 companies, who said they were working on projects that included AI, a 200% growth from 2018.

Further, other reports had indicated that the demand for such professionals would rise to 4.4 lakh in 2020, with supply available for only about half of that. These reports of course didn’t take into account the pandemic and how it would impact spending on cloud infrastructure. The BCG-AWS report cited above said companies in the APAC region are expected to spend as much as 10% of the IT budgets on cloud infra by 2023, and are already spending “roughly 5%" on the same.

Kolla pointed out that even now, many companies in India who say they use AI, ML and other technologies are using the bare minimum for such tech. As a result, the professionals working there are often unaware or unskilled in the advancements that have been made in these areas. “Companies say we use AI, ML, but it’s glorified analytics," he said.

EY’s Dange pointed out that IT modernization was going at a particular pace earlier, but the pandemic may have accelerated the adoption of cloud by as much as 20x, and so has the demand for such skills.

20. How technology will shape the future of work after covid

Livemint, 15 May 2020, Abhijit Ahaskar, Prasid Banerjee

Thermal scanners and wearables to ensure social distancing will become the new normal Coronavirus

NEW DELHI: Technology is set to be at the heart of every workplace as we return to office post the coronavirus-induced lockdown. From enhanced surveillance to faster processes, companies are looking to not only make workplaces more secure but also deliver services to their clients differently.

“You and I are not going to go to a trade show for the next five years, are we?" asked Sanjay Srivastava, chief digital officer, Genpact.

It’s not just that large gatherings can aid the spread of the disease, but also because many are realizing that a lot of the offline events can happen digitally.

“In the long run, we will have to adapt to a new normal where covid-19 is part of life. The Internet of Things (IoT) will play an important role in this new normal and that will push its adoption in a lot of technologies that already exist," said Sanjay Gupta, vice president and India country manager, NXP Semiconductors.

The use of interconnected devices and sensors can help workplaces reduce the need for employees to touch surfaces, but companies themselves can also use light sensors and next-generation ID cards to make the workplace more efficient.

The fear of objects frequently touched by others at the workplace is another factor.

Workplaces are trading fingerprints sensors for face recognition tech for attendance, factories are using wrist bands that alert workers if they get too close to each other, and hospitals are using heat-sensing trackers that can keep an eye on patients’ body temperature. Inside these devices are tiny sensors that can capture data in real time and transmit them to other devices.

Many offices are already planning to make changes to adhere to social distancing norms and monitor employees using cameras with thermal sensors to ensure they are not carrying a fever.

Homegrown artificial intelligence (AI) company Staqu said it already has 15 clients for its new video analytics software. It uses existing closed-circuit television cameras and thermal cameras to determine whether social distancing is being maintained, monitor employee body temperature in real time, etc.

A software and services provider called Ramco Systems has built a system where an employee’s presence is recorded with face recognition cameras. After this, a thermal camera built into the system runs a body temperature check. If the temperature turns out to be normal, the office door opens. If not, the door remains closed and the human resource department is alerted.

Automaker Ford is reportedly testing wearables at its factory in Michigan, US, to keep social distancing among the workforce. If they come within a range of 6 feet of each other, the watches vibrate.

On the other hand, companies are also increasing the use of technology in how they deliver services. For instance, while chatbots today deliver a somewhat rudimentary level of customer service, tomorrow’s bots may be able to do better.

Similarly, factory floors will look at increased automation.

As a result, many will have to enhance their skills to stay relevant as things change.

“In the old normal, if you said some of the work can be done using automation, the problem was how do you cross skill your employees to add value on top of that," said Srivastava. “At every stage of evolution, technology automates some things and the human value adds to another level."

There will be a fundamental change in how things work and new business models, supply chains and mechanisms will come into being, said Srivastava. “Some of what we used to do, say, last year will get automated, but a lot of new ideas and projects will also come into play," he said.

The post-covid world isn’t simply about measures that focus on employee safety. It’s also about efficiency, speed, and cost-effectiveness. When you go back to work, you will have to adapt to the increased use of technology around you.

“This will affect every individual working in corporations. The way that you used to work will change," said Subram Natarajan, chief technology officer, IBM India/South Asia.

***********************

TOUCH NO MORE

Connected lift: It allows people in apartments and office buildings to call ahead and indicate the floor they want to go to using a smartphone app.

Smart appliances: Microwaves or coffee machines which can be controlled with voice commands will be good fit for offices.

NFC-based tags: These can enable contactless payments at toll plazas, parking spaces in office complexes or markets.

India and the World

21. As India unlocks, here are six ways our lives have changed forever

Livemint, 08 Jun. 2020, Future Forward

From firewalls to cutting back on expenses, a clutch of scenario-planning experts unveil how New India will look
Given that the world is staring at a massive recession, consumers will shed the consumerist approach of the BC era, and scrutinize what value each purchase delivers

DELHI/MUMBAI/BENGALURU: We are all living through an experience that is unprecedented. It arrived on us with a suddenness that did not allow much time for preparation. The world now seems to be divided into two distinct eras—BC (before covid-19) and CE (covid-19 era).

The CE experience is unfamiliar and nothing in our living memories or lessons from history has prepared us for it. Yes, there was the Spanish Flu in 1918, but that’s so long ago that there is no visceral memory.

Trying to make some sense of the future helps us deal with the constant state of uncertainty we find ourselves in today. To complicate matters, past data is not of much use in this case. So, the future is probably best understood as alternative scenarios or stories.

What would those stories be? Our search led us to a set of six macro trends. The future stories will unfold on the basis of the actual impact and intensity of these trends. While some changes may be temporary, many could become long-term trends that impact society at a structural level. Of course, with India being a vast subcontinent living in multiple centuries simultaneously, many of these will be nascent at present, with the potential to become mainstream later on.

A firewalled world

From a boundaryless world, we have moved rapidly to one that is firewalled at multiple levels. The key driver here is fear and mistrust of the outsider. The closest level of fencing starts with the home, extends to the neighbourhood/gated community and may continue to expand in ever widening circles to city, district, state and country.

Welcome to the post-global world where there could be a twist in the James Bond narrative of the Cold War. Politically, we could see an erosion of globalization and a return of protectionism. Friction between superpowers and power blocs may make a comeback. On the economic side, markets will struggle to live without export-fuelled growth and global supply chains. This could lead to a push towards “self-reliance" and smaller trading blocs and a return of the 1960’s and 1970’s pattern of global trade.

Simultaneously, the social narrative could move towards trading freedom for safety, with greater powers vested in various authorities. From central to micro-local bodies, citizens could continue to surrender a fair amount of individual initiative for the dubious comfort of community safety.

Multiple features of society stand to be impacted by this as the world shrinks into smaller circles. Public transport, large-scale events like concerts, stadium sports, election rallies, marriages, religious festivals and smaller pleasures like going to the movies may no longer be taken for granted. The circle of those whom we trust will probably whittle down to a handful, impacting our daily interactions beginning with, for example, the many daily helpers that we in India take for granted.

The post-touch world

The basic human impulse of touch is now suspect. The key driver is the fear of infection. While currently this takes the form of wearing gloves or sanitizing everything obsessively, systemic solutions for this too may emerge.

Can contactless supply chains then be far behind? Mechanization of manufacturing has already begun and is poised to integrate forward into delivery as well. Amazon had experimented with drone delivery last year. Between that and driverless cars as delivery mechanisms and an army of robots that can perform everything from surgery to embroidery, the end-to-end chain stands to become contactless.

Whether it’s reading a book or turning a car key, our world depends on our ability to touch things. Many things are handled by multiple people—from public telephones and restaurant menus to shopping trolleys, lift buttons and more. Some service businesses like spas and salons are entirely dependent today on human contact. Many of these will probably be reimagined in a post-touch paradigm. Existing solutions in the tech realm may well see an acceleration of voice-activated, sensor-controlled and phone-operated solutions.

In a society which has always had vertical distancing (along class and caste lines), the suspicion of outsiders will end up reinforcing the untouchability norms which were easing in urban settings. So horizontal distancing (separation of people within the same group) may get exacerbated with new criteria.

Health data is the new oil

The key driver here is public safety. A Schengen Visa requires a covid-free certificate for application, one pre-travel test and another when you land. Entry into a grocery store or a condominium in Gurgaon requires the mandatory health check and your Aarogya Setu app marking you as safe.

There are already many apps out and more under way that claim to show your six degrees of separation from covid. There have been announcements by a host of authorities and private facilities asking people to download an app and show it to gain entry. The scope of this could end up spanning a host of other infectious diseases, from tuberculosis to the common cold.

Health visas then may become access cards to all kinds of places, from office buildings and movie halls to nightclubs and parties. A health score could become as essential to life as one’s credit score.

Of course, this presupposes that everyone has smartphones and access to data. For those who do not, the system will possibly devise the equivalent of an Aadhaar card or an “unsmart" app—the caveat being the need to constantly update an inanimate piece of paper.

Everything From Home

Home used to be where the heart was. Now it looks like becoming the seat of heart, mind and body—for everyone, all the time. The key driver is the sudden move to work-from-home (WFH), across organizations and sectors. Companies like TCS, Twitter, Facebook, Google and Accenture have announced that a significant part of the workforce will now be working from home as the norm.

Employment contracts then will need to be reinvented. Organizations have willy-nilly had to move from a command-and-control mindset to a trust model. While some are adapting, kicking and screaming, others are discovering that a physical office is passé. It implies a mutual contract of trust wherein employees commit to putting in the work. In a power distance society, this could change accountability, since people may find it difficult to self-monitor.

Further, the line between exploitation and support could blur with individual home offices being forced to bear the costs that companies previously budgeted for. Softer aspects that contributed towards building company culture, like picnics and parties, will all be in abeyance for the noticeable future, both on grounds of safety and affordability.

What happens then to the concept of working in teams, building trust across departments etc. when people only see each other on screens? The everyday socializing aspect of the office space helps create mutually-beneficial relationships at worst, and lifelong friendships at best. For new hires, the ability to build working relationships could be severely impacted.

As WFH becomes more of a norm, the office space itself could become the social hub where people drop in occasionally to create those relationships which foster trust and collaboration.

The reconfiguration of the home then looms large. It has to allow for proper working spaces with everything that it entails—from connectivity to ergonomic chairs and desks, storage for papers, printers to islands of soundproofing where the shriek of the pressure cooker doesn’t puncture the telling strategic point you just made.

An important aspect of WFH that runs the danger of being ignored in all of this is the loss of space for homemakers. The only time many women in India get for themselves is when everyone has left for the day. Instead, they may now be running a day-long kitchen churning out food and tea on demand, their only other sources of entertainment—the TV and computer —commandeered by the husband or children by turn.

Cocooning, a trend spotted by Faith Popcorn in the 1980s, could take on a whole new urgency as homes become the ultimate safe haven for everything. Whatever can be done at home could be moved in—from gym apparatus to better entertainment facilities, an array of cooking appliances, playground or even medical equipment and so on.

People rely on a network of friends for various social and emotional needs. With the pandemic closing down on such interactions, family members may have to take on multiple roles. This could exacerbate the stress brought on by living cheek by jowl 24x7x365.

Working from home could also now mean you don’t have to wait for retirement to move to that place with better air quality and where a 5-km commute doesn’t take an hour. No wonder then, Zoom’s market cap now outstrips that of the top seven airlines in the world!

Minus-one living

The world is staring at a massive recession. This is the next key driver. Consumer confidence was already low and demand falling before the pandemic struck to give it an even harder blow. Now there is huge uncertainty around current jobs and the value of investments has plummeted. Unemployment could rise to levels not seen since the Great Depression.

Consumers are already cutting back on expenses that don’t seem feasible or necessary right now—foreign vacation, for example. Many have just postponed spends—the new fridge, the vehicle upgrade. But some may never happen, as consumers start to rethink the consumerist approach of the BC era, scrutinizing what value—tangible and intangible—each item delivers.

At the same time, no one likes feeling poorer than they were. So the small indulgences which were always a feature of recessions will be back on the table—the lipsticks, the ice-creams, the chocolates and so on.

Organizations, unsure of their future and dealing with southward graphs, will look at cost optimization and be more short-term driven. Some will be looking for the next big idea and opportunity but on a tight budget. They will have to deal with multiple paradoxes—keeping staff costs down while keeping employees motivated; cutting expenses while investing in ideas; being flexible yet remaining purpose-driven.

Class clash

One of the things the pandemic lockdown has brought out in searing intensity is the extent of differences between the lives of the poor and that of the middle class or rich in India. The already-high Gini coefficient may climb higher as unrest and anger among the poor—who are likely to get poorer—emerges as another key driver.

The middle class has been clamouring for longer lockdowns, afraid for their lives, while the poor know that hunger kills more surely than covid. The lockdowns have also shown wage workers the pitiless face of their employers or that of landlords who threw them out. From being self-respecting workers, they went on to become charitable causes.

The sharp contrast between the cushy lives of the well-to-do and the poor could lead to a huge class battle, the likes of which we have not seen before.

To conclude, all these possible macro-trends come with a caveat—their likelihood is hugely dependent on the speed with which an effective vaccine is discovered and manufactured for 1.4 billion people in India and 7 billion globally.

If we have a cure in the next six months, we may possibly see far less impact. Should it take another couple of years or even longer, we will in all probability see many shifts. They will all impact individual sectors, businesses and lives differently. This is where scenario planning comes in. You could use these trends to create your own alternative scenarios and be prepared to ride this one out with forward-planning and safeguards on your side.

Written by Future Forward, a collaboration among brand, semiotics, culture and organizational development specialists: Ameen Haque, Hamsini Shivakumar, Prabhakar Mundkur, Priyadarshini Narendra, Rasika Batra and Sanjeev Roy. Email: ffindia6@gmail.com

22. Paradise lost: The exodus from Gulf

Livemint, 18 May 2020, Nidheesh M.K.

Over ₹1 trillion flows into Kerala as remittances from West Asia each year. Will covid-19 change everything?
Whether they will return to the Gulf is uncertain as of now. Past shocks have been blips in the steady exchange of migrants and money. Will covid-19 leave more permanent scars?

ERNAKULAM/KOCHI: When Shibu Mathew, a 39-year-old draftsman who used to be based in Abu Dhabi until recently, walked up the air stairs of an Air India Express plane over a week ago, he thought he was entering some strange new realm: an afterlife. After more than a dozen years in that ultimate refuge to the Malayalee mind—the Gulf—the exit was sudden.

Mathew had lost his job at an oil sector-linked company on 31 March, along with about 300 other Indians, as the twin shocks of a pandemic and an oil price plunge hit simultaneously. He says he tried—“really tried"—to find another job that would enable him to stay back in the Gulf region.

“I have been working there for the last 14 years. So, I used some of my old contacts and started applying for jobs. One or two had, verbally, made some offers. But when the city went into a total lockdown because of covid-19, the situation changed immediately," Mathew said. “Those who had offered jobs went back on their promise or stopped taking calls at all."

As virus cases began to peak in the Gulf, he finally decided to come back. So, when the first evacuation flight took off—flagging off India’s biggest peacetime repatriation exercise on 7 May—Mathew was on it. The bags by his side were heavy, as if he was returning permanently.

“It became certain that I will not get a job. In that situation, my first priority shifted to somehow getting back," he said.

It is within these shifts in priorities, made by thousands of people like Mathew, that the fortunes of a state like Kerala rests. Every fifth house in Kerala is officially estimated to have an expat in the Gulf. Likewise, every fourth Indian in the Gulf region is estimated to be a Keralite. They send home money like clockwork: more than ₹1 trillion arrived last year, accounting for almost one-third of the state’s total income.

Men like Mathew are the international variant of the blue-collar migrant exodus which has gripped India’s attention over the past two months. Whether they will return to the Gulf is unknowable as of now. Past shocks, from the Kuwait war to the global financial crisis in 2008, were blips in the long arc of steady exchange—of migrants and money. Will covid-19 leave more permanent scars?

One thing is certain though. Kerala’s financial pipeline is snapped for the moment, and the state is preparing for the worst. “What the state is currently doing is to understand the extent of migration, what kind of skills they have and what can we gain from them (once they return)," said R. Ramakumar, a member of Kerala’s planning board and an economist at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Origin of the trail

Kerala’s tryst with the Gulf began as early as the fourth century B.C., when Arab traders in their dhows used to follow the monsoon winds blowing in from the west to the east and made a fortune trading in spices with Kerala. Malayalees have sailed back with many of these sailors for centuries.

By the time geologists came in search of oil in the Persian Gulf following the Great Depression, large-scale discoveries threw up new economic opportunities, and Malayalees, bound by history, geography and custom, were willing participants. Since at least the 1970s, out-migration has become an intricate part of life for the educated young in Kerala, experts point out. Most of Kerala’s emigrants move to the six countries in the Gulf regions—United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait.

The Gulf road to affluence even entered popular culture soon enough. In a popular 1989-Malayalam movie Varavelpu, which is about a Gulf-returned Malayalee man played by actor Mohanlal, self-worth is intricately tied to a job in the Gulf.

As it becomes apparent during the course of the film that the hero actually wants to stay back in Kerala, his stock falls flat among the local crowd.

And that is the puzzling question that confronts the Malayalee migrant of today: self-worth and economic agency. In the face of bleak employment prospects—home and abroad—what would these returning migrants do next? How could the state recoup the collapse in remittances?

Underlying such questions is also the future of the Asia-Gulf migration corridor, deemed now to be one of the largest of its kind in the world. It consists of an estimated 12 million people who live and work in the Middle-East, originating from countries across south and South-East Asia. Of them, the Malayalee migration pattern is seen as the oldest in India.

“The exodus from the Gulf may be the first major manifestation of a reverse globalization and could cause lasting effects," said Shajahan Madampat, a cultural critic and commentator based in the UAE.

Kerala is set to take the most severe hit, he noted. “Every day, about 500 new (virus) cases are detected in the UAE alone, where we have around 5-10 lakh Malayalees. A vast majority of them are unskilled or semi-skilled workers, and many of them survive by getting employed at small-and-medium enterprises. A lot of these high-risk, middle-class jobs may be lost," he said.

Reeling under the pandemic and a drastic decline in oil prices, the Gulf countries have also started adopting several austerity measures. Saudi Arabia, for instance, has allowed the private sector to cut the salaries of its employees by 40% for a period of six months. The fallout: At the risk of starvation, as well as illness, nearly four lakh people have registered to return to Kerala.

“We don’t expect all of them to come immediately. People may have been risk-averse and may have generally registered," said the planning board member Ramakumar.

“The state has already created a set of projects which we can offer to them as entrepreneurs. For example, we are looking at those who might have experience in poly-house or precision farming, which, if possible, we can encourage them to start in Kerala," he added.

But, he contends, there is no real way for Kerala to employ all returnees, especially the blue-collar workers, except by expanding its industrial base. It is something that the state has not had much success in for 63 years since its formation. It languishes at the 12th position in industrial rankings of India’s 16 major states. How would they do it now?

“We don’t know how many of them will stay back in Kerala. A lakh or two who have decided to leave the Gulf might go and work in other Indian states rather than staying back in Kerala," said Ramakumar.

In the short run, the state is expecting a huge decline in remittances—by as much as 15% in the coming few months. Add to it the fact that the southern state is quickly going bankrupt, things begin to look a little bleak.

Kerala is essentially broke, said the state’s finance minister Thomas Isaac to reporters on 25 April. “If we include what the Centre would give, we will be able to touch about ₹2,000 crore in revenues. The rest is borrowings. For the payment of salaries alone, we require ₹2,500 crore," he said.

Nobody has really figured out what happens next, except that it won’t be just in the hands of finance minister Isaac, but also his brother, Anthony Isaac, who is a migrant.

There is no Plan B

“I have been working in the Gulf for several decades now," said Antony Isaac, over the phone. “Post covid-19, I had to take a 10-30% salary cut to keep my job. They have drastically cut my allowances too. I’ve also been asked to take a certain number of unpaid leaves in a year," he added.

He says he has been getting several phone calls from people who are in an even worse conditions, which reminds him of the large-scale repatriations which happened after the 2008 financial crisis. “Many are sending their families back home first and then waiting out to see how bad the recession would be," he said.

But 2020 is more severe than 2008. The virus-induced economic freeze has already lasted almost three months, and has been much worse than 2008.

Last month, Joy Arakkal, one of Kerala’s richest expat businessman and owner of a $125-million refinery firm, Innova Refining & Trading Fze, jumped off from the 14th floor of his office building in Dubai due to “financial problems". The morning after he killed himself, Babu P.K. from Thrissur called a phone-in programme on the Radio Asia network and said the pandemic had torn apart his world.

The company that Babu worked for wound up in January and he has not been able to send any money home since then. He cannot come back home either because his visa is not in order. His wife and four children who remain in Kerala, he told during the call, are wilting away due to hunger. They rely entirely on the free rice provided by the government for survival, he said.

Babu’s voice cracked when Mint contacted him over the phone. “I don’t have any money for food, let alone to recharge my phone. My cable connection got cut off since I could not recharge. So, my only contact with the outside world is through an old radio handset," he said.

“Sometimes, I walk up to a customs office nearby. There are friendly officers who would allow me to use their WiFi service. That’s how I called into the radio programme. Some Malayalee aid-groups reached out to me after that and provided enough supplies that will last for some time," he said.

Yet, he said, he has not lost hope. He wants to come back home at the earliest, he said, but would keep looking for another job in the Gulf.

“My brother is a construction labourer. My wife’s brother is an auto-rickshaw driver. He also has had no work in the lockdown. I was supporting all of them," Babu said. “I was earning ₹30,000 a month and sent home ₹25,000 every alternate month. Can I save that much working in Kerala?"

The returnees

For those who came back, the story is no different. After arriving in Kochi, Mathew and his fellow passengers are now lodged inside a college hostel and kept under quarantine. The free space in the rooms has grown crowded with more and more planes arriving. Inside, he says, they all have been milling about asking each other similar questions over the last few days: How something that was so close before, a job in the Gulf, seems irretrievably distant now? How soon can one get back to the Gulf?

“I have a wife and son to provide for," said Mathew.

“I also have a housing loan of ₹50 lakh. My younger brother is also in trouble. He was also in the Gulf in the hotel industry. His salary was already cut by half and they have now asked him to take unpaid leave. It seems, soon, he will also lose his job," he added.

“I want to get back to the Gulf if there is any chance. I know it is tough to get a job now, but what other option is there? How much can I earn here? How can I repay the housing loan?" he asked. “Going to the US or Europe is unfeasible; the job search and the processing alone would take years. We don’t have any network there as it exists in the Gulf. I’m hoping to return to the Gulf after things are normalized. As of now, there is no Plan B."

But even amid the gloom, there are silver linings. As men like Mathew were flying across the Arabian Sea towards India, Malayalee women were making the journey in the opposite direction. Most of them were nurses. On 10 May, 88 health workers, including doctors and nurses, were airlifted from Kerala to Abu Dhabi by the UAE, the same country from where Mathew had to make a hurried, unhappy exit.

The demand for nurses is set to skyrocket (nursing is an attractive higher education choice in Kerala). The southern state also has a good reputation for handling the public health crisis well.

Some jobs will actually get created abroad because of the virus, said S. Irudaya Rajan, a migration expert at the Center for Development Studies. Even the men may wait a while and then start looking for options, in other states or in new destinations like Singapore or Malaysia, he added.

“What will they do by coming back to Kerala? What have we got to offer them? If a chance comes, they will keep moving," Rajan said. “Once you are addicted to migration, you don’t get the same comfort at home. It is similar to drinking habits. If you don’t get rum, you might rush for the locally brewed arrack rather than deciding to stop drinking."

23. Move over G7, it's time for a new and improved G11

Livemint, 03 Jun 2020, Dhirendra Tripathi

US President Donald Trump is keen to expand G7 to include India, Russia, South Korea and Australia. Mint explores the reasons behind Trump’s moves and whether India should play ball

US President Donald Trump is keen to expand G7 to include India, Russia, South Korea and Australia. He has invited PM Narendra Modi to attend the G7 meeting in the US later this year. Mint explores the reasons behind Trump’s moves and whether India should play ball.

What prompted US to call for an expansion?

The G7, formed in 1975-76, comprises the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy. Not all of these countries are among the most advanced now. India is both a military and economic giant but isn’t part of the G7. So, its expansion, just like that of the United Nations Security Council, is called for. However, there is more than that to Trump’s moves. China has emerged as the new nemesis for the US and many other countries, particularly after the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan. Having India and others in the G7 is Trump’s way of countering the rising influence of China on the world stage.

What could be the other reasons?

The US goes to polls in November to elect its next president and Trump faces a tough fight against the Democratic candidate Joe Biden. The US and China have been fighting a trade war for quite a long time. Both have imposed tariffs on imports of a long list of goods from the other. Mentioning ‘Wuhan virus’ to provoke China and upping the rhetoric against it, along with inviting four other countries to G7, help Trump sell the promise of ‘Make America Great Again’ well to his audience. Trump hasn’t had the best of relations with few members of G7. Expanding the group helps him accommodate friendly countries.

Calling for a G7 revamp

Does the Indian diaspora in the US matter?

It does. The Democratic Party is pro-immigration that goes well with Indians based there. However, the party has also been critical of India’s record on minority rights, which doesn’t go well with most Indians. The Republican Party, particularly under Trump, is anti-immigration but the President has often acknowledged Indians’ contribution to the US.

Why has Trump chosen the four countries?

If there’s any country in Asia that comes anywhere close to China in population, economic and military numbers, it is India. South Korea is a tech and economic superpower and US is committed to defending it against any enemy. Australia is a natural ally for the US in the South Pacific, a region where China has been expanding its influence. That leaves Russia, a force to reckon with any day, given its military superiority. Trump has also usually got along with Putin, its unpredictable leader. Russia also shares a large border with China.

Should India play along as US takes on China?

India has had a complex relationship with China. China’s past record—it fought a war with India in 1962— makes it difficult for India to trust it. China and India are in a standoff in Ladakh. India and the US are natural allies. One is the world’s largest democracy and the other the oldest. There is an urgent need for democracies and rules-based regimes that believe in fair trade and respect for intellectual property rights to come together. It may be time for India to play hardball with China.

24. Amit Gupta of Yulu is riding the change

Livemint, 05 Jun. 2020, Shrabonti Bagchi

The founder and CEO of mobility startup Yulu tells Mint he is optimistic about the future of shared electric mobility in the post-covid world

In keeping with the times, I speak to Amit Gupta, co-founder and CEO of shared mobility startup Yulu, over a Zoom call. It is a follow-up to a meeting held over two months ago, when the world was still living “the old normal", at the Oberoi hotel coffee shop on Bengaluru’s MG Road. The coronavirus pandemic was remote, something happening in other parts of the world. We ordered freshly squeezed fruit juices and sat across a small table—barely 3ft apart.

Soon after, however, the pandemic started escalating in India. Life came to a standstill and this section of Lounge felt redundant at a time when most businesses had suspended operations or were unsure of how they would go on. It was only after the government announced certain lockdown relaxations in early May, permitting two-wheelers and other vehicles on the roads in some zones from 7am-7pm, that Gupta’s business kick-started again.

However, Gupta is quick to clarify that Yulu was not stagnant during the extended lockdown.

“February 2020 was one of our busiest months ever. It was soon after our Bajaj funding (Yulu raised a Series A round of funding worth $8 million, or around ₹60 crore, led by Bajaj Auto Ltd in November), we had just acquired 6,000 new electric vehicles and we were doing the highest number of trips ever," says Gupta about the company he co-founded in 2017. “We were in full velocity. And then the lockdown started. We had to shut down our operations. But soon after, we realized that being in the mobility business, we could be useful. So we reopened in a limited way and started reaching out to workplaces that were still open."

Sometime in early April, Yulu began offering its vehicles to essential workers such as medical personnel and banking staff, who were still commuting to work and were in fact stranded because of the lack of public transport. It also tied up with grocery suppliers and many of its on-ground maintenance staff became delivery agents for various companies. “It didn’t exactly compensate for the business we were losing but it did help in making sure that the enthusiasm of the team did not flag.

We were in meetings all day, trying out different ways to continue to offer our services, to be flexible and useful," says Gupta. “I feel proud of the resilience our team has shown." The company has 150 office staff and a 400-member on-ground operations team.

Yulu offers two vehicles for hire through an IoT- and app-based solution: Yulu Move, a regular bicycle, and Yulu Miracle, a low-cost electric scooter. Pre-lockdown, it was operational in Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Bhubaneswar and was on track to add more tier 1 cities and others under the Smart Cities Mission to its areas of operation in 2020. On 5 May, Yulu managed to restart operations in Bengaluru after city authorities gave it the go ahead—the number of covid-19 cases in the city is relatively low. They have since resumed operations in Delhi and Ahmedabad too.

It seems obvious that the lockdown period wasn’t one of rest and relaxation for Gupta but the soft-spoken and seemingly imperturbable CEO doesn’t sound particularly upset about that. “We faced several challenges, including difficult decisions such as salary cuts…but I am inherently optimistic. I kept myself calm and motivated," says Gupta, though he is reluctant to share revenue figures.

“Although working hours were actually extended when all of us were working from home, I am happy that I got to spend more physical time with my family and finally managed to break the ice with the guitar, which I bought several years ago. I did learn a few chords with my elder son as a guide," says Gupta, laughing. He also managed to stay in shape—in fact, he lost 4-5kg, a feat he attributes to eating healthy, home-cooked food.

When Gupta started Yulu in 2017, along with tech founder-turned-civic activist R.K. Misra, chief technology officer Naveen Dachuri and chief of operations Hemant Gupta, he had no prior experience of running a company in the transport and logistics sector, let alone one that would become one of the front-runners in shared electric mobility in India—a sector which can, potentially, be a game-changer in the way Indians commute.

In 2006, he was one of four entrepreneurs, along with current CEO Naveen Tewari, who founded digital advertising startup InMobi, which became one of India’s first unicorns (a company that gets a valuation of $1 billion). Over the next decade, the company rode the smartphone wave to become a leading global mobile advertising solutions provider. While he continues to be associated with InMobi as a co-founder, he stepped down from his executive role in 2017 to build Yulu.

“I had a good journey with InMobi, I was about to turn 40, and you may call it mid-life crisis or whatever, but there were some thoughts nagging me that there’s something left to be done," says Gupta. He had originally planned to retire by 40. “I had even told my wife, ‘the slog is only for a few years and after that we will go live in a beachside house’." But as he approached 40, he realized that wasn’t something he would enjoy at the moment.

“After some introspection and talking to mentors, I realized I was interested in making a difference in society and ended up thinking about solving this problem of traffic congestion and at the same time doing something about air pollution in our cities. And with that intention, I started thinking about mobility," says Gupta.

When asked if it was a difficult jump, he laughs: “Aasan tha, mobile se mobility mein aa gaye (It was easy, I jumped from mobile to mobility)." He may joke about it now but Gupta did his homework, and he realized two things: that globally mobility is moving from an ownership model to a shared model, and that the future lies in non-polluting vehicles.

“If you talk to any adult in Bangalore, outside of their girlfriend, boyfriend and spouse problems, the one thing they always talk about is traffic. It is so weird that we have to live this life," says Gupta. While the core idea behind Yulu is to make the urban commute more efficient and eco-friendly based on the three As of mobility—accessibility, availability and affordability—the products have diversified from the Yulu Move, a simple bicycle, to the Yulu Miracle. The GPS-enabled vehicles are traceable through a mobile app which allows users to locate and book a vehicle in their vicinity.

Most “Yulu Zones" (there are over 2,500 across the cities of operation) or designated parking spots for the sky blue two-wheelers are located in the densely populated central areas of cities or close to Metro stations. It is all about last-mile connectivity. “When we were designing the Miracle, we realized that 90% of two-wheelers in India are used by a single occupant. This helped us design the smallest, lightest vehicle possible without compromising passenger safety and comfort," says Gupta.

At 45kg, the Miracle can carry up to 80kg of weight and is perfect for short commutes or last-mile commutes from a bus or Metro station. A large number of users are actually service providers for other urban solutions companies: food delivery boys, young women who provide home salon services through aggregators like Urban Clap and Urban Company, and independent workers like electricians and technicians. It is also popular with young tech workers who live close to their places of work.

At ₹10 to unlock the vehicle and ₹10 for every 10 minutes of use, it is an affordable alternative to Ola and Uber cabs and easier to navigate in traffic. “Another huge plus point is that you don’t need a driver’s licence to ride it. It falls in a category of EVs below 35cc which you can legally use without having a licence," Gupta says.

Since it is a form of public transport, however, the company did need the cooperation of city municipalities—and it helped formulate policy for micro-mobility in Bengaluru, Pune, Delhi and Mumbai. How easy or difficult is it to navigate government systems, especially when it comes to permits and controls? Gupta says: “You would be surprised. They were chasing us."

It helps to have a co-founding team that includes members like Misra, who are experts in policy matters and government relations. “The thing is, we all genuinely believe this is big and it (traffic and pollution in cities) needs to be solved. And we had a gut feeling—just like I had a gut feeling with InMobi—that this is the right time for this problem to be solved and this team is best placed to solve it," says Gupta.

Yulu had planned to have 100,000 vehicles on the roads by the end of 2020. There are no guarantees any longer, of course, but Gupta is optimistic about the future of shared mobility. It’s a feeling shared by founders of startups in the same sector, such as Bounce, Vogo and Rapido. The demand for self-driven micro-mobility solutions will rise after the lockdown is lifted, they predict. “We will also see people moving from crowded public transport to self-ride scooters where the pricing is the same or lower than public transport," Vivekananda Hallekere, CEO of Bounce, told Mint in late April.

Gupta agrees. “In the short period that we have resumed regular operations, our business has bounced back pretty fast and much ahead of our expectations. Single self-driven vehicles have been found to be one of the best ways to commute in the post-covid world—and two-wheelers are safer than cars, which have 36 touch points as opposed to only four-five in our vehicles. And this is not just us saying this: Shared electric mobility has seen a jump the world over (since the pandemic)."

Yulu, it seems, doesn’t need a miracle—it already has one.

25.1. Learning from Lockdown

Dhaka Tribune, 28 May, 2020

https://www.dhakatribune.com/opinion/op-ed/2020/05/28/learning-from-lockdown

We now know Covid-19 simultaneously attacks all vulnerabilities in its victims. Any one of them can prove lethal: lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, brain, nervous system.

In uncannily similar ways, the global coronavirus emergency has become an extraordinarily probing stress test for governance. We have learned that no one can be defended in isolation. Nothing can be tackled piecemeal. Either the entire body politic survives, or everything falls apart.

Here, the example of the United States is especially salutary, as its coronavirus death toll spiked above 100,000 cases this week (over three times higher than the UK, the second-worst affected country in terms of cumulative fatalities.)

We all know the richest nation in the world has nonetheless developed immense structural problems, which have only grown worse in recent decades: inequality, racism, dangerously runaway militarism, an astonishingly broken health care system, and the steady ascent of proto-fascist extremism exemplified by president Donald Trump. When Covid-19 struck, these potent ingredients swirled together to constitute a perfect storm.

With numbers soaring each passing week, an estimated 25% of Americans are now unemployed, with the impact burgeoning down the income ladder. At least 30% of them have lost their job-based health insurance even as the pandemic rages, while an unconscionable number of states (cheered on by the President) are attempting to force unwilling workers to “re-open the economy” by risking their lives.

This is the only country in the world where the elementary act of wearing a mask has become politicized to the point of sheer lunacy (again spurred by Trump’s ox-like obduracy). The great country music singer Johnny Cash’s daughter Rosanne tweeted that her own daughter was abused for wearing one to buy groceries in Nashville, explaining “she nearly died of H1N1. She was in the ICU for a week, on a ventilator for 3 days. She CANNOT get covid. The ignorance & hatred is

so painful. She’s trying to survive.”

One of the most astonishing lessons of the coronavirus emergency is that many leaders and many countries maintain an insurmountable mental block about learning from other societies they consider inferior. This is the only explanation for why the mass of western Europe, for example, ignored and then strenuously resisted readily apparent solutions from Asian countries about how to cope with Covid-19.

In this regard, it’s astonishing to note the nine worst affected countries, as ranked by deaths proportionate to population, are all European (the USA is number 10). Contrast to, say, Vietnam, which shares extensive borders with China and has the comparatively huge population of nearly 100 million, yet has kept cases down to roughly 300, with exactly zero fatalities.

The main difference is unquestionably simple humility, combined with collective will. Vietnam shut schools in January (they re-opened this month), quarantined and tested every single person who entered the country (at government cost), and everyone started wearing masks and social distancing from the moment the first cases were recorded.

But look at Spain, at half the population size, yet deaths already past 27,000. Even as infections mounted in Italy, the head of national emergencies in Madrid claimed his country would somehow “only have a handful of cases.” No masks, no stockpiling PPE, no strictures on gatherings, they went stubbornly ahead with soccer matches, political party conferences, and massive public demonstrations right into March. Only then, abrupt lockdown.

If denial has proven almost unimaginably costly in the West, the flip side is that heedless panic has wrought an epochal catastrophe in India. On March 24, when there were just 564 cases (and 10 fatalities) the prime minister imposed the most draconian lockdown in the world with precisely four hours warning.

International and state borders were closed, all public transportation ceased, and every conceivable supply line was severed overnight.

Chaos ensued, and continues to overwhelm the country. The gargantuan “functioning anarchy” (as described by 1960s US diplomat, John Kenneth Galbraith) has utterly flunked the Covid-19 stress test. There is no good news. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. What comes next is likely to be unspeakably worse.

It doesn’t have to be that way for other countries in the region. The significant advantage of crafting and implementing policy in May is being able to draw wisdom from the experience of other countries

across the previous months.

The entire world now knows in painful detail exactly what works, and what has failed.

Lockdown works very well, but only if and when every constituent is made to feel adequately secure. If any one section of the populace is left at risk, it compromises the safety of all others.

Each step of the way ahead demands meticulous preparation, scrupulous implementation, and the co-operation of every member of society. Absent any of these factors, and the health crisis can very quickly morph into an uncontrollable humanitarian disaster.

25.2. On the frontlines, the Indian dream factory is turning into a nightmare

Livemint, 01 Jun 2020, Lata Jha

With no intimate scenes and strict limits on the size of film crews, will Indian cinema ever be the same again?
Masks are in, at least off-camera, and hugs are out. There is even talk of strict limits on the size and age profile of film crews, since the elderly are more vulnerable to covid-19

NEW DELHI: Sometime last week, among the barrage of baking and workout videos that have taken over the social media profiles of Bollywood stars in recent days, actor Kriti Sanon posted something different. It was a two-minute clip of a small-time worker employed in the dress department of a local television production house.

“We haven’t been paid any of our dues. What are we supposed to do at this time of crisis?" the elderly gentleman who referred to himself as Ajamlis said. The three producing partners on the TV show he was employed in were refusing to take his calls, he added.

“We have no choice. How do we sustain right now?" the man spoke into the camera with tears in his eyes. Sanon attached a plea along with the post, asking the Cine and TV Artists Association (CINTAA) to clear the dues of all daily and marginal workers.

All film, television and web series production halted around the middle of March. In an industry where the gulf between top-line stars and others is wide, waiting it out is easier for some more than others. But what’s in store in the months ahead is an even bigger worry for those at the margins of the movie and entertainment industry.

Mumbai may soon cease to be the hub for all shooting activities, at least for the short term. Green zones and small towns in, say, Kerala, Goa or Assam will be the new destinations for Bollywood’s dream factories. Some efforts have already begun to recruit locals in such places, instead of ferrying a large film crew from Mumbai. Masks are in, at least off-camera, and hugs are out. There is even talk of strict limits on the size and age profile of film crews (since the elderly are more vulnerable to covid-19).

Even the social experience of watching a movie is set to change dramatically. Theatres and multiplexes, which are in panic mode after several films got released directly on digital platforms, are ready to greatly limit seating capacity. All of this is set to unfold as the movie business is expected to contract from ₹23,600 crore to ₹12,700 crore this fiscal year, according to a projection by the rating agency Crisil.

Bottom of the pyramid

Many of the migrants who are an intrinsic part of the labour force on film and TV sets come from India’s small towns in search of both skilled and unskilled jobs. Apart from the core team in a production house, which include accountants and senior marketing executives, most people on a set tend to be recruited for individual projects and for a limited shooting period of 70-80 days.

These include professionals such as directors, writers, actors and camera personnel, who are obviously highly paid, but also other workers like spot boys, light men, make-up artists, painters, carpenters and art department staff. The second category are paid on a monthly basis. Most of them do not make over ₹30,000 a month.

But their jobs are critical and often involves handling costly equipment such as lights, which require skill that has to be acquired after months of training under a supervisor. Those who rely on short-term work may also include junior artistes or small-time actors, who are often required only for a couple of days on a project.

Recognizing the dire straits many of them might be in, the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) had said that it has been working toward offering some relief to its members. FWICE is the umbrella organization for 32 film craft departments and has more than 500,000 members. The Producers Guild of India had also announced its intent to set up a relief fund to help support those most affected by the shutdown. Meanwhile, actor Salman Khan had volunteered to personally transfer money to the bank accounts of 25,000 daily wagers sometime in March.

The actual execution of these initiatives, however, remains hazy on the ground.

Hari Kishan Das, a spot boy, whose job on television sets is serving food and drinks to the cast and crew, admits he has received Khan’s transfers and also some money from the workers union. He was paid for March by his employer, but hasn’t received remuneration for the month of April until now.

“We have been promised, so let’s see. We thought this (the lockdown) would last for some 10 days, so there was no point going home," said 36-year old Das, who belongs to Sitamarhi in Bihar and stays in the Malad West area of Mumbai with his wife and three children.

“It’s okay for someone who is single to go back home. Travelling with family is a problem," said Tufail Ahmed, who is referred to as a dress dada on the TV serial sets he works in. “We don’t know when things will start rolling, or how long we will be paid. Even for these money transfers, sharing bank details (with everyone) is an issue."

The new movie set

The survival of daily wagers, like those employed in other sectors of the economy, may be a pressing problem but the Indian entertainment industry is also dealing with a range of other issues that threaten to change its very nature in the months and years to come as it attempts to get back on its feet after the pandemic.

The production sector is suffering huge losses on a daily basis, with expensive sets having been taken down and the studio rentals and cancellation charges being entirely borne by producers without any support from insurers; interest costs are also mounting on loans already raised to fund films. Meanwhile, reopening of cinemas post the lockdown is likely to be staggered, with each state making its own decision. On top of it, there is no clarity on the opening of the overseas markets, which are crucial for business. At least for several months, lower occupancies are expected in theatres and the backlog of releases that are in the pipeline will particularly affect smaller and medium-scale films.

Filmmakers are keenly aware that things will not be able to go back to the way they were. For one, the way they make their content will not be the same. Producers and studio heads say helping the cast and crew tide over the fear psychosis about working in large teams is their single-biggest concern right now. Based on internal projections, ensuring disinfected, sanitary spaces will hike film budgets by around 10-12%. Anticipated costs include masks, gloves, sanitizers and personal water bottles which can be used to repeatedly wash hands.

“Our film sets are extremely democratic in the sense that they employ everyone from top-rung actors to daily wagers. Our biggest concern is to convince all of them to congregate and create work," said Siddharth Anand Kumar, vice-president, films and television, Saregama India. Kumar added that a lot of lower-rung workers such as painters, light men and stuntmen have returned to their native places and finding new trained workers will be a challenge.

Most shoots may not even happen in Mumbai or the other favourite destination for Bollywood—Delhi, which has spun hundreds of north India-centric tales, ranging from Band Baaja Baraat to Tamasha and Hindi Medium.

Given that filmmakers see the gathering of units in both cities as unfeasible for at least the next few months, the action will shift to green zones. Further, companies will avoid hiring crew members who are over 60 years of age or have family members with compromised health conditions. Scenes that require large crowds or outdoor public settings may either be tweaked or may even be supported with visual effects. Finally, salary cuts, even for A-list stars, could be around the corner.

“Everyone is aware and conscious of current realities and of the fact that every single item (in the production budget) will have to be questioned," said Ajit Andhare, chief operating officer at Viacom18 Studios. “We cannot have different rules for different people and everyone, including stars and technicians, will have to contribute."

“I expect the number of projects to come down and productions to become smaller or reduce budgets. Big budget films will definitely be the biggest hit," said Shobu Yarlagadda, co-founder and CEO of Arka Mediaworks, the company behind the blockbuster Baahubali franchise. “I think smaller budget films in a contained environment will be more feasible and production houses will gravitate to high-concept, content-driven scripts that can be filmed in minimal settings or environments."

The new movie theatre

But the most visible and immediate fallout might be in the neighbourhood theatre. As the fear of watching a film in closed auditoriums with strangers looms large, theatre owners are putting together safety measures that will help them regain the trust of people. Each week that theatres remain shut, the film business in India loses ₹80-90 crore.

These losses will be hard to recoup given that people, at least families or non-film buffs, are unlikely to return to the theatres soon even if they manage to reopen. Plus, chains like Carnival Cinemas, PVR Cinemas and INOX Leisure are planning to reduce seating capacity in standard auditoriums by around 30%.

According to a notification sent out by the Multiplex Association of India (MAI), global cinema standards dictate that while families and couples can sit together, one adjacent seat on both their sides would be left empty to account for social distancing.

Further, MAI rules mandate body checks with infrared scanners, masks and personal protective equipment (PPE) kit counters where viewers can buy them, hand sanitizers at all strategic locations, contactless ticketing and online ordering of food and beverages (made with single-use disposable packaging).

But even if all these measures take effect, will Indians continue to watch movies in theatres? After all, the spike in viewership of video streaming platforms probably suggests that they have emerged as an apt alternative to the big screen (a study by broadcast agency Broadcast Audience Research Council India, or BARC, and data measurement firm The Nielsen Co. reports a 96% increase in user base and 10% rise in time spent).

Murmurs about an impending wave of direct-to-digital movie releases are rife. Amazon Prime Video is set to premiere at least seven new films, which were earlier meant for theatrical release. But production budgets will determine such shifts.

“Tent poles such as Sooryavanshi and 83 are anyway out of reach for streaming platforms (because digital sales will not help recoup their ₹100 crore plus budgets) and they will push people to theatres whenever they reopen," a producer, negotiating for his own film, said on condition of anonymity. “However, there is an upper-mid range of films, which would anyway have been second to the biggies, that these platforms are picking up now."

Clearly, all manner of things are fluid. But the fluidity could also spawn new kinds of films, or new imaginations of intimacy, at a safe social distance. And while the road ahead does seem tough, producers are hopeful. Conversations within the industry indicate a possibility of theatres reopening by July and production resuming before that.

“Every business has good and bad years," said Kanupriya, chief executive officer at producer Aanand L. Rai’s Colour Yellow Productions that has films like Zero and the Tanu Weds Manu franchise to its credit. “In my mind, though, there is no doubt that the theatrical experience will bounce back, simply because it gives us all so much more as social beings."

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AAPI

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Friday 19 June 2020

NEWSLETTER, 20-VI-2020

– GENERAL POLICY, INFRASTRUCTURES, COUNTRY FINANCES, ETC.

– AGRICULTURE, FISHING & RURAL DEVELOPMENT

– INDUSTRY, MANUFACTURE

– SERVICES (IT, R&D, Tourism, Healthcare, etc.)

NEWSLETTER, 20-VI-2020

– GENERAL POLICY, INFRASTRUCTURES, COUNTRY FINANCES, ETC.

- AGRICULTURE, FISHING & RURAL DEVELOPMENT

- INDUSTRY & MANUFACTURE

- SERVICES (Education, Healthcare, IT, R&D, Tourism, etc.)

India and the World