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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • What is pooled testing, recommended by the ICMR?

    The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has issued an advisory for using pooled samples for testing of COVID-19 in order to increase the number of tests conducted by laboratories across the country.

    COVID-19 containment measures are pacing up across the country. However, it is argued that we are lagging in the number of tests to be carried out.  With certain limitations, pooled testing promises an edge over individual testings of suspected patients.

    What is pooled testing?

    • In a pooled testing algorithm, samples of multiple individuals are put together in a tube and screened through the PCR test.
    • In case the pooled test turns out to be positive, individual samples are tested, which is referred to as pool de-convolution.
    • If there’s no positive result, all individual samples in the pool are regarded as negative, resulting in substantial cost savings.

    What the ICMR has recommended?

    • ICMR has advised that while more than two samples can be pooled together, the number should not exceed five samples to avoid sample dilution, which can lead to false negatives.
    • This method can be used in areas where the prevalence of COVID-19 is low, which means a positivity rate of less than two per cent.
    • In areas with a positivity rate between two to five per cent, sample pooling of PCR screening may be considered in a community survey of surveillance among asymptomatic individuals.
    • Samples of individuals with known contact with confirmed cases or healthcare workers should not be included in the pooled samples.
    • Also, ICMR has said pooling of sample is not recommended in areas or population with positivity rates of over five per cent.

    Benefits of pooled testing

    • Using this method, substantial costs and testing kits are saved.
    • For instance, if a pooled sample consists of the samples of five individuals and it tests negative, the cost of four testing kits is saved and more number of people are covered with fewer resources.
    • Significantly, pooled screening can also help in tracking down the asymptomatic cases of the disease, thereby tracking community transmission.
    • But in case the sample tests positive, all individuals need to be tested separately.

  • [pib] Swayam Prabha TV Channels

    The HRD Ministry has taken several prompt, new and unique initiatives to ensure that the education of learners should not get affected by the challenging situation arising out of COVID 19. One of them is Swayamprabha TV channels.

    There are various web/portals/apps with peculiar names such as YUKTI, DISHA, SWAYAM etc. Their core purpose is similar with slight differences. Pen them down on a separate sheet under the title various digital HRD initiatives.

    SWAYAM Prabha

    • The SWAYAM Prabha is a group of 32 DTH channels devoted to telecasting of high-quality educational programmes on a 24X7 basis using the GSAT-15 satellite.
    • The channels are uplinked from BISAG, Gandhinagar. The contents are provided by NPTEL, IITs, UGC, CEC, IGNOU, NCERT and NIOS.
    • The INFLIBNET Centre maintains the web portal.
    • Every day, there will be new content for at least 4 hours which would be repeated 5 more times in a day, allowing the students to choose the time of their convenience.

    The DTH Channels shall cover the following:

    Higher Education: Curriculum-based course contents at post-graduate and under-graduate level covering diverse disciplines such as arts, science, commerce, performing arts, social sciences and humanities, engineering, technology, law, medicine, agriculture, etc.

    School education (9-12 levels): Modules for teacher’s training as well as teaching and learning aids for children of India to help them understand the subjects better and also help them in preparing for competitive examinations for admissions to professional degree programmes.

    Curriculum-based courses: These channels can meet the needs of life-long learners of Indian citizens in India and abroad.

    Back2Basics: SWAYAM Portal

    • SWAYAM is a Hindi acronym that stands for “Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds” is an Indian Massive open online course (MOOC) platform.
    • It is an initiative launched by the Ministry of HRD, under Digital India to give a coordinated stage and free entry to web courses, covering all advanced education, High School and skill sector courses.
    • It was launched on 9th July 2017 by Honorable President of India.
    • The platform offers free access to everyone and hosts courses from class 9 till post-graduation.
    • It enables professors and faculty of centrally funded institutes like IITs, IIMs, IISERs, etc. to teach students.

  • Using knowledge-era technology to bridge the urban-rural gap

    This article puts forward the idea of using knowledge-era technology to minimise the difference between rural and urban areas. In the first part, it elaborates the reasons and circumstances that led to the neglect of rural areas and development in urban areas. In the next part, the idea of using knowledge-era technologies to close the gaps between rural and urban areas is explored.

    Why Urbanisation is spreading and how it led to the neglect of rural areas?

    • Better opportunities: The tendency to migrate to urban areas has been a natural consequence of better opportunities that got created there — in contrast to life in rural areas becoming increasingly unsustainable.
    • Centralisation: The industrial-era dynamics that led to centralisation in support of mass production or massive scale-up was clearly a major one.
    • This, in turn, also led to the concentration of higher education/capacity building processes to urban centres where there was job growth, quite to the detriment of the much larger rural area.
    • Problems in education and training: The education and training environment became myopic, essentially meeting the manning requirements to run systems created by others.
    • Our education with its inherent problems led to little confidence in creating one’s own systems to address needs independent of others.
    • Demographic dividend: India’s importance grew primarily because of her demographic dividend and the large market that her people constituted and not because of the systems and technologies.
    • Neglect of rural India: Rural India suffered severe neglect in the process, probably as a result of poor job opportunities there and education having lost its role as an enabler of local development.
    • However, the country is learning to create systems and technologies to address her needs. The exercise is, by and large, urban-centric.

    UPSC asked about the quality of urban life in 2014, and the trends of labour migration in 2015. This article touched upon both of these themes.

    Using the knowledge-era technology to close the urban-rural gap

    • We are now in the knowledge era.
    • And knowledge-era technologies, in contrast to industrial-era technologies, promote democratisation (social media, for example) and facilitate decentralisation (work from home).
    • It should thus be possible for an adequately educated and trained youth residing in a rural domain to support a significant part of the manufacturing and service needs of urban areas.
    • Just as an urban youth can support a significant part of the knowledge and application needs in rural areas.
    • With technologies like additive manufacture, internet of things, and artificial intelligence, well-trained people can address needs in both urban and rural areas from wherever they are.
    • Thus, the knowledge era should, in principle, become a significant income leveller between the urban and rural domains, with a large rise in the overall national income.
    • As we focus on capacity building of rural youth, the opportunities in rural areas should, in principle, become higher than those in urban areas since the rural segment can now benefit from all three sectors of the economy- agriculture, manufacturing and services.

    The idea of “cillage”

    • In the knowledge era, with emphasis on capability and capacity building of rural youth in terms of holistic education, appropriate technology and enhanced livelihood, there is a possibility for a more balanced distribution of income as well as population.
    • This would, however, need knowledge bridges to be built between cities and villages, and the creation of an ecosystem which has been conceptualised as a “cillage” — a synergistic combination of city and village.
    • Bridging the knowledge gap between a city and a village would also bridge the income gap between the two.
    • This will also lead to a faster bridging of the gap between the average individual income in India and that in industrially advanced countries.
    • Democratisation promoted by knowledge technologies, if properly leveraged, can in principle reduce disparities, which, unfortunately, are on the rise today.

    How to realise the idea of cillage?

    • Integrated and holistic approach: Developing a “cillage” ecosystem would need a rooted and integrated approach to holistic education and research, technology development and management, as well as technology-enabled rural livelihood enhancement.
    • It would take a while for the rural youth to become empowered enough to convert the challenges into opportunities in rural areas.
    • The emergence of a new-age society is an inevitability.
    • How soon the rural domain can embrace it and how concurrently, comprehensively that can happen, is the real challenge.
    • That will decide whether India will gain in the knowledge era or lag as it did in the industrial era.

    Look at one more question from 2015-“Smart cities in India cannot sustain without smart villages. Discuss this statement in the backdrop of rural-urban integration”.  The ideas discussed here in this article help us to deal with such questions.

    Can Covid-19 speed up the realisation of cillage?

    • The process could also be seen as the migration of a set of experiences and skills to villages.
    • We can look at this as a potential two-way bridge for a new relationship between cities and villages.
    • It will be the bridge in which not all need to return to cities, but can rather meet the needs of cities as well as villages by remaining in villages.
    • Several initiatives will be needed to realise such a possibility.
    • Facilitating a number of new skills, technologies and support systems that can further leverage current capabilities of these people for starting a new enterprise would be important.
    • Immediate arrangements to facilitate their livelihood, and leveraging their present capabilities could help retain at least some of these people in villages.
    • It could trigger a faster movement towards an inevitable long-term equilibrium.
    • Going forward, we should take knowledge activities to a higher level so that the products and services created by these people become more competitive.
    • Looking at disruptive technologies for exploiting local opportunities should follow.

    Conclusion

    Given that the new normal after Covid-19 would, in any case, be quite different, the right course would be to channelise the stimulus caused by this crisis towards accelerating the shift to a new normal. This will not only help a more dispersed population, but will also reduce disparities and lead to faster growth of the economy.

  • Is the Centre’s lockdown different from a state’s lockdown?

    The central government has extended the 21-day nationwide lockdown by two more weeks. Before this, some states had already ordered to extend the lockdown till the end of this month.

    How do the two lockdowns differ?

    Newspapers are flooded up with news on lockdowns. The two lockdowns are fundamentally different from each other. Such difference sparks a thought in the mind of question framers.

    1) State lockdowns

    • As per the Constitution, subjects of law and order and public health lie with state governments.
    • Additionally, the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897, which many states have invoked to order a lockdown, empowers them to prescribe temporary regulations to prevent the outbreak and spread of disease.

    2) Centre’s lockdown

    • The lockdown ordered by the centre is implemented under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
    • The Union home ministry, in compliance with the NDMAs order can issue orders for the lockdown under Section 10(2)(l) of the DMA.

  • Taiwan: a role model for pandemic management

    As many nations struggle to keep COVID-19 infection numbers down, the island of Taiwan presents an example of how to be prepared in the event of a pandemic. As the global total of infections has neared 700,000, with over 30,000 deaths, Taiwan’s count stood at 300, with only 5 deaths.

    When you read through this article, try and map the best practices which could be incorporated in India. You might have to tweak a few. UPSC Mains may ask a question on “what could be done better etc.” and this is where you shine!

    Taiwan Model of Healthcare Management

    • Located less than 150 kilometres from the original viral source – China – Taiwan has seen far fewer cases of the coronavirus in the past month, with a much lower infection rate.
    • It is also worth noting the practices utilized by Taiwan’s hospitals as they seek to curb the virus and protect patients and medics.

    Following were the not so exceptional measures which helped Taiwan authorities contain coronavirus:

    1) Smaller staff groups

    • One of the early steps taken was the reduction of the workgroup sizes within medical facilities.
    • This reduces the risk of a community spread within the hospital emerging from infected patients being treated.
    • Depending on the size of the staff handling an area of the hospital, and the number of patients being overseen there, one infection could jeopardize the safety of an entire ward.

    2) Traffic control in hospitals

    • Hospitals were establishing separate entrances and exits for in- and out-patients to help prevent the spread of infection via regular hospital traffic.
    • In effect, hospital entry began to resemble airport customs, with visitors passing through a temperature checkpoint and showing IDs before admittance.

    3) Maintaining a high bed-per-capita ratio

    • Many countries have found that they do not have nearly enough hospital beds to care for patients suffering from a highly infectious disease like COVID-19.
    • In response, Taiwan has nearly 1,000 negative pressure isolation rooms (an isolation technique used in hospitals to prevent cross-contamination from room to room) available, with the capacity to add significantly more through room reconfigurations.
    • This is a remarkably high number, given the relatively small population of the island, and speaks to the country’s preparedness and advanced medical infrastructure.

    4) Best public health policy

    • Finally, Taiwan has benefited greatly from the close coordination between its hospitals and central government.
    • Within the country’s nationalized healthcare system, every citizen and resident is assigned a health card, embedded with a computer chip reflecting their identity and medical history.

    Significance of the Taiwanese model

    • Taiwan’s biggest success can be attributed to how ready the country and its hospitals were from Day-1, while other states were still assessing whether the virus was a threat to them at all.
    • Many of these countermeasures can be easily duplicated by India.
    • However, the willingness and effectiveness with which doctors and medical officials have worked to cooperate with each other and the public is a testament to the country’s smart and rational approach to healthcare and disease prevention.

  • Covid-19 donations to CM Relief Fund won’t qualify as CSR

    The corporate affairs ministry has clarified that COVID-19 donations to CM Relief Fund won’t qualify as CSR contributions.

    Contributions considered under CSR

    • According to the ministry, contributions made to the State Disaster Management Authority to combat COVID-19 would qualify as CSR expenditure.
    • The contributions by companies to PM-CARES Fund to tackle the pandemic would be considered as CSR.
    • Ex-gratia payments made to temporary, casual and daily wage workers by companies will be considered as CSR expenditure under the company’s law, provided that such payments are over and above disbursement of wages.
    • The contribution towards ‘Chief Minister’s Relief Fund’ or ‘State Relief Fund for COVID-19’ would not be considered as spending towards CSR work.

    Note: Please remember or make note of the various contributions complying for CSR.

    Back2Basics: CSR in India

    • India is the first country in the world to make corporate social responsibility (CSR) mandatory, following an amendment to the Companies Act, 2013 in April 2014.
    • Prior to that, the CSR clause was voluntary for companies, though it was mandatory to disclose their CSR spending to shareholders.
    • Businesses can invest their profits in areas such as education, poverty, gender equality, and hunger as part of any CSR compliance.
    • Under the Companies Act, 2013, certain classes of profitable entities are required to spent at least 2 per cent of their three-year average annual net profit towards CSR activities.
    • Under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, every company having net worth of at least ₹500 crore, turnover of ₹1,000 crore or more, or a minimum net profit of ₹5 crore during the immediately preceding financial year, has to make CSR expenditure.

  • [pib] YUKTI web-portal

    Union Ministry for HRD has launched a web-portal YUKTI (Young India Combating COVID with Knowledge, Technology and Innovation).

    There are various web/portals/apps with peculiar names, ex. DISHA, SWAYAM. Note them down with their one line purpose. UPSC Prelims may quiz you on these.

    YUKTI web-portal

    • YUKTI is a unique portal and dashboard to monitor and record the efforts and initiatives of MHRD.
    • The portal intends to cover the different dimensions of COVID-19 challenges in a very holistic and comprehensive way.
    • The primary aim of the portal is to keep academic community healthy, both physically & mentally and to enable a continuous high-quality learning environment for learners.

    Utility of the portal

    • The portal allows various institutions to share their strategies for various challenges which are there because of the unprecedented situation of COVID-19 and other future initiatives.
    • It will give inputs for better planning and will enable MHRD to monitor effectively its activities for coming six months.
    • It will establish a two-way communication channel between the Ministry of HRD and the institutions so that the Ministry can provide the necessary support system to the institutions.

  • Coronavirus – Health and Governance Issues

  • [pib] ‘Bharat Padhe Online’ campaign

    Union HRD Ministry has launched a week-long ‘Bharat Padhe Online’ campaign for Crowdsourcing of Ideas for Improving Online Education ecosystem of India.

    ‘Bharat Padhe Online’ campaign

    • Students and teachers are the main target audience of this campaign.
    • Students who are currently studying in schools or higher educational institutions are the ones engaging with the existing digital platforms offering various courses etc. on a daily basis.
    • They can share what is lacking in the existing online platforms and how it can be made more engaging.
    • The educators across the country can also come forward to contribute with their expertise and experience in the field of education.

  • India COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package

    The Centre has approved a centrally funded ‘India COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package’ with the objective of strengthening national and state health systems.

    About the Package

    • The package is 100 per cent centrally funded project under the National Health Mission.
    • It will be implemented in three phases from January 2020 to March 2024.
    • It aims at strengthening national and state health systems to support prevention and preparedness, procurement of essential medical equipment, consumables and drugs, etc.
    • The three phases of the project are Phase – 1 from January 2020 to June 2020, the second phase is from July 2020 to March 2021 and the third phase from April 2021 to March 2024.

    What are the major activities planned under this package?

    • The key activities to be implemented under Phase -1 includes support to states/UTs for the development of dedicated COVID-19 hospitals and other hospitals, isolation blocks, negative pressure isolation rooms, ICUs with ventilators, the oxygen supply in hospitals etc..
    • The central package will also assist the state/ UTs for the Procurement of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), N95 masks and ventilators, over and above what is being procured and supplied by the govt.
    • The activities under the first phase also include the disinfection of hospitals, government ambulances, etc.