Geopolitics & Diplomacy · September 2026
India at Bishkek: How India Turned the SCO’s 25th Birthday Into a Platform Against Terror
Prime Minister Modi walked into the 26th SCO Summit in Bishkek on August 31 with a clear agenda: use a forum dominated by China and Russia to push India’s position on terrorism, connectivity, and its growing role in Eurasia. He walked out with 13 agreed outcomes, English as an SCO official language, and a historic anti-terror declaration. Here is what happened — and why it matters.
The photograph tells a story by itself. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood together before the group photograph at the 26th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, shaking hands. Behind them: the leaders of eight other nations spanning from Minsk to Islamabad. It was September 1, 2026. The SCO was turning 25. And India, the democracy sitting awkwardly in a bloc built by China and Russia, was very visibly present.
The 2026 Bishkek SCO Summit was the 26th meeting of the Council of Heads of State, held from August 31 to September 1 under the theme “25 Years of the SCO: Together for Sustainable Peace, Development and Prosperity,” chaired by Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov.
It was the 25th anniversary of an organisation that began as a six-nation Central Asian security forum and has since grown into one of the world’s largest multilateral blocs by population and land area. And for India, it was a summit that produced more concrete wins than most previous SCO meetings had.
What Is the SCO?
Full Name: Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
Founded: June 15, 2001 — evolved from the “Shanghai Five” mechanism of 1996
Headquarters: Beijing (Secretariat); Tashkent (Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure — RATS)
Secretary-General: Nurlan Yermekbayev
Purpose: Regional security, counter-terrorism, economic cooperation, and connectivity across Eurasia
Scale: The 10 SCO member states have a collective GDP (PPP) of about 36% of the global total and a combined population of about 3.4 billion.
10 Full Member States (as of 2026):
- China — founding member (2001)
- Russia — founding member (2001)
- Kazakhstan — founding member (2001)
- Kyrgyzstan — founding member (2001)
- Tajikistan — founding member (2001)
- Uzbekistan — founding member (2001)
- India — joined 2017
- Pakistan — joined 2017
- Iran — joined 2023
- Belarus — joined 2024
Observer States:
Afghanistan (inactive), Mongolia
15 Dialogue Partners:
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bahrain, Cambodia, Egypt, Kuwait, Laos, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Türkiye, United Arab Emirates
Next SCO Summit:
Pakistan assumed the SCO chairmanship for 2026–27 at Bishkek and is expected to host the next Council of Heads of State summit in Islamabad.
India joined the SCO in 2017 — in the same batch as Pakistan — and the decision has never been entirely comfortable. The SCO is dominated by China, which is India’s primary strategic rival. It includes Pakistan, with whom India has fought four wars.
It includes Russia, which is simultaneously a traditional partner and an increasingly China-aligned power. And its founding architecture — built on Chinese and Russian diplomatic priorities — does not always align with India’s.
And yet India stays, and attends, and increasingly shapes outcomes. The reason is simple: the SCO gives India a seat at the table in a region increasingly shaped by competition among larger powers, allowing it to protect its interests, track shifting geopolitical currents, and project itself as a reliable stakeholder.While it may not entirely shape the agenda, it gives New Delhi a first-hand view of the region and allows it to hedge its position with others.
What INDIA Said at Bishkek
India has a formula for SCO summits that has been consistent across multiple years: raise terrorism loudly and specifically, push connectivity, and propose cultural or digital cooperation initiatives. At Bishkek, all three were on display.
On terrorism, PM Modi was direct. “Can the open support for terrorism by certain countries ever be acceptable to us?” he asked. “Double standards on terrorism are unacceptable. Together, we must oppose terrorism in every form and manifestation. This is our responsibility towards humanity.”
The message was aimed without ambiguity at Pakistan and its state-supported sponsorship of cross-border terrorism — and equally at China, which has repeatedly shielded Pakistani-linked terror groups from UN designations.
PM Modi recalled the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22 — in which 26 people, mostly tourists, were killed by Pakistan-linked terrorists in Kashmir — as an “open challenge to every nation and every individual who believes in humanity.” He thanked member countries for their strong solidarity in the wake of the Pahalgam attack, urged the group to hold countries that perpetrate and support cross-border terrorism accountable, and emphasised that there should be no double standards in dealing with terrorism.
On connectivity, PM Modi underscored India’s support for projects such as Chabahar port and the International North-South Transport Corridor, framing connectivity as essential to fostering development and building trust across the region.
On culture and innovation, PM Modi proposed commencing a Civilizational Dialogue Forum within the group to foster greater people-to-people ties and cultural understanding. He also called for a Youth Science Forum and a Young Author’s Conclave — initiatives that were subsequently included in the Bishkek Declaration.
The Bishkek Declaration — Key Points at a Glance
Adopted September 1, 2026 | 25th Anniversary of the SCO | Total outcomes: 13 (including 4 MoUs and 20+ decisions)
On Terrorism (India’s Priority Win):
- Member states strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, emphasising that “double standards” in the fight against terrorism are unacceptable
- They emphasised the inadmissibility of attempts to exploit terrorist, separatist, and extremist groups for mercenary purposes
- A new Universal Centre for Countering Security Challenges and Threats was established — with regulations formally adopted at Bishkek
On Narco-Terrorism (Direct Relevance to India):
- Leaders finalised regulations on the Executive Committee of the SCO Anti-Narcotics Centre, supporting India’s efforts against cross-border narcotics trafficking and narco-terrorism while facilitating inter-agency coordination
- Programs against drug addiction and synthetic narcotics were adopted
English as Official SCO Language (India’s Institutional Win):
- Leaders agreed to adopt English as an official SCO language — a longstanding Indian demand that finally found acceptance at Bishkek. Previously only Chinese and Russian were official languages, systematically disadvantaging India in SCO documentation and deliberations
- The Charter of the SCO was formally amended via a Protocol adopted at the summit
On Connectivity:
- An action plan for the development of ports and logistics centres of SCO member countries for 2026–2030 was signed
- Cooperation program on energy systems adopted
- Declaration on strengthening multilateral partnership for nuclear and physical nuclear security signed
On Technology and AI:
- Governments signed a Memorandum on cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence, allowing India to share its digital and AI experience, promote responsible and inclusive use of AI, and expand technology partnerships
- A 2026–2028 international information-security plan and a concept for regional data processing were adopted
- Memorandum on information cooperation for wider dissemination of India’s perspectives within regional media signed
India’s Cultural Initiatives Included:
- The declaration adopted India’s priorities: Civilisation Dialogue Forum, Young Scientist Forum, and Young Author’s Conclave
- The declaration reaffirmed the idea of “One Earth, One Family, One Future” for developing dialogue
On Geopolitics:
- The Bishkek Declaration opposed “unilateral coercive” sanctions which negatively impact the global economy, and expressed support for Iran’s sovereignty
- Member states said they supported an open, transparent, fair, inclusive, and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system
- Member countries stated they would continue to “develop practical dialogue on strengthening financial cooperation within the SCO Interbank Consortium” — this amid US pressure against trade with Iran
- The Declaration did not mention the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It covered other conflicts including West Asia
India-Pakistan at Bishkek:
One of the enduring awkwardnesses of India’s SCO membership is that it shares the same table as Pakistan. At Bishkek, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was present. No bilateral meeting between PM Modi and Sharif was announced or held — in keeping with India’s consistent policy since the Pahalgam attack that diplomacy and cross-border terrorism cannot coexist. The two leaders addressed the same plenary session within hours of each other, making pointed statements that everyone in the room understood to be directed at the other without the other being named.
India’s position at Bishkek was that terrorism cannot be a strategic asset — and that an organisation which includes both a victim of cross-border terrorism and the state accused of sponsoring it must be explicit about which side it stands on. The Bishkek Declaration’s language on “double standards” in counter-terrorism and its specific provisions for the SCO Anti-Narcotics Centre were India’s clearest wins on this front: multilateral language that, while not naming Pakistan directly, clearly supports the position India has held for years.
Lahore was named the SCO Tourism and Cultural Capital for 2026–27 — Pakistan’s own symbolic gain from Bishkek, coming as it takes over the rotating chairmanship. India raised no objection.
The next SCO summit will be held in Islamabad in 2027. India will attend. India and Pakistan will again sit at the same table. That is what multilateral diplomacy — uncomfortable, imperfect, and occasionally useful — looks like.
India-China at Bishkek: No Bilateral, But a Handshake
A bilateral meeting between PM Modi and Xi Jinping could not take place on the margins of the Bishkek Summit, but a video of the PM, Russian President Putin, and Xi shaking hands before the leaders’ photograph was the highlight of the day — a moment that signalled a normalisation of optics, if not yet of the underlying bilateral tensions over the LAC and broader strategic competition.
Both Putin and Xi were separately scheduled to be in New Delhi for the BRICS summit on September 12–13 — meaning Bishkek was the pre-meeting before the meeting. India’s relationship with China within the SCO has always been managed rather than warm: the two countries are simultaneously SCO members and strategic rivals whose troops faced off at Galwan Valley in 2020. But the SCO gives India visibility into Chinese-led Eurasian architecture — and gives India a platform to ensure its voice is heard in discussions that would otherwise proceed without it.
What India Actually Gained — and What Remains Unresolved
The wins at Bishkek are real. English as an official SCO language is a structural change that will improve India’s institutional participation for years. The anti-terror language — specifically the “double standards are unacceptable” formulation — is the kind of declaratory commitment that India has sought for years and can now point to in international forums.
The Anti-Narcotics Centre regulations directly address a cross-border threat that has long been a security priority. The AI cooperation MoU and the disaster relief cooperation agreement expand India’s bilateral footprint within the bloc. The Civilizational Dialogue Forum, if it materialises, gives India a platform to project its soft power credentials in a region where China has historically dominated cultural diplomacy.
What remains unresolved is the bigger question: can India use the SCO to achieve strategic connectivity to Central Asia?
India’s land access to Central Asia — its most immediate economic opportunity in the SCO region — remains blocked by Pakistan’s refusal to allow trade transit. The Chabahar-INSTC route via Iran is a partial workaround, but it is more expensive and slower than a land corridor through Pakistan would be. Until that changes, India’s engagement with Central Asia will remain below its potential, regardless of how many SCO declarations it signs.
India faces a “dilemma of engagement” — how to participate meaningfully in a body designed by and for China and Russia, without legitimising positions that directly contradict India’s own interests. Bishkek did not resolve that dilemma. But it demonstrated that engaged participation, specific demands, and consistent pressure can extract real outcomes from multilateral forums — even deeply imperfect ones.
In 2027, the SCO summit will be in Islamabad. Pakistan will chair the organisation that India joined largely to keep an eye on the region — and on Pakistan.
That is what multilateral diplomacy looks like when it works badly enough to continue and well enough to be worth continuing. For India, after Bishkek, continuing is clearly the right call.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.
Heat wave is a condition of air temperature which becomes fatal to human body when exposed. Often times, it is defined based on the temperature thresholds over a region in terms of actual temperature or its departure from normal.
Heat wave is considered if maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 400C or more for Plains and at least 300C or more for Hilly regions.
a) Based on Departure from Normal
Heat Wave: Departure from normal is 4.50C to 6.40C
Severe Heat Wave: Departure from normal is >6.40C
b) Based on Actual Maximum Temperature
Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥ 450C
Severe Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥470C
If above criteria met at least in 2 stations in a Meteorological sub-division for at least two consecutive days and it declared on the second day
It is occurring mainly during March to June and in some rare cases even in July. The peak month of the heat wave over India is May.
Heat wave generally occurs over plains of northwest India, Central, East & north Peninsular India during March to June.
It covers Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, parts of Maharashtra & Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana.
Sometimes it occurs over Tamilnadu & Kerala also.
Heat waves adversely affect human and animal lives.
However, maximum temperatures more than 45°C observed mainly over Rajasthan and Vidarbha region in month of May.
a. Transportation / Prevalence of hot dry air over a region (There should be a region of warm dry air and appropriate flow pattern for transporting hot air over the region).
b. Absence of moisture in the upper atmosphere (As the presence of moisture restricts the temperature rise).
c. The sky should be practically cloudless (To allow maximum insulation over the region).
d. Large amplitude anti-cyclonic flow over the area.
Heat waves generally develop over Northwest India and spread gradually eastwards & southwards but not westwards (since the prevailing winds during the season are westerly to northwesterly).
The health impacts of Heat Waves typically involve dehydration, heat cramps, heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke. The signs and symptoms are as follows:
1. Heat Cramps: Ederna (swelling) and Syncope (Fainting) generally accompanied by fever below 39*C i.e.102*F.
2. Heat Exhaustion: Fatigue, weakness, dizziness, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps and sweating.
3. Heat Stoke: Body temperatures of 40*C i.e. 104*F or more along with delirium, seizures or coma. This is a potential fatal condition.
Norman Borlaug and MS Swaminathan in a wheat field in north India in March 1964
Political independence does not have much meaning without economic independence.
One of the important indicators of economic independence is self-sufficiency in food grain production.
The overall food grain scenario in India has undergone a drastic transformation in the last 75 years.
India was a food-deficit country on the eve of Independence. It had to import foodgrains to feed its people.
The situation became more acute during the 1960s. The imported food had to be sent to households within the shortest possible time.
The situation was referred to as ‘ship to mouth’.
Presently, Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns are overflowing with food grain stocks and the Union government is unable to ensure remunerative price to the farmers for their produce.
This transformation, however, was not smooth.
In the 1960s, it was disgraceful, but unavoidable for the Prime Minister of India to go to foreign countries with a begging bowl.
To avoid such situations, the government motivated agricultural scientists to make India self-sufficient in food grain production.
As a result, high-yield varieties (HYV) were developed. The combination of seeds, water and fertiliser gave a boost to food grain production in the country which is generally referred to as the Green Revolution.
The impact of the Green Revolution, however, was confined to a few areas like Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh in the north and (unified) Andhra Pradesh in the south.
Most of the remaining areas were deficit in food grain production.
Therefore the Union government had to procure food grain from surplus states to distribute it among deficit ones.
At the time, farmers in the surplus states viewed procurement as a tax as they were prevented from selling their surplus foodgrains at high prices in the deficit states.
As production of food grains increased, there was decentralisation of procurement. State governments were permitted to procure grain to meet their requirement.
The distribution of food grains was left to the concerned state governments.
Kerala, for instance, was totally a deficit state and had to adopt a distribution policy which was almost universal in nature.
Some states adopted a vigorous public distribution system (PDS) policy.
It is not out of place to narrate an interesting incident regarding food grain distribution in Andhra Pradesh. The Government of Andhra Pradesh in the early 1980s implemented a highly subsidised rice scheme under which poor households were given five kilograms of rice per person per month, subject to a ceiling of 25 kilograms at Rs 2 per kg. The state government required two million tonnes of rice to implement the scheme. But it received only on one million tonne from the Union government.
The state government had to purchase another million tonne of rice from rice millers in the state at a negotiated price, which was higher than the procurement price offered by the Centre, but lower than the open market price.
A large number of studies have revealed that many poor households have been excluded from the PDS network, while many undeserving households have managed to get benefits from it.
Various policy measures have been implemented to streamline PDS. A revamped PDS was introduced in 1992 to make food grain easily accessible to people in tribal and hilly areas, by providing relatively higher subsidies.
Targeted PDS was launched in 1997 to focus on households below the poverty line (BPL).
Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) was introduced to cover the poorest of the poor.
Annapoorna Scheme was introduced in 2001 to distribute 10 kg of food grains free of cost to destitutes above the age of 65 years.
In 2013, the National Food Security Act (NFSA) was passed by Parliament to expand and legalise the entitlement.
Conventionally, a card holder has to go to a particular fair price shop (FPS) and that particular shop has to be open when s/he visits it. Stock must be available in the shop. The card holder should also have sufficient time to stand in the queue to purchase his quota. The card holder has to put with rough treatment at the hands of a FPS dealer.
These problems do not exist once ration cards become smart cards. A card holder can go to any shop which is open and has available stocks. In short, the scheme has become card holder-friendly and curbed the monopoly power of the FPS dealer. Some states other than Chhattisgarh are also trying to introduce such a scheme on an experimental basis.
More recently, the Government of India has introduced a scheme called ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ which enables migrant labourers to purchase rations from the place where they reside. In August 2021, it was operational in 34 states and Union territories.
The intentions of the scheme are good but there are some hurdles in its implementation which need to be addressed. These problems arise on account of variation in:
It is not clear whether a migrant labourer gets items provided in his/her native state or those in the state s/he has migrated to and what prices will s/he be able to purchase them.
The Centre must learn lessons from the experiences of different countries in order to make PDS sustainable in the long-run.
For instance, Sri Lanka recently shifted to organic manure from chemical fertiliser without required planning. Consequently, it had to face an acute food shortage due to a shortage of organic manure.
Some analysts have cautioned against excessive dependence on chemical fertiliser.
Phosphorus is an important input in the production of chemical fertiliser and about 70-80 per cent of known resources of phosphorus are available only in Morocco.
There is possibility that Morocco may manipulate the price of phosphorus.
Providing excessive subsidies and unemployment relief may make people dependent, as in the case of Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
It is better to teach a person how to catch a fish rather than give free fish to him / her.
Hence, the government should give the right amount of subsidy to deserving people.
The government has to increase livestock as in the case of Uruguay to make the food basket broad-based and nutritious. It has to see to it that the organic content in the soil is adequate, in order to make cultivation environmentally-friendly and sustainable in the long-run.
In short, India has transformed from a food-deficit state to a food-surplus one 75 years after independence. However, the government must adopt environmental-friendly measures to sustain this achievement.