4 IR and India, COVID-19 Encore with Monkeypox (1 - 15 September 2022)

In November 2020, the Modern Coach Factory at Raebareli, UP rolled out smart railway coaches that are fitted with a battery of sensors to provide a comfortable experience to passengers. The sensors monitor odour levels in toilets, check if the doors are safely closed, avoid fire outbreaks, and stop unauthorized travel using CCTV cameras with face recognition capabilities, among other technologies.

4IR and India

  • In May 2020, the Union Ministry of Heavy Industries launched the Smart Advanced Manufacturing and Rapid Transformation Hub (SAMARTH) scheme, which brings together manufacturers, vendors, and customers for making them aware of 4IR technologies.
  • India has a 4IR centre in Mumbai run by WEF, working closely with several state governments.
  • The Centre has recently come up with the Fourth Industrial Revolution for Sustainable Transformation (FIRST) Cancer Care model in which 4IR technologies would be used to provide better healthcare for cancer patients.
  • India is also exploring digital twin technology for creating models which means creating a highly complex virtual model that is the exact counterpart (or twin) of a physical thing, which can be anything from a car, building or even a person.
  • On February 9,2022, the Union Minister of State for Science and Technology launched the pan India 3D maps programme by Genesys International for the 100 smart cities. The company plans to map an entire city in intricate detail so that many 4IR revolution technology-based projects, such as driverless cars, will become easier to implement. It is also the first step towards completely connected living as envisioned under 4IR.

Problems Galore

  • While India is embracing 4IR technologies, like most other countries, is also experiencing pushback from the people.
  • The immediate fear is that of job loss, particularly in the informal sector.
  • There are also concerns that as India progresses on the journey of 4IR, machines and technology will take over many white-collar jobs across sectors as well.
  • In India, temporary and contractual jobs are already increasing at a higher rate than full-time jobs. So, the advent of 4IR technologies would disrupt the entire job market according to assistant professor at the Centre for Labour Studies and Social Protection at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Guwahati.
  • The employees of the Indian Railways have already started protesting the introduction of vending machines for ticket dispensation at stations and the general automation of maintenance of train tracks.
  • With 1.4 million jobs, the Indian Railways is the largest employer in India and the eighth largest in the world, and most of those jobs are now at risk.
  • According to experts, as the technologies mature, the demand for the jobs that are currently in hot demand to implement 4IR, such as artificial intelligence engineers, data scientists and robot maintenance workers, will also shrink.
  • The adoption of 4IR technologies is also going to be skewed as developing and least developed countries lack the data framework and infrastructure.
  • Besides joblessness, there are several other critical concerns surrounding safety, ethics and the short and long-term socio-economic impact that remain unanswered.
  • Various airlines flagged their safety concerns to the federal authorities in the US at the last moment, creating panic.
  • 5G technology (and later 6G) is one of the engines that will propel the 4IR forward.
  • The health and environmental concerns around 5G have also not been sufficiently addressed.
  • There are a lot more technologies that have already been developed or are in the process of being developed with a lot greater concerns and issues, especially in developing and underdeveloped countries.

Supporters of 4IR

  • The supporters say job losses will be temporary as new opportunities that are currently unknown will emerge.
  • They cite the example of the third industrial revolution, which triggered widespread job losses in manufacturing.
  • Over time, the services sector evolved and created new job opportunities for many.
  • People will have more time to indulge in leisure, the arts will take over from the sciences and other disciplines in providing humans with work.

COVID-19 Encore with Monkeypox

  • A familiar pattern is emerging in the battle against monkeypox with the US and Europe grabbing scarce vaccine supplies.
  • Africa has to be the priority in the monkeypox emergency. But there is no strategy in place to tackle the crisis on the continent.
  • Monekypox is a viral infection that has been endemic in about a dozen countries in Africa for several years now.
  • According to media reports, there has been an epidemic in Nigeria since 2017, with more than 200 confirmed and over 500 suspected cases, according to media reports.
  • In 2018, Nigerian scientists had warned that the virus had changed its behaviour and was spreading not from animals but from humans to humans.
  • Reports say that over 31 million doses of the smallpox vaccine, which also provides protection against monkeypox, had earlier been pledged to Africa.
  • But the vaccines were never deployed against monkeypox to African countries.
  • Bavarian Nordic, a Danish company, holds the patent for Jynneos, the only vaccine approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency for monkeypox.
  • Bavarian Nordic՚s European vaccine production line has not been closed since spring and will not reopen until later this year, according to a company investor filing in May.
  • Nearly 90% of the stock of roughly 16 million doses of the vaccine that are reported to be available is in bulk form, according to WHO.
  • Of the remainder, the biggest chunk of 1 - 1.4 million doses has been taken by the US, which has financed the development of the vaccine, according to global health analytics firm Airfinity.
  • Germany and the UK are said to have secured between 40,000 and 54,000 doses each.
  • Monkeypox is spreading rapidly and at the last count there were 39,000 reported cases in 95 countries.
  • The stark inequities in the global health system that the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted are being thrown into sharp relief once again by monkeypox.

Examrace Team at Mar 21, 2023