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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • Odisha tops first-ever NFSA State Ranking Index

    Odisha has topped the list of 34 states and Union territories (UTs) in the first-ever NFSA State Ranking Index. Ladakh was ranked last on the index.

    NFSA State Ranking Index

    • The GoI has come up with a first-ever state ranking index to capture the implementation of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).
    • The states and UTs were ranked for 2022 on the basis of three parameters:
    1. NFSA coverage, rightful targeting and implementation of all provisions under the Act
    2. The delivery platform while considering the allocation of food grains, their movement and last-mile delivery to fair price shops
    3. Nutrition initiatives of the department

    Why need such index?

    • NFSA is a crucial policy instrument to ensure food security. It covers nearly 800 million people.
    • However, NFSA’s implementation through TPDS has not been uniform in the country.
    • While some states and Union territories lead, others are yet to pick up in terms of coverage, beneficiary satisfaction, digitisation and overall system efficiency.
    • The index has been developed to create an environment of competition, cooperation and learning among states while addressing matters of food security and hunger.

    Back2Basics: National Food Security (NFS) Act

    • The NFS Act, 2013 aims to provide subsidized food grains to approximately two-thirds of India’s 1.2 billion people.
    • It converts into legal entitlements for existing food security programs of the GoI.
    • It includes the Midday Meal Scheme, Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme and the Public Distribution System (PDS).
    • Further, the NFSA 2013 recognizes maternity entitlements.
    • The Midday Meal Scheme and the ICDS are universal in nature whereas the PDS will reach about two-thirds of the population (75% in rural areas and 50% in urban areas).
    • Pregnant women, lactating mothers, and certain categories of children are eligible for daily free cereals.

    Key provisions of NFSA

    • The NFSA provides a legal right to persons belonging to “eligible households” to receive foodgrains at a subsidised price.
    • It includes rice at Rs 3/kg, wheat at Rs 2/kg and coarse grain at Rs 1/kg — under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). These are called central issue prices (CIPs).

     

     

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    https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/governance/odisha-tops-first-ever-nfsa-state-ranking-index-83549

     

  • Malnutrition in India

    Context

    More than seven decades after independence, India still suffers from the public health issues such as child malnutrition attributing to 68.2% of under-five child mortality.

    What is malnutrition?

    • Malnutrition refers to deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and/or nutrients.
    • The term malnutrition covers 2 broad groups of conditions.
    • One is ‘undernutrition’—which includes stunting (low height for age), wasting (low weight for height), underweight (low weight for age) and micronutrient deficiencies or insufficiencies (a lack of important vitamins and minerals).
    • The other is overweight, obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer).

    Marginal improvement on Stunting and Wasting

    • The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) has shown marginal improvement in different nutrition indicators, indicating that the pace of progress is slow.
    • This is despite declining rates of poverty, increased self-sufficiency in food production, and the implementation of a range of government programmes.
    • Children in several States are more undernourished now than they were five years ago.
    • Increased stunting in some states: Stunting is defined as low height-for-age.
    • While there was some reduction in stunting rates (35.5% from 38.4% in NFHS-4) 13 States or Union Territories have seen an increase in stunted children since NFHS-4.
    • This includes Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Kerala.
    • Wasting remains stagnant: Wasting is defined as low weight-for-height.
    • Malnutrition trends across NFHS surveys show that wasting, the most visible and life-threatening form of malnutrition, has either risen or has remained stagnant over the years.

    National Nutrition Mission (NNM): Focus on essential nutrition interventions

    • Government appears determined to set it right — with an aggressive push to the National Nutrition Mission (NNM), rebranding it the Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition, or POSHAN.
    • Window of opportunity: The Ministry of Women and Child (MWCD) continues to be the nodal Ministry implementing the NNM with a vision to align different ministries to work in tandem on the “window of opportunity” of the first 1,000 days in life (270 days of pregnancy and 730 days; 0-24 months).
    • POSHAN Abhiyaan (now referred as POSHAN 2.0) rightly places a special emphasis on selected high impact essential nutrition interventions, combined with nutrition-sensitive interventions, which indirectly impact mother, infant and young child nutrition, such as improving coverage of maternal-child health services, enhancing women empowerment, availability, and access to improved water, sanitation, and hygiene and enhancing homestead food production for a diversified diet.

    Key findings of NHFS-5 data

    • Data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 2019-21, as compared to NFHS-4 2015-16, reveals a substantial improvement in a period of four to five years in several proxy indicators of women’s empowerment.
    • No progress on nutritional intervention: Alarmingly, during this period, the country has not progressed well in terms of direct nutrition interventions.
    • Preconception nutrition, maternal nutrition, and appropriate infant and child feeding remain to be effectively addressed.
    • India has 20% to 30% undernutrition even in the first six months of life when exclusive breastfeeding is the only nourishment required.
    • Neither maternal nutrition care interventions nor infant and young child feeding practices have shown the desired improvement.

    Suggestions

    • Child undernutrition in the first three months remains high. Creating awareness on EBF, promoting the technique of appropriate holding, latching and manually emptying the breast are crucial for the optimal transfer of breast milk to a baby.
    • Complementary feeding: NFHS-5 also confirms a gap in another nutrition intervention — complementary feeding practices, i.e., complementing semi-solid feeding with continuation of breast milk from six months onwards.
    • The fact that 20% of children in higher socio- economic groups are also stunted indicates poor knowledge in food selection and feeding practices and a child’s ability to swallow mashed feed.
    • Creating awareness: So, creating awareness at the right time with the right tools and techniques regarding special care in the first 1,000 days deserves very high priority.
    • Revisit nodal system for nutrition program: There is a need to revisit the nodal system for nutrition programme existing since 1975, the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) under the Ministry of Women and Child and examine whether it is the right system for reaching mother-child in the first 1000 days of life.
    • Alternative way to distribute ICDS supplies: There is also a need to explore whether there is an alternative way to distribute the ICDS supplied supplementary nutrition as Take- Home Ration packets through the Public Distribution (PDS) and free the anganwadi workers of the ICDS to undertake timely counselling on appropriate maternal and child feeding practices.

    Conclusion

    It is time to think out of the box, and overcome systemic flaws and our dependence on the antiquated system of the 1970s that is slowing down the processes.

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  • Custodial deaths

    Context

    The recent spate of custodial deaths in Tamil Nadu has yet again highlighted the methods used by the police during interrogation.

    Custodial deaths in India

    • It is not uncommon knowledge that the police, when they grow increasingly frustrated with the trajectory of their interrogation, sometimes resort to torture and violence which could lead to the death of the suspect.
    • Custodial deaths are common despite enormous time and money being spent on training police personnel to embrace scientific methods of investigation.
    • This is because police personnel are humans from different backgrounds and with different perspectives.

    Use of technology by law enforcement agencies

    • There is no doubt that technology can help avert police custodial deaths. For example, body cameras could hold officers liable.
    • Deception detection tests (DDTs), which deploy technologies such as polygraph, narco-analysis and brain mapping, could be valuable in learning information that is known only to a criminal regarding a crime.
    • Among the DDTs, the Brain Fingerprinting System (BFS) is an innovative technology that several police forces contemplate adding to their investigative tools.
    • The technique helps investigative agencies uncover clues in complicated cases.
    • With informed consent, however, any information or material discovered during the BFS tests can be part of the evidence.
    • Police departments are increasingly using robots for surveillance and bomb detection.
    • Many departments now want robotic interrogators for interrogating suspects.
    • Use of robots: Police departments are increasingly using robots for surveillance and bomb detection.
    • Use of robots for interrogation: Many departments now want robotic interrogators for interrogating suspects.
    • Many experts today believe that robots can meet or exceed the capabilities of the human interrogator, partially because humans are inclined to respond to robots in ways that they do to humans.
    • Robots equipped with AI and sensor technology can build a rapport with the suspects, utilise persuasive techniques like flattery, shame and coercion, and strategically use body language.
    • Use of AI/ML: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are emerging as tool of interrogations. AI can detect human emotions and predict behaviour.
    • Therefore, these are also options.
    • ML can in real-time alert superiors when police are meting out inhumane treatment to suspects.

    Issues with the use of technologies

    • Informed consent: In 2010, the Supreme Court, in Selvi v. State of Karnataka, rendered the BFS evidence inadmissible.
    • The court observed that the state could not perform narco analysis, polygraph, and brain-mapping tests on any individual without their consent.
    • High cost of technology: As the BFS is high-end technology, it is expensive and unavailable in several States.
    • There is a lot of concern about AI or robot interrogations, both legally and ethically.
    • Risk of bias: There exists the risk of bias, the peril of automated interrogation tactics, the threat of ML algorithms targeting individuals and communities, and the hazard of its misuse for surveillance.

    Way forward

    • Multi-pronged strategy: What we need is the formulation of a multi-pronged strategy by the decision-makers encompassing legal enactments, technology, accountability, training and community relations.
    • Onus of proof on police: The Law Commission of India’s proposition in 2003 to change the Evidence Act to place the onus of proof on the police for not having tortured suspects is important in this regard.
    • Strict implementation of D.K. Basu case guidelines: Besides, stringent action must be taken against personnel who breach the commandments issued by the apex court in D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal (1997).
    • Law against custodial torture: The draft bill on the Prevention of Torture, 2017, which has not seen the day, needs to be revived.

    Conclusion

    While the technology available to the police and law-enforcement agencies is constantly improving, it is a restricted tool that can’t eradicate custodial deaths. While it might provide comfort and transparency, it can never address the underlying issues that lead to these situations.

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    Back2Basics:  Supreme Court judgement in DK Basu case

    • The DK Basu judgment since 1987 is crucial in dealing with issue of custodial deaths.
    • The judgement has origin from a letter complaint in 1986, which was converted into PIL.
    • 4 crucial and comprehensive judgments — in 1996, twice in 2001 and in 2015 — lay down over 20 commandments, forming the complete structure of this judgement.

    Details of judgment:

    First 11 commandments in 1996, focused on vital processual safeguards:

    • All officials must carry name tags and full identification, arrest memo must be prepared, containing all details regarding time and place of arrest, attested by one family member or respectable member of the locality.
    • The location of arrest must be intimated to one family or next friend, details notified to the nearest legal aid organisation and arrestee must be made known of DK Basu judgement.
    • All such compliances must be recorded in the police register, arrestee must get periodical medical examination, inspection memo must be signed by arrestee also and all such information must be centralised in a central police control room.
    • Breach to be culpable with severe departmental action and additionally contempt also, and this would all be in addition to, not substitution of, any existing remedy.
    • All of the above preventive and punitive measures could go with, and were not alternatives to, full civil monetary damage claims for constitutional tort.

    8 other intermediate orders till 2015:

    • Precise detailed compliance reports of above orders to be submitted by all states and UT and any delayed responses to be  looked into by special sub-committees appointed by state human rights body.
    • Also where no SHRC existed, the chief justice of the high courts to monitor it administratively.
    • It emphasised that existing powers for magisterial inquiries under the CrPC were lackadaisical and must be completed in four months, unless sessions court judges recorded reasons for extension.
    • It also directed SHRCs to be set up expeditiously in each part of India.

    The third and last phase of judgment ended in 2015:

    • Stern directions were given to set up SHRCs and also fill up large vacancies in existing bodies.
    • The power of setting up human rights courts under Section 30 of the NHRC Act was directed to be operationalised.
    • All prisons had to have CCTVs within one year.
    • Non-official visitors would do surprise checks on prisons and police stations.
    • Prosecutions and departmental action to be made unhesitatingly mandated.

  • Is India really ahead of the West in terms of reproductive rights?

    Context

    Contrary to the grandstanding since the overturning of the landmark Roe V. Wade judgment, the truth is that India is not ahead of the West in terms of reproductive rights.

    Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act

    • Abortion in India has been a legal right under various circumstances for the last 50 years with the introduction of Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act in 1971.
    • The Act was amended in 2003 to enable women’s accessibility to safe and legal abortion services.
    • Abortion is covered 100% by the government’s public national health insurance funds, Ayushman Bharat and Employees’ State Insurance with the package rate for surgical abortion.

    The idea of terminating your pregnancy cannot originate by choice and is purely circumstantial. There are four situations under which a legal abortion is performed:

    1. If continuation of the pregnancy poses any risks to the life of the mother or mental health
    2. If the foetus has any severe abnormalities
    3. If pregnancy occurred as a result of failure of contraception (but this is only applicable to married women)
    4. If pregnancy is a result of sexual assault or rape

    These are the key changes that the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act, 2021, has brought in:

    • The gestation limit for abortions has been raised from the earlier ceiling of 20 weeks to 24 weeks, but only for special categories of pregnant women such as rape or incest survivors. But this termination would need the approval of two registered doctors.
    • All pregnancies up to 20 weeks require one doctor’s approval. The earlier law, the MTP Act 1971, required one doctor’s approval for pregnancies upto 12 weeks and two doctors’ for pregnancies between 12 and 20 weeks.
    • Women can now terminate unwanted pregnancies caused by contraceptive failure, regardless of their marital status. Earlier the law specified that only a “married woman and her husband” could do this.
    • There is also no upper gestation limit for abortion in case of foetal disability if so decided by a medical board of specialist doctors, which state governments and union territories’ administrations would set up.

    Issues with legal provisions related to reproductive rights in India

    • Lack of rights based approach: The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021 is far from ideal and has been criticised for not taking a rights-based approach.
    • According to the Act, a pregnancy can be terminated on the following conditions: Grave danger to the physical/mental health of the pregnant woman; foetal abnormalities; rape/coercion; and contraceptive failure.
    • A woman’s right to choose to end the pregnancy even in the first few weeks is still not recognised in India.
    • Systemic barriers: It doesn’t give the pregnant person complete autonomy in ending the pregnancy, instead making them go through various systemic barriers.
    • The final decision falls not on the pregnant person, but on registered medical practitioners (RMP).
    • The constitution of a medical board, a requirement by the Act, is considered a barrier by the World Health Organisation.
    • Excludes transgenders and non-binary persons: Additionally, it uses the word “woman”, thereby leaving out pregnant transgender and non-binary persons who are biologically capable of bearing children.
    • It forces them to identify themselves in the gender-binary ignoring their gender identity.

    Social factors and lack of medical facilities

    • It is important to look through an intersectional lens, and factor in class and caste privilege.
    • Abortion facilities in private medical centres are expensive, available only for those who have the resources.
    • Lack of access: Not all public health centres, especially in rural India, provide abortion facilities.
    • Most unmarried women end up resorting to unsafe abortions in illegal clinics or at home.
    • According to the latest National Family Health Survey 2019-2021, 27 percent of the abortions were carried out by the woman herself at home.
    • According to United Nations’ Population Fund’s (UNFPA) State of the World Population Report 2022, around 8 women die each day in India due to unsafe abortions.
    • It also found that between 2007-2011, 67 percent of the abortions were classified as unsafe.
    • Unsafe abortion was one of the top three causes of maternal deaths.

    Discussion on reproductive rights in India are incomplete without mentioning surrogacy.

    Issues in the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2021

    • While well-intentioned, leaves much to be desired.
    • The plethora of regulations one must undergo is antithetical to a dignified standard of living.
    • Exclusionary in nature: Experts have pointed out that the Act is exclusionary in nature, disregards privacy, and also exploits women’s reproductive labour.
    • Only a heterosexual married couple (with certain preconditions) can be the intending parents.
    • It strips the reproductive autonomy of LGBTQ+ persons and single, divorced, and widowed intending parents. It can be seen as a violation to the fundamental right to equality.
    • Experts also believe that regulations, rather than a complete ban on commercial surrogacy, should have been the way forward.
    • Violates right to privacy: The Act requires the intending couple to declare their infertility and reveals the identity of the surrogate, both of which violate the right to privacy.
    • The landmark Puttaswamy judgment discusses bodily privacy – the right over one’s body and “the freedom of being able to prevent others from violating one’s body.”
    • The current reproductive rights regulatory framework falls short in guaranteeing bodily privacy.

    Conclusion

    The situation in India is far from perfect and we should take this moment to reflect and learn from progressive practices around the world. We should strive for inclusivity, complete bodily autonomy, and reproductive equity.

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  • Bharat New Car Assessment Programme (BNCAP)

    The government is planning a new car assessment programme (NCAP) in India, to be called the Bharat NCAP or BNCAP.

    What is Bharat NCAP?

    • Bharat NCAP is a new car safety assessment programme which proposes a mechanism of awarding ‘Star Ratings’ to automobiles based upon their performance in crash tests.
    • BNCAP standard is aligned with global benchmarks and it is beyond minimum regulatory requirements.
    • The proposed Bharat NCAP assessment will allocate Star Ratings from 1 to 5 stars.
    • The testing of vehicles for this programme will be carried out at testing agencies, with the necessary infrastructure.

    Its implementation

    • BNCAP will be rolled out from April 1, 2023.
    • It will be applicable on type-approved motor vehicles of category M1 with gross vehicle weight less than 3.5 tonnes, manufactured or imported in the country.
    • M1 category motor vehicles are used for the carriage of passengers, comprising eight seats, in addition to driver’s seat.

    Significance of Bharat NCAP

    • BNCAP rating will provide consumers an indication of the level of protection offered to occupants by evaluating the vehicle in the areas of:
    1. Adult occupant protection
    2. Child occupant protection
    3. Safety assist technologies
    • It will serve as a consumer-centric platform, allowing customers to opt for safer cars based upon their Star-Ratings.
    • It will also promote a healthy competition among original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in India to manufacture safer vehicles.
    • It will ensure structural and passenger safety in cars, along with increasing the export-worthiness of Indian automobiles.
    • It will prove to be a critical instrument in making our automobile industry Aatmanirbhar.

    Why does India need to crash-test vehicles?

    • Indian vehicles have historically not been crash-tested in the country.
    • Despite being home to only 1% of the world’s vehicles, India shoulders 11% of the global road crash fatality burden.

    What about existing testing standards?

    • India’s Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR) mandate a safety and performance assessment, including a basic conformity crash test by agencies like the ARAI and ICAT when vehicles go in for type approvals.
    • However, this does not involve a crash test rating.
    • Many international automakers have been found to sell products in India which score much lower on safety and structural performance parameters.
    • This is done to reduce costs in the price-sensitive Indian market.
    • However, safety is moving up nowadays the list of key purchase criteria in India as well.

    How will a homegrown NCAP help?

    • Global NCAP (GNCAP) crash tests for many best-selling Indian vehicles have dismal ratings, many of them rated zero in a bias.
    • The government hopes that by facilitating these tests by in-house agencies, more automakers will voluntarily undergo safety assessments and build vehicles that hold up to global standards.

    How will it compare with GNCAP?

    • The government wants the two tests to be in congruence with each other.
    • It intends to design the BNCAP to resemble the GNCAP, the global gold standard, as closely as possible, including the speed for crash testing at 64kmph.
    • Central Motor Vehicle rules encompass standards with respect to pedestrian protection and seat belt reminders among others and will be retained in the testing under the BNCAP.
    • The government hopes the move will increase the export-worthiness of Indian automobiles.

     

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  • Road Safety in India

    The United Nations is holding a high-level meeting on Global Road Safety on June 30 and July 1, 2022 to review the progress and challenges.

    Road Accidents in India: A lookover

    • In spite of several years of policymaking to improve road safety, India remains among the worst-performing countries in this area.
    • Total 1,47,913 lives lost to road traffic accidents in 2017 as per Ministry of Road Transport and Highways statistics.
    • The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figure for the same year is 1,50,093 road accident deaths.

    Why in news?

    • The persistently high annual death toll brings into question the country’s ability to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.6.
    • This aims to halve the fatalities and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2030.

    Lancet’s findings on road safety

    • A new analytical series on road safety worldwide, published by The Lancet, proposes that India and other countries could cut accident-related deaths by 25 to 40%.
    • This is based on evidence that preventive interventions produce good outcomes when applied to four well-known risk factors:
    1. High speed
    2. Driving under the influence of alcohol
    3. Not using proper helmets
    4. Not wearing seat-belts and not using child restraints

    Issues highlighted in developing countries

    • The structural problems linked to unplanned motorisation and urbanisation remain.
    • In India, speedy highway construction takes place without reconciling fast and slow-moving traffic.
    • There is a rampant presence of ramshackle vehicles, wrong-side driving, absence of adequate traffic police forces etc.

    Why are there so many road fatalities in India alone?

    • Weak enforcement of traffic laws: People hardly oblige to traffic rules and find easier to bribe policemen rather than paying hefty challans.
    • Speeding issue: More accidents on the highways have been attributed to higher vehicle speeds and higher volume of traffic on these roads.
    • Engineering bottlenecks: Issues such as gaps in the median on the national highways, untreated intersections, and missing crash barriers are some of the biggest engineering issues.
    • Behavioural issue: Driver violations such as wrong-side driving, wrong lane usage by heavy vehicles, and mass violation of traffic lights, intoxication are the biggest behavioural issues.
    • Lack of Golden hour treatment: Lack of rapid trauma care on highways leads to such high fatalities.

    Various steps taken by India

    • India amended Motor Vehicles Act in 2019, but its implementation by State governments is not uniform or complete.
    • A National Road Safety Board was constituted under the Act, with advisory powers to reform safety.
    • The World Bank has approved a $250 million loan to support for India State Support Programme for Road Safety.

    Issues with implementation

    • The focus of State governments, however, remains conventional, with an emphasis on user behaviour (drivers and other road users), education and uneven enforcement.
    • Low emphasis is placed on structural change such as raising engineering standards for roads, signages, signals, training for scientific accident investigation, raising policing skills and fixing responsibility on government departments for design, creation and maintenance of road infrastructure.

    What can be done to cut death and injury rates?

    • The ambitious amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act in 2019 (MV Act) have not yielded significant results.
    • Major interventions in India, first suggested by the Sundar Committee (2007) and ordered by the Supreme Court in Rajasekaran vs Union of India have not made a dent in the problem.

    Key findings of Sundar Committee

    • The Sundar Committee pointed out that India lacked a technically competent investigation arm that could determine the cause of accidents.
    • There is little clarity on whether the States have formed such units to aid traffic investigation, or whether the insurance industry has pressed for these to accurately determine fault.
    • In the absence of scientific investigation, perceptions usually guide the fixing of liability.

    Solutions provided by the Lancet

    • The Lancet calculated that 17% of road traffic injury-related deaths could be avoided if trauma care facilities improved.
    • This is significant as several accidents take place in rural areas on highways, and victims are taken to poorly-equipped district hospitals or medical college hospitals.
    • While positive user behaviour — slower travel, wearing of helmets, seat belts and so on — could save thousands of lives.
    • In the short term, slowing down traffic, particularly near habitations, segregating slower vehicles, enforcing seat belt and helmet use and cracking down on drunken drivers could produce measurable gains.

    Imbibing road safety: Way forward

    • Road safety education
    • Better road design, maintenance and warning signage
    • Crackdown on driving under influence of alcohol and drugs
    • Strict enforcement of traffic rules
    • Encouraging better road behaviour
    • Ensuring road worthiness of a vehicle
    • Better first aid and paramedic care

    Do you know?

    The ‘golden hour’ has been defined as ‘the time period lasting one hour following a traumatic injury during which there is the highest likelihood of preventing death by providing prompt medical care.

     

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  • India State Support Programme for Road Safety

    The World Bank has approved a $250 million loan to support the Government of India’s road safety programme for seven States.

    Programme for Road Safety

    • Under this, a single accident reporting number will be set up to better manage post-crash events.
    • It will be implemented in the States of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.
    • The $250 million variable spread loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has a maturity of 18 years, with a grace period of 5.5 years.
    • The project will also establish a national harmonised crash database system in order to analyse accidents and use that to construct better and safer roads.
    • The project will also provide incentives to States to leverage private funding through public private partnership (PPP) concessions and pilot initiatives.

    Road accidents in India: Key takeaways

    • The report ‘Road Accidents in India 2020’ released by the Union ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) provides for key stats.
    • India has only 1% of the world’s vehicles but 11% of the global deaths from road accidents occur in India.
    • About 450,000 accidents take place in India annually, of which 150,000 people die.
    • There are 53 road accidents in the country every hour and one death every four minutes.

    Why are there so many road fatalities in India alone?

    • Weak enforcement of traffic laws: People hardly oblige to traffic rules and find easier to bribe policemen rather than paying hefty challans.
    • Speeding issue: More accidents on the highways have been attributed to higher vehicle speeds and higher volume of traffic on these roads.
    • Engineering bottlenecks: Issues such as gaps in the median on the national highways, untreated intersections, and missing crash barriers are some of the biggest engineering issues.
    • Behavioural issue: Driver violations such as wrong-side driving, wrong lane usage by heavy vehicles, and mass violation of traffic lights, intoxication are the biggest behavioural issues.
    • Lack of Golden hour treatment: Lack of rapid trauma care on highways leads to such high fatalities.

    Imbibing road safety: Way forward

    • Road safety education
    • Better road design, maintenance and warning signage
    • Crackdown on driving under influence of alcohol and drugs
    • Strict enforcement of traffic rules
    • Encouraging better road behaviour
    • Ensuring road worthiness of a vehicle
    • Better first aid and paramedic care

    Do you know?

    The ‘golden hour’ has been defined as ‘the time period lasting one hour following a traumatic injury during which there is the highest likelihood of preventing death by providing prompt medical care.

     

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  • Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D)

    The Ministry of Education has released the Performance Grading Index for Districts (PGI-D) for 2019 which studied 83 indicators grouped in six categories.

    What is PGI-D?

    • The 83-indicator-based PGI for District (PGI-D) has been designed to grade the performance of all districts in school education.
    • The data is filled by districts through an online portal.
    • The indicator-wise PGI score shows the areas where a district needs to improve.
    • The PGI-D structure comprises a total weightage of 600 points across 83 indicators.
    • They are grouped under 6 categories, viz., Outcomes, Effective Classroom Transaction, Infrastructure Facilities & Students’ Entitlements, School Safety & Child Protection, Digital Learning, and Governance Process.
    • These categories are outcomes, effective classroom transaction, infrastructure facilities and student’s entitlements, school safety and child protection, digital learning and governance process.

    How does the grading scale works?

    • The PGI-D grades the districts into 10 grades with the highest achievable grade being ‘Daksh’, which is for districts scoring more than 90% of the total points in that category or overall.
    • ‘Utkarsh’ category is for districts with score between 81-90%, followed by ‘Ati-Uttam’ (71-80%), ‘Uttam’ (61-70%), ‘Prachesta-I’ (51-60%), ‘Prachesta-II’ (41-50%) and ‘Pracheshta III’ (31-40%).
    • The lowest grade in PGI-D is called ‘Akanshi-3’ which is for scores up to 10% of the total points.

    Performance of the states

    • Rajasthan’s Sikar is the top performer, followed by Jhunjhunu and Jaipur.
    • The other States whose districts have performed best are Punjab with 14 districts in ‘Ati-uttam’ grade (scoring 71-80% on a scale of 100).
    • It followed by Gujarat and Kerala with each having 13 districts in this category.
    • However, there are 12 States and UTs which do not have even a single district in the ‘Ati-uttam’ and ‘Uttam’ categories and these include seven of the eight States from the North East region.

    Significance

    • The PGI-D will reflect the relative performance of all the districts on a uniform scale which encourages them to perform better.
    • It is expected to help the state education departments to identify gaps at the district level and improve their performance in a decentralized manner.

     

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  • Issues with use of NMMS app in NREGA

    Context

    The National Mobile Monitoring Software (NMMS) app seeks to improve citizen oversight and increase transparency in NREGA works. This causes significant difficulty for NREGA workers.

    About NMMS app

    • National Mobile Monitoring Software (NMMS) App  was launched by the Minister of Rural Development on May, 21 2021.
    • The National Mobile Monitoring App is applicable for the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA workers for all the States/ Union Territories.
    • This app is aimed at bringing more transparency and ensure proper monitoring of the schemes.
    •  The main feature of the app is the real-time, photographed, geo-tagged attendance of every worker to be taken once in each half of the day. 
    • The app helps in increasing citizen oversight of the programme.

    Issues with the use of the app

    • While such an app may be useful in monitoring the attendance of workers who have fixed work timings, in most States, NREGA wages are calculated based on the amount of work done each day, and workers do not need to commit to fixed hours.
    • Disproportionately affects women: NREGA has historically had a higher proportion of women workers (54.7% in FY 2021-22) and has been pivotal in changing working conditions for women in rural areas.
    • Due to the traditional burden of household chores and care work on women, the app is likely to disproportionately affect women workers.
    • Lack of stable network: There are challenges of implementation with the NMMS as well.
    • A stable network is a must for real-time monitoring; unfortunately, it remains patchy in much of rural India.
    • NREGA Mates impacted: The app has adversely impacted NREGA Mates as well.
    • The role of a Mate was conceptualised as an opportunity to empower local women to manage attendance and work measurement in their panchayat.
    • To be a Mate, one needs to have a smartphone.
    • This new condition disqualifies thousands of women who do not own smartphones from becoming Mates.
    • Erosion of transparency:  The app claims to “increase citizen oversight” by “bringing more transparency and ensuring proper monitoring of the schemes, besides potentially enabling processing payments faster”.
    • With no physical attendance records signed by workers anymore, workers have no proof of their attendance and work done.
    • No clarity provided on corruption: While ostensibly the NMMS’s focus on real-time, geo-tagged attendance could be one way of addressing this corruption, the MoRD has not provided much clarity on either the magnitude of this corruption or the manner in which the NMMS addresses it.
    • No parameters: There are no parameters established to assess the app’s performance, either on transparency, or on quicker processed payments.

    Way forward

    • Social audits: Social audits are citizen-centric institutions, where the citizens of the panchayat have a direct role and say in how NREGA functions in their panchayat.
    • Audits have worked well in the past, allowing the local rights holders to be invested in decisions, and hold the administration accountable themselves.

    Conclusion

    The NMMS has very clear problems that will make it increasingly difficult for workers to continue working under NREGA, eroding the right to work that underwrites the NREGA Act.

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  • Parameswaran Iyer will be new NITI Aayog CEO

    Parameswaran Iyer, a senior official who helmed the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, will be the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NITI Aayog.

    What is the news?

    • Iyer replaces Amitabh Kant, who completes his term in the office on June 30.
    • Kant was appointed CEO of the National Institutions for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog on February 17, 2016, for two years.
    • He got three extensions during his tenure.

    Do you know?

    Under Mr. Kant, the NITI Aayog helped the Centre launch several programmes such as Digital India and Make in India.

    What is NITI Aayog?

    • The NITI Aayog serves as the apex public policy think tank of the GoI.
    • It was established in 2015, by the NDA government, to replace the Planning Commission which followed a top-down model.
    • It advises both the centre and states on social and economic issues.
    • It is neither a constitutional body nor a statutory body but the outcome of an executive resolution. It was not created by the act of parliament.

    Composition of NITI Aayog

    • The Prime Minister of India is the chairperson/chairman of the NITI Aayog.
    • The PM appoints one Vice-Chairperson, who holds the rank of a cabinet minister.
    • It includes the Chief Ministers of all the states and Union territories.
    • It has Regional Councils for looking after contingencies in regional areas. It is convened and chaired by the Prime Minister of India and includes concerned chief ministers and Lt. Governors.
    • The Prime Minister nominates Personalities with skilled knowledge, who are experts in particular domains as special invitees.
    • There are full-time members who hold the rank of ministers.
    • There is a maximum of two Part-time members who are invited from leading organisations, universities, and research centres.
    • The Prime Minister also appoints one Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who holds the rank of a Secretary.

    Aims, Agenda, and Objectives of NITI Aayog

    The purpose with which NITI Aayog was formed in place of the Planning Commission was a far-sighted vision. It was important to boost the development of India in the emerging global scenario. The objectives are:

    • To generate a platform for national development, sectors and strategies with the collaboration of states and centre.
    • To boost the factor of cooperative federalism between the centre and the states. For national development, it is necessary for both wings to work in synergy.
    • To develop such mechanisms which work at the ground root level for progressive growth. A nation develops when its regions and states develop.
    • To work on long term policies and strategies for long-term development. To set up a system for monitoring progress so that it can be used for analysing and improving methods.
    • To provide a platform for resolving inter-departmental issues amicably.
    • To make it a platform where the programmes, strategies, and schemes can be monitored on a day to day basis, and it could be understood which sector needs more resources to develop.
    • To upgrade technological advancements in such a manner that focus can be made on iNITIatives and programmes.
    • To ensure India’s level and ranking at the worldwide level and to make India an actively participating nation.
    • To progress from food security towards nutrition and standardised meals and focus on agricultural production.
    • To make use of more technology to avoid misadventures and corruption in governance.
    • To make the working system more transparent and accountable.

    NITI Aayog – Seven Pillars of Effective Governance

    • NITI Aayog works on principles like Antyodaya (upliftment of poor), inclusion (to include all sections under one head), people participation, and so on.
    • NITI Aayog is a body that follows seven pillars of governance. They are:
    1. To look after pro-people agenda so that the aspirations and desires of no one are compromised.
    2. To respond and work on the needs of citizens.
    3. Make citizens of the nation involve and participate in various streams.
    4. To empower women in all fields, be it social, technical, economic, or other.
    5. To include all sects and classes under one head. To give special attention to marginalised and minority groups.
    6. To provide equal opportunity for the young generation.
    7. To make the working of government more accountable and transparent. It will ensure less chance of corruption and malpractices.

     

    Try this PYQ from CSP 2019:

    In India, which of the following review the independent regulators in sectors like telecommunications, insurance, electricity, etc.?

    1. Ad Hoc Committees set up by the Parliament
    2. Parliamentary Department Related Standing Committees
    3. Finance Commission
    4. Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission
    5. NITI Aayog

    Select the correct answer using the code given below:

    (a) 1 and 2

    (b) 1, 3 and 4

    (c) 3, 4 and 5

    (d) 2 and 5

     

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