Topic 1 : YOUNG AND THE OLD
Introduction: India will turn into an ageing society in the next three decades, according to a
report in the Lancet.
More about India’s demographic data in the Lancet’s report
- The medical journal has flagged that India's TFR - the average number of children born to a woman-will fall to 1.29 in 2050.
- One in five persons in India will be above the age of 60 in 2050.
- The Lancet is not the first to shine a light on this impending demographic shift.
- Last year, the UN Population Fund's (UNPF) India Ageing Report projected that the number of elderly in India will more than double from 149 million in 2022 to 347 million by mid-century.
- The challenges of a growing ageing population may well be decades away.
- However, the young country would do well to prepare for them in advance.
The report has cautioned about demographic dividend
- The Lancet report is a message that India's demographic dividend is not for perpetuity.
- Global experiences could be illustrative for the country's policymakers.
- In China, for instance, the proportion of the working age population crossed 50 per cent in 1987 and peaked around the middle of the last decade.
- This was also the period when the country registered impressive economic growth.
- By last year, China's TFR had dropped to a record low and its working-age population had contracted by more than 40 million.
- The Chinese government's pro-population-growth measures do not seem to be working.
- In fact, the last 60 years' history of developed nations suggests that once fertility rates fall below the replacement rate, it's almost impossible to set them back.
- At 1.9, India's TFR is currently just below the replacement rate, and according to UNPF calculations, the share of the country's working-age population will peak in the late 2030s, or early 2040s.
- Policymakers must, therefore, utilise this window to maximise India's demographic dividend, as China did from the late 1980s till the early years of the last decade.
- No time must be lost in putting in place measures to overcome skill deficits and plug gaps in the knowledge economy.
- The challenge will also be to generate jobs outside of agriculture- they must not be in the low-paid informal sector.
Way forward
- Going ahead, policymakers will also have to ensure adequate social security and healthcare provisions for the growing elderly population and create opportunities to harness their skills effectively.
- The varying TFR rates across states in India could present the country's planners with a somewhat unique challenge - in fact, there are already signs that parts of south India and west India are greying faster than those in the north.
Conclusion: Lancet report on the fall in the fertility rate in India should alert policymakers to the ageing population's needs. Policymakers must be ready to understand the demographic shift in all its dimensions and prepare for the change.
Topic 2 : A fragile corridorn
Introduction: Over just one week, Pakistan has witnessed three major attacks on strategic sites. These attacks show the vulnerabilities of Pakistan’s political economy and expose the reality of China-funded CPEC projects’ utilities for the people of Pakistan.
How and where the attacks were carried out in Pakistan?
- On Tuesday, a suicide bomber drove a vehicle filled with explosives into a convoy near Besham in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, carrying Chinese workers from a hydel power project in Dasu.
- Five Chinese nationals and a Pakistani driver were killed in the attack.
- On Monday night, Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) fighters attacked a naval airbase in Turbat in Balochistan, killing at least one soldier.
- And days before that, the BLA attacked Gwadar, where the port is a major part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
- The CPEC is the lynchpin of Beijing's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.
- It would be a mistake for Rawalpindi and Islamabad to view the attacks as merely a security issue.
- They point to the broader vulnerability of Pakistan's political economy
China’s reaction to these attacks and its impact on Pak-China relation
- China has reacted strongly to the attacks while reiterating its ties with Pakistan.
- Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian exhorted Islamabad to "hunt down the perpetrators and bring them to justice" and said that "no attempt to sabotage China-Pakistan cooperation will ever succeed".
- The rhetoric around the "iron-clad friendship" notwithstanding, the strategic and political costs of the CPEC are growing.
- The latest round of attacks is not the first, of course: In 2021, nine workers from the Dasu plant were killed in a suicide bombing, allegedly by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
- Outfits like the TTP and ISIS-K have long harboured anti-China sentiments and Baloch insurgents and the BLA see the CPEC as detrimental to their broader aspirations.
Pakistan’s security and economic challenges
- Pakistan's security issues - ranging from its conflicts with Iran and Afghanistan on its western borders to the Baloch separatist insurgency-demand more than just a military response.
- The fact is that the country's leadership has placed far too many eggs in the CPEC basket.
- The reliance on China, coupled with its prolonged economic crisis, has made Pakistan more vulnerable on multiple fronts.
How Pakistan can address its economic challenge?
- To address this vulnerability, the country needs a systemic overhaul.
- The first step should be to open up and diversify the economy.
- Opening up trade ties with India could send a much-needed signal: It would indicate a much-needed level of maturity on the part of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
- It would display to the global community that Pakistan's leadership has the capacity to keep parochial political rhetoric in its place for the sake of the economy.
- A more broad-based economy is an end in itself.
- But it will also make Pakistan safer - as things stand, CPEC sites and personnel are prime targets as a disruption to the project has the potential to trigger a larger instability.
Conclusion: The spate of attacks in and around strategic sites, and deaths of Chinese civilians, expose CPEC's and Pakistan's vulnerability. Pakistan needs to undertake a total overhaul of its political economy, decrease rhetoric on its relations with India, and behave like a normal country.