💥Join UPSC 2027,2028 Mentorship (August Batch) + XFactor Notes & Microthemes PDF
Talk to Mentor

Civilsdaily

Login

GS Paper: GS2

  • Why single price of vaccine across the country is good idea

    The article deals with the issues of different prices set for the Covid vaccine and its implications.

    Understanding the positive and negative externalities

    • Vaccines have a positive externality; it is a good whose consumption benefits not just the one who has it.
    • A vaccinated person is not only relatively protected against the disease himself/herself, but also less likely to transmit it to others.
    • Usually, a person getting vaccinated takes into account only his/her own cost and benefit, while ignoring the fact that he/she lowers the chances of infecting others.
    • It is the opposite of smoking, which has “negative externality”.
    • Since every individual ignores the full set of benefits/costs from consuming goods with positive/negative externalities, the market isn’t always the most efficient mechanism for allocation of such goods.
    • That is a key reason why governments treat goods having large positive externalities as “public goods” and provide these while factoring in the full costs and benefits to society.

    Analysing the issues with vaccine policy

    1) Vaccine inequality

    • It requires vaccine manufacturers to supply 50 per cent of their production to the Centre at controlled prices, while allowing them to sell the remaining half in the open market including to state governments at pre-announced “self-set” prices.
    • To start with, the new policy can lead to differential access to the vaccine.
    • Manufacturers are supposed to “transparently declare” their prices in advance for their 50 per cent supply to the open market.
    • But there is no limit per se on the retail price they would charge.
    • This could lead to a whole range of prices and vaccine inequality, apart from diversion of supplies from the controlled low-price government centres to the open market.
    • So, we may well have scarcity in the “mass” segment co-existing with a glut in the “elite” segment.
    • There is also concerns about economic efficiency and the potential for market failure.

    2) Economic efficiency and potential for market failure

    • Imagine there are two sets of people in India.
    • The first consists of those who are better off and can afford to stay back or work from home.
    • This lot is also less likely to cause infection to others.
    • The second set is mostly blue-collar workers, small traders, vendors and agriculturists.
    • The nature of their work — on the shop floor or in the field — makes them naturally prone to infect others.
    • It follows, then, that society gains from first vaccinating the latter, as they have a higher negative externality.
    • The market will ignore those with lower purchasing power, despite them having a higher probability of spreading the disease.
    • In fact, the bigger the income difference between the two segments, the greater will be the extent of market failure from simultaneous over-provisioning and under-provisioning.

    Way forward

    • The solution could be a single price to be paid to vaccine makers for all the doses that they supply.
    • The price should be high enough to stimulate them to rapidly ramp up production.
    • Those government should pay directly to the vaccine maker or the hospital administering the dose for those without sufficient means.
    • The suggested solution is similar to the fertiliser subsidy, which is now disbursed to companies only after actual sales to farmers.

    Consider the question “What policy should be followed for the vaccination in the country? What are the issues with the curent policy which involved different price for government and for open market.”

    Conclusion

    A single price for Covid-19 vaccines will stimulate production, ensure efficient vaccination.

  • Task force in J&K under Article 311 to act against govt staff without probe

    Why the task force

    • The Jammu and Kashmir administration has set up a Special Task Force (STF) to initiate action against government employees suspected of activities against security of the State.
    • The order has been passed under provisions of Article 311(2) (C) of the Constitution.
    • The STF would be headed by the J&K Additional Director General of Police, CID, and include Inspectors General of Police, Kashmir and Jammu, a representative of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, and a representative of the department the employee belongs to.

    What are the provisions under Article 311 (2) C

    • Article 311(2) says no government employee shall be dismissed or removed or “reduced in rank” except after an inquiry.
    • However, its sub-section C says this clause will not apply “where the President or the Governor, as the case may be, is satisfied that in the interest of the security of the State, it is not expedient to hold such inquiry”.

  • India as a country of Particular concern: USCIRF

    About USCIRF

    • U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent bi-partisan commission.
    • USCIRF recommendations are non-binding.
    • The Trump administration had rejected the USCIRF recommendation to designate India a CPC last year.
    • Last year India had denied visas to members of USCIRF who wanted to visit India for their assessment.

    What are the key concerns of the report

    • The key concerns of the 2021 report include the Citizenship Amendment Act.
    • On the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the report says, “The consequences of exclusion – as exemplified by a large detention camp being built in Assam – are potentially devastating…”
    • Efforts to prohibit interfaith marriage – such as those in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh – are also highlighted as a concern.
    • In an apparent reference to the Tablighi Jamaat Markaz in March 2020, the USCIRF says that at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, disinformation and hateful rhetoric often targeted religious minorities.

    Recommendations of the report to the US Congress

    • The USCISRF recommended that the administration impose targeted sanctions on Indian individuals and entities for ‘severe violations of religious freedom’.
    • A second recommendation was for the administration to promote inter-faith dialogue and the rights of all communities at bilateral and multilateral forums “such as the ministerial of the  Quad].
    • Another recommendation – to the U.S. Congress – was to raise issues in the U.S. – India bilateral space, such as by hosting hearings, writing letters and constituting Congressional delegations.

  • Very few post-vaccine infections

    Breakthrough infection

    • ICMR said that a small fraction of those vaccinated with either Covaxin or Covishield have tested positive (i.e. breakthrough” infections).
    • However, these instances do not undermine the efficacy of the vaccines.
    • The immune response begins to develop usually two weeks after every dose and there are variations within individuals, too.
    • Of the 9.3 million who received the first dose of Covaxin, 4,208 tested positive; and of the 1.7 million who received the second dose, 695 tested positive.
    • For Covishield, of the 100.3 million who received the first dose, 17,145 tested positive; and of the 15 million who got the second dose, 5,014 tested postive.

    What explains infections after vaccination

    • Healthcare and frontline workers, who were among the first to be vaccinated, were as a population far more exposed to the virus and therefore more susceptible.
    • Secondly, the emergence of “the highly transmissible second wave (newer variants) ” may have contributed to instances of infection among those vaccinated.
    • Several variants, which have mutations that have been shown to avoid detection by the immune system, and in some cases reduce the efficacy of vaccines, have been reported globally, including in India.

  • Strengthening the process of choosing the police chief

    The article suggests the need for reforms in the process of appointment to the police chief to ensure the political neutrality of the police.

    Process of appointing and removing police chief

    •  A crucial way in which governments exercise control over the State police is through their unregulated power to decide who the chief will be.
    • There is no independent vetting process to assess the suitability of qualified candidates, and the government’s assessment, if it is done at all, remains opaque and is an exercise behind closed doors.
    •  The moot reform issue is in ensuring the right balance between the government’s legitimate role in appointing or removing the police chief with the need to safeguard the chief’s operational autonomy.

    Need for reforms

    Two elements are vital to reforms in this area.

    1) Shift the responsibility to independent oversight body of which government is one part

    • The National Police Commission (NPC) (1979), and the Supreme Court in its judgment in 2006, in the Prakash Singh case suggested establishing a state-level oversight body with a specified role in the appointment and removal of police chiefs.
    • While the Supreme Court entrusted the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) with a role in shortlisting candidates from which the State government is to appoint the police chief.
    • However, the Model Police Bill, 2015 places the responsibility with a multiparty State Police Board, also referred to as the State Security Commission (SSCs) instead.

    No compliance with SC directive in the formation of SSC

    • While 26 States and the Union Territories have established SSCs, not a single one adheres to the balanced composition suggested by the top court.
    • Some do not include the Leader of the Opposition; others neither include independent members nor follow an independent selection process of the members.
    • In essence, the commissions remain dominated by the political executive.
    • Moreover, in as many as 23 States, governments retain the sole discretion of appointing the police chief. Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Meghalaya and Mizoram are the only States where, on paper, the SSC is given the responsibility of shortlisting candidates.

    2) Need for transparency

    • The second element critical to police reforms is instituting an independent and transparent selection and decision-making process around appointment and removal, against objective criteria.
    •  On appointments, the Court and the Model Police Act require the UPSC/SSC to shortlist candidates on the basis of length of service, service record, and range of experience and a performance appraisal of the candidates over the past 10 years.
    • However, no further guidance has been developed on explaining these terms or specifying their elements.
    • Similarly, no scrutiny process has been prescribed to justify removals from tenure posts.
    • The National Police Commission had required State governments to seek the approval of the State Security Commission before removing the police chief before the end of term.
    • This important check was diluted under the Prakash Singh judgment that only requires governments to consult the SSC.
    • Most States omit even this cursory step.
    • The Supreme Court has rightly emphasised that “prima facie satisfaction of the government” alone is not a sufficient ground to justify removal from a tenure post in government, such as that of the police chief (T.P. Senkumar vs Union of India, 2017).
    • The rule of law requires such decisions be for compelling reasons and based on verifiable material that can be objectively tested.

    Way forward

    • Clear and specific benchmarks need to be integrated into decision-making processes, both on appointments and removals, to prevent politically motivated adverse actions.
    • In improving transparency the United Kingdom provides a useful example by introducing public confirmation hearings as an additional layer of check for the appointment of the heads of their police forces.

    Consider the question “Examine the status of compliance of the states to the directives of the Supreme Court with respect to the constitution of State Security Commission in the Prakash Singh case.”

    Conclusion

    Reforms are needed on urgent to ensure fairness in administrative decisions and to protect the political neutrality of the police. Any further delay in implementing reforms in this area will continue to demoralise the police and cripple the rule of law.

  • Fifth session of Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs

    Fifth session of Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs (CCSCH)established under Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) inaugurated virtually on 20th April with a series of virtual sessions.

    • The session will see nearly 300 experts from 50 countries taking part in the deliberations.

    About CCSCH:

    • Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs was formed in 2013 with support of more than a hundred countries with India as the host country and Spices Board India as the Secretariat for organising the sessions of the committee.
    • The objective was to develop and expand worldwide standards for spices and culinary herbs, and to consult with other international organisations in the standards development process.
    • Since its inception, the Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs has been successful in developing harmonised global Codex standards for spices and herbs.
    • In its past four sessions, the committee developed and finalized standards for four spices, viz. dried or dehydrated forms of black/white/green pepper, cumin, thyme, and garlic.

    About CAC:

    • The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) is an intergovernmental body.
    • Set up in 1963.
    • It was established jointly by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), within the framework of the Joint Food Standards Programme to protect the health of consumers and ensure fair practices in the food trade.

  • Employee State Insurance Scheme and Employee Provident Fund

    The idea of welfare state

    • Covid reminds us that a modern state is a welfare state as governments worldwide launched 1,600 plus new social protection programmes in 2020.
    • Sustainable social security lies in raising India’s 138th ranking in country per-capita GDP.
    • However, on the social security schemes, there is a case for three reforms to our biggest health insurance and pension schemes:
    • These schemes are the Employee State Insurance Scheme (ESIS) and Employee Provident Fund (EPF).

    Issues with ESIS

    • The Employee State Insurance Scheme (ESIS) is India’s richest and biggest health insurance scheme with 13 crore people covered and Rs 80,000 crore in cash.
    • Employers with more than 10 employees make a mandatory 4 per cent payroll deduction for employees earning up to Rs 21,000 per month.
    • Despite covering roughly 10 per cent of India’s population, a recent working paper from Dvara Research suggests high dissatisfaction.
    • The constraint is hardly resources: ESIC’s unspent reserves are larger than the Central government’s healthcare budgetary allocation.

    Issues with EPF

    • EPF is India’s biggest pension scheme with a Rs 12 lakh crore corpus and 6.5 crore contributors.
    • Employers with more than 20 employees make mandatory 24 per cent payroll deductions for employees earning up to Rs 15,000 per month.
    • It only covers 10 per cent of India’s labour force and 60 per cent of accounts and 50 per cent of registered employers are inactive.
    • EPF offers poor service and pathetic technology despite employer-funded administrative costs that make it the world’s most expensive government securities mutual fund.

    Updating the risk-sharing frameworks in society

    • In a book titled What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract, Nemat Shafik suggests updating the risk-sharing framework in societies.
    • This is because current structures are breaking up under the weight of changes in the role of women, longer careers, technology, globalisation, and much else.
    • She suggests a more nuanced social security redistribution across time (the piggy bank function), incomes (the Robin Hood function), and financial burden-bearing (the state, individuals, or employers).
    • In India, the answer lies in fixing the problems of EPF and ESIS.

    Solution to the EPF and ESIS problems

    • Both suffer from poor coverage, high costs, unsatisfied customers, metrics confused with goals, jail provisions, excessive corruption, low expertise, rude and unaccountable staff with no fear of falling or hope of rising, and no competition.

    Let’s look at possible solutions.

    1) Structure

    • EPF and ESIS combine the roles of policymaker, regulator, and service provider.
    • Splitting roles is a precondition for performance because goals, strategy, and skills are different.
    • An independent policymaker horrified with only 6 lakh of India’s 6.3 crore enterprises covered would create competition.
    • An independent regulator terrified by ESIS overcharging would frown on a claims ratio of less than 75 per cent.
    • An independent service provider would invest heavily in technology, customer service, and human capital.
    • Splitting roles would lead to the following benefits:
    • 1) Competition from NPS for EPF.
    • 2) Ending VIP opt-out by merging CGHS with ESIS,
    • 3) Raising enforceability by making employee provident fund contribution voluntary.
    • 4) Improving portability by de-linking accounts from employers.
    • 5) Targeting universalisation by simultaneously ending minimum employer head-count and employee salary contribution thresholds while introducing absolute contribution caps.
    • The Health and Finance Ministry would be logical homes for ESIS and EPF policy roles.

    2) Governance

    • The governing board of ESIS and EPFO have 59 and 33 members respectively.
    • Such a large group can’t have meaningful discussions, make decisions, and exercise oversight.
    • This governance deficit needs smaller boards (not more than 15), age limits, term limits, expertise, active sub-committees (HR, Investments, and technology) and real powers.

    3) Leadership

    • Health and pensions need complex skills developed over time.
    • Yet, ESIS and EPF are led by generalist bureaucrats.
    • Both organisations need professional chief executives.
    • Philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s framing of the generalist vs specialist debate as hedgehogs (who know one thing) and foxes (who know many things) is important.
    • A less generalist, non-transitory, and non-cadred chief executive would create a new tone-from-the-top around performance management, technology, and service outcomes.

    Conclusion

    Social security — not a borrowing binge that steals from our grandchildren — can blunt structural and COVID inequality when combined with complementary policies like formalisation, financialisation, urbanisation, and better government schools. But a great place to start is three flick-of-pen, non-fiscal reforms at EPF and ESIS.

  • India retains 142 of 180 spot in World Press Freedom index

    Where India stands on freedom of press

    • India is ranked at 142 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index 2021.
    • India at142th position is same as last year, after it had consistently slid down from 133 in 2016.
    • In the South Asian neighbourhood, Nepal is at 106, Sri Lanka at 127, Myanmar (before the coup) at 140, Pakistan at 145 and Bangladesh at 152.
    • The index is published by the international journalism not-for profit body, Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
    • China is ranked 177, and is only above North Korea at 179 and Turkmenistan at 178.

    What the report said about India

    • The report released on Tuesday stated that India shares the “bad” classification with Brazil, Mexico and Russia.
    • RSF has highlighted that the “campaigns are particularly violent when the targets are women”.
    • Further, it said that criminal prosecutions are meanwhile “often used to gag journalists critical of the authorities” with sections for sedition also used.
    • Speaking about the larger Asia-Pacific region, the report mentioned that “instead of drafting new repressive laws in order to impose censorship, several of the region’s countries have contented themselves with strictly applying existing legislation that was already very draconian – laws on ‘sedition,’ ‘state secrets’ and ‘national security’.”
    • The report has also highlighted throttling of freedom of expression on social media, and specifically mentioned that in India the “arbitrary nature of Twitter’s algorithms also resulted in brutal censorship”

    Measures adopted by India to improve ranking

    • The Indian government has been concerned about its low rankings in such international indices, and had last year started studying them to understand how to improve.
    • Soon after the index was released last year, Union Minister for Information and Broadcast  had tweeted on May 2: “Media in India enjoy absolute freedom.”

  • SC paves way for appointment of ad-hoc judges in HCs

    Appointment of retired judges under Article 224A

    • The Supreme Court cleared the way for appointment of retired judges as ad-hoc judges in High Courts under Article 224A of the Constitution.
    • The court ruled that the Chief Justice of a High Court may initiate the process of recommending a name if the number of judges’ vacancies is more than 20 per cent of the sanctioned strength.
    • The court said the appointments can follow the procedure laid down in the Memorandum of Procedure for appointment of judges.
    • The move will help to deal with mounting backlog of cases.
    • Since the nominees have been judges before, the need to refer the matter to the IB or other agencies would not arise, shortening the time period.

    Back2Basics: About Article 224A

    • It allows the Chief Justice of a High Court to allow a retired judge of any High Court to sit and act as the judge of the High Court for that State.
    • Previous consent of the President is necessary.
    • The acting retired judge would be entitled to such allowances as the President may by order determine and have all the jurisdiction, powers and privileges of, but shall not otherwise be deemed to be, a Judge of that High Court.
    • This Article was not part of the Constitution of India, 1950. It was inserted by the Constitution (Fifteenth Amendment) Act, 1963.

  • Supreme Court sets timeline for Govt to clear judges’ names

    Why the timeline

    • The Supreme Court laid down a timeline for the Centre to clear names recommended by the High Court Collegiums.
    • The Bench noted that there are almost 40% vacancies in the High Courts, with many of the larger High Courts working under 50% of their sanctioned strength.
    • Against the sanctioned strength of 1,080 High Court Judges, 664 have been appointed but 416 vacancies remain. 
    • The Bench rejected the contention that laying down a timeline “would be contrary to” certain “observations made in the Third Judges case”, saying the “observations” referred to “deal with the judicial review of a particular appointment and not such aspects of the appointment process like delay”.

    The timeline

    • The Intelligence Bureau (IB) should submit its report/ inputs within 4 to 6 weeks from the date of recommendation of the High Court Collegium, to the Central Government.
    • It would be desirable that the Central Government forward the file(s)/ recommendations to the Supreme Court within 8 to 12 weeks from the date of receipt of views from the State Government and the report/ input from the IB.
    • It would be for the Government to thereafter proceed to make the appointment immediately on the aforesaid consideration and undoubtedly, if Government has any reservations on suitability or in public interest, within the same period of time it may be sent back to the Supreme Court Collegium with the specific reasons for reservation recorded.
    • If the Supreme Court Collegium, after consideration of the aforesaid inputs, still reiterates the recommendation(s) unanimously…, such appointment should be processed and appointment should be made within 3 to 4 weeks.