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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill, 2020

    The Centre moved to standardize protocols of the growing fertility industry and introduced the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill, 2020, in Lok Sabha on the first day of the monsoon session of Parliament.

    Try this question for mains:

    Q. What is Assisted Reproductive Technology? Discuss the salient features of ART Regulation Bill, 2020?

    Features of the ART Regulation Bill, 2020

    (1) Defining ART

    • The Bill defines ART to include all techniques that seek to obtain a pregnancy by handling the sperm or the oocytes (immature egg cell) outside the human body and transferring the gamete or the embryo into the reproductive system of a woman.
    • Examples of ART services include gamete (sperm or oocyte) donation, in-vitro-fertilisation (fertilising an egg in the lab), and gestational surrogacy (the child is not biologically related to surrogate mother).
    • ART services will be provided through: (i) ART clinics, which offer ART related treatments and procedures, and (ii) ART banks, which store and supply gametes.

    (2) Regulation of ART clinics and banks

    • The Bill provides that every ART clinic and the bank must be registered under the National Registry of Banks and Clinics of India.
    • The National Registry will be established under the Bill and will act as a central database with details of all ART clinics and banks in the country.
    • State governments will appoint registration authorities for facilitating the registration process.
    • Clinics and banks will be registered only if they adhere to certain standards (specialised manpower, physical infrastructure, and diagnostic facilities).
    • The registration will be valid for five years and can be renewed for a further five years. Registration may be cancelled or suspended if the entity contravenes the provisions of the Bill.

    (3) Conditions for gamete donation and supply

    • Screening of gamete donors, collection and storage of semen, and provision of oocyte donor can only be done by a registered ART bank.
    • A bank can obtain semen from males between 21 and 55 years of age, and oocytes from females between 23 and 35 years of age.
    • An oocyte donor should be an ever-married woman having at least one alive child of her own (minimum three years of age).
    • The woman can donate oocyte only once in her life and not more than seven oocytes can be retrieved from her.
    • A bank cannot supply gamete of a single donor to more than one commissioning couple (couple seeking services).

    (4) Conditions for offering ART services

    • ART procedures can only be carried out with the written informed consent of both the party seeking ART services as well as the donor.
    • The party seeking ART services will be required to provide insurance coverage in the favour of the oocytes donor (for any loss, damage, or death of the donor).
    • A clinic is prohibited from offering to provide a child of pre-determined sex. The Bill also requires checking for genetic diseases before the embryo implantation.

    (5) Rights of a child born through ART 

    • A child born through ART will be deemed to be a biological child of the commissioning couple and will be entitled to the rights and privileges available to a natural child of the commissioning couple.
    • A donor will not have any parental rights over the child.

    (6) National and State Boards

    • The Bill provides that the National and State Boards for Surrogacy constituted under the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019 will act as the National and State Board respectively for the regulation of ART services.
    • Key powers and functions of the National Board include:
    1. advising the central government on ART related policy matters,
    2. reviewing and monitoring the implementation of the Bill,
    3. formulating code of conduct and standards for ART clinics and banks, and
    4. overseeing various bodies to be constituted under the Bill
    • The State Boards will coordinate enforcement of the policies and guidelines for ART as per the recommendations, policies, and regulations of the National Board.

    (7) Offences and penalties

    • Offences under the Bill include:

    (i) abandoning, or exploiting children born through ART, (ii) selling, purchasing, trading, or importing human embryos or gametes, (iii) using intermediates to obtain donors, (iv) exploiting commissioning couple, woman, or the gamete donor in any form, and (v) transferring the human embryo into a male or an animal.

    • These offences will be punishable with a fine between five and ten lakh rupees for the first contravention.
    • For subsequent contraventions, these offences will be punishable with imprisonment for a term between eight and 12 years, and a fine between 10 and 20 lakh rupees.
    • Any clinic or bank advertising or offering sex-selective ART will be punishable with imprisonment between five and ten years, or fine between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 25 lakh, or both.
    • No court will take cognizance of offences under the Bill, except on a complaint made by the National or State Board or any officer authorised by the Boards.

    With inputs from PRS: https://www.prsindia.org/billtrack/assisted-reproductive-technology-regulation-bill-2020

  • World Bank’s Human Capital Index 2020

    India has been ranked at the 116th position in the latest edition of the World Bank’s annual Human Capital Index that benchmarks key components of human capital across countries.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.As per UN-Habitat’s Global Report on Human Settlements 2009, which one among the following regions has shown the fastest growth rate of urbanization in the last three decades?

    (a) Asia

    (b) Europe

    (c) Latin America and Caribbean

    (d) North America

    Highlights of the 2020 rankings

    • The 2020 Human Capital Index update includes health and education data for 174 countries — covering 98 per cent of the world’s population — up to March 2020.
    • It provides a pre-pandemic baseline on the health and education of children, with the biggest strides made in low-income countries.

    Impact of the pandemic

    • The analysis shows that pre-pandemic, most countries had made steady progress in building the human capital of children, with the biggest strides made in low-income countries.
    • The pandemic puts at risk the decade’s progress in building human capital, including the improvements in health, survival rates, school enrollment, and reduced stunting.
    • The economic impact of the pandemic has been particularly deep for women and for the most disadvantaged families, leaving many vulnerable to food insecurity and poverty.
    • Due to the pandemic’s impact, most children — more than 1 billion — have been out of school and could lose out, on average, half a year of schooling, adjusted for learning, translating into considerable monetary losses.
    • Data also shows significant disruptions to essential health services for women and children, with many children missing out on crucial vaccinations.

    India’s performance

    • India’s score increased to 0.49 from 0.44 in 2018, as per the Human Capital Index report released by the World Bank.
    • Last year, India had raised “serious reservations” over the Human Capital Index, wherein India was ranked 115 out of 157 countries.
    • This year India finds itself at 116th from among 174 countries.

    Back2Basics: Human Capital Project

    1. As part of this World Development Report (WDR), the World Bank has launched a Human Capital Project (HCP).
    2. The HCP programme is claimed to be a program of advocacy, measurement, and analytical work to raise awareness and increase demand for interventions to build human capital.
    3. There are three components of HCP:
    • a cross-country human capital measurement metric called the Human Capital Index (HCI),
    • a programme of measurement and research to inform policy action
    • a programme of support for country strategies to accelerate investment in human capital.

    Human Capital Index (HCI)

    1. The HCI has been constructed for 157 countries.
    2. It claims to seek to measure the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by age 18.
    3. The HCI has three components:
      • Survival: as measured by under-5 mortality rates
      • Expected years of Quality-Adjusted School: which combines information on the quantity and quality of education
      • Health environment: Using two proxies of (a) adult survival rates and (b) the rate of stunting for children under age 5. 

    HDI vs. HCI

    1. UNDP constructs Human Development Index (HDI) for several years.
    2. The HCI uses survival rates and stunting rate instead of life expectancy as a measure of health, and quality-adjusted learning instead of merely years of schooling as a measure of education.
    3. HCI also excludes per capita income whereas the HDI uses it.

  • National Medical Commission

    The National Medical Commission (NMC) has replaced the Medical Council of India (BoG-MCI), as per information released by the Health Ministry.

    National Medical Commission

    • National Medical Commission (NMC) is an Indian regulatory body of 33 members which regulates medical education and medical professionals.
    • It replaced the Medical Council of India (MCI) on 25 September 2020.
    • The Commission grants recognition of medical qualifications, gives accreditation to medical schools, grants registration to medical practitioners, and monitors medical practice and assess the medical infrastructure in India.
    • The NMC will have four separate autonomous boards: under-graduate medical education, post-graduate medical education, medical assessment and rating and ethics and medical registration.

    It’s legal backing

    • The NITI Aayog had recommended the replacement of MCI with NMC.
    • The decision was approved by most states and after its approval by the Prime Minister and NMC bill was passed by parliament and approved by President on 8 August 2019.
    • National Medical Commission ordinance was brought in to replace Medical Council of India in early 2019 through an ordinance issued in January 2019 by the President of India.
    • The Supreme Court had allowed the Central Government to replace the medical council and with the help of five specialized doctors monitor the medical education system in India, from July 2017.
    • The government dissolved the MCI in 2018 and Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 (102 of 1956) stands repealed.

  • What is a Yo-Yo Test?

    In his interaction with fitness experts and influencers the PM asked about the yo-yo test, that is a vital part of the Indian cricket team’s fitness routine.

    Try this MCQ:

    Q.The Yo-Yo test sometimes seen in news is related to:

    Sports/ Healthcare/ Robotics/ Automation

    What is the Yo-Yo test?

    • The test was developed by Danish football physiologist Jens Bangsbo.
    • Two cones are placed 20 metres apart, and the athlete has to run between them when the beep goes off.
    • The beeps become more frequent after one minute, and if the athlete fails to reach the line within that time, he is expected to catch up within two more beeps.
    • The test is stopped if the player fails to catch up before the beeps run out.
    • The test has a beginner and an advanced level, and players are given scores. The minimum score set by the Board of Control for Cricket in India to pass the test is 16.1.

  • Weighing in on the efficacy of female leadership

    The article analyses the issue of women representation and leadership.

    Role of female leaders in pandemic

    • Germany, Taiwan and New Zealand have women heading their governments.
    • Three countries seem to have managed the pandemic much better than their neighbours.
    • A detailed recent study by researchers in the United States reports that States which have female governors had fewer COVID-19 related deaths.
    •  The authors of the study conclude that women leaders are more effective than their male counterparts in times of crises.

    Role of women as pradhans in gram panchayats

    • Women leaders perform significantly better than men in implementing policies that promote the interests of women.
    • This was demonstrated in study conducted by Nobel Laureate Esther Duflo and co-author Raghabendra Chattopadhyay.
    • They used the system of mandated reservations of pradhans in gram panchayats to test the effectiveness of female leadership.
    • Study concluded that pradhans invested more in rural infrastructure that served better the needs of their own gender.
    • This is also an important goal from the perspective of gender equality.

    Underrepresentation of women in politics

    •  Female members make up only about 10% of the total ministerial strength in India.
    • The underrepresentation of female Ministers in India is also reflected in the fact that there is only one female Chief Minister.
    • Despite this, women constitute just over 14% of the total strength of the Lok Sabha.
    • This gives us the dismal rank of 143 out of 192 countries for which data are reported by the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

    State of Women’s Reservation Bill

    • Women running for elections face numerous challenges, it is essential to create a level-playing field through appropriate legal measures.
    • Attempts have also been made to extend quotas for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies through a Women’s Reservation Bill.
    •  Male members from several parties opposed the Bill on various pretexts.
    • Although the Rajya Sabha did pass the bill in 2010, the Lok Sabha and the State legislatures are yet to give their approval.
    • 24 years that have passed since it was first presented in the Lok Sabha.

    Way forward

    • Political parties can sidestep the logjam in Parliament by reserving say a third of party nominations for women.

    Conclusion

    There is substantial evidence showing that increased female representation in policy making goes a long way in improving perceptions about female effectiveness in leadership roles. This decreases the bias among voters against women candidates, and results in a subsequent increase in the percentage of female politicians contesting and winning elections.

  • Exploring the idea of Social Stock Exchange

    Context

    • The Securities and Exchange Board’s (SEBI) working group has submitted its report with recommendations regarding the structure, mechanisms, and regulatory framework for the proposed Social Stock Exchange (SSE).

    What are Social Stock Exchanges (SSEs)?

    • An SSE is a platform which allows investors to buy shares in social enterprises vetted by an official exchange.
    • The Union Budget 2019 proposed setting up of first of its kind SSE in India.
    • The SSE will function as a common platform where social enterprises can raise funds from the public.
    • It will function on the lines of major stock exchanges like BSE and NSE. However, the purpose of the Social Stock Exchange will be different – not profit, but social welfare.
    • Under the regulatory ambit of SEBI, a listing of social enterprises and voluntary organizations will be undertaken so that they can raise capital as equity, debt or as units like a mutual fund.

    Issues with the idea of Social Stock Exchange

    • SSE exists in one form or another in UK, Singapore, South Africa, Canada and Brazil, but it is yet to take off in any country.
    • It has been an instrument focussed on social enterprises with rather poor results.
    • The proposed SSE in our country could have been an interesting innovation if it was first.
    • Replicating an experiment from elsewhere in an extremely complex environment of endemic poverty, high inequality and regional variation does not seem a reasoned decision.
    • It is therefore important to analyse why it has been pushed as a key policy.

    Why civil society is sceptical

    • The 2020-21 Union Budget says that not-for-profit organisations will need to apply every five years for income tax registration to ascertain their charitable status.
    • They will also need to renew their 80(G) certificate that provides tax relief to their donors.
    • The not-for-profit sector would not be able to survive without the tax-exempt charitable status.
    • These restrictions will open the gates to corruption and bullying by the tax and government bureaucracy.
    • The SEBI working group was constituted of business leaders, government and SEBI officials with a token representative from civil society.
    • Composition of the committee reflects the real intent of the SSE, which is to create instruments for market to enter the social sector.
    • However, the way the exchange is envisioned makes it clear that the interests of the private sector are guiding the idea of SSE.

    Will the entry of private sector benefit social sector

    • The proponents of the SSE argue that it would help set standards and a performance matrix for the social sector.
    • SSE is also expected to help bench-marking of sector actors (credibility checks), organise information and data, help in impact assessments, and do capacity building for the sector.

    Solving complex social problems

    • Poverty or injustice are essentially systemic and political questions that need multi-pronged dynamic engagement.
    • Developing set standards of impact assessment and performance matrix has the risk of privileging only one approach to the developmental challenges at hand.
    • The SSE would create more intermediaries and benefit larger organisations.
    • More than 99 per cent of the three million NGOs in the country are in the small category and will be untouched by the SSE.

    Conclusion

    The core business of the SSE is to strengthen the social sector and bring new resources to it, SEBI for sure itself would admit that it is not the appropriate anchor.

  • Upholding transparency in governance

    The article discusses the issue of growing lack of transparency in the functioning of government.

    Issues with Transparent Governance in India

    1) Electoral bond

    •  They were introduced in February 2017— they allowed anonymous donations to political parties and, therefore, protected the privacy of the donors.
    • The Election Commission of India (ECI) criticised the opacity of this financial mechanism.
    • The ECI told the government that this arrangement would prevent the state from ascertaining whether a political party has taken any donation in violation of provisions under Section 29B of the Representation of the People Act.
    • Section 29B prohibits the political parties from taking donations from government companies and foreign sources.
    • Electoral bonds also made it impossible to check whether a company was giving to parties more than what the Companies Act (2013) permitted, that is 7.5 per cent of the net average profit of the three preceding financial years.

    2) Sealed envelopes

    • Sealed envelope has become a modus operandi in several Indian institutions, including the Supreme Court (SC).
    • In the case of political funding by electoral bonds or otherwise, a three-judge bench in 2019 directed political parties to submit the details of donations received to the ECI in sealed cover.
    • The Assam administration had to show the progress it was making in the implementation of the National Register of Citizens by submitting reports in sealed covers.

    3) Undermining RTI

    (A) Reluctance to fill vacancies

    • The government did not appoint a Chief Information Commissioner for a year after the incumbent retired in August 2014.
    •  Similaryly, government did not fill vacant information commissioner posts in the Central Information Commission (CIC) between 2016 and 2018.
    • The backlog of pending appeals had reached 30,000 cases in late 2019 as the CIC has become a rather dysfunctional body.

    (B) Government refusing to disclose infromation

    • The government refused to disclose information which was previously available under the RTI Act.
    • Queries about phone tapping are not responded to anymore.
    • In 2016-17, the home and finance ministries rejected close to 15 per cent of the applications they received while the RBI and public sector banks rejected 33 per cent.
    • The RBI, for instance, refused to give any information about the decision-making process that led to demonetisation.

    (C) Limiting the powers of CIC

    • During the 2019 Monsoon Session of Parliament, government amended the RTI Act to limit the power of the CIC.
    • The five-year fixed tenure for the Chief Information Commissioner and information commissioners was abolished.
    • Their salaries were not fixed any more,  but notified separately by the government.

    4.Diluting Whisleblower’s Protection Act

    • Whistleblowers can now be prosecuted for possessing the documents on which the complaint has been made.
    • Issues flagged by them have to be in “public interest”.
    • Issues flagged should not be “affecting the sovereignty and integrity of India”, related to “commercial confidence” or “information received in confidence from a foreign government.

    5.Issues with statistical information

    • The National Statistical Commission and the Chief Statistician of India faced a credibility crisis when the new GDP series was released.
    • Similarly, the National Crime Records Bureau has been affected by delays (its 2017 report was released in October 2019) and deletions.
    • The National Sample Survey Office has also raised several concerns.

    Conclusion

    Transparency is not only necessary for maintaining a democratic polity, it is also necessary for making the economy work. Government actions must be informed by this fact.

    B2BASICS

    Electoral bond

  • Uniting South Asian region to combat Covid

    The article analyses how South Asia is dealing with the pandemic and the need for coordinated action by the countries across the region.

    Varying response across the region

    • Governments in South Asian countries have responded in varying degrees to counter the health and economic crises.
    • India resumed its economic activities on a limited scale following a strict lockdown.
    • Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka did the same after an extended lockdown.
    • Bhutan and the Maldives have managed to largely contain community transmission and avoid prolonged lockdowns due to a higher testing rate.
    • This is consistent with the hypothesis that countries that have conducted more tests have been more successful in containing the pandemic.

    Low mortality in the region

    • Unlike other regions, South Asian countries are experiencing a lower mortality rate despite having a higher infection rate.
    • However, epidemiological studies and the World Health Organization’s reviews have been sceptical about the data reliability.

    Effectiveness of state responses

    • India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Maldives have unveiled stimulus packages.
    • The rest of the countries are yet to announce any concrete support for their low income and lower-middle income population still suffering from the economic fallout of the crisis.
    • In late March, India announced a $22.5 billion relief package to ensure food security and cash transfers to save the livelihoods of an estimated 800 million people living in poverty.
    • The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) slashed the repo and reverse repo rate to create liquidity for businesses.
    • In early April, Bangladesh announced a stimulus package worth about $8 billion in addition to an earlier $595 million incentive package for export-oriented industries.
    • Although countries like India and Bangladesh announced financial and material stimulus packages, distribution concerns remain unaddressed.

    United response by SAAR

    • The region need to look beyond narrow geopolitical rivalry and come together to work towards a well-coordinated response mechanism.
    • A SAARC COVID-19 fund was created following Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to South Asian leaders.
    • Bbut governments are yet to decide on its modus operandi.
    • The region could leverage its existing institutional framework under the umbrella of SAARC to effectively respond to the crisis.
    • For instance, SAARC Food Banks could be activated to tackle the imminent regional food crisis, and the SAARC Finance Forum can be activated to formulate a regional economic policy response.

    Conclusion

    Faced with an unprecedented crisis, this is the right time for the leaders of the region to come together and take on the challenge collectively.

  • Issues with E-learning in India

    Pandemic has forced learning to the online mode. But there are several concerns with the online leaning. The article discusses the same.

    Providing learning opportunity in pandemic

    • The main thrust of providing learning opportunities while schools are shut is online teaching.
    • There are several sets of guidelines and plans issues by the government, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for this purpose.
    • The Internet space is teeming with learning schemes, teaching videos, sites and portals for learning opportunities.

    3 issues with online learning

    1) Increasing inequality

    • Calamities, be they natural or man-made, affect the underprivileged the hardest,  COVID-19 is no exception.
    •  The COVID-19 shutdown has affected opportunity for the poor even harder than their counterparts from well-to-do sections of society.
    • The government began plans for students with no online access only by the end of August.
    • But online or digital education is available is for students with only online access.
    • Thus, digital India may become even more unequal and divided than it already is.

    2) Pedagogical issues leading to bad quality education

    • The quality of online teaching-learning leaves much to be desired.
    • Listening to lectures on the mobile phone, copying from the board where the teacher is writing, frequent disconnections can hardly and organically connect the child’s present understanding with the logically organised bodies of human knowledge.
    • The secondary students are in a better position still because of their relative independence in learning and possible self-discipline.
    • The beginners in the lower primary can get nothing at all from this mode of teaching.

    3)  An unwarranted thrust on online education, post-COVID-19

    • All reliable studies seem to indicate that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the classroom helps in already well-functioning systems, and either has no benefits or negative impact in poorly performing systems.
    • That does not indicate much hope from IT in our education system.
    • Transformation of schools in the current understanding of pedagogy, suitability of learning material and quality of learning provided through IT will further devastate the already inadequate system of school education in the country.
    • Of course, IT can be used in a balanced manner where it can help; but it should not be seen as a silver bullet to remedy all ills in the education system.

    Importance of institutional environment

    • The institutional environment plays an important role online teaching.
    • Even when the institutions function sub-optimally, students themselves create an environment that supports their growth morally, socially and intellectually in conversations and interactions with each other.
    • The online mode of teaching completely forecloses this opportunity.

    Conclusion

    Our democracy and public education system should try to address the issues raised here while promoting the online mode of education.

  • [pib] Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) Scheme

    The Ministry of Minority Affairs has provided information about the progress of MANF Scheme in the Parliament.

    Note: As the name suggests, the scheme particularly aims to target the Minority community. Here, six major groups are considered a minority. Statement based questions often create bluffs on such conditions.

    MANF Scheme

    • The Ministry of Minority Affairs implements MANF Scheme for educational empowerment of students belonging to six notified minority communities i.e. Buddhist, Christian, Jain, Muslim, Sikh, Zoroastrian (Parsi).
    • The Scheme is implemented through the University Grants Commission (UGC) and no waiting list is prepared under the Scheme by UGC.
    • Candidates belonging to the Six centrally notified minority are considered for award of fellowship under the MANF Scheme.
    • The selection of candidates is done through JRF-NET (Junior Research Fellow- National Eligibility Test) examination conducted by the National Testing Agency.
    • Prior to 2019-20, the merit list was prepared on the basis of marks obtained by the candidates in their Post Graduate examination.
    • However, in 2018-19, only the candidates who had qualified CBSE-UGC-NET/JRF or CSIR-NET/JRF were eligible to apply.