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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • Issues with school enrolment in India

    Context

    Proportion of children attending the government schools has been on the decline. This has several implications.

    Issues with school education in India

    • A quality, free and regular school education represents our most potent infrastructure of opportunity, a fundamental duty of the state.
    • Meritocracy represents the idea that people should advance based on their talents and efforts.
    • But India’s meritocracy is sabotaged by flailing government schools.
    • The proportion of India’s children attending a government school has now declined to 45 per cent.
    • This number is 85 per cent in America, 90 per cent in England, and 95 per cent in Japan.
    • India’s 100 per cent plus school enrolment masks challenges; a huge dropout ratio and poor learning outcomes.
    • We have too many schools and 4 lakh have less than 50 students (70 per cent of schools in Rajasthan, Karnataka, J&K, and Uttarakhand).
    • China has similar total student numbers with 30 per cent of our school numbers.

    It is not Government Vs. Private schools

    • Demand for better government schools is not an argument against private schools.
    • Because, without this market response to demand, the post-1947 policy errors in primary education would have been catastrophic for India’s human capital.

    Way forward

    • We need the difficult reforms of governance, performance management, and English instruction.
    • Governance must shift from control of resources to learning outcomes; learning design, responsiveness, teacher management, community relationships, integrity, fair decision making, and financial sustainability.
    • Performance management, currently equated with teacher attendance, needs evaluation of scores, skills, competence and classroom management. Scores need continuous assessments or end-of-year exams.
    • The new world of work redefines employability to include the 3Rs of reading, writing, and arithmetic and a fourth R of relationships.
    • India’s farm to non-farm transition is not happening to factories but to sales and customer services which need 4R competency and English awareness.
    • English instruction is about bilingualism, higher education pathways, and employability.
    • Employment outcomes are 50 per cent higher for kids with English familiarity because of higher geographic mobility, sector mobility, role eligibility, and entrance exam ease.
    • India’s constitution wrote Education Policy into Lists I (Centre), II (State), and III (concurrent jurisdiction); this fragmentation needs revisiting because it tends to concentrate decisions that should be made locally in Delhi or state capitals.

    Conclusion

    Government needs urgent measure to addreess the issues which has bearing on its future.

  • [pib] India Industrial Land Bank (IILB)

    The GIS Enabled Land Bank is gaining immense popularity.

    Try to answer this question in short:

    Q.Discuss the benefits of digitizing land records in India.

    India Industrial Land Bank (IILB)

    • The IILB is a GIS-based portal with all industrial infrastructure-related information such as connectivity, infra, natural resources and terrain, plot-level information on vacant plots, line of activity, and contact details.
    • It was launched by the Ministry for Commerce and Industry in 2020.
    • Currently, the IILB has approximately 4000 industrial parks mapped across an area of 5.5 lakh hectares of land, serving as a decision support system for investors scouting for land remotely.
    • The system has been integrated with industry-based GIS systems of 17 states to have details on the portal updated on a real-time basis and will achieve pan-India integration by December 2021.
    • In the previous quarter (Apr – Jun 2021) total users were 13,610 out of which 12,996 were unique users with total page views of approximately 1.3 lakh.

  • Civil society need to play role in strengthening of institutions

    Context

    In the wake of the second wave of Covid, our failure as a country to hold our government accountable is evident. Civil society perhaps also needs to re-examine its role.

    What constitutes civil society

    • India’s civil society has many actors:
    • Grassroots organisations that connect to the last mile and provide essential services.
    • Think tanks and academic institutions that churn out new policy ideas and generate evidence.
    • Advocacy organisations that amplify and build support for causes.
    • Large impact funds and philanthropists who decide how these organisations get funded.

    Challenges faced by civil society

    • Government have significantly curtailed the kind of activities that civil society actors can engage in.
    • Philanthropists and donor organisations often find themselves unable to support initiatives that strengthen India’s democracy and its accountability mechanisms, for fear of retribution.
    • By ignoring the politics around policy and focussing disproportionately on technocratic solutions, civil society has also missed the wood for the trees.

    How civil society can play role in reforms of democratic institutions

    • In the absence of a strong push from civil society, our democratic institutions have no intrinsic incentive to reform.
    • There is a need to re-examine parliamentary rules that are heavily tilted in favour of the sitting government, strengthen the judiciary, bolster federalism and the independent media, while creating transparency in decision making within the executive.
    • Civil society has an important and irreplaceable role to play here.
    • Civil society organisations too need to broaden their agenda to include issues that strengthen India’s institutions while collaborating to present a strong unified voice that demands more transparency and accountability in all areas and levels of policymaking.
    • This involves taking more fights to the courts on transgressions by the government, building public opinion about expectations from a well-functioning democracy and creating tools and fora that help citizens engage with policymaking more readily.

    Conclusion

    To not see the strengthening of institutions and the deepening of checks and balances as important areas of work is our collective failure, one we must address immediately.

  • Guidelines by the Supreme Court in the migrant labourers case

    Context

    The Supreme Court on June 29 pronounced its judgment in the migrant labourers case. The case was initiated last year after the national lockdown was announced on March 24.

    Guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court

    • Two of the most important components to protect the migrants during this time were the food and travel arrangements insisted on by the court.
    • In the orders pronounced in May this year, it laid down that dry ration be provided to migrants who want to return to their homes.
    • Further, the court said that identity proof should not be insisted upon by the governments since the labourers might not be able to furnish it.
    • Secondly, the court called upon the State governments to arrange transportation for workers who need to return to their homes.
    • The Supreme Court fixed July 31 as the deadline for the States to implement the ‘One nation One Ration Card’ scheme.
    • Apart from dry ration, the top court also directed the State governments to run community kitchens for migrant workers.
    • In the order passed on June 29, the court affirmed the Right to Food under Article 21 of the Constitution.
    • In furtherance of this, the court asked the States to formulate their own schemes and issue food grains to migrants.
    • The top court recognised the need for direct cash benefit transfer to workers in the unorganised sector.
    • But it did not issue any guidelines for the same.

    Challenges

    • The Supreme Court has given a purposive declaration in the case but the bulk of the judgment seems declaratory rather than mandatory. 
    • Under the ‘One nation One Ration Card’ scheme, the States are to complete the registration of migrant workers in order to provide dry ration to them.
    • But it is unlikely that a standardised system can be developed within the deadline prescribed by the court.
    • There are administrative problems in running community kitchens for migrant workers.
    • First, migrant workers keep moving in search of employment and it is difficult to cover them all under the scheme.
    • Second, many States do not have the necessary infrastructure to run and maintain community kitchens on such a large scale.
    • The court asked the States to formulate their own schemes and issue food grains to migrants, but there are no normative data that would allow the States to identify eligible migrants.

    Conclusion

    In order to efficaciously implement the orders of the court, the State governments need to work with the Centre closely. It is imperative to ensure that government machinery works to its full potential and robust systems are developed to withstand the challenges of the looming third covid wave.

  • Vacancies send a wrong signal

    Context

    For months on end, top slots in important government agencies like NHRC, CBI, Election Commission, NCERT etc remain vacant affecting the governance.

    Vacancies in various agencies

    • The post of the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission was kept vacant until June this year.
    • The post of the Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had been vacant since February until the recent appointment.
    • The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) retired on April 12 leaving just two members in the Commission. 
    • The Centre appointed the new Election Commissioner in June.
    •  Of the 40 Central universities across the country, nearly half are without regular Vice-Chancellors.
    • Officers holding additional charges exist in various ministries, commissions and departments.

    Impact of vacancies

    • Vacancies have had a deleterious effect on governance.
    •  Delays in promotions and appointments affect the organisations.
    • Vacancies also tend to demoralise the officials who await promotions after vacancies arise.
    •  Delays in important appointments send a wrong signal to the nation.
    • Elections Commission was functioning only with two members for several months, in case of a disagreement on any issue between the two of them, a solution would have become difficult.

    Need to change the process for appointment of Election Commissioners

    • The appointment of Elections Commissioners is done by the Centre.
    • The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court demanding the appointment of Election Commissioners by a committee, as is done in the case of appointment of the Director of the CBI.
    • The 255th Report of Law Commission had recommended that Election Commissioners be appointed by a high-powered committee. 
    • The high-powered committee is headed by the Prime Minister has two members – the Chief Justice of India and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
    • However, if the Prime Minister decides on a candidate and the CJI consents, the Opposition leader’s dissenting note carries no weight.
    • There is a need, therefore, to expand the high-powered committee to include at least two more members of eminence with proven integrity for the selection process

    Way forward

    • A time frame needs to be worked out to announce top appointments at least a month in advance.
    • Political considerations need to be pushed to the back seat for a clean and honest administration.

    Conclusion

    Considering the impact vaccines have on governance, we need to devise a mechanism to avoid such vacancies for such a long duration.

  • Mental health care in India

    Context

    Recently, a High Court suggested that homeless persons with health conditions be branded with a permanent tattoo, when vaccinated against COVID-19.

    Issue

    • In many countries, persons with severe mental health conditions live in shackles in their homes, in overcrowded hospitals, and even in prison.
    • On the other hand, many persons with mental health issues live and even die alone on the streets.
    • Three losses dominate the mental health systems narrative: dignity, agency and personhood.
    • Issues with the laws: Far-sighted changes in policy and laws have often not taken root and many laws fail to meet international human rights standards.
    • Many also do not account for cultural, social and political contexts resulting in moral rhetoric that doesn’t change the scenario of inadequate care.
    • There is also the social legacy of the asylum, and of psychiatry and mental illness itself, that guides our imagination in how care is organised.

    Way forward: A responsive care system

    • We must understand mental health conditions for what they are and for how they are associated with disadvantage.
    • These situations are linked, but not always so, therefore, not all distress can be medicalised.
    • Adopt WHO guidelines: Follow the Guidance on Community Mental Health Services recently launched by the World Health Organization.
    • The Guidance, which includes three models from India, addresses the issue from ‘the same side’ as the mental health service user and focuses on the co-production of knowledge and on good practices.
    • Drawn from 22 countries, these models balance care and support with rights and participation.
    • Open dialogue: The practice of open dialogue, a therapeutic practice that originated in Finland, runs through many programmes in the Guidance.
    • This approach trains the therapist in de-escalation of distress and breaks power differentials that allow for free expression.
    • Increase investment: With emphasis on social care components such as work force participation, pensions and housing, increased investments in health and social care seem imperative.
    • Network of services: For those homeless and who opt not to enter mental health establishments, we can provide a network of services ranging from soup kitchens at vantage points to mobile mental health and social care clinics.
    • Small emergency care and recovery centres for those who need crisis support instead of larger hospitals, and long-term inclusive living options in an environment that values diversity and celebrates social mixing, will reframe the archaic narrative of how mental health care is to be provided.

    Conclusion

    Persons with mental health conditions need a responsive care system that inspires hope and participation without which their lives are empty. We should endeavour to provide them with such a responsive care system.

  • Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) Project

    The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has issued orders appointing an advisory committee for its Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) project.

    What does one mean by ‘Open-source’?

    • An open-source project means that anybody is free to use, study, modify and distribute the project for any purpose.
    • These permissions are enforced through an open-source licence easing adoption and facilitating collaboration.

    What is ONDC Project?

    • ONDC seeks to promote open networks, which are developed using the open-source methodology.
    • The project is aimed at curbing “digital monopolies”.
    • This is a step in the direction of making e-commerce processes open-source, thus creating a platform that can be utilized by all online retailers.
    • They will encourage the usage of standardized open specifications and open network protocols, which are not dependent on any particular platform or customized one.

    What processes are expecting to be open-sourced with this project?

    • Several operational aspects including onboarding of sellers, vendor discovery, price discovery and product cataloguing could be made open source on the lines of Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
    • If mandated, this could be problematic for larger e-commerce companies, which have proprietary processes and technology deployed for these segments of operations.

    What is the significance of making something open-source?

    • Making a software or a process open-source means that the code or the steps of that process is made available freely for others to use, redistribute and modify.
    • If the ONDC gets implemented and mandated, it would mean that all e-commerce companies will have to operate using the same processes.
    • This could give a huge booster shot to smaller online retailers and new entrants.

    What does the DPIIT intend from the project?

    • ONDC is expected to digitize the entire value chain, standardize operations, promote inclusion of suppliers, derive efficiencies in logistics and enhance value for stakeholders and consumers.

    What is a ‘Digital Monopoly’?

    • Digital monopolies refer to a scenario wherein e-commerce giants or Big Tech companies tend to dominate and flout competition law pertaining to monopoly.
    • The Giants have built their own proprietary platforms for operations.
    • In March, India moved to shake up digital monopolies in the country’s $ 1+ trillion retail market by making public a draft of a code of conduct — Draft Ecommerce Policy, reported Bloomberg.
    • The government sought to help local start-ups and reduce the dominance of giants such as Amazon and Walmart-Flipkart.
    • The rules sought to define the cross-border flow of user data after taking into account complaints by small retailers.

    Processes in the ONDC

    • Sellers will be onboarded through open networks. Other open-source processes will include those such as vendor and price discovery; and product cataloguing.
    • The format will be similar to the one which is used in the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
    • Mega e-commerce companies have proprietary processes and technology for these operations.
    • Marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart, Zomato, BigBasket and Grofers will need to register on the ONDC platform to be created by DPIIT and QCI.
    • The task of implementing DPIIT’s ONDC project has been assigned to the Quality Council of India (QCI).

    Back2Basics: Quality Council of India

    • QCI was set up in 1997 by the government of India jointly with Indian industry (represented by CII, FICCI and ASSOCHAM) as an autonomous body under the administrative control of the department.
    • QCI establishes and operates the National Accreditation Structure for conformity assessment bodies; providing accreditation in the field of education, health and quality promotion.

  • [pib] NIPUN Bharat Programme

    Union Minister for Education has launched a National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat).

    NIPUN Bharat

    • This scheme aims for ensuring that every child in the country necessarily attains foundational literacy.
    • It has been launched under the aegis of the centrally sponsored scheme of Samagra Shiksha.
    • It would cover the learning needs of children in the age group of 3 to 9 years.
    • The unique feature is that the goals of the Mission are set in the form of Lakshya Soochi or Targets for Foundational Literacy and Numeracy.
    • The Lakshyas are based on the learning outcomes developed by the NCERT and international research and ORF studies.

    Envisaged outcomes

    • Foundational skills enable to keep children in class thereby reducing the dropouts and improve transition rate from primary to upper primary and secondary stages.
    • Activity-based learning and a conducive learning environment will improve the quality of education.
    • Innovative pedagogies such as toy-based and experiential learning will be used in classroom transactions thereby making learning a joyful and engaging activity.
    • Intensive capacity building of teachers
    • Since almost every child attends early grades, therefore, focus at that stage will also benefit the socio-economic disadvantageous group thus ensuring access to equitable and inclusive quality education.

  • [pib] United District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2019-20

    The Union Education Minister has released the Report on United Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2019-20 for School Education in India.

    What is UDISE+?

    • UDISE+ is one of the largest Management Information Systems on school education.
    • It covers more than 1.5 million schools, 8.5 million teachers and 250 million children.
    • Launched in 2018-2019, UDISE+ was introduced to speed up data entry, reduce errors, improve data quality and ease its verification.
    • It is an updated and improved version of UDISE, which was initiated in 2012-13 by the Ministry of Education under the UPA govt by integrating DISE for elementary education and SEMIS for secondary education.

    Why is it important?

    • As per the UDISE+ website, “Timely and accurate data is the basis of sound and effective planning and decision-making.
    • Towards this end, the establishment of a well-functioning and Sustainable Educational Management Information System is of utmost importance today.”
    • In short, the UDISE+ helps measure the education parameters from classes 1 to 12 in government and private schools across India.

    What does the 2019-20 report say?

    • The total enrolment in 2019-20 from primary to higher secondary levels of school education was a little over 25.09 crore.
    • Enrolment for boys was 13.01 crore and that of the girls was 12.08 crore.
    • This was an increase by more than 26 lakh over the previous year 2018-19.

    (1) Pupil-teacher ratio improves

    • The Pupil-Teacher Ratio — the average number of pupils (at a specific level of education) per teacher (teaching at that level of education) in a given school year — showed an improvement all levels of school education in 2019-2020 over 2012-2013.

    (2) GER improves

    • The gross enrolment ratio (GER), which compares the enrolment in a specific level of education to the population of the age group which is age-appropriate for that level of education has improved at all levels in 2019-2020 compared to 2018-2019.
    • The GER increased to 89.7 percent (from 87.7 percent) at Upper Primary level, 97.8 percent (from 96.1 percent) at Elementary Level, 77.9 percent (from 76.9 percent) at Secondary Level and 51.4 percent (from 50.1 percent) at Higher Secondary Level in 2019-20 compared to 2018-19.
    • GER for girls at secondary level has gone up by 9.6 percent to reach 77.8 percent in 2019-20 compared to 68.2 percent in 2012-13.

    (3) Phyical infrastructure improves, but computers and internet access remain lacking

    • The report stated that just 38.5 percent of schools across the country had computers, while only 22.3 percent had an internet connection in 2019-20.
    • This is an improvement over 2018-2019 when 34.5 percent of schools had computers and a mere 18.7 percent of schools had internet access.

    Key takeaways

    • While physical infrastructure is steadily improving, the digital infrastructure for schools has a long way to go.
    • With the overwhelming majority of schools have neither computers (61 percent) nor internet access (78 percent), achieving the Centre’s ‘Digital India’ vision when it comes to online education is still some ways off.
    • The vast increase in hand wash facilities is a big step towards the fulfilment of the Modi government’s ‘Swachh Bharat’ push.
    • The Gross Enrolment Ratio improving at all levels of school education in 2019-20 compared to 2018-19 is a plus.
    • While 93 lakh more boys enrolled in education than girls, when it comes to GER, the girls pulled ahead.

  • How police can serve citizens better

    The article highlights the necessity of adopting the technology driven service delivery mechanism by the police.

    SC mandated police reforms of 2006

    Cost of inefficient criminal justice system

    • There is a reluctance to implement the Supreme Court-mandated police reforms of 2006.
    • The economic cost of the failed criminal justice system is reflected in the reluctance of foreign companies to set up manufacturing and commercial ventures in India for want of quick settlement of criminal, labour and civil disputes.
    • The social implications can be gauged from the report, “Crime in India 2019”, published by the National Crime Records Bureau.
    • Investigation and prosecution need improvement and all criminal trials must be completed within a year.
    • Technology-driven service delivery mechanisms can help achieve this.

    Need to ensure time-bound delivery of services

    • Along with prevention and detection of crime and maintenance of law and order, police stations in India undertake numerous daily tasks.
    • These tasks include providing verifications and no objection certificates of different kinds to citizens.
    • In criminal and non-cognisable cases, police stations provide copies of FIRs, complaints and final reports.
    • Police stations also verify domestic help/employees of central and state governments/public sector undertakings/students going abroad for studies.
    • The Bureau of Police Research & Development (BPR&D) had identified 45 such tasks in 2017.
    • Ease of business means police stations dispose of these requests in a transparent and time-bound manner.
    • The procedures are non-transparent and timelines are often blurred which encourage corrupt practice.
    • Even as police reforms are pursued by the Supreme Court, a definite attempt can be made to ensure time-bound delivery of the above-mentioned services to citizens.

    Use of technology for service delivery

    • These e-portals of various state police seek to provide citizen-centric services such as requests for issue/renewal of various NOCs, verification requests for servants, employment, passport, senior citizen registrations etc.
    • The India Justice Report (IJR) 2020 supported by Tata Trusts has studied the e-portals of various state police organisations.
    • The report mentions that “despite the push for digitisation, no state offered the complete bouquet of services

    • The report also mentions that users face numerous problems of accessibility to these services.
    • The IJR 2020 audit confirms that states need to invest more resources to upgrade their e-portals for providing the 45 identified basic services to the citizens

    Way forward

    • This highlights that technology for service delivery to citizens has not been prioritised by the police leadership.
    • . This is a task that police leadership can concentrate on without any political interference.
    • The Bureau of Police Research had worked out the timeline for each service and the hierarchy/levels involved.
    • The recommendations have been shared with the state police organisations.
    • Adhering to a defined process with a timeline and clear delineation of the levels of police officers involved can ensure transparent and non-corrupt service delivery.
    • It will reduce the number of fruitless visits a citizen makes to a police station chasing different officers.
    • Along with ease of use, the language of e-portals needs attention too.
    • Citizens seeking clearances may not be very educated.
    • The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) earmarked about Rs 20,000 crore for the modernisation of police (2017-2020), for schemes such as crime and criminal tracing networks and system (CCTNS), police wireless and e-prisons.
    • States can take up this crucial service delivery mechanism.

    Conclusion

    Life for Indians would be transformed if government departments, including the police, provide maximum information and services through their portals respecting the defined processes and timelines