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  • Foreign Policy Watch: India-China

    Centre extends relief to Tibetan Committee by 5 years

    IOCR | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: India & Its Neighborhood – Relations

    The Union government has extended the scheme to provide ₹40 crore grants-in-aid to the Dalai Lama’s Central Tibetan Relief Committee (CTRC) for another five years, up to fiscal year 2025-26.

    Do you think that India’s support for the Tibetan cause is the root cause of all irritants in India-China relations?

    What is CTRC?

    • The Dalai Lama’s Central Tibetan Relief Committee (CTRC) was formed and registered as Charitable Society under Indian Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860.
    • It effectively acts as the Relief and Development Wing of Home Department, Central Tibetan Administration.
    • All the CTRC activities are carried out with consent and support from Board of Directors and approval from TPiE (Tibetan Parliament in Exile).

    Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile (TPiE)

    • The Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile (TPiE) has its headquarters in Dharamsala, in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh.
    • According to the Green Book of the Tibetan government-in-exile, over 1 lakh Tibetans are settled across India.
    • The remaining are settled in United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Mongolia, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland and various other countries.

    Working of the TPiE

    • The Speaker and a Deputy Speaker head the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile.
    • It includes two members from each of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and the pre-Buddhist Bon religion.
    • Other representatives are from the Tibetan Communities in North America and Europe; and from Australasia and Asia (excluding India, Nepal and Bhutan).
    • Till 2006, it used to be called as Assembly of Tibetan People’s Deputies (ATPDs) with the chairman as its head and a vice-chairman.

    Tibetan Constitution

    • The Central Tibetan Administration exists and functions on the basis of the Constitution of the Tibetan government called the ‘The Charter of the Tibetans in Exile’.
    • In 1991, The Constitution Redrafting Committee instituted by the Dalai Lama prepared the Charter for Tibetans in exile. The Dalai Lama approved it on June 28, 1991.
    • In 2001, fundamental changes happened with the amendment of the Charter that facilitated the direct election of the Kalon Tripa by the Tibetans in exile.
    • The Kalon Tripa is called Sikyong or president of the Central Tibetan Administration.

    The Kashag (Cabinet)

    • The Kashag (Cabinet) is the Central Tibetan Administration’s highest executive office and comprise seven members.
    • It is headed by the Sikyong (political leader) who is directly elected by the exiled Tibetan population.
    • Sikyong subsequently nominates his seven Kalons (ministers) and seeks the parliament’s approval. The Kashag’s term is for five years.

    A backgrounder: Democracy for Tibet

    • The Dalai Lama began democratization soon after he came to India during the 1959 Tibetan National Uprising.
    • He reportedly asked Tibetans in exile to choose their representatives through universal adult suffrage, following which polls were held for electing Tibetan Parliamentarians in 1960.
    • Democracy for the Tibetans, thus, began in exile.
    • The Dalai Lama, however, continued to remain the supreme political leader. On March 14, 2011, he relinquished his political responsibilities, ending a 369-year-old practice.

    Is TPiE officially recognized by any country?

    • Not exactly, it is not recognised officially by any country, including India.
    • But, a number of countries including the USA and European nations deal directly with the Sikyong and other Tibetan leaders through various forums.
    • The TPiE claims its democratically-elected character helps it manage Tibetan affairs and raise the Tibetan issue across the world.
    • The incumbent Sikyong, Lobsang Sangay, was among the guests who attended the oath-taking ceremony of our PM in 2014, probably a first.

     

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  • AIIB & The Changing World Order

    Asian Development Outlook Report

    IOCR | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

    The Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecasts has provided some useful insights about India’s GDP growth.

    About Asian Development Bank (ADB)

    • The ADB is a regional development bank established on 19 December 1966 which is headquartered in Philippines.
    • ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty.
    • The bank admits the members of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
    • The ADB was modelled closely on the World Bank, and has a similar weighted voting system where votes are distributed in proportion with members’ capital subscriptions.
    • The president has a term of office lasting five years, and may be re-elected.
    • Traditionally, and because Japan is one of the largest shareholders of the bank, the president has always been Japanese.
    • ADB is an official United Nations Observer.

    Highlights of the ADB Outlook Report 2020

    • India’s GDP growth will moderate to 7.5% in 2022-23, from an estimated 8.9% in 2021-22.
    • It has factored in the Russia-Ukraine conflict’s implications for India, which would be largely indirect through higher oil prices
    • The severity of the COVID-19 pandemic would subside with a rise in vaccination rates.
    • Higher public capital spending is expected to improve the efficiency of India’s logistics infrastructure, crowd-in private investment, generate jobs in construction and sustain growth.

     

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  • Climate Change Impact on India and World – International Reports, Key Observations, etc.

    Demand side strategies for climate change mitigation

    op-ed snap | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 3: Conservation, Environmental Pollution & Degradation, Eia

    Context

    A paradigm shift in the way we think about climate action has been reported for the first time in the recent IPCC report through a chapter on “demand, services and social aspects of mitigation”.

    Demand side strategies and their impact

    • The report shows how, through comprehensive demand-side strategies, carbon dioxide and non-carbon GHG emissions globally can be reduced by 40–70 per cent compared to the 2050 emissions projection.
    • This can be achieved through reduced food waste, following sustainable healthy dietary choices that acknowledge nutritional needs, adaptive heating and cooling, climate-friendly dressing culture, integration of renewable energy in buildings, shifting to electric light-duty vehicles, and to walking, cycling, shared and public transit, sustainable consumption by intensive use of longer-lived repairable products, compact city design and efficient floor area use of buildings.
    • The IPCC report also shows that individuals with high socioeconomic status contribute disproportionately to emissions and have the highest potential for emissions reductions, as citizens, investors, consumers, role models, and professionals.
    • Of the 60 actions assessed in this report, on an individual level, the biggest contribution comes from walking and cycling wherever possible and using electricity-powered transport.

    Need for systemic changes

    • To be effective, these shifts will need to be supported by systemic changes in some areas — for example, land use and urban planning policies to avoid urban sprawl, support for green spaces, reallocation of street spaces for walking and physical exercise, investment in public transport and infrastructure design for active and electric vehicles.
    • Electrification and shifts to public transport also bring benefits in terms of enhancing health, employment, and equality.
    • By providing user-level access to more efficient energy conversion technologies, the need for primary energy can be reduced by 45 per cent by 2050, compared to 2020.
    • Demand-side changes cannot deliver the net-zero goal on their own.
    • But this requires investment in and transformation across every sector, along with policies and incentives that encourage people to make low-carbon choices in all aspects of their lives.
    • There is huge untapped potential in the near term through changes across transport, industry, buildings, and food that will take away the supply-side uncertainties and make it easier for people to lead low-carbon lifestyles and, at the same time, improve well-being.

    Conclusion

    The latest IPCC report puts people and their well-being at the centre of climate change mitigation. The messages are from a global perspective but have relevance to the national context of every country.

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  • Strengthen secularism

    op-ed snap | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Indian Constitution – historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure

    Context

    The High Court of Karnataka has not been able to settle the hijab issue. The petition has been filed in the apex court by a Muslim student against the high court judgement.

    Political and Constitutional dimensions of the issue

    • The issue of the hijab is political as well as constitutional.
    • The top court will examine the constitutional aspect and its judgment will hopefully settle the issue.
    • But the political dimension of the hijab issue will continue to trouble Indian society for a long time.
    • The Indian Constitution provides for freedom of religion and conscience on the one hand and secularism for the governance of the country on the other.

    Understanding the freedom of religion under Indian Constitution

    • Under the Indian Constitution, there is a separation of religion from the state as in Europe.
    • The essence of India’s secularism is that the state has no religion.
    • This is clear from Articles 27 and 28 of the Constitution.
    • Article 27 says that no tax can be levied for promoting any particular religion.
    • In other words, no public revenue is permitted to be spent in favour of any particular religion. 
    • Article 28 says that no religious instruction shall be given in any educational institutions wholly maintained out of state funds.
    • The same Article says that no educational institution recognised or aided by the state shall compel any person to attend religious classes or worship therein.
    • Article 25(2)(a) empowers the state to regulate secular activities associated with religious practice.
    • Article 15 prohibits any kind of discrimination on the ground of religion.
    • Freedom of religion is subject to other fundamental rights: Above all, freedom of religion is made subject to other fundamental rights, apart from the reasonable restrictions on the grounds of public order, morality and health.
    • Thus, the freedom of religion under the Constitution does not enjoy the same status as other secular rights such as equality before law, non-discrimination, right to life and liberty, etc.

    Why India needs to be secular

    • Theocracy will ensure the disintegration of the country.
    • 1] India is a multi-religious country where the largest minority is around 200 million.
    • The Government of India had notified as many as six minority religions in the country.
    • So, a theocratic state with the majority religion as the state religion is an unworkable proposition.
    • 2] Complex structure: Another crucial factor which makes a theocratic state impossible in India is the complex, inegalitarian, hierarchical and oppressive social structure of the majority religion.
    • 3] There would be no equality: Since a theocratic state based on the religious texts, in the Indian context, would mean a state which would deny equality before law and equal protection of law to the subaltern class and discriminate against them on the basis of caste, it will be inherently unstable.
    • This may lead to perennial conflicts and the eventual disintegration of society.
    • Therefore, we reach the inevitable conclusion that India, as a nation, can survive only as a secular state where the state has no religion and does not promote any religion.

    Conclusion

    Secularism was chosen as the foundational principle of the republic to keep the nation united. Enlightened citizens should realise that if secularism is jettisoned, the hard-won national unity will be in peril. It is the patriotic duty of every citizen to strengthen secularism and thus save the republic.

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  • Tribes in News

    Who are Denotified Tribes (DNTs)?

    | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Laws, Institutions & Bodies Constituted For The Vulnerable Sections

    A standing committee of Parliament, tabled last week, has criticised the functioning of the development programme for de-notified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes.

    Who are de-notified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes?

    • These are communities who are the most vulnerable and deprived.
    • Denotified tribes (DNTs) are communities that were ‘notified’ as being ‘born criminal’ during the British regime under a series of laws starting with the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871.
    • They mostly belong to the medieval period Banjaras.
    • Nomadic and semi-nomadic communities are defined as those who move from one place to another rather than living at one place all the time.

    What is the history of deprivation faced by these communities?

    • This has a long history, first during colonial rule, and then in independent India.
    • These communities are largely politically ‘quiet’ — they do not place their demands concretely before the government for they lack vocal leadership and also lack the patronage of a national leader.
    • Many commissions and committees constituted since Independence have referred to the problems of these communities. These include the:
    1. Criminal Tribes Inquiry Committee, 1947 constituted in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh)
    2. Ananthasayanam Ayyangar Committee in 1949 (it was based on the report of this committee the Criminal Tribes Act was repealed)
    3. Kaka Kalelkar Commission (also called first OBC Commission) constituted in 1953
    4. In 1965, an Advisory Committee constituted for revision of the SC and ST list under the chairmanship of B N Lokur referred to denotified tribes
    5. The B P Mandal Commission constituted in 1980 also made some recommendations on the issue

    Policy measures for DNTs

    • A National Commission for De-notified, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes (NCDNT) was constituted in 2006 by the then government.
    • It was headed by Balkrishna Sidram Renke and submitted its report in June 2008.
    • It said that it is an irony that these tribes somehow escaped the attention of our Constitution makers and thus got deprived of the Constitutional support unlike SCs and STs.
    • The Renke commission estimated their population at around 10.74 crore based on Census 2001.
    • A new Commission constituted in February 2014 to prepare a state-wise list, which submitted its report on January 8, 2018, identified 1,262 communities as de-notified, nomadic and semi-nomadic.
    • Much recently, the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment launched the Scheme for Economic Empowerment of De-notified, Nomadic, and Semi Nomadic Communities (SEED).

    Why in news now?

    • While a number of these tribes are categorised under SC, ST and OBC, many are not.
    • The standing committee report in Parliament has cited a statement by the Secretary, Department of Social Justice and Empowerment, that 269 DNT communities are not covered under any reserved categories.
    • These communities are frequently left out because they are less visible and difficult to reach.

    What is DWBDNC, and what is its role?

    • The DWBDNC stands for the Scheme for welfare of Denotified, Nomadic and Semi Nomadic communities (DWBDNC).
    • The commission report submitted in 2018 had recommended the setting of up a permanent commission for these communities.
    • But since most DNTs are covered under SC, ST or OBC, the government felt setting up a permanent commission, which would deal with redress of grievances.
    • The government therefore set up the DWBDNCs under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 under the aegis of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

    The Idate Commission

    • The DWBDNC was constituted on February 21, 2019 under the chairmanship of Bhiku Ramji Idate.
    • Also, a committee has been set up by the NITI Aayog to complete the process of identification of the de-notified, nomadic and semi-nomadic communities (DNCs).
    • Ethnographic studies of DNCs are being conducted by the Anthropological Survey of India, with a budget of Rs 2.26 crore sanctioned.
    • On March 30, 2022 the DoPT issued an advertisement for the recruitment of consultants in the DWBDNC.

     

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  • Electoral Reforms In India

    SC to hear plea against Electoral Bonds Scheme

    Schemes | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Comparison Of The Indian Constitutional Scheme With That Of Other Countries

    The CJI N will soon take up a long-pending challenge against the government’s electoral bonds scheme.

    What are Electoral Bonds?

    • Electoral bonds are banking instruments that can be purchased by any citizen or company to make donations to political parties, without the donor’s identity being disclosed.
    • It is like a promissory note that can be bought by any Indian citizen or company incorporated in India from select branches of State Bank of India.
    • The citizen or corporate can then donate the same to any eligible political party of his/her choice.
    • An individual or party will be allowed to purchase these bonds digitally or through cheque.

    About the scheme

    • A citizen of India or a body incorporated in India will be eligible to purchase the bond
    • Such bonds can be purchased for any value in multiples of ₹1,000, ₹10,000, ₹10 lakh, and ₹1 crore from any of the specified branches of the State Bank of India
    • The purchaser will be allowed to buy electoral bonds only on due fulfillment of all the extant KYC norms and by making payment from a bank account
    • The bonds will have a life of 15 days (15 days time has been prescribed for the bonds to ensure that they do not become a parallel currency).
    • Donors who contribute less than ₹20,000 to political parties through purchase of electoral bonds need not provide their identity details, such as Permanent Account Number (PAN).

    Objective of the scheme

    • Transparency in political funding: To ensure that the funds being collected by the political parties is accounted money or clean money.

    Who can redeem such bonds?

    • The Electoral Bonds shall be encashed by an eligible Political Party only through a Bank account with the Authorized Bank.
    • Only the Political Parties registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (43 of 1951) and which secured not less than one per cent of the votes polled in the last General Election to the Lok Sabha or the State Legislative Assembly, shall be eligible to receive the Electoral Bonds.

    Restrictions that are done away

    • Earlier, no foreign company could donate to any political party under the Companies Act
    • A firm could donate a maximum of 7.5 per cent of its average three year net profit as political donations according to Section 182 of the Companies Act.
    • As per the same section of the Act, companies had to disclose details of their political donations in their annual statement of accounts.
    • The government moved an amendment in the Finance Bill to ensure that this proviso would not be applicable to companies in case of electoral bonds.
    • Thus, Indian, foreign and even shell companies can now donate to political parties without having to inform anyone of the contribution.

    Issues with the Scheme

    • Opaque funding: While the identity of the donor is captured, it is not revealed to the party or public. So transparency is not enhanced for the voter.
    • No IT break: Also income tax breaks may not be available for donations through electoral bonds. This pushes the donor to choose between remaining anonymous and saving on taxes.
    • No anonymity for donors: The privacy of the donor is compromised as the bank will know their identity.
    • Differential benefits: These bonds will help any party that is in power because the government can know who donated what money and to whom.
    • Unlimited donations: The electoral bonds scheme and amendments in the Finance Act of 2017 allows for “unlimited donations from individuals and foreign companies to political parties without any record of the sources of funding”.

    Way ahead

    • The worries over the electoral bond scheme, however, go beyond its patent unconstitutionality.
    • The concern about the possibility of misuse of funds is very pertinent.
    • The EC has been demanding that a law be passed to make political parties liable to get their accounts audited by an auditor from a panel suggested by the CAG or EC. This should get prominence.
    • Another feasible option is to establish a National Election Fund to which all donations could be directed.
    • This would take care of the imaginary fear of political reprisal of the donors.

     

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  • Zoonotic Diseases: Medical Sciences Involved & Preventive Measures

    Recombinant Variants of SARS-CoV-2

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

    The World Health Organization (WHO) has flagged the emergence of a new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus — the XE recombinant.

    How are variants created?

    • SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is an RNA virus which evolves by accumulating genetic errors in its genome.
    • These errors are produced when the virus infects a person and makes copies of itself inside the host’s cells.
    • These errors (otherwise called mutations) are therefore a by-product of replication of SARS-CoV-2 inside the cell and may be carried forward as the virus continues to infect people.
    • When viruses having a specific set of errors or mutations infect a number of people, this forms a cluster of infections descending from a common parental virus genome and is known as a lineage or a variant of the virus.

    Who name these variants?

    • The PANGO network, an open global consortium of researchers from across the world, provides a system for naming different lineages of SARS-CoV-2.
    • Pangolin was developed to implement the dynamic nomenclature of SARS-CoV-2 lineages, known as the Pango nomenclature.
    • These variants or lineages are widely followed by epidemiologists for tracking the evolution of SARS-CoV-2.

    What is a recombinant variant?

    • Apart from the errors in the virus genome, another process through which a virus increases its genetic diversity is recombination.
    • Recombination occurs when, in extremely rare situations, two different lineages of the virus co-infect the same cell in the host and exchange fragments of their individual genomes.
    • This generates a descendent variant having mutations that occurred in both the original lineages of the virus.
    • Recombination of lineages happens in a variety of other viruses, including those that cause influenza, as well as other coronaviruses.
    • Such recombination events occur typically in situations where two or more lineages of SARS-CoV-2 may be co-circulating in a certain region during the same time period.
    • This co-circulation of lineages provides an opportunity for recombination to occur between these two lineages of SARS-CoV-2.

    How many recombinant viruses have been detected?

    • While recombination events are not frequently observed for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, multiple recombinant lineages have been designated during the pandemic.
    • The recombinant lineages are annotated by PANGO with an ‘X’ followed by an alphabet which indicates the order of discovery.
    • Some previously detected and designated lineages include XA, a recombinant of B.1.1.7 (Alpha) and B.1.177 detected in the U.K., lineage XB detected in the U.S., and lineage XC detected in Japan, which is a recombinant of B.1.1.7 (Alpha) and AY.29 sublineage of Delta.
    • Three new recombinant lineages of SARS-CoV-2 have been recently designated by the PANGO network and are being monitored — XD, XE, and XF.
    • Although currently present in a very low proportion of genomes in the U.K., early data from the country show evidence of community transmission of XF.

    Are recombinant variants more deadly?

    • Although recombination has been detected in SARS-CoV-2, it has not yet impacted public health in a unique way.
    • There is little evidence to suggest that recombinant lineages have a varied clinical outcome compared to the currently dominant Omicron variant.
    • It is certain at this point in time that more data will be needed to ascertain the impact of these lineages on the epidemiology of COVID-19.

    What are the methods through which recombinants are identified?

    • Identifying and tracking recombinant lineages for SARS-CoV-2 is a challenging task.
    • This would require specialised tools and the availability of primary (or raw) data for genome sequences as similar variant combinations could also arise from inadvertent errors in sequencing or analysis as well as contamination of sequencing experiments.
    • A cluster of recombinant genomes can be designated a lineage name by the PANGO network if it can be confirmed that samples in the cluster have a common origin and descend from two individual lineages of SARS-CoV-2.
    • Additionally, there should be at least 5 genomes in the public domain belonging to the cluster, indicating an ongoing transmission of the lineage.
    • Furthermore, screening the sequencing data of these samples should show no signs of contamination and meet the definition of a recombinant.

    Way ahead

    • Since recombinations are extremely rare occurrences, it is unclear how and why the viruses recombine.
    • It is, therefore, important to track the recombination of SARS-CoV-2 lineages because it may lead to the generation of a viral lineage that is better at infecting people or transmitting from host to host.
    • Monitoring circulating SARS-CoV-2 genomes for evidence of recombination will help gain a better understanding of the ongoing evolution of SARS-CoV-2.
    • It will also provide information if a more “concerning” variant of the virus were to emerge.

     

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  • Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Global Implications

    India condemns atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine

    IOCR | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Important International Institutions

    India condemned the killing of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine, at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) calling for an independent UN inquiry. (However India abstained from blaming Russia for the civilian deaths.)

    Note: Such events are of least GS importance. However, one must recognize the severity of such massacres and the imprint that it left on entire humanity. Yes, it is not India’s war, but it is no mean activity for a military superpower to march and annexe a small neighbour.  This topic holds much importance for personality test.

    Bucha massacre

    • The grimmest discoveries have been made in a Kyiv suburb called Bucha, a town located about 25 km to the northwest of the capital.
    • More than 300 bodies have been found in the town, some with their hands bound, flesh burned, and shot in the back of the head.
    • Satellite images now available show streets strewn with corpses, and many of the bodies seen by journalists in the past couple of days appear to have lain in the open for weeks.
    • The reports and pictures of corpses wearing civilian clothes, some clutching shopping bags, suggest that ordinary citizens were murdered without provocation, as they went about their daily business.

    A no lesser holocaust event

    • The discoveries have drawn comparisons with the killings of civilians in this area during World War II.
    • It reminds of the First Battle of Kyiv (part of Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union that began in June 1941) and the Second Battle of Kyiv (November-December 1943).
    • The Red (Soviet) Army started to push back the Germans from Ukraine, the area around the Ukrainian capital, including Bucha.
    • It saw the “Holocaust by bullets” during which an estimated 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, were shot dead at close range.

    A genocide or war crimes?

    • War crimes are defined as “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions, agreements signed after World War II that laid down international humanitarian laws during war time.
    • Deliberately targeting civilians amounts to a war crime.
    • The International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague has already opened an investigation into possible war crimes by Russia.
    • The investigation could in theory target even Putin. But it will be difficult to bring Russian defendants to trial or to prove intent.
    • Russia does not recognise the ICC and will likely not cooperate with the investigation.
    • The crimes of genocide are defined by the United Nations Genocide Convention of December 1948.
    • It includes acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. Genocide is seen as the gravest and most serious of all crimes against humanity.

     

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  • Renewable Energy – Wind, Tidal, Geothermal, etc.

    Unlocking the potential of green hydrogen

    op-ed snap | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways Etc.

    Context

    The ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine have led to the prices of crude oil shooting to $130/barrel. Green hydrogen is an emerging option that will help reduce India’s vulnerability to such price shocks.

    Four deficiencies in Renewable Energy Technologies

    • 1] Intermittent nature of RE: RE can only be generated intermittently.
    • Battery technology cannot store electricity at a grid scale.
    • 2] Financial viability: There are question marks on the financial viability of green power.
    • In India, renewable electricity is a replacement for coal-based power, the cheapest form of energy.
    • That’s a big constraint on its viability.
    • Moreover, the customers of this power – the state distribution companies – are collectively insolvent.
    • A business cannot prosper if its primary customers are not financially viable.
    • 3] Batteries are not suitable for heavy trucks: While electric cars and two-wheelers get a lot of visibility, much of India’s oil is burnt in heavy trucks.
    • Lithium batteries are not viable for trucks.
    • 4] Critical minerals: Electric vehicles require large quantities of lithium and cobalt that India lacks.
    • These minerals also have very concentrated supply chains that are vulnerable to disruptions.
    • Large-scale investments in electric vehicles may create unsustainable dependencies for the country.

    Is green hydrogen a solution?

    • Intermittent hydrogen in the energy mix can help circumvent some of these problems.
    • Hydrogen is an important industrial gas and is used on a large scale in petroleum refining, steel, and fertiliser production.
    • As of now, the hydrogen used in these industries is grey hydrogen, produced from natural gas.
    • Green hydrogen produced using renewable energy can be blended with grey hydrogen.
    • This will allow the creation of a substantial green hydrogen production capacity, without the risk that it may become a stranded asset.
    • Creating this hydrogen capacity will provide experience in handling the gas at a large scale and the challenges involved.
    • Blending with CNG: To widen the use of green hydrogen, it can be blended with compressed natural gas (CNG), widely used as a fuel for vehicles in Delhi, Mumbai and some other cities.
    • This will partly offset the need for imported natural gas and also help flag off the challenges of creating and distributing hydrogen at a national level.
    • By bringing down the price of green hydrogen sufficiently, India can help unlock some stranded assets.
    • The country has close to 25,000 megawatts of gas-fired power generation capacity that operates at a very low-capacity utilisation level. The high price of natural gas reduces the viability of such electricity.
    • These plants could use hydrogen blended with natural gas. Hydrogen should, however, be used to generate electricity after it has served its utility in other avenue.

    Way forward

    • To catalyse a hydrogen economy, India needs some specialist players to execute projects as well as finance them.
    • Participation of private players: Apart from government-backed players, the hydrogen economy will need private sector participation.
    • India’s start-up sector, with over 75 unicorns, is perhaps the most vibrant part of the country’s economy currently.
    • This ecosystem has been enabled by a mix of factors, including the presence of entrepreneurs with ideas and investors who are willing to back up these ideas
    • Creation of refueling network: One challenge of using new transport fuels, whether CNG or electric vehicles, is the creation of large-scale refuelling networks.
    • Bringing hydrogen vehicles on the road too soon will require the creation of yet another set of infrastructure.
    • Building fleets of hydrogen-fueled vehicles for gated infrastructure can be a good starting point.
    • Airports, ports and warehouses, for instance, use a large number of vehicles such as forklifts, cranes, trucks, tractors and passenger vehicles.

    Conclusion

    The government’s Green Hydrogen Policy sends the right signals about its intent. It now needs to ensure that investment can freely come into this space.

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  • Labour, Jobs and Employment – Harmonization of labour laws, gender gap, unemployment, etc.

    Human Migration: Reasons & Impact

    op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Governance, Transparency & Accountability, Citizens Charters

    Context

    Repeated surveys have found that the incomes of migrant households continue to be lower than pre-pandemic levels, even after returning to cities.

    Lack of policy for migrants

    • In the wake of a nationwide lockdown, India was left shocked by the plight of migrant workers walking hundreds of kilometres.
    • They became the focus of large-scale relief efforts by governments and civil society alike.
    • The Government ramped up the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) project, announced the Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHC) scheme, set up the e-Shram portal and began to draft a migration policy.
    •  Despite this, a cohesive migration policy guidance remains elusive.
    • Contribution of migrant workers: Today, a third of the nation’s workforce is mobile.
    • Migrants fuel critical sectors such as manufacturing, construction, hospitality, logistics and commercial agriculture.
    • Despite clear economic and humanitarian reasoning to bring migrants back into the policy discourse, the current policy scenario is at best fragmented and at worst waning.

    Structural constraints

    1] Politicisation of issue and fragmented policy response

    •  Migration is a highly politicised phenomenon in India.
    • ‘Destination States’ experience a tension between economic needs, which require migrant labour, and political needs, which promote nativist policies that impose domicile restrictions on employment and social security.
    • On the flip side, the ‘sending States’ are highly motivated to serve their “own people” because they vote in their source villages.
    • This fragmented policy response to internal migration follows from State-specific calculations.
    • Development policy in India has bet big on rural development as an antidote to migration.
    • This widespread ‘sedentary bias’ continues to influence policy even though migration is an important pathway for impoverished marginalised rural households to find economic security (and social emancipation).

    2] Categorisation challenge

    • Migrants are a perennially fuzzy category in policy discourse, located inside two larger categories: the unorganised worker and the urban poor.
    • Even the e-Shram portal, which has made impressive progress in registering unorganised workers, has been unable to accurately distinguish and target migrants.
    • Policy interventions in major urban destinations continue to conflate the urban poor with low-income migrants.
    • Hence, slum development continues as the primary medium for alleviating migrant concerns, while in reality, most migrants live on worksites that are entirely out of the policy gaze.

    3] Gaps in the data

    • Migration policy discourse is seemingly paralysed by the now well-acknowledged failure of official datasets to capture the actual scale and the frequency of internal migration in India.
    •  Data systems designed to periodically record only one spatial location have posed great challenges to welfare delivery for up to 500 million people who are part of multi-locational migrant households.
    • The novel coronavirus pandemic has placed a sharp focus on problems such as educating and vaccinating those children who accompany their migrant parents, or ensuring that migrant women avail maternity benefits at multiple locations.

    Way forward: Strategic policy guidance by Centre and a platform for inter-State coordination

    • Policy in India often emerges from the ground up, taking decades to cement into national law and standard practice.
    • We have seen this in education and food security.
    • State’s initiatives: In migration too, many States have initiated data projects that can track migrants and generate dynamic real-time data that aid welfare delivery.
    • Maharashtra’s Migration Tracking System (MTS), Chhattisgarh’s State Migrant Workers Policy is premised on registering migrant workers at source and tracking them through phone-based outreach systems.
    • Multisectoral approach: There is further need for multisectoral approaches underpinned by a strategic convergence across government departments and initiatives.
    • Odisha’s Planning and Convergence Department, which offers an institutional mechanism for inter-departmental coordination, is one possible model.
    • Important role of the Centre:  State-level political economy constraints make the Centre’s role particularly crucial in addressing issues of inter-State migrant workers at ‘destination States’.
    • The NITI Aayog’s Draft Policy on Migrant Workers is a positive step forward.

    Conclusion

    Strategic initiatives to provide migrants safety nets regardless of location as well as bolster their ability to migrate safely and affordably must keep up the momentum toward migrant-supportive policy.

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