Month: June 2017

Explained: The Short, Medium and Long-Term Fallout of India’s GST

How will India’s sixteen-year-in-the-making tax system overhaul impact the economy, India Inc, the informal sector and the consumer? The Wire breaks it down.

How will India’s sixteen-year-in-the-making tax system overhaul impact the economy, India Inc, the informal sector and the consumer? The Wire breaks it down.

Credit: PTI

How will GST impact industry, small businesses and the consumer? Credit: PTI

At the stroke of midnight on Friday, June 30, India’s goods and services tax (GST) will become official. The sixteen-year-in-the-making taxation system overhaul – which started with the Vajpayee government in 2000, later forged into existence by the UPA governments from 2007 to 2013 and finally shepherded through by the Modi government – is here now for better or worse.

The GST has been met with, in equal parts, trepidation and excitement – trepidation over the rush to implement it by July 1 regardless of whether India’s six crore small traders and businesses are ready. And excitement over its potential to formalise India’s economy, widen the country’s tax net and improve the ease of doing business.

What will be the impact and fallout of GST in the years to come? The Wire breaks it down.

GST – One Nation, One Tax. Yay or Nay?

India has both implemented and not implemented the spirit of a unifying GST. The GST subsumes a number of a central (central excise duty, countervailing customs duty) and state (state VAT, luxury tax, entry tax, octroi) taxes and thus prevents the dreaded cascading effect of taxes.

In spirit, therefore, there’s only one tax. In the pre-GST regime, a car manufacturer would have to pay a tax on his raw materials (say Rs 100) and a tax on his final output after creating the car (say Rs 130).

Under the GST regime, the car manufacturer can offset his ‘raw material tax’ against the ‘output tax’  – the total tax burden on the auto company would then become Rs 30 (Rs 130-Rs 100). This continues along the value chain to the wholesaler and then the retailer who sells you your car.

For consumers, India’s GST is one tax in the most practical sense that currently a bar of soap costs, theoretically, 29 different prices across 29 different states due to 29 different state VATs. Under the GST regime, there’s just one GST rate for a bar of soap: 18%.

Where India differs from other countries that have implemented GST is that there isn’t one single rate that applies to all goods or services. In Singapore, the tax levied on a pair of shoes and the tax levied on a bar of soap is the same – 7%.

Country Tax Rate
India 5%, 12%, 18%, 28%
Singapore 7%
Malaysia 6%
New Zealand 15%
Aruba 1.5%
Brazil 7%, 12%
Germany 19%

In India, the GST council has come out with a rather unwieldy four-rate structure: 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. In addition to this, there is the exempt category (0%) and additional cesses that are charged on top of certain products, which makes our GST regime have seven effective tax rate slabs.

Why didn’t we end up with ‘one nation- one tax’ or a single-rate structure for our GST?

It wasn’t for a lack of advice; government or otherwise. In 2009, the 13th Finance Commission strongly recommended that India’s GST should be levied at a single rate of 12%. Six years later, the Expert Committee on the Revenue Neutral Rate for GST suggested a potential three rate structure while noting that of the countries that had adopted GST, 90% of them went with a single-rate structure.

Why, then, was this advice ignored?

Firstly, in order to protect existing government (both central and state) revenue. This is why nearly 60% of all goods under GST will be taxed at either 18% or 28%. And why nearly 20% of all goods are in the 28% rate bracket, a bracket that should have ideally only had classic luxury items or goods on which a sin tax should be levied. Instead, the 28% bracket has bulged to include non-essentials such as chocolates, chewing gum, shampoo, deodorant and paints in addition to the more typical items such as yachts and jets.   

This is also why key petroleum products and alcohol have been kept out of the ambit of the GST. Both bring in huge amounts of revenue at the Centre and state level and keeping them out allows governments to continue with constant tinkering to fill shortfalls in future budgets. The decision to leave out petroproducts is particularly disadvantageous for the average Indian consumer. As The Wire has pointed out, although global oil prices have steadily declined over the last six years, the Modi government has increased excise duties by over 150% over the last three years.

The final two reasons are that:

  • India’s poor needed to be protected
  • Various political considerations took a toll on GST

The first explains why both the 0% and 5% bracket exist and why 30% of the CPI basket and essential services are exempt.

The second reason, however, is why GST’s scope becomes unnecessarily unwieldy. The GST council and its ‘rate fitment committee’ was made up of politicians and central and state tax officials. They have worked very hard, as one commentator put it, to make sure the GST rate structure resembled India’s old tax system.

Which rates are the most troublesome? Will there be a wave of tax litigation?

Economists and market analysts believe that the existence of the 12% and 18% bracket – and their interactions with the 5% and 28% bracket – is problematic, giving way as it does to a lot of political arbitrariness and industry lobbying.

Under what economic rationale does the GST’s fitment committee justify keeping cashews and raisins at 5% but almonds and other nuts at 12%? Why are soaps and hair oils at 18% but detergents taxed at 28%?

And where there may be a social rationale over tax rate – for example, by taxing hybrid cars less than petrol and diesel-guzzlers – the government hasn’t chosen to act. Environment-friendly cars will not only attract the same GST rate as large luxury cars and SUVs but also attract a 15% cess over and above that.

Perhaps the most troublesome aspect is when the new GST regime believe taxation should be predicated on product pricing for non-luxury goods. A good example of this is how if moviegoers will pay 18% GST if they buy movie tickets priced under Rs 100 but 28% if they choose to opt for better seats (priced above Rs 100).

The logic against multiple rates is quite clear, as is evident from the GST council’s own flip-flopping over the last months on which items belong in 18% category and which should be taxed at 12%. Cutlery was initially put under the 18% bracket but later changed to 12%, while computer printers were shifted from 28% to 18%. Why were these decisions taken and do they really conform to the spirit of ‘one-nation, one tax’?  

A recent Bloomberg analysis has noted that the current four-rate tax structure will “spark a flood of litigation on everything from which tax brackets companies fall into to the revenue they generated”. This will likely add to the roughly 100,000 indirect tax appeals that have been pending as of March 2015.

What is the macroeconomic impact of GST on India’s economic growth or GDP growth?

This is difficult to state, party because it’s unclear how much the GST regime will change in the coming years. However, most economists believe a well-designed GST that ensured demand-driven production rather than tax-driven production could have added two percentage points to India’s GDP growth.

A US federal reserve paper even put it, too optimistically perhaps, as boosting GDP by up to four percentage points.

A more complicated GST, much like the one we have now, is likely to yield less favourable returns, more in the range of half a percentage point to one percentage point increase in GDP in the short-term. A recent analysis by HSBC shows that the rollout of GST is likely to add only 0.4% to GDP, “lower than earlier estimates as multiple tax rates and exemptions announced… are far from an ideal structure and could blunt the growth impact of the reform process.”

Will it curb tax evasion and expand the tax net?

There are two schools of thought here. The first is that India’s current GST regime goes against one of the more basic principles of increasing revenue: the lower the rate of taxation, the more number of people and businesses that will comply.

In other words, if the ideal taxation regime is the one that taxes more items at lesser rates, our new GST regime is far from that. Another closely connected issue is the GST threshold limit, which exempts businesses that make under 20 lakhs per year from GST. Top tax lawyer Arvind Datar pointed out in a recent speech how previous exemption limits were exploited under earlier tax systems.

“For many many years, we had a horrendous system of excise duty. Shampoo was taxed at 110% for instance. However, if your turnover was less than 5 lakh you had to pay no duty. What people did was, throughout places in Tamil Nadu like Cuddalore and Pondicherry, housewives would make up to 4.9 lakh and then stop. Or create multiple MSMEs within a family to get around paying duty. Multiple amendments had to come in to plug this loophole. With a 20 lakh threshold, you will have multiple enterprises like this mushrooming. Mrs Datar will have one business, my cousin will have one and my son will have one,” Datar said.

On the other hand, the other school of thought is that GST inherently increases formalisation in India’s economy, whether small businesses are ready for it or not. Industries, like textiles and clothing, that have historically paid little tax (whether in the form of duty or VAT) now have a formal GST rate and will have little choice but to start registering, formalising and digitising their business.

The GST regime is particularly good at formalising areas where India’s formal sector interacts with the informal industry through its reverse charge and input tax credit mechanisms. India’s biggest companies across various industries have incentives to bring their informal supply chain into the formalised tax net and vice versa.

The other crucial aspect is that while the exemption threshold is now Rs 20 lakh, for many small manufacturers it used to be Rs 1.5 crore, which means that thousands of hitherto informal or unorganised MSMEs will either shut shop or come into the tax net. GST, therefore, may or may not curb tax evasion practices but will almost certainly expand India’s tax net.

Which industry sectors aren’t ready for GST and which will be the most impacted?

The effect of India’s GST regime on specific industries depends on three primary factors. Firstly, sectors that have a high share of unorganised players will be worse off or at the very least have a lot more work to do. A crucial aspect of this is to what extent a particular small or medium business is vertically integrated and what percentage of the value chain in an industry is aggregated or disaggregated.

Secondly, sectors in which input tax credits have been removed or where it’s unclear how the mechanism will function will see short-term pain.

The third and final factor is the difference between the pre-GST and post-GST effective tax rate.

Table 1 below looks at three formal companies in the FMCG and retail sector. A company like Dabur that supplies a wide range of consumer products faces a number of GST rates. While on the whole, the changes in tax rates are neutral, the uncertainty around GST has led to a great deal of destocking, leading to potential weak volume growth in the first quarter.

Companies like Marico and Shoppers Stop which are having issues over tax credits and work with a bigger informal supplier base are expected to see low or negative growth, with supply disruptions expected as small vendors work their way into the formal economy.

Table 1: FMCG/Retail 

Company GST Rate Impact Preparedness Overall Impact
Dabur Overall neutral Dealers will be protected Weak volume growth in Q1
Marico Neutral to positive Teething issues over tax credits, small vendors aren’t compliant yet Low to negative growth expected
Shoppers Stop Garment prices to go up Large vendors ready, small vendors are unprepared Possible supply disruptions expected post-GST

Source: Edelweiss Securities

As The Wire has consistently reported and analysed, the GST rollout is proving to be everything from a headache to a nightmare for India’s small traders and businesses. This is seen across a wide range of industries as shown in Table 2 below.

Industries such as pharmaceuticals, plywood, tiles or luggage which have roughly 60-70% share of unorganised players will face a large number of transition issues in the next few months as smaller vendors hire legal and accounting help and board onto the computerised GST network (GSTN). Higher GST rates, such as the 28% rate for the luggage industry, will likely slow down the rate of formalisation while impacting sales in the next few quarters.

These problems don’t impact the cement industry specifically, which is largely filled with organised or large companies, although the construction industry might still have teething issues.

Table 2: Small Business Preparedness

Sector GST Preparedness Amongst Small Vendors Overall Impact on Industry
Pharmaceuticals Most participants in trade not geared up for GST India sales for industry will be impacted in Q1
Luggage Higher rate of 28% to slow down the pace of shift from unorganised to organised Post Q1, expect pickup from 7-8 July onwards
Cement Largely an organised sector and hence large dealers mostly compliant No major inventory impact expected
Plywood Dealers, distributors and vendors are not prepared for GST rollout Q1 FY’18 sales to be impacted
Tiles Transition stock related issues troubling dealers Margins to be impacted due to loss of input credit on gas and freight cost

The effect of the new GST rates play out in different ways – consider the tiles industry. It has been assigned a GST rate of 28% which is not too bad if you look at the existing VAT rates across different states. However, GST will likely prove to be inflationary for the industry as a whole because the sector’s biggest hub is in Gujarat which has a low VAT of 5% (leading to an effective tax rate of 17-18% after adding other taxes). With the loss of input cost credit availability for gas costs, the situation looks gloomy.

How will GST impact India’s informal economy and the sharply disaggregated value chain?

As pointed out, GST sharply impacts the intersection between India’s formal and informal economy. The basic principle is that the greater portion an industry is vertically integrated (where one company performs a lot of roles across the supply chain), the less pain there will be over the GST roll-out.

This is why while the core automobile industry may be largely unchanged post-GST (although there are issues with pre-GST stocks), auto ancillary industries such as automotive control cables will see teething issues.

Nowhere is this seen more clearly than the textile and fabric industry. Across India, in major textile hubs, traders and MSMEs that provide weaving, printing, processing and embroidering services are staging protests and bandhs.The usual problems that plague the overall informal economy exist in this industry too – worries over whether entering the tax net will eat into their meagre profits and the headaches that come with dealing with the sharp rise in paperwork and computerisation.

However, many separate analyses of Surat’s textile industry show that stakeholders in the “disaggregated value chain might end up paying as much as 20% more tax than a vertically-integrated company”. This is primarily because textile traders are too covered under GST, which means that tax will be levied on each intermediary transaction that occurs between the producers of yarn, weavers and processing mills.

What does this mean for job creation and the informal economy?

The basic problems for most small and informal businesses are similar: operating costs are about to go up as business owners hire accountants and computerise their operations. India has roughly six crore small firms, out of which 2.5 crore businesses will be exempt from GST as they won’t cross the Rs 20 lakh threshold.

However, according to Praveen Khandelwal, the head of the Confederation of All India Traders, a little over 50% of the remaining four crore firms don’t own a computer or are not digitally literate. What makes matters worse are the heavy filing requirements for service providers under GST.

As The Wire has noted, businesses will have to undertake 37 annual filings (three a month plus an annual return) for each state the firm operates in. The picture, however, is slightly better for goods providers, who can opt for the government’s composition scheme, which will allow them to file returns every quarter.

The bigger question is in quantitatively assessing the economic impact of forced formalisation of the economy. Anecdotal reports, varying from industry to industry, show that small firms with revenues of below Rs 1 crore could have 20% to 40% of their existing profits go towards GST compliance costs and higher tax rates.

However, it’s largely unclear at this point what extent of small businesses will simply become unviable post-GST. A recent Kotak equities report is not optimistic on what the new GST regime will do for job creation.

“We note that unorganised sector employs a majority of the labour force. With the unorganised sector shifting to the organised sector, a significant labour absorption capacity that currently exists may get eroded. This can compound the already chronic problem of job creation in India,” the report, issued to investors on Wednesday, notes.

What does GST mean for you as a consumer?

There are a number of item-specific comparisons that go into great detail on this subject. However, most economic analyses have indicated that the new GST rates should not materially impact inflation. Day-to-day essentials are largely exempt from GST (up to 30% of the CPI basket of goods and services are exempt).

Banking and telecom services will get more expensive and you will find eating out to be cheaper if you eat at a non-air conditioned restaurant (a GST quirk that builds on previous tax system quirks).

There are some clear winners (luxury cars, which will get cheaper), losers (movie tickets, especially regional cinemas, will get more expensive) and many goods and services that will largely remain the same.

A big factor in what will make things more expensive or not depends on what the item in question is.

For instance, soaps and toothpaste are supposed to get cheaper after the rollout of GST. They currently have an effective tax rate of 24-25% and after GST, this will come down to 18%. However, if as a consumer, you have always been paying say Rs 75 for a tube of toothpaste, it’s highly unlikely that the company that sells you the toothpaste or bar of soap will make it cheaper once you’ve gotten used to paying Rs 75.

To solve this potential problem, the GST legal framework creates an “anti-profiteering authority” that will check whether businesses are passing on the benefits of the new tax regime to consumers. Legal experts and industry leaders have almost unanimously declared that this anti-profiteering body will spark a minefield of litigation and prove to be problematic.

Construction at Bhutanese Tri-Junction Will Harm Our Security Interests, India tells China

India has said that it is “deeply concerned at recent Chinese actions”, particularly its decision to construct a road in Doklam tri-junction in Bhutan.

India has said it is  “deeply concerned at recent Chinese actions”, particularly its decision to construct a road in the Doklam area in Bhutan.

Chinese construction activity usually precedes a strong claim on the territory. Credit: Special Arrangement

New Delhi: India has told China that construction of a road in the Doklam area of Bhutan would harm Indian security interests as well as violate a written understanding between Indian and Chinese Special Representatives on the border issue that the status of the boundary at any tri-junction would be resolved only with participation of the concerned third country.

Two weeks after the Chinese side started building a road in territory at the tri-junction that Thimphu and New Delhi both say is inside Bhutan but which Beijing insists is in China, the Indian government said on Friday that it remains “deeply concerned at the recent Chinese actions and has conveyed to the Chinese government that such construction would represent a significant change of status quo with serious security implications for India”.

The “security implications” are serious as Chinese construction activity usually precedes a strong claim on the territory. The Doklam area – which is part of Bhutan, but now claimed by China – will bring the Chinese even closer to the vulnerable ‘chicken neck’ Siliguri corridor that connects West Bengal and the rest of India to the north-eastern parts of the country.

For the Indian side, the construction of the road is also another way to force India’s hand on the tri-junction, by trying to bring it more down south.

“In this context, the Indian side has underlined that the two governments had in 2012 reached agreement that the tri-junction boundary points between India, China, and third countries will be finalised in consultation with the concerned countries. Any attempt, therefore to unilaterally determine tri-junction points is in violation of this understanding,” said the press note.

This understanding, that all three countries have to be part of any consultations to determine the tri-junction, was reached in 2012 by Shivshankar Menon and Dai Bunguo, who were at the time the Indian and Chinese Special Representatives respectively. This was a written understanding, which should not have led to any ambiguity.

Currently, there are bilateral mechanisms between the various countries on the border issues. Despite not having direct diplomatic relations, the 24th round of the China-Bhutan border talks was held in August 2016.

‘Turning Point’ provocation

As Bhutan’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday, the latest incident began when a PLA contingent, armed with earth moving heavy equipment, entered the Doklam plateau. They drove to a clearing in the area, named ‘Turning Point’, which is apparently very close to the Indian post of Doko-La on the Sikkim-Bhutan border. Besides its proximity to Siliguri corridor, the Chinese also consider Doklam as strategically important, as it overlooks the Chumbi valley separating the Indian state of Sikkim from Bhutan. China has built roads on higher reaches of Bhutanese territory in the past, say official sources, but had not come down this far south before.

On spotting the Chinese PLA soldiers, Bhutanese soldiers at a border post called Chela on the Zompelri ridge, went to confront them and had a relatively long conversation to make them return to their previous positions. The message that was conveyed – which was also reiterated in Bhutan’s June 20 démarche – is that China was attempting to change the status quo on the border, which was in direct violation of the 1988 and 1998 agreements between the two countries.

Face off at Doklam. Credit: The Wire

Face off at Doklam. Credit: The Wire

But with the number of Chinese soldiers being much greater, the Bhutanese soldiers were pushed back. In the meantime, Indian soldiers came down from Doko-La post “in coordination with the Royal Government of Bhutan”, the Indian government press release said.

By the time the Indian soldiers came down, the Bhutanese had gone out of the area and the security personnel of the two Asian giants found themselves in a face-to-face situation, which has continued till now.

The Indian and Chinese army are at a distance from each other, but close enough to have conversations. Indian army personnel informed the Chinese soldiers that they were trying to change the status quo, which was a violation of previous agreements.

It is learnt that there is disquiet in Indian official circles over the decision by certain Indian private television channels to repeatedly play old videos of Indian and Chinese soldiers jostling each other – videos which have no link to the current situation.

At ground zero of the present stand-off, both sides have apparently been calm and courteous, employing loud speakers and banners to put forward their point. In contrast, the tone was shrill in Beijing, with the Chinese foreign ministry and the PLA issuing almost daily statements over the past week. On Thursday, the Chinese PLA spokesperson even asked India to remember the “lessons of history” – referring to the 1962 war, in a reaction to an earlier statement of the Indian army chief Bipin Rawat on June 8.

Tension builds up

Tension between India and China had clearly been building up since early June, when a Chinese patrol demolished a decade-old Indian bunker at Doko-la on June 6. However, this was not too alarming as the demolition of bunkers by patrol teams – moving in and out through the claimed areas – was rather routine.

Three days after the demolition of the bunker, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Astana on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. The discussions apparently gave the impression to the Indian delegation that both countries were on the same page with relation to the issue of border and the need to have a stable relationship in an uncertain world. Of course, the confrontation between the two armies in Bhutanese territory was not in consonance with the understanding reached at the leadership level in Kazakhstan.

Until Friday, the Indian side had remained silent. After the Bhutanese government lodged an official protest with China, New Delhi issued its first public statement a day later. The tone of the statement may have been measured but the Indian side is taking the latest development very, very seriously.

“The matter has been under discussion between India and China at the diplomatic level in the Foreign Ministries since then, both in New Delhi and Beijing.  It was also the subject of a border personnel meeting at Nathu La on June 20,” said the press release on “recent developments in [the] Doklam Area”.

It was at the June 20 meeting that China announced it would not allow the movement of Indian pilgrims for Kailash Mansarovar to go through the Nathu-la route. While three batches of pilgrims are currently cooling their heels, trade continues as normal at the Nathu-la border post.

Disagreement over 1890 treaty

Since China claims the Doklam area, the Chinese foreign ministry has alleged that when Indian soldiers traversed to confront their Chinese counterparts, New Delhi was violating the 1890 treaty between Great Britain and China which had settled the boundary in the Sikkim region. This is factually inaccurate, the Indian government asserts, as while the status of Sikkim within the Union of India is ‘settled’, the India-China border along the state has not been finalised.

“Where the boundary in the Sikkim sector is concerned, India and China had reached an understanding also in 2012 reconfirming their mutual agreement on the ‘basis of the alignment’. Further discussions regarding finalisation of the boundary have been taking place under the Special Representatives framework,” stated the Indian government communique. As per Indian maps, the state of Sikkim abuts Bhutan and therefore, the Indian army did not travel through any Chinese territory to reach Doklam.

There is understanding in New Delhi that the latest incident with China is substantially different from previous border stand-offs due to the involvement of Bhutan. In fact, the more sober tone adopted by New Delhi is also to give assurance to Thimpu and not trigger any alarmist moves.

On Thursday, Bhutan government has asked for the return to the status quo of June 16. The Chinese government has said that a condition for any meaningful dialogue on the current situation is that Indian troops withdraw from the area. However, communication channels between India and China remain open and the two sides are still talking to each other on how to bring the situation to normal.

It was premature to look at a trilateral dialogue between Indian, Bhutan and China on the tri-junction, since there is still no clarity on the shape of the possible solution. “India has consistently taken a positive approach to the settlement of its own boundary with China, along with the associated issue of the tri-junctions,” said the Indian statement.

It pointed out that peace and tranquillity on the India-China border has not come easily. “Both sides have worked hard to establish an institutional framework to discuss all issues to ensure peace and tranquillity in the India-China border areas.  India is committed to working with China to find a peaceful resolution of all issues in the border areas through dialogue,” said the press release of the Indian government.

Indian officials are not convinced that Modi’s visit to United States led the Chinese to up the ante, claiming that the road construction activity started 10 days earlier. So far, the Indian government has not yet taken a call on a possible meeting between Modi and Xi at the G-20 summit in Hamburg next week, but a quick pull-aside is not ruled out.

‘The Big Sick’ Has a Heart, but Remains Unsatisfying

Nanjiani, who was good in Silicon Valley finds it difficult to emotionally rise to the occasion

Nanjiani, who was good in Silicon Valley finds it difficult to emotionally rise to the occasion

A still from The Big Sick starring Zoe Kazan and Kumail Nanjiani

The protagonist of the romantic comedy The Big Sick, Kumail Nanjiani, who’s playing himself in the movie, would have a tough time answering, “Who are you?” The reasons for that are many. He’s told his parents that he’s preparing for LSAT (Law School Admission Test). He is not; he wants to become a stand-up comedian. When his parents tell him to do his daily quota of prayers, he goes to the basement with mats and switches on the timer on his phone. During those five minutes, he practices cricket shots, watches videos on the phone, does everything else except pray. His mother wants him to be a “good Muslim and marry a Pakistani girl”. Kumail can’t care less.

Born in Pakistan, Kumail — the real one — moved to the U.S. at the age of 14. As is often the case with immigrant families, he and his parents saw a different country and reacted to it and its people, differently. For Kumail’s parents it was a first-world country, where money could be made, fortunes could be changed; their relationship with it was transactional. Kumail, on the other hand, both as an adolescent and as an adult, perhaps saw something different: a new home. Unlike his parents, Kumail didn’t have the weight of history on him; he spoke to America as he spoke to Pakistan. And, as he found out, America wanted to chat. Eventually, he fell in love–and, much to his parents’ discomfort, not with a Pakistani but with an American, a girl called Emily (whom he married in real-life and who also co-wrote this film).

The Big Sick is centered on that love story. But that, too, is mired in complications. After dating for a few months, Kumail and Emily (Zoe Kazan) break-up. The reason? Misunderstanding due to cultural differences. He sees Emily, and her parents (who know about the break-up), a few months later when she’s in coma. Strapped to tubes, and in a comatose state, Emily is oblivious to Kumail’s presence, but her parents, Beth (Holly Hunter) and Terry (Ray Romano), are not. Given that Emily and Kumail didn’t part amicably, her parents are uncomfortable around him, and ignore him initially. And it’s here that the film finds its heart, its emotional mileage.

The Big Sick has an impressive structure. We soon understand that Kumail and Emily’s relationship —and their break-up — is a ruse of sorts; that it’s a gateway to something bigger: understanding how people of different cultures come together. This motif is beautifully explored in the relationship between Kumail and Emily’s parents, transitioning from cold indifference to heartfelt companionship. It’s also worthwhile noting that many Bollywood romantic dramas, most notably Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, have gone the same route, emphasizing the foundation of an Indian (or, as is the case here, Pakistani) marriage: that it’s essentially a meeting of families. But, at the same time, The Big Sick is fundamentally different. Here, the film’s hero, Kumail, finds himself disconnected from his family even though he loves them, and instead, finds compassion, acceptance, and solace in someone else’s family, among people of a different country, different culture. It’s refreshing to see that a romantic drama isn’t just about romance, that it’s also about something fundamental, something humane: how we should see and treat the ‘other’.

We live in times of blatant xenophobia (evident not just in India and Pakistan, but also the U.S.) and, for that precise reason, The Big Sick’s sincerity is admirable. And yet, that alone cannot make it a good film. The Big Sick is ironically let down by the man responsible for it: Kumail. For someone who is the centrepiece of a movie, Kumail’s acting is astoundingly pedestrian. Kumail displayed reasonable comic talent in Silicon Valley, the TV series. However, in The Big Sick, Kumail, for the most part, looks terribly out of depth. Even the comedic scenes, his forte, don’t help his cause (his straight-faced acts, in particular, do not work). He is especially shoddy in scenes that require emotional heavy lifting, frequently causing you to tune out of the film. However, you can at least see Kumail and filmmaker Michael Showalter’s intent here; some scenes look deliberately off-key, informed by awkward pauses, stilted dialogues, as if trying to mimic the rough edges of life, but they feel unconvincing, unsatisfying. Kumail’s performance is all the more disappointing because the rest of the cast—Kazan, Romano, and Hunter—puts up an impressive show. Romano, in particular (playing the role of Emily’s father who has a soft-spot for Kumail), is easily the best part about The Big Sick, lending much-needed weight to this film. (Even Kher, otherwise an assured performer, is just about okay.)

The film also lacks a solid central conflict, which flattens it out and makes it less compelling. Had it been a character-driven piece, that wouldn’t have been a problem, but The Big Sick is primarily a story-driven drama, where the stakes feel frequently absent (or, at least, less pressing). But, more importantly, The Big Sick disappoints because it fails to go the whole hog. Several key scenes edge near a moment of revelation (where we’re about to understand the characters or their situations better) before getting cut short abruptly. It’s a bizarre filmmaking choice where the director and the writers want to keep the audiences at a distance from the movie. The Big Sick lets go of its strange preoccupation only in the last 10 minutes, but by then it’s too late.

We need progressive politics more than ever in cinema—that’s not even up for debate. But we can’t compromise on good filmmaking. Because there’s a whole world between intent and execution.

How Fish Eat Pointy Food, Finches That Use Cigarettes and Unisexual Salamanders

A quick review of interesting research on living things from the last month.

A quick review of interesting research on living things from the last month.

A tubelip wrasse feeding on coral. Credit: Victor Huertas and David Bellwood

A tubelip wrasse feeding on coral. Credit: Victor Huertas and David Bellwood

How do reef fish eat razor-sharp stinging coral?

Short answer: by drooling. As anyone who has touched live coral with their bare hands knows, the razor sharp surface is covered with stinging polyps. Only 128 species of fish of the 6,000 that live on reefs evolved to live on a punishing diet of coral. By examining the lips of one species – the tubelip wrasse – under an electron microscope, researchers from Australia discovered they are finely-ribbed like the gills of mushrooms. These structures are lined with goblet cells that secrete mucus all the time. Instead of using their teeth to take crunchy bites, the fish “kisses” the coral with its thick pouty lips while the mucus creates a seal around the mouth. It then sucks up chunks of coral mucus and tissue with the sticky saliva protecting their lips from being stung. The fish prefer to focus on damaged parts of coral that produce the most mucus. The yellowtail wrasse that doesn’t eat coral has thin and smooth lips.

How do wasps recognise each other’s faces?

Every golden paper wasp (Polistes fuscatus) of North and Central America has a distinct face. What’s more, they even recognise each other by their looks. The metricus paper wasp (Polistes metricus), a close relation, doesn’t have this talent. After all, every member of its tribe looks alike. But this plain-looking insect can learn to identify patterns.

Researchers trained one group of each species in pattern and facial recognition. Later, by comparing which genes were activated in the brains of the trained wasps, they found differences in 257 genes, including ones that controlled neuron signalling. None of them showed up in the brains of metricus wasps, leading the researchers to think facial recognition isn’t similar to perception of patterns. The answer to golden paper wasps’ extraordinary skill lies in its genes.

Why do house finches weave cigarette butts into their nests?

Urban house finches of Mexico City rip cigarette butts and line their nests with the nicotine-smelling fluffy fibres. Some speculated the fibres resemble feathers and the parent birds can’t tell the difference. Others thought they might use the butts to reduce the load of ticks and mites. Nicotine is a known parasite-killer, but it’s also toxic to the nestlings. By adding ticks, live and dead, replacing cigarette filters with felt, and shaking down the nest afterwards, researchers answered the question of why finches lined their nests with cigarette butts. Parent finches reacted to the addition of live ticks by bringing more nicotine-tainted filters. The researchers speculate the benefits of killing blood-sucking parasites must outweigh the harm nicotine causes. Or the nestlings may imprint on the stink of nicotine in the nest and learn to pick up the butts when they become parents.

A common butterfly’s uncommon sex life

The sex life of cabbage white butterflies is anything but ordinary. When they mate, the males produce spermatophores that are 13% of their body weight. Sperm makes up only 2% of it; the rest is a yummy protein shake garnished with carbohydrates and lipids. A biscuit-hard shell encrusts the gunk. The large spermatophore takes up all the space in the female’s reproductive tract ensuring she cannot mate again until she breaks it down. She wastes no time at the task. Her reproductive organ gushes with digestive enzymes to dissolve it. But it could be a week before she can get through it, giving the sperm ample time to fertilise her eggs. It is in the female’s interest to mate with other males not only for the genetic diversity of her offspring but because the spermatophore replenishes her. To speed up the breakdown, a toothy structure that the researchers jokingly call ‘vagina dentata’ chews on it. Chemical and mechanical action disintegrates the spermatophore within three days, and the female is ready for sex again. She mates two to three times in her lifetime and uses up to 40% of the male’s nutritious care package to produce eggs.

How do spider webs without glue catch prey?

Typical web-spinning spiders have spinnerets that extrude silk with beads of glue to snag their insect prey. Cribellate spiders, however, possess thousands of tiny nozzles that produce extremely fine filaments of silk. Since these woolly-textured nanofibres have no sticky droplets, how do they still ensnare the spiders’ meals? Scientists in Austria and Germany have found the answer by studying cribellate spiders from the Americas, Europe, and Australia.

Insects have a coating of wax on their outer surface. When they touch the cribellate web, the wax melds with the nanofibres, possibly by capillary action. The spiders use the insects’ defences against them. The fine filaments then fuse together to form sturdy threads. The chances of the prey freeing itself from this web are small. The snagging ability of their webs is so successful that the venom glands of this family of spiders have atrophied.

Insects would have to get rid of their waxy coating if they are to escape getting trapped by these spiders. But the wax is crucial to their survival as it reduces water loss. Alternatively, insects can shield the wax layer or increase the viscosity of the wax. They may still fall prey to glue-embedded webs.

A salamander with multiple paternity

The all-female hybrid Ambystoma mates with multiple males and use equal parts of each partner's genetic material in her offspring. Credit: Robert Denton, Ohio State University

The all-female hybrid Ambystoma mates with multiple males and use equal parts of each partner’s genetic material in her offspring. Credit: Robert Denton, Ohio State University

Unisexual salamanders are common throughout the Great Lakes and northeastern America. The hybridisation event occurred about five million years ago, making these salamanders the most ancient unisexual vertebrate known. Since then the all-female offspring mate with the males of three other species.

The unisexual salamander can have five nuclear genomes, a condition called polyploidy. Of nearly 3,000 genes that researchers analysed of one captive hybrid individual, 72% came from males of three species. It retains some of each male’s genes and discards the rest, and it does this equally for all three species. However, such balance is not typical of hybrid plants. The researchers say the unusual level of balance may be the result of high degree of gene exchange between the hybrids and males of other species. The unisexuals may not decide which genes to keep and which ones to discard on an individual basis. They may have struck upon a balanced ratio of genes from the sexual males and maintained it. This stability may be the key to the hybrids’ success.

Janaki Lenin is the author of My Husband and Other Animals. She lives in a forest with snake-man Rom Whitaker and tweets at @janakilenin.

Animals do the most amazing things. Read about them in this series by Janaki Lenin.

How Access to Knowledge Can Help Universal Health Coverage Become a Reality

A critical part of attaining universal health coverage – especially in developing countries – is unfettered access to published medical research.

A critical part of attaining universal health coverage – especially in developing countries – is unfettered access to published medical research.

For many low and middle income countries, open access to published medical research comes with barriers as a result of infrastructural challenges. Credit: Reuters

For many low and middle income countries, open access to published medical research comes with barriers as a result of infrastructural challenges. Credit: Reuters

The World Health Organisation’s director-general Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus has set universal health coverage as one of the main priorities for his term.

Universal health coverage is defined by the WHO as free access to promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative health services. These have to be of a sufficient quality to be effective but without causing unnecessary financial hardship when paying for the services.

But Ghebreyesus’s goal is a challenging one, especially for low and middle income countries which make up around 84% of the world’s population. Yet they only have access to half the physicians and a quarter of the nurses that high income countries have access to.

Similarly low and middle income countries only spend around US $266 per capita on healthcare. In contrast, high income countries spend a whopping US $5,251 per capita.

This means that attaining universal health coverage in poorer settings is challenging to say the least. Large cuts to foreign aid investment from a number of high income economies only compound this challenge.

To address this, affected countries need to start thinking smarter, and not simply work harder. Optimising available resources requires local researchers to apply themselves. In other words, these countries need to grow their knowledge economies.

High income countries already have access to significant resources. This is mainly due to their own knowledge economies flourishing. To match this low and middle income countries need to increase the investment in their research activity. This includes increasing the number of institutions and supervisors that support research.

Although low and middle income countries have seen an increase and improvement in all these areas, access to existing knowledge remains poor. Particularly when compared to access in higher income countries.

The ideal knowledge economy

A healthy knowledge economy needs:

  • investment (funding set aside for generating knowledge),
  • people who create research and consume information,
  • higher education institutions, and
  • reasonable access to knowledge (existing, published research).

Low and middle income countries invest around a third of what high income countries invest in research. They also have access to around a fifth of the researchers high income countries have access to. To top it off, less than a quarter of the Times Higher Education ranked universities are located in low and middle income countries.

Yet of all the cogs that make up the knowledge economy, access to knowledge is likely the easiest to achieve. Although accessible knowledge remains a problem, strides have been made with increased support of open access publication on a global scale.

How accessible knowledge helps

Given the growing penetration of the internet into low and middle income countries, information has never been more accessible at any point in history than today. Yet, access to a sizeable and ever growing bulk of healthcare research remains poor.

Open access publishing has become a strong global movement. Roughly 20% to 50% of all published research is currently freely available online – depending on its year of publication.

Some have remained sceptical of open access publishing. Despite that many funding agencies and higher education institutions now insist on accessible research reporting from their beneficiaries, staff and students.

It’s hard to argue the possibilities if the 2.7 million plus healthcare publications published within the last three years were freely accessible in low and middle income countries. It would likely confer a tremendous benefit to both healthcare professionals and patients (or even universal health coverage).

It is important to understand that the purpose of access to knowledge generated in high income countries is not simply to copy it verbatim into lower income settings. The comparative resource restrictions that apply renders direct implementation largely unfeasible. However, accessible knowledge, wherever generated, provides the references needed to generate locally appropriate applications thereof.

Navigating the challenges

For many low and middle income countries, open access comes with barriers as a result of infrastructural challenges.

The Hinari programme is an example of this. It has been around since 2002. It’s supported by the World Health Organisation along with a large number of publishers and provides access to a substantial amount of published material for researchers from low and middle income countries.

But during its 15 year of existence it has remained poorly supported. Ironically, for a programme that has existed so long, the main reason for this appears to be poor access.

To solve this problem, publishers could easily provide equitable access for low and middle income countries using geolocation internet protocols in the same way Netflix does. As a video streaming service, Netflix controls the content its users can access based on where they are accessing the service from. If geolocation is now an industry standard for various similar information sharing, internet based services, why not also for publication?

For publishers contributing to Hinari, such a step should be fairly straight forward. Use of geolocation internet protocols will allow researchers in eligible countries to access research from participating publishers on any device, anywhere where they have an internet connection. This would include the patient’s bedside – not just the academic library.

Much of the knowledge required to establish the universal health coverage Ghebreyesus wants, already exists. Poor access to this knowledge presents a major barrier to achieving universal health coverage.

To unlock this knowledge for everyone’s benefit, policymakers and publishers need to seriously consider more innovative ways to provide access. Ironically, these solutions probably already exist as well.

Stevan Bruijns, Senior lecturer in the Division of Emergency Medicine, University of Cape Town

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Once a Force to Be Reckoned With, Germany’s Green Party Is Wobbling on the Political Stage

Focused on climate change and environmental concerns, the party had taken the centre stage in the 2000s, but its all-embracing approach towards refugees and lack of clarity on issues affecting the voters is now dragging it down.

Focused on climate change and environmental concerns, the party had taken the centre stage in the 2000s, but its all-embracing approach towards refugees and lack of clarity on issues affecting the voters is now dragging it down.

Baden-Wuerttemberg state Premier Winfried Kretschmann of the environmental Greens (Die Gruenen) party and party co-leader Simone Peter (R) address a news conference at the Green’s party headquarters in Berlin, Germany. Credit: Reuters/Wolfgang Rattay

Berlin: When it was founded in 1980, the Green party in Germany was a direct by-product of the counterculture and social movements that had gripped the European continent in the two preceding decades. The Greens marched for women’s rights and gay rights; the end of nuclear power and, of course, environmental protection.

The aim for the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen – as the party is formally called – was never to be a part of mainstream politics. They wanted to be a presence in the Bundestag (German parliament) as a progressive, anti-establishment party representative of the young generation.

But the 80s happened to be a time dominated by a clamour to protect the environment. Alarm bells started ringing from all quarters – acid rain in Germany caused forests to die, toxic chemicals flowing from an industrial complex in Switzerland flowed into the Rhine, causing fish to die. Outside Germany, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster struck. The stage was set for the Greens to make their mark in a definitive way.

From the sidelines of the parliament, the Greens were catapulted to the centre stage. Mainstream political parties began to adopt the Green language, focusing not only on ecology and sustainable living but also on other social topics such as feminism, grassroots democracy and so on. The Greens emerged as a force to be reckoned with, especially in 2000 when it formed a coalition, for the first time, with the Social Democrats. More recently, in the aftermath of the Fukushima catastrophe in 2011, the party polled nationally at 20%

And yet, today, the party is struggling to stay relevant. With the federal elections three months away, the Greens have slipped to an all-time low in 15 years, polling between 6-8%. During the elections, the party is likely to fall below 5%, making it difficult to enter the German parliament.

Why are the Greens wilting?

The perception is that the Greens have failed at realpolitik and lack a clear vision on the most pertinent issues – taxes, security, threat against terrorism, data protection and so on.

But the real answer, say experts, lies in the refugee crisis, the ensuing rise in populism and the Zeitgeist surrounding it. So even as gas emissions are on the rise, global warming requires urgent attention, climate change and environmental concerns remain hot-button issues, they are no longer topics that generate excitement. There has been a significant shift in voters’ minds now focused on immigration and integration. Over refugees, the Green approach has been all-embracing, and that is beginning to hurt them.

Mariam Lau, a political correspondent for the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit, who has been covering the Green party since 2010, said: “The Greens fare well only in good weather. But when there are socio-economic challenges, voters don’t have faith. Although Germans have been largely welcoming of the refugees, they are beginning to feel that they need a party that can balance openness and border control all at once, and the Greens don’t inspire confidence in that regard,” she said.

Christian Kühn, a Green party member of parliament, acknowledges the disconnect. “Our stance over refugees is clear: refugees are welcome in Germany and no upper limit needs to be fixed on the number we take. However, the refugee situation is a not only a German problem but a world problem. A transnational policy is needed,” he told The Wire.

While this brand of openness does strike a chord with progressive voters, another entity with a similar outlook has now entered people’s imagination. Chancellor Angela Merkel of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party is already ahead of the curve in displaying the much-touted wilkommenskultur or welcoming culture towards refugees. “The Greens cannot attack Merkel because it will backfire,” said Arne Jungjohan, energy analyst and political scientist.

On a purely political level, said Jungjohan, it is the Greens’ success at the state level that is backfiring nationally. Currently, the Greens enjoy a spot in ten of the 16 state ruling alliances. In the southern state of Baden-Württemberg, there is even a Green governor. “The Greens form coalitions with Right and Left parties. It allows them to implement their agenda in any coalition constellation. So while on one hand, they demonstrate flexibility, on the other this diversity blurs the party’s overall profile. Most voters are usually Left or Right oriented,” said Jungjohan.

For instance, there is a Green mayor in the state’s capital city of Stuttgart, where the Greens are in coalition with the liberal Social Democrats. In nearby Freiburg, on the other hand, the Greens have formed a coalition with the conservative CDU.

The other thing dragging the party down is its own cause célèbre – climate change. The Greens are no longer the only party making the environment a talking point. None of the major political parties is ignoring the elephant in the room; instead, all of them are lapping it up in manifestos and campaign speeches.

With their forte being iterated across party lines, what then remains of their campaign for the upcoming election?

At their pre-election conference earlier this month, the Greens made same-sex marriage a coalition condition. On Friday, the lower house of the parliament legalised same-sex marriage in a snap vote.

“We will continue our fight against global warming. Green issues will remain at the forefront of our campaign strategy because we know they are important for us and for future generations. We will keep our focus on climate protection, renewable energies, green eco-farming and a strong and unified Europe,” said Kühn.

Voters also report being fed up with a constant moralistic reproach in Green governance where larger issues are often missing. For instance, they had in the past proposed a veggie day in which canteens would be obliged to serve only vegetarian food once a week. Jacob Manteuffel, 25, a disgruntled Green voter agreed but said they were the best bet in the current scenario. “Most of the global issues we face right now are linked to environmental problems. If we want stability and peace, we have to protect the environment. Social problems are equally important. The Green party is really the only party that handles these two well together,” he said, reiterating the oft-cited problem: Merkel is seen to be concerned about the environment at the international level; but nationally, her efforts are wanting.

Perhaps, all is not yet lost for the Green party. In a recent state election held at Schleswig-Holstein, a new alliance has been formed between the conservative CDU, the business-friendly liberals Free Democrats and the Greens. This alliance is being dubbed as the “Jamaica coalition” because the three parties’ colours are black, yellow and green respectively. “This is the kind of coalition that could be scripted in September. We cannot write off the Greens just yet,” said Jungjohan.

Sukhada Tatke is a freelance writer. She tweets @ASuitableGirl.

UN Asks Venezuela President Maduro to Uphold Rule of Law

UN criticised the Venezuela premiere for the death of protesters at the hands of security forces and for curtailing the powers of the country’s chief prosecutor.

UN criticised the Venezuela premiere for the death of protesters at the hands of security forces and for curtailing the powers of the country’s chief prosecutor.

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a gathering in support of him and his proposal for the National Constituent Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela June 27, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Miraflores Palace

Geneva: The United Nations on Friday criticised Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro’s government for curtailing the powers of the chief state prosecutor and called on it to uphold the rule of law and freedom of assembly in Venezuela amid a clampdown on protesters.

Critics of Maduro have taken to the streets almost daily for three months to protest against what they call the creation of a dictatorship. The protests, which have left nearly 80 dead, frequently culminate in violent clashes with security forces.

Ruling Socialist Party officials have launched a series of attacks against chief state prosecutor Luisa Ortega, from accusations of insanity to promoting violence, after her high-profile break with the government.

“The decision by the Venezuelan Supreme Court on 28 June to begin removal proceedings against the Attorney General, freeze her assets and ban her from leaving the country is deeply worrying, as is the ongoing violence in the country,” UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a Geneva briefing.

The Supreme Court’s Constitutional Chamber has nullified Ortega’s appointment of a deputy attorney general, naming someone else in violation of the law, he said. It also transferred some of her functions to the ombudsperson.

“Since March, the Attorney General has taken important steps to defend human rights, documenting deaths during the wave of demonstrations, insisting on the need for due process and the importance of the separation of powers, and calling for people who have been arbitrarily detained to be immediately released,” Colville said.

The UN human rights office was concerned the Supreme Court’s decision “appears to seek to strip her office of its mandate and responsibilities as enshrined in the Venezuelan Constitution, and undermine the office’s independence”.

“We urge all powers of the Venezuelan state to respect the constitution and the rule of law, and call on the government to ensure the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of opinion and expression are guaranteed,” Colville said.

Maduro says the demonstrations are an attempt to overthrow him with the support of Washington.

“The United Nations has received increasing reports that security forces have “raided residential buildings, conducted searches without warrants and detained people, allegedly with the intention of deterring people from participating in the demonstrations and searching for opposition supporters,” Colville said.

The Mithivirdi Movement – the Untold Story of a Struggle Against a Nuclear Power Plant in Gujarat

Activists spent days creating awareness amongst the villagers, including women, telling them about cases from around the world – like Chernobyl and Fukushima – so they understood the hazards of a nuclear plant near their homes.

Activists spent days creating awareness amongst the villagers, including women, telling them about cases from around the world – like Chernobyl and Fukushima – so they understood the hazards of a nuclear plant near their homes.

People walking out of EPH in 2013 (left), the rally in rain in Jaspara.

Bhavnagar, Gujarat: The proposed 6000 MegaWatt (MWe) nuclear power plant at Mithivirdi in the Bhavnagar district of Gujarat has now been officially slated for Kovada, Andhra Pradesh.  A decade long struggle to save their land has ended in victory for the villagers of the region.

The Union environment ministry informed the National Green Tribunal (NGT) of the decision to shift the proposed nuclear power plant ‘on account of delay in land acquisition at Chhaya-Mithivirdi site’. The ministry’s decision was conveyed to the NGT on May 18, 2017, during a hearing on an appeal challenging the grant of coastal regulatory zone (CRZ) clearance by the expert appraisal committee (EAC) to the project in November 2015.

This would have been the first nuclear power plant under Indo-US civil nuclear pact of 2008, where the plant was to be set up by state owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) with technical support from Westinghouse Electric Company.

Chunnibhai Vaidya, the man who pioneered the cause, attending a meeting.

Behind such a decision of the MoEF is the story of sustained peoples’ movement that was pioneered by Chunnibhai Vaidya, a known Gandhian who was involved in fighting for many land related issues in Gujarat. Late in the year 2008, Chunni Kaka, as he popularly known and his comrades from Gujarat Loksamiti, a party formed by Jai Prakash Narayan, began raising voice against the nuclear plant.

“The villagers believed that the plant will bring employment. But they were unaware of the hazards that it will bring with it too.  Initially villagers resisted us when we tried telling them the hazards of a nuclear plant. We would travel for weeks at a stretch in those days with no luck. There were days we would spend without food even,” recalls Anirudhsinh Jadeja, a social activist, then a member of Lok Samiti and comrade in arm of Chunni Kaka.

“The first village that agreed to hear us was Kukar near Mithvirdi. I have relatives who hail from the village hence the villagers as a courtesy agreed to gather and listen to us just once. But the meeting was successful as the villagers of Kukar were convinced and later helped us to take the message to other villages. That is how it all started,” says Jadeja.

The movement gained momentum in 2013 when environmental activists from Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, a Gujarat-based organisation formed in 1994, joined the movement against the proposed nuclear plant. However, it is the resilience of the villagers that won the movement. They braved psychological pressure, administrative intimidation and various other tactics and continued to protest for their land.

“When we were first informed, approximately 1000 hectare of land was to be taken for the proposed plant from locations in Mithivirdi, Khadarpar, Mandwa, Jaspara and Sosia. However, after initial resistance by villagers they declared only 777 hectares of land will be taken and excluded the village Sosia,” said Shaktisinh Gohil, the sarpanch of Jaspara, who played a crucial role in bringing the sarpanchs of different villages together for the cause.

“The area that had been slotted for the nuclear power plant is extremely fertile, three crop agricultural land. Naturally farmers were first to be worried,” Gohil added.

Noticeably, in its report stating the reasons why the proposed location was suitable, NPCIL said that there was no industry nearby, the population of the area was scarce, the proposed site was fallow piece of land that had a strong base strata and that water was easily available for the proximity to the sea.

“None of the reasons that the NPCIL stated are correct except the fact that the land in this region has a strong base strata. Agriculture is the prime occupation of the people of the area. A decade back, the land in the region was not so fertile. Generations of farmers have worked hard to turn this into the three crop land that it is today. Over the time, water table of the region has gone high. Currently the rich alluvial soil of the area supports crops like ground nut, bajra, cotton. Fruits like mangoes that are also exported. This apart the area also grows various vegetables,” stated Rohit Prajapati, environmental activist who is a member of Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti and one of the activists who worked relentlessly for the cause.

A sea of people at a meeting in Mithivirdi.

“Besides lignite mining is being carried out at the distance of 5 kilometres towards the south and at a distance of 20 kilometres is the Alang ship breaking yard. The site is about 30 kilometres from Bhavnagar town. Only 24 villages in the radius of 10 kilometres of the project had been considered affected and about 128 villages falling in radius of 10 to 30 kilometres had not been considered,” adds Prajapati.

Activists spent days and nights creating awareness amongst the villagers. The villagers, including women, were taught from cases in history from around the world – like Chernobyl and Fukushima – so they understood the hazards of a nuclear plant near their vicinity.

However, the path to build the peoples movement has not been easy.

“Some people in the village had vested interests who thought if a nuclear power plant is built in the region, it will open up avenues of earning for them too. These people were initially in favour of the power plant, and being locals, had access to villagers. There were times when NPCIL made offers to build schools and hospitals. Since these locals came to us as advocates for these offers, villagers were convinced,” says Gohil.

Recalling one such incident, Krishnakant Chauhan, environmental activist and member of Paryavaran Sanrakshan Samiti says, “The movement as seen many low moments, this was one such incident that happened about six years ago. Villagers laid down a charter of eighteen demands that NPCIL assured to fulfil and the list was submitted to the Collector of Bhavnagar. However, the very next day villagers understood the impact that their action will bring. The villagers themselves went to the Collector’s office and took back the charter of demands and tore the paper in Collector’s office declaring that they would not give their lands.”

“The movement was fought on three levels – judicial, ideological and on-ground mobilising and creating awareness amongst villagers enabling them to fight for their land,” Prajapati says.

As the movement gained momentum, activists also faced flak from state administration. “For the two years between 2013 and 2015, the police kept harassing my family. While I would be out in the villages, police would reach my home and ask my wife to convince me to not be involved in the issue,” said Jadeja.

Amid such circumstances came the biggest moment of the movement. In March 2013, the Environmental Public Hearing (EPH) of the proposed nuclear power plant was organised at Mithivirdi. Teams of villagers along with activists had been preparing for a fortnight for the event. Meetings were conducted by activists in 30 villages to explain the importance of participating in the public hearing and the impact of a nuclear power plant – an exercise that the authorities of NPCIL are supposed to do as per protocol.

Thousands of villagers, half of them women, attended the public hearing. Police personnel were deployed in large numbers, a barb wire fence was put up around the dais where the collector was to sit, metal detectors were put up and every villager was frisked at the entrance of the huge tent. The collector of Bhavnagar, who was chairing the public hearing, at the outset of the event, prevented the sarpanchs of the villages from putting forward their grievances. The community leaders then announced that they would boycott the public hearing. Following this, the villagers left the tent peacefully without shouting any slogans.

In July 2013, the Taluka Development Officer (TDO) wrote to the sarpanch of Jaspara directing him to pass a resolution approving the transfer of 81 hectares of forest land that NPCIL needed in addition to the other nuclear plant land. As per the laws of land transfer, the TDO, instead of seeking the opinion of the gram sabha, ordered the sarpanch to comply. The gram sabha of Jaspara unanimously decided to not hand over the forest land to NPCIL.

Following this incident, in September 2013, villagers from Jaspara organised a massive rally protesting the nuclear power plant. Despite heavy rains, the rally saw a tunrout of 2500 villagers, including men, women and children, 69 tractors, 50 motorcycles and tempos. Slogans like ‘maut nu karkhano band karo’ (shut down factory of death), ‘anu bijli sasti nathi salamat nathi’ (electricity generated from atomic energy is neither cheap nor safe), ‘we will give our lives not land’ and ‘not here not in our land’ that were heard on that day became part of the movement till the end.

“The movement would not have been successful without the women of villages. In a rural set up, the movement also went through its share of caste dynamics. Women of certain castes had never stepped out of their homes and seen their fields. But they had as much attachment towards their land as men,” says Chauhan.

“Once NPCIL decided to take the soil sample. Some representatives of the company had a meeting with sarpanchs of the villages and warned them against any kind of resistance. Despite threats of dire consequences, about 5000 villagers, mostly women reached the spot about 2 kilometres away from the inhabited region. There was heavy police deployment but villagers stood their ground and no soil was taken. After about five hours the police had to retreat,” he adds.

“Nobody can fool us today. The villagers are now aware of the hazards and they know what a nuclear power plant is and its pros and cons. The awareness is our biggest achievement,” says Gohil.

The villagers are now willing to help in the fight against the power plant in Kovada too if they are called, Gohil says. The slogan ‘not here, not in our land’ is now ‘not here, not anywhere’.

Why Trump’s Views on Climate Change Will Have No Bearing on NASA-ISRO Satellite

The Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite, acronymised to NISAR, will use a dual-frequency radar for the first time to monitor resource-use and environmental hazards on the ground.

The Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite, acronymised to NISAR, will use a dual-frequency radar for the first time to monitor resource-use and environmental hazards on the ground.

An artist's impression of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite. Credit: JPL/NASA

An artist’s impression of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite. Credit: JPL/NASA

Apart from business, trade, security and terrorism, the meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump was also crucial for the Earth-monitoring satellite called NISAR, being developed jointly by the two countries’ space agencies at a cost of over $1.5 billion (Rs 9,700 crore) and set to be launched around 2020. However, many media reports have called into question the satellite’s future because of the divide between the two countries on the issue of climate change. The Times of India even questioned if NISAR would be able to pass “the Trump test”.

Trump has called climate change a ‘Chinese hoax’ and led his government’s exit from the Paris Agreement. He had also referred to India, China, Russia and others as “freeloaders” while protesting that the US had to pay billions of dollars to help all of the agreement’s signatories to meet its targets. Narendra Modi, on the other hand, has been a vocal supporter of climate change mitigation measures and, during a recent trip to Russia, reaffirmed India’s commitment to the agreement. Thankfully, NISAR – an acronym for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar – itself will survive because it will be capable of doing more than just monitor the weather.

A remote-sensing industry expert told Geospatial World that monitoring climate change would be a small part of the tasks that NISAR would perform. The satellite is being optimised to study natural hazards and global environmental change. As a result, the data it collects is expected to be useful for proactive disaster management, while the satellite will also help track pre-disaster data to rapidly and unambiguously understand changes on land; monitor water resources and infrastructure; agricultural land- and resource-use; etc.

According to Paul Rosen, manager of the radar science and engineering division at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, NISAR is a dual frequency L- and S-band radar mission – the first of its kind – that will map Earth every 12 days from two directions. “The primary objectives of this satellite [to study] the cryosphere, ice sheets, climate and its variability, deforestation, volcanic eruptions and [earthquakes]. It’s very broad, from agriculture to disaster response to coastal processes to ocean wind and almost anything that you can [study] with fast, time series radar,” he added. NISAR’s radar unit will also be able to study ecosystem disturbances, tsunamis, volcanoes and landslides.

Speaking to this correspondent last year, Charles F. Bolden, then the NASA chief, had categorically stated, “The primary focus of the satellite will be to detect changes in Earth’s crust. We are looking for hints [of earthquakes] that will help us save lots of lives and money.” A.S. Kiran Kumar, the incumbent ISRO chairman, had stated that NISAR will also help assess biomass, soil moisture and glaciers, and study surface deformation on the ground with a resolution of a few centimetres.

As a result of all this, NISAR will help us improve upon existing applications; its sampling frequency and resolution will help us understand disasters better, insure against future losses and help mitigate the damage to lives and livelihoods of millions. For its part, ISRO has roped in many academic institutions from around the country to study NISAR’s data and come up with a utilisation plan.

This article was originally published by Geospatial World and has been republished here with permission.

As GST Launch Looms, Modi Must Avoid Hype and Focus on Implementation

The government would do well to avoid hyping GST as India’s new midnight “tryst with destiny” and instead focus on its design and implementation, without which the biggest tax reform could turn into the biggest nightmare for the country’s economy.

The government would do well to avoid hyping GST as India’s new midnight “tryst with destiny” and instead focus on its design and implementation, without which the biggest tax reform could turn into the biggest nightmare for the country’s economy.

India’s small traders and business community is still struggling to catch up to GST. Credit: PTI

The hype-prone Narendra Modi government would have us believe that Goods and Services Tax (GST) is akin to the midnight “tryst with destiny” India experienced several decades ago. A sort of new economic freedom, if you will. And given Modi’s penchant for event and headline management, the tryst with destiny must be celebrated with a midnight parliament session. The opposition is wondering how to respond to this. What will a midnight session achieve except to provide the prime minister another self- promoting PR platform at a time when millions of small businesses and traders are having sleepless nights over how the design and manner of implementation of GST will affect their lives and livelihood.

Many small traders say they were just recovering from demonetisation and a messy GST is being thrown at them. I suspect the insistence on July 1 as a cast-in-stone launch date despite the utter lack of preparedness was partly because Modi wanted Donald Trump’s public endorsement of the tax reform.  After all, that is part of the prime minister’s personal brand building exercise.

Modi successfully sold GST in the US but he is yet to convince millions of nervous small businessmen and traders as to what impact it will have on them. In fact in a close door interaction, some CEOs of global services companies in Washington told Modi they were not sure how the complex, multiple slab tax reform will impact e-commerce companies such as Amazon. Modi assured them things will work out fine. One doesn’t know whether it was mere coincidence that immediately thereafter, while the PM was still in Washington, the finance ministry announced some relief on GST for e-commerce majors, which will help Amazon immensely. Of course, it will also help domestic companies like Flipkart. But it is to be noted that the pressure came from the US during the Modi’s visit.

Well, Amazon and other global services majors have their way of getting things done. And they will heartily partake of the “tryst with destiny” or the new economic freedom that Parliament will celebrate at midnight before the launch of GST on July 1. Meanwhile, no one has any time to assess the impact the complicated design of GST will have on the small trading and business community on whom lawyers and CAs have already descended like birds of prey.

In the run up to the launch of GST, finance ministry officials have shown an astonishing lack of sensitivity to small traders and businesses. In one statement, Modi’s man for all seasons, revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia, made a stupendous claim that the government was totally ready for the launch but the businesses were not!

A few days later, the chairman of GSTN network, the IT backbone that is to process tax returns and invoices of one crore business entities, said the systems were not tested fully before the launch. And mind you, he says this barely five days before the official launch. It is against this backdrop that government wants to hold a midnight session to celebrate the dawn of a new era in India’s economy.

Is GST such a seminal reform? For starters, one must jog the reader’s memory in the age of amnesia caused by the multimedia assault on our senses. Well known economic commentator T.N. Ninan has pointed out that the basic principle of value added tax has been adopted incrementally over the past two decades in various forms such as state value added tax, central value added tax, modified value added tax with tax on inputs being refunded. So one must give due credit to past finance ministers like Yashwant Sinha, P Chidambaram , Jaswant Singh and many committed bureaucrats and economists who kept refining the principle of value added tax incrementally.

The idea of GST  builds on much of these past indirect tax reforms at the central and state levels and links them up in one comprehensive tax which required a constitutional amendment. It is an idea whose time had come given the progress made in the past and given the positive experience of states with the VAT experiment 13 years ago.

BJP stalling in the past

It is also known that the UPA tried its best to bring the GST law in the 2013 winter session of parliament. By then Modi had become BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 general elections and was exercising a decisive influence on BJP’s strategy in parliament. Even though leaders like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley were open to passing the GST law in end 2013, Modi decided otherwise. Later Manmohan Singh went public with the fact that a BJP MP came to him with an offer that the opposition (read Modi) would cooperate if the investigative agencies diluted criminal charges against Amit Shah.

Such a sordid backdrop to GST’s journey should be reason enough to not convert it into a midnight parliament celebration. Instead, the government will do well to focus on the details of the design and implementation without which the biggest tax reform could turn into the biggest nightmare for the economy.

GST design crucial

And this warning has come from none other than India’s chief economic adviser, Arvind Subramanian, who wrote in the Indian Express on April 4 2017, “this is a constitutional moment for the GST, a moment ripe for ambition and visionary decision making which must be seized … In the future intertia and dead habits will reassert themselves, strongly perpetuating the status quo. In that light, the guiding principle cannot be to avoid a departure from status quo. If that were the case — and if hence the GST rates were set close to today’s rates — the question might legitimately be asked, why bother with GST at all?”

Subramaniam had asked why bother with the GST at all if the final version of the tax rates reflected the status quo. He had then hoped the 28% tax slab would be done away with or merged with the 18% tax rate to make it 20%, which would be the peak rate. Initially, Jaitley supported the idea of 20% as peak rate because no country has a GST rate above this. East Asian economies average around 10 to 12% and European economies are about 19%.  

In the end the status quo prevailed , partly to please the states, as an unusually large number of consumer items were brought under the 28% slab which Subramanian, and presumably Jaitely, had clearly spoken against. Therefore, Subramanian’s question “Why have GST at all”?, continues to have significance.

This, of course, is over and above the fact that the energy sector which is a key input to all that is produced in the economy is out of the scope of GST. The total tax incidence on diesel which is consumed even by the farmer is over 45% , which, under GST definition, is a sin good akin to tobacco or luxury cars. Real estate transactions, admittedly the biggest black money generator, is outside GST even as Modi waxes eloquent about attacking black money.

So is such a GST worth celebrating in a midnight Parliament session? The opposition parties must tell the government that the principle of GST taxation has already been supported by all the parties in Parliament. Now it is the job of the government to operationalise a well designed GST without much pain to India’s six crore small businesses & traders. Prematurely celebrating India’s new “tryst with destiny” is uncalled for.

Let the people decide what their experience with GST is. If they indeed feel a new sense of freedom it will reflect in the 2019 general elections.