In this section, we are presenting our readers/aspirants compilation of selected editorials of national daily viz. The Hindu, The live mint,The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Economic Times, PIB etc. This section caters the requirement of Civil Services Mains (GS + Essay) , PCS, HAS Mains (GS + Essay) & others essay writing competition.
1.India Inc, Bring Your Competence
India Inc is doing its bit to solve the oxygen shortage pandemic-struck Indian cities face. Even before the government ordered diversion of industrial oxygen for medical use, enterprises ranging from giant steel plants to tiny welding units in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh have been pushing their oxygen stocks to hospitals. Tata, ITC and Adani are importing cryogenic containers, Reliance is producing extra oxygen. Others, ranging from Microsoft and Google to smaller units, are making donations, big and small, to assorted relief funds. All this is welcome. But companies can and do more, particularly things that only companies can do, such as making good gaps in the supply chains that produce the constituent parts of the nation’s armoury against Covid.
For immediate relief, oxygen containers had to be imported. But Indian industry should be able to make the cryogenic containers in India itself. The lakhs of additional oxygen bottles required by Covid patients can certainly be manufactured in India. India has to vaccinate 10 million people a day to complete vaccinating a large enough proportion of the population fast enough to limit both contagion and endless mutations of the virus. Vaccine supply is constrained by non-availability of vaccine ingredients, a fair amount of which have to come from the US, which has now offered to lift the export curbs it had placed on these. India should be able to produce every one of these ingredients in this country. The rationale for this assertion is not any dogmatic devotion to autarky or strategic autonomy. India’s knowledge base and skilled/skillable workforce qualify it to be the most competitive producer of everything in the pharma universe. Lack of ambition and habitual inertia have held Indian industry back from foraying into these vital sectors.
The pandemic and its imperatives should spur industry to shed past inhibitions and launch itself into a new era of innovation and enterprise that enriches itself commercially and the world, at large, in terms of better and less expensive therapies and vaccines.
2.LIC Needs to Match Pvt Insurers in Tech
India’s private life insurers outperformed Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) last fiscal during the pandemic, shows data from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI). Their digital push aided private insurers in a big way. While the new business premium of private companies rose 16.29% over the previous fiscal year, that of LIC grew 3.48%, adding up to a cumulative ₹2.78 lakh crore. In just March 2021, aggregate new business premium of life insurers rose 70.87% to ₹43,416.5 crore — private companies grew at 83.52% and LIC at 64.68% over a poor March 2020. The pandemic led to a rise in demand for life covers.
Growth in FY21 was driven by single premium policies. But the lockdown and social distancing norms impacted the sales (especially group insurance and pension plans) of LIC’s covers, almost 96% of which is sold through agents. Its new business premium from group insurance declined in FY21. The second wave will further accelerate the demand for individual protection plans. LIC, which still accounts for nearly two-thirds of the new business premium, is now seeing a rise in the online sales of its products and anticipates more demand for pension and annuity plans. The regulator did well to facilitate adoption of standardised and simple insurance products.
According to a Kotak report, the revival in unit-linked pension plans coupled with increased demand for pension and annuity products, due to the dearth of high-yield fixed income instruments, is expected to help insurers post strong growth in FY22. It is too early, though, to have a picture on the claims for this fiscal. Nevertheless, companies must focus on under-writing discipline and base their pricing on the assessment of risks.
3.Remedy/ Pitfall: It’s in reliable data that we have the most important tool to safeguard public health
The outbreak of the global pandemic last year turned the spotlight on an arcane field, applied epidemiology. It provides a guide to decision-making in a world of patchy data. The situation has changed quite a bit since then. There is a lot more knowledge about the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This rapidly growing bank of knowledge complemented by the arrival of vaccines puts all countries on a sounder footing. But the key assumption here is that governments have the right approach to data. Both in terms of collection, the first step, and its subsequent analysis.
Right from the first wave of Covid-19, the world has struggled to capture accurate data. Reasons are many, including lack of resources, social stigma forcing patients to withhold information, and political incentives which favour data suppression. In India, it was clear from the beginning that testing for Covid-19 across states, both in terms of quality and quantity, varied. Large serosurveys carried out by ICMR indicated that the presence of antibodies in the population far exceeded what the test results showed. Its survey carried out over December-January showed that 21% of Indians were exposed to Covid.
Key elements in putting data to good use are its interpretation and the right political incentives. There was nothing in the data to conclusively say that we had reached herd immunity or dealt with the challenge. In another serious shortcoming, it was as late as December that the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), a network of 10 labs to monitor genomic changes of SARS-CoV-2, was set up. And it’s still not fulfilling its potential. For example, the B.1.617 variant appears to have played a big role in Maharashtra’s surge but not enough samples have been sequenced and policy response is lagging.
One reason why policy response is inadequate is that political incentives to fudge data are high. There is a clear mismatch between official data on Covid deaths and the reportage across cities over the last few weeks. Under-reporting of crucial data leaves governments ill-equipped to respond. Epidemiology’s usefulness is influenced by the quality of data that can be used. When the data doesn’t capture reality, by design or otherwise, we will be caught napping. It’s important to remember that with a pathogen that is highly infectious, there may not be an endgame. Instead, tools such as reliable data limit its adverse impact, or further waves. So they must be kept sharp, and used smartly.
4.Prioritise first dose: 12-week Covishield gap will give more Indians single dose protection, while supply is built up
With vaccine supplies stagnant even as demand is expected to skyrocket amid vaccination for the 18-45 age group commencing on May 1, a good option is to expand the gap between the two Covishield doses. Accounting for over 90% of doses so far, Covishield will remain the mainstay of India’s vaccination programme, until other vaccines step up. If implemented, this expansion will be the second one since March 22, when the Centre increased the 28-day dosing gap to 4-8 weeks after its experts ruled that a 6-8 week gap enhanced protection.
But United Kingdom, the other big country that bet big on the same vaccine, had recommended a 12-week gap. In March, Canadian vaccinologists proposed a four-month interval for all vaccines to maximise first doses. AstraZeneca’s Phase 3 trial data from the UK supported a larger dosing gap, noting 81.3% efficacy when administered 12 weeks apart, trumping efficacy for the 4-week dosing interval in both the UK and US trials. The 12-week gap has helped the UK single-dose 49.4% of the population by now. From January to March, this strategy gave the country several weeks leeway to stockpile for the second dose. Meanwhile, studies indicate lower fatalities even among those who have just received one dose. In Mumbai too, the lower death toll among elderly in this wave signifies that one dose is better than none.
Nearly a third of the vaccine doses administered in India in recent days are second doses. A 12-week gap would significantly reduce second dosers and allow more people to get their first doses, while new capacity is added. Otherwise, with Serum Institute reportedly in no position to supply many states before May 15, a long wait beckons the 18-45 age group, comprising most of the workforce. In this dire situation, extending the Covishield dosing gap is a win-win strategy.
5. Economic fallout of the second wave
As India completes the first month of fiscal year 2021-22, it is facing a severe second wave of Covid-19 infections. Daily cases continue to remain high. Some parts of the country are under lockdowns or similar restrictions, and more are expected to join them. The Nomura India Business Resumption Index had fallen to 83.8 in the week ending April 18. This will most probably go below 80 in the week ending April 25 and could fall further in the days to come. All this suggests that the second wave will extract a large economic cost. Usual economic indicators, however, will not capture the true magnitude of this cost. The reason is a favourable base effect, on account of the 68-day lockdown, which was imposed on March 25, 2020.
For example, the index of eight core sector industries for March will be released this week. It contracted by 4.6% on a year-on-year basis in February 2021. We could see a statistical improvement in the number March onwards because it suffered a huge contraction March 2020 onwards. These numbers were a contraction of 8.5%, 37.9% and 21.4% in March, April and May 2020. The same logic will hold for other economic indicators. It is extremely important that these numbers, skewed by the base effect, do not lead to complacency on the economic policy front.
The Controller General of Accounts will release the provisional revenue and expenditure situation of the central government for the fiscal year 2020-21 soon. Media reports suggest that revenue collection has surpassed the revised estimates. But this does not mean all is well. Petroleum taxes have played a big role in pushing up indirect tax collections. There are genuine doubts on the sustainability of this route without stoking inflation. And the revised estimates themselves were a sharp reduction from the budget estimates. If the GDP growth for 2021-22 is compromised because of the second wave, then revenue numbers for 2021-22 could also disappoint. This will adversely affect spending too. Both the Centre and states are focused on boosting medical infrastructure to save lives at the moment, and rightly so. This, however, should not lead to negligence on the vaccination front, either in terms of poor states being left behind in procuring vaccines or vaccine makers being unable to expedite supplies. Immediate universal vaccination is the only effective stimulus at the moment.