The UK and India have announced a new enhanced deal on trade at a virtual summit. The deal aims to double trade between the two countries by 2030 and declares their joint commitment to start working towards a comprehensive free-trade agreement, for which discussions are due to commence in the autumn.

Britain and India announced £1 billion of new trade and investment as part of this new Enhanced Trade Partnership. Indian investments worth £533 million will be made in Britain, including £240 million by the Serum Institute for production of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines and sales business. At the same time, £446 million worth of export deals were announced by British businesses in India. This builds on a trade relationship that was already worth £25.5 billion in 2019.

At the summit the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, also launched a Roadmap 2030 to expand and deepen bilateral cooperation in five areas: people-to-people relationships, trade and prosperity, defence and security, climate action and healthcare cooperation.

Deeper ties

The new deal is expected to generate additional employment in both countries, grow bilateral trade and unlock new opportunities in sectors such as food and drink, business services such as law and accounting, advanced engineering, defence, education, energy, life sciences and healthcare. It will also reduce barriers, both tariff and non-tariff, for businesses at a time when the prospects for global growth after the COVID-19 pandemic remain uncertain.

The deal is particularly interesting due to its size and intended scope. The UK and India are the 5th and 6th biggest economies in the world. India is the largest single market, of about 1.4 billion people, that the UK has committed to negotiating a free-trade deal with to date.

India is Britain’s sixth-largest non-EU trading partner, whereas Britain is barely inside India’s top 20. This points to significant scope for growth on both sides. Once agreed, the free-trade deal is likely to be extremely significant, fostering innovation and technology cooperation as well as skills transfer and knowledge-sharing between the two nations.

At present, however, India is facing a particularly devastating health threat following the latest outbreak of COVID-19. The UK government and the diaspora have been supporting India with things like ventilators, oxygen generation units and a clinical advisory group, but the subcontinent is so large and populous that there is only so much that can be achieved.

The new agreement can potentially help by easing the pain of economic contraction for India in 2021, while supporting both partners as they commence rebuilding efforts to recover from the pandemic.

Britain and the Indo-Pacific

The deal will likely strengthen the geopolitical positions of both nations in a part of the world that is dominated by China. The UK’s recent Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy articulated the importance of an Indo-Pacific region with “open societies”.

The UK signalled a willingness in the review to play a larger role in the region, committing to a larger naval presence to ensure freedom of navigation. It has applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a free-trade bloc of 11 Pacific nations including Japan, Australia and Canada.

The UK has also become an official dialogue partner of the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam. All this, including the trade deal with India, seeks to help the UK to “unlock opportunities in the region” and establish an outward-looking global Britain.

Finally, announcing an UK-India agreement before the EU-India summit on May 8 gives the UK a first-mover advantage over the trading bloc that it has just left behind. In keeping with the UK-India deal, facilitating investment, regulatory cooperation and trade barriers are at the top of the agenda at the summit. The EU is also seeking to make progress on a free-trade agreement, as well as several other treaties on specific aspects of trade. Modi had been due to visit Porto, Portugal for the occasion, but this has been cancelled due to the pandemic.

The UK-India declaration for an Enhanced Trade Partnership symbolises the commitment of both countries to bolster what Modi has referred to as “living bridge” between the two countries in light of their shared history, culture and democratic values. It is these common attributes – together with complementary skills and capabilities – that make the UK and Indian natural partners despite the geographical distance, especially at a time when both the economies will have to address the economic rebuilding agenda after the pandemic.

Sangeeta Khorana, Professor of Economics, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Boris Johnson’s personal phone number has been publicly available on the internet for 15 years, it has been revealed. Listed at the bottom of a 2006 press release, the number has reportedly been accessible online from the time the prime minister was shadow higher education minister through to his rise to Number 10.

That such a high-value mobile number has been publicly available for so long has raised cybersecurity concerns. If hostile states had access to the number, it’s possible they could have used it to spy on the prime minister. That would pose a serious security risk to the UK.

Hackers and cybercriminals place a high premium on our mobile phone numbers – with which they can do a lot of damage with very little effort. While there is currently no evidence that Boris Johnson’s data and communications have been compromised, having your mobile phone number being freely available significantly increases your vulnerability to cyber-attacks.

Impersonation

One such cyber-attack is the “SIM swap” – a very common technique that’s difficult to stop. It’s usually used by hackers to exploit a high-value individual’s exposed phone number.

SIM swaps see hackers call up the victim’s mobile phone provider, impersonating them and requesting to “port-out” the phone number to a different carrier or a new SIM card. They can use other publicly available information – such as the victim’s date of birth and their address – to make a more convincing case.

On completion of the port-out, the phone number activates on the attacker’s SIM card, and the hacker can send and receive messages and make calls as if they were the victim.

Phone companies have been aware of this problem for years, but the only routine solution they’ve come up with is offering PIN codes that a phone owner must provide in order to switch devices. Even this measure has proved ineffective. Hackers can get the codes by bribing phone company employees, for instance.

Access

Once hackers gain control of a phone number, they can then access their online profiles – on Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and WhatsApp – which are all usually linked to the mobile number. All they need to do is ask the social media companies to send a temporary login code, via text message, to the victim’s phone.

This was reported to be the case for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, whose mobile phone SIM swap resulted in hackers posting offensive messages to millions of his followers. Other high-value individuals have also fallen victim to these kinds of attacks, including the actress Jessica Alba, and online personalities like Shane Dawson and Amanda Cerny.

Read more:
The real phone hacking scandal is in your pocket

Aside from posting offensive messages, hackers have been reported to use the accounts to spam, steal identities, access private communications, steal cryptocurrency, and maliciously delete mobile phone data.

Surveillance

Hackers can also use another even simpler method to attack a phone – though some advanced spyware is needed to make the attack stick. Hackers armed with someone’s phone number can send them a text message with a hyperlink within it. If clicked, the link allows spyware to infiltrate the phone, compromising much of its data.

It appears this method was used to infiltrate and spy on Jeff Bezos’ phone in 2020, after reports found it to be “highly probable” that a text sent from Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, delivered the spyware to Bezos’ phone. Similar spyware has been used to monitor the phones of journalists and human rights activists.

It is possible that Boris Johnson’s mobile phone has never been hacked, in spite of the 15 years that his number was freely available online. However, seeing as the exposed phone numbers of high-value individuals can be taken advantage of by criminals or hackers from hostile states, tight new security measures should be put in place to avoid such an oversight happening again.

Edward Apeh, Principal Academic in Computing, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Lockdown significantly affected our health (for good and bad), our work and how we socialise. These consequences have been widely discussed, but far less attention has been given to the effect on our sex lives.

When lockdown came into force in the UK in March 2020, people from outside the same household were not allowed to meet indoors, and only at set distances outdoors. This meant that sex between people who didn’t live together was effectively criminalised.

In some ways, these restrictions disproportionately affected young adults, who are more likely than older adults to be exploring their sexuality and developing romantic relationships. But the impact of lockdown on people’s sexual desires and sex lives and how this affected their sense of wellbeing was not known. We decided to find out.

For our study, we surveyed 565 people aged 18-32 in the UK at the end of peak lockdown restrictions in May 2020. People were recruited using a survey recruitment site. They were a convenience sample, meaning they were people who were easily available rather than representative of the population as a whole.

Respondents were asked if they engaged in a list of sexual activities both before lockdown and during lockdown. This included intercourse, solo masturbation, and watching pornography. They were also asked to rate their health and wellbeing.

The number of respondents who engaged in each of these activities during lockdown decreased compared with before lockdown. The biggest decrease was for sex with a partner, with just over a quarter of respondents stopping this activity during lockdown (25.5%).

For those participants who continued to engage in sexual activities, we also asked whether the frequency increased or decreased during the period. There were both increases and decreases. Regarding increases, just over a quarter (26%) of people masturbated more often on their own, 20% reported having more intercourse with their partner, and 20% reported watching more pornography on their own.

Yet the same three sexual activities also decreased in frequency for some participants, with a third of people having less sex with their partner, a quarter masturbating alone less, and around a fifth (22%) watching less pornography alone.

People were more likely to report increases in sexual activity if they were male, in a serious relationship, and if they weren’t heterosexual.

We also investigated sexual desire. In our sample, women reported lower sexual desire than men overall, with a significant decrease in sexual desire during lockdown compared with before lockdown. Women with a greater enjoyment of casual sex reported a greater perceived effect of lockdown on their wellbeing.

Our findings, which are published in the Journal of Sex Research, support other reports into the effects of lockdown restrictions. Lockdown measures have disproportionately affected some groups more than others. The reported increase in domestic chores and stress for women during the lockdown may explain the decrease in sexual desire and the negative effect on wellbeing.

Moving out of lockdown

There are many health benefits, both physical and mental, to engaging in regular sexual activity. Sex can be an important component of people’s lives and their identity, particularly for sexual minorities.

There are other concerns about COVID-19 and sexuality. Most sexual health and reproductive services in the UK have been severely limited or closed. There is evidence that access to condoms and contraception was disrupted for young adults during social lockdown.

Some sexual health charities have been offering home testing kits of sexually transmitted infection screenings, but there will be people who do not or cannot use these services. Similarly, there is evidence that birth rates have dropped significantly over the year, which might lead to an associated large increase in births over the next 12 months once people see some stability returning to their lives.

As the UK follows the road map out of lockdown, it is important to consider how those whose sex lives have been restricted will respond to the extra freedom. It has been suggested that we could see a new “roaring 20s” as we return to a new sense of normality.

Government policy ignored sex during lockdown. It needs to actively support sexual health and wellbeing as we return to some kind of normality.

Liam Wignall, Lecturer in Psychology, Bournemouth University and Mark McCormack, Professor of Sociology, University of Roehampton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

It is well known that climate-induced sea level rise is a major threat. What is less well know is the threat of sinking land. And in many of the most populated coastal areas, the land is sinking even faster than the sea is rising.

Parts of Tokyo for instance sank by 4 metres during the 20th century, with 2 metres or more of sinking reported in Shanghai, Bangkok, and New Orleans. This process is known as subsidence. Slow subsidence happens naturally in river deltas, and it can be accelerated by the extraction of groundwater, oil or gas which causes the soil to consolidate and the surface to lose elevation.

Subsidence leads to relative sea level rise (sea level rise plus land sinking). It turns croplands salty, damages buildings, causes widespread flooding and can even mean the loss of entire coastal areas.

Subsidence can threaten flooding in low-lying coastal areas, much more so than rising sea levels, yet scientists are only just realising the global implications of the threat with respect to coastal cities.

In fact, while the average coastal area experiences relative sea level rise of less than 3mm per year, the average coastal resident experiences a rise of around 8mm to 10mm per year. This is because so many people live in deltas and especially cities on deltas that are subsiding. That’s the key finding of our new research, where we analysed how fast cities are sinking across the world and compared them with global subsidence data including less densely populated coastlines.

Our finding reflects that people often choose to live in river deltas, floodplains and other areas that were already prone to sinking, and in doing so will further enhance subsidence. In particular, subsiding cities contain more than 150 million people in the coastal zone – that’s roughly 20% of people in the world who live by the sea. This means relative sealevel rise will have a more sudden and more severe impact than scientists had originally thought.

Here are a few of the most affected cities:

Jakarta

The Indonesian capital Jakarta is home to 10 million people, and is built on low-lying land next to the sea. Groundwater extraction caused the city to sink more than three metres from 1947 to 2010 and much of the city is still sinking by 10cm or more each year.

Subsidence does not occur evenly, leading to uneven risks that make urban planning difficult. Buildings are now flooded, cracks are appearing in infrastructure which is being abandoned.

Jakarta has built higher sea walls to keep up with the subsidence. But since groundwater pumping continues, this patching-up policy can only last so long before the same problems occur again. And the city needs to keep pumping since groundwater is used for drinking water. Taking water, the very thing that humans need to survive, ultimately puts people at risk from inundation.

The battle against subsidence is slowly being lost, with the government proposing in 2019 to move the capital to a purpose-built city on the island of Borneo more than 1,000km away, with subsidence being one of many reasons.

Shanghai

Developing rapidly in the past few decades, and now with a population of 26 million, Shanghai is another sinker. The city has maximum subsidence rates of around 2.5cm a year. Again this is mostly caused by lowering groundwater levels, in this case thanks to drainage to construct skyscrapers, metro lines and roads (for instance Metro Line 1, built in the 1990s, caused rapid subsidence).

If no additional protection is built, by 2100 this rate of subsidence and sea level rise mean that a storm surge could flood around 15% of the city.

New Orleans

In New Orleans, centuries of embankments and ditches had effectively drained the city and sunk it, leaving about half of it below sea level.

When Hurricane Katrina breached the levees in 2005, the city did not stand a chance. The hurricane caused at least US$40 billion (£29 billion) in damage and particularly took its toll on the city’s African American community. More than 1,570 people died across the state of Louisiana.

If the city had not subsided, damage would have been greatly reduced and lives would have been saved. Decisions that were made many decades or more ago set the path for the disasters that are seen today, and what we will see in the future.

There are no simple solutions

So what can be done? Building a sea wall or dike is one immediate solution. This of course stops the water coming in, but remember that the sea wall is sinking too, so it has to be extra large in order to be effective in the long-term. In urban areas, engineers cannot raise ground easily: that can take decades as buildings and infrastructure are renewed. There is no simple solution, and large-scale urban subsidence is largely irreversible.

Some cities have found “solutions”. Tokyo for instance managed to stop subsidence from about 1960 onwards thanks to stronger regulations on water pumping, but it cannot get rid of the overall risk as parts of city are below sea level and depend on dikes and pumps to be habitable. Indonesia’s bold proposal to move its capital city may be the ultimate solution.

Increased urbanisation especially in deltas areas and the demand for freshwater means subsidence will remain a pressing issue in the coming decades. Dealing with subsidence is complementary to dealing with climate-induced sea level rise and both need to be addressed. A combination of rising seas and sinking lands will increasingly leave coastal cities at risk.

Sally Brown, Scientist, Bournemouth University and Robert James Nicholls, Professor of Climate Adaptation, University of East Anglia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

On March 11 2020, the World Health Organization declared that the COVID-19 public health emergency had become a pandemic: 114 countries were affected, there were 121,500 confirmed cases and more than 4,000 people had succumbed to the virus.

One year on, we have now seen 115 million confirmed cases globally and more than 2.5 million deaths from COVID-19.

“Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly,” said the Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on that day in 2020. But in the year since that announcement, the fates of many countries have depended on how leaders have chosen their words.

The impact of the pandemic was unprecedented and all governments faced challenges dealing with a severe but highly unpredictable threat to the lives of their citizens. And some governments responded better than others.

My colleagues and I recently carried out a comparative study of how 27 countries responded to the emergence of the virus and first wave, and how they communicated that response to their citizens.

We invited national experts to analyse their government’s communication style, the flow of information on coronavirus and the actions taken by civil society, mapping these responses onto the numbers of cases and deaths in the country in question. Our work reveals contrasting responses that reflect a nation’s internal politics, suggesting that a government’s handling of the pandemic was embedded in existing patterns of leadership.

Read more of our coverage of the first anniversary of the pandemic:

COVID-19: how to deal with a year of accumulated burnout from working at home

Pandemic babies: how COVID-19 has affected child development

With news of the spread of COVID-19 flowing across international borders, domestic preventative measures needed to be explained carefully. The WHO proved ill-equipped, provided equivocal and flawed advice regarding international travel, even from Hubei province, and equivocated on the efficacy of wearing masks. So much came down to how individual leaders communicated with their citizens about the risks they faced.

Experts in crisis management and social psychologists emphasise the importance of clarity and empathy in communicating during a health emergency.

So who did well and who missed the mark?

South Korea and Ghana

We found two major examples of this style of communication working well in practice. South Korea avoided a lockdown due to clearly communicating the threat of COVID-19 as early as January, encouraging the wearing of masks (which were common previously within the nation in response to an earlier Sars epidemic) and quickly rolling out a contact-tracing app.

Each change in official alert level, accompanied by new advice regarding social contact, was carefully communicated by Jung Eun-Kyung, the head of the country’s Centre for Disease Control, who used changes in her own life to demonstrate how new guidance should work in practice.

The transparency of this approach was echoed in the communication style of the Ghanaian president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

Akufo-Addo took responsibility for coronavirus policy and explained carefully each measure required, being honest about the challenges the nation faced. Simple demonstrations of empathy earned him acclaim within his nation and also around the world.

“We know how to bring the economy back to life. What we don’t know is how to bring people back to life,” he famously said.

Brazil, the UK and India

South Korea and Ghana adopted a consistent tone highlighting the risks of the new pandemic and how they could be mitigated. Nations that fared less well encouraged complacency and gave out inconsistent messages about the threat of COVID-19.

In March 2020, just three weeks prior to placing the country under lockdown and catching COVID-19 himself, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson downplayed the threat, and said he had been shaking hands with infected people, against the recommendations of his expert advisers. Today, the UK has one of the highest per capita death rates from COVID in the world.

Avoiding a full initial lockdown, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro – who also contracted COVID-19 – called for normality to continue, challenging expert guidance and polarising opinion along partisan lines. Such practices led Brazilians to mistrust the official information and spread of misinformation, while adhering to containment measures became an ideological, rather than a public health, question.

Meanwhile, Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced a snap lockdown with just four hours notice, which caused an internal migration crisis, with poor labourers leaving cities to walk hundreds or thousands of miles to their rural homes. Understandably, the labourers prioritised their fears of homelessness and starvation over the risk of spreading COVID-19 around the country.

None of these responses effectively considered the impact that coronavirus would have on society, or that credibility is earned through consistency. The poor outcomes in each case are a partial reflection of these leadership mistakes.

Bad luck or bad judgement?

Of course, the unfolding of the pandemic was not solely down to good or bad communication from leaders. Health systems and demographics may also have played a role, and the worst impacted nations not only had strategic weaknesses but are also global transport hubs and popular destinations – London, New York, Paris and so on. With hindsight, closing borders would have been wise, despite the contrary advice from the World Health Organization.

Still, it’s evident that leaders who adopted clear, early, expert-led, coherent and empathic guidance fared well in terms of their standing with the public and were able to mitigate the worst effects of the virus.

On the other hand, those who politicised the virus, exhibited unrestrained optimism or took to last-minute decision-making oversaw some of the nations with the most cases and deaths.

Darren Lilleker, Professor of Political Communication, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The effects of COVID-19 vaccination programmes have led to a glimmer of hope that some of the things we used to enjoy may soon be part of our lives once again. High on many people’s priority lists will be foreign travel.

In the UK, the official declaration of a “roadmap” to normality was quickly followed by a surge in online bookings for flights and holidays. This is a welcome development for one of the industries hardest hit by the pandemic. It is good news for countries that depend on tourism, and it is undoubtedly good news for people who are desperate to get away.

Importantly, it is also a step towards an end to the uncertainty and isolation that in 2020 led to warnings of a global mental health crisis.

The pandemic also raised awareness of the importance of “wellness” – a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing – in people’s lives. Even without a pandemic to deal with, attempting to achieve this state is the basis of a global industry said to be worth around US$4.5 trillion a year.

The travel side of this, “wellness tourism”, was worth US$639 billion globally in 2017, a figure expected to increase to US$919 billion by 2022.

And while wellness tourism was growing rapidly before COVID-19 struck, last year saw a reported growth in internet searches about travel to “wellness destinations]”.

Destination-wise, places known for yoga, meditation and pilgrimage routes, such as Chiang Mai in Thailand and Bali in Indonesia, stand to benefit from increased demand.

Our own tourism research leads us to believe that countries which actively improve infrastructure to target wellness tourism will enjoy a particular boost in any post-COVID period.

To make sure of this, governments and tourism authorities need to optimise wellness tourism resources. Here are three things they should consider:

1. Encourage domestic tourism

One widespread response to the pandemic was the rediscovery of local natural beauty. New Zealanders for example, prohibited from international travel, flocked to the remote and previously under-visited Chatham Islands. Cambodians capitalised on the absence of some three million annual tourists to visit the Angkor Wat World Heritage site.

The pandemic has been seen as a time to reset longstanding social imbalances that barred local people from enjoying their own spaces. Not only would improved domestic tourism help support local businesses at these destinations, but it would also contribute to the wellbeing of the communities who live close to them.

2. Understand differences

Wellness can mean different things to different people and cultures. In Indonesia, the Balinese travel to religious or spiritual sites for rituals linked to their ancestors and families. This runs parallel to most western tourists’ experiences in Bali, who often visit centres targeted at their personal requirements, with spa treatments or yoga classes. Although westerners generate more profits than locals, it is important for the wellbeing of the surrounding community to ensure equal access to these sites.

Local Balinese yoga instructors often lack the marketing and financial resources to attract global wellness tourists. During the pandemic, some foreign-owned facilities (such as Yoga Barn, one of the most popular studios for westerners) sustained their business through digital video platform. Meanwhile, local facilities struggled without the technical skills and hardware to compete. And while large resorts are well positioned to benefit from post-pandemic wellness travel, they usually provide only low-paid jobs to locals. Support should be provided for small, locally owned wellness tourism businesses as well.

3. Support the small scale

The lack of social sustainability has often plagued tourism development schemes. Our concern is that as tourism gradually opens up again, businesses and governments will simply focus on the high-end luxury wellness market. They may look to smaller numbers of wealthy tourists to remedy economic damage, limit the possibility of spreading the pandemic, and mitigate the high costs of hospitalising sick visitors.

But they would be misguided to focus solely on this competitive niche. Many high-value tourism businesses are owned by foreign investors without local involvement or economic benefit. Local governments, tourism authorities, large businesses and international organisations must support community-based, small-scale enterprises in remote areas to build a more comprehensive wellness tourism sector.

Read more:
How Bali could build a better kind of tourism after the pandemic

Overall, wellness tourism programmes should be developed in a way that empowers local communities, helps to reduce economic inequality and creates new livelihoods, especially in rural areas where poverty rates are high. It should also be developed beyond the popular destinations of Thailand and India to include poorer destinations, such as Laos, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

For while wellness tourism was gaining attention before the COVID period, the trend
will probably continue as COVID restrictions (hopefully) ease. And with the necessary pause in arrivals right now, the industry has an opportunity to reflect on how to create a more sustainable approach to everyone’s wellbeing, wherever they live.

Jaeyeon Choe, Senior Academic in Sustainable Tourism Development, Bournemouth University and Michael Di Giovine, Associate Professor of Anthropology, West Chester University of Pennsylvania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Sangeeta Khorana, Bournemouth University

At a time when so little international business is face to face because of the pandemic, the UK is flying ministers to India to lay the groundwork for a deal on free trade.

In a sign of the importance that the UK attaches to reaching what is being described as an “enhanced trade partnership” with India on the back of Brexit, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has been meeting Piyush Goyal, the Indian commerce and industry minister.

It is part of a British wide charm offensive with the subcontinent that already saw Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab paying a visit in December. So what is at stake and what are the chances of success?

India is already the UK’s sixth largest non-EU trading partner after the US, China, Japan, Switzerland and Norway, and the relationship now supports more than 500,000 UK jobs.

In 2019, bilateral trade in goods and services between the two countries were respectively worth US$15.7 billion and US$18.9 billion (£11.5 billion and £13.8 billion), and becoming increasingly important. The UK’s services exports to India have grown at 7% a year between 2013 and 2018, and yet India continues to enjoy a trade surplus with the UK. The UK is also the second largest investor in India.

Meanwhile, India is the second largest investor in the UK after the US. India invested in 120 projects and created 5,429 new jobs in the UK in 2018-19. Indian companies in the UK turn over an excess of £40 billion. Steel to car-making giant Tata is easily the largest, but there are many other major Indian employers, such as Firstsource (contact centres), Tenon (facilities management), HCL (IT services) and TVS (logistics).

The UK’s need for a deal

When Dominic Raab visited India before turn of the year, it saw a declaration of a ten-year road map towards upgrading the nations’ 2004 strategic partnership into a new “comprehensive strategic partnership” involving closer military ties, cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, and measures to counter terrorism and fight climate change.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson was due to visit the subcontinent in January, but postponed until the spring to deal with the latest wave of the COVID crisis. His counterpart Narendra Modi is also invited to attend the G7 summit in Cornwall, south-west England in June, and there is no question that the economic realities of the pandemic and changed geopolitical priorities following Brexit provide an incentive for both sides to negotiate a fast-track trade deal.

For the UK, this reiterates the government’s “Global Britain” strategy of developing stronger ties in Asia Pacific – in line with the country’s application to join the CPTPP free-trade bloc. A trade deal with India is an opportunity to foster post-Brexit and post-COVID recovery, giving British businesses greater access to a market of 1.3 billion people when the prospects for global growth after the pandemic still remain uncertain.

UK companies already have a growing market share in India in several sectors, including food and drinks despite high tariffs and other trade restrictions. Notably, India is the third largest market for Scotch whisky, for instance.

The business potential has also just been enhanced by the fact that on February 1, the Indian national budget raised the maximum stake that foreign investors can take in insurance companies from 49% to 74%, while also offering new opportunities in healthcare and agribusiness.

India and free trade

From India’s perspective, a deal would reduce its reliance on trade with China at a time of very chilly relations between the two countries, while helping to maintain its global geopolitical weight. In particular, it would reiterate India’s commitment to free trade after the decision in 2019 to exit from a deal to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Asia’s other major trade bloc. India decided it had more to lose than gain by joining the China-led bloc, whose members also include Japan and South Korea.

And of course, a deal would also ease the pain of economic contraction from the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the fact that the UK and India are both primarily services exporters potentially makes them a good fit, not to mention their common language.

India is likely to demand liberal access for skilled professionals and students as part of the negotiations, while the UK will want enhanced access to India’s financial and professional business services market, including insurance and technology. Other sectors likely to be the subject of negotiations might include renewable energy, IT, life sciences and healthcare.

Given India’s recent scepticism to the benefits of free trade, a decision may ultimately come down to whether the post-COVID economic realities convince the Modi government that a deal is a necessity. The UK might be more likely to succeed if it pushes for negotiations that focus on individual sectors rather than a full-bilateral deal. This might offer some low-hanging fruit that eases the two sides into closer integration for an enhanced trade partnership in the fullness of time.

Sangeeta Khorana, Professor of Economics, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

John McAlaney, Bournemouth University; Deniz Cemiloglu, Bournemouth University, and Raian Ali, Hamad Bin Khalifa University

The average daily time spent online by adults increased by nearly an hour during the UK’s spring lockdown when compared to the previous year, according to communications regulator Ofcom. With numerous countries back under severe pandemic restrictions, many of us once again find ourselves questioning whether our heavy reliance on technology is impacting our wellbeing.

It’s true that digital devices have provided new means of work, education, connection, and entertainment during lockdown. But the perceived pressure to be online, the tendency to procrastinate to avoid undertaking tasks, and the use of digital platforms as a way to escape distress all have the potential to turn healthy behaviours into habits. This repetitive use can develop into addictive patterns, which can in turn affect a user’s wellbeing.

In our recent research, we explored how to empower people to have healthier and more productive relationships with digital technology. Our findings can be applied to those suffering from digital addiction as well as those who may feel their digital diet has ballooned unhealthily in the solitude and eventlessness of lockdown.

Screen time and addiction

Digital addiction refers to the compulsive and excessive use of digital devices. The design of digital platforms themselves contributes to this addictive use. Notifications, news feeds, likes and comments have all been shown to contribute towards a battle for your attention, which leads users to increase the time they spend looking at screens.

Screen time is an obvious measure of digital addiction, although researchers have noted that there is no simple way to determine how much screen time one can experience before it becomes problematic. As such, there is a continued lack of consensus on how we should think about and measure digital addiction.

During a global pandemic, when there often feels like no alternative to firing up Netflix, or video conferencing with friends and family, screen time as an indicator of digital addiction is clearly ineffective. Nonetheless, research conducted on digital addiction intervention and prevention does provide insights on how we can all engage with our digital technologies in a healthier way during a lockdown.

1. Setting limits

During the course of our research, we found that effective limit setting can motivate users to better control their digital usage. When setting limits, whatever goal you’re deciding to work towards should be aligned with the five “SMART” criteria. That means the goal needs to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.

For example, instead of framing your goal as “I will cut down my digital media use”, framing it as “I will spend no more than one hour watching Netflix on weekdays” will enable you to plan effectively and measure your success objectively.

2. Online Support Groups

It might seem a little paradoxical, but you can actually use technology to help promote greater control over your screen time and digital overuse. One study has found that online peer support groups — where people can discuss their experiences with harmful technology use and share information on how to overcome these problems — can help people adjust their digital diet in favour of their personal wellbeing. Even an open chat with your friends can help you understand when your tech use is harmful.

3. Self-reflection

Meanwhile, increasing your sense of self-awareness about addictive usage patterns can also help you manage your digital usage. You can do this by identifying applications we use repetitively and recognising the triggers that prompt this excessive consumption.

Self-awareness can also be attained by reflecting on emotional and cognitive processing. This involves recognising feelings and psychological needs behind excessive digital usage. “If I don’t instantly reply to a group conversation, I will lose my popularity” is a problematic thought that leads to increased screen time. Reflecting on the veracity of such thoughts can help release people from addictive patterns of digital usage.

4. Know your triggers

Acquiring self-awareness on addictive usage patterns can actually help us to identify unsatisfied needs that trigger digital overuse. When we do this, we can pave the way to define alternative behaviours and interests to satisfy those needs in different ways.

Mindfulness meditation, for instance, could be an alternative way of relieving stress, fears, or anxiety that currently leads users to digital overuse. If you feel your digital overuse might simply be due to boredom, then physical activity, cooking, or adopting offline hobbies can all provide alternative forms of entertainment. Again, technology can actually help enable this, for example by letting you create online groups for simultaneous exercising, producing a hybrid solution to unhealthy digital habits.

5. Prioritise the social

We must also remember that our relationship with digital media reflects our inner drives. Humans are innately social creatures, and socialising with others is important to our mental wellbeing. Social media can enhance our opportunities for social contact, and support several positive aspects of mental wellbeing, such as peer support and the enhancement of self-esteem. The engagement with media to purposefully socialise during a lockdown can support our mental health, rather than being detrimental to our wellbeing.

Ultimately, technology companies also have a responsibility to both understand and be transparent about how the design of their platforms may cause harm. These companies should empower users with explanations and tools to help them make informed decisions about their digital media use.

While we may consider this as a legitimate user requirement, technology companies seem to be at the very early stages of delivering it. In the meantime, reflecting on when and why we turn to our screens is a good basis upon which to form positive digital habits during new lockdowns imposed this year.

John McAlaney, Associate Professor in Psychology, Bournemouth University; Deniz Cemiloglu, Researcher, Bournemouth University, and Raian Ali, Professor, College of Science and Engineering, Hamad Bin Khalifa University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Dimitrios Buhalis, Bournemouth University

The combined forces of COVID-19 and Brexit have created massive uncertainty over where British people can and cannot travel.

A number of countries rapidly imposed travel bans on the UK in an attempt to control the spread of a new variant that was identified as spreading across the country. Most European countries halted land and air transportation links with the UK or reinforced quarantine periods, as did Canada, India, Russia, Colombia, Kuwait and Turkey. Government advice and rules have been changing regularly.

But more confusion awaits after December 31 at 11pm. The UK left the EU on January 31 2020 and the transition period after Brexit comes to an end on this date. From January 1, British citizens will lose their automatic right to free movement in the European Union as a result of the nation’s decision to vote to leave the bloc.

Rules announced on December 9 stressed that under COVID-19 restrictions, Britons could be barred from EU entry on January 1 2021, when Britain becomes a “third country” to the European Union unless their travel is deemed essential.

From January 1 2021, the relationship between the UK and the EU may be determined by the trade agreement that is currently being negotiated. It may be that travel arrangements are agreed in that deal but, so far, talks are stalling on other issues.

As Britain becomes a “third country” (any country not in the EU) from January 1 2021, British residents cannot assume the right to visit EU countries while COVID restrictions are in place. When the UK was an EU member state, travel within the EU was regulated by the fundamental principle of freedom of movement. Now that the UK is no longer a member state, it can therefore no longer expect automatic travel rights.

On October 22, the EU Council instructed member states to gradually lift travel restrictions for residents of only eight “third countries” with low coronavirus infection rates. These included Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. All others, including British residents from January 1 (as the UK becomes a third country), will not be allowed to travel to the EU until the COVID-19 situation allows this travel restriction to be lifted. All the countries granted an exception had significantly less severe COVID situations than many other parts of the world so we can see there is some way to go before the UK meets such a hurdle, even beyond the current bans that have been brought in because of the new virus strain.

Holiday planning

These rules mean that British tourists hoping to travel to Europe in the new year, including those who may have flights booked already, will need to cancel or postpone their trip until the restrictions are lifted or Britain is added to the list of safe “third” countries.

Understandably, the pandemic, new strains of the virus, restrictions around the world and the expected third wave following the Christmas holiday prevent short term optimism.

Read more:
What are Australian-style and Canadian-style Brexit trade deals?

Until COVID-19 is contained and more people are vaccinated, both domestically and internationally, it is unlikely that much non-essential travel will be allowed. Realistically, this should be in late spring or early summer time.

If British tourists are prevented from travelling due to government restrictions, they should be refunded by suppliers, or, if they wish, they can accept value vouchers for future use.

After Easter, we should see restrictions lifted and more international travel activity. Global tourism has been haemorrhaging as a result of COVID-19-induced restrictions and the consequent economic recession.

Most governments will be observing the COVID situation very carefully and evaluate when it will be safe to reduce restrictions and remove travel bans. It is in the best interest of all stakeholders that this happens as soon as it is safe to do so.

It is worth noting, too, that many European countries are very keen to welcome back British travellers when it is safe to do so. Several kept their borders open, even when the epidemiological situation in the UK was much worse than in many tourism destinations.

The Brexit impact on travel

After COVID restrictions are lifted, most British travellers will find that Brexit brings some minor inconveniences. They will have to use “all passports” or “visa not required” lanes at borders and will travel similarly to non-EU citizens.

When the European Travel Authorisation and Information System (ETIAS) is introduced in the second half of 2022, visa-exempt, non-EU citizens will need to apply for travel authorisation online before their trip and pay a fee of 7 euros.

Other than that, they will be restricted to staying less than 90 days in a 180 period in the Schengen region.

One thing we’ve learned during the COVID era is how much we miss travelling. In the short term, if the virus is contained and restrictions relaxed, short and mid haul trips, often arranged at the last minute, will be the best option. And if you’re looking to take a trip to Turkey, Made in Turkey Tours can help get you there at your preferred style and budget.

Dimitrios Buhalis, Professor, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Rugby World Cup winners have joined a chorus of voices calling to reduce tackling in the sport in a bid to stop the growing number of brain injuries afflicting many of its former players.

When the likes of 42-year-old Rugby World Cup winner, Steve Thompson, announced that he could not remember the tournament because his brain was left too damaged from his career, he highlighted that rugby, in its current state, is not fit for contemporary society.

Invented in the 1800s, when safety was far less of a concern, rugby has been resistant to change. But this week, Thompson and 80 other high profile former rugby players announced that they are living with dementia, with many experiencing as early as their 40s.

Another former England player, Michael Lipman, said:

If I knew then what I know now, in terms of how I’m feeling, and what my wife and family go through on a daily basis, I definitely would have been a hell of a lot more careful.

Players are suing several governing bodies, including World Rugby and the Rugby Football Union. The law suit, which is in its infancy, will no doubt grow in claimants.

World Rugby responded to the lawsuit with a statement, saying it “takes takes player safety very seriously and implements injury-prevention strategies based on the latest available knowledge, research and evidence”.

Professional rugby will have its reckoning in the courts. But if the impact of tackling on the brain is strong enough that devoted rugby heroes are suing their former employer, policies need to be drastically revised and soon, particularly for children. The first thing the sport must do is protect young players by banning tackling for under 18s and transitioning to touch rugby.

In denial

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is not new. It was first described in the 1920s in boxers (it was called “punch drunk syndrome” at the time). But now research is proving what scientists, players and their families have long claimed – that repeated collisions are causing permanent damage to the brain.

When England’s 1966 World Cup-winning football heroes began to be diagnosed with dementia, the football world took notice. Now it is England’s World Cup rugby heroes that are suffering – and suffering younger. The FA banned heading the ball in training for children up to the age of 12, and severely restricted it after. It’s time for the rugby unions to react in the same way.

Read more:
NFL concussion lawsuit payouts reveal how racial bias in science continues

But whereas football can remove heading from the game, rugby is predicated on collision. As noted by one journalist, the only way to make rugby safe in its current format is to stop playing it. And earlier this year, researchers linked with England’s Rugby Football Union found that their sport offers more head trauma than other sports.

The case of rugby is more reminiscent of what happened to the National Football League in the US after the discovery that players were at increased risk of long-term neurological conditions, particularly CTE. Scores of players sued the NFL and received a US$1bn pay out.

The NFL has, for now, survived. World Rugby has insurance, so it might too. Yet surviving this lawsuit is only one threat to the sport. The fear over children playing the game will no doubt be rugby’s biggest threat.

No more half measures

Sporting bodies can no longer take half measures and policy must evolve to protect the huge numbers of children playing rugby. Children receive legal protection from other known harms, the list for which is very long (smoking and alcohol use, for example).

Read more:
Concussion can accelerate ageing of the brain – research from the rugby pitch

Both football and rugby are regularly played by children, and particularly in school PE. But whereas children under 12 are not permitted to head the ball in practice, they can tackle another player in rugby training. And where children over 12 are permitted to only head the ball five times a month in football, they can be tackled by a player twice their size as often as the PE teacher decides.

Experts are now calling for tackling to be removed from the sport for children – and curtailed in practice for adults. This means that children should play touch rugby until they are 18. They can then make an informed decision to transition to tackle rugby or continue with touch when they are old enough.

Research shows that touch rugby is rising in popularity and has better health outcomes for children. But calls for bans on tackling in compulsory school rugby have gone unheeded for many years.

History shows that industries respond to health crises when they are forced to do so – either through legal cases or government legislation. A key example is how the tobacco companies were forced to stop denying the harmful effects of smoking in the 1990s. Rugby is no different. Public pressure and court cases may drive change at some level but legislation is needed to protect players, particularly children.

In the US, the Concussion Legacy Foundation has launched the “tackling can wait” campaign for American Football. It’s time for the UK to follow and protect its children from brain injury by banning tackling in youth rugby. It will be for the courts and the players’ unions to determine how much tackling adults can do – but if they have any sense, they will heed the warnings of those World Cup heroes.

Eric Anderson, Professor of Masculinities, Sexualities and Sport, University of Winchester; Adam John White, Lecturer, Oxford Brookes University, and Keith Parry, Deputy Head Of Department in Department of Sport & Events Management, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.