PERMANENT LOSS

THE KASHMIR valley owes much of its fortune to the plateau-like landforms that remain tucked away in the folds of the surrounding mountains, particularly the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas that borders the valley on the southwest. Known as karewa, these plateaus are 13,00018,000 m-thick deposits of alluvial soil and sediments like sandstone and mudstone. This makes them ideal for cultivation of saffron, almonds, apples and several other cash crops. Kashmir saffron, which received a Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2020 for its longer and thicker stigmas, deep-red colour, high aroma and bitter flavour, is grown on these karewas.

The fertility of these patches is believed to be the result of their long history of formation. When formed during the Pleistocene period (2.6 million years to 11,700 years ago), the Pir Panjal range blocked the natural drainage in the region and formed a lake spanning 5,000 sq km (roughly three times the size of Delhi). Over the next few centuries, the water receded, making way for the valley and the formation of the karewas between the mountains. Today, the karewa sediments not only hold fossils and remnants of many human civilisations and habitations, but are also the most fertile spots in the valley.

Despite its agricultural and archaeological importance, karewas are now being excavated to be used in construction. Between 1995 and 2005, massive portions of karewas in Pulwama, Budgam and Baramulla districts were razed to the ground for clay for the 125-km-long Qazigund-Baramulla rail line. The Srinagar airport is built on the Damodar karewa in Budgam. The most recent violation took place on December 6, 2021, when the Baramulla deputy commissioner gave consent for the excavation of karewas around Pattan village and use the clay for the construction of the Srinagar ring road. Two other karewas—in Pulwama and Budgam districts—are also being excavated for the 58-km-long project (see 'Poor call',

Access to large amounts of soil for development projects is difficult in the valley because of its topography and physiology. At the highest elevation are mountain ranges that are predominantly made up of hard rocks. At the lowest point lies the valley, where the groundwater table is extremely close to the surface (6-9 m). Karewas, as a result, are an easy target due to their soil thickness.

Each karewa runs for several kilometres. While most of the patches are owned by individuals who use them for farming, some belong to the government; these are locally called and are used for grazing. “We have failed to

Instead of destroying karewas, the government should desilt the Wular lake and its flood channel and use the clay to build Srinagar ring road

Sarai Danger Pora

Ranbirgarh

Narbal

Jammu and Kashmir Minor Mineral (Storage, Transportation of Minerals and Prevention of Illegal Mining) Rules, 2016. “The panchayat needs to give consent for minor mineral mining. The order has conveniently bypassed this,” says Rather. The December 6, 2021, order, accessed by grants permission to the lifting of clay, a minor mineral, from Pattan after consent from land owners.

Wathora

THERE ARE signs of a stirring at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to reinforce the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. Fifteen long months after South Africa and India first proposed that WTO keep in abeyance its TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement that protects intellectual property rights (IPRs) so medicines, vaccines and diagnostics to fight the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be manufactured freely, the body suddenly appears to be in a hurry to arrive at a deal on the contentious plan.

In mid-January, WTO’s general council held a meeting in response to India’s call to hold a virtual ministerial conference to discuss the waiver. This could have been a reaction to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of the virus and its subsets across the US, Europe and India. Reports from Brussels speak of secret parleys in Geneva involving the EU, US, India and South Africa at a senior political level, to thrash out a deal on the proposal that has been moribund since October 2020.

The waiver will allow generic manufacturers to override IPRs on medical products, especially vaccines, and make these available sufficiently across geographic locations at a much cheaper cost. This has become an imperative since Big Pharma, in particular Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, has been supplying its costly vaccines to rich nations and leaving the populations of poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America majorly unprotected. Experts say the new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus have emerged on account of this.

WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala appears to have done a turnaround on her initial stand that a TRIPS waiver was not necessary, which became apparent when she suggested a “third way” to bridge the COVID-19

vaccine shortfall based on more licensing agreements (see ‘WTO chief brushes aside TRIPS

waiver’, 1-15 April, 2021). She has now urged member countries to urgently step up efforts reach a compromise agreement. What this entails is cloaked in uncertainty since the plurilateral negotiations are being held away from public view.

India appears to be keen to conclude a pact now, implying that it is ready to make the compromises that the EU and the US have been pressing for. “I think we should really move with all speed to try and conclude

this by the end of February,” Okonjo-Iweala said in a statement.

This seems a distinct possibility, since WTO scheduled to hold a technical workshop to support the discussions around COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing and distribution, with representatives of some top vaccine makers scheduled to speak.

India’s on-off diplomacy and the lack of a sustained campaign in 2021 have not helped matters, leading to speculation that the Union government was using the waiver proposal as a bargaining chip for trade gains elsewhere. Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has made periodic statements calling for the waiver, the latest being towards the end of January when he said that a successful resolution of the proposal should be at the core of the global response to the pandemic, as “both a health and moral imperative for all of us”.

Yet, suspicions remain about where India’s real interests lie. It has turned its back resolutely on issuing compulsory licences (CLs) for life-saving drugs, having assured major Western trade partners that it will not be deploying the option that is one of the flexibilities enshrined in the TRIPS agreement. The country’s credentials have also been dented over the past year as it failed to share the know-how for its home-grown vaccine Covaxin, in which public research laboratories played a key role. This has been a signal failure, an omission that has left many wondering, especially in Africa, about India’s

The Modi government’s refusal to license the vaccine even to its own public sector manufacturing units raises many questions. Such a move would have allowed the country to increase supplies of much-needed jabs both at home and for supply to low-income countries elsewhere. Its ban on exports of vaccines in the wake of the huge surge in COVID-19 cases during the second wave last year meant a major shortfall in promised supplies to the World Health Organization’s global vaccine sharing facility, COVAX. To date, the government has done is nothing to share the IP of its own vaccine. This smacks of hypocrisy, reviving long-standing doubts about where India’s interests diverge from those of other developing countries on several critical issues.

Clearly, this is not the India of the HIV-AIDS pandemic era, which appeared on the global scene as an intrepid challenger to the monopolistic cartel of multinational drug giants and their predatory pricing of the urgently needed life-saving medicines. Nor is its pharma industry the same one that provided life-saving drugs to Africa and to other parts of the world where the disease was wreaking havoc. As this column has been pointing out, India’s generic companies have all opted for the safe and easy route of being contract manufacturers to Big Pharma, content with the risk-free and assured profits bestowed by voluntary licences. Even Yusuf Hamied of Cipla, the daring knight exemplar of generic production, is no longer a challenger. The man who stunned the world by producing life-saving drugs at a fraction of the original cost, today dismisses the idea of CLs. Cipla is a spent warrior of the good fight against exploitative drug majors, having joined the queue for the voluntary licence handouts.

This pattern has been reinforced during the COVID-19 pandemic, by both industry and the government. In addition to the export ban on vaccines that has ensured adequate supplies at home, there is the promise of supplies from foreign vaccines that have been given approval for emergency use. The waiver has become almost unnecessary for India. In the case of therapeutics, too, voluntary licences granted by the originator companies have rendered the waiver very nearly superfluous. That may be the reason why reports from Brussels hint at excluding India—and China—from the waiver that may apply only to certain geographies like Africa. India will have to decide what is in its national interest and what it envisages as its global role. Can it really continue to be the "pharmacy of the world" as it was once described?

India's on-off diplomacy and lacklustre campaign for TRIPS waiver have led to speculation about its real intentions on the proposal