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  • Higher Education – RUSA, NIRF, HEFA, etc.

    Tapping technology for multilingual learning

    | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

    Context

    As the theme of International Mother Language Day 2022, it has much relevance in reshaping Indian higher education.

    India’s unique cultural and linguistic diversity

    • According to the Language Census in 2018, India is home to 19,500 languages or dialects, of which 121 languages are spoken by 10,000 or more people in our country.
    • For centuries, India has been home to hundreds of languages and thousands of dialects, making its linguistic and cultural diversity the most unique in the world. 
    • Our linguistic diversity is one of the cornerstones of our ancient civilisation.
    • Impact of globalisation: While languages are among the key bridges that ensure cultural and civilisational continuity, globalisation and Westernisation have impacted not just the growth but also the survival of many of our dialects in this rich cultural and linguistic tapestry.
    • Therefore, International Mother Language Day has special significance to the Indian context.

    Endangered languages

    • In November 1999, the UNESCO General Conference approved the declaration of February 21 as International Mother Language Day, in response to the declining state of many languages.
    • According to the UN agency, at least 43% of the estimated 6,000 languages spoken in the world are endangered.
    • UNESCO has been striving to protect the cultural and linguistic diversity of member-states through pro-active international measures.
    • It is our collective responsibility to revive and revitalise the 196 Indian languages which fall under the “endangered” category.

    Role of technology: This year’s theme

    • Globally, the role of technology came to the fore during the COVID-19 pandemic when school shutdowns forced educators and learners to adapt themselves to online education.
    • The theme of International Mother Language Day in 2022 — “Using Technology for Multilingual Learning: Challenges and Opportunities” — is one of special relevance to us.
    • The central idea is to leverage technology to support and enrich the teaching-learning experience on a multi-lingual level.
    •  It also aims at achieving a qualitative, equitable and inclusive educational experience.
    • Inevitably, the widespread use of technology would fast-track development.
    • Multilingual education predicated on the increasing use of one’s mother tongue is a key component of inclusion in education. 
    • Seen in its entirety, this is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of “sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas”.

    Direction of NEP

    • The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 encourages the use of mother tongue as the medium of instruction till at least Class five but preferably till Class eight and beyond.
    • The use of mother tongue in teaching is bound to create a positive impact on learning outcomes, as also the development of the cognitive faculties of students.
    • There is a pressing need to create and improve scientific and technical terminology in Indian languages.
    • We have been able to create a large English-based education system which includes colleges that offer courses in medicine and multiple disciplines of engineering.
    • This impressive system paradoxically excludes a vast majority of learners in our country from accessing higher education.

    Way forward

    • The need to build an effective multilingual education system across diverse streams and disciplines becomes all the more imperative.
    • In this context, the collaboration between the AICTE and IIT Madras to translate some courses on the central government’s e-learning platform, Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) into eight regional languages such as Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam and Gujarati, is commendable. Such tech-led initiatives will serve to democratise higher education.
    • At the same time, the decision of the AICTE to permit B. Tech programmes in 11 native languages, in tune with the NEP, is a historic move.
    • Our policy-planners, educators, parents and opinion leaders must bear in mind that when it comes to education in mother tongue and local languages, we can take the cue from European countries as well as Asian powers such as Japan, China and Korea, among others.

    Conclusion

    Co-existing over centuries, borrowing from and nurturing each other, our languages are interwoven with our individual, local and national identity.

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  • Policy Wise: India’s Power Sector

    How uniform power cost and electricity duty can achieve higher growth

    | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways Etc.

    Context

    Electricity prices vary not just among end users, but also between states, where a complex patchwork of different taxes and subsidy regimes can leave consumers in some states paying five times more for their electricity than their counterparts in neighbouring states.

    Deprivations faced by Low Income States in India

    • The low-income States (LIS) are deprived on many fronts.
    • They have low accessibility to credit, low investments, low power availability and accessibility, and high energy costs.
    • The high-income States (HIS), on the other hand, have a big share in industry and commerce because they are not deprived on the same fronts.
    • The six HIS (Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) together account for 56.4% of factories and 54.3% of the net value added to the country, while their share in population is only 32.3%.
    • Among other reasons, this is because they have higher credit and financial accessibility (55% of total institutional credit and 56% of total industrial credit went to these five HIS) at the credit-deposit ratio.
    • On the other hand, the six LIS (Bihar, Jharkhand, U.P., M.P., Odisha, and Rajasthan) access only 15% of total institutional credit and barely 5% of total industrial credit, while their share in population is 43%.
    • The maximum benefit of the Atmanirbhar package (₹20 lakh crore) also went to the HIS as they have a higher share in industry.

    Role of power supply in disparity among states

    • Among other reasons, the availability of adequate quality power at the cheapest rate attracts investments, either private or public, in a particular location.
    • Due to a complex patchwork of different taxes and subsidy regimes, electricity prices vary not just among end users, but also between states.
    • This can leave consumers in some states paying five times more for their electricity than their counterparts in neighbouring states.

    Solutions

    •  Energy India Outlook 2021 provides two solutions.

    1] Eliminate price discrimination by synchronising all regional grids

    • The power-producing States have the advantage of power,  being available at lower prices.
    • This problem can be addressed by synchronising all the regional grids.
    •  This will help the transfer of energy (without compromising quality).
    • The idea is of ‘One Nation, One Grid, One Frequency’.
    • Further, this will pave the way for establishing a vibrant electricity market and facilitate the trading of power across regions through the adoption of the ‘one tariff’ policy.
    • The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission is in the process of implementing a framework of the Market-Based Economic Dispatch and moving towards ‘One Nation, One Grid, One Frequency, One Price’.

    2] Include electricity duty in GST

    • Apart from uniform cost, the power sector also needs uniformity in electricity duty charged by different States.
    • In general, the association between income and electricity consumption is direct.
    • Thus, only 32% of the population used 50% of power.
    • Contrary to this, six backward States got only 25% of the power though their share of the population is 43%.
    • Therefore, it is clear that the substantial proportion of the power cost incurred in HIS is also borne by the LIS which buy those industrial products, as the input cost of power has already been included in the product’s price.
    •  Further, this situation justifies the fact that the final costs of power consumption are also borne by other States.
    • Thus, the electricity duty should be redistributed among the States under the ambit of GST equally shared by the CGST and SGST.

    Conclusion

    In order to attain higher economic growth, the States should raise the issue of uniform energy tariff and inclusion of electricity duty under the ambit of GST.

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  • Foreign Policy Watch: India-Pakistan

    What is Permanent Indus Commission?

    | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and agreements involving India

    A 10-member Indian delegation will visit Pakistan for the annual meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) from March 1-3.

    Agenda this year

    • Pakistan has some objections on Indian hydroelectric projects namely Pakal Dul (1,000 MW), Lower Kalnai (48 MW) and Kiru (624 MW) in Chenab basin in Jammu and Kashmir.
    • Pakistan has raised objections on the design of these projects.
    • India, however, asserts that the design of the project is fully compliant with the provisions of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT).

    Permanent Indus Commission

    • The PIC is a bilateral commission consisting of officials from India and Pakistan, created to implement and manage the goals and objectives, and outlines of the IWT.

    Indus Waters Treaty, 1960

    • The Indus Waters Treaty is a water-distribution treaty between India and Pakistan, brokered by the World Bank signed in Karachi in 1960.
    • According to this agreement, control over the water flowing in three “eastern” rivers of India — the Beas, the Ravi and the Sutlej was given to India
    • The control over the water flowing in three “western” rivers of India — the Indus, the Chenab and the Jhelum was given to Pakistan.

    Rights accorded to India

    • The treaty allowed India to use western rivers water for limited irrigation use and unrestricted use for power generation, domestic industrial and non-consumptive uses such as navigation, floating of property, fish culture, etc.
    • It lays down precise regulations to build any water or hydel projects.
    • India has been given the right to generate hydroelectricity through run-of-the-river projects on the western rivers subject to specific criteria for design and operation.
    • The pact also gives the right to Pakistan to raise objections to designs of Indian hydroelectric projects on the western rivers.

    Based on equitable water-sharing

    • Back in time, partitioning the Indus rivers system was inevitable after the Partition of India in 1947.
    • The sharing formula devised after prolonged negotiations sliced the Indus system into two halves.
    • Equitable it may have seemed, but the fact remained that India conceded 80.52 percent of the aggregate water flows in the Indus system to Pakistan.
    • It also gave Rs 83 crore in pounds sterling to Pakistan to help build replacement canals from the western rivers. Such generosity is unusual of an upper riparian.
    • India conceded its upper riparian position on the western rivers for the complete rights on the eastern rivers.
    • Water was critical for India’s development plans.

    Significance of the treaty

    • It is a treaty that is often cited as an example of the possibilities of peaceful coexistence that exist despite the troubled relationship.
    • Well-wishers of the treaty often dub it “uninterrupted and uninterruptible”.
    • The World Bank, which, as the third party, played a pivotal role in crafting the IWT, continues to take particular pride that the treaty functions.

    Need for a rethink

    • The role of India, as a responsible upper riparian abiding by the provisions of the treaty, has been remarkable.
    • However, of late, India is under pressure to rethink the extent to which it can remain committed to the provisions, as its overall political relations with Pakistan becomes intractable.

     

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  • Judicial Reforms

    Sealed Cover Jurisprudence

    Prelims Only | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Executive & Judiciary

    Some Parliamentarians and prominent figures have issued a statement expressing discontent over the Kerala High Court’s verdict upholding the transmission ban on a Malayalam news channel.

    What is the news?

    • The channel went off air as the Centre suspended its telecast over “security reasons”.
    • The High Court’s decision was based entirely on the assessment of documents presented by the MHA in a sealed cover.
    • The contents of which were not shared with the news channel.

    What is Sealed Cover Jurisprudence?

    • It is a practice used by the Supreme Court and sometimes lower courts, of asking for or accepting information from government agencies in sealed envelopes that can only be accessed by judges.
    • A specific law does not define the doctrine of sealed cover.
    • The Supreme Court derives its power to use it from Rule 7 of order XIII of the Supreme Court Rules and Section 123 of the Indian Evidence Act of 1872.

    Nature of the power: Upholding Secrecy

    • If the Chief Justice or court directs certain information to be kept under sealed cover or considers it of confidential nature, no party would be allowed access to the contents of such information.
    • There is an exception to this if the Chief Justice himself orders that the opposite party be allowed to access it.
    • It also mentions that information can be kept confidential if its publication is not considered to be in the interest of the public.
    • As for the Evidence Act, official unpublished documents relating to state affairs are protected and a public officer cannot be compelled to disclose such documents.

    Grounds of such secrecy

    Other instances where information may be sought in secrecy or confidence is when its publication:

    1. Impedes an ongoing investigation
    2. Details which are part of the police’s case diary or
    3. Breaches the privacy of an individual

    Prominent cases of sealed jurisprudence

    Sealed cover jurisprudence has been frequently employed by courts in the recent past.

    (1) Rafale Deal

    • In the case pertaining to the controversial Rafale fighter jet deal, a Bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi in 2018, had asked the Centre to submit details related to deal’s decision making and pricing in a sealed cover.
    • This was done as the Centre had contended that such details were subject to the Official Secrets Act and Secrecy clauses in the deal.

    (2) Bhim Koregaon Case

    • In the Bhima Koregaon case, in which activists were arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
    • The Supreme Court had relied on information submitted by the Maharashtra police in a sealed cover.

    Criticism of such acts

    • Critics of this practice contend that it is not favorable to the principles of transparency and accountability of the Indian justice system.
    • It stands in contrast to the idea of an open court, where decisions can be subjected to public scrutiny.
    • It is also said to enlarge the scope for arbitrariness in court decisions, as judges are supposed to lay down reasoning for their decisions.
    • Besides, it is argued that not providing access to such documents to the accused parties obstructs their passage to a fair trial and adjudication.

    How has judiciary responded to this?

    • In the 2019 judgment in the case of P Gopalakrishnan V. The State of Kerala, the Supreme Court had said that disclosure of documents to the accused is constitutionally mandated.
    • This is possible even if the investigation is ongoing and said documents may lead to breakthrough in the investigation.

     

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  • Police Reforms – SC directives, NPC, other committees reports

    What is a First Information Report (FIR)?

    | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Civil Service

    This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in the IE.

    What is an FIR?

    • The term first information report (FIR) is not defined in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973, or in any other law.
    • However, but in police regulations or rules, information recorded under Section 154 of CrPC is known as FIR.
    • Section 154 (“Information in cognizable cases”) says that every information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence, if given orally to an officer in charge of a police station, shall be recorded in writing.
    • It has to be signed by the person giving it, and the substance thereof shall be entered in a book to be kept by such officer in such form as the State Government may prescribe.

    Important components of FIR

    In essence, then, there are three important elements of an FIR:

    1. the information must relate to the commission of a cognizable offence,
    2. it should be given in writing or orally to the head of the police station and,
    3. it must be written down and signed by the informant, and its key points should be recorded in a daily diary.

    What is a cognizable offence?

    • A cognizable offence/case is one in which a police officer may make an arrest without a warrant.
    • In the First Schedule, “the word ‘cognizable’ stands for ‘a police officer may arrest without warrant’; and the word ‘non-cognizable’ stands for ‘a police officer shall not arrest without warrant’.”

    What is the difference between a complaint and an FIR?

    • The CrPC defines a “complaint” as any allegation made orally or in writing to a Magistrate, that some person, whether known or unknown, has committed an offence, but does not include a police report.
    • However, an FIR is a document that has been prepared by the police after verifying the facts of the complaint.
    • The FIR may contain details of the crime and the alleged criminal.
    • If, on the basis of a complaint, it appears that a cognizable offence has been committed, then an FIR under Section 154 CrPC will be registered, and police will open an investigation.
    • If no offence is found, the police will close the inquiry.

    What in case of non-cognizable offences?

    • In case of non-cognizable offences, an FIR under Section 155 CrPC, commonly called “NCR”, is registered, and the complainant will be asked to approach a court for an order.
    • The court may then direct the police to conduct an investigation on the complaint.

    What is a Zero FIR?

    • When a police station receives a complaint regarding an alleged offence that has been committed in the jurisdiction of another police station, it registers an FIR, and then transfers it to the concerned police station for further investigation.
    • This is called a Zero FIR. No regular FIR number is given.
    • After receiving the Zero FIR, the concerned police station registers a fresh FIR and starts the investigation.

    What if the police refuse to register an FIR?

    • Under Section 154(3) CrPC, if any person is aggrieved by the refusal on the part of the officer in charge of a police station to register an FIR, she can send the complaint to the Superintendent of Police/DCP concerned.
    • If the SP/DCP if satisfied that such information discloses the commission of a cognizable offence, will either investigate the case, or direct an investigation by a subordinate police officer.
    • If no FIR is registered, the aggrieved persons can file a complaint under Section 156(3) CrPC before a concerned court.
    • If the court is satisfied that a cognizable offence is made out from the complaint, will direct the police to register an FIR and conduct an investigation.

    What happens after an FIR is filed?

    • The police will investigate the case and will collect evidence in the form of statements of witnesses or other scientific materials. They can arrest the alleged persons as per law.
    • If there is sufficient evidence to corroborate the allegations of the complainant, then a charge sheet will be filed.
    • Or else, a Final Report mentioning that no evidence was found will be filed in court.
    • If it is found that no offence has been committed, a cancellation report will be filed. If no trace of the accused persons is found, an ‘untraced’ report will be filed.
    • However, if the court does not agree with the investigation report, it can order further investigation.

     

    Try this question from CSP 2021:

    Q.With reference to India, consider the following statements:

    1. Judicial custody means an accused is in the custody of the concerned magistrate and such accused is locked up in police station, not in jail.
    2. During judicial custody, the police officer in charge of the case is not allowed to interrogate the suspect without the approval of the court.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 only

    (c) Both 1 and 2

    (d) Neither 1 nor 2

     

    Post your answers here.

     

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  • International Space Agencies – Missions and Discoveries

    Can dark matter be composed, even partly, of black holes?

    Prelims Only | Science Tech | Mains Paper 3: Awareness in various sc and tech fields

    A recent hypothesis says that dark matter comprises a large number of compact objects such as primordial black holes.

    What are Dark Matters ?

    • Astronomical observations suggest that a significant part of the universe is made up of dark matter which interacts with the rest of the universe only through the gravitational pull.
    • Many large lab experiments have tried to detect elementary particles that could be candidates for dark matter.
    • However, such dark matter particles have not been detected until now.
    • Several astronomical observations suggest that all galaxies are embedded in a “halo” of dark matter.
    • The “visible” galaxy is like a disc embedded in a dark matter halo that is much larger in size.

    What is the recent proposition?

    • When the universe was very young, hot and dense – soon after the Big Bang, it must have had quantum fluctuations of its density.
    • This, in turn, would have caused some regions to become extremely dense, and therefore, to collapse under their own gravity to form the primordial black holes.
    • While we have no conclusive evidence of spotting these objects, some of the binary black hole mergers detected by the LIGO gravitational wave detectors might be primordial black holes.
    • The question is open there is good reason to believe that primordial black holes did form in the young universe.

    Observing dark matter: Gravitational Lensing

    • The paper explores what happens when such objects get in the way of gravitational waves traveling towards the Earth from the distance.
    • It invokes a phenomenon called gravitational lensing that is used regularly in astronomy.
    • When light travels through space and passes near a massive or compact body – a star, a galaxy or a black hole, for example, the intense gravity of that body may attract the light towards it.
    • This causes bending it from its rectilinear (straight line) path.
    • This phenomenon is known as gravitational lensing and was first observed by Arthur Eddington in 1919.

    How intense are they?

    • Massive objects like galaxies can bend light significantly, producing multiple images, this is called strong lensing.
    • Lighter objects like stars or black holes bend light less, and this is called micro-lensing.
    • A similar lensing can happen to gravitational waves travelling towards the Earth, and this would leave signatures in the detected gravitational waves.
    • This can be used to detect the presence, or the existence, of primordial black holes.

    Assessing dark matter

    • Until now, individual black holes have not marked out these signatures on gravitational waves detected by the LIGO-VIRGO detectors.
    • However, if all of the dark matter is made of primordial black holes, they should have produced detectable signatures on the gravitational wave signals.
    • The researchers use the non-observation of the lensing signatures to assess what fraction of the dark matter could be made of black holes.

    Way ahead

    • This provides a new way of constraining the nature of dark matter.
    • The study concludes that black holes in the mass range from a hundred to a million solar masses can contribute only up to 50-80% of the dark matter in the universe.
    • This is an upper limit and the actual fraction can be much smaller.
    • These upper limits will get better and better with more and more observations.

     

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  • International Space Agencies – Missions and Discoveries

    Lucy Mission to probe Jupiter’s Trojan Asteroids

    Prelims Only | Science Tech | Mains Paper 3: Awareness in various sc and tech fields

    NASA is set to send its first spacecraft to study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids to glean new insights into the solar system’s formation 4.5 billion years ago.

    Lucy Mission

    • Lucy will fly by eight Jupiter asteroids—seven Trojans and one main-belt asteroid — over the next 12 years.
    • It is NASA’s first single spacecraft mission in history to explore so many different asteroids.
    • Lucy will run on solar power out to 850 million km away from the Sun.
    • This makes it the farthest-flung solar-powered spacecraft ever, according to NASA.

    What is Jupiter Trojan Asteroids?

    • Simply known as Trojans, they are a large group of asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun.
    • Thousands of such asteroids exist in a gravitationally stable space.
    • The swarms lead and follow the planet Jupiter along its orbit around the Sun.

    What exactly are Trojans?

    • Lucy’s Trojan destinations are trapped near Jupiter’s Lagrange (L) points, which are gravitationally stable locations — it is where the gravity from the Sun and from Jupiter cancel each other out.
    • This means their orbits are stable and the Trojans are trapped in the space between.
    • This also means that asteroids are as far away from Jupiter as they are from the Sun.
    • Jupiter’s leading and trailing Lagrangian points (L4 and L5) have been stable over the age of the solar system.
    • This means that their orbits have accumulated many, many asteroids.
    • It makes sense to call a Trojan a co-orbital object, which moves around one of the two stable Lagrangian points.

    When and how were they discovered?

    • It took many a scientist to understand Trojans, and subsequently, name them so.
    • A German astrophotographer in 1906 made an important discovery: An asteroid with a particularly unusual orbit. As Jupiter moved, this asteroid remained ahead of Jupiter.
    • It was observed that the asteroid was nearly 60 degrees in front of Jupiter.

    Students with engineering background would better understand who Lagrange was. Rest need not care.

    Lagrange’s propositions

    • This specific position of a particular behavior was predicted by the Italian-French mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange over 100 years earlier.
    • Lagrange had argued that if a small celestial body is placed at one of two stable points in a planet’s orbit around the Sun (the L4 and L5), the asteroid would remain stationary from the planet’s perspective.
    • This is due to the combined gravitational forces of the planet and the Sun.
    • Thus, Lagrange’s prediction acquired credibility. More such asteroids were discovered over subsequent months in Jupiter’s Lagrange point L5.

    Behind the name: Lucy

    • It is the fossil of a hominin that lived 3.2 million years ago.
    • She is known to be one of the most famous pre-human fossils in history.
    • Nearly 40 percent of the fossilized skeleton of this hominin was discovered in 1974 by a team of paleoanthropologists led by Donald Johanson.
    • The name was inspired from the famous Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” which Johanson’s team listened to at camp the night of their discovery.

    Back2Basics: Lagrange Points

    • Lagrange points are positions in space where objects sent there tend to stay put.
    • They are named after Italian-French mathematician Josephy-Louis Lagrange.
    • At Lagrange points, the gravitational pull of two large masses precisely equals the centripetal force required for a small object to move with them.
    • These points in space can be used by spacecraft to reduce the fuel consumption needed to remain in position.
    • There are five special points where a small mass can orbit in a constant pattern with two larger masses.

     

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  • Higher Education – RUSA, NIRF, HEFA, etc.

    UGC’s ‘Academic Bank of Credits’ scheme

    | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

    Context

    The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has recommended a revamp of the higher education scene in India. A new initiative stemming from this desire is an ‘Academic Bank of Credits’ (ABC) in higher education idea, which was notified recently by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

    About the Academic Bank of Credits’ (ABC)

    • Any undergraduate or postgraduate student can create an account in the ABC portal and store information of his/her completed courses (i.e., subjects/papers in old terminology) and grades obtained.
    • These grades are stored for a period of five years. 
    • As multiple institutes are connected to the ABC portal, one can be formally enrolled in university ‘A’ but can choose to do some courses from university ‘B’, some more from university ‘C’ and so on and all of these would count towards the student’s degree.
    • Flexible and multidisciplinary: One can enrol in an equivalent course from another college in the same city or join online courses offered by other universities; or can enrol in SWAYAM (a programme initiated by the  Government of India) or the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) and add these credits.
    • Thus, education will truly become flexible and interdisciplinary, without forcing any single institute to float an unmanageable number of courses.
    • This flexibility will offer students a chance to enrol in a course and learn from teachers from some of the best institutes such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) or the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research.

    Issues with ABC

    • Limited seats: ABC regulations say that the institute should allow up to 20% supernumerary seats for students enrolling through the ABC scheme.
    • There is no clarity on how the selection of students would be made if there are more than 20% seats.
    • Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platforms such as SWAYAM and NPTEL are ‘supposedly designed’ for large enrolments.
    • So far we have not found any evidence in the public domain that these MOOC platforms can provide a reliable assessment of learning achievement if there is massive enrolment for a course.
    • Filtering criterion: The ABC portal will accept courses from a large inumber of higher education institutes.
    • The filtering criterion in the original regulation was that higher education institutes should have obtained an ‘A’ grade or higher in the latest round of National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation.
    • This filtering criterion is not satisfactory.
    • Impact on small colleges: The ABC scheme specifies that students can avail up to 70% of courses from other institutes while being enrolled in a particular college.
    • If students avail these credits outside the parent college, they need not enrol for the corresponding in-house courses.
    • As the number of teaching posts in any higher education institute are calculated on the basis of student enrolment numbers, what happens when a large fraction of students do not enrol for the courses offered by you? 

    Conclusion

    In India, where the quality of education varies drastically from one institute to the next, this can lead to unmanageable academic and administrative issues in higher education institutes with brand names, and lead to a contraction in the number of teaching posts in smaller higher education institutes.

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  • Rohingya Conflict

    Why do we need a refugee and asylum law

    | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Government Scheme/Policies

    Context

    A Private Member’s Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha proposing the enactment of a Refugee and Asylum law.

    Why does India need a Refugee and Asylum law?

    •  The principle of non-refoulement: The international legal principle of non-refoulement — the cornerstone of refugee law, which states that no country should send a person to a place where he or she may face persecution.
    •  The principle of non-refoulement is clearly affirmed, with no exceptions, though reasons have been specified for exclusion, expulsion, and revocation of refugee status, to respect the Government’s sovereign authority but limit its discretion.
    • India is not signatory to Refugee Convention: India has been, and continues to be, a generous host to several persecuted communities, doing more than many countries, but is neither a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, nor does it have a domestic asylum framework.
    • The tradition of asylum: It will be in line with India’s millennial traditions of asylum and hospitality to strangers.
    • Because India has neither subscribed to international conventions on the topic nor set up a domestic legislative framework to deal with refugees, their problems are dealt with in an ad hoc manner, and like other foreigners they always face the possibility of being deported.
    •  It will finally recognise India’s long-standing and continuing commitment to humanitarian and democratic values while dealing with refugees.

    Multiple laws

    • In the absence of a uniform and comprehensive law to deal with asylum seekers, we lack a clear vision or policy on refugee management.
    • We have a cocktail of laws such as:
    • the Foreigners Act, 1946,
    • the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939,
    • the Passports Act (1967),
    • the Extradition Act, 1962,
    • the Citizenship Act, 1955 and
    • the Foreigners Order, 1948 — all of which club all foreign individuals together as “aliens”.

    Defining refugee

    • Well-founded fear of persecution: The internationally-accepted definition of the term, includes people who have fled their home countries and crossed an international border because of a well-founded fear of persecution in their home countries, on grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.
    • Who does not qualify as a refugee? This means that people who cross borders in quest of economic betterment, or because they are fleeing poverty, anarchy or environmental disaster, do not qualify as refugees.
    • Nor do those who flee from one part of their home country to another because of war, conflict or fear of persecution.

    Way forward

    • India must enact a National Asylum Law.
    • We need a proper framework to make sure that refugees can access basic public services, be able to legally seek jobs and livelihood opportunities for some source of income.
    • The absence of such a framework will make the refugees vulnerable to exploitation, especially human trafficking.
    • Our judiciary has already shown the way forward on this: in 1996, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the state has to protect all human beings living in India, irrespective of nationality, since they enjoy the rights guaranteed by Articles 14, 20 and 21 of the Constitution to all, not just Indian citizens.
    • The enactment and enumeration of refugee rights will reduce our dependence on judge-centric approaches — or even worse, the whims of Home Ministry bureaucrats, police officers and politicians.

    Consider the question “In the absence of a uniform and comprehensive law to deal with asylum seekers, we lack a clear vision or policy on refugee management. In the context of this, examine the need for law to deal with asylum seeker and suggest the various aspects the law should cover.” 

    Conclusion

    The problems of refugees worldwide are problems that demand global solidarity and international cooperation. India, as a pillar of the world community, as a significant pole in the emerging multipolar world, must play its own part, on its own soil as well as on the global stage, in this noble task.

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  • Blockchain Technology: Prospects and Challenges

    Beyond the hype of blockchain, a look at its reality

    | Science Tech | Mains Paper 3: S&T – Applications In Everyday Life

    Context

    Blockchain is a fascinating data structure that generates great curiosity. However, there is a lot of hype around the concept and its adoption in diverse fields seems to be faith-based, driven by unsubstantiated vendor and consultant claims.

    Two main functional properties of blockchain

    • A blockchain is a sequential append-only public bulletin board of transaction records with two main functional properties. 
    • 1] Verification by peers: What can get added is reconciled by multiple participating  peers following a pre-decided consensus protocol.
    • This process cannot be gamed under the assumption that a majority of the unrestricted number of peers are honest.
    • 2] Immutable record: recryptographically ensured that it  cannot be altered.
    • Each participating peer normally has their own copy of the entire bulletin board, with identical content, and they can read and further copy at will.

    Applications and their limits

    • Private blockchain: A “permissioned” or private blockchain has only pre-identified participating peers.
    • Hence, collusion is possible and integrity can only be ensured through regulations.
    • Without political decentralisation, consensus does not imply safety, and this is no different from centralisation in its threat model.
    • Privacy concern is not addressed: Despite many claims to the contrary, the blockchain structure has nothing to do with the highly-nuanced notion of privacy, or even the limited secrecy aspect of it.
    • To ensure secrecy of the bulletin board records, one has to fall back on traditional and well-established notions from cryptography — like encryption, key management and zero-knowledge proofs.
    • “Consensus” is inapplicable when there is only one authority responsible for the integrity of the transactions, for example, the Election Commission of India when a vote is cast in the privacy of a polling booth or a person is added or removed from a voters’ list.
    • Issues with use for voting purpose: Also, voting is not the only example of the inadequate analysis of the applicability of blockchain, and there are proposals for using them for land records, asset registers, etc.
    • Most such proposals do not pass muster for reasons similar to voting.
    • The role of blockchain in RBI’s digital currency proposal is similarly doubtful, and convincing methods independent of “consensus” need to be developed to ensure the correctness and verifiability of transactions while protecting user privacy.

    Issues with application for cyrptocurrencies

    • Macroeconomic implications not clear: Currency properties and monetary policies have evolved over thousands of years of bartering, and it is not clear that cryptocurrencies are consistent with them or that the larger macroeconomic implications of cryptocurrencies are well understood.
    • Crypto assets derive their values from their potential to be exchanged for other currencies.
    • Uncertain price determination: Since only a limited set of commodities are traded with crypto assets,  their price determinations with respect to sovereign fiat currencies are uncertain.
    • Potential to increase inequality: Apart from the crucial price stabilisation issues, their potential to further inequality is also considerable.
    • Environmental impact: The total carbon footprint of cryptocurrencies is equivalent to that of a few megacities, and it does seem ungainly, energy-inefficient and unsustainable to mine assets this way.

    Way forward

    • What may help in many of these applications is just the immutable public bulletin board part of a blockchain, with or without encryption and zero-knowledge proofs.
    • This may be simply achieved by the concerned authority periodically publishing the bulletin board in a publicly downloadable forum, and using hash chains verifiable by all to make alterations impossible.
    • Given the carbon footprint associated with cryptocurrencies, it requires regulation and taxation, especially for the potential environmental impacts and because only a few participate.

    Consider the question “What is blockchain technology? What are its potential applications and concerns with these applications?” 

    Conclusion

    Blockchain is certainly an elegant concept whose properties and potential require careful research. The hype of treating them as solutions for everything with not-so-thoughtful use cases is perhaps techno-determinism at its worst.

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