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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • Emergency use nod for Virafin

    About the drug

    • It is used in treating people with chronic hepatitis B and C. 
    • The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) granted emergency use approval for pharma major Zydus Cadila’s antiviral drug ‘Virafin’, to treat moderate COVID-19 disease in adults.
    • When administered early on during COVID, Virafin will help patients recover faster and avoid much of the complications.
    • It significantly reduces viral load when given early on and can help in better disease management.

    Findings of the clinical trials

    • A single dose subcutaneous regimen of the antiviral Virafin [a pegylated interferon alpha-2b (PegIFN)] will make the treatment more convenient for the patients.
    • When administered early on during COVID, Virafin will help patients recover faster and avoid much of the complications.
    • In the phase-3 trials, the drug was able to achieve “better clinical improvement in the patients suffering from COVID-19”.
    • A “higher proportion (91.15%) of patients administered the drug were RT-PCR negative by day seven as it ensures faster viral clearance”.
    • The drug reduced the duration for supplemental oxygen to 56 hours from 84 hours in moderate COVID-19 patients.

    How the drug works

    • Type I interferons are the body’s first line of defence against many viral infections.
    • In old people, the ability to produce interferon alpha in response to viral infections gets reduced, which might be the reason for higher mortality.
    • The drug when administered early during the disease can replace this deficiency and help in the recovery process.

  • Centre to give 5 kg foodgrains free to poor

    The Central Government announced that 5kg of free wheat or rice per monthwill be provided to around 80 crore people for the next two months, May and June.

    Major Highlights:

    • This will be extended to beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act(NFSA).
    • Nearly 8 million tonnes of food grains will be distributed under this scheme.
    • The scheme is expected to bring relief to NFSA beneficiaries as it will be in addition to the regular entitlement of 5kg highly subsidised foodgrains to each beneficiary at Rs 3, 2 and 1 per kg of rice, wheat and coarse grains.

    Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY):

    • Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana is a food security welfare schemeannounced by the Government of India in March 2020.
    • PM-GKAY is a part of Atma Nirbhar Bharat to supply free food grains to migrants and poor.
    • The program is operated by the Department of Food and Public Distributionunder the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution.

    Aim:

    • To feed the poorest citizens of India by providing grain through the Public Distribution System to all the priority households (ration card holders and those identified by the Antyodaya Anna Yojana scheme).
    • PMGKAY provides 5 kg of rice or wheat (according to regional dietary preferences) per person/month and 1 kg of dal to each family holding a ration card.

    Eligibility/ Beneficiaries:

    • Families belonging to the Below Poverty Line – Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and Priority Households (PHH) categories will be eligible for the scheme.
    • PHH are to be identified by State Governments/Union Territory Administrations as per criteria evolved by them.
    • AAY families are to be identified by States/UTs as per the criteria prescribed by the Central Government:
      • Households headed by widows or terminally ill persons or disabled persons or persons aged 60 years or more with no assured means of subsistence or societal support.
      • Widows or terminally ill persons or disabled persons or persons aged 60 years or more or single women or single men with no family or societal support or assured means of subsistence.
      • All primitive tribal households.
      • Landless agriculture labourers, marginal farmers, rural artisans/craftsmen such as potters, tanners, weavers, blacksmiths, carpenters, slum dwellers, and persons earning their livelihood on daily basis in the informal sector like porters, coolies, rickshaw pullers, hand cart pullers, fruit and flower sellers, snake charmers, rag pickers, cobblers, destitute and other similar categories in both rural and urban areas.
      • All eligible Below Poverty Line families of HIV positive persons.

  • Why single price of vaccine across the country is good idea

    The article deals with the issues of different prices set for the Covid vaccine and its implications.

    Understanding the positive and negative externalities

    • Vaccines have a positive externality; it is a good whose consumption benefits not just the one who has it.
    • A vaccinated person is not only relatively protected against the disease himself/herself, but also less likely to transmit it to others.
    • Usually, a person getting vaccinated takes into account only his/her own cost and benefit, while ignoring the fact that he/she lowers the chances of infecting others.
    • It is the opposite of smoking, which has “negative externality”.
    • Since every individual ignores the full set of benefits/costs from consuming goods with positive/negative externalities, the market isn’t always the most efficient mechanism for allocation of such goods.
    • That is a key reason why governments treat goods having large positive externalities as “public goods” and provide these while factoring in the full costs and benefits to society.

    Analysing the issues with vaccine policy

    1) Vaccine inequality

    • It requires vaccine manufacturers to supply 50 per cent of their production to the Centre at controlled prices, while allowing them to sell the remaining half in the open market including to state governments at pre-announced “self-set” prices.
    • To start with, the new policy can lead to differential access to the vaccine.
    • Manufacturers are supposed to “transparently declare” their prices in advance for their 50 per cent supply to the open market.
    • But there is no limit per se on the retail price they would charge.
    • This could lead to a whole range of prices and vaccine inequality, apart from diversion of supplies from the controlled low-price government centres to the open market.
    • So, we may well have scarcity in the “mass” segment co-existing with a glut in the “elite” segment.
    • There is also concerns about economic efficiency and the potential for market failure.

    2) Economic efficiency and potential for market failure

    • Imagine there are two sets of people in India.
    • The first consists of those who are better off and can afford to stay back or work from home.
    • This lot is also less likely to cause infection to others.
    • The second set is mostly blue-collar workers, small traders, vendors and agriculturists.
    • The nature of their work — on the shop floor or in the field — makes them naturally prone to infect others.
    • It follows, then, that society gains from first vaccinating the latter, as they have a higher negative externality.
    • The market will ignore those with lower purchasing power, despite them having a higher probability of spreading the disease.
    • In fact, the bigger the income difference between the two segments, the greater will be the extent of market failure from simultaneous over-provisioning and under-provisioning.

    Way forward

    • The solution could be a single price to be paid to vaccine makers for all the doses that they supply.
    • The price should be high enough to stimulate them to rapidly ramp up production.
    • Those government should pay directly to the vaccine maker or the hospital administering the dose for those without sufficient means.
    • The suggested solution is similar to the fertiliser subsidy, which is now disbursed to companies only after actual sales to farmers.

    Consider the question “What policy should be followed for the vaccination in the country? What are the issues with the curent policy which involved different price for government and for open market.”

    Conclusion

    A single price for Covid-19 vaccines will stimulate production, ensure efficient vaccination.

  • Very few post-vaccine infections

    Breakthrough infection

    • ICMR said that a small fraction of those vaccinated with either Covaxin or Covishield have tested positive (i.e. breakthrough” infections).
    • However, these instances do not undermine the efficacy of the vaccines.
    • The immune response begins to develop usually two weeks after every dose and there are variations within individuals, too.
    • Of the 9.3 million who received the first dose of Covaxin, 4,208 tested positive; and of the 1.7 million who received the second dose, 695 tested positive.
    • For Covishield, of the 100.3 million who received the first dose, 17,145 tested positive; and of the 15 million who got the second dose, 5,014 tested postive.

    What explains infections after vaccination

    • Healthcare and frontline workers, who were among the first to be vaccinated, were as a population far more exposed to the virus and therefore more susceptible.
    • Secondly, the emergence of “the highly transmissible second wave (newer variants) ” may have contributed to instances of infection among those vaccinated.
    • Several variants, which have mutations that have been shown to avoid detection by the immune system, and in some cases reduce the efficacy of vaccines, have been reported globally, including in India.

  • Strengthening the process of choosing the police chief

    The article suggests the need for reforms in the process of appointment to the police chief to ensure the political neutrality of the police.

    Process of appointing and removing police chief

    •  A crucial way in which governments exercise control over the State police is through their unregulated power to decide who the chief will be.
    • There is no independent vetting process to assess the suitability of qualified candidates, and the government’s assessment, if it is done at all, remains opaque and is an exercise behind closed doors.
    •  The moot reform issue is in ensuring the right balance between the government’s legitimate role in appointing or removing the police chief with the need to safeguard the chief’s operational autonomy.

    Need for reforms

    Two elements are vital to reforms in this area.

    1) Shift the responsibility to independent oversight body of which government is one part

    • The National Police Commission (NPC) (1979), and the Supreme Court in its judgment in 2006, in the Prakash Singh case suggested establishing a state-level oversight body with a specified role in the appointment and removal of police chiefs.
    • While the Supreme Court entrusted the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) with a role in shortlisting candidates from which the State government is to appoint the police chief.
    • However, the Model Police Bill, 2015 places the responsibility with a multiparty State Police Board, also referred to as the State Security Commission (SSCs) instead.

    No compliance with SC directive in the formation of SSC

    • While 26 States and the Union Territories have established SSCs, not a single one adheres to the balanced composition suggested by the top court.
    • Some do not include the Leader of the Opposition; others neither include independent members nor follow an independent selection process of the members.
    • In essence, the commissions remain dominated by the political executive.
    • Moreover, in as many as 23 States, governments retain the sole discretion of appointing the police chief. Assam, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Meghalaya and Mizoram are the only States where, on paper, the SSC is given the responsibility of shortlisting candidates.

    2) Need for transparency

    • The second element critical to police reforms is instituting an independent and transparent selection and decision-making process around appointment and removal, against objective criteria.
    •  On appointments, the Court and the Model Police Act require the UPSC/SSC to shortlist candidates on the basis of length of service, service record, and range of experience and a performance appraisal of the candidates over the past 10 years.
    • However, no further guidance has been developed on explaining these terms or specifying their elements.
    • Similarly, no scrutiny process has been prescribed to justify removals from tenure posts.
    • The National Police Commission had required State governments to seek the approval of the State Security Commission before removing the police chief before the end of term.
    • This important check was diluted under the Prakash Singh judgment that only requires governments to consult the SSC.
    • Most States omit even this cursory step.
    • The Supreme Court has rightly emphasised that “prima facie satisfaction of the government” alone is not a sufficient ground to justify removal from a tenure post in government, such as that of the police chief (T.P. Senkumar vs Union of India, 2017).
    • The rule of law requires such decisions be for compelling reasons and based on verifiable material that can be objectively tested.

    Way forward

    • Clear and specific benchmarks need to be integrated into decision-making processes, both on appointments and removals, to prevent politically motivated adverse actions.
    • In improving transparency the United Kingdom provides a useful example by introducing public confirmation hearings as an additional layer of check for the appointment of the heads of their police forces.

    Consider the question “Examine the status of compliance of the states to the directives of the Supreme Court with respect to the constitution of State Security Commission in the Prakash Singh case.”

    Conclusion

    Reforms are needed on urgent to ensure fairness in administrative decisions and to protect the political neutrality of the police. Any further delay in implementing reforms in this area will continue to demoralise the police and cripple the rule of law.

  • Fifth session of Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs

    Fifth session of Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs (CCSCH)established under Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) inaugurated virtually on 20th April with a series of virtual sessions.

    • The session will see nearly 300 experts from 50 countries taking part in the deliberations.

    About CCSCH:

    • Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs was formed in 2013 with support of more than a hundred countries with India as the host country and Spices Board India as the Secretariat for organising the sessions of the committee.
    • The objective was to develop and expand worldwide standards for spices and culinary herbs, and to consult with other international organisations in the standards development process.
    • Since its inception, the Codex Committee on Spices and Culinary Herbs has been successful in developing harmonised global Codex standards for spices and herbs.
    • In its past four sessions, the committee developed and finalized standards for four spices, viz. dried or dehydrated forms of black/white/green pepper, cumin, thyme, and garlic.

    About CAC:

    • The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) is an intergovernmental body.
    • Set up in 1963.
    • It was established jointly by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), within the framework of the Joint Food Standards Programme to protect the health of consumers and ensure fair practices in the food trade.

  • Employee State Insurance Scheme and Employee Provident Fund

    The idea of welfare state

    • Covid reminds us that a modern state is a welfare state as governments worldwide launched 1,600 plus new social protection programmes in 2020.
    • Sustainable social security lies in raising India’s 138th ranking in country per-capita GDP.
    • However, on the social security schemes, there is a case for three reforms to our biggest health insurance and pension schemes:
    • These schemes are the Employee State Insurance Scheme (ESIS) and Employee Provident Fund (EPF).

    Issues with ESIS

    • The Employee State Insurance Scheme (ESIS) is India’s richest and biggest health insurance scheme with 13 crore people covered and Rs 80,000 crore in cash.
    • Employers with more than 10 employees make a mandatory 4 per cent payroll deduction for employees earning up to Rs 21,000 per month.
    • Despite covering roughly 10 per cent of India’s population, a recent working paper from Dvara Research suggests high dissatisfaction.
    • The constraint is hardly resources: ESIC’s unspent reserves are larger than the Central government’s healthcare budgetary allocation.

    Issues with EPF

    • EPF is India’s biggest pension scheme with a Rs 12 lakh crore corpus and 6.5 crore contributors.
    • Employers with more than 20 employees make mandatory 24 per cent payroll deductions for employees earning up to Rs 15,000 per month.
    • It only covers 10 per cent of India’s labour force and 60 per cent of accounts and 50 per cent of registered employers are inactive.
    • EPF offers poor service and pathetic technology despite employer-funded administrative costs that make it the world’s most expensive government securities mutual fund.

    Updating the risk-sharing frameworks in society

    • In a book titled What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract, Nemat Shafik suggests updating the risk-sharing framework in societies.
    • This is because current structures are breaking up under the weight of changes in the role of women, longer careers, technology, globalisation, and much else.
    • She suggests a more nuanced social security redistribution across time (the piggy bank function), incomes (the Robin Hood function), and financial burden-bearing (the state, individuals, or employers).
    • In India, the answer lies in fixing the problems of EPF and ESIS.

    Solution to the EPF and ESIS problems

    • Both suffer from poor coverage, high costs, unsatisfied customers, metrics confused with goals, jail provisions, excessive corruption, low expertise, rude and unaccountable staff with no fear of falling or hope of rising, and no competition.

    Let’s look at possible solutions.

    1) Structure

    • EPF and ESIS combine the roles of policymaker, regulator, and service provider.
    • Splitting roles is a precondition for performance because goals, strategy, and skills are different.
    • An independent policymaker horrified with only 6 lakh of India’s 6.3 crore enterprises covered would create competition.
    • An independent regulator terrified by ESIS overcharging would frown on a claims ratio of less than 75 per cent.
    • An independent service provider would invest heavily in technology, customer service, and human capital.
    • Splitting roles would lead to the following benefits:
    • 1) Competition from NPS for EPF.
    • 2) Ending VIP opt-out by merging CGHS with ESIS,
    • 3) Raising enforceability by making employee provident fund contribution voluntary.
    • 4) Improving portability by de-linking accounts from employers.
    • 5) Targeting universalisation by simultaneously ending minimum employer head-count and employee salary contribution thresholds while introducing absolute contribution caps.
    • The Health and Finance Ministry would be logical homes for ESIS and EPF policy roles.

    2) Governance

    • The governing board of ESIS and EPFO have 59 and 33 members respectively.
    • Such a large group can’t have meaningful discussions, make decisions, and exercise oversight.
    • This governance deficit needs smaller boards (not more than 15), age limits, term limits, expertise, active sub-committees (HR, Investments, and technology) and real powers.

    3) Leadership

    • Health and pensions need complex skills developed over time.
    • Yet, ESIS and EPF are led by generalist bureaucrats.
    • Both organisations need professional chief executives.
    • Philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s framing of the generalist vs specialist debate as hedgehogs (who know one thing) and foxes (who know many things) is important.
    • A less generalist, non-transitory, and non-cadred chief executive would create a new tone-from-the-top around performance management, technology, and service outcomes.

    Conclusion

    Social security — not a borrowing binge that steals from our grandchildren — can blunt structural and COVID inequality when combined with complementary policies like formalisation, financialisation, urbanisation, and better government schools. But a great place to start is three flick-of-pen, non-fiscal reforms at EPF and ESIS.

  • India retains 142 of 180 spot in World Press Freedom index

    Where India stands on freedom of press

    • India is ranked at 142 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index 2021.
    • India at142th position is same as last year, after it had consistently slid down from 133 in 2016.
    • In the South Asian neighbourhood, Nepal is at 106, Sri Lanka at 127, Myanmar (before the coup) at 140, Pakistan at 145 and Bangladesh at 152.
    • The index is published by the international journalism not-for profit body, Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
    • China is ranked 177, and is only above North Korea at 179 and Turkmenistan at 178.

    What the report said about India

    • The report released on Tuesday stated that India shares the “bad” classification with Brazil, Mexico and Russia.
    • RSF has highlighted that the “campaigns are particularly violent when the targets are women”.
    • Further, it said that criminal prosecutions are meanwhile “often used to gag journalists critical of the authorities” with sections for sedition also used.
    • Speaking about the larger Asia-Pacific region, the report mentioned that “instead of drafting new repressive laws in order to impose censorship, several of the region’s countries have contented themselves with strictly applying existing legislation that was already very draconian – laws on ‘sedition,’ ‘state secrets’ and ‘national security’.”
    • The report has also highlighted throttling of freedom of expression on social media, and specifically mentioned that in India the “arbitrary nature of Twitter’s algorithms also resulted in brutal censorship”

    Measures adopted by India to improve ranking

    • The Indian government has been concerned about its low rankings in such international indices, and had last year started studying them to understand how to improve.
    • Soon after the index was released last year, Union Minister for Information and Broadcast  had tweeted on May 2: “Media in India enjoy absolute freedom.”

  • When Aadhaar-related problems lead to denial of rations and benefits: what the data show

    The Supreme Court recently asked the Centre to respond to allegations made in a Public Interest Litigation with respect to 3 crore ration cards being cancelled in the country because of the insistence on Aadhaar linkage and biometric authentication.

    Key Points

    About Aadhar Card:

    • Aadhar Card is basically a biographic and biometric data of Indian citizens that includes name, date of birth, gender, address, a photograph, and ten fingerprint and two iris scans.
    • It includes a unique 12-digit Aadhaar number.
    • The Aadhar Card is a residential proof and not a citizenship card.

  • Tackling second Covid wave

    The article suggests ways to deal with the second wave of Covid in India.

    What explains the bigger second wave

    • The size of any epidemic is a function of three things:
    • 1) The size of the pool of the susceptible population.
    • 2) The pattern of contact between the members of the population (frequency, mix, closeness and duration).
    • 3) Probability of spread during that contact (infectiousness of the agent).

    Let us have a look at these 3 factors in the current context

    • As many people have already been infected in the first wave, the pool of susceptibles should be smaller.
    • Serosurveys also support this as they found that about 25 per cent of people had already been infected nationally.
    • However, this is an average and hides significant variations by state, age and place of residence.
    • Populations with lower seroprevalence become the potential pool for the second wave.
    • Given India’s large population base, the actual number of people are sufficiently large to enable multiple waves till we achieve a more even spread of protected people.
    • The persistence of protectiveness of antibodies of those already infected and their cross-protectiveness to newer strains is not well established.
    • Vaccination would reduce the pool of susceptibles.
    • However, the current level of vaccination coverage is not sufficient to make a significant difference to this wave, given the fact that we are already riding it.
    • It is a good strategy to prevent the next wave, if we can achieve substantial coverage with it.
    • Vaccination also prevents severe disease, and hence reduces the death toll.
    • With the removal of most restrictions, the probability of contact between individuals has risen sharply.

    Way forward

    • What can and should be avoided are super-spreader events like a crowded park, the Kumbh mela, election rallies, etc.
    • A much stronger community engagement with a robust communication strategy and lesser emphasis on “criminalising” inappropriate behaviour is required.
    • A nuanced communication campaign is the need of the hour and is conspicuous by its complete absence.
    • What is urgently needed is a robust evidence-based communication campaign.
    • Such a campaign would involve proactive serial assessment of the community perceptions and concerns, testing and refining messages through an evolving campaign.
    •  A district-specific strategy of “test, trace, treat” along with containment measures (isolation and quarantine) is still the best way to deal with the situation.
    • We also need to put a stop to political bickering; it erodes public trust and confidence.

    Conclusion

    Dealing with the second wave should be based on the experience drawn from dealing with the first wave and complemented by a better communication strategy.