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Subject: Governance

Important aspects of Society

  • Pulse Polio Programme

    The beginning of this year’s Pulse Polio Programme was inaugurated from the Rashtrapati Bhavan itself.  To prevent the virus from coming to India, the government has since March 2014 made the Oral Polio Vaccination (OPV) mandatory for those travelling between India and polio-affected countries.

    The Pulse Polio Programme

    • India launched the Pulse Polio immunisation programme in 1995, after a resolution for a global initiative of polio eradication was adopted by the World Health Assembly (WHA) in 1988.
    • Children in the age group of 0-5 years are administered polio drops during national and sub-national immunisation rounds (in high-risk areas) every year.

    India is polio-free

    • According to the Ministry of Health, the last polio case in the country was reported from Howrah district of West Bengal in January 2011.
    • The WHO on February 24, 2012, removed India from the list of countries with active endemic wild polio virus transmission.
    • Two years later, the South-East Asia Region of the WHO, of which India is a part, was certified as polio-free.

    Back2Basics

    What is Polio?

    • The WHO defines polio or poliomyelitis as a highly infectious viral disease, which mainly affects young children.
    • The virus is transmitted by person-to-person, spread mainly through the faecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (e.g. contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and can cause paralysis.
    • Initial symptoms of polio include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck, and pain in the limbs. In a small proportion of cases, the disease causes paralysis, which is often permanent.
    • There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented by immunization.

  • [op-ed of the day] Preventing mob lynching

    Context

    The spate of incidents of lynching over the past few years has led to a heightened sense of insecurity among the marginalised communities. The Centre should specify penal action against officials and doctors accused of dereliction of duty.

    2018 Supreme Court Judgement

    • In 2018, the Supreme Court described lynching as a “horrendous act of mobocracy”.
    • The Court exhorted the Centre and State governments to frame laws specifically to deal with the crime of lynching.
    • The SC laid down certain guidelines to be incorporated in these laws including
      • Fast-track trials.
      • Compensation to victims, and
      • Disciplinary action against lax law-enforcers.

    The State laws

    • Manipur bill for the law against lynching:  The Manipur government came up first with its Bill against lynching in 2018, incorporating some logical and relevant clauses.
      • Provision of nodal officer: The Bill specified that there would be nodal officers in each district to control such crimes.
      • Compensation to the victim: The law provides for adequate monetary compensation to the victims or their immediate kin.
      • Punishment for failure to enforce the law: Police officers who fail to prevent the crime of lynching in their jurisdiction are liable to be imprisoned for a term that may extend from one to three years with a fine limit of â‚č50,000.
      • No concurrence of state for the prosecution of the police: No concurrence of the State government is required to prosecute them for dereliction of duty.
    • Rajasthan bill: The government has accepted only a few guidelines issued by the apex court.
      • No action against police officers: The bill is also silent on any action to be initiated against police officers who may be accused of dereliction of duty.
    • West Bengal bill: Most other guidelines of the Supreme Court have been adopted by the State.
      • Stringent punishment: Punishment for lynching to death is punishable with the death penalty or life imprisonment and a fine of up to â‚č5 lakh.

    What the Centre can do

    • Adoption of the SC guidelines: The Centre should adopt the guidelines provided by the SC to deal with the crime.
    • Action against doctors: Centre would do well to incorporate sections in the law for penal action against doctors who stand accused of-
      • Dereliction of duty.
      • For delay in attending to victims of lynching.
      • For submitting false reports without carrying out a proper and thorough medical examination of the victims.
    • The compensation scheme for victims: Under the compensation scheme for the victims, the amount to be paid to the victims should be recovered from the perpetrators of the crime.
      • Collective fines: Collective fines should be imposed on the villagers where the lynching takes place.
    • Punishment for a political leader for inciting the mob: Centre could even provide for punitive action against political leaders found guilty of inciting mobs.
    • Punitive action against police: Punitive action to be taken against police officers accused of dereliction of duty, as incorporated in the law enacted by Manipur government, could be replicated in the Central law too.
      • Punitive action as a deterrent: It would deter police officials acting in a partisan manner in favour of the lynch mob.

    Conclusion

    Until a zero-tolerance attitude is adopted in dealing with mob lynching, this crime will continue to show a rising trend.

     

  • Agreement to end the Bru-Reang Refugee Crisis

    The Ministry of Home Affairs has presided over the signing of an agreement between Union Government, Governments of Tripura and Mizoram and Bru-Reang representatives to end the 23-year old Bru-Reang refugee crisis.

    Who are the Brus?

    • Reangs or Brus are the second largest ethnic group in Mizoram.
    • Their exodus in 1997 was spurred by violent clashes in Mamith subdivision, a Reang-dominated area, when they demanded creation of an autonomous council that was vehemently opposed by Mizo groups.
    • Around 34,000 people were forced to live in sub-human conditions in tents in Tripura. No solution could be reached all these years.
    • These people were housed in temporary camps at Kanchanpur, in North Tripura.

    Highlights of the Quadripartite Agreement

    • Under the new agreement around 34,000 Bru refugees will be settled in Tripura and would be given aid from the Centre to help with their rehabilitation and all round development.
    • These people would get all the rights that normal residents of the States get and they would now be able to enjoy the benefits of social welfare schemes of Centre and State governments.
    • Under the new arrangement, each of the displaced families would be given 40×30 sq.ft. residential plots.
    • This would be in addition to the aid under earlier agreement of a fixed deposit of Rs. 4 lakhs, Rs. 5,000 cash aid per month for 2 years, free ration for 2 years and Rs. 1.5 lakhs aid to build their house.

  • Women Business and the Law (WBL) Index 2020

     

    The Women Business and the Law (WBL) 2020 index to measure the economic empowerment of women was recently published.

    WBL Index

    • The WBL report released by the World Bank.
    • It is based on the countries’ formal laws and regulations that have a bearing on women’s economic participation, covering eight areas (eg, parenthood, equality of pay).
    • It tracks how laws affect women at different stages in their working lives and focusing on those laws applicable in the main business city.

    India’s poor performance

    • India placed 117th among 190 countries on the index.
    • India, the world’s most populous democracy scored 74.4 on a par with Benin and Gambia and way below least developed countries like Rwanda and Lesotho.
    • The global average was 75.2 — a slight increase from 73.9 in the previous index released in 2017.

    Global Performance

    • Only eight economies scored a perfect 100 — Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Latvia, Luxembourg, and Sweden.
    • Those countries have ensured equal legal standing to men and women on all the eight indicators of the index.
    • No economy in ‘East Asia and the Pacific’, ‘Europe and Central Asia’, or ‘Latin America and the Caribbean’ were among top reformers, the report claimed.
    • Countries in ‘Middle East and North Africa’ and ‘Sub-Saharan Africa’ accounted for nine of the 10 top progressing countries on the WBL Index:
    1. Saudi Arabia
    2. The United Arab Emirates
    3. Nepal
    4. South Sudan
    5. São Tomé and Príncipe
    6. Bahrain
    7. The Democratic Republic of Congo
    8. Djibouti
    9. Jordan
    10. Tunisia

    Significance of the Index

    • Legal rights for women are both the right thing to do and good from an economic perspective.
    • When women can move more freely, work outside the home and manage assets, they are more likely to join the workforce and help strengthen their country’s economies.

  • [op-ed snap] Not ready for school

    Context

    The draft NEP (National Education Policy) document points out that close to five crore children currently in elementary school do not have foundational literacy and numeracy skills. 

    Severe learning crisis: The document cites several possible reasons for this crisis.

    • First reason:  Many children enter school before age six.
      • Lack of options: This is partly due to the lack of affordable and accessible options for pre-schooling.
      • Therefore, too many children go to Std. I with limited exposure to early childhood education.
      • Consequences for the poor: Children from poor families have a double disadvantage -lack of healthcare and nutrition and the absence of a supportive learning environment on the other.
    • Second reason: Lack of developmentally appropriate activities by age and phase.
      • The misplaced focus of ICDS: School readiness or early childhood development and education activities have not had a high priority in the ICDS system.
      • Acting as an extension of pre-school education: Private preschools that have increased access to preschool but are often designed to be a downward extension of schooling.
      • Thus, they bring in school-like features into the pre-school classroom, rather than developmentally appropriate activities by age and phase.

    Three clear trends in ASER-2019 data

    • First trend: Scope for expansion of Anganwadi network.
      • Expansion network: There is considerable scope for expanding Anganwadi outreach for three and four-year-old children.
      • All-India data from 2018 shows that slightly less than 30 per cent children at age three and 15.6 per cent of children at age four are not enrolled anywhere.
    • Second trend: Under 6 students in class I.
      • ASER 2018 data show that 27.6 per cent of all children in Std I are under six.
      • It is commonly assumed that children enter Standard I at age six and that they proceed year by year from Std I to Std VIII.
      • The Right to Education Act also refers to free and compulsory education for the age group six to 14.
      • However, the practice on the ground is quite different.
    • Third trend: There are important age implications for children’s learning.
      • Association with learning output: ASER-2019 indicate the higher learning output associated with age in the same class.
      • In Std. I, the ability to do cognitive activities among seven-eight-year olds can be 20 percentage points higher than their friends who are five years old but in the same class.
      • In terms of reading levels in Std. I, 37.1 per cent children who are under six can recognise letters whereas 76 per cent of those who are seven or eight can do the same.
      • Age distribution in Std. I vary considerably between government and private schools.
      • Private schools in many states have a relatively older age distribution.

    Way forward

    • Understanding the children: Understanding the challenges that children face when they are young is critical if we want to solve these problems early in children’s life.
    • Providing for developmentally appropriate skill: Instead of focusing on the pre-school years as the downward extension of school years there is a need for providing developmentally appropriate skill in these years.
    • Pedagogy: On the pedagogy side reworking of curriculum and activity is urgently needed for entire age band of four to eight.

     

  • National Policy for the treatment of 450 ‘Rare Diseases’

    The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has published a national policy for the treatment of 450 ‘rare diseases’.

    About the Policy

    • The Centre first prepared such a policy in 2017 and appointed a committee in 2018 to review it.
    • It was created on the direction of the Delhi High Court to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
    • This was in response to writ petitions for free treatment of such diseases, due to their “prohibitively” high cost of treatment.
    • Hence, a policy was deemed necessary to devise a “multipronged” and “multisectoral” approach to build India’s capacity for tackling such ailments.

    Why need such a policy?

    • As per the policy, out of all rare diseases in the world, less than five per cent have therapies available to treat them.
    • In India, roughly 450 rare diseases have been recorded from tertiary hospitals, of which the most common are Haemophilia, Thalassemia, Sickle-cell anemia, auto-immune diseases, Gaucher’s disease, and cystic fibrosis.

    Features of the policy

    • While the policy has not yet put down a detailed roadmap of how rare diseases will be treated.
    • It has mentioned some measures, which include creating a patient registry for rare diseases, arriving at a definition for rare diseases that is suited to India, taking legal and other measures to control the prices of their drugs etc.
    • It intends to kickstart a registry of rare diseases, which will be maintained by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
    • Under the policy, there are three categories of rare diseases — requiring one-time curative treatment, diseases that require long-term treatment but where the cost is low, and those needing long-term treatments with high cost.
    • Some of the diseases in the first category include osteopetrosis and immune deficiency disorders, among others.
    • As per the policy, the assistance of Rs 15 lakh will be provided to patients suffering from rare diseases that require a one-time curative treatment under the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi scheme.
    • The treatment will be limited to the beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana.

    What are rare diseases?

    • Broadly, a ‘rare disease’ is defined as a health condition of low prevalence that affects a small number of people when compared with other prevalent diseases in the general population. Many cases of rare diseases may be serious, chronic and life-threatening.
    • While a majority of rare diseases are believed to be genetic, many — such as some rare cancers and some autoimmune diseases — are not inherited, as per the NIH.
    • According to the policy, rare diseases include genetic diseases, rare cancers, infectious tropical diseases, and degenerative diseases.

    Definition

    • India does not have a definition of rare diseases because there is a lack of epidemiological data on its incidence and prevalence.
    • While there is no universally accepted definition of rare diseases, countries typically arrive at their own descriptions, taking into consideration disease prevalence, its severity and the existence of alternative therapeutic options.
    • In the US, for instance, a rare disease is defined as a condition that affects fewer than 200,000 people.
    • The same definition is used by the National Organisation for Rare Disorders (NORD) in India.

  • Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2019

    The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2019 (rural) was recently released by NGO Pratham.

    Highlights of the report

    • Only 16% of children in Class 1 in 26 surveyed rural districts can read text at the prescribed level, while almost 40% cannot even recognise letters.
    • Only 41% of these children could recognise two digit numbers.

    Private schools ahead

    • Of six-year olds in Class 1, 41.5% of those in private schools could read words in comparison to only 19% from government schools.
    • Similarly, 28% of those in government schools could do simple addition as against 47% in private schools.
    • This gap is further exacerbated by a gender divide: only 39% of girls aged 6-8 are enrolled in private schools in comparison to almost 48% of boys.
    • The report also found that a classroom could include students from a range of age-groups, skewing towards younger children in government schools.

    Determinants of learning outcomes

    • The ASER report shows that a large number of factors determine the quality of education received at this stage, including the child’s home background, especially the mother’s education level; the type of school, whether anganwadis, government schools or private pre-schools; and the child’s age in Class 1.
    • More than a quarter of Class 1 students in government schools are only 4 or 5 years old, younger than the recommended age.
    • The ASER data shows that these younger children struggle more than others in all skills.
    • Permitting underage children into primary grades puts them at a learning disadvantage which is difficult to overcome,” said the report.

    Role of Mothers

    • Among the key findings of ASER 2019 is that the mother’s education often determines the kind of pre-schooling or schooling that the child gets.
    • The report says that among children in the early years (ages 0-8), those with mothers who had completed eight or fewer years of schooling are more likely to be attending anganwadis or government pre-primary classes.
    • With 75% women in the productive age group not in the workforce, they can be better engaged in their children’s development, learning and school readiness.

    Key suggestions made by the report

    • ASER found that the solution is not to spend longer hours teaching children the 3Rs.
    • Counter-intuitively, the report argues that a focus on cognitive skills rather than subject learning in the early years can make a big difference to basic literacy and numeracy abilities.
    • The survey shows that among Class 1 children who could correctly do none or only one of the tasks requiring cognitive skills, about 14% could read words, while 19% could do single digit addition.
    • However, of those children who could correctly do all three cognitive tasks, 52% could read words, and 63% could solve the addition problem.

    Focus on productive learning

    • ASER data shows that children’s performance on tasks requiring cognitive skills is strongly related to their ability to do early language and numeracy tasks,” says the report.
    • This suggests that focussing on play-based activities that build memory; reasoning and problem-solving abilities are more productive than an early focus on content knowledge.
    • Global research shows that 90% of brain growth occurs by age 5, meaning that the quality of early childhood education has a crucial impact on the development and long-term schooling of a child.

  • Police Commissionerate System

    The UP Cabinet has approved the Commissionerate system of policing for state capital Lucknow, and Noida.

    The Police Commissionerate System

    • The system gives more responsibilities, including magisterial powers, to IPS officers of Inspector General of Police (IG) rank posted as commissioners.
    • Under the 7th Schedule of the Constitution, ‘Police’ is under the State list, meaning individual states typically legislate and exercise control over this subject.
    • In the arrangement in force at the district level, a ‘dual system’ of control exists, in which the Superintendent of Police (SP) has to work with the District Magistrate (DM) for supervising police administration.
    • At the metropolitan level, many states have replaced the dual system with the commissionerate system, as it is supposed to allow for faster decision-making to solve complex urban-centric issues.

    Additional powers to Police

    • In this system, the Commissioner of Police (CP) is the head of a unified police command structure, is responsible for the force in the city, and is accountable to the state government.
    • The office also has magisterial powers, including those related to regulation, control, and licensing.
    • The CP is drawn from the Deputy Inspector General rank or above, and is assisted by Special/Joint/Additional/Deputy Commissioners.

    Where is the system in force?

    • Previously, only four cities had the system: Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai.
    • However, with rapid urbanisation, states felt an increasing need to replicate the system in more places.
    • The sixth National Police Commission report, which was released in 1983, recommended the introduction of a police Commissionerate system in cities with a population of 5 lakh and above, as well as in places having special conditions.
    • Over the years, it has been extended to numerous cities, including Delhi, Pune, Bangalore and Ahmedabad. By January 2016, 53 cities had this system, a PRS study said.
    • Depending on its success, the policing system may gradually be implemented in other districts as well.

  • Fastest growing cities in India

     The Economist has put Malappuram at the top of the “Top ten fastest-growing cities” in the world.

    Anomalies in the data

    • The total fertility rate (TFR, the number of children a woman is likely to have in the childbearing age of 15-49) in Kerala is 1.8 as per NITI Aayog data from 2016 — below the replacement rate of 2.1.
    • Another Kerala city, Thrissur, is No. 13, and the capital Thiruvananthapuram is No. 33 on the UN list.
    • Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu — which has an even lower TFR of 1.6 — is No. 30.
    • Surat in Gujarat (TFR of 2.2) is No. 27. There is no representation on the list from high population growth states like Bihar and UP.

    What does “fastest growing” refer to? How is a “city” defined?

    • The list based on data from the UN Population Division refers to “urban agglomerations” (UA), which are extended areas built around an existing town along with its outgrowths — typically villages or other residential areas or universities, ports, etc., on the outskirts of the town.
    • The Census defines a UA as “a continuous urban spread consisting of a town and its adjoining urban outgrowths or two or more physically contiguous towns together”.
    • The NCT of Delhi is a UA that includes the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) areas, as well as 107 “Census towns” — erstwhile surrounding villages where more than 75% of the population is now engaged in non-agricultural pursuits.

    A pace of urbanization

    • The Economist has listed the rate at which the populations of the UAs are expected to increase between 2015 and 2020.
    • Since data on India and many other countries were not available for 2015 (the last Census in India was in 2011), the UN report used projections of UAs’ populations — estimates based on past population growth data.
    • The rate of growth between 2015 and 2020 thus calculated provides a measure of the pace of urbanisation.

    How does urban population grow?

    • Urban populations can grow when the birth rate exceeds the death rate when workers migrate to the city in search of jobs; when more areas get included within the boundaries of the city; or when existing rural areas are reclassified as urban.
    • The low fertility rate in Kerala means the increase in the population of Malappuram and other cities is not because women are having more children; rather it is because more villages are being transformed into towns, and city borders are expanding.
    • According to the Census definition, an urban area is either a census town (CT) or a statutory town (ST). An ST is any place with a municipal corporation, municipal council, or cantonment board.
    • A CT can be a village with “urban characteristics” — a population more than 5,000, population density more than 400 people per sq km, and with more than 75% of the population not engaged in agriculture for their livelihood.
    • When a village becomes a CT, its population is included in the urban population of the district.

    Could migration have caused the increase?

    • Migration can either increase or decrease the population of a town.
    • Kerala sees both emigration — migration from the state to other places — and immigration — the migration of workers to the state.
    • Also the remittances that emigrants send allow the residents of villages to move away from agriculture, which changes the status of a village to census town.

    Why these cities are growing so fast?

    • These cities are seeing rapid urbanisation, and the main reason is the inclusion of new areas in the UA’s limits.
    • In 2001, there were two municipal corporations within the UA of Malappuram. In 2011, the number of municipal corporations had doubled to four, and an additional 37 CTs were included within Malappuram.
    • The population of the UA (excluding the residents of the outgrowths) increased almost 10 times in the same period — from 1,70,409 to 16,99,060 — obviously because of the inclusion of existing urban areas in the town.
    • Similarly, Kollam UA grew from one municipal corporation in 2001 to 23 CTs, one municipal corporation, and one municipal council in 2011.
    • Its population increased by 130%, even though the population of the original ST of Kollam actually decreased by 4%.

    Why is this not seen elsewhere in India?

    • In Kerala, urbanisation is driven by a move away from agriculture, which leads to a change in a village’s Census classification status.
    • This is evident from the large number of CTs that were included in the UAs of the state since the last Census. On the other hand, except Delhi, the more populous cities in the North had fewer CTs in 2011.
    • While the pace of urbanisation has been slower in the North, some unnaturally high increases in the population can be expected after the 2021 Census — because in some cases, villages on the peripheries were brought within the administrative boundaries of the cities.

    Is it good for the economy?

    • Urbanisation leads to the growth of cities, which are sites of infrastructure like universities, hospitals, and public transport facilities.
    • There are more opportunities for the youth, which is why they attract young people and entrepreneurs.
    • In India, people moving to cities leave behind (to some extent) caste and class divisions that dominate life in the villages, and can hope to climb up the social ladder.
    • However, unplanned urbanisation can be “exclusionary”, making it difficult for migrants to live there given the high cost.
    • Unregulated housing, lack of reliable public transport, and longer commutes within these towns puts a strain on the meagre resources of migrants.

  • [op-ed of the day] Human rights are not solely an ‘internal matter’

    Context

    The human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir following the dilution of Article 370 and the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) have brought renewed international focus on India’s human rights practice.

    Evolution of the modern Human Rights

    • Classical approach: Countries made agreements on the premise that a sovereign state had the exclusive right to take any action it thought fit to deal with its nationals.
      • No recognition of individuals’ rights:  Classic international law governed the conduct between states and did not recognise the rights of individuals.
    • The classical notion was challenged in the 19th century.
    • Modern Human Rights:  Slavery Convention adopted by the League of Nations prohibiting the slave trade heralded the first human rights treaty.
      • It was based on the principle of dignity of a human being.
    • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Adopted in 1948 by the United Nations, was the first comprehensive international human rights document.
    • The weakening of Unrestricted sovereignty: The evolution of international human rights law is also about the gradual weakening of the concept of unrestricted sovereignty.

    India and Human Rights

    • Unwarranted international scrutiny: The Indian government’s response to its human rights practice has always been that international scrutiny is unwarranted.
      • Why India claims so?: Since the country is the largest democracy in the world with an independent judiciary, free media, and an active civil society no international scrutiny is required.
      • Indian has always assured the international community that the judiciary (the SC) would provide adequate remedies to victims of human rights violations.
      • These claims sound less credible after the recent developments in J&K and the passage of the CAA.
    • Human rights and Discriminatory nature of CAA: Non–discrimination is a fundamental principle of human rights.
      • The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that CAA is fundamentally discriminatory in nature”.

    Role of Civil Society and Media

    • Media’s questionable role: Responding to international concerns the Indian government also refers to the role of free media and civil society in protecting human rights.
      • However, the media’s role in J and K and after CAA is questionable.
    • Weakened Civil Society: The government has imposed various curbs on it since 2014.
      • It has become difficult for it to receive foreign contribution.
      • Use of FRCA: Since 2014, the government has canceled the registration of about 14,000 NGOs under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA).

    Conclusion

    • It is possible for the Indian government, due to its diplomatic clout, to avoid robust intervention by the UN Human Rights Council and other UN human rights mechanisms.
    • But it would be difficult to avoid scrutiny by the international community. So, the government must take steps to allay international concerns and avoid situations where it is seen as a violator of human rights.