Sunday Reading

New Delhi, 21 July 2009

Ayurveda Goes Digital

SAFEGUARDING PIRACY BY WEST

By Suraj Saraf

Two important developments have recently taken place for streamlining practice of the Indian System of Medicine (Ayurveda, Siddha, and Unani) and to curb massive copying of its long practiced formulations by the West. Indeed, it comes as disturbing and shocking news that till now this piracy has resulted in 15,000 patents of medical plants by the westerners. There would be a threat of losing 2000 more every year.

However, in order to safeguard and curb this huge loss of traditional medicinal knowledge of the country, a massive exercise has been undertaken by the Union health department of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) and the Indian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to document 2,33,000 formulations belonging to ISM viz 81000 Ayurvedic, 1.4 lakh Unani and 13,000 Siddha formulations.

It has taken eight years of hard and dedicated work. Two hundred scientists and researchers from the CSIR and the department of AYUSH had scientifically converted information of traditional Indian medicine from Hindi, Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Tamil to five international languages i.e. English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese. The CSIR has thus created TKDL (Traditional Knowledge Digital Library), without which India would lose 1000 new patents every year.  

In the past, patents have been granted by the European Patent Office (EPO) on the use of 385 Indian medicinal plants such as papaya, Indian long pepper, Kali Tulsi, Pudina, ginger, potato, isabgol, aaenla, jira, soyabean, tomato, almond, walnut and methi. Thus, New Delhi decided to ink a landmark agreement with the EPO, so that TKDL’s database would be available to the patent examinees at the EPO “for establishing prior art”, in case of patent applications based on ISM.

However, the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library’s information would be restricted only for patent research and examination purposes. The EPO will not be able to disclose it to a third party. While New Delhi will help EPO with search assistance, the latter will, once every three months, inform India about what information was used as citation from the Traditional library.  

The patent battle however, is a long-drawn procedure. According to CSIR’s Director-General Prof Samir Brahamchari, on an average, it takes five to seven years to oppose a granted patent internationally and cost anything from a whopping Rs one and three crore. Therefore, cost of protecting all ISM formulations in the absence of TKDL, would be staggering and completely unaffordable.

Thanks to the digital library, people will now think twice before even applying for dubious patents. The library will ensure that traditional Indian knowhow is safe, used by Indian companies for the benefit of Indians. Till now AYUSH has documented 8,1000 Ayurveda, 1.4 lakh Unani and 13,000 Siddha formulations. Encouragingly, the TKDL has also become a model for other countries wanting to defend their traditional knowledge from misappropriation. South Africa, African Regional Property Organisation, Mangolia, Nigeria, Malaysia and Thailand have already asked India to help them replicate TKDL.

The decision to create the library was taken in 2001 in the aftermath of wrong patents granted by the US Patent and Trade Mark Office on wound-healing properties of Turmeric and an antifungal property of Neem granted by the European Patent Office, even though the plants were being used for centuries under ISM for such benefits. Well, if TKDL had existed earlier, then the country would have been spared the international disputes regarding patenting of Neem, Turmeric and Basmati.  

In a study conducted in 2004, the Americans had granted 4896 patents on medicinal plants, 80 per cent of which were of Indian origin. In a study of 760 such plants, it was found that 850 patents never have been granted. Over 300 to 500 such patents are granted every year, mainly due to lack of access to documented knowledge in India.

In another important development, Ayurvedic doctors who do not possess requisite qualifications prescribed under the Indian Medicine Central Council Act (IMCCA) can not practice anywhere in India as they like, as per a Supreme Court ruling in the first quarter of the year. The judgement came in a case wherein Ayurvedic Enlisted Doctors’ Association had challenged the Maharashtra Government’s decision to prosecute those practicing Ayurveda without being registered with the IMCCA.

The plea of the appellants in the case was that they were registered as practitioners under the Bihar Development of Ayurvedic and Unani System of Medicine Act and argued that though they did not hold any degree or diploma or certificate of any recognized institution, they possessed sufficient knowledge and skills requisite for educational practice of medicines and surgery.

However, according to the Supreme Court if the Ayurvedic practitioners are registered in a particular State they could not automatically practice in other parts of the country too. Such doctors can only practice in other parts of the country provided their qualification is recognized under the IMPCO, said a supreme court Bench of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice Mukundakam Sharma.

Under section 15 of IMPCCA the right to practice anywhere in the country is restricted and permissible only if the name of the practitioners finds places in the central register as per the qualifications prescribed under section 2(1)(h) of IMPCCA. Section 8(1) (h) prescribes the qualifications and institutions recognized by the Council for the purpose of imparting training in Ayurveda.

The Apex Court rejected the argument that such restriction violates the Fundamental Right under Article 14 of the Constitution i.e. no discrimination between citizens. The appellants had argued that they fulfilled the conditions imposed by the regulations of Bihar State and their names were entered in the Bihar State Council’s register. As such Maharashtra government could not ban their practice on the ground that their names were not registered in the IMPCCA, as such a restriction violated Article 14 of the Constitution. But the Apex court rejected the plea saying that under article 19 (6) of the Constitution, the government can always put “reasonable restrictions” on a citizen’s fundamental right.

With the Ayurvedic practitioners getting a legal dose, there is a growing confidence that the 5,000-year-old Indian traditional system of medicine is getting the attention it deserves. After all Ayurveda is gaining the reputation of being one of the most important systems of mind-body medicine and natural healing.—INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Round The States

New Delhi, 23 July 2009

Drought Situation “Serious”

CENTRE ASSURES AID TO STATES

By Insaf

Acknowledging that the monsoon situation was “very serious” in the food bowl of the country, the Centre has finally assured financial help to drought-hit States. While the Finance Ministry is preparing a back-up plan, affected States would need to start identifying pockets of distress and declare “drought conditions” to get assistance. So far Punjab has had a 60 per cent rain shortfall, with 40 of the 71 districts close to drought.  Bihar has had only one-third normal rainfall with 38 districts mostly going dry. The other States hit badly include Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Orissa, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh. There has been a critical delay in sowing of the Kharif crops like rice, groundnut, soyabean and cereals and the power shortage has added to the farmers’ woes.

Chances of monsoon revival look bleak and the rain clouds may well pass through July too. In fact, even the North East has had a record rainfall deficiency in three decades. Nagaland has had 67 per cent less rainfall, Assam 34 per cent and Arunachal Pradesh 29 per cent. Incredibly, enough, Cherapunji, the wettest place on earth, has had less than half its share of rainfall! While the Government has already put a ban on export of foodgrains, it has assured  the States of raising their respective allocations under the National Food Security Mission and the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. Affected States have been advised to be flexible with the utilization of the funds depending upon their plans.     

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Poor Show of NREGS In States

It’s now official. The much-touted National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) of the UPA Government is not delivering. A large number of States have not been able to provide the near full employment for a full 100 days. Figures given to the Lok Sabha by Minister for Rural Development CP Joshi reveal that only nine districts in the North East provided the requisite employment. Worse, States, including Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Kerala and Manipur were defaulters and had to pay compensation. Interestingly, the Left-ruled Bengal, which swears by its pro-poor image, shows a dismal rating of an average 14 days of employment in 2006-07, 25 in 2007-08 and 26 in 2008-09. Adjoining Bihar’s report card is similar with the average number of days being 35, 22, and 26 for the same period. Has poverty declined or is it that figures are fudged? Time for the States to answer. 

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Modi Gets A Drubbing

Gujarat’s Narendra Modi has reason to worry. The BJP has suffered a major upset in the Junagadh Municipal Corporation election, with its rival, the Congress winning 26 of the 51 seats. Its own strength has slumped from 35 seats to 21. Modi had made the elections, the first since his party’s poor performance in the Lok Sabha, a prestige issue. Party Ministers, MPs and MLAs all camped there for the campaign. The BJP even distributed booklets of the Sachar Committee report --- which is otherwise criticized --- to highlight how the Muslims were doing well in Gujarat. The party even went in for its first-ever experiment in Gujarat of fielding five Muslims with an eye on the 15 per cent Muslim vote bank.  

Apparently, Modi’s experiment of discarding the hardliner hindutva image has failed to work. He even removed 29 of the 35 sitting BJP councillors and put up new faces. Of these all the five Muslim candidates lost badly. Nor did the fresh faces muster a majority. In fact, his calculated move to woo the “nationalist Muslims” boomeranged and Junagadh with a traditional hindutva votebank deserted the BJP. On hindsight, Modi also failed to see the writing on the wall, after his party lost the Rajkot parliamentary seat, for the first time in two decades. Is it the beginning of the end of the Modi era, as claimed by Congress leaders. Guess, Modi will have to concentrate on State politics rather than eye the national platform.   

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New Incumbents In Raj Bhavans

Last week saw a change of guard in five Raj Bhavans. Some well-thought out planning appears to have gone into the appointments of the new Governors. Retired civil servant B L Joshi, who was initially handpicked by 10 Janpath as Delhi’s Lt Governor, was moved from Uttarakhand to politically-sensitive Uttar Pradesh. Veteran Congress leader and a Constitutional lawyer Devendra Nath Dwivedi has been sent to BJP-ruled Gujarat. Margaret Alva, who lost the recent parliamentary elections, has been accommodated in Uttarakhand. Congress veteran and former Rajasthan Chief Minister Jagannath Pahadia, is the new governor of Haryana. Yet another Congress old hand Sibtey Razi has been shifted from Jharkhand to Assam and likewise, K Shankarnarayanan from Nagaland to Ranchi. With these posts taken, all eyes are now on the prized Governorships of Maharashtra and Goa.

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BSP-Cong War In UP Hots Up

The turf war in Uttar Pradesh between the Congress and Mayawati’s BSP continues to get uglier. Back in her ransacked and burnt house in Lucknow, State Congress Chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who is out on bail has warned of launching a statewide agitation against the “high-handedness” of the UP Government. Her and Rahul Gandhi’s regret over the comment “Will Mayawati settle for a compensation of Rs 1 crore if she were raped,” appears to be best forgotten. Importantly, she has lodged a fresh petition in the Allahabad High Court seeking a CBI inquiry into the arson at her residence. The move is obviously aimed at exposing Mayawati’s wayward ways-- of rewarding a trusted worker, Lucknow BSP chief Intezar Abidi Hussain, accused in the same case. On Sunday last, Behenji appointed him as Chairman of the Lal Bahadur Shastri Ganna Kisan Sansthan, which entitles him to a Minister of State rank, a monthly salary of 30,000, an official car with a red beacon and security guards! Who will have the last laugh?  

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Batla House Lie Nailed

The communally-motivated controversy over the Batla House encounter in Delhi a week after the serial blasts in the Union Capital last September has mercifully been laid to rest. The National Human Rights Commission has given a clean chit to the Delhi Police, stating that “the police party engaged in the encounter had fired at the alleged terrorists in self-defence.” Remember, two Muslim youth, Ameen and Saijid, occupants of a flat in Batla House, were killed in the encounter. The Commission conducted the probe on a complaint of NGO Real Cause questioning the police vision and asserting that it was a plot to malign the Muslim youth. The Commission has also held that Inspector Mohan Sharma, who died leading the encounter, was killed by the terrorists’ bullets and not as a result of inter-departmental rivalry. A mischievous lie has been nailed. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

EVENTS & ISSUES

New Delhi, 20 July 2009

Chandrayaan-I Snag

SPACE AGENDA MAY NOT BE HIT

By Radhakrishna Rao

The snag that hit India’s ambitious maiden lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1 resulting in the curtailment of the scope of some of the experiments and a possible reduction in its active lifespan is by no means an isolated incident. Due to the uncertainties in outer space environment, highlighted by violent fluctuations in temperature, many of the deep space missions, including planetary probes meet their premature end. However, sources in the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) say that Chandrayaan-1, India’s first deep space probe, has accomplished most of the mission objectives set for it and the upcoming space projects will by no means be affected by the glitch.

What is that went wrong with the Rs 4,000-million fully home-grown Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft featuring 11 mission payloads—five Indian and six international? As pointed out by ISRO, the failure of the vital star sensor designed to determine the position and attitude of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, detected on April 26, forced the space scientists to devise an alternative strategy to keep the lunar probe in a “safe and stable mode”. As it is, by looking at stars, this important sensor, which is basically an electronic device, can determine the position of the spacecraft. The loss of this sensor has been attributed to the excessive thermal radiation.

Following the loss of the star sensor, ISRO activated the onboard gyroscopes, an electro mechanical system, to stabilize the orientation of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. However, gyroscopes, which are also used in IRS earth observation and INSAT multi-purpose spacecraft constellation not only need regular intervention but are also far more vulnerable to extremes of outer space environment vis-à-vis the star sensor.  ISRO has stated that “other than the failure of the star sensor and one of the bus management units, the health of the spacecraft is normal”.

All said and done, the use of gyroscopes along with antenna pointing information and images of specific location of the lunar surface for determining the orientation of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft is considered far from foolproof strategy. Whether the failure of the star sensor could lead to a reduction in the lifespan of Chandrayaan-1, no clear-cut indications are available. However ISRO Chairman G.Madhavan Nair points out that the life of Chandrayaan-1 is not dependent on the star sensor but is determined by a number of factors including onboard fuel availability.

Even so, the loss of the star sensor nudged ISRO to boost the orbit of Chandryaan-1 to 200-km from 100-km. This exercise was aimed at sheltering the spacecraft in a “more benign environment”, and in the process help reduces the extent of maneuvers which involve the use of onboard fuel. However, the drawback is that the data and images transmitted from this orbit will not be of “expected quality”. Incidentally, in early 2009, when the temperature within the Chandryaan-1 spacecraft had touched 80 degrees Celsius, the Indian moon mission had faced the problem of thermal heating.

Meanwhile, ISRO scientists have shared good news that Chandrayaan-1 data is stored safely and images transmitted by the lunar craft are received on a regular basis. However, of one of the Indian payloads onboard Chandrayaan-1, the High Energy X-ray Spectrometer could not accomplish its mission due to the low solar activity at the time Chandryaan-1 was placed in its 100-km orbit around the moon. For this, the payload is dependent on solar radiance for its operations. But then as observed by Nair, the three other Indian payloads --- the Terrain Mapping Camera, the Hyper Spectral Imager and Moon Mineralogy Mapper --- have already collected much of the data.

“We have completed 90 per cent of the observation. Going by the orbital plans, nine months are enough to complete the mission. But we decided on keeping the mission on for 18 months and set satellite’s lifespan for two years,” explained a confident Nair. The other Indian payload, the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) weighing over 30kg with Indian flags painted all around, made a successful crash landing on the lunar surface on the night of November 14.

The 1380-kg cuboid shaped Chadnryaan-1, originally designed for a lifespan of two years was launched by means of an augmented version of the four-stage Indian trusted space work horse PSLV(Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) on the morning of October 22 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota island, about 100-kms to the north of Chennai. This one single achievement made India the third Asian country after China and Japan to send a probe to the moon.

Further, the launch and positioning of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft into a 100-km orbit around the moon catapulted India into the ranks of the elite league of space faring nations---the US, Russia, European Space Agency (ESA) and China and Japan—which have a wherewithal for the successful accomplishment of a lunar mission.

The point to be driven home is that the lessons learnt from the snags that affected Chandrayaan-1 would provide valuable inputs for hardening the instrumentation packages and electronics devices going into the follow-on lunar mission Chandrayaan-II, slated for launch in 2013. Chandrayaan-II, which will be launched by means of the three-stage Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) featuring an indigenous upper cryogenic engine stage, will carry a robotic rover that would land on the lunar surface to study samples of soil and rock. In contrast to Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-II will be an Indo-Russian project.

However, the biggest hurdle involved in the successful accomplishment of Chandrayaan-II mission is to find a way to ensure that robotic rover lands safely on the lunar surface. Due to the absence of atmosphere in the moon’s periphery, the option of parachuting the rover is ruled out. The Rs.4250-million Chandrayaan-II will also carry international payloads along with the Indian experimental packages.

Meanwhile, Chandrayaan-1 has completed 3,000 orbits around the moon and has made available more than 70,000 high-quality imageries some of which provide a breathtaking view of lunar mountains and craters, especially craters in the permanently shadowed regions of the moon’s poles. Going further ISRO also claims that Chandrayaan-1 has successfully accomplished most of its mission goals, including building and launching spacecraft followed by the insertion of the spacecraft into a circular orbit of 100-km around the moon.

Other achievements of Chandrayaan-1 were: placing the Indian tricolor on the moon, carrying out the imaging operations of the lunar surface and collection of data on the minerals on lunar surface and realizing the deep space tracking network as well as the operational procedures for travel into deep space. There is a silver lining after all. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Economic Highlights

New Delhi, 17 July 2009

Aviation Sector Misdeeds

CRASH LANDING IMMINENT

By Shivaji Sarkar

The aviation sector is in a crisis. Or should we say in a mess. In particular it signifies a growing tendency to burden passengers for the supposed losses thanks to inappropriate policy decisions. Indeed, construction has become big business at the people’s cost. The capacity to meet it with actual business generation does not seem to be anybody’s goal. Both the policy and decision makers are getting away with hyped assessments.

The so-called public-private partnership (PPP) is a rewarding experience for the private sector. They are rewarded for their misjudgements, inefficiency or what may be termed as planned failures. And, the aviation sector seems to be mastering this art, with the people being forced to pay for one after another disastrous failures.

Else, how one would one justify levying of the Airport Development Fee (ADF) being charged at the rate of Rs 260 per passenger in Bengaluru, Rs 275 at Hyderabad and similarly proposed levies at other airports being supposedly developed by the private sector, which is, recent national and international experience suggest, good at fudging figures, be it losses or profit, to suit their needs. They would engineer profit in the books for bright projections in the stock market, but when it comes to fleece the Government or the people they manufacture losses. 

The Government’s decision to give airport “developer” DIAL, which took over the properties of Airport Authority of India, Delhi for a song, Rs. 1800 crore bonanza, needs a scrutiny. It is expected to raise the so-called gap in “funding” by imposing the ADF of over Rs. 200 on a domestic passenger and Rs. 1200 on an international passenger.

In its response, the civil aviation ministry has stated that it was being done because the traffic was less than projected. A specious plea, for if it was the case then why is the ‘gap’ not being charged from those who had miscalculated and instead burdened the nation with white elephants? What was the need to acquire precious land and construct new airports when these cities were already being served with at least national level, if not world class, airports?

Sadly, it is a regressive step. Why should Delhi, which accounts for over 40 per cent of the air traffic, ask passengers to pay that extra? The objective for having a PPP model is to create a world-class terminal with professional management and large investments. This may or not be the case, but people are being forced to pay for the private players’ greed. So here we are in an interesting situation, wherein the Government instead of infusing the shortfall through its own guarantees or the promised source from the infrastructure development fund has preferred to burden the passenger.

DIAL, had originally envisaged an investment of about Rs 8,000 crore, but then escalated it to over Rs 12,000 crore. Surprisingly, the Ministry well-versed with the situation permitted the clubbing of Phase I and Phase II of the project, to create a facility of 37 million passengers in one go, obscuring the sheer viability of the project itself.

This was done while being fully aware that ground realities had reversed with passenger growth projections falling drastically and real estate prices reaching an all-time low. Clearly, the projected traffic growth is negative with no signs of recovery in the near future. However, our policy makers have preferred to sweep their folly under the carpet and add to the woes of the passengers already burdened with unaffordable tickets.  

Let us take another glaring example-- of the new runway constructed by DIAL investing a thousand crore. It has a displaced threshold (unutilised landing strip), almost one-third of the new runway length, which lies wasted, and the cost of which is ultimately being borne by travelers. Worse, no one is being made answerable. Undoubtedly, there is a case for removing the private players immediately and handing over all assets back to the Airports Authority of India. The losses, like any good business model must be borne by the private player.

In these past couple of years, air travelers were made to believe that neither the airlines nor the Government were to be faulted for the high fares. The devil was in the astronomical fuel prices internationally, prompting airlines to spike the fares 12 times in almost 24 months.

However, despite the international fuel prices hitting an all-time low, the airlines did not bring down their fares. The Government’s claim that crude prices were responsible for high fares is thus outlandish and unacceptable. Jet fuel which had peeked to around Rs. 73,673 a kl has now stabilized to around Rs. 33000 a kl. On the contrary, the air fare instead of falling by half has witnessed a hike of over 50 per cent.

Indeed, the fault lies in the failure to address the core issues of so-called reforms initiated in the civil aviation sector and the abysmal policy incentives to the industry. In the absence of any new additional incentives and policy support in the past couple of years, the aviation industry has entered a negative growth regime which is expected to plummet further and round off negatively causing huge unemployment and distress in the industry. 

Similarly, the decision of the Government to merge Indian Airlines and Air India has again turned out to be a major disaster where the new entity NACIL is gasping for a huge bail out package to make up for its incessant losses and all-time negative balance sheet. The merged company is plagued with major HR anomalies, seniority synchronisation defaults, high salary and emoluments to buy peace with unions, clashing employees and poor performance.

The civil aviation ministry has also not stepped in to check cartelization, a reason that has landed NACIL in distress. The era of low-cost airlines and cheap fare introduced post 2003 has been eliminated. Air Deccan was bought over by Kingfisher, Sahara was purchased by Jet, and now Jet is cozying up to Kingfisher and calling it a strategic alliance. By choice the competition has been jettisoned. The consolidation looks distant and crash landing of the aviation sector looks imminent. ---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)