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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • India’s technical education: Issues and Suggestions

    Context

    This year, AICTE approved the closure of 63 engineering colleges across the country.

    Deterioration of quality

    • Tweaking with curriculum: Private entrepreneurs took the lead to meet the growing demand of the country in technical education in the mid-Eighties, but with little idea of the subject.
    • Subjects like materials, applied physics and thermodynamics which forms the building blocks of engineering became dispensable.
    • Because they were both tough to teach for the teachers and tough to pass for the students.
    • Expansion: This softening of subjects coupled with unfettered expansion in the early and mid-2000s, resulted in real dilution of the overall standards in the country.
    • Lack of adequate number of teachers, lack of quality in those available, inability of the management to make adequate investments in a dynamic environment, lack of employment opportunities, shelf life of skills coming down with every technology-related intervention and a constant experimentation with curriculum have all been the bane of quality in technical education.

    Issues

    • Engineering education suffers from regulatory gaps, poor infrastructure, lack of qualified faculty and the non-existent industry linkage that contributed to the abysmal employability of graduates from most of these institutes.
    • No linkage with Industry: Not a single industry body, be it CII, FICCI or ASSOCHAM has managed to effectively inform the education planners on the growth in different employment sectors.
    • No independent body to suggest AICTEC: The government also has not taken any tangible steps to set up an independent body to advise AICTE on this vital aspect.
    • Excessive changes: A constant fiddling with the curriculum, reducing total credits, giving multiple choices in the name of flexibility, dispensing with mathematics and physics at the qualification level, teaching in local languages may all be good arguments, but one must assess their utility and their effect on technical education in the long run.

    Way forward

    • Proactive: Rather than being reactive, institutions must proactively define the practicing elements of education.
    • Investment in teaching: The corrective measures for these shortfalls are technology intensive, are experiential, and need investments in teaching.
    • Quality assurance body: The ultimate measure of performance is embedded in quality assurance.
    • The need of the hour is to create a truly autonomous quality assurance body at an arms-length from the government, manned by eminent persons both from the industry as well as academia.

    Conclusion

    The education paradigm is staring at a large shift and technical education cannot remain immune to that change.

  • Who was Major Dhyan Chand?

    The PM has announced that the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award will now be named after Major Dhyan Chand.

    Despite being a trillion population, what ails India’s limted success (not failure) at the Olympics in your opinion?

    [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”j4lq2ymhod” question=”What do you think?” opened=”1″]Spark the debate![/wpdiscuz-feedback]

    Who was Dhyan Chand?

    • Quite simply, he was the first superstar of hockey, considered a wizard or magician of the game.
    • He was the chief protagonist as India won three consecutive Olympic hockey gold medals — Amsterdam 1928, Los Angeles 1932, and Berlin 1936.
    • He is said to have wowed the watching public with his sublime skills, intricate dribbling and gluttonous scoring ability.
    • During those tournaments, there was no team that could compete with India — and most of the matches saw huge victory margins.
    • India beat hosts the Netherlands 3-0 in the 1928 final, the US were thrashed by a scarcely-believable margin of 24-1 in the 1932 gold medal match, while Germany went down 8-1 in the 1936 decider.
    • In all, Dhyan Chand played 12 Olympic matches, scoring 33 goals.

    Legends associated with Dhyan Chand

    • It is said that once his sublime skill and close control of the ball aroused such suspicion that his stick was broken to see whether there was a magnet inside.
    • During the 1936 Berlin Games, Adolf Hitler offered him German citizenship and the post of Colonel in his country’s Army, a proposition the Indian ace refused.

    Why does the name evoke such emotion?

    • Dhyan Chand played during India’s pre-independence years, when the local population was subjugated and made to feel inferior by the ruling British.
    • Hence, seeing an Indian dominating the Europeans in a sport invented by them evoked a lot of pride in them.
    • There has been a long-running campaign arguing that Dhyan Chand be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest honour.
    • Before Independence and for some years after that, hockey was the only sport in which India consistently excelled at the international and Olympic stage.
    • In fact, starting from Amsterdam 1928, India won seven of the eight hockey gold medals at the Games.
    • Apart from K D Jadhav’s wrestling bronze at Helsinki 1952, India had to wait until Atlanta 1996 and tennis player Leander Paes for an Olympic medal in a sport other than hockey.

    Why is the renaming of the award significant?

    • The eight gold medals in hockey have often been termed as the millstone around the necks of the subsequent generation of players.
    • The modern game is an altogether different sport from the one played in Dhyan Chand’s era.
    • The Europeans and Australians have become much more proficient over the decades, while the change of surface has put a premium on fitness, speed, stamina, and physical strength.
    • India had not managed to get into the top four at the Olympics since the boycott-affected Moscow Games in 1980.
    • The later generations may have felt out of touch with the golden years, about which one could only read in books or listen to in tales of the protagonists and those who witnessed the heroics.

  • [pib] SATYAM Programme

    The Ministry of Science & Technology (MoST) is implementing the Science and Technology of Yoga and Meditation (SATYAM) Programme to explore the effect of yoga and meditation as add on therapy to fight COVID-19.

    SATYAM Programme

    • The MoST is implementing SATYAM Programme since the year 2015-16 to promote scientific research in the field of yoga and meditation in order to understand its role in human wellbeing.
    • Its main objective is encouraging scientists, clinicians and experienced practitioners of yoga and meditation, with a proven track record, to submit concept notes.

    Themes covered:

    • Investigations on the effect of Yoga and Meditation on physical and mental health and well being.
    • Investigations on the effect of Yoga and Meditation on the body, brain, and mind in terms of basic processes and mechanisms.

    Focus on COVID

    It shall focus on three dimensions of COVID related illness:

    • Mental Stress
    • Respiratory
    • Immune system

  • Resolving the Assam-Mizoram issue

    Context

    The violent stand-off between the Assam and Mizoram armed policemen at Vairengte in Mizoram, on July 26, took six lives and left over 50 injured is the culmination of a long-standing border dispute.

    History of the boundary issue

    • The ‘inner line’ boundary of the Lushai hills was ‘fixed’ in 1875 on the southern border of Assam’s Cachar district.
    • In line with the colonial practice of ‘fixing’ borders, this boundary was however not ‘precise’ as it was drawn largely using natural markers such as rivers and hills.
    • In post-independent India, the Mizoram government has accepted this boundary in preference over the subsequent revisions made by the colonial government.
    • There was a change in boundary when the Inner Line Permit under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873 was extended to the Lushai hills district in 1930 and 1933.
    • The Mizoram government perceives that the boundary instituted by these revisions amounted to unilateral superimposition.
    • These revisions are also seen to conspicuously fail to recognise the Mizo’s long-standing historical rights to use the un-demarcated southern border of Cachar as their hunting ground, for jhum cultivation, and as sites of their resource extraction including rubber and timber.
    • However, considering that borders cannot be driven by perception but by institutionalised rules and laws, Assam’s government continues to refuse to accept Mizoram’s standpoint.
    • The Assam government considers Mizo plantation and settlements in the Inner Line Reserve Forest areas as an ‘encroachment’.

    People-centric Vs. State-centric approach in dispute

    • At the heart of this dispute is the contending approaches of the Assam and Mizoram governments to ‘borders’, namely ‘state-centric and ‘people-centric approaches.
    • The Assam government represent a continuum of the colonial ‘state-centric’ approach to borders which gives premium to legal, juridical and administrative recognition and protection of the border.
    • The Mizoram government advocate a ‘people-centric approach seeks to give a premium to the historical and traditional rights of the local indigenous people.
    • The Mizoram government also advocate the principle of uti possidetis juris (‘as you possess under law’, including customary law) on the other hand.

    Way forward

    • Historical context: Fixing the Assam-Mizoram border and resolve the dispute need to be sensitive to the historical context.
    • Deep historical knowledge, sensitivity and an accommodative spirit need to inform dialogue and negotiation under the neutral supervision of the Centre.
    • Inter-governmental forum: It is about time that the Centre sets up a permanent inter-governmental forum to involve important stakeholders in order to effectively manage border and territorial conflicts.
    • Quick-fix solution should be avoided: Any quick-fix solution driven by temporal electoral considerations should be avoided if we were to resuscitate and sustain interdependent Assam-Mizoram borders and beyond.

    Conclusion

    The resolution should be sensitive to the possibility of fluid and overlapping sovereignty, where forest ‘commons’ are seen not simply as sites of revenue-extraction but as powerful symbols of identity and sustainable livelihood resources for the local people.

  • State of food insecurity

    Context

    The latest edition of the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report, released jointly by five UN organisations in July, reveals that the pandemic and failure on the part of state to combat its effects, has led to a significant increase in the prevalence of hunger and food insecurity in the country.

    About the report

    • Estimates on food insecurity presented in the SOFI report are based on two globally-accepted indicators of food insecurity:
    • 1) The Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU), which estimates the proportion of people suffering from chronic deficiency of calories.
    • 2) A more recently developed an experience-based indicator called the Prevalence of Moderate and Severe Food Insecurity (PMSFI).
    • The PoU estimates are based on estimates of per-capita supply of food and distributional parameters estimated using the national consumption surveys
    • On the other hand, PMSFI estimates are based on data collected through surveys that attempt to capture people’s experiences of food insecurity (such as eating less, modifying diet to eat cheaper food etc).
    • No assessment of food insecurity during a pandemic: The PMSFI estimates presented in the report are particularly important because, since the outbreak of the pandemic, the Indian government has not undertaken any official assessment of food insecurity in the country.
    • Not only has the government not conducted its own consumption or food security surveys, it does not approve the publication of results based on the Gallup World Poll.
    • As a result, estimates for India are not published in the SOFI reports.
    • However, these can still be obtained indirectly because the data are presented for South Asia and for “South Asia (excluding India)”.
    • Estimates for India can be obtained by comparing the two sets of data.

    What the report says

    • According to the data presented in the report, the prevalence of moderate to severe food insecurity in India rose by about 6.8 percentage points in 2018-20.
    • Data show that there were about 43 crore of moderate to severe food-insecure people in India in 2019.
    • As a result of the pandemic-related disruptions, this increased to 52 crore in one year.
    • In terms of prevalence rates, moderate to severe food insecurity increased from about 31.6 per cent in 2019 to 38.4 per cent in 2021.

    Causes of food insecurity in India

    • Economic distress: The problems of hunger and food insecurity are grave in India because of widespread economic distress, high unemployment and high levels of inequality.
    • Dependence on informal economy: A large proportion of the poor is dependent on the informal economy in which incomes are too low and uncertain.
    • Unemployment: Unemployment rates have risen sharply over the last few years, shrinking public investment and the economic slowdown have compounded the distress among working classes and the peasantry.
    • With low and uncertain incomes, families dependent on the informal economy do not have assured access to adequate and nutritious food.

    Way forward

    • Monitoring system: There is an urgent need for the government to establish systems for regular monitoring of the food security situation in the country.
    • Universal access to food: It is ironic that the country with the largest stock of grain in the world — 120 million tonnes as of July 1, 2021 — accounts for a quarter of the world’s food-insecure population.
    • Universalising access to the public distribution system is the need of the hour at least during the pandemic.

    Conclusion

    The increasing severity of food insecurity in India points to the urgent need for measures by the government to ensure the right to food of citizens of India.

  • What is Horizontal Quota?

    The Bihar government recently announced 33% horizontal reservation for women in State engineering and medical colleges.

    What are vertical and horizontal reservations?

    • Reservation for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes is referred to the as vertical reservation.
    • It applies separately for each of the groups specified under the law.
    • Horizontal reservation refers to the equal opportunity provided to other categories of beneficiaries such as women, veterans, the transgender community, and individuals with disabilities, cutting through the vertical categories.

    How are the two categories of quotas applied together?

    • The horizontal quota is applied separately to each vertical category, and not across the board.
    • For example, if women have 50% horizontal quota, then half of the selected candidates will have to necessarily be women in each vertical quota category.
    • This means half of all selected SC candidates will have to be women, half of the unreserved or general category will have to be women, and so on.
    • The interlocking of the two types of reservation throws up a host of questions on how certain groups are to be identified.
    • For example, would an SC woman be put in the category of women or SC? Since quotas are fixed in percentages, what percentage of quota would be attributed to each?

  • No fundamental right to strike

    Context

    Recently, the Minister of Defence introduced the Essential Defence Services Bill, 2021.

    About the Essential Defence Services Bill, 2021

    • The Bill seeks to provide for the maintenance of essential defence services so as “to secure the security of nation and the life and property of the public at large”.
    • Prohibit strike by ordinance factory staff: It prevents staff of the government-owned ordnance factories from going on strike.
    • Power to declare essential service: The Bill seeks to empower the government to declare services mentioned in it as “essential defence services” and prohibit strikes and lockouts in any industrial establishment or unit engaged in such services.

    No fundamental right to strike

    • There is no fundamental right to strike under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.
    • Under Article 33 of the Constitution, Parliament, by law, can restrict or abrogate the rights of the members of the armed forces or the forces charged with the maintenance of public order.
    • Thus, for the armed forces and the police, where discipline is the most important prerequisite, even the fundamental right to form an association can be restricted under Article 19(4) in the interest of public order and other considerations.

    Supreme Court judgements on the issue

    • Many states prohibit strikes: This is not for the first time that strikes by government employees are being made explicitly illegal by the government, many states have similar provisions.
    • The Supreme Court in Delhi Police v. Union of India (1986) upheld the restrictions to form association by the members of the non-gazetted police force.
    • While the right to freedom of association is fundamental, recognition of such association is not a fundamental right.
    • Parliament can by law regulate the working of such associations by imposing conditions and restrictions on their functions, the court held.
    • In T.K. Rangarajan v. Government of Tamil Nadu (2003), the Supreme Court held that the employees have no fundamental right to resort to strike.

    Conclusion

    Strikes cannot be justified on any equitable ground. Strike as a weapon is mostly misused which results in chaos

  • 2 years of Repeal of Article 370

    Context

    Two years ago, India bid farewell to Articles 370 and 35 (A), marking the start of a new era in the politics of Jammu and Kashmir.

    Assessing the impact of changes on five parameters

    1) National unity

    • Articles 370 and 35 (A) created an unnatural and unhealthy divide in our nation.
    • For every law passed, every rule made, we had to ascertain whether it applied to J&K or not.
    • Today, such distinctions are history, J&K has been fully integrated with the other states and Union Territories.

    2) Democracy at the grass-root level

    • A healthy culture of grassroots-level participation was absent.
    • Panchayat polls held: One of the critical deliverables for J&K was to hold panchayat polls, which were finally held in 2020.
    •  This one step will go a long way in shaping the development paradigm in Jammu and Kashmir.
    • Political activity has also picked up across Jammu and Kashmir.
    • The Centre’s emphasis on a proper delimitation followed by full-fledged elections is in line with the commitments made to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

    3) Peace

    • The third parameter is that of peace.
    • The memories of 2008, 2010 and 2016 are still fresh in the minds of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
    • An effort was made to reignite such sparks of tension after the decisions on Article 370 and 35 (A) but the Valley as well as Jammu have remained peaceful.

    4) People’s aspirations

    • Jammu and Kashmir did not have RTI laws and its SC, ST and OBC communities were not able to get the benefits of reservation
    • The fact that the most marginalised groups can now get reservation benefits is a major leap forward in fulfilling the aspirations of the people of J&K.

    5) Economic growth

    • The Valley is today abuzz with news of action against corruption in key departments and financial bodies in the state.
    • Money being sent for public good was being misused by vested interest groups.
    • The economic upliftment in the Valley began with the Prime Minister’s Package of 2015.
    • This set the stage for extensive spending on physical and social infrastructure.
    • With the going of 370 and 35 (A) there is great hope that tourism will pick up in the Valley.
    • Incentives given to different sectors of the economy — be it saffron farmers or those who fish trout — combined with a largely peaceful environment is empowering many lives.
    • With corruption and leakages drastically reduced, resources are reaching the intended beneficiaries.

    Conclusion

    The situation in Jammu and Kashmir was never easy. As we enter the Amrut Mahotsav, it is for us to see the new realities in J&K. The people of the state have got the wings to fly and, in the years to come, J&K will make even greater contributions to India’s growth and development.

  • Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS)

    Virtually, 50% of funds allotted for ongoing MPLADS projects have lapsed.

    What is the MPLAD scheme?

    • The Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) is a program first launched during the Narasimha Rao Government in 1993.
    • It was aimed towards providing funds for developmental works recommended by individual MPs.

    Funds available

    • The MPs then were entitled to recommend works to the tune of Rs 1 crore annually between 1994-95 and 1997-98, after which the annual entitlement was enhanced to Rs 2 crore.
    • The UPA government in 2011-12 raised the annual entitlement to Rs 5 crore per MP.

    Implementation

    • To implement their plans in an area, MPs have to recommend them to the District Authority of the respective Nodal District.
    • The District Authorities then identify Implementing Agencies that execute the projects.
    • The respective District Authority is supposed to oversee the implementation and has to submit monthly reports, audit reports, and work completion reports to the Nodal District Authority.
    • The MPLADS funds can be merged with other schemes such as MGNREGA and Khelo India.

    Guidelines for MPLADS implementation

    • The document ‘Guidelines on MPLADS’ was published by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in June 2016 in this regard.
    • It stated the objective of the scheme to enable MPs to recommend works of developmental nature with emphasis on the creation of durable community assets based on the locally felt needs in their Constituencies.
    • Right from the inception of the Scheme, durable assets of national priorities viz. drinking water, primary education, public health, sanitation, and roads, etc. should be created.
    • It recommended MPs to works costing at least 15 percent of their entitlement for the year for areas inhabited by Scheduled Caste population and 7.5 percent for areas inhabited by ST population.
    • It lays down a number of development works including construction of railway halt stations, providing financial assistance to recognized bodies, cooperative societies, installing CCTV cameras etc.

    Answer this PYQ in the comment box:

    Q. With reference to the funds under the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS), which of the following statements are correct? (CSP 2020)

    1. MPLADS funds must be used to create durable assets like physical infrastructure for health, education, etc.
    2. A specified portion of each MP’s fund must benefit SC/ST populations.
    3. MPLADS funds are sanctioned on a yearly basis and the unused funds cannot be carried forward to the next year.
    4. The district authority must inspect at least 10% of all works under implementation every year.

    Select the correct answer using the code given below:

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 and 4 only

    (c) 1, 2 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 4 only

    [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”371dggp5nz” question=”Spark the debate!” opened=”1″]“Post your answers here”[/wpdiscuz-feedback]

  • Winning the battle against trafficking

    Context

    July 30 is United Nations World Day against Trafficking in Persons. It is also a time to reflect on India’s human trafficking crisis.

    What are factors increasing vulnerability?

    • Between April 2020 and June 2021, an estimated 9,000 children have been rescued after being trafficked for labour, according to a child rights non-governmental organisation (NGO).
    • Economic distress due to pandemic: The pandemic has resulted in the loss of income and economic crisis.
    • Loss of parental care: It has also caused, in some instances, loss of parental care due to death, illness or separation.
    • Relaxing of legal provision: These factors are compounded by an erosion of some of the checks against child labour and child marriage provided by law, as well as the scrutiny of schools and society.
    • Child marriages are also rampant — over 10,000 cases were tracked between April and August 2020.
    • Internet access: The increase in Internet access in current times has also led to cyber-trafficking.
    • A recent report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime on the effects of the pandemic on trafficking echoes these findings.

    Challenges in dealing with the issue

    • Lack of national-level data: The Government admitted in Parliament as recently as March 2021 that it does not maintain any national-level data specific to cyber trafficking cases.
    • India does not meet the minimum standards: India is still classified by the U.S. Department of State as a Tier-2 country in its  report on global human trafficking.
    • This means that the Government does not fully meet the minimum standards under U.S. and international law for eliminating trafficking, but is making significant efforts to comply.
    • Lack of implementation: The Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) are specialised district task forces comprising police and government officials.
    • In 2010, it was envisioned that 330 AHTUs would be set up.
    • RTI responses in August 2020 showed that about 225 AHTUs had been set up, but only on paper.

    Way forward

    • AHTU: If properly staffed and funded, AHTUs could provide crucial ground-level data on the methods and patterns of traffickers.
    • This, in turn, can strengthen community-based awareness and vigilance activities.
    • Incentivise education and provide safe employment: Global practices such as in Nigeria, Africa, should be encouraged in India, in consonance with a larger framework to protect women and children by incentivising education and creating safe employment opportunities.
    • Implementation of laws: There is no shortage of anti-trafficking policy in India.
    • Where the system is found lacking is in the implementation of the laws.
    • Take preventive action: The failure of existing institutional mechanisms to foresee the present crisis should spur the Government and other stakeholders to take preventive action now.

    Discussion needed on the provision of draft anti-trafficking Bill

    • Significant discussion is required on the provisions of the Bill, particularly with respect to bringing in the National Investigation Agency and increasing the punishment for offences, including the death penalty.
    • Ensure effective functioning of AHTUs: The draft Bill also provides for AHTUs/committees at the national, State and district levels, but as noted, their effective functioning cannot be taken for granted.
    • Challenges faced by prosecutors and judges: There were 140 acquittals and only 38 convictions in 2019, according to government data.
    • This points to a failure of investigation and cannot be solved by the draft Bill’s provision that accused traffickers must be presumed guilty unless they can prove the contrary.
    • Case management: Trials can drag on for years, with victims sometimes withdrawing their complaints after being intimidated by traffickers.
    • Proper case management must be introduced to give meaning to the “fast track” courts.
    • Compensation and counselling: Other problems include the low number of beneficiaries of monetary compensation and the lack of consistent access to psychological counselling.
    • Parts of the draft Bill recognise the importance of rehabilitation, but implementation is key.

    Conclusion

    Effective implementation of the legal provision and discussion on the various provisions of the draft law is required to deal with the menace of trafficking in persons.