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Context

• The Supreme Court has sought the opinion of the Centre and state governments on a suggestion that physical literacy or sports be recognised as a fundamental right.
• It goes on to say that all education boards be asked to ensure at least 90 minutes of every school day to be dedicated to “free play and games”.

Sports as a FR: A Backgrounder

• India is a vibrant country that has always carried a fevered pitch and fervent excitement for sports.
• The Supreme Court decision in the Bombay Dyeing case (2006) is emblematic of our vision for sport.
• The Court, in August 2018, had asked for responses of the Centre and state governments in a public interest litigation filed by Kanishka Pandey, a sports researcher.
• Subsequently, the court had appointed Sankarnarayanan as an amicus in April 2019 to assist it and suggest measures to deal with the issue.

Key recommendations in recent plea

• Sports as FR under Article 21A: As part of a plea before the Supreme Court seeking to declare playing sports as a fundamental right, a report has been submitted by amicus curiae. It suggested that the broad term “physical literacy” be adopted instead of sports.
• 90 minutes of physical activity: Also, all education boards must be asked to ensure at least 90 minutes of every school day be dedicated to “free play and games”.
• Sports be transferred to concurrent list: The petition also seeks to transfer sports to the concurrent list and to form an independent Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth Empowerment at union and state levels.
• Sports as a part of education policy: The plea also asks for directions to governments to amend education policies to promote sports and make facilities available to enhance the opportunities to play sports.
• National Physical Literacy Mission: The report makes a number of suggestions in this regard – from asking the government to establish a National Physical Literacy Mission.

Another striking feature: National Physical Literacy Mission

• The report also proposed for all registered and unregistered private and public education institutions to have, publish and disseminate to all parents/guardians a Physical Literacy Policy.
• The Policy would acknowledge the institution’s legal commitment to integrate physical literacy in all aspects of its curriculum.
• This is to ensure that physical literacy is a part of the overall curriculum and syllabus for national and state school boards, in particular the National Curricular Framework for School Education 2020-21.

Why must we consider the fundamental right to physical literacy?

• Physical activity is fundamental to human beings:  The report states that having a fundamental right to literacy would mean identifying the intrinsic value of physical activity to human living.
• Part of elementary education: It would mean not seeing physical activity as an end in itself, and the establishment of physical activity/ physical education as a core component of the education curriculum.
• Supportive to other FRs: A fundamental right to physical literacy would actualise and enhance the enjoyment of other fundamental rights. It would go a long way in enhancing the opportunities and freedom to express oneself.
• Enhancing life quality: A physically literate individual would have a more fulfilling life of higher quality than one who is not.  Physical literacy, as a building block, would go a long way in the promotion and realisation of the right to health and the right to education.
• Religion as a barriers: Some sports like swimming and athletics require attire that does not fully cover a woman’s body and are against the laws of some religions. They are often debated in light of modesty of the sportspersons beings violated.
• Associated social reforms: Many women perceive sports as an opportunity to escape the confines of a highly regulated life. They use it as a tool to show their potential and tackle the patriarchal mindset. Further success of sportspersons like Mary Kom, Saina Nehwal, etc. have played a pivotal role in curbing the problems of child marriage and son meta preference.

Why need such a policy?

• Poor performance in competitions: India has the worst population to medals ratio at the Olympics. We find our medal tally at the Olympics to be hopelessly out of sync with our 1.3 billion population.
• Regressive attitude towards sports: Our attitude towards sport and physical well-being is another debilitating factor. Traditionally, India has not been a sports nation where many deserving candidates are discouraged right at the starting level.
• Economic divide: It hard reality which we consistently refuse to acknowledge. Athletes are not generated from the comfortable classes, they invariably come often from the middle and lower economic strata.
• Incentivization: There is more focus on post-success incentivization rather than pre-success support in India. For instance, the Haryana Government announced a 6 crore reward after Neeraj Chopra won the gold medal in Tokyo Olympics 2020.

Significance of physical education and sports

• Physical development: Fitness, Health
• Mental development: It improves decision making and collective action. It also acts as stress buster.
• Character/ personality development: It instils confidence, team spirit, team coordination, group work)

Benefits of augmenting sports career

• Alternative career development: For those for whom opportunities are few, and jobs are scarce, sport becomes a powerful mobility device. A strong sports sector encourages an average/ poor academic student to make a career in sports.   
• Reaping demographic dividend: India is having a very young population and is soon going to become the world’s youngest country. In such a scenario, a robust sports sector can help in reaping the potential demographic dividend. 
• Revenue generation: Developing robust sports infrastructure in the country will allow India to host a greater number of international events. Such hosting boosts tourism in the country and results in enhancing the revenue and employment in the region. Ex. IPL
• Promotes the spirit of Unity in Diversity: People cheer for the Indian athletes and Indian teams at international events. An improvement in sports automatically fosters the spirit of brotherhood amongst the people of diverse nations. For instance, the Pan India support enjoyed by Indian cricket team enhances belongingness between India’s north and south. 

Reasons for India’s poor performance

India’s below-par performance in sports can be attributed to the combination of all the factors discussed below:

• Lack of facilities: We have thousands of education centres all over the country, but there are very few schools and colleges which have adequate facilities for any sport.
• Regional discrepancies: The spending of money is concentrated in major cities where facilities do exist, but the broad-based structure to tap and develop talent is missing. The facilities wherever they are created are confined to a few popular games like cricket, hockey, football, tennis, etc.
• Burden of ill-health: Mother and child health is an all-time contested issue in India. This may well be attributed to weather conditions, poor economic condition generally-due to which nutrition is not available to most of our children.
• Narrow perception: The parents are keen that their kids should do well studies to get a degree and ultimately fetch a good job. Playing for long hours regularly is considered a waste of time.
• Lesser academia for physical education: There are few Sports Colleges which are genuinely making efforts to produce national-level sportsmen, but their number is so small that no perceptible impact is seen due to their existence.
• Lack of training: Another reason for our poor performance in sports is the lack of required number of trainers, coaches and psychotherapists. There is also a dearth of quality coaching or the qualified coaches.
• Non-interest: The west often accuse that Indians lack the killer’s instinct. The zest and enthusiasm necessary to win over the opponent is naturally absent in the Indian psyche.
• Obsession for few sports: There is no doubt that cricket and hockey plays a major unifying role in India. However, other sports and sportsperson are often discouraged due to such obsessions.
• Performance anxiety: A high degree of pressure is inflicted upon a sportsperson to perform or else be prepared to live a vulnerable life. This sometimes creates excessive mental stress in them or induces them to resort to unethical means like doping.

Various initiatives for sports promotion

The Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports has formulated the following schemes to promote sports in the country, including in rural, tribal and backward areas:

1. Khelo India Scheme
2. Assistance to National Sports Federations
3. Special Awards to Winners in International sports events and their Coaches
4. National Sports Awards, Pension to Meritorious Sports Persons
5. Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay National Sports Welfare Fund
6. National Sports Development Fund; and
7. Running Sports Training Centres through Sports Authority of India

Way forward

• Sports is a state subject and therefore uniformity in sports specific activities of various states in India is extremely important for providing equal sporting opportunities to all the citizens of the country.
• We have to take collective action to create a system and a proper environment whereby the young talent is spotted and developed in right earnest.
• Integration of sports with education to introduce sports culture in India is the need of the hour.
• The allocation of funds to sport, as a percentage of budget, can be increased for broad-basing sports in this country.
• There is also a need to develop a culture in whole country by spreading awareness in society by telling benefit of sports in life.

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Context

As per IMF’s first deputy managing director Gita Gopinath, financial sanctions imposed on Russia threaten to gradually dilute the dominance of the U.S. dollar and could result in a more fragmented international monetary system.

To understand more on this and related risks to the dominance of the dollar in view of the prevailing global situation and what it means for the international financial market.

Russia- Ukraine War and USD

• The Russia-Ukraine conflict conveys no signal of coming to an end or any tendency towards a peaceful settlement.
• This has disrupted the global supply chain and has caused a major blow to the global economy.
• The World Bank has reduced its annual global growth forecast for 2022 by nearly a full percentage point, from 4.1% down to 3.2%.
• The financial sanctions imposed on Russia by the major Western powers have prompted changes in the international financial order driven by USD.
• The United States has to some extent weaponized the dollar against Russia.
• Countries are concerned that the money it holds in dollars would be worthless if dollar inflation set in.

How US Dollar became the global currency?

• The U.S. dollar has been the world’s dominant currency since the end of World War II.
• Roughly half of international trade, international loans, and global debt securities are denominated in USD.
• The USD became the official reserve currency of the world in 1944. The decision was made by a delegation from 44 Allied countries called the Bretton Woods Agreement.
• Despite the challenges faced by the US economy due to fiscal and external deficits of the 1980s, the dollar’s share of global reserves remained steady and reserves even grew as time progressed.
• The dominance of the dollar is backed by strong and highly credible institutions, deep markets and the fact that it is freely convertible.
• Almost 40% of the world’s debt is issued in dollars. As a result, foreign banks need a lot of dollars to conduct business. This became evident during the 2008 financial crisis.

Implications of USD led inflation

• The dollar’s role as the world’s “reserve currency” is a cornerstone of the global economy and global finance as well as geopolitics.
• Most of the transactions are dollar-dominated, currency depreciation is rather unlikely to increase exports.
• A depreciation in the currency relative to the dollar leads to an increase in the price of imported goods which means high pressures on inflation.

Challenges to USD

• In the 1990s the dollar’s role started diminishing and the US became a net debtor to the world.
• With the emerging global value chains, China’s integration into the world economy has been an impediment to the economic growth of the US.
• A considerable decline in the dollar’s share can be attributed to the greater use of the Chinese renminbi.
• It was notified by the IMF official that the dollar’s share of international reserves had fallen from 70% to 60% over a period of time with the growing trading currencies led by the Australian dollar.

Calls for a one world currency

• In March 2009, China and Russia called for a new global currency.
• China is a huge player in world trade, which you might think would make people want to hold a lot of yuan assets.
• They wanted the world to create a reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run.
• They thus want to remove the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies.
• In the fourth quarter of 2016, the Chinese renminbi became another one of the world’s reserve currencies.
• China wants its currency to be fully traded on the global foreign exchange markets. It would like the Yuan to replace the dollar as the global currency.

What lies ahead?

• For many years, undermining the dollar’s dominance has been the dream of governments that have looked uneasily at US global primacy, and formed coalitions.
• Some experts also advocate that either China’s or Russia’s threat to the dollar hegemony will remain a fantasy.
• It is predicted that the sanctions against Russia will not foreshadow the decline of the dollar as the reserve currency.
• The Russia-Ukraine Conflict will definitely slow down the global economy but will not cause a global recession.