Editorial 1 : ALL-Win
Introduction: Despite the challenges, India’s Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) is one of the major public health success stories, globally. With the government planning the launch of a digital vaccination registry, U-Win, on August 15, the UIP is poised to be placed on a much surer footing.
How U-Win will work?
- The portal will steer the inoculation of 29 million pregnant women and 26 million infants annually against vaccine-preventable diseases.
- Under the current system, inoculation data is recorded manually by ASHA workers and then collated in state and national-level registries — this process usually takes more than a month.
- Immunisation at private healthcare facilities is often not recorded.
- U-Win will capture every vaccination event and ensure the availability of real-time vaccination data to healthcare policymakers.
- Such information flows could improve planning and lead to more responsive outbreak-averting interventions.
The challenges in India’s universal vaccination programme
- In 1978, India’s first national immunisation programme against multiple diseases — then called the Expanded Programme for Immunisation — comprised four vaccines.
- The UIP today targets 12 diseases.
- NFHS data show that close to 80 per cent children in the 12-23 months age bracket have received the recommended vaccines.
- In recent years, however, surveys have flagged concerns.
- Routine immunisation services were disrupted during the Covid pandemic.
- The vaccination drive picked up in 2022.
- But, WHO-UNICEF data for last year indicate a minor dip in the percentage of children inoculated against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus.
- Studies have also underlined that a section of India’s migrant population gets left out of the UIP, or does not receive timely jabs.
- Another big challenge is to reduce the number of children who drop out from the vaccination programme.
U-Win will be a better platform to tackle those challenges
- U-Win, which can be accessed from any geographical location, could be a game changer — it can improve vaccine coverage among disadvantaged groups, ultimately reducing infant mortality rates.
- Parents will get SMS alerts on the date for the next jab and they can book slots in advance anywhere in the country, without having to carry physical records.
- The authorities must, however, take care to ensure that India’s digital divide does not come in the way of beneficiaries keeping their date with the vaccinator.
How digital platforms are propelling India’s vaccination drive?
- During Covid, the COWIN platform played a key role in vaccine delivery.
- Another portal, the e-Vin, has been tracking vaccine-related cold chain logistics since 2015 — it has ensured an 80 per cent reduction in instances of vaccine stock-outs.
- Now U-Win is slated to become the world’s largest immunisation registry.
Conclusion: U-Win is slated to become the world’s largest immunisation registry. The country’s impressive suite of digital delivery systems should pave the way for making the UIP more expansive.
Editorial 2 : The cover is slippings
Introduction: After announcing a ban of former Pakistan’s PM Imran Khan’s Party Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan’s authority has put the ban on hold for some times. This is seen as government’s effort to buy some time.
Pakistan’s dubious record of banning political parties
- Pakistan’s constitution allows proscription of a “political party has been formed or is operating in a manner prejudicial to the sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan”.
- The country’s military-led establishment has been instrumental in banning other parties in the past, most notably the National Awami Party (NAP), led by Pashtun nationalist Abdul Wali Khan, son of Indian freedom fighter Abdul Ghaffar Khan.
- NAP was banned twice, once under Martial Law in 1970 and then again in 1975 under civilian rule.
- The second time, the Supreme Court of Pakistan upheld the ban, citing the party’s opposition to the ideology of Pakistan and its championing of Pashtun and Baloch rights.
- Party members reorganised first as the National Democratic Party and later as the Awami National Party (ANP).
- The ANP still exists and has led or been part of several governments in the northwest Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province since the 1990s.
The ban on PTI will not be sustainable for long time
- If the ban on NAP, a party despised by Pakistan’s establishment for its secular, pro-India stance proved difficult to sustain, it is unlikely that it would work against the populist PTI.
- Imran Khan is the civilian face of the Pakistani establishment’s traditional worldview.
- He espouses a particular mix of Pan-Islamism, Muslim exceptionalism, and anti-India Pakistani nationalism that can be identified with military rulers such as General Ayub Khan and General Pervez Musharraf.
- After his ouster in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April 2022, Khan doubled down on his populism, adding generals to the list of villains from whom he would save Pakistan.
- That has created a powerful narrative of victimhood, blaming Pakistan’s elites and foreign conspiracies for the country’s problems.
- Like other populists, Khan does not offer realistic solutions to serious problems.
- But he gives an opportunity for powerless people to vent their rage and frustration.
The rise of the cult of Imran Khan
- Imran Khan’s popularity represents the dominance of the establishment’s ideology over Pakistani thinking even when the military’s current leadership wants to break from it.
- His rise to power in 2018 may have been orchestrated by the military but now his support base is very real.
- PTI supporters are angry with the military for breaking up with Khan and turning to the politicians that the military and PTI had together described as corrupt.
- Some of the military establishment, judges and their families still back Imran Khan despite military disliking.
- That makes it difficult to marginalise PTI and Khan through constitutional and legal manoeuvres, which were effective against other politicians in the past.
- In Pakistan’s February 8 general elections, PTI-affiliated candidates won more seats than any other party.
- That shows how Imran has won the imagination of common Pakistani people, who defied the establishment and supported Imran Khan.
- If PTI is banned, there is no guarantee that the Supreme Court would uphold the ban.
Pakistan’s hybrid regime and its descendance into dark future
- Pakistanis interested in politics seem to be fed up with hybrid regimes maintaining the trappings of democracy while being run from behind the scenes by military intelligence officers.
- But there is little consensus among politicians on how to revive the country’s stagnant economy, running on borrowed money for years.
- Moreover, none of Pakistan political parties know what to do with the terrorists, nurtured as proxies against India and Afghanistan, who have become a threat to Pakistan’s internal security.
- There is little fresh thinking about foreign policy either, beyond PTI’s populist nationalist rhetoric and the ruling coalition’s cautious formal engagement with other countries.
- While politicians squabble and quarrel, pursuing personal conflicts and extreme narratives, the military still retains the ability to craft plans, however flawed, to run the country.
- A ban on PTI would hurtle Pakistan further down the road of absolute authoritarianism.
- A direct military takeover would not be far, although, in the current environment of negativity towards the army leadership, it might not be easy for the military to rule without civilian cover.
Conclusion: To avoid bringing the country to that crossroads, Pakistan’s politicians (including Khan) need to take a path they have never taken before by cooperating with one another instead of confrontation and polarisation. But will it happen soon enough to avoid the disaster that awaits Pakistani democracy?