23/04/2020
BENGALURU (Reuters) – The Indian economy is likely to suffer its worst quarter since the mid-1990s, hit by the ongoing lockdown imposed to stem the spread of coronavirus, according to a Reuters poll, which predicted a mild and gradual recovery.
Over 2.6 million people tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 have been infected by the coronavirus worldwide and more than 180,000 have died. Business and household lockdowns have disrupted supply chains globally, bringing growth to a halt.
The April 17-22 Reuters poll predicted the economy expanded at an annual pace of 3.0% last quarter but will shrink 5.2% in the three months ending in June, far weaker than expectations in a poll published last month for 4.0% and 2.0% growth, respectively.
The predicted contraction would be the first – under any gross domestic product calculation, which has changed a few times – since the mid-1990s, when official reporting for quarterly data began.
“The extended lockdown until early May adds further downside risk to our view of a 5% year-on-year GDP fall in the current quarter, the worst in the last few decades,” said Prakash Sakpal, Asia economist at ING.
“We don’t consider economic stimulus as strong enough to position the economy for a speedy recovery once the pandemic ends,” he said.
(Graphic: Reuters poll graphic on coronavirus impact on the Indian economy IMAGE link: here)
The Indian government announced a spending package of 1.7 trillion rupees in March to cushion the economy from the initial lockdown, which has been extended until May 3.
In an emergency meeting last week, the Reserve Bank of India cut its deposit rate again, after reducing it on March 27 and lowering the main policy rate by 75 basis points. It also announced another round of targeted long-term repo operations to ease liquidity.
But even with those measures, 40% of economists, or 13 of 32 – who provided quarterly figures – predicted an outright recession this year. Only one had expected a recession last month.
In the worst case, a smaller sample of respondents predicted, the economy would contract 9.3% in the current quarter. That compares with 0.5% growth in the previous poll’s worst-case forecast in late March, underscoring how rapidly the outlook has deteriorated.
The latest poll’s consensus view still shows the economy recovering again slowly in the July-September quarter, growing 0.8%, then 4.2% in October-December and 6.0% in the final quarter of the fiscal year, in early 2021.
But that compares with considerably more optimistic near-term forecasts of 3.3%, 5.0% and 5.6%, respectively, in the previous poll.
“A rebound in economic activity following the disruption is expected, but the low starting point of growth implies a gradual recovery,” said Upasana Chachra, chief India economist at Morgan Stanley.
“Indeed, before disruptions related to COVID-19, growth was slowing, with domestic issues of risk aversion in financial sector … (and) those concerns will likely stay after the COVID-19 disruptions have passed unless the policy response is much larger than expected,” she said.
The unemployment rate has tripled to 23.8% since the lockdown started on March 25, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a Mumbai-based research firm.
The Indian economy was now forecast to expand 1.5% in the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2021 – the weakest since 1991 and significantly lower than 3.6% predicted in late March. It probably grew 4.6% in the fiscal year that just ended.
Under a worst-case scenario, the median showed the economy shrinking 1.0% this fiscal year. That would be the first officially reported economic contraction for a 12-month period since GDP was reported to have contracted for calendar year 1979.
“Unless fiscal policy is also loosened aggressively alongside monetary policy, there is a big risk the drastic economic slowdown currently underway morphs into an annual contraction in output and that the recovery is hampered,” said Shilan Shah, senior India economist at Capital Economics.
All 37 economists who answered a separate question unanimously said the RBI would follow up with more easing, including lowering the repo and reverse repo rates and expanding the new long-term loans programme.
The RBI was expected to cut its repo rate by another 40 basis points to 4.00% by the end of this quarter. Already lowered twice over the past month by a cumulative 115 basis points, the reverse repo rate was forecast to be trimmed by another 25 points by end-June to 3.50%.
Source: Reuters
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21/03/2020
WUHAN, March 20 (Xinhua) — The central Chinese city of Wuhan, hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, will reopen commercial outlets to residents in an orderly manner, local authorities said late Friday.
Commercial outlets in residential communities and villages without existing confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases can resume business, according to the Wuhan municipal bureau of commerce.
Those outlets mainly include supermarkets, convenience stores, fresh food shops, fruit and vegetable shops and others that supply daily necessities.
Each household can send one person a day to go shopping with a one-time pass certificate or an electronic health code. Each shopping trip will be limited to within two hours.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in Business, commercial outlets, convenience stores, coronavirus outbreak, COVID-19 cases, electronic health code, fresh food shops, fruit and vegetable shops, Household, municipal bureau of commerce, one person, one-time pass certificate, reopen, residential communities, supermarkets, Uncategorized, Wuhan |
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15/03/2020
WUHAN, March 14 (Xinhua) — Temporary treating centers converted from public facilities have played a key role in curbing the spread of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the epicenter of the epidemic outbreak, a medical expert said.
The experience in setting up temporary hospitals in Wuhan should be drawn on in the future and could help other countries fight the pandemic of COVID-19, Wang Chen, a respiratory disease specialist and vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told Xinhua in a recent interview.
The hospitals were converted from public venues such as exhibition centers and gymnasiums in early February in an effort to treat patients with mild symptoms and isolate the source of infections amid strained medical resources.
Over more than a month, the 16 temporary hospitals have received more than 12,000 patients until the last two of them were shut down Tuesday as the city sees more patients recover and a sharp drop in the number of new infection cases, according to Wang.
The temporary hospitals were set up in Wuhan at the grimmest moment of its fight against the virus, when medical institutions were overwhelmed by an influx of patients and over 10,000 infected patients were unable to receive proper medical treatment, Wang said.
Under the principle of “leaving no patients unattended” established by Chinese central authorities, these hospitals have performed three major functions — isolation, treatment and monitoring, Wang said.
“These hospitals can keep patients under quarantine to block household and social contacts, offer proper treatments to patients with mild symptoms and monitor their conditions in case of exacerbation,” he added.
“One of the characteristics of COVID-19 is that most patients have mild symptoms, but they need proper treatments to avoid possible exacerbation. And the key is to keep them isolated to stem the spread of the virus,” said Wang, explaining why temporary hospitals are important to curbing the epidemic in Wuhan.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in "leaving no patients unattended", COVID-19, curbing, epicenter, epidemic outbreak, gymnasiums, Household, key role, monitoring, pandemic, play, public venues, quarantine, respiratory disease specialist, social contacts, spread, temporary hospitals, treatment, Uncategorized, Virus, Wuhan, Xinhua |
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08/03/2020
- Matriarchal and matrilineal communities centred around women have existed for centuries in China, India and Indonesia
- But a recent influx of tourism, technology and mainstream patriarchal ideas is rapidly changing their way of life
Khasi women leave their village of Nongtraw in India’s northeastern Meghalaya state to collect herbs from the fields. Photo: AFP
W
hile women’s rights may have become a major topic of discussion around the world in recent years, there are female-centric communities that for centuries have distinguished themselves by carving out their own feminist traditions in places such as
China,
India
and
Indonesia.
But many of these matriarchal and matrilineal societies are now struggling to survive, amid threats posed by the modern world such as mass
tourism,
technology and the infiltration of ideas from mainstream patriarchal society.
In China, for instance, there is a small Mosuo tribe known as the “kingdom of women”.
“Key to the Mosuo culture is their matrilineal family structure, with a basic building block of only members sharing the same female bloodline making up the family … Any male bloodline is not taken into account,” says Choo Waihong, a former Singaporean corporate lawyer who has researched the community for the past decade.
Lugu Lake in China’s Yunnan province is home to the Mosuo tribe. Photo: hemis.fr
At the top of the hierarchy is the grandmother, who is the head of the household. “Her daughters run the home and look after all the children of the female siblings … The sons and grandsons are expected in their supporting role to shoulder the manual tasks required to maintain the farmstead,” Choo says.
Researchers say that there are about 30,000 to 40,000 Mosuo people – most of whom live in the far eastern foothills of the Himalayas in Yunnan, southwest China. This unique community has come together in a series of villages dotted around a mountain and Lugu Lake, while growing numbers have moved out to work in larger towns and cities elsewhere in the country.
According to Choo, author of the book The Kingdom of Women: Life, Love and Death in China’s Hidden Mountains, the most distinctive facet of this community that sets it apart from mainstream society is the absence of formal marriage arrangements between men and women. Instead, they have “walking marriages”, where the man goes to the woman’s home, spends the night with her and then leaves the following morning.
The Kingdom of Women: China’s ‘lost tribe’ of matriarchs, the Mosuo
15 Mar 2017
The couple can choose to have a temporary or even a permanent arrangement as partners, but they are not bound by marriage ties. If they have children, the baby belongs to the woman’s household. “In fact, the man is not considered part of the matrilineal family and his ties to the baby do not determine the social place of the baby,” the researcher says.
Such a society, where women are not subjected to men and sexual freedom is an intrinsic part of their culture, is so radically different from mainstream patriarchal family structures that the Mosuo tribe has been examined and studied over time. More recently, its unique features have also become an eye-catching selling point for the local tourism industry.
TOURISM INDUSTRY
The Mosuo tribe used to live off the land by farming, herding and hunting. But many families now rely on tourism after the tribe’s culture and Lugu Lake became more popular and widely known.
“Tour buses on fancy freeways and planes arriving at a new airport bring more and more tourists daily to turn the whole area into a busy travel playground,” Choo says. “Every household around the lake is involved one way or another with the hotel, restaurant and tour guide industries.”
While the tourism industry has brought money and better food for most families as well more access to educational opportunities for their children, it is also posing a serious threat to their culture and traditional ways of life.
“The greatest challenge for the tribe is their rapid transition from living a rudimentary subsistence farming way of life right into a burgeoning modern middle-class existence within a short span of 20 or so years,” Choo says.
Mosuo people pictured at a wedding ceremony with an all-meat feast in 2013. Photo: Shutterstock
The Mosuo are now being bombarded not only by mainstream traditional Chinese values, but also by new economic values connected to money and the digital economy. “That is a lot to take in for people who had no writing to support their oral language … and only had primary schools for their children not so long ago,” she says.
Older Mosuo are now being pushed to learn Mandarin in order to keep up with the younger generations.
At the same time, the researcher says, “their long-held cultural beliefs and principles are evolving as the young generation gets exposed to the outside world and start to question the old ways of doing things.”
How life is changing for Thailand’s Karen tribe
Walking marriages are not as common, with more youngsters getting married and forming nuclear families. “Large matrilineal families which were the norm are now breaking up into smaller nuclear families. All this dilutes the traditional matrilineal Mosuo family structure,” Choo says.
“The central place of the female in old Mosuo society is slowly being affected, as the male Mosuo are beginning to entertain some patriarchal outlook in the face of outside cultural influences.”
China may have radically reinvented itself in recent decades, but the changes to the Mosuo tribe have been nearly as dramatic. “The world of the Mosuo when I first ventured into their midst 12 years ago is a distant past as I look [today in 2020] at how they have changed,” Choo says.
PATRIARCHY IN DISGUISE
There are dozens of female-centric communities scattered around the world. The Garo and Khasi tribes, which are also traditionally matrilineal societies, can be found mostly in India.
In a Khasi family, the youngest daughter inherits the ancestral property, while in the Garo community, women also inherit property, but don’t necessarily have to be the youngest daughter of the family.
Caroline Marak, former head of the Garo Department at the North Eastern Hill University in India, says that the Garo are female-oriented, but not female-dominated. Women “have no part in the field of administration decision-making”, she wrote in an academic paper.
In recent years, the husbands of Garo women who are property owners have had a greater say over land deals, such as with government. “We are now trying to reclaim our rights from the males,” says Sume Sangma, secretary of the Garo Mothers Union NGO. “Women in the community are self-reliant and we are fighting for their real power.”
Khasi women wash leaves for cooking in the village of Nongtraw in India’s north-eastern Meghalaya state. Photo: AFP
Tiplut Nongbri, from the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research at the Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, also says women don’t have much authority in Garo and Khasi societies. “Patriarchy is in disguise in both the communities. The societies are matrilineal only as far as descent, residence and inheritance of property are concerned,” she says. “Women are not allowed to take part in politics.”
RG Lyngdoh, former home minister of Meghalaya – the hilly state in north-eastern India where both communities are based – says inward migration and the presence of Christian missionaries in the state have affected traditional lifestyles. “The old practices of equity between males and females have eroded,” Lyngdoh says.
“This has led to a perception of inadequacy among the males, [creating] discord within the family, which found expression in many negative ways, such as domestic violence and abandonment of wives, which never existed within the Khasi community.”
Gertrude Lamare, a member of the Khasi-Jaintia community now pursuing her PhD in anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, argues that “with families becoming more nuclear, women do have a huge role in the decision-making process”.
A Khasi woman walks in the rain with children past a paddy field along the Assam-Meghalaya state border in India. Photo: AP
Researchers have estimated that there are 1 million Garo in India and
, and 1.7 million Khasi in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills.
Some of them have become increasingly wary of outsiders preying on their natural resources, which are dwindling, thanks to deforestation and climate change.
Another challenge these communities are facing has to do with the growing trend of mixed marriages. “In recent years, children of a Khasi or Garo mother and non-tribal father [have] not [been] welcomed. The males in the family want their women to marry within the tribal community,” researcher Nongbri says, noting that younger generations are going through an identity crisis.
STILL PROUD
The world’s largest known matrilineal society today is believed to be in Indonesia: the Minangkabau, also known as Minang. Their community of about 8 million is scattered around the world, but most are in Indonesia’s West Sumatra province. While traditionally animist, they were later influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism, and most have since embraced Islam.
But much like the others, their community is also changing.
Nursyirwan Effendi, dean of the Faculty of Social and Political Science at Andalas University, says that many of those who remain in villages and rural areas still hold tight to the tribe’s values.
“Women are central in the distribution of assets, such as rice fields, gardens and [houses], from their ancestors,” he says.
Dancers pose during the 2018 Minangkabau art and culture festival in Batusangkar, West Sumatra. Photo: AFP
Traditionally, Minangkabau women play an essential role in their children’s education and hold inheritance rights, while men are expected to take jobs elsewhere and occupy political and religious positions. When they do get married, the man moves to the woman’s house.
But Nursyirwan, who is of Minangkabau descent, notes that many have left for bigger cities, where they do not closely follow the community’s traditions.
An example of this is Afrianto Sikumbang, a 53-year-old businessman who was born to Minangkabau parents in West Sumatra province but now lives in the capital, Jakarta. Although he married a Minangkabau woman, he says they “don’t really apply” the tribe’s values in their daily life.
Sonya Anggraini, 35, who also works in the capital, has got used to city life, but remains proud of her ancestral roots and hopes that Minangkabau culture will persist for years to come.
“I am a member of my mother’s family, not of my father’s,” she says. ■
Source: SCMP
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29/09/2019
- Millions of Chinese children are raised by their grandparents but some seniors are demanding compensation
For generations in China grandparents have provided childcare, but some are no longer willing to do so for free. Photo: Shutterstock
The traditional role of grandparents in caring for China’s children has been called into question with two recent lawsuits sparking debate about whether seniors should be paid for their efforts.
Two grandmothers took their demands for compensation to court in separate cases which have highlighted the reliance of Chinese workers on their parents to provide childcare while they pursue professional advancement.
A woman in Mianyang, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, was awarded more than 68,000 yuan (US$9,500) by a local court after she sued her son and daughter-in-law for the costs of raising her nine-year-old grandchild, according to Red Star News.
The woman, identified only by her surname Wang, had been the child’s full-time carer for eight years after his parents left home to seek better-paid jobs elsewhere. Wang said she had taken care of most of her grandson’s living expenses and had decided to seek compensation when his parents said they were considering a divorce.
They should respect our contribution. Grandmother Wang, Sichuan province
“I only want to let them know through this lawsuit that it’s their obligation to raise their children,” she was reported as saying. “The young ones should not take it for granted that old people ought to look after their grandchildren. They should respect our contribution.”
Despite winning the case, she has not received a penny and the boy still lives with her.
In another case, three months ago, a Beijing court supported a woman’s demand for compensation for helping to raise her granddaughter since her birth in 2002.
The stories of the two women generated a public reflection on the Chinese way of childcare which, for generations, has involved leaving most – if not all – of the burden on grandparents.
One of 60 million: life as a ‘left-behind’ child in China
From a cultural perspective, it has been a matter of course in a country with a long history of several generations living under one roof, for grandparents to participate in child rearing, according to Xu Anqi, a researcher specialising in family studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
“Today, as people face fierce competition and great pressure from work, it’s still common to rely on their old parents to look after their children,” she said.
While rapid urbanisation in recent decades has broken up multi-generational households, Chinese elderly still take an active role in child rearing, with many relocating to their children’s cities to take on the job.
Millions more families do it the other way round – with parents leaving children in their hometown with the grandparents while they seek better paying jobs in the cities. In August last year, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, China had nearly 7 million “left behind kids”, as they are known.
My little granddaughter is adorable, and generally I enjoy doing all this.Li Xiujuan, grandmother
“Many grandmothers like me would joke that we are ‘unpaid nannies’, but at the same time we feel it’s our responsibility to help them out – they would be in financial stress if one of them quit or they hired a nanny,” said Li Xiujuan, who relocated from her hometown in the central province of Henan to Shanghai two years ago to help look after her granddaughter.
“I’m a 24-hour nanny for my grandkid. I prepare food for her, wash her clothes, attend early childhood classes with her, take her for a walk in the park twice a day, sleep beside her at noon and night …” she said.
“I never cared for my daughter when she was little like I do her daughter now. You know, it was also her grandmother who mainly took care of her daily life when she was young,” Li said, laughing.
“My little granddaughter is adorable, and generally I enjoy doing all this. The hard part is that I miss my friends and relatives back home. We don’t have friends here. I have plenty of things to do at home, but here, nothing but babysitting. People are polite, but it’s difficult to make new friends,” she said.
‘Left behind’ sisters cry when parents leave home to go to work
In a 2017 study of about 3,600 households in six major cities including Beijing and Guangzhou, the Chinese Society of Education found almost 80 per cent of surveyed households had at least one grandparent as carer before children began primary school.
The study also showed that 60 per cent of parents still relied on help from grandparents after children were old enough for primary school at the age of six.
Whether grandparents should be compensated for their efforts split a poll of 49,000 users conducted by social media platform Weibo in late June, with half believing that the older generation should be paid for raising their grandchildren. Only 2.3 per cent said babysitting grandchildren was “an unalterable principle” for the elderly.
“This arrangement could be well managed and improve blood ties if children reward the elderly in their own ways, such as sending gifts on holidays and taking them on trips,” Shanghai researcher Xu said.
I think what they need more is words of appreciation, which many of us have neglected. David Dai, Beijing parent
Grandmother Li agreed: “I think regular payment is a little awkward, but I do expect some kind of reward, like cash gifts on festivals and daily necessities as presents.”
David Dai, a 30-year-old white collar worker in Beijing, said how to reward grandparents for their contribution depended on the financial situation of each household.
“My parents are farmers – they are in good shape and not so old – in their late 50s, and if they didn’t come all the way from my hometown in Anhui to Beijing to look after my son, they would still be taking some odd jobs,” he said.
“Therefore, besides covering their living costs at my place, I give them cash gifts on their birthdays, the Spring Festival and other important occasions, because babysitting their grandchild means they lose the opportunity to work,” he added.
“In some families, the grandparents might have retired and have a good pension. They don’t lack money and enjoy spending time with their grandkids. I don’t think they need to be paid. I think what they need more is words of appreciation, which many of us have neglected,” Dai said.
China boosts childcare and maternal health services in bid to lift birth rate
But for those who never show any gratitude, their parents have every reason not to offer child rearing help or to demand payment, Xu said.
Zhang Tao, a lawyer at the Hiways Law Firm in Shanghai, noted that as long as at least one parent of a child was living, the grandparents had no obligation to help with childcare.
“The grandparents should be compensated for the money they have paid for the child’s education, medical fees, and accommodation from the beneficiary,” he said.
But whether they should be paid has become the latest controversy as more grandparents find it a burden.
Source: SCMP
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CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 
