Monday, January 7, 2019

Campaign journalism needs an overhaul. Here’s one radical idea.

Elizabeth Warren kicked off the 2020 campaign in Iowa. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg)

By Margaret Sullivan-Media columnist-January 7 at 11:47 AM

As the new year dawned, the top editor at the Associated Press — one of the most influential journalists in the country, though hers is not a household name — was making a resolution.

“We should all resolve to spend less time, or perhaps no time at all, on horse race polls that project forward to the 2020 presidential election,” Sally Buzbee said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

The Atlantic’s James Fallows responded to her pledge by tweeting a resounding amen: “No poll right now is worth anything. Who ‘should’ run? Anyone who wants to try. The best way to tell who’s ‘likable’/‘electable’ is to listen to them and see how primaries turn out.”

Buzbee herself said she doubted news organizations, including the AP, would heed her words.

As the presidential election season kicked off in earnest this month, it was obvious the media would do what it always has done: focus on personalities and electability; get distracted by gaffes and blow them way out of proportion.

And pay some attention to issues of substance, but mostly as a dutiful side dish — a moderate helping of steamed broccoli that can be shoved to the side of the plate. (I researched this in early 2016 while public editor of the New York Times; in a fairly typical two-week period, three out of every four pieces of political journalism were horse race coverage.)

You can see it happening again, already. News organizations were agog at Elizabeth Warren’s video in which she began to lay out her substantial ideas but then awkwardly declared a brief pause — “I’m gonna get me a beer.”

CBS News, among many others, found this last part newsworthy, tweeting: “Sen. Elizabeth Warren drank a beer on Instagram Live — and it received mixed reactions.” Boston Herald columnist Jaclyn Cashman (amusingly) teed off on it.

And nearly every news organization published articles on Warren’s personality and gender, comparing her to Hillary Clinton. Last Sunday’s Times featured an above-the-fold article with the headline, “Party tension: Can a Woman Defeat Trump?”

Then commentators wrote meta-pieces on all this, many readable or funny or enlightening. (Devorah Blachor in McSweeney’s was all three in a piece called “I Don’t Hate Women Candidates — I Just Hated Hillary Clinton and Now I’m Starting to Hate Elizabeth Warren.”

But none of that had much to do with acquainting voters with what Warren stands for.

The press critic and New York University professor Jay Rosen may have a better idea: What he calls the “citizens agenda.”

The gist is that the mission of pre-election coverage should not be to determine who’s going to win, but to respond intelligently to what voters want and need to know.

It’s so simple it seems absurd the reality is so far from it.

Rosen writes on his PressThink blog that one of the problems with election coverage as it stands is no one has any idea what it means to succeed at it.

“Predicting the winner? Is that success? Even if journalists could do that (and they can’t) it would not be much of a public service, would it? A very weird thing about horse race or ‘game’ coverage is it doesn’t answer to any identifiable need of the voter. Should I vote for the candidate with the best strategy for capturing my vote?”

The citizens agenda, which Rosen says was once tried to good effect by the Charlotte Observer partnering with the Poynter Institute, asks different questions: “What do you want the candidates to be discussing as they compete for votes?”

From the best answers to that everything else flows.

Rosen knows this all sounds dorky and not much fun. (And granted, people may ultimately cast their votes partly because they’d rather have a beer with one candidate over another, which is no doubt part of the reason Warren downed that beer on social media.)

For journalists, it amounts to, he writes, “civics class, as against drinks with the county chairman at the Des Moines Marriott.”

But given we’re in an extreme situation these days — with a president dismissive of democratic norms and commanding the news cycle with a wave of his hand — such ideas take on new urgency.

There may be others. Some may be under consideration or discussion even now. And we do see examples of journalism based on public interest — not just charts comparing stances on issues, but meaningful, engaging explorations of how tax or immigration policy affects real lives and pocketbooks; but they are vastly outweighed by horse race or shiny-object coverage.

Meanwhile, the clock is already ticking toward November of next year. Ticking toward what may be the most consequential election in American history, other than the last one — before which news organizations for the most part failed to serve the public interest.

You might recall.

Obsessed with polls, they still called the election wrong. They helped crown the Democratic Party’s favored nominee, Hillary Clinton, literally years before the party convention. They allowed Donald Trump to dominate coverage as he wished. In the name of “fairness,” they focused on personality flaws and relatively minor mistakes while failing to effectively drive home obvious character disasters.

The prospect of repetition is grim but, from the early signs, all too likely.

And if that makes embracing the status quo — doing things the same old way but maybe with more staff — a good idea, I can’t understand why.

For more by Margaret Sullivan visit wapo.st/sullivan

Sudan: More than 800 protesters have been arrested, minister says

Sudanese authorities have launched a crackdown on opposition leaders, activists and journalists to prevent the spread of protests

Amnesty International says 37 people have been killed during protests (Reuters)

Monday 7 January 2019 1

Sudanese authorities have arrested more than 800 demonstrators during an anti-government protest campaign over the past few weeks, Interior Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman has said.

"The total number of protesters arrested until now is 816," Osman told parliament on Monday, as reported by AFP.

This is the first official figure for detained protesters since rallies against the rule of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir began on 19 December following a hike in bread prices.

Authorities say at least 19 people, including two security personnel, have been killed in clashes during the demonstrations, but rights group Amnesty International has put the death toll at 37.

Osman told lawmakers a total of 381 protests have been reported since 19 December.

READ MORE ►

'It's more than bread': Why are protests in Sudan happening?

He also said 118 buildings were destroyed in the protests, including 18 that belonged to police, while 194 vehicles were set on fire, including 15 that belonged to international organisations.

"The demonstrations began peacefully, but some thugs with a hidden agenda used them to indulge in looting and stealing," the minister said, adding that the situation across Sudan was now "calm and stable".

On Sunday, hundreds of people gathered in the eastern town of Kassala and neighbouring villages to express their support for Bashir.

"We want Bashir as president in order to maintain security in the country," Mohameddin Issa, a resident of Kassala participating in the rally, told AFP by telephone.

"Security is the top priority, after that comes food...but I also believe that the problem of food will be solved soon."

Sunday protests

On Sunday, Sudanese security agents arrested eight professors at the University of Khartoum, as police fired tear gas on protesters to prevent demonstrators from rallying for a march towards the presidential palace.

"Police are not even allowing 10 people to gather," a witness told the AFP on Sunday.

Protests on Sunday also broke out in the city of Madani, southeast of the capital, witnesses said, with demonstrators chanting for "peace, justice, freedom".

An anti-government rally was also held in the northern town of Atbara, where the current unrest first erupted last month.

Witnesses said the local market in Atbara was shut down as protesters took to the streets.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese authorities have launched a crackdown on opposition leaders, activists and journalists to prevent the spread of protests.

The country has been facing a mounting economic crisis over the past year, after a years-long foreign currency shortage worsened last year.

The cost of some commodities, including medicines, has more than doubled and inflation has hit 70 percent.

Food and fuel shortages have been regularly reported across several cities, including Khartoum.

China Is Shooting Itself in the Foot Over Huawei

Beijing's hostage diplomacy is confirming the West's suspicions.

Chinese police patrol in front of the Canadian embassy in Beijing on December 14, 2018. (GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images)

BY LYNETTE ONG

| JANUARY 7, 2019, 9:57 AM
The conflict between the United States and China is not just a competition over economic prowess or technological might but also a clash over values—whether government power should be restrained, whether dissent is tolerated, and whether citizens are prepared to give up individual liberty for the pursuit of common good spelled out by those in power. Countries with geopolitical or economic interests tied to both of these great powers find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place.

The latest manifestation of this crossfire is the detention of two Canadian citizens by the Chinese authorities in December, in what is widely presumed to be retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, in Vancouver early that month. A Chinese court has ordered a retrial of a Canadian citizen earlier sentenced to 15 years for drug smuggling, which could result in a death sentence. Canada perceives China’s actions as a tit-for-tat strategy and a practice of hostage diplomacy.

On the other hand, the arrest of a top executive of a first-rate Chinese technology company and a source of national pride, Huawei, is widely perceived in China as Canada aiding and abetting a politically calculated U.S. strategy of containing its growth as a technology powerhouse.

China’s Global Times, a state-controlled paper, first described the action as American “hooliganism.” To the Chinese government, the United States is exercising “long-arm jurisdiction” by unfairly enforcing its domestic laws against foreign businesses and individuals. This perception of U.S. imperialism is amplified by the fact that the United States asked its ally, Canada, to make the arrest instead of doing it itself—and by rash statements from the U.S. president. And in China itself, the arrest of a rich and powerful figure would undoubtedly be political.

China argues that the United States is applying pressure on its Western allies to take its side against China in the technology war. Huawei is a leading provider of 5G technology, the next generation of telecommunications—making Huawei a promising national champion in a major field and one the United States thus has an interest in sabotaging.

The U.S. authorities have accused Meng of financial fraud and Huawei of breaking U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. Canada has an extradition treaty that imposes legal obligations on its handling of Meng. China may contend the discretionary nature of the arrest since Huawei was not the first company to have violated such sanctions. This claim may not be totally unfounded, but the United States, not Canada, drove that decision. Now that Meng is in Canada’s custody, her extradition to the United States is a decision of the Canadian court, not that of the Canadian government. Separation of powers in Canada, unlike in the Chinese Communist system, precludes the government from intervening in judicial decisions.

Those parallel views are reflected in a split Chinese-Canadian community. One segment, particularly first-generation Chinese immigrants, believes that Meng’s arrest is politically motivated and Canada is doing the dirty work of the United States. Another, more mainstream camp views the arrest as justified on legal ground and argues that Canada’s treaty obligations and judicial decisions should be respected.

Yet even if Meng’s arrest was politically motivated, China is being shortsighted. If it wants to push Huawei to be the leading contender of next-generation technology and to convince the world of its so-called peaceful rise, it is not playing its cards right. Until the detentions of Canadians by the Chinese authorities, it was still possible to make the case that technology and politics are not necessarily intertwined. While there are serious worries about data privacy in China, the records of Western firms such as Google and Facebook are looking increasingly stained. Whether Huawei could be trusted less than other companies, simply because it is a Chinese firm, was still disputable. In the meantime, Huawei, with its enormous investment in research and development, has produced superior products with very competitive pricing.

Yet China has lost its moral legitimacy by detaining Canadians at random. Why does moral legitimacy matter, one might ask? Because Huawei needs to convince the world that it is independent of Chinese Community Party politics if it wants other countries, particularly Western societies, to adopt its technology. That’s become harder and harder as Chinese laws have made the role of corporations as possible agents of the state even more explicit—but it was still possible to make the argument, thanks to the long record of independent business deals with the West. Trust is not to be coerced; it has to be cultivated over time, particularly with countries with diverse set of values. Thus, by taking the law into their own hands, the Chinese authorities are hurting—not helping—their homegrown firms. Western intelligence officers who have been making the case against Huawei should feel vindicated by the Chinese government’s actions.

In the corridors of the CIA and FBI, those who see Chinese technologies as fundamentally a threat must be smugly proclaiming, “I told you so!” This makes it much harder the job of those who try to convince their governments of judging Huawei purely on the merits of its technology and competitive pricing. Ironically, a lot of Canadians fall into the latter camp, whether or not the Chinese authorities realize it. Canada stands out as the only member of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance, all U.S. allies, not to have disavowed the use of Huawei’s technology.

China may hesitate to put pressure on the United States because it wants the truce over the trade war to last. Instead, hitting a weaker target such as Canada may have been a calculated act. However, if China is trying to convince the world of its peaceful rise or that it is a benign rising power, it needs friends, not enemies.

Why the Chinese have stopped spending

000_1BY0RQ-940x580 — A woman uses an Apple iPhone at a shopping mall in Beijing on January 3, 2019.
Apple cut its revenue outlook for the latest quarter on January 3, citing steeper-than-expected "economic deceleration" in China and emerging markets. Source: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP

By Emma Richards | 7th January 2019 | @EmmaRichards85

APPLE stock plummeted last week, hitting its lowest price level since July 2017 on Thursday, a day after slashing revenue projections in a rare acknowledgement of suffering sales. The prime culprit for the estimated shortfall was Chinese consumers – or lack thereof.

According to CNBC, the company’s losses push Apple’s market valuation below US$700 billion, placing it behind the market cap of Alphabet to become the fourth most valuable publicly traded US company — down from the top spot just two months ago.

SEE ALSO: China: Expect a Communist Party on the offensive in a year of potential unrest

Apple blamed a variety of factors for the lower sales forecast – such as people not upgrading to the new iPhone – but the blame was laid predominantly at a lack of sales in Greater China, its third biggest market after the US and Europe.

Until recently, the Chinese market was seen as a reliable spending hub, one that many global companies put their faith – and billions of dollars of investment – in the country’s continued purchasing power.

Stock numbers for Apple are displayed on a screen at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square, January 3, 2019 in New York City. U.S. stocks dropped again on Thursday after Apple warned that its first-quarter sales would be less than expected. Source: Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFP

But that consistency is starting to falter, threatening the economy and business confidence the world over.

Apple is not alone in its revenue woes. Auto sales fell by three percent in 2018 – their first decline in about two decades. While retail sales are still going up (8.1 percent in November), it is the slowest rate of growth in 15 years, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, reported by CNBC.

A recent report from The New York Times found a glut of unwanted apartments is depressing the property market, a pillar of China’s wellbeing, accounting for almost one-third of the country’s economic growth.

SEE ALSO: US-China trade war alarms wealthy Singapore

The failing property market is part of the reason Chinese families have stopped spending. Property is the largest source of wealth for many families, accounting for as much as 85 percent of a family’s assets in some cases. With property prices on the wane, people are tightening their belts.

This is happening under the cloud of mounting household debt and a government eager to encourage people to spend more on the finer things in life. To fund the aspirational middle-class lifestyle of designer wear and fancy cars, many are turning to credit cards and loans.

An aerial view of residential buildings in Tianjin, May 10, 2018. China is experiencing a glut of property which is threatening the wider economy. Source: Fred Dufour/AFP

Coupled with a struggling job market, and the strain is starting to show. According to the Times, a decline in business confidence and rising labour costs are behind falling employment figures.

The tit-for-tat trade war with the United States isn’t helping matters either. US President Donald Trump has already placed 10 percent tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods, and has threatened to increase it to 25 percent if an agreement isn’t reached during the current 90-day truce, due to end in March.

This level of uncertainty in what the future holds is causing people to be more cautious with their spending, opting for local cheaper brands over expensive Apple and Ford products.

SEE ALSO: Why 2019 will be a big year for digital marketing in China

Despite the slowdown, economists are quick to stress China’s spending is far from over. Local brands such as Huawei and Xiaomi are booming as they offer comparable customer experience at a fraction of the price tag. Services and entertainment spending are also on the rise.

But to restore consumer confidence, the ruling Communist Party needs to work on setting the economy back on the right track.

“The question is whether China can stabilise economic growth when it is facing economic headwinds,” Wei Li, senior China economist at Standard Chartered, told the Times.

“If the labour market does worsen in 2019 or if financial conditions don’t improve, if the stock market remains low, all this could weigh on consumer confidence.”

Rahaf al-Qunun: Saudi woman under UN protection as Australia urges asylum claim

Thai authorities say 18-year-old will not be forced to return with her father to the Middle East, where she claims her family will kill her

Saudi woman Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun (second left) is escorted by Thai immigration officers and UNHCR officials at the Suvarnabhumi international airport in Bangkok on Monday. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Helen Davidson-Mon 7 Jan 2019 21.53 GMT

An 18-year-old Saudi woman who barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room to prevent her forcible return to a family she claims will kill her, has been taken under the protection of the UN high commissioner for refugees in Thailand.

The Australian government said on Monday night Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun’s situation was “deeply concerning” and it had lobbied the Thai government and the UNHCR to allow her to formally claim asylum.

Qunun was detained on arrival at Bangkok and denied entry to Thailand while en route to Australia, where she said she intended to seek asylum. The Guardian confirmed on Monday Qunun had a valid three-month tourist visa for Australia, issued to her Saudi passport.

Qunun said she was abducted after arriving in Bangkok and had her passport confiscated by Saudi Arabian diplomatic staff.

She demanded access to the UNHCR and barricaded herself inside her hotel room in fear she would be forced on to a plane after Kuwait Airways officials had come to her door, but Monday’s 11.15am flight departed without her.

The head of Thailand’s immigration police, General Surachate Hakparn, had previously said Qunun would be sent back to Saudi Arabia because she was “unsafe” without a guardian in Thailand, and claimed she did not have the documentation to go on to Australia.

But late on Monday he promised she would not be deported and agreed to consult the UNCHR. He later said she had been taken to a safe house for her asylum claim to be processed.

“If she goes home it will be dangerous for her so Thailand is ready to help,” he told media. “We are working with the foreign affairs ministry and UNHCR and today we will allow her entry to Thailand. UNHCR is now taking care of her and working on her asylum claim.”

Surachate said Qunun’s father was due to arrive in Bangkok on Monday night and that officials would establish whether she wanted to return to the Middle East with him. “As of now, she does not wish to go back and we will not force her. She won’t be sent anywhere tonight,” he told reporters.
“Thailand is a land of smiles. We will not send anyone to die.”

Qunun confirmed on Twitter she was under the protection of the UNHCR and her passport had been returned.

A spokeswoman for the UNHCR, Melissa Fleming, confirmed the organisation’s Bangkok protection team was meeting Qunun.

“UNHCR has been following developments closely and immediately sought access from the Thai authorities to meet with Rahaf to assess her need for international protection,” she said.

“UNHCR consistently advocates that refugees and asylum seekers – having been confirmed or claimed to be in need of international protection – cannot be returned to their country of origin according to the principle of non-refoulement.”

She said the UNHCR could not comment on the outcome of the meeting, for confidentiality reasons.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs said it was monitoring the case closely.

“The claims made by Ms Al-Qunun that she may be harmed if returned to Saudi Arabia are deeply concerning,” a spokesman said on Monday night.

“The Australian embassy in Thailand has made representations to both the Thai government and the Bangkok office of the UNHCR to seek assurances that Ms Al-Qunun can access the UNHCR’s refugee status determination process in Thailand.”

Qunun said in a video posted on social media from inside the airport that she was trying to escape from her family because they subjected her to physical and psychological abuse. She has appealed for help from Europe, the US, Canada and Australia.

“I am Rahaf … I am in the hotel, I need a country to protect me as soon as possible. I am seeking asylum,” said Qunun, who fled Kuwait while her family was visiting the Gulf country. “My family is strict and locked me in a room for six months just for cutting my hair,” she said, adding that she was certain she would be imprisoned if sent back. “I’m sure, 100%, they will kill me as soon as I get out of the Saudi jail,” she said.

Her case has brought international attention to the obstacles women face in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom also faces intense scrutiny over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which has renewed criticism of its human rights record.

A 20-year-old friend of Qunun, whom the Guardian has chosen not to name and who recently moved from Saudi Arabia to Australia, said the threats to her were real. “She’s ex-Muslim and has a very strict family. They’re using violence with her and she faced sexual harassment,” she said. “She received a threat from her cousin – he said he wants to see her blood, he wants to kill her.

“If they didn’t kill her they couldn’t go [around in] public after this [Qunun renouncing the Muslim faith], so they have to do it,” the friend said. “It’s like: if you’re a man you should prove it. If they don’t kill her they can’t go outside and see other men.”

Qunun’s friend has lived in Australia for three months, and said she was seeking asylum there after being abused in Saudi Arabia. She said she had known Qunun for a year, after connecting with her online. “She’s an activist, she’s a feminist,” she said.

Sarah Hanson-Young, a Greens senator from South Australia, called on Australia to act quickly to issue Qunun with emergency travel documents.

Seven charts that show the world is actually becoming a better place

Julius Probst

Doctoral Researcher in Economic History, Lund University

Swedish academic Hans Rosling has identified a worrying trend: not only do many people across advanced economies have no idea that the world is becoming a much better place, but they actually even think the opposite. This is no wonder, when the news focuses on reporting catastrophes, terrorist attacks, wars and famines.

Who wants to hear about the fact that every day some 200,000 people around the world are lifted above the US$2-a-day poverty line? Or that more than 300,000 people a day get access to electricity and clean water for the first time every day? These stories of people in low-income countries simply doesn’t make for exciting news coverage. But, as Rosling pointed out in his book Factfulness, it’s important to put all the bad news in perspective.

While it is true that globalisation has put some downward pressure on middle-class wages in advanced economies in recent decades, it has also helped lift hundreds of millions of people above the global poverty line – a development that has mostly occurred in South-East Asia.

The recent rise of populism that has swept across Western countries, with Trump, Brexit, and the election of populists in Hungary and Italy, among various other factors, is thus of great concern if we care about global welfare. Globalisation is the only way forward to ensure that economic prosperity is shared among all countries and not only a select few advanced economies.

While some people glorify the past, one of the big facts of economic history is that until quite recently a significant part of the world population has lived under quite miserable conditions – and this has been true throughout most of human history. The following seven charts show how the world has become a much better place compared to just a few decades ago.

1: Life expectancy continues to rise

Even during the Industrial Revolution, average life expectancy across European countries did not exceed around 35 years. This does not imply that most people died in their late 30s or even 40s, since it was mostly very high levels of child mortality rates that pulled down the average. Women dying in childbirth was obviously a big problem too. So were some common diseases such as smallpox and the plague, for example, which now have been completely eradicated in high-income countries.

2: Child mortality continues to fall

More than a century ago, child mortality rates were still exceeding 10% – even in high-income countries such as the US and the UK. But thanks to modern medicine, and better public safety in general, this number has been reduced to almost zero in rich countries.

Plus, developing economies like India and Brazil now have much lower child mortality rates today than advanced economies had at similar income levels about one century ago.

3. Fertility rates are falling

Even though many are concerned about the global population explosion, the fact is that fertility rates have fallen significantly across the globe. UN population estimates largely expect the global population to stabilise at about 11 billion by the end of this century.

Moreover, as can be seen from the chart, many developing countries such as Brazil, China and a number of African nations have already switched to a low-fertility regime. While this transition took many advanced economies almost 100 years, starting with the Industrial Revolution, many others have since achieved this over just two to three decades.

4. GDP growth has accelerated in developed countries

Technological leaders, the US and Western Europe, have been growing at about 2% per year, on average, for the past 150 years. This means that real income levels roughly double every 36 years.

While there were many long-lasting ups and downs, like the Great Depression or the recent Great Recession, the constancy of the long-run growth rate is actually quite miraculous. Low-income countries, including China and India, have been growing at a significantly faster pace in recent decades and are quickly catching up to the West. A 10% growth rate over a prolonged period means that income levels double roughly every seven years. It is obviously good news if prosperity is more shared across the globe.

5. Global income inequality has gone down

While inequality within countries has gone up as a result of globalisation, global inequality has been on a steady downward trend for several decades. This is mostly a result of developing countries such as China and India where hundreds of millions of people have seen their living standards improve. In fact, for the first time ever since the Industrial Revolution, about half of the global population can be considered global middle class.

6. More people are living in democracies

Throughout most of human history people lived under oppressive non-democratic regimes. As of today, about half of the human population is living in a democracy. Out of those still living in autocracies, 90% are in China. While the country has recently moved in the other direction, there is reason to believe that continued economic development might eventually lead to democratisation (according to modernisation theory).

7. Conflicts are on the decline

Throughout history, the world has been riven by conflict. In fact, at least two of the world’s largest powers have been at war with each other more than 50% of the time since about 1500.

While the early 20th century was especially brutal with two world wars in rapid succession, the postwar period has been very peaceful. For the first time ever, there has been no war or conflict in Western Europe in about three generations, And international organisations including the EU and the UN have led to a more stable world.

Breakingviews - India Insight: Farmers are too big to fail

A farmer spreads fertizer mixed with potash in his paddy field on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, July 13. 2017. Picture taken July 13. 2017. REUTERS/Amit Dave

Una Galani-JANUARY 6, 2019

MUMBAI (Reuters Breakingviews) - Farmers hold the key to Narendra Modi’s second term. To stand a chance of winning a general election to be held by May, India’s prime minister is under pressure to appease those left desperate by crashing crop prices. Two-thirds of the country’s 1.3 billion people live in the countryside, and almost half of the workforce depends on agriculture. Their anger is one reason the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party was bruised in recent state polls. New Delhi may need to act fast.

One thing is painfully clear: the masses are being squeezed. Protests are getting bigger and noisier. Drought, delays in distributing government support and a 2016 ban on large banknotes have all contributed to a collapse in rural income growth from an annual pace of 18 percent in the four years to March 2014 down to 5 percent in the subsequent period, according to economists at Ambit, a local brokerage.

They point out that when rural distress coincides with national polls, the incumbent government almost always loses. Indeed, a promise to write off the borrowings of farmers helped Rahul Gandhi’s opposition Congress party unexpectedly eclipse the prime minister’s right-wing nationalist team in state elections late last year, casting doubt on Modi’s prospects of winning a second five-year term.

Loan waivers are a common feature of India’s campaign trail. Politicians on both sides have announced these to a tune of almost $25 billion since April 2017, or up to one-fifth of regional budgets, analysts at Edelweiss Securities calculate. Yet Modi is now slamming such measures as “lollipops”, or a sugar hit which doesn’t last.

The debt issue is complex. Farmers can get bank loans at lower interest rates than ordinary borrowers. However, the amounts are insufficient and so small cultivators, which make up the majority, also turn to money lenders, who charge interest up to 60 percent per an annum, almost nine times the Reserve Bank of India’s policy rate. That means official waivers alleviate only some pain: formal access to credit just gets harder and black-market obligations remain.

Yet the cost of growing fresh produce is rising, thanks to overuse of both chemicals and natural resources, which has damaged soil quality. Meanwhile, messy regulation, low levels of investment and inadequate infrastructure, including a severe shortage of cold-storage facilities, mean that most farmers don’t have direct access to consumers, and end up with scant control over price.

While many ordinary Indians and international investors are thrilled with relatively low levels of consumer price inflation, Reuters journalists Rajendra Jadhav and Mayank Bhardwaj have described farmers dumping onions on the road after prices plunged to as low as one rupee per kilogram, for a crop which costs eight times that to produce. It’s a similar story for potatoes, another staple.

The strain leads many to quit the field every day. Those that dislike their profession complain of high risks, poor income, and say they see no future. Desperation leads to other troubles: in Maharashtra, a wealthy but vast state with drought-prone areas, around 37,000 agricultural workers and farmers have ended their lives over the decade to end 2015, National Crime Records Bureau data shows.

RADICAL SOLUTION

The question then is how to make life better in the countryside. Andhra Pradesh, led by tech savvy Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, has set a target to convert the state to “zero-budget natural farming”, a technique which cuts out costly chemicals with the aim of making the occupation economically viable.

The ambitious plan is backed by French bank BNP Paribas. Also partnering with the state is the foundation of Azim Premji, the billionaire chairman of IT outsourcer Wipro. But those that have successfully made a similar switch warn any plan to give up chemicals requires substantial educational and financial support as the transition can take years.

Rajnish Kumar, the chairman of State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, argues instead of loan waivers, an income distribution scheme may be a better way to provide immediate relief. He cites an arrangement already in place in the state of Telangana, where the local government gives land-owning farmers a direct cash benefit each season to help pay for inputs. This basic income safety net may be a better bet for Modi.

Arvind Subramanian, a former economic advisor to the prime minister, argues Telangana’s scheme could evolve into something fiscally sustainable if it replaced some, or all, of New Delhi’s existing handouts, from crop insurance to fertiliser subsidies. The latter alone adds up to about 0.6 percent of GDP. It could also be progressive, he argues, if a fixed sum was contingent on simply being a farmer, rather than a per-acre payment to just landowners.

Taking the Basmati rice-producing state of Punjab as an example, Subramanian reckons that eliminating the fertiliser and power subsidy would finance the annual transfer of 50,000 rupees ($721) to every agricultural worker, or roughly one third of the estimated median agricultural household income in the state in 2013.

The ultimate, long-term solution is to make farming sustainable, and to have fewer farmers.
Currently, almost half of the workforce is dependent on an industry generating barely 17 percent of GDP, with labour productivity less than one third of China’s. That structural imbalance is arguably the most worrying employment statistic for a young and growing population that needs a million new jobs a month. Handouts will help win an election. Afterwards, India’s rural masses will still need tending.