Thomson Reuters Reporting on Malaria in Africa 2020

Application Deadline: 26th August 2020

About the Award: Since the turn of the century, the fight against malaria made tremendous progress and global malaria death rates dropped substantially. Developments in disease prevention and treatments have helped to ease the burden of the disease, but obstacles to reducing malaria incidence persist. After decades of improvement, malaria cases are either flat or increasing again, challenging current approaches and interventions. New tools and innovations are being developed and delivered to rise to this challenge.

In 2018, the WHO estimated there were 228 million cases of malaria worldwide and global deaths tallied at 405,000, with pregnant women and young children most vulnerable to the deadly disease. The WHO African Region represented 93% of cases and 94% of deaths that year. 
At a time when the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread rapidly across the world, now more than ever it is crucial that efforts to control malaria are not undermined. Adding to this crisis, widespread mis- and disinformation present a serious challenge to public access to accurate information about public health crises such as malaria.

Type: Training

Eligibility: We are looking for: 

• African journalists, based in sub-Saharan Africa, working as staff journalists or regular contributors to English-language media organisations in their respective countries; 
• Journalists working for a news organisation will need consent from their editor to take part. Freelancers should provide evidence that one or more media organisations will be willing to take their work.
• Journalists able to commit to the full length of the 3-week course and to spending significant time working on malaria stories in the weeks following the end of the course;
• Journalists with at least three years of professional experience;
• It is an advantage if you have health reporting experience, but if you have a strong motivation to learn about malaria and health and report on these issues then we will consider your application;
• Journalists working in any medium or multiple media are welcome to apply (print, online, radio or television);
• Journalists applying must have fluent English (reading, writing, speaking, listening);
• Journalists applying must have access to a minimum internet speed of 1 MB/second. (You can check the speed of your device by logging from it on www.speedtest.net).

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be Taken at (Country): Online

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Participants of this course will:

• Receive training on ethical reporting and standards in health reporting, working with sources, how to search for trusted information and identify fake news, story pitching;
• Deepen their knowledge of malaria and public health more broadly, covering the current challenges that are hindering progress in the fight against malaria as well as the new and innovative approaches of reducing malaria incidence and their associated challenges and criticisms;
• Be exposed to expert speakers;
• Gain access to story ideas and editorial advice and will be invited to share your own expertise with other participants;
• Propose one or more malaria story ideas that you wish to work on – if you are selected, we will provide experienced journalists to help you pursue your malaria stories right up to publication/broadcast. Selected participants will receive modest funding to help them realise their malaria stories.

Duration of Award:  07 September to 25 September

How to Apply: APPLY

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Should We be More Worried About the Economy?

Dean Baker

We are really in an unprecedented period where the economy is trying to recover from the shutdowns of April and May while being faced with partial shutdowns due to the resurgence of the pandemic in large parts of the country. We are struggling to make sense of data, which often has a substantial lag. We are still getting data from July even as we are in the last weeks of August. Furthermore, when we have large monthly changes, the picture at the end of July could have been very different than the beginning of the month.

The Opportunity Insights program at Harvard University is trying to help navigate the storm with its Economic Tracker. This provides much more current data on a variety of measures by relying on various industry sources. The latest picture is not good.

Starting with the one I find most troubling, their source on job posting shows a huge falloff in August. Nationally, we are almost back to the lows reached in May.

There is the qualification that these are posting at small businesses, so perhaps the story would look different if we included and mid-sized and large businesses, but still, this picture is not encouraging. Their data on small businesses that are open and revenue are also not good.

The other very disturbing item is their data on consumer spending, which is derived from credit and debit card spending.

The data show a healthy bounce back in June, but then spending levels off in July. Then, spending begins to trail off at the end of the month and start of August. Note that this is just as unemployment insurance supplements are ending.

These are new data sources that I and most other economists are not familiar with. That means that there can be quirks that explain the plunge in job postings and falloff in spending that we do not know about. But on its face, these data suggest a recovery that is stalling, with many businesses closing and millions of workers not being able to go back to their jobs.

That should make the case for a new rescue package more urgent and also again remind us of the importance to the economy of bringing the pandemic under control.

The Spanish State’s “Nationalization” of Clinics Resembles Privatization

Chris Gilbert

We hear it throughout the English-language press, both mainstream and progressive: “The Covid-19 crisis led Spain to nationalize its private clinics!” It would be great if it were true. Moreover, since governments like to say that we are “at war” with the coronavirus, shouldn’t a war involve more than just confining people in their houses, while asking them to wear face masks and wash their hands? After all, wars usually involve taking control of the economy – the private sector included – to attain victory over enemies, presumably even viral ones.

On March 15 of this year, Spanish health minister Salvador Illa announced that private health facilities and their resources would be at the disposal of the autonomous regions’ governments. Note that there was no reference to the transfer of property. Rather these resources were to be (potentially) managed by regional governments for a finite period. The Spanish state has 17 autonomous regions, and the impact of Covid-19 would be quite varied among them, as would be the role of private institutions. As it turns out, private sector facilities played an important role in Madrid and Catalunya, the autonomous regions most affected by the pandemic.

It is important to recognize that the public health system throughout the Spanish state has been losing funding for the past two decades. Private sector medicine has been growing, and public health is increasingly outsourcing many procedures and tests. This is, of course, a covert form of privatization. As we will see, the alleged nationalization of the private clinics, because of the hefty remuneration they received, fits with this pattern of outsourcing or the transference of funds from public coffers into private hands.

For example, in Catalunya private institutions received 43,400 euros for every COVID patient that passed through their ICUs. This has reportedly left the ASPE, the private medical association, quite content. In Navarra, the reimbursement was close to 24,000 euros for each patient who spent 21 days in the ICU. In the Basque country, there was a dispute between private medicine and the government who allegedly wants to “underpay” them. There is little information about Madrid. Nevertheless, ASPE said earlier this summer that, in the whole Spanish state, its maximum claim will be 246 million euros, and it understandably looks to Catalunya as a model arrangement.

Since the above figure amounts to somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 euros per hospitalized COVID patient in the private sector, we can see that private participation looks like business as usual in a context where privatization and private-sector outsourcing is the norm. So why do people love to repeat that Spain “nationalized” its private clinics? Of course, for the left, it is one way of doing opposition. If you live in a country run by overtly reactionary politicians such as Boris Johnson or Donald Trump, then you might brandish the Spanish government’s exemplary approach as a way of criticizing your own country’s inadequate response.

There is a certain logic to this. Nevertheless, at a time when the pandemic has spurred shortsighted nationalist responses everywhere (and especially a blithe disregard for the responsibility of rich countries of the Global North to the poorer ones of the Global South) it is highly problematic for the left to fall into the same trap, by turning a blind eye to the real situation in the Spanish state. More revolutionary and more internationalist would be to recognize that the logic of privatization and the rush to profit-making off of societal problems pervade in the Spanish state too.

The pattern of how capitalist countries respond to the crisis – namely, by putting private profit over shared well-being and overemphasizing individual responsibility while avoiding controls on profit-making activities that are the key sources of contagion – operates here too. As with so many aspects of the present crisis, the real challenge in this case is not to look for some hidden explanation, but rather to see what is before our very eyes.

Climate change under gender lens

Shobha Shukla

Countries in the Asia Pacific region are in the forefront of bearing the onslaught of climate change. During the last three decades 45% of the world’s natural disasters have occurred in this region, which is vulnerable to floods, cyclones, earthquakes, droughts, storms and tsunamis.

While climate change affects everyone but impacts of climate change related events are not gender neutral. Women and girls are more vulnerable and disproportionately impacted due to pre-existing gender inequalities that are perpetuated by patriarchal beliefs. These inequalities are exacerbated during the times of disasters.

Biplabi Shrestha, Programme Director at the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), cites some of the gendered impacts of natural disasters as revealed by numerous studies done by ARROW: “In Bangladesh, even upon receiving early warning sirens women did not immediately seek refuge at cyclone shelters. Instead they stayed back to manage the household and to safeguard their assets and livestock. There is also the added burden within the households and girls drop out of school to help gather energy, food and water for the family. Early age marriage is used as a coping strategy in many poor communities in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos and Nepal, despite child marriage being legally banned in them. During any disaster, sexual and other forms of gender-based violence within family increases. Also, women and girls are more exposed to sexual violence in shelter camps. Gender ascribed rules and household food hierarchy systems existing in most communities lead to food insecurity and malnutrition of women and girls. It also prevents women and girls from accessing healthcare services, especially sexual and reproductive health services. As a result, maternal mortality rate goes up, and so do unwanted pregnancies, because of unmet need of contraception and lack of access to safe abortion.”

Natural disasters adversely impact maternal health and uptake of family planning services. However two studies conducted by Population Council – one in Cambodia and another in Pakistan – show some very interesting results to the contrary.

A study on the 2013 massive floods in Cambodia, done by Dr Ashish Bajracharya, Deputy Director (global country strategy), Population Council, suggests that floods did not affect maternal health and family planning services uptake and outcomes, perhaps because flooding in Cambodia is endemic. So resilience and adaptation is likely high through years of experience. Also maternal health service seeking behaviours might particularly be inelastic to shocks.

Another study done by Dr Zeba Sathar, Country Director, Population Council, Pakistan, on the impact of 2010 floods in 3 districts of Pakistan found that women’s involvement in both agricultural and non-agricultural work increased (as more men migrated in search of work) and they were forced to come out of complete ‘purdah’. Their health-seeking behaviour and family planning use also improved in comparison to the dismal baseline figures. This could possibly be linked with greater exposure and access to health services provided by responding organizations.

In fact unmet need for family planning and maternal mortality ratio are two important indicators of the general status of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) across cultures in the region and give the scale of challenge in each country.

The global targets, that are a part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are to (i) achieve universal access to family planning services – that is unmet need for family planning should decline to zero by 2030, and (ii) reduce global maternal mortality rate to less than 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030. Achieving these targets will not only contribute to good health and wellbeing for women and girls but also lead to gender equality.

But perhaps it might be more realistic to achieve the goal of reducing unmet need of family planning to 10% instead of zero by 2030, feels Dr Adrian Hayes, Honorary Associate Professor, School of Demography at Australian National University. He shares some interesting data on these two indicators for some countries of the Asia Pacific region: “As per estimates of UN Population Division, the unmet need for family planning target of 10% has already been reached by some countries of the region including China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Iran, New Zealand, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. But others have still a long way to go. In South Asia, only Bangladesh is expected to reach the 10% threshold by 2030, while Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, India, and Maldives are likely to miss it and remain around 20%. Similarly, in South-East Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Myanmar appear likely to just miss the 10% target by 2030. In the Pacific Islands there are many countries with higher unmet need at 20% or more in 2020.”

Then again, at least 12 countries of the region currently have high maternal mortality rates of 120 or more, with Afghanistan topping the list at 638, followed by Myanmar (250), Bhutan (183), Bangladesh (173), Nepal (186), Laos (185), Indonesia (177), Cambodia (160), India (145), Papua New Guinea (145), Timor Leste (142), Pakistan (140) and Philippines (121).

However, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and New Zealand boast of having the lowest maternal mortality rates of 15 or less for the last 20 years. Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam China, Mongolia, Fiji and Samoa too have reached maternal mortality rates of less than 70.

So while progress has been fairly good on these two indicators in some countries of the region, programmes in few South-East Asian countries need a dose of revitalisation to realise them by 2030. However, many countries in South Asia and the Pacific need major reforms in policies and programmes to make family planning services accessible to all women and to also reduce maternal mortality.

Biplabi rues that though sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender find a place in international agreements, there are no accountability frameworks within them to ensure that countries respect, protect and fulfil their commitments to basic human rights, which get further violated in times of crisis. There is lack or absence of gender mainstreaming and sexual and reproductive health and rights in most countries’ climate-related policies and programmes. Women are made invisible in environment and climate-related discourses. This again perpetuates the vicious cycle of inequality for women and girls.

Noelene Nabulivou, co-founder of Diverse Voices and Action for Equality (DIVA) stresses upon the important linkages between sexual and reproductive health and rights and climate change, between disaster risk and response and elimination of violence against women and protection of LGBTQI human rights. She says that sexual and reproductive health and rights are central to any development response to pandemics (like COVID-19) and all natural calamities like floods and cyclones, because it is the body where the damage and human rights violations are felt most.

All said and done, there is a very clear linkage between climate change and sexual and reproductive health and rights but it is often neglected. For Adrian “the response to climate change should be rooted in sustainable ways. We cannot achieve the SDGs without resolving the looming crisis of climate change. Also as sexual and reproductive health and rights are an essential component of sustainable development, they are directly impacted by climate change.”

All these deliberations took place during the fifth online session of the 10th Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights (APCRSHR10 Virtual). Undoubtedly, improving sexual and reproductive health and rights in Asia and the Pacific region will contribute to not only realising the vision of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, but also help in resolving anthropogenic climate change.

China And The Decline Of US Power

Chandra Muzaffar

Constant attacks by some US elites on China will, according to some observers, diminish and disappear once the US presidential election is over in November 2020. This is unlikely to happen for at least two reasons. One, the issues that underscore the targeting of China are fundamental in nature and go beyond elections and personalities. Two, at the root of some of these issues are questions of power— of dominance and control— whose resolution will span decades if not centuries.

In examining the interface between the US and China, I shall begin with those areas of conflict where the latter has surpassed the former. This will be followed by reflections on manifestations of US power which are not as formidable as they are made out to be.  Conclusions will be drawn from these two categories on the emerging pattern of global power.

Within specific sub-fields of science and technology, China appears to have moved ahead of the US. Maritime surveillance and lunar geography would be two such sub-fields. Chinese advances in electronics and telecommunications have also been breathtaking. It is because China is at the forefront of cutting edge technology that there is so much anxiety in the US and the West today about China’s ascendancy. Those who have dominated the world for so long know that it is mastery over science and technology that endows a nation or civilization with power and strength.

Its mastery over science and technology is one of the reasons why in a few decades China has become the factory of the world manufacturing a whole range of affordable, quality goods for people everywhere. China’s success in penetrating markets has made the nation indispensable to the global economy.  Even in the entertainment industry, a video-sharing platform like Tiktok has become a sensation among the young prompting US authorities to impose curbs upon it .

More than its production of goods and services, it is China’s massive global infrastructure transformation through its Belt Road Initiative (BRI) that is destined to have a lasting impact upon humankind. An endeavor that spans 138 countries, the BRI connects Asia with Africa and Europe through land and maritime routes.  It not only seeks to build highways and ports but also attempts to initiate agrarian projects and accelerate industrial ventures which will raise incomes and increase productivity of many poor countries

Compared to the BRI there are other spheres where US power appears to be overwhelming. But if we probed each of these spheres carefully, we would discover that US power is only a veneer.  Its so-called military prowess is a case in point. Though the US has a huge arsenal and some 800 military bases girding the globe, we forget that it has not won a single major war since the end of the Second World War. Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan testify to this. In fact, its involvement in wars in the last 50 or 60 years have been unmitigated disasters.

Another pillar of US power is the US dollar— the world’s reserve currency. The dollar is no longer as dominant as it once was. In 2015 for instance, approximately 90 % of bilateral transactions between China and Russia were conducted in dollars. By 2019 “the figure had dropped to 51%”

US imposed sanctions against Russia since 2014 following Crimea’s restoration to Russia  contributed to this.  The US also imposed “tariffs on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Chinese goods “ which forced China to de-dollarise.”  Moscow and Beijing reinforced their financial relationship  in June 2019 through a deal “ to replace the dollar with national currencies for international settlements between them.” Russia has also been accumulating yuan reserves at the expense of the dollar.

The US also perpetuates its global dominance  through an extensive propaganda network which projects the US as the greatest nation on earth. It is a portrayal  which has lost its lustre in the last couple of decades.  The US led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 which was unjust as it was immoral tarnished the US’s image in the eyes of the world. Increasingly, it has come to be perceived as a rapacious nation which has no scruples about slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent people in pursuit of its hegemonic agenda.

More than its role in wars and all the sufferings they cause, the US elite’s  failure to govern effectively has shattered and battered its image   The coronavirus pandemic and the economic miseries generated by it, have revealed that compared to some countries in Asia the US elite is incapable of protecting the well-being of its own citizenry. With 176 thousand  fatalities and 5.68 million infections as of the 22ndt of August 2020,the elite stands condemned for betraying and sacrificing  the people. If good governance is the hallmark of a ‘developed nation’ then the US can no longer lay claim to that status.

The coronavirus pandemic with all its dire consequences has also exposed how deeply flawed notions of ‘freedom’ and ‘the rights of the individual’ are in the US When freedom of the individual relegates the collective good of society to the margins, it breeds  a self-centred obsession with freedom which in the ultimate analysis undermines freedom itself. If freedom and the celebration of the individual are the glorious attributes of societies like the US,  the pandemic has shown us all  how ugly their  misconception and misapplication can be.

In a nutshell, it is not just the rise of China which is responsible for the decline of the US. Its own distorted perspective on power , its perverted sense of individual freedom and most of all its lust for global hegemony have all contributed to its fall.  This is why as the American people approach yet another presidential election, they should for their own good reflect upon their own flaws and foibles as a nation. It is humility and honesty of this sort that is the need of the hour.

Corporate Social Media in India: Sell Hate, Enjoy Profit

Subhash Gatade

The bias that social media platforms such as Facebook display reflect their own world-view as much as it does the regimes they support.

A few gave the appearance of being truly psychopathic individuals. The mass of others were ragged and illiterate peasants easily roused to hatred of the Tutsi. Perhaps the most sinister people I met were the educated political elite, men and women of charm and sophistication who spoke flawless French and who could engage in long philosophical debates about the nature of war and democracy. But they shared one thing in common with the soldiers and the peasants: they were drowning in the blood of their fellow countrymen.

Fergal Kane, a journalist with the BBC, wrote these chilling lines in his book, Season of Blood: A Rwandan Journey, winner of the Orwell prize in 1995. The organised and planned killing in Rwanda, one of the darkest episodes of the 20th century, resulted in the death of eight lakh Tutsi.

It is a strange coincidence that a year and a half before these unfortunate developments, the biggest democracy in the world went through its own cataclysmic moment, when Hindutva supremacist forces demolished a 500-year-old mosque after a long and bloody campaign. Even after the demolition large-scale communal riots broke out all over India, in which thousands died and whose scars are still difficult to heal.

There is at least one thing in common between what Rwanda went through and what India witnessed in 1992: both tragedies demonstrated how the media can prepare and provoke ordinary people into unleashing untold miseries on their neighbours.

Chroniclers of history have noted how the popular press, especially the radio channels, played a divisive, polarising role before the genocide in Rwanda. The infamous RTLM radio broadcasts called for weeding out “cockroaches” as they inflamed Hutu militants to target the Tutsi minority. “Aag musalsal zehan mein lagi hogi, yunhi koi aag me jala nahi hoga—there must have been a fire in the mind already, or else nobody would have been consumed by flames,” as a poet has said.

A large section of the print media, in the vernacular in particular, played a polarising, provocative role and pushed the majoritarian agenda with impunity in the late eighties and early nineties in India as well. The metamorphosis of a significant section of Hindi newspapers into Hindu newspapers is well known. This period was the first occasion of its kind in Independent India, when the news was weaponised on a mass scale. Perhaps the saving grace was that TV was largely under government control at the time, and there few private channels.

Times have changed, however. Today there is the internet, social media and it is clear that digital technology if used unethically can easily further dubious political agendas. It can be manipulated to promote autocracies and anti-people regimes. This is not just in India. For example, media analyst Alan MacLeod wrote about the use of new media technologies to “hijack democracy” during the 2017 elections in Kenya, whose result remains controversial. In Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, published in 2019 by Routledge, which MacLeod edited, the media is said to have manufactured consent for the presidential election through fake news, spreading disinformation and government propaganda on online media platforms.

Advances in technology and easy access to the internet has made it possible even for every individual to bring a city or a region to a halt by making any mischievous piece of news “go viral”. This can result in arson, mayhem and violence… The possibility of exploiting media and digital tools to do harm requires that big data corporations be more diligent, especially when it comes to filtering hate speech.

It is a different matter that they have failed miserably.

Recall the Christchurch attack in New Zealand last year, in which some 50 died and another 50 were wounded. The alleged perpetrator, a White supremacist who spewed hatred of Muslim immigrants in an online manifesto streamed his killing spree live on Facebook. Facebook could do nothing about this toxic video going live.

Facebook was roasted after this incident but it is their profit-centric model and eagerness to be in the good books of establishments that has attracted more ire recently. They are accused of having no qualms in removing or blocking accounts of dissidents or deleting posts critical of the establishment, but turning a blind eye to right-wing posts, even if they are violent in nature and “controversial” enough to demand penal action.

Facebook’s latest India story corroborates the criticism it has received all over the world. Now accused of shielding right-wing leaders and their ideas in India, thanks to a recent expose by The Wall Street Journal, has rekindled the debate about weaponising news. New media might have arrived with a bang, but it is increasingly evident that they are conduits for vast amounts of fake news, violent speech and of spreading hate. And there are far too many instances of mega-corporations in the social media space prioritising their profit over democratic principles and free speech. Of course, the bias they are accused of also reflects their own world-view.

For instance, when the Black Lives Matter movement was at its peak, Facebook was widely condemned for carrying United States President Donald Trump’s statement: “When Looting Starts, Shooting Starts”, which was a provocation to violence. Twitter had, at the time, emphasised that his statement glorifies violence. Facebook’s compromise on race relations prompted more than 1,000 companies to boycott it in July.

Facebook’s world-view can also be gleaned from its position during the last German elections. A media company had aligned with Facebook to get extensive details of German voters and micro-target advertisements to specific voters to try and influence them to vote a certain way. Facebook had provided its own office in Berlin to this company. This project, which was run under guidance and advice from the United States, had supported Alternative für Deutschland, a neo-Fascist party. Details of this campaign are also to be found in the same book, edited by Alan MacLeod.

Facebook has around 300 million Indian subscribers, but finds itself on the defensive for violating its own hate speech rules and for promoting and supporting majoritarianism for pecuniary gain. Yet, broadly, the Wall Street Journal story has resulted in three important reactions: One, there has definitely been a churning within the Facebook organisation. Some employees of Facebook have questioned the company’s actions in India. Additionally, while Facebook India’s senior executive Ankhi Das had disallowed action against right-wing posts, employees in the India office had urged her to stick to company rules and take action. Second, the Congress party has written to Mark Zukerberg, the owner of Facebook, asking him to take action against those who violated company policy in India. And three, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), with the Congress, has demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe. The Delhi government, it is reported, also plans to summon the Facebook India chief to seek explanation.

It is possible that Facebook will be forced to rein in some right-wing elements in future, but would that be the end of this story? Definitely not. The right-wing elements are politically dominant at the moment and have acquired a wide social base, through which they are trying to acquire legitimacy for their world-view. It would seek other avenues to inject poison and toxicity in the social life from, even if Facebook closes the doors, even a little. It is doubtful that the right-wing propaganda can be contained by reining in one or two social media platforms—even if Facebook is extremely influential in India and has a wide user-base.

What this means is that nothing can beat firm and constant public awareness that helps citizens identify the real from the spurious. A degree of inertia seems to have overwhelmed a large section of even the politically literate fraternity in the country. The seductive charms of digital technology are hurting their person-to-person interactions, which are essential at the moment to build a counter-narrative to the right-wing propaganda. Was not it the Independence movement that taught us to take the road less traveled, even if we are alone on it.

Was Qassem Soleimani Killed to Avenge Saudi Oil Installations Attack?

Nauman Sadiq

A joint American-Israeli program, involving a series of short-of-war clandestine strikes, aimed at taking out the most prominent generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and targeting Iran’s power stations, industrial infrastructure, and missile and nuclear facilities has been going on since early this year when commander of IRGC’s Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani was assassinated in a US airstrike at Baghdad airport on January 3.

As the US presidential race is heating up, the pace and sophistication of subversive attacks in Iran is picking up simultaneously. Since June, “mysterious explosions” were reported at a missile and explosives storage facility at Parchin military base on June 26, at power stations in the cities of Shiraz and Ahvaz, a “mysterious fire” at Bushehr port on July 15 destroying seven ships, and a massive explosion at the Natanz nuclear site on July 2 that has reportedly set back Iran’s nuclear program by at least two years.

Besides whipping up nationalist sentiment among America’s conservative electorate on the eve of US presidential election slated for November, another purpose of the subversive attacks appears to be to avenge a string of audacious attacks mounted by Iran-backed forces against the US strategic interests in the Persian Gulf that brought the US and Iran to the brink of full-scale war in September last year.

In addition to planting limpet mines on oil tankers off the coast of the UAE in May last year and the subsequent downing of the US surveillance drone in the Persian Gulf by Iran, the brazen attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility and the Khurais oil field in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia on September 14 was the third major attack in the Persian Gulf against the assets of Washington and its regional clients. That the UAE had forewarning about imminent attacks is proved by the fact that weeks before the attacks, it recalled forces from Yemen battling the Houthi rebels and redeployed them to man the UAE’s territorial borders.

Nevertheless, a puerile prank like planting limpet mines on oil tankers can be overlooked but major provocations like downing a $200-million Global Hawk surveillance aircraft and mounting a drone and missile attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility that crippled its oil-processing functions for weeks could have had serious repercussions.

The September 14 attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility in eastern Saudi Arabia was an apocalypse for the global oil industry because it processes five million barrels crude oil per day, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s total oil production. The subversive attack sent jitters across the global markets and the oil price surged 15%, the biggest spike witnessed in three decades since the First Gulf War when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, though the oil price was eased within days after industrialized nations released their strategic oil reserves.

In order to bring home the significance of the Persian Gulf’s oil in the energy-starved industrialized world, here are a few stats from the OPEC data: Saudi Arabia has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves of 265 billion barrels and its daily oil production is 10 million barrels; Iran and Iraq each has 150 billion barrels reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million barrels per day each; while UAE and Kuwait each has 100 billion barrels reserves and produces 3 million barrels per day each; thus, all the littoral states of the Persian Gulf, together, hold 788 billion barrels, more than half of world’s 1477 billion barrels proven oil reserves.

Not surprisingly, more than 35,000 American troops have currently been deployed in the military bases and aircraft carriers in the oil-rich Persian Gulf in accordance with the Carter Doctrine of 1980, which states: “Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

It bears mentioning that alongside deploying several thousand American troops, additional aircraft squadrons and Patriot missile batteries in Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the Abqaiq attack, several interventionist hawks in Washington invoked the Carter Doctrine as a ground for mounting retaliatory strikes against Iran.

The last year’s acts of subversion in the Persian Gulf should be viewed in the broader backdrop of the New Cold War that has begun after the Ukrainian crisis in 2014 when Russia occupied the Crimean peninsula and Washington imposed sanctions against Russia.

The Kremlin’s immediate response to the escalation by Washington was that it jumped into the fray in Syria in September 2015, after a clandestine visit to Moscow by General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force. When Russia deployed its forces and military hardware to Syria in September 2015, the militant proxies of Washington and its regional clients were on the verge of drawing a wedge between Damascus and the Alawite heartland of coastal Latakia, which could have led to the imminent downfall of the Assad government.

With the help of the Russian air power, the Syrian government has since reclaimed most of Syria’s territory from the insurgents, excluding Idlib in the northwest occupied by the Turkish-backed militants and Deir al-Zor and the Kurdish-held areas in the east, thus inflicting a humiliating defeat on Washington and its regional clients.

Notwithstanding, following the brazen attack on the Abqaiq petroleum facility and the Khurais oil field in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia on September 14, orchestrated protests erupted in Iran-allied countries Lebanon and Iraq from October to December last year.

Lebanese American journalist Rania Khalek has documented for The Gray Zone the US-backed political forces spearheaded the “color revolution” in Lebanon, where Iran-backed resistance group Hezbollah was part of the coalition government. Following the massive explosion at the Beirut Port on August 4 killing 180 people and wounding nearly 6,000, the shaky, six-month-long coalition government of Hassan al-Diab resigned on August 10.

Similarly, Iraq has been through the US occupation from 2003 to 2011 and is known to have US sympathizers in the Kurdish-held north and the Shia-majority south of the country, where the Western oil majors operate and dispense largesse among local chieftains of myriad clans and tribes.

Using the patronage network, the US successfully ousted former Prime Minister of Iraq Haider al-Abadi and appointed American stooge Mustafa al-Kadhimi in his stead in May. The purpose of destabilizing governments in Iran-allied countries obviously was to deter Iran from mounting subversive attacks in strategically important Persian Gulf.

Unlike Lebanon and Iraq, though, Iran itself is immune to foreign-backed political demonstrations as it does not have any imperialist collaborators on the ground, besides a fringe militant group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) funded by the US, France and Israel, though it did witness large-scale protests in November last year.

The proximate cause of the November 15 protests in Iran was steep rise in petrol prices by the Rouhani government, dubbed as “sabotage” by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The worst-hit region was Khuzestan province in southwest Iran which is home to large Arab minority known to have grievances against Tehran and susceptible to infiltration by imperialist stooges.

Finally, a word about the venerated commander of IRGC’s Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani who was assassinated in a US airstrike at Baghdad airport on January 3. Soleimani was the trusted lieutenant of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and the main liaison with Russia. Not only did he instigate Russia to strike at Washington’s Achilles heel in Syria’s proxy war but he was also the main architect of the audacious September 14 attacks at Abqaiq petroleum facility and the Khurais oil field in the oil-rich Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

Alongside deploying several thousand American troops and additional aircraft squadrons and Patriot missile batteries in Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the Abqaiq attack, Washington also took out its most fearsome nemesis General Soleimani in January, and now it can freely stage subversive attacks in Iran and allied countries without the fear of reprisals.

It’s pertinent to note that Trump initially rejected the Pentagon’s option to assassinate General Soleimani on December 28 due to the fear of full-scale confrontation with Iran, and authorized airstrikes on an Iran-backed militia group in Iraq instead. But after the rocket attack at the US embassy in Baghdad by Iran-backed forces, Trump succumbed to pressure from the American deep state, led by the powerful national security bureaucracies of Pentagon and the State Department, which had a score to settle with General Soleimani for giving the global power a bloody nose in Syria’s proxy war.

Teaching Crisis and Teachers’ Role in Times of Covid-19 Pandemic

Nawaz Sarif

The global Covid-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented change in all walks of life. It has clutched different sectors and overthrown people around the world to a new social and economic crisis. Education is one of them, due to the pandemic around 1.52 billion students stranded at home and over 60.2 million teachers remain out of schools (UN Secretary-General, 2020, March). In a bid to adjust to the crisis and to ensure classes to remain continued to students, the digital classroom has emerged as the most significant option before the academic stakeholders. Following the endorsement from the international body like UNESCO to the national body like the Ministry of HRD, the millions of schools and higher educational institutions have shifted their physical classrooms online to ensure ‘learning never get disrupted’ for the learners amidst the isolation crisis.

India has one of the world’s largest educational sectors. It has over 1.3 million recognized schools including primary, upper primary, secondary, and senior secondary schools (AIES, 2002). Also, it has over 789 universities, 37,204 colleges, and 11,443 stand-alone institutions (UGC, 2017). As per the report of UNESCO, the coronavirus crisis has put over 320 million Indian students into unfortunate adversity.

The country’s endeavor to switching off the offline classroom to digital space with its supportive systems has caused a paradigm shift in the formal education systems. The digital enabling online teaching is democratic and can be accessible even beyond geographical barriers. It edges over the traditional classroom especially in aspects of facilitating home-based learning opportunities for learners in times of the country-wide lockdown catastrophe. It is now playing a crucial role in building fundamental life skills and providing learning experiences to young adolescence at home.

The digital platform is something new for both teachers and students. There had no training intervention to empower teachers with digital skills before or immediately after the hastened nation-wide lockdown. So, teachers who have parallel skills in teaching in the face-to-face classroom are unfortunately crippled in this process of on-going digital shifting. They are now struggling to learn new techno-pedagogies to teach in online classes. They are spending more time to skill up themselves with the required digital mastery in virtual classrooms. However, many teachers are ‘digital immigrants’ who feel awkward with the digital ecosystem of online classes which induced new concerns about the online teaching.

Further, many teachers have expressed deep worry about the effectiveness of the teaching-learning process in digital classes. Meghna Saxena, a teacher from Delhi told Quartz, “kids don’t understand half our activities even in the real classroom. A teacher on a computer screen would hardly make sense to them”. Similarly, Saloni Kumar, a school teacher in Gurugram, Delhi, told that “during the classes, I have no way of knowing who is paying attention and who is not”. While, Navraj Tiwari, Principal of Neel Tara Academy, Sikkim, said “we want to conduct regular online classes but most of our students are from marginal families and they don’t have internet connection”.

The online teaching has different problems and those problems are varied across the different geographical regions of India. The states like Himachal Pradesh (mountainous areas), Rajasthan (sparsely deserted areas), and Madhya Pradesh (forested areas) have poor enabling internet establishments that cause grave concern for the countryside outreach of e-learning. Further, the students from poor economic backgrounds and remote villages in the states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh, etc. have also been crippled with the shifting from schoolrooms to the virtual classrooms.

Further, the Northeast part of India is the most geographical inaccessible with several obstacles varying from lack of development, infrastructure to socio-political unrest. The schools of this region are mostly located in rural areas and do not have the necessary digital infrastructure to equip with the current challenges that emerged in online classes. The educational institutions especially in the different cities of Northeast India have shown an accomplished portrayal of online teaching. For example, Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU), Ri-Bhoi, Meghalaya, has taken several initiatives to teach its students online using its own developed Learning Management System (LMS) and using Zoom app. Similarly, Assam Down Town University (AdtU), Guwahati, Assam has established a connection with its students over virtual platforms amid the crisis.

Notwithstanding, amid this crisis students across large swathes of marginalized urban ghettos and rural areas of Northeast India, are in devoid hope for online education. The parents are mostly daily wage laborers, small farmers, vegetable vendors, and small traders and most of them find it difficult to avail expensive smart gadgets for their children. Besides, internet penetration in this region is also critical as compared to the rest of Indian states. The region (included Assam & other northeastern states) has 38 percent internet penetration against the mainland states Delhi NCT (69%), Kerala (54%), Punjab (49%), and Maharastra (43%), etc. The states like Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur are in critical situations in terms of internet accessibility and digital outreach which raise another disheartening concern about outreaching digital learning amid the Covid-19 crisis.

Nevertheless, the state governments have taken several initiatives to overcome these barriers to suffice the e-ducation to students across the poor and marginal sections of the society. The state like Sikkim is enabling students to access online education using online networking applications like WhatsApp and Zoom. Similarly, the state of Assam is also using individual calls and WhatsApp for sharing e-contents and study-related assignments with students. Besides, in the rural areas of the states like Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, the governments are planning to use radio broadcast and Doordarshan as means to outreach e-ducation to those areas having no internet establishments.

However, the inference from the revisited discourse on online versus face-to-face classes has brought out some intrinsic limitations of online teaching like issues related to instructional designs, students’ online discipline, learning engagement in the virtual classroom, teacher-taught relationships, online assessment, non-cognitive developments of students, and so on. Many questions have also aroused in teachers’ minds, from how to start online classes to make use of available e-resources to creating a supportive learning environment. The focus of the present article is to address all these queries about how to make e-ducation teaching worthwhile in the times of the pandemic despite having a range of challenges and issues.

The performance of inculcating knowledge and instructional materials to the learners in a face-to-face classroom system is what we call teaching. It is a noble profession as we treat where teachers, being the key role players involved in designing and orientating programs for learners’ all-inclusive development. Educators have always been striving to perform their obligations towards teaching against all kinds of turndown situations. Amidst the current cataclysm, teachers may take the following response measures to improvise the teaching in the digital classrooms-

Having an easygoing shifting from offline to online classes

Online classes have been on the rise amidst this home-based learning atmosphere. It stimulates teachers to participate in online teaching in virtual classrooms. Teachers use the internet and various apps to develop digital skills throughout the online course. However, many of them are grappling with the teaching difficulties, and few of them even pondering about how to go for online teaching. In this case, a teacher may think of having two ways, one recorded video-lectures, and other uploading e-contents in the forms of PPTs, word or pdf files, etc. The video lectures may be presented using a video-enabled synchronous or asynchronous streaming depending on the nature and objective of the instructional designs. There have been different online platforms like Microsoft Teams, Skype, Google classroom, and Zoom, etc. where teachers can take online classes. Besides, teachers can also use different social apps like telegram and WhatsApp to share e-contents with their students. However, for teachers who are working in rural schools of economically poorer states, due to the ‘digital divide’ the use of WhatsApp and mobile phones may be proven as effective ways to share learning materials and various study-links with their students.

Setting optimal class size for online teaching

It is a painstaking aspect of online teaching. It has been observed that educational institutions do not put any upper or lower limits on online class size. However, experts have asked stakeholders to limit the class size even for online teaching as we have for offline teaching in the conventional classroom. According to the Economic Survey (2017-18), the country has an average Student-Classroom Ratio (SCR) 30 in the face-to-face classroom teaching. Also, the RTE Act, 2009 mandates Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTR) 30:1 for primary and 35:1 for upper primary level. However, for the digital classroom, there has no such established guidance. The published researches showed a varying size of online class from small to large depending on the purpose of course designations. According to a research project, a large size online class with 40 or more students’ enrollment is ideal for ‘foundational and factual knowledge acquisition’. On the flip side, a small class size with 15 or even fewer is better ‘to develop higher-order thinking, mastery of complex knowledge, and student skill development’.

Designing online course materials using multiple strategies

The virtual teaching has put new demands from teachers in curriculum reconstruction and teaching content designs. It behests teachers to provide enriched ‘human and non-human resources’ and pertinent ‘animated and unanimated’ study-materials. In the traditional classroom, a teacher acts as an instructor and a guide but this role of the teacher has incredibly changed in online teaching. A teacher is now no longer acting just as an instructor but a content developer and a designer of online curriculums. The teacher needs a good content-communicating skill too in virtual teaching. Here some simple tips a teacher should keep in mind while preparing digital contents including PPTs such as it must have explicit texts and improved contents with detailed facts and explanation, language must be simple and formal and must be well-designed with the use of graphic themes, gaming features, and various templates.

Also, especially when making video-lecture; it should be kept in short; around 30-45 minutes (UNICEF), from introducing the topic to justify the need and main themes presentation to recapitulation at the end. Besides, the teachers should uphold accountability to ensure video and voice qualities or the enrichment of the content before sharing them with students.

Making teaching more interesting to students

Good teaching always requires teachers’ full-engagement in students’ learning through explanations, illustrations, question-answer sessions, or group discussions. However, the question arose about online teaching for its potentiality to uphold students’ interests in the curriculum transactions in the virtual classroom. It depends on both attributes of teachers’ instructional materials and students’ perceived approach towards the class. In online teaching, a teacher must ensure his or her strong presence in the virtual classroom. Also, it is inevitable for teachers to make students feel connected to the classroom lectures. Besides, a teacher must avoid monotonous presentations including repetition of words, use of jargon, and abstracts terminologies while teaching online. Additionally, the abstract concepts must be explained using various analogies and place-based examples to students.

A teacher should also blend his or her lectures with thought-evoking incentives and humor. Facilitating the structured knowledge-based instructions will only encourage spoon-feeding habits and weaken students’ interests in classroom lectures, so, attempts must be taken to make students rational about why they need to listen to the lectures. Teachers should make students feel empowered in the virtual classroom. Besides, a teacher must give space for virtual interactions and provide collaborative learning assignments to students for a meaningful participatory-learning.

Strengthening students’ learning engagement in virtual classes

A question is often asked about the online discipline of students during the on-going discourse on online teaching. To ensure that, teachers may use something called video attendance which is acceptable in many cases where both teachers and learners have access to digital devices and internet connectivity. However, a muted-audio management system, performance- and check-in based attendance are some of the effective ways to check out students’ engagement during lectures. Also, teachers can think of using an ‘attendance-cum feedback’ form daily where students can be asked 3 to 5 questions to answers in brief based on the pertinent lecture. Additionally, to ensure children’s full-engagement, teachers may use other apps and software such as Attendance taker, Fedena, Fekara, TS School, Chalk Attendance, MyClass Attendance, SchoolTool, K12 Attendance, MyAttendance Tracker, SchoolTime, Gibbon, etc.

Making use of existing online resources

No wonder, it is understandable that developing e-contents is not a simple task. Many teachers have difficulties in computer-based preparation of PPT or other verbally-structured contents. They lack skills in developing different online modules too. In this situation, despite worrying about, teachers can have several online content providers from where they can easily access materials and after filtering, the age-specific relevance contents can be shared with their students. The platforms like NCERT YouTube channel, Diksha portal, and Swayam Prabha not only facilitate e-contents but help teachers to have swift access in the time to respond quickly to students’ requirements. Besides, teachers can also take advantage of various non-government e-learning apps such as Byju’s, Vedantu, Toppr, Khan Academy, Unacademy, Udemy, GradeUp, SoloLearn, Adda 247, Jigsaw Academy, etc.

Assisting those who are unresponsive and slow learners in e-classes

It is inevitable for a teacher to ensure learning equally happens to all. In online classes, there is nothing called backbenchers versus frontbenchers, like traditional schoolrooms. However, in online classes, we still have about 10% slow-learners who grasp things at their own pace. Also, many of them even do not understand teachers’ lectures at the first attempt. So, teachers need to ensure the availability of video-lectures online immediately after classes are over. There should be a space for repeating some of the taught topics too or teachers may think of organizing remedial sessions for slow learners. Besides, an ‘institution-based 24×7’ live chat-box must be availed to all learners to clarify doubts and get detailed explanations of their queries from teachers.

Appraising students’ learnings through online tests

This is the aspect of online assessment of students’ learning attainments from a taught lesson. In the traditional classroom, a paper-pencil test is conducted to test students’ learned knowledge in the presence of teachers. However, in the virtual classroom, as teachers are not physically there to ensure invigilation therefore, there is a high chance of copying books or excerpting relevant information from the internet. To avoid such uncertainty and unethical practices, teachers need to change the ways to assess students’ learned knowledge and experiences. Instead of MCQ and short-answer type questions, the focus may be directed to theories- and themes-based queries where an individual learner has no option but to express his/her experience-based creative thoughts and critical thinking on exam papers. Besides, teachers should also have an understanding and collaborative supports from parents to ensure parenting supervision at home during exams.

Ensuring the teacher-learner relationships in online classes

The teacher-student relationship is concretely embedded in the physical classroom that left out to a greater extent in online classes. The online ecosystem ensuring physical distancing but has wreaked human contact and socio-emotional proximity between teachers and students. However, in a bid to develop socio-emotional propinquity, teachers may use some tips such as sharing personal learning-experiences with learners, providing quick learning feedback, and creating a comfort communication aura and boosting learners to share their learning experiences, etc. Besides, the teachers’ responsive behavior and accountability towards learners are also helpful to improvise the teacher-taught relationships in the virtual classroom.

Developing students’ socio-emotional aspects through e-teaching

The critics of online teaching often argue on the overwhelmed emphasis of online teaching on cognitive development and leftover its undue focus on the socio-emotional development of children. Also, they argue that online teaching promotes the ‘banking system of education’ which is the deposition of knowledge-based instructions in children’s minds. In education, we know something called 3-H that is Head-on, Hand-on, and Heart-on. Due to the intrinsic limitation of online teaching, it finds difficult to meet these arguments. However, teachers may use ‘group-based tasks’ and encourage ‘collaborative learning’ to develop students’ social-emotional skills in virtual settings. Besides, the use of various incentives, creating opportunities for play-based activities, listening to students’ feelings, and valuing their opinions may be underscored as plaudits tips for learners’ progressive development.

Establishing home-school online partnerships

As the learners go for online classes sitting at home, so, teachers need to ensure every family with all kinds of supports required for effective delivering course contents. In this case, the role of parents must be prioritized in creating home-based learning environments for students. Both teachers and parents should work together through the ‘home-school online partnerships’ to ensure better learning opportunities, creative experiences, better time management, and safe learning. They should establish ‘spontaneous collaboration’ and ‘hands-on supports’ with parents to regulate online classes for students. Also, teachers should help in better parenting the learners to stay positive, creating a daily routine, avoiding health-risk behaviors, and managing stress in the time of isolation crisis (WHO).

In closing, it can be said that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought a far-reaching change in the way teachers teach in the face-to-face traditional classrooms. Hence, the teachers must collaboratively address all those emerged issues of online teaching. They must try to employ all kinds of possible techno-pedagogies and available resources to ensure effective teaching in online classes.

For Secular Atheists, Adopting The Language Of Religion Is Fraud

Vikas Dhiman

Yogendra Yadav recently wrote about how secularism gave up the language of religion. He blamed secular English-speaking elites for not talking in terms of the cultural metaphors that common Indian could relate with. I understand where he is coming from. But I object to both to the diagnosis of the problem that English-speaking elites are secular while masses are communal.  And I also object to the prescription that secular English-speaking elites should talk in cultural metaphors of religion.

Let’s talk about the diagnosis of the problem. Decline of secularism is omnipresent in India, including English-speaking elites. I count myself and my friend circle as English-speaking elite, but secularism is in decline even among English-speaking elites. Many of my pro-BJP friends stand by the principle of secularism but vehemently deny any attack on secularism during this regime. Some of them denounce secularism in toto. Even if we look at exit poll statistics, BJP was more popular in urban areas and there was no division among income groups. This doesn’t leave much scope to argue that English-speak elites were more secular than the masses.

Furthermore, Narendra Modi came to power not on the plank of Hindutva but on the plank of Gujarat model and development. Recall that 2014 campaign by Modi was focused on Gujrat model not on Hindutva. It is after 2014 that Modi has revived Hindutva. I believe that it is not the success of RSS work on the grassroots but the success and power of PR companies, social media and money in politics.

The prescription of using religious-cultural metaphors for propagating secularism has problems of its own. Indian culture does not leave much scope for materialistic atheists like me. I do not believe in spirituality, Atma, rebirth, heaven, hell or Karma after rebirth. I am sure there are many Indians who are like me. But what are the cultural metaphors available to me? The precedents in Indian culture are Charvaka and Brahaspati. Most of Charvaka writing have been lost, and they are only available from references by other texts. Moreover, no one knows about Charvaka among average Indians. I came to know about Charvaka only after explicitly looking for atheists in ancient Indian tradition.

It is true that Kabir, Sikh Gurus, and Bhakti saints advocated for abolition of rituals and equality of all religions. But is it ethical for me quote from these religious authorities when I myself don’t believe in their teachings? Even when it is done to propagate the principle of secularism and universal love, it is fraud to selectively quote authorities in order to organize the masses.

The one precedent in Indian Freedom movement that I know of is, Bhagat Singh. Bhagat Singh rarely invoked religion to organize Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. He invoked Marx and Lenin.

So, what should be done? We need to actively talk about secularism, rule of law, money in politics and democracy to our friends and family, while avoiding self-censorship. Instead of targeting the language that we think will convince people, we should talk in the language we know, and the one we honestly believe in. Whether someone gets convinced or not is something that we cannot control. Here invoking Gita would be appropriate but not doing that is the point.