India’s Arctic Endeavours

Asking some of the basic questions is fundamental to human existence. Being fully aware of what kind of world we live in and using this knowledge to explore alternative possibilities for how the future may unfold, are key to ensuring both short term as well as long term security and prosperity. One major world region, least explored and yet most promising now, is the Antarctic region with the South Pole, which is being rightly explored by India through its scientific expeditions there. On the other side of the globe, India is also keeping up with the Arctic affairs, an equally important region but much more politically alight.

India very recently unveiled its Arctic policy, a 27-page document, that aims to deepen its partnership with the resource-rich Arctic region. The development marks the peak of India’s polar prowess. Yet, India’s every move regarding the Arctic must be well thought out as the policy has been released at a time when seven of the eight permanent members of the Arctic Council, namely the USA, Canada, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark, have already boycotted any future talks with Russia (the 8th member) over the Ukraine crisis. However, this may be taken up as an opportunity by India to do what it is good at – Balancing, via “pursuing cooperation and partnership”, as rightly prescribed in its policy as one of the objectives.

The significant expertise in this area that India has been able to acquire due to its association with the Antarctic Treaty System, may come in handy now, which can empower it to play a constructive role in securing a stable Arctic. This also requires advocating for causes, which are more synergetic in nature like sustainable resource development and collaboration with regard to technology, funding, capacity-building, studies and R&D, etc.

India’s interests in the Arctic region are scientific, environmental, commercial as well as strategic. It is believed that the entire region, which is super-rich in natural resources, will become ice-free by the year 2050 and India is one among the many countries to have realised the meaning of this. A recent study based on NASA and ESA satellite data showed that the Arctic ice thinned approx. 1.5 metres between 2018-2021. This revelation itself points towards potential commercial ventures like tapping the oil & gas reserves, metals and minerals in the region, resource-tapping through better studies and exploration, working on possibilities to open Northern Sea Route as a new trade route, etc.

The entire region is vulnerable to unprecedented climatic changes which can be caused by loss of sea ice, ice caps and warming of the ocean and atmosphere. Through its Arctic programme India is working to increase its knowledge findings about the region through research and experimentation, thus making itself future-ready to be in a position to play a greater role when the right time comes and increasing the possibilities of acquiring larger stakes and better status.

Arctic research and R&D finding can also India’s scientific community to study melting rates of the third pole i.e the Himalayan glaciers, which are endowed with the largest freshwater reserves in the world outside the geographic poles. Indian researchers are even monitoring Arctic glaciers for their mass balance, in order to draw comparisons and understand glacial behaviour in the Himalayan region. This makes the Arctic research crucial to India, which has begun to experience hints of global warming, disturbed climatic changes, uneven rainfall pattern, temperature differences, etc.

WHO to what of Tradition of Ayurveda

Is Ayurveda going to be the next export item to the world after Yoga? Ayurvedic practices are known to almost every Indian, believer or not, and it is from ancient Vedas. There always have been ask of scientific proof, objective evidence gathering, for ‘accepting’ it as modern scientific enterprise. This challenge has been taken head on since setup of AYUSH Ministry. Towards this end, few years back an agreement was signed with the United States to collaborate in research to establish a role for Ayurveda and other ancient forms of medicine in the modern world. And, now comes WHO’s first Centre for traditional medicine in Gujarat, India.

Traditional medicine as what defined by WHO means, “the sum total of the knowledge, skills and practices on the basis of the theories, beliefs and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health, as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illnesses.”

The establishment of the first and global out-posted Centre for traditional medicine in India sufficiently reflects the fact that the traditional medicines and wellness practices of India are very popular globally and this WHO Centre bound to focus on greater dissemination of ancient wisdom with modern scientific and technological research perspective at a global platform will go a long way in enhancing wellness in the society. According to the WHO data, around 80% of the world’s population is estimated to use traditional medicine to cater the world’s health-care need.

As the part of WHO’s overall traditional medicines strategy, this center will position AYUSH systems across the globe and provide leadership on global health matters pertaining to traditional medicine. It will ensure quality, safety, efficacy, accessibility and rational use of traditional medicine. It will also develop norms, standards, and guidelines in relevant technical areas, tools and methodologies for collecting data undertaking analytics, and assess impact.

India has made significant progress in the traditional medicine sector both at organisational level and gaining large scale public acceptance. And with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ayurveda, Yoga and other systems became an invaluable resource for the entire world in dealing the Covid-19 difficulties due to its holistic approach towards health and disease.

What you monitor, gets delivered. Even in Exports!

Measuring Export Preparedness using an Index is a great effort in right direction for India, and timing couldn’t have been better. In spite of the shattering COVID-19 second wave, FY 2021-22 has proven to be a smashing hit for India as it has been tactfully upping its game to expand its global export footprint. In Dec 2021, India’s figures of exported goods stood at USD 37.29 billion USD, hitting an all-time high for monthly data, whereas its merchandise exports hit almost USD 300 billion in Apr-Dec, higher by 48.85% year-on-year.

NITI Ayog released The Export Preparedness Index 2021 which is going to assist states and UTs to carve ambitious policies to further ensure a conducive export ecosystem. The Index ranks the states majorly on four main parameters or pillars- policy, business ecosystem, export ecosystem and export performance. This edition of Index has shown that most of the ‘Coastal States’ are the best performers with Gujarat being on the top, followed by Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Among union territories, Delhi topped is on the top, followed by Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and Chandigarh. In this way, EPI also promotes competitive federalism and a fair contest among States/UTs.

A plethora of new catalytic changes and initiatives have been rolled out like increasing the number of GI tagged items in the country, introduction of PLI scheme, EODB reforms, rationalisation of duties, clearing some pending tax refunds to exporters to improve their liquidity, and extension of interest subvention scheme to boost textile and engineering exports. Some other measures include tightening the Rules of Origin (RoO) norms, releasing of more than Rs. 56 crores against pending tax refunds of exporters, notifying Remissions of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) rates, Rebate of State and Central Levies and Taxes (RoSCTL) Schemes, and launch of Common Platform for Issuance of Certificates of Origin to facilitate trade and to increase FTA utilization by exporters. Besides, enormous efforts have also gone into promoting districts as export hubs by identifying products with export potential in each district. India is also aggressively negotiating FTAs with the EU, Australia, the UAE, the UK, Canada, Israel and the Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC.

Going forward, the strategies should also be on lines of how to emerge as an alternative to China as India is rightly placed to benefit from the vacuum that has been created by the US-China trade tussle aftermath, COVID-19 Pandemic, rising labour costs in China and other domestic and international factors. Thus, countries like India, which offer less complex business and investment framework and cheaper labour, are becoming an alternative to importing countries like Japan, South Korea and many other South-Asian nations, who are more than willing to strengthen the trade ties with India. Every step of India, thus must focus on expanding more and more business, domestic and overseas.

Sports saplings meeting The Champions

Imagine the joy a child will have, when he or she meets Neeraj Chopra, Bajrang Punia, Ravi Dahiya, Sharad Kumar, Devendra Jhajharia, Yogesh Kathuniya and several others, who have brought laurels to the nation! This far-flung dream of millions of school-going children is turning into reality through the ‘Meet The Champion’ Programme. PM Modi’s unique school visit campaign ahead, ‘Meet the champion Programme’ aims to prepare and connect the young school students with the champions.

“Early catch and proper nurture, makes a medals winning culture” could be the adage adopted by India as it has started to make its mark felt in international competitions across various games and sports. During the meeting with Tokyo Olympic heroes at his residence on 16 August, PM Modi asked the athletes to visit 75 schools to meet and inspire students. The Ministry of education and Sports Authority of India are working together to run this mega plan as a ‘Meet the Champions’ programme over the next two years. The aim is to acknowledge and ready the young ones with champion qualities to face the world in any sphere of life.

The athletes are talking about the importance of santulit aahar (balanced diet), fitness and sports at a young age. These visits by Olympians will give school students an insight into their lives and what drives them to excel in their fields and explore. Olympic Gold medallist Neeraj Chopra started off with students from over 75 schools at Sanskardham, Ahmedabad, where he also shared interesting anecdotes about his career with the students. Similarly, Tokyo Olympics Bronze Medallist Bajrang Punia visited Haryana’s Aarohi Model School in Panipat, Paralympic Gold and Silver medallist Mariyappan Thangavelu visited Salem’s Holy Angles Girls’ Matric. Hr. Sec. School, Paralympics bronze medallist Sharad Kumar met students at Cotton Hill Government Girls Higher Secondary School in Trivandrum, Kerala, and so on.

These visits bolster the effort towards nurturing young athletes at school level itself. To support sports saplings – 90 Extension Centres of STC (Sports Authority of India Training Centre), including 60 Khelo India Centres, and 10 Regular Schools which are part of the National Sports Talent Contest (NSTC), are operational under Sports Authority of India. Most of the Extension Centres are operational in schools across the country. Further, under the “State Level Khelo India Centre” vertical of the Khelo India scheme, 04 Kendriya Vidyalayas with residential facilities are operational as Sports Schools since October 2019. Under this vertical ₹1,50,000 per athlete per annum are provided towards expenses of onboarding, lodging, education, training, competition exposure, medical by the Government of India.

In the past few decades, the country has seen exponential growth in sports. As it has pulled its socks by way of providing sports infrastructure at the grassroots level to helping athletes to become professional, results have started to show by providing the world with a glimpse of the multisports nation. ‘Meet The Champion’ Programme is surely adding fuel to this fire in the belly of young ones and setting up a virtuous cycle.

Financial Literacy for Increased Standard of Living

There’s a common notion regarding the developing countries like India that, ‘the Rich get richer, the Poor get poorer’. One can recall the famous Bible verse, “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.” This when translated into economical aspects, the only way out is breaking free of the vicious financial cycle that can be achieved by educating majority population and increasing the financial literacy of the country. The recent measures taken by the Government and the four financial sector regulators (RBI, SEBI, IRDAI & PFRDA) to strengthen financial inclusion in the country have started yielding results. PM Jan Dhan Yojana, Jeevan Jyoti Beema scheme, Atal pension Yojana, launch e-RUPI digital payments, recent launch of RBI’s digital currency, etc. are some such initiatives.

The ‘National Strategy for Financial Education 2020-2025’ (NSFE), released by the RBI, had emphasised on a multi-stakeholder-led approach for creating a financially aware and empowered India. Under this, some of the strategic objectives that have been stressed upon include encouraging participation in financial markets, developing credit discipline, developing a savings and insurance-oriented mindset, improving usage of digital financial services in a safe and secure manner, understanding of basic financial flows and investment, and a lot more. The document even stresses on creating financial literacy content for school children, teachers, youth, women, new entrants at workplace/entrepreneurs, senior citizens, divyanjans, and even illiterate folks.

The launch of National Centre for Financial Education (NCFE) promoted by RBI, IRDAI, SEBI & PFRDA, is also playing a big role in promoting Financial Education across India through various programs, courses, Credit Counselling, and thorugh means of its Financial Literacy Centres being set up by leading banks. As at the end of December 2020, there were 1,478 Financial Literacy Centres (FLCs) in the country. While 1,48,444 financial literacy activities were undertaken during 2019-20 (April-March), a total of 45,588 financial literacy activities were conducted by the FLCs during the period April-December 2020.

Demonetisation, urbanisation, reign of smartphones, Digital India campaign, followed by Pandemic-induced dire circumstances have strengthened digital banking infrastructure in the country. People, through their digital engagements, got acquainted with first the platforms, then their features, then to the practice of making digital payments to continue to (or even expand) avail the utilities. The Digital payments in the country have also been on a surge. Unified Payments Interface (UPI) logged 4.52 billion transactions, amounting to Rs 8.26 trillion in February 2022, according to data released by NPCI. The number of Debit and credit card issued also went up from 88.29 crore in January 2018 to 101.1 crore in January 2022.The number of ATMs across the country has risen to 2.13 lakh in September 2021, over 47% of which were in rural and semi-urban areas. The number of branches of Regional rural banks have also grown exponentially. A total of 22,042 rural bank branches were operating across the country in 2021 (from 17901 in 2014). Other recent glam factors that have contributed in the growth are fintech entrepreneurship, popularity of new terms and technologies like Unicorns, Cryptocurrency, digital kiosks, digital wallets, popularity of social media shops, e-commerce social and networking sites, informal investment platforms, NEFT, IMPS, Net Banking and QR codes etc.

Financial literacy supports the pursuit of financial inclusion by empowering the customers to make informed choices leading to their financial well-being. Financial abilities can pave way for unprecedented economic growth and increase the standard of living. India’s work force combined with strong financial literacy can make it a financially savvy country resonating strong global influence. The dream of making India financially educated is an uphill task for a country whose one-fourth population is not even literate. However, these recent interventions and strategies have resulted in positive changes and these should intensify.

Water Conservation: Only path left for Future

“Socho Toh Kyun Hai Aaj, Sehma Sehma Paani…” this kids water anthem has brought water conservation issue at the forefront of children imagination. Not just now, even India’s ancient scriptures, texts and stories are filled with tales and proofs of how rivers were considered sacred, the most revered. So much so, that even Lord Krishna, in his impartations to Arjuna during the war of Mahabharatha, said, ‘I am the Ganges among rivers’ (Chapter 10 Verse 31 – पवन: पवतामस्मि राम: शस्त्रभृतामहम् | झषाणां मकरश्चास्मि स्रोतसामस्मि जाह्नवी).

Saving every drop of water becomes even more imperative for a country like India, which houses more than 18% of the world’s population, but has got only 4% of world’s renewable water resources. The current water requirement is estimated to be around 1,100 billion cubic meters per year. To meet this high requirement, the government, through various means and measures, has been trying to improve condition of water bodies and better treatment systems. In June 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had written to all Sarpanchs across the country stressing on importance of water conservation and harvesting and urged them to adopt all appropriate measures to make water conservation a mass movement.

For transferring water from surplus basins to deficit basins/areas, the Government of India formulated a National Perspective Plan (NPP) of interlinking of rivers. National Water Development Agency (NWDA) has identified 30 links for preparation of Feasibility Reports/ Detailed Project Reports under Inter-linking of Rivers Project. Atal Bhujal Yojana, a central sector scheme, is also being implemented in 8,774 gram panchayats of 81 districts of seven States namely Haryana, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The focus of the scheme is on community participation for sustainable ground water management. Provisions have been made for source recharging too like dedicated bore well recharge structures, rain water recharge, rejuvenation of existing water bodies, etc., in convergence with other schemes such as MGNREGS, Integrated Watershed Management Programme, 15th Finance Commission tied grants to RLBs/ PRIs, State schemes, CSR funds, and others. The government also launched the AMRUT 2.0 initiative in 2021 which focuses on making specified cities water secure through recycle/ reuse of treated sewage, rejuvenation of water bodies and water conservation.

Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) is another impactful initiative which aims to enhance physical access of water on farm and for expanding cultivable area under assured irrigation, improve on-farm water use efficiency, and introducing sustainable water conservation practices, etc. The Command Area Development & Water Management (CADWM) Programme and ‘Per Drop More Crop’ component under the PMKSY scheme and the National Water Mission’s ‘Sahi Fasal’ campaign have also brought in positive farm results and better agricultural growth. The Jal Jeevan mission is up and running to make provision of potable tap water supply to every rural household of the country at the service level of 55 litre per capita per day by 2024. This was followed by the recent launch of the ‘Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain’ campaign to endorse the practice of rainwater harvesting. The Centre has also requested all States/UTs to set up Jal Shakti Kendra in every district which shall provide all rain related information at one place.

Walking the Tight Rope

Political opposition in India is likely to eat their words ‘Need to stand up, not stand aside’, which they had used to slam the government, not long ago, for abstaining from UNSC vote on Russia-Ukraine.

Australia has backed India’s stand on the Ukraine-Russia conflict saying, “The Quad member countries have accepted India’s position on the Russian attack on Ukraine and that no country would be unhappy as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been using his contacts to call for an end to the conflict.” Such an understanding was shown despite Australia’s own strong disquiet on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Parallely, Pakistan’s PM Imran Khan offered rare praise for India’s foreign policy, that too in a public rally. He said that, “Main aaj Hindustan ko daad deta hun (I praise our neighbouring country Hindustan) as they always had independent foreign policy. Today, India is in their (America) alliance and they are part of QUAD… They are importing oil from Russia despite sanctions because their policy is for the betterment of people”.

India’s abstention to vote on the global crisis is like recalling from the past when it raised eyebrows across the globe with its endorsement of the non-alignment move, which meant non-participation in the military affairs of a bipolar world and optimum involvement towards peace and security through multi-polar participation.

The foundation of such an elevated stature lies in the numerous efforts India has put over the last 6-7 years to change both its outlook and conduct on International level. Some of the steps include giving due importance to potential regions through change in International policies like shifting from ‘Look East’ to ‘Act East’ policy, fresh stand on signing of FTAs with various countries, formation of global initiatives like the International Solar Alliance (ISA) and Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), rolling out of excellent measures leading to exponential growth of exports, FDI’s etc like the PLI scheme, Ease of Doing Business, relaxation of complex trade, licensing and business norms and laws, voicing India’s concerns and stand on all global platforms and forums regarding environment protection, world peace and security, economic growth and development, importance of rapid technological advancement, and numerous other subjects of growth, democratic evaluation and futuristic readiness.

Unlike the past, India’s foreign policy stances and tendencies are now much more mature, precise and prudent, standing tall on the foundations of genuine concerns and greater intents to sought peace and stability. India’s intents are being considered honest globally on such a scale that even its tough choices are receiving respect from all quarters.