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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • Kasturirangan panel for National Curriculum Framework

    The Centre has started the process to revise school textbooks by appointing former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K. Kasturirangan as the head of a 12-member steering committee responsible for developing a new National Curriculum Framework (NCF).

    National Curriculum Framework (NCF)

    • The new NCF is in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
    • The committee will be headed by K Kasturirangan, who had also led the NEP 2020 drafting committee.
    • The national curriculum framework serves as a guideline for syllabus, textbooks, teaching and learning practices in the country.
    • India is currently following its fourth national curriculum framework that was published by the NCERT in 2005.

    What was the last NCF?

    • The last such framework was developed in 2005.
    • It is meant to be a guiding document for the development of textbooks, syllabi and teaching practices in schools across the country.

    Why revamp NCF?

    • The subsequent revision of textbooks by the National Council of Educational Research and Training will draw from the new NCF.
    • In fact, the steering committee will develop four such frameworks, one each to guide the curriculum of school education, teacher education, early childhood education, and adult education.

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  • Front-of-pack labelling of Food Stuffs

    Seven years, four committees and two draft regulations later, India still does not have a clear labelling system to warn consumers about harmful levels of fat, salt and sugar in processed foods.

    Context

    • According to the Food Safety and Standards (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011, every pre-packed processed food product sold in the country must be labelled with nutritional information.
    • To ensure that consumers are able to easily see and interpret the nutritional information on food packets, an expert committee was established by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
    • The committee, set up following an order of the Delhi High Court which was hearing a public interest petition seeking a ban on the sale of junk food in and around schools.

    Why label nutritional information?

    • This helps the consumer know everything about the food they buy and make an informed decision about what and how much to eat.
    • Such information is particularly crucial because the packaged food contain ultra-processed foods that are high in fat, salt or sugar and low in fibre and other essential micronutrients.
    • On the one hand, these foods cause malnutrition.
    • On the other hand they are linked strongly with obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases, such as Type-2 diabetes, hypertension, heart ailments and certain cancers, like that of the colon.
    • All these increase the risk of premature death.

    Issues with labelling in India

    • Most products provide information in English understanding which can be daunting for a vast number of people in India.

    What is FoP labelling?

    • The front-of-pack (FoP) labelling system has long been listed as one of the global best practices to nudge consumers into healthy food choices.
    • It works just the way cigarette packets are labelled with images to discourage consumption.
    • Countries such as Chile, Brazil and Israel have laws to push the packaged food industry to adopt FoP labelling.
    • They have used FoP labelling as a measure to fight obesity and NCDs.

    FoP labelling in India

    • The system is yet to be implemented in India even seven years after it was first proposed by FSSAI.
    • The fact is, makers of packaged foods are also a powerful lot, with strong business acumen.
    • While companies in other countries have acceded to the FoP labelling laws, they are unwilling to do so in India — a country experiencing a dietary shift.

    Why must we have FoP labels?

    • Countries are working to find ways to nudge consumers into healthy food choices and to contain the growing crisis of obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
    • It is a crisis that increasingly impacts children and also exacerbates novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) symptoms. Front-of-pack (FoP) labelling is definitely an effective tool in this effort.

    India definitely needs ‘warning labels’ on front-of-pack, but this must be a symbol-based label with no text and numbers. This is because:

    (1) Junk foods have high levels of unhealthy nutrients

    • There is strong evidence that sugar, salt and fat in junk foods are addictive, like nicotine in tobacco.
    • FoP ‘warning’ labels have helped reduce cigarette consumption. It is time we adopted the same for junk foods.

    (2) Warning labels are easy to notice and understand

    • They do not confuse consumers with mixed messages.
    • Their distinct shape, colour and size make them noticeable in the otherwise cluttered and colourful packaging.
    • With one label for one nutrient, it becomes easier to know if a product is high in more than one nutrient.

    (3) Warning labels are the global best practice now

    • At least seven countries have adopted warning labels in the past five years. These include Chile, Peru, Mexico, Israel and Uruguay.
    • Low- and middle-income mothers have shown profound changes in attitudes towards food purchases as they now understand the nutritional content of packaged foods.
    • Even children can read the labels and take an informed decision. This has also forced food companies to reduce the amount of sugar and sodium in foods and beverages.

    (4) They are best suited for India

    • Warning labels are best suited for India as they do not include numbers unlike many other FoP labels.
    • In fact, warning labels that are symbol-based, like that of Israel, can transcend the barriers of literacy and language in India.

    (5) FSSAI has experience of successfully implementing symbol-based FoP labels

    • Its “green filled circle in green outlined square” logo to depict vegetarian food has been hugely successful in informing consumers.
    • In recent years, FSSAI also has made similar laws to depict fortification (+F logo) and organic food (a green-coloured tick for Jaivik Bharat logo).

    Way forward

    • FoP labels must include information on nutrients that make food injurious to health.
    • This should be distinct from the details on the back-of-pack. FoP labels should aim to inform the consumer, while the back-of-pack label serves the purpose of scientific compliance and enforcement.
    • FoP labels should have information on ‘total sugar’ and not ‘added sugar’. There is no analytical laboratory method to differentiate ‘added sugar’ from total sugar and quantify it.

     

  • Empathy through education

    Context

    While the National Education Policy (2020) notes numeracy and literacy as its central aims, Social and Emotional Learning should be an equally important goal as it supports skills such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity.

    What is social and emotional learning (SEL)?

    • SEL is the process of learning to recognise and manage emotions and navigate social situations effectively.
    • SEL is foundational for human development, building healthy relationships, having self and social awareness, solving problems, making responsible decisions, and academic learning.
    • Neurobiologically, various brain regions such as the prefrontal and frontal cortices, amygdala, and superior temporal sulcus are involved in the cognitive mechanisms of SEL.
    • Brain systems that are responsible for basic human behaviour, such as getting hungry, may be reused for complex mechanisms involved in SEL.
    • Despite its importance to life, SEL is often added as a chapter in a larger curriculum rather than being integrated in it.
    • The pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges for SEL as school closures reduced opportunities for students to deepen social relationships and learn collaboratively in shared physical spaces.
    • Even with parental involvement, the challenge of an inadequate support system for SEL remains.

    Way forward

    • Perhaps we can contextually adapt best practices from existing models.
    • A starting point would be to consider insights from the Indian SEL framework:
    • One, the application of SEL practices should be based on students’ socioeconomic backgrounds.
    • Two, SEL strategies of caretakers and educators must align with one another.
    • Three, long-term success requires SEL to be based on scientific evidence.

    Conclusion

    As a sustainable development goal outlines, policymakers now have to ensure that future changes prioritise “inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” Importantly, the onus lies on all of us to make individual contributions that will drive systemic change.

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  • E-Shram

    The E-Shram portal has come into existence more than a decade after the passage of the Unorganized Workers’ Social Security Act in 2008.

    E-Shram

    • On August 26, 2021, the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MOLE) launched the E-Shram, the web portal for creating a National Database of Unorganized Workers (NDUW), which will be seeded with Aadhaar.
    • It seeks to register an estimated 398-400 million unorganized workers and to issue an E-Shram card.

    Better late than never move

    • It has come about even after repeated nudging by the Supreme Court of India.
    • It is the result of state apathy.
    • Had the Central and the State governments begun these legally mandated processes on time, much of the distress of lakhs of vulnerable workers would have been avoided.
    • In fact, the political class owe an ‘apology’ to informal workers.

    Issues with E-Shram

    (A) Time constraints

    • Long process: Given the gigantic nature of registering each worker, it will be a long-drawn process.
    • No gestation period: The Government has not mentioned a gestation period to assess its strategy and efficiency.
    • No hasty process: Employers are or required their workers to register even.While the Government can appeal to them, any penal measure will hurt the ease of doing business.

    (B) Pandemic hides

    • Considering the estimated 380 million workers as the universe of registration — debatable as the novel coronavirus pandemic has pushed lakhs of workers into informality.

    (C) Data security

    • Privacy: One of the vital concerns of e-portals is data security, including its potential abuse especially when it is a mega-sized database.
    • No national framework yet: There are also media reports pointing out the absence of a national architecture relating to data security.
    • Local server issues: It has been reported that in some States such as Maharashtra, the server was down for a few days.

    (D) Structural issue

    • Aadhaar seeding: Many workers will not have an Aadhaar-seeded mobile or even a smartphone. Aadhaar-seeding is a controversial issue with political overtones, especially in the North-eastern regions.
    • Eligibility: There are several issues concerning the eligibility of persons to register as well as the definitional issues.
    • Exclusion: By excluding workers covered by EPF and ESI, lakhs of contract and fixed-term contract workers will be excluded from the universe of UW. Hazardous establishments employing even a single worker will have to be covered under the ESI, which means these workers also will be excluded.
    • No benefits for the aged: The NDUW excludes millions of workers aged over 59 from its ambit, which constitutes age discrimination.

    (D) Complex identities of workers

    • Migration: Many are circular migrant workers and they quickly, even unpredictably, move from one trade to another.
    • Mixed work: Many others perform formal and informal work as some during non-office hours may belong to the gig economy, for example as an Uber taxi or a Swiggy employee. They straddle formal and informal sectors.
    • Gig workers: Even though MOLE has included gig workers in this process, it is legally unclear whether the gig/platform worker can be classified first as a worker at all.

    (E) Other impediments

    • Dependence on States: The central government will have to depend on the State governments for this project to be successful.
    • Lack of coordination: In many States, the social dialogue with the stakeholders especially is rather weak or non-existent. The success of the project depends on the involvement of a variety of stakeholders apart from trade unions.
    • Corruption: There is also the concern of corruption as middle-service agencies such as Internet providers might charge exorbitant charges to register and print the E-Shram cards.

    Benefits: No immediate carrot

    • Workers stand to gain by registration in the medium to long run.
    • But the instant benefit of accident insurance upto â‚č0.2 million to registered workers is surely not an attractive carrot.
    • The main point of attraction is the benefits they stand to gain during normal and crisis-ridden periods such as the novel coronavirus pandemic now which the Government needs to disseminate properly.

    Way forward

    • E-Shram is a vital system to provide hitherto invisible workers much-needed visibility.
    • It will provide the Labour Market Citizenship Document to them.
    • The govt should go one step further for triple linkage for efficient and leakage-less delivery of all kinds of benefits and voices to workers/citizens: One-Nation-One-Ration Card (ONOR), E-Shram Card (especially bank account seeded) and the Election Commission Card.
    • Last but not least, registrations cannot be a source of exclusion of a person from receiving social assistance and benefits.

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  • [pib] Reforms in Urban Planning Capacity in India

    NITI Aayog has launched a report titled ‘Reforms in Urban Planning Capacity in India’ on measures to ramp up urban planning capacity in India.

    Reforms in Urban Planning

    • The report has been developed by NITI Aayog, in consultation with concerned ministries and eminent experts in the domain of urban and regional planning.
    • It underscores urban challenges, including town planning and emphasizes need greater policy attention in our country.

    Why such report?

    • India is home to 11% of the total global urban population.
    • By 2027, India will surpass China as the most populous country in the world.
    • Unplanned urbanization, however, exerts great strain on our cities. In fact, the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the dire need for the planning and management of our cities.
    • The existing urban planning and governance framework is complex, which often leads to ambiguity and lack of accountability.

    Highlights of the report

    The report makes several recommendations that can unblock bottlenecks in the value chain of urban planning capacity in India.  Some of them are:

    Programmatic Intervention for Planning of Healthy Cities:

    • Every city must aspire to become a ‘Healthy City for All’ by 2030.
    • The report recommends a Central Sector Scheme ‘500 Healthy Cities Programme’, for a period of 5 years, wherein priority cities and towns would be selected jointly by the states and local bodies.

    Programmatic Intervention for Optimum Utilization of Urban Land:

    • All the cities and towns under the proposed ‘Healthy Cities Programme’ should strengthen development control regulations based on scientific evidence to maximize the efficiency of urban land (or planning area).
    • The report recommends a sub-scheme ‘Preparation/Revision of Development Control Regulations’ for this purpose.

    Ramping Up of Human Resources:

    • To combat the shortage of urban planners in the public sector, the report recommends that the states/UTs may need to a) expedite the filling up of vacant positions of town planners.
    • It asks to additionally sanction 8268 town planners’ posts as lateral entry positions.

    Ensuring Qualified Professionals for Undertaking Urban Planning:

    • State town and country planning departments face an acute shortage of town planners.
    • This is compounded by the fact that in several states, ironically, a qualification in town planning is not even an essential criterion for such jobs.
    • States may need to undertake requisite amendments in their recruitment rules to ensure the entry of qualified candidates into town-planning positions.

    Re-engineering of Urban Governance:

    • The report recommends the constitution of a high-powered committee to re-engineer the present urban-planning governance structure.
    • The key aspects that would need to be addressed in this effort are:
    1. clear division of the roles and responsibilities of various authorities, appropriate revision of rules and regulations, etc.,
    2. creation of a more dynamic organizational structure, standardisation of the job descriptions of town planners and other experts, and
    3. extensive adoption of technology for enabling public participation and inter-agency coordination.

    Revision of Town and Country Planning Acts:

    • Most States have enacted the Town and Country Planning Acts, that enable them to prepare and notify master plans for implementation.
    • However, many need to be reviewed and upgraded.
    • Therefore, the formation of an apex committee at the state level is recommended to undertake a regular review of planning legislations (including town and country planning or urban and regional development acts or other relevant acts).

    Demystifying Planning and Involving Citizens:

    • While it is important to maintain the master plans’ technical rigour, it is equally important to demystify them for enabling citizens’ participation at relevant stages.
    • Therefore, the committee strongly recommends a ‘Citizen Outreach Campaign’ for demystifying urban planning.

    Steps for Enhancing the Role of Private Sector:

    • The report recommends that concerted measures must be taken at multiple levels to strengthen the role of the private sector to improve the overall planning capacity in the country.
    • These include the adoption of fair processes for procuring technical consultancy services, strengthening project structuring and management skills in the public sector, and empanelment of private sector consultancies.

    Steps for Strengthening Urban Planning Education System:

    • The Central universities and technical institutions in all the other States/UTs are encouraged to offer PG degree programmes (MTech Planning) to cater to the requirement of planners in the country.
    • The committee also recommends that all such institutions may synergize with Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Panchayati Raj and respective state rural development departments.

    Measures for Strengthening Human Resource and Match Demand–Supply:

    • The report recommends the constitution of a ‘National Council of Town and Country Planners’ as a statutory body.
    • Also, a ‘National Digital Platform of Town and Country Planners’ is suggested to be created within the National Urban Innovation Stack of MoHUA.
    • This portal will enable self-registration of all planners and evolve as a marketplace for potential employers and urban planners.

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  • NEET

    The Tamil Nadu Assembly has passed a bill exempting the State from the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for admission to undergraduate (UG) medical courses.

    About NEET

    The NEET has replaced the formerly All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT).

    It is an all-India pre-medical entrance test for students who wish to pursue undergraduate medical (MBBS), dental (BDS) and AYUSH (BAMS, BUMS, BHMS, etc.) courses.

    The exam is conducted by National Testing Agency (NTA).

    TN law: Permanent Exemption for NEET

    • The Bill exempts medical aspirants in Tamil Nadu from taking NEET examination for admission to UG degree courses in Indian medicine, dentistry and homeopathy.
    • Instead, it seeks to provide admission to such courses on the basis of marks obtained in the qualifying examination, through “Normalization methods”.
    • The aim of the Bill is to ensure “social justice, uphold equality and equal opportunity, protect all vulnerable student communities from being discriminated”.
    • It seeks to bring vulnerable student communities to the “mainstream of medical and dental education and in turn ensure a robust public health care across the state, particularly the rural areas”.

    Why TN is against NEET?

    • Non-representative: TN opposes because NEET undermined the diverse societal representation in MBBS and higher medical studies.
    • Disfavors the poor: It has favored mainly the affordable and affluent sections of the society and thwarting the dreams of underprivileged social groups.
    • Exams for the elite: It considers NEET not a fair or equitable method of admission since it favored the rich and elite sections of society.
    • Healthcare concerns: If continued, the rural and urban poor may not be able to pursue medical courses.

    Can any state legislate against NEET?

    • Admissions to medical courses are traceable to entry 25 of List III (Concurrent List), Schedule VII of the Constitution.
    • Therefore, the State can also enact a law regarding admission and amend any Central law on admission procedures.

    Views of the stakeholders appointed by TN

    • A majority of stakeholders were not in favor of the NEET requirement.
    • NEET only worked against underprivileged government school students, and had profited coaching centres and affluent students.
    • NEET had not provided any special mechanism for testing the knowledge and aptitude of the students.
    • The higher secondary examination of the State board itself was an ample basis for the selection of students for MBBS seats.

    A move inspired by a SC Judgement

    • This thinking of the State may be due to the observation made by the Supreme Court in the selection process of postgraduate (PG) courses in medicine.
    • The Medical Council of India (MCI) had prescribed certain regulations providing reservations for in-service candidates.
    • The Supreme Court struck down regulation 9(c) made by the MCI on the ground of the exercise of power beyond its statute.

    Not a similar case

    • It must be remembered that the Supreme Court was only dealing with a regulation framed by the MCI.
    • The requirement of NEET being a basic requirement for PG and UG medical courses has now been statutorily incorporated under Section 10D of the Indian Medical Council (IMC) Act.
    • When the Tamil Nadu government issued an order in 2017 providing for the reservation of 85% of the seats for students passed out from the State board it was struck down by the Madras High Court.
    • The introduction of internal reservation for government school students is under challenge before the Madras High Court. Similarly, NEET as a requirement is also pending in the Supreme Court.
    • Unless these two issues are decided, NEET cannot be removed by a State amendment.

    The bill cannot be passed

    • The present move to pass a fresh Bill on the same lines is most likely to meet the same fate.
    • The President refused to give his assent to this bill.
    • It is significant that no other State in India has sought an exemption from NEET and, therefore, exempting Tamil Nadu alone may not be possible.
    • Even among the seats allotted to the State, there is no bar for students from other States from competing or selecting colleges in Tamil Nadu.

    The bigger question

    • The question is not whether the State government can amend a law falling under the Concurrent List.
    • The question is whether the State government can exempt Section 10D of the IMC Act, which is a parliamentary law that falls under the Central List (Entry 66).
    • Moreover, the Supreme Court has also upheld NEET as a requirement.
    • Mere statistics highlighting that a majority of the stakeholders do not want NEET in Tamil Nadu is not an answer for exempting the examination.

    Again, it is State and Centre are at crossroads

    • Normally, a Bill requires assent from the Governor to become a law. Stalin’s contention is that this Bill deals with education, which is a Concurrent List subject.
    • Admissions to medical courses fall under Entry 25 of List III, Schedule VII of the Constitution, and therefore the state is competent to regulate the same.
    • Yet, as far as matters relating to the determination of standards for higher education are concerned, the central government has the power to amend a clause or repeal an Act.
    • So, just the passing of the Bill doesn’t enable the students to get exempted from writing NEET.
    • Already, Union Higher Education Secretary Amit Khare has held that if any State wants to opt out of the exam, it has to seek permission from the Supreme Court.

    Options for Tamil Nadu

    • Data is necessary only when there is power to legislate on the subject concerned.
    • Since the Bill, which will become an Act only after the President’s nod, will come into effect only from the next academic year, the battle for and against the NEET requirement will continue in courts.
    • Hopefully, the courts will determine the legality and have a definite solution to the question of medical admissions within the next year.
    • Till such time, students who wrote NEET will fill the seats under the State quota.

    Way forward: Preventing Commercialization of Medical Education

    • The time may also have come to examine whether NEET has met its purposes of improving standards and curbing commercialization and profiteering.
    • Under current norms, one quite low on the merit rank can still buy a medical seat in a private college, while those ranked higher but only good enough to get a government quota seat in a private institution can be priced out of the system.
    • The Centre should do something other than considering an exemption to Tamil Nadu.
    • It has to conceive a better system that will allow a fair admission process while preserving inter se merit and preventing rampant commercialization.

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  • Slide in democratic values, India must work to fix it

    Context

    India has performed poorly in every major global democracy report in the past few years.

    India’s declining performance

    • The Freedom House Index for 2021 pushed India down four points from last year, bringing its score from 71 to 67.
    • V-Dem, the world-renowned think-tank from Sweden, has similarly downgraded India.
    • It has labelled India an “electoral autocracy”.
    • The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) study has shown India’s ranking has taken a nosedive from 27 to 53 out of 167 countries.
    • The Reporters without Borders’ Press Freedom Report has placed India 167th out of 183 countries.
    • Freedom House has also given India a score of 2 out of 4 in terms of press freedom.

    Factors pointed out by the rating agencies

    • The country has seen increased pressure being put on human rights organisations and civil rights groups.
    • Journalists and activists have been intimidated and incarcerated, and minorities have been specifically targeted.
    • Hate and polarisation are rampant.
    • The most worrying trend has been the crackdown on freedom of speech, with statistics showing a 165 per cent increase in sedition cases between 2016 and 2019.

    Issues with rejecting of global democratic indexes

    • Indian government sought to challenge the rating of EIU after it released its 2021 report earlier this year.
    • An offer made by the Indian government to supply ‘accurate’ data pertaining to the democratic index was firmly refused by the EIU.
    • Shooting the messenger: This seeming retraction of Indian democratic values in global reports and the Indian indignation regarding it seems to be a clear case of shooting the messenger.
    • Harming democracy: The Indian refusal to acknowledge and remedy them is irreparably harming its democracy.
    • Trying to influence the rating agencies to doctor data to suit us is reprehensible.
    • Difficulty for policymakers: Kaushik Basu, formerly the chief economist of the World Bank, commenting on this episode has said that the tendency of fabricating data to present an alternative image has beset the Indian administration.
    • Not showcasing actual data is making it difficult for policymakers to attempt to remedy the situation.

    Way forward

    •  A committee of secretaries’ meeting on January 30, 2020 discussed how India fared on various important parameters based on 32 internationally recognised indices in order to improve the performance on these indices.
    • The desire to introspect and analyse what needs to be done to improve is correct and laudable.
    •  Let NITI Aayog and all concerned organisations focus on improving our performance in all the declining indicators.

    Consider the question “Ranking of the various agencies shows the declining trend of democratic values in India. What are the reasons for such decline?vSuggest the steps to arrest this decline.” 

    Conclusion

    Instead of denying these rankings and the reports of these agencies, India must work on fixing them.

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  • Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment Centres

    The state government in Punjab is banking on Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment Centres (OOAT) to curb the drug menace in the state.

    What are the OOAT Centres?

    • The move to set up OOAT centres in Punjab began in October 2017.
    • The centres administer de-addiction medicine, a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone, to the opioid-dependent people registering there.
    • Administered in the form of a pill, the treatment is primarily for addicts of opioid drugs, including heroin, poppy husk and opium.
    • There are such private and state-run centres in Punjab.

    Why is the Punjab government planning?

    • Punjab is planning to open OOAT linked extension centres and clinics in rural areas to broaden the outreach of this treatment.
    • The idea is that patients get medicine nearer their place of residence.
    • It will also reduce pressure on existing OOAT centres which cater to patients from far-off places.

    Administering medicine at OOAT Centres

    The patients are broadly put into three categories or phases.

    • In the induction phase, the newly-registered patients are administered medicine at the OOAT centres for a week or two to manage withdrawal symptoms in the presence of the doctor and counselor.
    • In the second, stabilization, phase, which extends between two to four months.
    • The patient is put on watch for taking any opioid-based “super-imposed” illicit drug and accordingly maximum tolerated dose is administered to nullify the kick of the “super-imposed” drug.
    • In the third, maintenance, phase, the patient is given take-home medicine and it continues for a year and a half before an assessment is done to see whether the medicine can be tapered off.

    Why is Punjab banking so much on OOAT therapy?

    There are two major approaches to wean away opioid-dependent persons.

    • One is the abstinence approach and another alternate medication approach.
    • There are more chances of relapse in an abstinence-based approach as compared to alternate medication for de-addiction.
    • In the abstinence approach, it would have taken years to rehabilitate patients by admitting them to facilities and there would have been increased chances of relapse.
    • On the other hand, the alternate medication approach has been acknowledged as better in various scientific studies worldwide.

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  • Reform in India’s reservation system

    Context

    While it is undeniable that affirmative action has been one of the protagonists of Indian democracy’s success stories, these have also accumulated a fair share of problems and call for immediate policy attention and debate.

    Problems with the current policy of reservation

    • With the reservation of seats in political and public institutions of the state, it was thought that the hitherto marginalised groups would be able to find place in the power sharing and decision-making processes.
    • This strategy of removal of disabilities has not translated into an equalisation of life chances for many groups in our heterogeneous society.

    What are the problems?

    1) Problem of reification

    • The Justice G. Rohini Commission’s report on the sub-categorisation of OBCs based on the last five years’ data on  central government jobs and OBC admissions to central higher education institutions highlights this problem.
    • The commission concluded that 97% of central OBC quota benefits go to just under 25% of its castes.
    • As many as 983 OBC communities — 37% of the total — have zero representation in both central government jobs and admissions to central universities.
    • Also, the report states that just 10% of the OBC communities have accrued 24.95% of jobs and admissions.
    • Clearly, the assumption that the disadvantages of every sub-group within each category are the same is severely misplaced.
    • Consequently, asymmetrical distribution of reservation has severely deterred political projects of unified subaltern solidarity.

    2) Insufficiency of data

    • There is a dire need of accurate data pertaining to the socio-economic condition of different social groups.
    • Though caste-based reservations have been pivotal in animating upward social mobility we hardly have sufficient data about the actual reach and access of this policy measure.
    • We do not know what liberalisation has done to castes which remained tied to more traditional sources of income and were incapable of realising the new opportunities provided by the opening of the economy.
    • What is urgently required is a mechanism that can address this lacuna and make the system more accountable and sensitive to intra-group demands.

    Way forward

    • Since every further categorisation will only lead to reification and fragmentation in the long run, two things are required.
    • Evidence based policy option: We need to develop a wide variety of context-sensitive, evidence-based policy options that can be tailored to meet specific requirements of specific groups.
    • Institution: We need an institution alike the Equal Opportunities Commission of the United States or the United Kingdom which can undertake two important but interrelated things:
    • 1) Make a deprivation index correlating data from the socio-economic-based census of different communities.
    • 2) Undertake an audit on performance of employers and educational institutions on non-discrimination and equal opportunity and issue codes of good practice in different sectors.
    • This will make the formulation of policy and its monitoring simpler at an institutional level.
    • Similar suggestions were made a decade ago in the recommendations that the expert committee for an Equal Opportunities Commission (2008) made in its comprehensive report that it submitted to the Ministry of Minority Affairs.

    Conclusion

    As evident, a socio-economic caste-based census becomes a necessary precondition to initiate any meaningful reform in the affirmative action regime in India.

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  • The nutrition-hygiene link

    Context

    A recent UNICEF report stated that nearly 12 lakh children could die in low-income countries in the next six months due to a decrease in routine health services and an increase in wasting. Nearly three lakh such children would be from India.

    Problem of nutrition in India and factors responsible for it

    • The National Family Health Survey (NFHS 5) indicates that since the onset of the pandemic, acute undernourishment in children below the age of five has worsened.
    • According to the latest data, 37.9 per cent of children under five are stunted, and 20.8 per cent are wasted — a form of malnutrition in which children are too thin for their height.
    • Comparison with other countries: This is much higher than in other developing countries where, on average, 25 per cent of children suffer from stunting and 8.9 per cent are wasted.
    • Factors: Inadequate dietary intake is the most direct cause of undernutrition.
    • Several other factors also affect nutritional outcomes, such as contaminated drinking water, poor sanitation, and unhygienic living conditions.
    • According to the World Health Organisation, 50 per cent of all mal- and under-nutrition can be traced to diarrhoea and intestinal worm infections.
    • Nutrition and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are intricately linked, and changes in one tend, directly or indirectly, to affect the other.
    • Poor hygiene and sanitation in developing countries lead to a sub-clinical condition called “environmental enteropathy” in children.
    • Environmental enteropathy is a disorder of the intestine which prevents the proper absorption of nutrients, rendering them effectively useless.
    • Childhood diarrhoea is a major public health problem in low- and middle-income countries, leading to high mortality in children under five.
    • According to NFHS 4, approximately 9 percent of children under five years of age in India experience diarrhoeal disease.

    Way forward

    • Investment in WASH: The link between WASH and nutrition suggests that greater attention to, and investments in, WASH are a sure-shot way of bolstering the country’s nutritional status.
    • Addressing nutrition sanitation problems together: Both WASH and nutrition must be addressed together through a lens of holistic, sustainable community engagement to enable long-term impact.
    • One of the first instances of the link between WASH and nutrition appeared in the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, which urges states to ensure “adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking water” to combat disease and malnutrition.
    • Safe drinking water, proper sanitation, and hygiene can significantly reduce diarrhoeal and nutritional deaths.
    • Multistructural approach: What we require is a coordinated, multisectoral approach among the health, water, sanitation, and hygiene bodies, not to mention strong community engagement.
    • WHO has estimated that access to proper water, hygiene, and sanitation can prevent the deaths of at least 8,60,000 children a year caused by undernutrition.

    Conclusion

    At the end of the day, all sides are working towards a common goal: A safe and healthy population and the hope that the 75th year of Independence becomes a watershed moment in India’s journey.

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