Indialogue Completes One Year
Indialogue is a newsletter analyzing the biggest policy developments in India
Hi there, I’m Aman Thakker. Welcome to Indialogue, a newsletter analyzing the biggest policy developments in India. The aim of this newsletter is to provide you with quality analysis every week on what’s going on in India.
Thank you very much for subscribing. My writing, and this newsletter, benefits from your feedback, so please do not hesitate to send any suggestions, critiques, or ideas to aman@amanthakker.com.
Indialogue Turns One!
I started Indialogue one year ago this week. Last March, much of the world was under “lockdown,” grappling for the first time with the realities of being almost completely isolated as a new virus spread around us. The fear was palpable, as was the desire to keep ourselves busy as we adjusted to an uncertain world. There were global trends - baking sourdough bread, whipping dalgona coffee, binging shows old and new. There was a deep desire to stay in touch - Zoom, email, and social media became gateways to comfort, connecting us to those we loved but couldn’t meet.
It was in that context, and with many of the same emotions floating in me, that I started this newsletter.
Certainly, it was a project that would keep me busy - reading primary and secondary sources and analyzing them could distract me from what was going on outside the four walls of the tiny studio I was locked in for the first months of the pandemic. But this newsletter was much more meaningful and intimate. It was a means to find and engage with a community of like-minded people. A means for me to share my thoughts on the topic I loved most with people, ranging from strangers to my best friends, at a time when sharing analysis of India’s policies helped me make sense of a world I didn’t understand anymore.
One year later, this newsletter has done that and more. Since last March, as this newsletter has grown, so have I, and I am deeply grateful to each and every person who has contributed to that growth.
I am grateful to each of who have read this newsletter, whether for one week or for each of the last 52. I am grateful to each of who have written your thoughts back, allowing me to grow from your unique perspectives so that I could see a policy problem through a completely different lens I may not have seen on my own. I am grateful to each of you who shared this newsletter, whether on social media or by forwarding to people who might be interested. I am grateful to the community of fellow newsletter writers, who have been nothing but supportive and encouraging as I found my voice and my space over the last year.
The one-year mark is also a good opportunity for me to take a step back, and make sure that I am doing my best to ensure that Indialogue is of value to you, the readers. Therefore, I invite any and all of the readers to fill out this brief, five-question survey to share your feedback and what you like or dislike Indialogue, which will help me understand how to improve this newsletter moving forward.
Once again, I’m grateful to each of you who read, shared, and helped me with this newsletter over the past year. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Please don’t forget to leave any feedback or suggestions you have for Indialogue moving forward in this short, five-question survey linked in the button below:
India’s Second Wave is Here
Since we discussed the rising fears of India’s second wave in last week’s edition, India’s daily case count has continued to rise.
Compared to last Sunday, March 21, when India recorded 43,846 cases of COVID-19 in 24 hours, India has recorded 62,714 new cases of COVID-19 in 24 hours as of Sunday, March 28.
For comparison, India was down to a low of ~9,000 cases per day in early February.
Maharashtra continues to rack up the highest contribution to the total number of cases. Of the total 62,714 cases recorded, 35,726 came from Maharashtra.
Here’s what the second wave looks like graphically:
However, compared to the last spike in cases in August/September, the ongoing spike in cases is happening much faster:
During the first peak, it took 66 days for cases to grow from ~9,000 daily cases in May 2020 to ~60,000 daily cases in August 2020.
In the ongoing spike, India has gone from ~9,000 daily cases to ~60,000 cases in 45 days.
Last week, Indian public health officials blamed three factors for the spike in cases: super-spreader events following India’s “unlock,” slippage in India’s “test, track, and isolate” protocol, and the possibility of new virus strains and variants.
Since then new data on virus strains present in India has been released.
Genomic sequencing and analysis by the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG) found that:
There were “771 variants of concerns (VOCs)” that were detected in a total of 10787 positive samples shared by India’s States and Union Territories;
Of these 771 VOCs:
736 samples were tested as having lineage to the B.1.1.7 strain from the United Kingdom
34 samples were tested as having lineage to the B.1.351 strain from South Africa
1 sample was tested as having lineage to the P.1 strain from Brazil
The study by ISNACOG also found a “new double mutant variant” in India, which describes when two mutations come together in the same virus. Such a double mutation could lead to the virus becoming more infectious or less affected by vaccines.
The study by INSACOG asserted that these variants, including the new double mutant variant, “have not been detected in numbers sufficient to either establish or direct relationship or explain the rapid increase in cases in some States.”
Three questions remain:
What is driving this latest spike in cases?
Could the second spike extend beyond just some cases to the entire country, particularly if it is driven by variants? and
If a second wave extends to the whole country, does the government have tools to bring cases down without a lockdown, or will a second lockdown - as has been imposed in other countries - be needed?
If you would like to support Indialogue, please consider sharing the newsletter on social media using the button below!
News Roundup
During his visit to Bangladesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released a joint statement with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, outlining ways the two countries would cooperate on areas such as water resources, trade, connectivity, public health, border management and security, space and satellite research, entrepreneurship, and the Rohingya crisis. The two countries also announced the signing of five new Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) during the visit. The full joint statement is available here.
The Union Cabinet approved a Memorandum of Cooperation on water resource cooperation between the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti of the Government of India and the Water and Disaster Management Bureau, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of the Government of Japan.
The Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Indian Parliament, passed the “The Insurance (Amendment) Bill, 2021” on March 22, 2021. The bill, which has now passed both houses of government, increases the limit on foreign investment in an Indian insurance company from 49% to 74%, and removes restrictions on ownership and control. The full text of the bill is available here.
The Ministry of External Affairs announced that External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar would visit Tajikistan next weeek from March 30-31 to review bilateral relations with his counterpart, Foreign Minister of Tajikistan Sirojiddin Muhriddin, as well as attend the 9th Ministerial Conference of Heart of Asia – Istanbul Process (HoA-IP) on Afghanistan in Dushanbe on March 30.
Defense Minister Rajnath Singh hosted his counterpart from South Korea, Minister of Defence Suh Wook, for bilateral talks on defense cooperation on March 26, 2021. Although not officially announced at the talks, South Korean media reported that the two countries will soon hold a “two plus two” foreign and defense ministerial meeting, and expand ties in areas such as cyber, space and maritime issue.
Priscilla Jebaraj of The Hindu reports that India’s central government “plans to issue a 14-digit identification number to every plot of land in the country within a year’s time. It will subsequently integrate its land records database with revenue court records and bank records, as well as Aadhaar numbers on a voluntary basis.”
The Office of the United States Trade Representative has announced a proposed retaliatory action to India’s “equalization levy” or “Digital Services Tax,” suggesting it may impose retaliatory tariffs of up to 25% to exports such as shrimp, bamboo products, basmati rice, and other products. The full press release, including details of proposed retaliatory action, is available here. The day after this proposed action was announced, India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, spoke on the phone with the new U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
The Securities and Exchange Bureau of India (SEBI) announced, following its Board Meeting on March 25th, that it would ease the requirements for “new-age startups” to listed on the Innovators Growth Platform (IGP), a separate exchange specifically established for start-ups. Under the new regulations, the start-up only needs to ensure that 25% of its pre-issue capital is held by an institutional investor for a period of one year (rather than two under previous rules), and start-ups can more easily move from the IGP to India’s main exchanges - the Bombay Stock Exchange or the National Stock Exchange.
The Indian Navy announced that it had conducted a Passage Exercise (PASSEX) with the U.S. Navy’s USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group in the Eastern Indian Ocean on March 28. In a first, fighers from the Indian Air Force also participated in the PASSEX to practice air interception and air defense with the U.S. Navy.
Shishir Gupta of the Hindustan Times reports that “the Indian Navy has informed the Narendra Modi government that the induction of six nuclear-powered submarines would take priority over a third heavy aircraft carrier discussed earlier to counter the rapid expansion of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and dominate the Indian Ocean.”
Three to Read…
From cogent analysis to potentially big news that you should keep an eye on, here are a few commentaries and other pieces of writing that I found particularly enlightening:
Sumitha Narayanan Kutty, Leverhulme Doctoral Fellow at King’s College London and Adjunct Research Associate at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, and Dr. Rajesh Basrur, Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, write: “What does India stand to gain from the Quad? First, the security dividend will be significant, though not immense since India can take care of the more severe threats to its security, as is evident from the Ladakh crisis, and is already benefiting from bilateral U.S. arms transfers. The Quad will bring additional gains from sharing of intelligence and logistics and from the skills obtained through military exercises. Second, greater gains can be expected from the steady restructuring of regional and global trade and investment relationships, which will reduce India’s dependence on China and bring in increased investment and manufacturing activity. Third, India’s status as a major power will be further enhanced through its expanded role in the making of a redesigned world order less susceptible to Chinese power and associated with more widely accepted values. Above all, India stands to gain from the creation of a more stable, cooperative world which it has the capacity to shape in unprecedented ways.”
Rohit Kumar and Bhavani P is an associate at Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC), Co-founder and Associate, respectively at Young Leaders of Active Citizenship, argue: “India’s Parliament recently passed the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which significantly increases the powers of the Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) of Delhi... Despite the nature of the sweeping changes this bill proposed, it was not sent to a parliamentary committee, and there was no formal consultation with stakeholders, civil society, or experts before it was quickly rushed through both Houses of Parliament… For a parliamentary democracy, this is unusual. Typically, bills of such significance are sent to parliamentary committees for closer scrutiny. Unfortunately, sidelining committees is increasingly becoming the norm in India. Over the last few years, Parliament has been sending fewer and fewer bills to committees.”
Dr. C. Raja Mohan, director of the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies, writes: “In affirming that the “Quad has come of age” at the first-ever summit of the Quadrilateral Dialogue with the United States, Japan, and Australia last week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sent an unmistakable signal that India is no longer reluctant to work with the West in the global arena, including in the security domain. The country’s new readiness to participate in Western forums marks a decisive turn in independent India’s world view. That view was long defined by the idea of nonalignment and its later avatar, strategic autonomy—both of which were about standing apart from, if not against, post-World-War-II Western alliances. But today—driven by shifting balance of power in Asia, India’s clear-eyed view of its national interest, and the successful efforts of consecutive U.S. presidents—India is taking increasingly significant steps toward the West.”
… And Two to Listen To
Dr. Milan Vaishnav, Director and Senior Fellow at the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and host of the Grand Tamasha podcast speaks with Jairam Ramesh, Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha representing Karnataka, about Mr. Ramesh’s new book “ A Chequered Brilliance The Many Lives of V.K. Krishna Menon.”
Sriram Lakshman, the U.S. Correspondent at The Hindu in conversation with Dr. Joshua White, Associate Professor of the Practice of South Asia Studies and Fellow at the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asia Studies at Johns Hopkins University, about U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s recent visit to India.
Thanks for reading this latest edition of Indialogue. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or feedback by emailing me at aman@amanthakker.com.