The Peninsula Foundation

Category: Opinion/Commentary

  • Foreign Reserves beyond a point are Pointless

    Foreign Reserves beyond a point are Pointless

    Mohan Guruswamy  October 07, 2017

    Clearly the Indian economy is not at a place where it wants to be. The Modi government is finds itself in a chakravyuh that it is unable to fight its way out. The government is just unable to make or attract the investment needed to make the economy buoyant again. India enjoyed a decade of unprecedented growth from 2004-14 that seemed to have lost steam in the last year. It was largely caused by a huge decline in the proportion of capital investment expenditure. Despite the growth of the private and foreign investment, the Indian economy is still largely dependent on government investment to lead the investment and growth cycle.

    The promise of Modi was that he was expected to set right this trend and once again begin a new cycle with government led investment. He promised us a hundred new cities, a nationwide grid of high-speed rail networks, a national river-linking program and so many other major transformational projects. A hundred new cities have now become a hundred smart cities, which means little more than free wi-fi networks. The nationwide grid of fast trains has now become an exorbitant and apparently uneconomical single bullet train joining Ahmedabad and Bombay. Similarly all other feasible and exciting promises made are now mere caricatures of what were promised. It is simply that the Modi government has been unable to free the economy from its high subsidy burden and PSU black hole, where only the oil and power companies earn a profit due to administered pricing.

    Consequently the picture continues to be bleak. Output of capital goods contracted 1% in July against growth of 8.8% a year ago. Production of consumer durable goods shrank 1.3% against a nominal increase of 0.2% a year earlier.

    Then came the twin black swan events. Demonetization came as a body blow to the cash-dependent unorganized sector that makes up 40% of India’s GDP. The unorganized sector also accounts for 90% of the total employment of around 450 million. The loss of jobs due to the two events – demonetization and hasty implementation of GST- is still not empirically confirmed. Estimates vary. The construction and vegetable and fruit retail sectors seem to have taken a massive hit and the ballpark estimation of loss of jobs is at about 25-30 million. These sectors mostly employ rural landless labour with few skills and hence forced into taking up daily wage and earnings sustenance. They don’t shout much and few notice their pain. Unlike the loss of even a few thousand jobs in the IT sector.

    The implementation of GST forced companies to reduce production in the run-up to its 1 July implementation as dealers reduced inventory. The inadequate training and preparation was abundantly evident. The announcement of rates was hasty and the many mismatches between input and output rates compounded the confusion. Of the Rs.95000 crores collected in the first month, as much as Rs.65000 is due to be refunded. The problem is that the government doesn’t seem to have the cash to do so.

    In a belated effort to reverse these trends the government is planning to loosen its fiscal deficit target of 3.2% of GDP to enable it to spend up to Rs. 50,000 crore. This is piddly sum for an economy whose GDP is over Rs.150 lakh crores now. Right now we have a net outflow of foreign investment. What we need is a huge dollop of cash infusion to boost investment. Loosening fiscal deficit norms will help. But meaningfully slashing subsidies when Modi’s term is on the slope to elections is not politically feasible.

    There is that old saying that when the going gets tough, the tough get going.  Modi should now show toughness and imagination that is tempered with realism.  He needs to revive the national mood and generate optimism over the economy. He now needs a plan to drive investment. He doesn’t have to go far to find the money to fund this plan.

    The government is sitting with reserves of nearly $400 billion with about $135 billion alone sitting in US banks earning next to nothing. These reserves are equal to about 80% of our foreign debt. Even after providing a quarter of the reserves to cover short-term hot money of NRI investors each taking a pound of flesh for mostly foreign bank financed investment in their mother country, we will still have $300 billion in hand.  How much money can be freed from the other $300 billion for investment is the big question now? Kaushik Basu has said that India’s foreign reserves need not be more than the current account deficit (CAD) or about $80 billion. Others are more cautious.

    This will certainly raise many eyebrows. One is surprised over the number of people who think holding huge reserves abroad in ridiculously low yield securities is a sign of our wealth. No. It is a sign of our stupidity.

    Just holding enough reserves to cover the CAD or exports for a few months would be about enough. This nonsense of holding reserves to at least cover six months imports is just plain arbitrary and concocted by the people who made the Washington Consensus. This “consensus” assures New York banks plenty of cheap money to finance American domestic consumption and extravagances. The Chinese have now realized the stupidity of financing the US cheaply with their reserves which not long ago almost touched $4trillion. They have run it down by about $1trillion since.

    Now how much do you think the US foreign reserves amount to? Hold your seat. It is now $65 billion or about a fifth of India’s. What a travesty.

    Clearly running them down by $100-120 billion or Rs.6.5L- 8L crores can be contemplated. The government could establish an India Infrastructure Investment Fund and start shifting meaningful fractions from the foreign reserves into this fund. A board of well-regarded experts, who can allocate investments on merits to prevent the usual leakages and political misuse, could administer the fund. The fund must also mandate the minimum level of local procurement and investment to boost Make in India.

    Slow growth and no new jobs are Narendra Modi’s twin Achilles heels. He is vulnerable on both counts. He must seize the moment with both hands and start running with both legs.

    Shri Mohan Guruswamy is a former Rajya Sabha MP and a political commentator. He is a Trustee of TPF.
    This article was earlier published in ‘The Economic Times’.

  • The Demand for Gondwana: India’s Adivasi Homeland

    The Demand for Gondwana: India’s Adivasi Homeland

    Mohan Guruswamy December 03, 2017

     The scion of the former Gond kings of Chandagarh or Chandrapur now in Maharashtra, Birshah Atram was recently visiting the Gond homelands in the former composite Adilabad district to meet his kinsmen in the various garhi’s in the region. Birshah Atram is descended from a line that was established in Chandrapur in the 13th century by Kandakya Balal Sah. The Gond kings ruled till 1751 when the British annexed it after the Raja of Nagpur died childless. Birshah who holds two PhD’s in English and Ancient Indian History has for long been seeking a solution to the vexed Adivasi problem, that has also morphed into the Telugu led Naxalite rebellion that enables the Central and State governments to turn it into a law and order issue, by highlighting the grievances of the Adivasi people. He believes that the Central Government needs to implement the constitutional provisions and promises made in the Constituent Assembly by recognizing Gondi language and self-rule for the Gond people by carving out a Gondwana state of the Gond homelands in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

    There is a vast and mostly forested region spanning almost the entire midriff of India from Orissa to Gujarat, lying between the westbound Narmada and eastbound Godavari, bounded by many mountain ranges like the Vindhya, Satpura, Mahadeo, Meykul, and Abujhmar, that was once the main home of the Adivasi. The late Professor Nihar Ranjan Ray, one of our most distinguished historians, described the central IndianAdivasis as “the original autochthonous people of India” meaning that their presence in India pre-dated by far the Dravidians, the Aryans and whoever else settled in this country. The anthropologist Dr. Verrier Elwin states this more emphatically when he wrote: “These are the real swadeshi products of India, in whose presence all others are foreign. These are ancient people with moral rights and claims thousands of years old. They were here first and should come first in our regard.”

    Unfortunately like indigenous people all over the world, the India’sAdivasis too have been savaged and ravaged by later people claiming to be more “civilized”. They still account for almost 8% of India’s population and are easily it’s most deprived and oppressed section. Though this is the home of many tribal groups, the largest tribal group, the Gonds, dominated the region. The earliest Gond kingdom appears to date from the 10th century and the Gond Rajas were able to maintain a relatively independent existence until the 18th century, although they were compelled to offer nominal allegiance to the Mughal Empire.

     The great historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar records: “In the sixteenth and seventeenth century much of the modern Central Provinces (today’s MP) were under the sway of aboriginal Gond chiefs and was known under the name of Gondwana. A Mughal invasion and the sack of the capital had crippled the great Gond kingdom of Garh-Mandla in Akbar’s reign and later by Bundela encroachments from the north. But in the middle of the seventeenth century another Gond kingdom with its capital at Deogarh, rose to greatness, and extended its sway over the districts of Betul, Chindwara, and Nagpur, and portions of Seoni, Bhandara and Balaghat. In the southern part of Gondwana stood the town of Chanda, the seat of the third Gond dynasty and hereditary foe and rival of the Raja of Deogarh.” But the glory of Deogarh departed when the Maratha ruler of Nagpur annexed Deogarh after the death of Chand Sultan.

    Incidentally the Gond ruler of Deogarh, Bakht Buland, founded the city of Nagpur. Jadunath Sarkar writes about him thus: “He lived to extend the area, power and prosperity of his kingdom very largely and to give the greatest trouble to Aurangzeb in the last years of his reign.” In fact the one big reason Aurangzeb could not deploy all his power against Shivaji was because the Gond kings were constantly at war with the Mughals and kept interdicting the lines from the Deccan to Agra. But of course the history of modern India is not generous to them.

    During the British days this region constituted much of the Central Provinces of India later to become Madhya Pradesh. This is the main home of about sixteen million Gond people who are India’s largest single tribal grouping. The Gonds are now a culturally and linguistically heterogeneous people having attained much cultural uniformity with the dominant linguistic influences of their region. Thus, the Gonds of the eastern and northwestern Madhya Pradesh region that now includes the new state of Chhattisgarh speak Chhattisgarhi and western Hindi. But the Gonds of Bastar, which is at the southeastern end of this vast region and a part of Chhattisgarh, are different in this respect. Though there are many tribal groups like the Halbas, Bhatras, Parjas and Dorlas, the Maria and Bison Horned Gonds are the most numerous. The language spoken by them, like that of the Koyas of AP is an intermediate Dravidian language closer to Telugu and Kannada.

    The process of Hinduization combined with Hindi culture has reduced the egalitarian Koitur to the bottom of the social strata. Dr. Kalyan Kumar Chakravarthy, Director of the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, Bhopal has written eloquently and cogently on this in his concluding chapter “Extinction or Adaptation of the Gonds” in the book “Tribal Identity in India” also edited by him. The real enemy of theAdivasi is the creeping Hinduization with all its attendant values and exclusionary practices, seems to me a good start to the process of saving its tribal society from extinction. All over the rest of India’s central highlands our policies by forcing the Adivasis to merge their identities with that of the encroaching culture have crushed them into a becoming a feeble and self-pitying underclass.

    Clearly there are two distinct reasons for the present unrest in the Adivasihomelands of India. The first and probably the more important one is the struggle for identity against the creeping Hinduization or de-culturization of Adivasi society. Adivasi society was built on a foundation of equality. People were given respect and status according to their contribution to social needs but only while they were performing that particular function. Such a value-system was sustainable as long as the Adivasi community was non-acquisitive and all the products of society were shared. Adivasisociety has been under constant pressure as the money economy grew and made traditional forms of barter less difficult to sustain.

    The Fifth and Sixth Schedules under Article 244 of the Indian Constitution in 1950 provided for self-governance in specified tribal majority areas. In 1999 the Government of India even issued a draft National Policy on Tribals to address the developmental needs of tribal people. Special emphasis was laid on education, forestry, healthcare, languages, resettlement and land rights. The draft was meant to be circulated between MP’s, MLA’s and Civil Society groups. A Cabinet Committee on Tribal Affairs was meant to constantly review the policy. Little has happened since. The draft policy is still a draft, which means there is no policy.

    Even before Independence on December 16 1946, welcoming the Objectives Resolution in the Constituent Assembly, the legendary Adivasileader Jaipal Singh stated the tribal case and apprehensions explicitly. He said: “Sir, if there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6,000 years. …The whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India punctuated by rebellions and disorder, and yet I take Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru at his word. I take you all at your word that now we are going to start a new chapter, a new chapter of independent India where there is equality of opportunity, where no one would be neglected.”

    The Adivasi’s paid dearly for taking Jawaharlal Nehru and the Constituent Assembly at their word.

    Shri Mohan Guruswamy is a former Rajya Sabha MP and a political commentator. He is a Trustee of TPF.

    This article was published earlier in ‘The Citizen’.

  • Investments In Genome Editing Technologies

    Investments In Genome Editing Technologies

    S Chandrasegaran   February 10, 2018

    Introduction

    India is soon poised to become the world’s most populous nation, overtaking China. India faces the critical challenge of producing sufficient food for a growing population living in a changing climate. Substantial research investments have been made to sequence, assemble, and characterize the genomes of major crop plants by other countries, which have led to important discoveries of crop genes and their functions. This knowledge will be valuable in increasing agricultural production by using synthetic biology and genome editing, technological advancements for precise plant engineering. Genome editing and synthetic biology are unprecedented technological breakthroughs, with great potential for crop improvement. Defining gene sequences from diverse species and cultivars has far outpaced our ability to alter those genes in crops. Recent advances in genome engineering (aka genome editing) make it possible to precisely alter DNA sequences in living cells, providing unprecedented control over a plant and animal genetic material.

    Potential future crops derived through gene editing and synthetic biology include those that better withstand pests, those that are salt and drought tolerant, that have enhanced nutritional value, and that are able to grow on marginal lands. In many instances, crops with such traits will be created by altering only a few nucleotides among the billions that comprise plant genomes. With the appropriate regulatory structures and oversight in place, crops created through genome editing might prove to be more acceptable to the public than plants that carry foreign DNA in their genomes. Public perception and the performance of the engineered crop varieties will determine the extent to which genome editing and synthetic biology contribute towards securing the world’s food supply.

    It is critical for India to make substantial investments in these technologies to make them readily available to indigenous Indian scientists so that they can be part of the upcoming revolution in agriculture. Government of India needs to embrace policies that lift all barriers towards the potential applications of these breakthrough technologies for crop and animal improvement. Such forward thinking policies will not only assure India’s food and economic security, but also to insure that it can compete with other Western nations and China in industrial innovation and production and remain self-reliant.

    What is genome editing?

    Programmable nucleases, such as zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator like effector nucleases (TALENs) and RNA-guided CRISPR-associated Cas9 nuclease, induce a DNA double-strand break (DSB) at a user-defined genomic site of living cells. Since DSBs are lethal to cells, they are immediately repaired through one of the two evolutionarily conserved pathways: (1) non-homologous end joining (NHEJ), which is error prone; or (2) homology-directed repair (HDR). Using these repair processes (Figure 1), scientists have been able to disrupt specific genes, or correct mutations in disease-causing genes, or insert exogenous DNA sequences at a pre-determined locus within the genome of living cells, which were not possible prior to the creation of programmable nucleases. As a result, the genome editing technologies have revolutionized life sciences research as well as biotechnology and biomedical fields. These disruptive technologies have the potential to have a great impact on agriculture through precise crop engineering, animal husbandry in the near future and on human therapeutics through engineered autologous cell-based therapies in the future.


    What is synthetic biology?

    Synthetic biology can be broadly defined as the design and construction of novel artificial biological pathways or organisms, or the redesign of existing natural biological systems. It is an emerging discipline where artificially synthesized genetic material from nucleotides, are introduced into an organism. Synthetic biology brings the application of engineering principles to biology; it aims to design and fabricate biological components and systems that do not already exist in the natural world. Synthetic genomics is a sub-discipline of synthetic biology; it refers to the synthetic assembly of complete chromosomal DNA that is designed from natural genomic sequences. The power of these techniques lies in the use of interchangeable and standardized bio-parts to construct complex genetic networks that include sensing, information processing and effector modules and in the creation of redesigned chromosomes and genomes. They have the potential to create complex new organisms with novel biological pathways and genes constructed to user specifications. Synthetic biology has great potential in biotechnology, agriculture and regenerative medicine.

    Work done by us in genome editing and synthetic genomics:

    I have been very fortunate to be involved in two exciting areas of life sciences research over 30-year career in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. First is the creation of zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), which was a culmination of seven year research effort on the study of FokI restriction endonuclease. Later, in collaboration with Dana Carroll lab, we showed stimulation of gene targeting by a ZFN-induced targeted double-strand break using frog oocytes as a model system, which ushered in the era of genome editing. We have continued this research to date, with the current focus being on the generation and genetic correction of disease-specific human induced pluripotent stem cells for human therapeutics.

    Second is the total synthesis of a functional designer eukaryotic (yeast) chromosome III (aka synIII). We have embarked on the creation of a synthetic yeast genome (Sc2.0), in collaboration with Jef Boeke at NYU and several other international collaborators. Our lab reported the creation of the first fully functional synthetic 272-kb synIII yeast chromosome with numerous changes compared to the native chromosome. Currently, our focus is on completing another designer yeast chromosome IX (aka synIX).

    Project 1: Genome Engineering using Programmable Nucleases

    Our lab originally showed that FokI, a type IIs endonuclease, is comprised of two separable protein domains: a sequence- specific DNA binding and non-specific nuclease domain. We then reported the creation of custom zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs). Later, in collaboration with Dana Carroll’s lab in Utah, we showed stimulation of gene targeting by a ZFN-induced targeted double-strand break, using frog oocytes as a model. Recently, we have shown generation and genetic correction of human pluripotent stem cells using designer ZFNs/TALENs. Our contribution includes the application of ZFN/TALEN/Cas9 technology for targeted modification of human induced pluripotent stem cells. Recently, we reported the generation of precisely targeted genetically well-defined disease-specific hiPSCs using TALENs. Our current focus is on genetic engineering of patient-specific hiPSCs to achieve functional disease correction of monogenic diseases either by targeted genome editing (i.e. gene correction) of the defective gene or by targeted insertion of wild-type therapeutic gene to the CCR5 locus of patient-specific hiPSCs (Ramalingam et al 2013; 2014). The precisely targeted genetically well-defined disease-specific hiPSCs will be very valuable for disease modeling and for drug discovery by screening small compound libraries against the disease-specific hiPSCs. The ZFN/TALEN/Cas9-mediated approach is widely applicable to a variety of other mammalian cells as well and to generate various animal disease models to study and treat human disease in the future. We are currently conducting research to develop a hiPSC-derived HSPCs-based therapy as a curative alternative to the expensive non-curative GCase enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) to treat type 1 GD.

    Key Publications:
    Chandrasegaran S and Carroll D. (2016). Origins of Programmable Nucleases for Genome Engineering. J. Mol. Biol. 428: 963-989. PMID: 26506267
    Ramalingam S, Annaluru N, Kandavelou K and Chandrasegaran S. (2014) TALEN-mediated generation and genetic correction of disease-specific human induced pluripotent stem cells. Current Gene Therapy 14: 461-472. PMID: 25245091
    Ramalingam S, London V, Kandavelou K, Cebotaru L, Guggino W, Civin CI and Chandrasegaran S. (2013). Generation and genetic engineering of human induced pluripotent stem cells using designed zinc finger nucleases. Stem Cells and Development 22: 595-610. PMID: 22931452
    Bibikova M, Carroll D, Segal DJ, Trautman JK, Smith J, Kim YG and Chandrasegaran S. (2001) Stimulation of homologous recombination through targeted cleavage by chimeric nucleases. Mol. Cell Biol. 21: 289-297. PMID: 11113203
    Smith J, Bibikova M, Whitby FG, Reddy AR, Chandrasegaran S and Carroll D. (2000) Requirements for double-strand cleavage by chimeric restriction enzymes with zinc finger DNA-recognition domains. Nucleic Acids Res 28: 3361-3369. PMID: 10954606
    Kim YG, Cha J and Chandrasegaran S (1996) Hybrid restriction enzymes: zinc finger fusions to Fok I cleavage domain. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 93: 1156-1160. PMID: 8577732
    Kim Y-G and Chandrasegaran S (1994) Chimeric restriction endonuclease. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 91: 883-887. PMID: 7905633
    Li L, Wu LP and Chandrasegaran S. (1992) Functional domains in Fok I restriction endonuclease. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 89: 4275‑4279. PMID: 1584761
    Project 2: Creation of a synthetic yeast (Sc2.0)

    In a 2014 Science paper, our lab reported a synthetic designer version of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosome III (synIII) with numerous changes, including a built-in recombination system (SCRaMbLE) for inducing genome alterations of the synIII strain [Annaluru et al 2014; 2015; Richardson et al 2016]. The design changes had no impact on cell fitness and phenotype, suggesting plasticity of the yeast genome to the changes introduced. The Sc2.0 consortium, which comprises of a group of international scientists, have recently reported synthesis of five more yeast chromosomes in April, 2017. The ultimate goal of Sc2.0 consortium is to create a designer synthetic yeast genome. Our lab is currently working to complete the synthetic yeast chromosome IX (synIX). The final streamlined minimal yeast genome would serve as a valuable ‘chassis’ organism for the industrial production of biochemical and biological products, including nutraceuticals.

    Key Publications:
    Richardson SM, Mitchell LA, Stracquadanio G, Yang K, Dymond JS, et al. (2017) Design of a synthetic yeast genome. Science 355: 1040-1044. PMID: 28280199
    Annaluru N, Ramalingam S and Chandrasegaran S. (2015) Rewriting the blueprint of life by synthetic genomics and genome engineering. Genome Biology 16: 125-136. PMID: 26076868
    Annaluru N, Müller H, Mitchell L, Ramalingam S, et al. (2014) Total synthesis of a functional designer eukaryotic chromosome. Science 344: 55-58. PMID: 24674868
    Dymond J, Richardson S, Coombes C, Muller H, Narayana A, Blake W, Wu J, Dai J, Lindstrom D, Boeke A, Gottschling D, Chandrasegaran S, Bader J and Boeke J. (2011) Synthetic chromosome arms function in yeast and generate phenotypic diversity by design. Nature 477: 471-476. PMID: 21918511
    Dr S Chandrasegaran is a Senior Professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health in John Hopkins University, Baltimore. He is a Trustee of TPF.