Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Disproportionate burden of pandemic on women
The article highlights the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on women and suggests measures to soften the impact.
Widening gender employment gap
- Even prior to 2020, the gender employment gap was large.
- Only 18% of working-age women were employed as compared to 75% of men.
- Reasons include a lack of good jobs, restrictive social norms, and the burden of household work.
- The nationwide lockdown hit women much harder than men.
- Data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. Ltd. show that 61% of male workers were unaffected during the lockdown while only 19% of women experienced this kind of security.
- Men who did lose work were able to regain it, even if it was at the cost of increased precarity or lower earnings, because they had the option of moving into fallback employment arrangements.
- Even as new entrants to the workforce, women workers had poorer options compared to men.
- Women were more likely to enter as daily wage workers while men found avenues for self-employment.
- So, not only did women enter into more precarious work, it was also likely to be at very low earnings compared to men.
Growing domestic work
- With schools closed and almost everyone limited to the confines of their homes, household responsibilities increased for women.
- The India Working Survey 2020 found that among employed men, the number of hours spent on paid work remained more or less unchanged after the pandemic.
- But for women, the number of hours spent in domestic work increased manifold.
- This increase in hours came without any accompanying relief in the hours spent on paid work.
Way forward
- The following measures are needed now:
- The National Employment Policy, currently in the works, should systematically address the constraints around the participation of the women’s workforce.
- Expansion of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and the introduction of an urban employment guarantee targeted to women as soon as the most severe forms of mobility restrictions are lifted.
- There is a need for coordinated efforts by States to facilitate the employment of women while also addressing immediate needs through the setting up of community kitchens, the opening of schools and anganwadi centres, and engagement with self-help groups for the production of personal protective equipment kits.
- Further, a COVID-19 hardship allowance of at least ₹5,000 per month for six months should be announced for 2.5 million accredited social health activists and Anganwadi workers, most of whom are women.
- The pandemic has shown the necessity of adequate public investment in social infrastructure.
- The time is right to imagine a bold universal basic services programme that not only fills existing vacancies in the social sector but also expands public investments in health, education, child and elderly care, and so on, to be prepared for future shocks.
Consider the question “Examine the impact of the pandemic on women. Suggest the measures to mitigate the impact.”
Conclusion
As the country meets the challenge of the second wave of the pandemic, it is crucial to learn lessons from the first wave to chart the policy path ahead.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Inflation
Mains level: Paper 3- Role of RBI in taming inflation
The article highlights the need for the RBI to focus on inflation instead of pursuing elusive growth.
Is inflation at a level to be concerned about?
- Due to the devastation caused by the pandemic, MPC kept its stance to ‘look through’ the sustained rise in prices through much of last year.
- The release of the consumer-price inflation number for April 2021 (4.3%) might seem to validate their decision.
- But there are many reasons why the MPC should be concerned.
- To start with, the April print carries little validity since the base for comparison (April 2020) has been rubbished by RBI in the past on the grounds that it relates to the first month of the lockdown.
Inflation comes down but after causing devastation
- Through a combination of the base effect (high level of inflation in the previous comparable period), belated but inevitable monetary policy action and a fall in demand that more than offsets the disruption in supply, inflation will come down.
- However, before inflation comes down, it brings untold misery to the public at large.
- In a country where close to 20% of the population lives below the poverty line and food is a major item of their consumption basket, any rise in inflation, especially food inflation, hurts the poor disproportionately.
- Add to that the distress caused by job losses on account of the pandemic, and this time round, the pain is likely to be magnified many times over.
What is causing inflation?
- Monetary policy acts with long and indeterminate lags.
- Far from spurring credit offtake through low interest rates excess liquidity has spilled over into price pressures in India.
- Wholesale price inflation at 7.4% (March 2021) was the highest in 8 years, while it would be naïve to take any solace from the latest consumer price index number.
- The RBI needs to be appreciated for doing its bit to keep the wheels of our economy moving during the pandemic.
- However, its failure to shift gear in the face of mounting evidence of inflation cannot be neglected.
- When inflation was breaching the upper end of RBI’s target band for months on end, the message should have been clear.
US recovery and its impact on Indian economy
- Globally, commodity prices are already on the rise.
- Not without reason, it would seem, as borne out by 12 May’s inflation print of 4.2%, America’s highest in 12 years
- Part of the reason is the excessive easing of US monetary and fiscal policies.
- Rising US inflation has huge implications for countries like India that are at the receiving end of US policies.
- As the US economy recovers, the dollar strengthens and US interest rates rise, the rupee is bound to weaken in response, adding to inflationary pressures here.
Consider the question “What are the factors stoking inflation in the pandemic? How far the monetary policies pursued by the central bank is responsible for it?”
Conclusion
When the MPC meets next in early June, it must re-order its priorities. Instead of chasing elusive growth, it must revert to its swadharma, own dharma, and focus instead on inflation.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Tribunals
Mains level: Paper 2- Need for the National Tribunals Commissions
Context
- The Centre has abolished several appellate tribunals and authorities and transferred their jurisdiction to other existing judicial bodies through the Tribunals Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance 2021.
Issues with the abolitions of tribunals
- The Ordinance has met with sharp criticism for not bypassing the usual legislative process.
- Several tribunals such as the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal were abolished without any stakeholder consultation.
- Despite the Supreme Court’s direction in Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank (2019), no judicial impact assessment was conducted prior to abolishing the tribunals through this Ordinance.
- While the Ordinance has incorporated the suggestions made in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India (2020) on the composition of a search-cum-selection committee.
- But it has disregarded the court’s direction in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India (2020) for fixing a five-year term.
No NCT constituted
- Further, the Centre is yet to constitute a National Tribunals Commission (NTC), an independent umbrella body to supervise the functioning of tribunals, appointment of and disciplinary proceedings against members, and to take care of administrative and infrastructural needs of the tribunals.
- The idea of an NTC was first mooted in L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997).
- Developing an independent oversight body for accountable governance requires a legal framework that protects its independence and impartiality.
- Therefore, the NTC must be established vide a constitutional amendment or be backed by a statute that guarantees it functional, operational and financial independence.
- As the Finance Ministry has been vested with the responsibility for tribunals until the NTC is constituted, it should come up with a transition plan.
Advantages of NTC
- The NTC would ideally take on some duties relating to administration and oversight.
- It could set performance standards for the efficiency of tribunals and their own administrative processes.
- It could function as an independent recruitment body to develop and operationalise the procedure for disciplinary proceedings and appointment of tribunal members.
- Giving the NTC the authority to set members’ salaries, allowances, and other service conditions, subject to regulations, would help maintain tribunals’ independence.
Consider the question “What are the issues with Tribunals Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance 2021? How the constitution of the National Tribunals Commission would help to improve the role played by tribunals?”
Conclusion
The way to reform the tribunal system is to look at solutions from a systemic perspective supported by evidence. Establishing the NTC will definitely entail a radical restructuring of the present tribunals system.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.
Mains level: Paper 2- Dealing with orphaned children
The article highlights the need to be aware of the legal provisions while helping a orphan child.
Helping orphaned children
- Social media is flooded with requests to adopt children who have lost their parents in the pandemic.
- However, before handing over an orphan child to any agency, family or person, it is important to be aware of the laws.
- If an orphan child is kept by someone without lawful authority, he or she may land themselves in trouble.
- According to the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, the father, and in his absence the mother, is the natural guardian.
- Not even a close relative can look after the child without authorisation.
What are the options to help
- First option is any individual who finds an orphan child or even any child who needs care and protection under the circumstances, should immediately call the toll free Childline number 1098.
- It is an emergency phone outreach service managed by the Women and Child Development department’s nodal agency, the Childline India Foundation.
- The second option is to intimate the district protection officer concerned whose contact details can be found on the National Tracking System for Missing and Vulnerable Children portal.
- The third alternative is to approach the nearest police station or its child welfare police officer who is specially trained to exclusively deal with children.
- jOne can always dial the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) which is a pan-India single number (112) based emergency response system for citizens in emergencies and seek the necessary help.
- The non-reporting of such children is also a punishable offence under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJA).
Procedure after a child reaches outreach agency
- Once an orphan child is recovered by the outreach agency, it is the duty of the said agency to produce the child within 24 hours before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of the district.
- The CWC, after an inquiry, decides whether to send the child to a children’s home or a fit facility or fit person.
- If the child is below six years, he or she shall be placed in a specialised adoption agency.
- The State thus takes care of all such children who are in need of care and protection, till they turn 18 years.
- In Sampurna Behrua vs Union of India (2018), the Supreme Court of India directed States and Union Territories to ensure that all child care institutions are registered.
Procedure for adoption
- Once a child is declared legally free for adoption by the CWC, adoption can be done either by Indian prospective adoptive parents or non-resident Indians or foreigners, in that order.
- Another important feature of the JJA is that it is secular in nature and simple in procedure.
- While the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 is religion specific but also relatively cumbersome in procedure.
- Second, the procedure of adoption is totally transparent and its progress can be monitored from the portal of the statutory body, the Central Adoption Resource Authority.
Directives to the police
- The Supreme Court in Bachpan Bachao Andolan vs Union of India directed all Directors General of Police, in May 2013, to register a first information report as a case of trafficking or abduction in every case of a missing child.
- At least one police officer not below the rank of assistant sub-inspector in each police station is mandatorily required to undergo training to deal with children in conflict with the law and in need of care and protection.
- They are not required to wear a uniform and need to be child-friendly.
- Similarly, each district is supposed to have its special juvenile police unit, headed by an officer not below the rank of a Deputy Superintendent of Police.
- The Supreme Court in Re: Exploitation of children in Orphanages in the State of Tamil Nadu (2017) inter alia, specifically asked the National Police Academy, Hyderabad and police training academies in every State to prepare training courses on the JJA and provide regular training to police officers in terms of sensitisation.
- The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) recently wrote to the Chief Secretaries of all States and Union Territories on the issue of children orphaned due to COVID-19.
Conclusion
Following the Covid surge and subsequent increase in request for adoption of children, the laws and procedure for the protection of children must be noted.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Reforming medical education in India
The article highlights the issue of shortage of doctors in India and issues with the involvement of private sector in it.
Government approach
- Market-oriented approach towards medical education: NITI Aayog’s proposal of allowing private entities to take over district hospitals for converting them into teaching hospitals with at least 150 MBBS seats.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Al-Aqsa Mosque
Mains level: Paper 2- Israel-Palestine conflict
The article discusses the types of response the recent violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict would invoke across the world and also explains the perils of ignoring the conflict.
Three types of responses
- The deadly riots in Israel and the war in Gaza, is likely to evoke three kinds of responses: The indifferent, the imperial, the humanitarian.
1) Moral indifference
- Instead of becoming the symbol of the unfinished tasks of decolonisation, and a human rights catastrophe, the Palestinian question is now mostly an occasion to vent cynicism.
- The moral questions the oppression of Palestinians poses is avoided by claiming that in this conflict we can assigning rights and wrongs equally to both sides.
- There is the spectacle of civilians on both sides living in terror.
- There is the fanaticism of the right-wing in Israel and there is the fanaticism of Hamas and Fatah.
- Blaming both sides also whitewashes the fact that there is a monumental injustice to the Palestinians at the heart of the problem.
2) The imperial response
- The events leading up to the recent clashes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque can be seen as part of a long pattern of pushing out Palestinians from territory Israel wants to claim.
- American administration has not been able to significantly roll back this project of pushing the Palestinians out.
- Palestine will once again be the site where the Biden administration’s liberal internationalism will face challenge.
3) Humanitarian response
- This third response is to dig beneath the politics and find bridges in shared humanity and suffering.
- This is also the tack of the peace movements that use culture and a history of shared suffering to build bridges.
- They emphasise that dispossession and exile is something both communities share; they, of all the people, should be able to understand each other.
- Humanity and culture, even when deeply internalised, collapse quickly when subject to fear.
- And they always fall short of acknowledging the core issue at stake: Political equality between two peoples.
Geopolitical implications of conflict
- The violence of Israel will beget more terrorist violence of Hamas and Fatah, with every world power from Russia to Iran influencing the chaos.
- Israel needs to be reminded of the blowback of imperial politics: The ultimate consequence of trying to dominate a people is that you end up destroying the moral legitimacy of your own claims.
- No amount of military capacity can compensate for the images of lynching, rioting, and provocations that we have seen this week.
Conclusion
We continually risk conflict if the Palestinian question is simply treated as an object of geo-political opportunism, not as a question of basic dignity and justice.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Drugs and Cosmetics Act
Mains level: Paper 2- Blackmarketing during pandemic
The article highlights the issue of black-marketing of drugs during the pandemic and the factors responsible for it.
Problem of fake and sub-standard drugs
- There have been reports of fake remdesivir amid the Covid pandemic.
- It is difficult to quantify the morbidity and mortality effects of fake or sub-standard drugs, but they are substantial.
- Legally, the Drugs and Cosmetics Act (DCA) has different categories of misbranded, adulterated and spurious drugs.
- In 2003 Mashelkar Committee noted that although the Drugs and Cosmetics Act has been in force for the past 56 years, but the level of enforcement in many States has been far from satisfactory.
- The committee also noted that the problems in the regulatory system in the country were primarily due to inadequate or weak drug control infrastructure at the State and Central level.
Steps taken to deal with the issue
- Assistance has also been provided under the World Bank assisted Capacity Building Project to upgrade testing facilities and to establish new drug testing laboratories.
- The Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940 has recently been amended in 2008 for providing more stringent penalties to those involved in the trade of spurious drugs.
- There are specially designated courts and regulatory infrastructure has been strengthened.
- There is also a whistle-blower scheme.
Distinction between hoarding and black-marketing
- A hoarder is anyone who stocks up items.
- The crime isn’t hoarding per se but of selling a drug without a licence.
- Data on prosecutions, and convictions when prosecuted, of crimes under Drugs and Cosmetics Act, are not encouraging.
- Incidentally, courts have ruled police officers can’t register FIRs, arrest and prosecute (for cognisable crimes) under this law.
- That’s the job of drugs inspectors.
- The notion of a black market is different, though the two can be related.
- In this context, it means charging a premium when there is a shortage.
- A black market occurs when the price at which a product is sold is higher than an administratively determined price.
Conclusion
Action not taken in the best of times now strikes back at us in the worst of times.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Need for ethics policy in EdTech
The article highlights the privacy concerns associated with EdTech apps in the absence of a regulatory framework.
Privacy risks associated with EdTechs
- Since the onset of the pandemic, online education has replaced conventional classroom instruction.
- This has given rise to several EdTech apps which have become popular.
- To perform the process of learning customisation, the apps collect large quantities of data from the learners through the gadgets that the students use.
- These data are analysed in minute detail to customise learning and design future versions of the app.
- The latest mobile phones and hand-held devices have a range of sensors like GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer and biometric sensors apart from the camera and microphones.
- These provide data about the learner’s surroundings along with intimate data like the emotions and attitudes experienced and expressed via facial expressions and body temperature changes.
- In short, the app and device have access to the private spaces of the learner that one would not normally have access to.
Informed consent in research
- Researchers dealing with human subjects need to comply with ethics rules along with global standards.
- One of the cardinal rules that should never be broken is informed consent.
- Before any research on human subjects is undertaken, researchers have to submit detailed proposals to their respective ethics committees and obtain their permissions.
- Further, a researcher working with children, for example, would also have to convince schoolteachers, parents, and school managements about the nature of the research to be undertaken, type of data to be collected, method of storage, the potential harmful effects of such data, etc.
Minimal safeguards in EdTech
- The safeguards that traditional researchers are subject to are either missing or minimal in research that the EdTech industry promotes.
- The concept of informed consent is not meaningful since there are no proper primers to explain to stakeholders the intricacies in layperson terms.
- Since India does not have protection equivalent to the GDPR, private data collected by an EdTech company can be misused or sold to other companies with no oversight or protection.
Way forward
- Given these realities, it is necessary to formulate an ethics policy for EdTech companies.
- Such a policy draft should be circulated both online and offline for discussions and criticism.
- Issues of fairness, safety, confidentiality and anonymity of the user would have to be dealt with.
- EdTech companies would have to be encouraged to comply in the interest of a healthier learning ecosystem.
Consider the question “What are the challenges associated with the adoption of online education mode? Suggest the ways to deal with these challenges.”
Conclusion
The lack of a regulatory framework in India along the lines of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe could impinge on the privacy of students. What we need is ethics policy in online education space.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Managing the strategic competition with China
The article highlights the need for a critical assessment of the stand-off with China last year and offers key lessons in managing the strategic competition with China.
Year after stand-off
- After over a year, the stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops in eastern Ladakh shows no signs of resolution.
- More broadly, the India-China bilateral relationship has ruptured.
- Reversing a long-held policy, India will no longer overlook the problematic border dispute for the sake of a potentially lucrative wider relationship.
- Even if disengagement continues, the relationship will remain vulnerable to destabilising disruptions.
- Therefore, the Ladakh crisis offers India three key lessons in managing the intensifying strategic competition with China.
Three key lessons
1) Military strategy based on denial are more useful
- Military strategies based on denial are more useful than strategies based on punishment.
- The Indian military’s standing doctrine calls for deterring adversaries with the threat of massive punitive retaliation for any aggression, capturing enemy territory as bargaining leverage in post-war talks.
- But this did not deter China from launching unprecedented incursions in May 2020.
- In contrast, the Indian military’s high-water mark in the crisis was an act of denial — its occupation of the heights on the Kailash Range on its side of the LAC in late August.
- This action served to deny that key terrain to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and gave the Indian Army a stronger defensive position.
- A doctrinal focus on denial will give the Indian military greater capacity to thwart future land grabs across the LAC.
- Over time, improved denial capabilities may allow India to reduce the resource drain of the increased militarisation of the LAC.
2) Political cost matters more
- China is more likely to be deterred or coerced with the threat of political costs, rather than material costs.
- The material burden of the crisis would not disrupt its existing priorities.
- In contrast, India successfully raised the risks of the crisis for China through its threat of a political rupture, not military punishment.
- A permanently hostile India or an accidental escalation to conflict were risks that China, having achieved its tactical goals in the crisis, assessed were an unnecessary additional burden.
- The corollary lesson is that individual powers, even large powers such as India, will probably struggle to shift Beijing’s calculus alone.
- Against the rising behemoth, only coordinated or collective action is likely to be effective.
3) India should accept more risk on LAC
- India should consider accepting more risk on the LAC in exchange for long-term leverage and influence in the Indian Ocean Region.
- From the perspective of long-term strategic competition, the future of the Indian Ocean Region is more consequential and more uncertain than the Himalayan frontier.
- At the land border, the difficult terrain and more even balance of military force means that each side could only eke out minor, strategically modest gains at best.
- In contrast, India has traditionally been the dominant power in the Indian Ocean Region and stands to cede significant political influence and security if it fails to answer the rapid expansion of Chinese military power.
Conclusion
As these three lessons show, the future of the strategic competition is not yet written. If India’s leaders honestly and critically evaluate the crisis, it may yet help to actually brace India’s long-term position against China.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Juvenile Justice law
Mains level: Paper 2- Child adoption procedure
The Covid pandemic has orphaned many children. As a consequence there has been an increase in pleas on social media for adoption. However, such pleas go against the legal provisions. The article deals with the issue.
Legal provisions for protection of children
- Today, some people are offering infants for instant adoption by stating how the children have lost their parents to pandemic.
- However, such adoptions are illegal.
- The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) law was enacted in 2015.
- The Juvenile Justice Act is a secular law, all persons are free to adopt children under this law.
- The Juvenile Justice Rules of 2016 and the Adoption Regulations of 2017 followed to create the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).
- CARA is a statutory body for the regulation, monitoring and control of all intra-country and inter-country adoptions.
- CARA also grants a ‘no objection’ certificate for all inter-country adoptions, pursuant to India becoming a signatory to the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoptions.
- India is also a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
- Thus, protections afforded to children became a legal mandate of all authorities and courts.
- Persons professing the Hindu religion are also free to adopt under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act of 1956.
- Rehabilitation of all orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children is regulated by the strict mandatory procedures of the Adoption Regulations.
Procedure for adoption
- The eligibility of prospective adoptive parents living in India, duly registered on the Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS), irrespective of marital status and religion, is adjudged by specialised adoption agencies preparing home study reports.
- The specialised adoption agency then secures court orders approving the adoption.
- All non-resident persons approach authorised adoption agencies in their foreign country of residence for registration under CARINGS.
- Their eligibility is adjudged by authorised foreign adoption agencies through home study reports.
- CARA then issues a pre-adoption ‘no objection’ certificate for foster care, followed by a court adoption order.
- A final ‘no objection’ certificate from CARA or a conformity certificate under the adoption convention is mandatory for a passport and visa to leave India.
Way forward
- CARA must conduct an outreach programme on social media, newspapers and TV, warning everyone not to entertain any illegal adoption offers under any circumstances whatsoever.
- The National and State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights must step up their roles as vigilantes.
- Social activists, NGOs and enlightened individuals must report all the incidents that come to their notice.
- Respective State Legal Services Authorities have the infrastructure and machinery to stamp out such unlawful practices brought to their attention.
- The media must publicise and shame all those involved in this disreputable occupation.
- At the same time, the police authorities need to be extra vigilant in apprehending criminals.
Conclusion
Tough times call for tough measures. This business of criminal trading of children must be checked with an iron hand.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Growing inequality in access to health and education
Impact of pandemic
- The novel coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the use of digital technologies in India, even for essential services such as health and education, where access to them might be poor.
- Economic inequality has increased: people whose jobs and salaries are protected, face no economic fallout.
- Well-recognised channels of economic and social mobility — education and health — are getting rejigged in ways that make access more inequitable in an already unequal society.
Growing inequality in access to education
- According to National Sample Survey data from 2017, only 6% rural households and 25% urban households have a computer.
- Access to Internet facilities is not universal either: 17% in rural areas and 42% in urban areas.
- Surveys by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the Azim Premji Foundation, ASER and Oxfam suggest that between 27% and 60% could not access online classes for a range of reasons: lack of devices, shared devices, inability to buy “data packs”, etc.
- Further, lack of stable connectivity jeopardises their evaluations.
- Besides this, many lack a learning environment at home.
- Peer learning has also suffered.
Inequality in access to health care
- India’s public spending on health is barely 1% of GDP.
- Partly as a result, the share of ‘out of pocket’ (OOP) health expenditure (of total health spending) in India was over 60% in 2018.
- Even in a highly privatised health system such as the United States, OOP was merely 10%.
- Moreover, the private health sector in India is poorly regulated in practice.
- Both put the poor at a disadvantage in accessing good health care.
- Right now, the focus is on the shortage of essentials: drugs, hospital beds, oxygen, vaccines.
- In several instances, developing an app is being seen as a solution for allocation of various health services.
- Digital “solutions” create additional bureaucracy for all sick persons in search of these services without disciplining the culprits.
- Platform- and app-based solutions can exclude the poor entirely, or squeeze their access to scarce health services further.
- In other spheres (e.g., vaccination) too, digital technologies are creating extra hurdles.
- The use of CoWIN to book a slot makes it that much harder for those without phones, computers and the Internet.
Issues with the creation of centralised database
- The digital health ID project is being pushed during the pandemic when its merits cannot be adequately debated.
- Electronic and interoperable health records are the purported benefits.
- For patients, interoperability i.e., you do not have to lug your x-rays, past medication and investigations can be achieved by decentralising digital storage say, on smart cards as France and Taiwan have done.
- Given that we lack a data privacy law in India, it is very likely that our health records will end up with private entities without our consent, even weaponised against us.
- For example, a private insurance companies may use health record to deny poor people an insurance policy or charge a higher premium.
- There are worries that the government is using the vaccination drive to populate the digital health ID database.
Way forward
- Unless health expenditure on basic health services (ward staff, nurses, doctors, laboratory technicians, medicines, beds, oxygen, ventilators) is increased, apps such as Aarogya Setu, Aadhaar and digital health IDs can improve little.
- Unless laws against medical malpractices are enforced strictly, digital solutions will obfuscate and distract us from the real problem.
- We need political, not technocratic, solutions.
Conclusion
Today, there is greater understanding that the harms from Aadhaar and its cousins fall disproportionately on the vulnerable. Hopefully, the pandemic will teach us to be more discerning about which digital technologies we embrace.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- US withdrawal from Afghanistan and its implications for the region
The article highlights the important role played by the US in the geopolitics of the region and the impact of the US retreat on the region foreign policy landscape.
How the US shaped the regional politics of South Asia
- Since it replaced Britain as the major external power in Greater Middle East half a century ago, America has been the pivot around which the regional politics has played out.
- Many regional actors sought alliances with America to secure themselves against ambitious or troublesome neighbours.
- Others sought to balance against America.
- Israel’s security, ensuring oil supplies, competing with other powers, making regional peace, promoting democracy, and stamping out terrorism are no longer compelling factors demanding massive American military, political and diplomatic investments in the region.
Region now has to learn to live with neighbours
- As America steps back from the Middle East, most regional actors either need alternate patrons or reduced tensions with their neighbours.
- Although China and Russia have regional ambitions, neither of them bring the kind of strategic heft America brought to bear on the Middle East all these decades.
- Turkey has figured that its troubled economy can’t sustain the ambitious regional policies.
- After years of challenging Saudi leadership of the Islamic world, Erdogan is offering an olive branch to Riyadh.
- After years of intense mutual hostility, Saudi Arabia and Iran are now exploring means to reduce bilateral tensions and moderate their proxy wars in the region.
- Saudi Arabia is also trying to heal the rift within the Gulf by ending the earlier effort to isolate Qatar.
- These changes come in the wake of the big moves last year by some Arab states — the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan — to normalise ties with Israel.
How India’s approach helped maintain ties in the region
- India’s emphasis on good relations with all the regional actors without a reference to their conflicts has been vindicated by the turn of events.
- Barring Turkey, which turned hostile to India under Erdogan, India has managed to expand its ties with most regional actors.
- Hopefully, the new regional churn will encourage Turkey to take a fresh look at its relations with India.
Effect on India-Pak relations
- The regional reset in the Middle East has coincided with efforts by Delhi and Rawalpindi to cool their tensions.
- The ceasefire on the Line of Control in Kashmir announced at the end of February appears to be holding.
- The US withdrawal from Afghanistan poses major challenges to the Subcontinent.
- India and Pakistan, for very different reasons, would have liked to see the US forces stay forever in Afghanistan.
- For India, American military presence would have kept a check on extremist forces and created conducive conditions for an Indian role in Afghanistan.
- For Pakistan, American military presence in Afghanistan keeps the US utterly dependent on Pakistan for geographic access and operational support.
Challenge of terrorism
- The prospect of trans-border links between the Taliban and other extremist forces in the region is a challenge that South Asian states will have to confront sooner than later.
- Soaring levels of violence in Afghanistan and attack on the former president of Maldives, underlines South Asia’s enduring challenges with terrorism.
- Unless the South Asian states collaborate on countering extremism and terrorism, every one of them will be weakened.
Consider the question “How US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan will influence the regional geopolitics of the region?”
Conclusion
The region needs to focus on the peace and harmony in the region while resolving the bilateral issues through dialogue.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Challenges after TRIPS waiver
The article highlights the challenges countries could face despite the patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccine.
TRIPS waiver for Covid-19 vaccine
- The United States has finally relented and declared its support for a temporary waiver of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement for COVID-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
- Hopefully, the U.S.’s decision would cause other holdouts like Canada and the European Union to give up their opposition.
- While the U.S.’s decision is to be welcomed, the devil would be in the details.
The challenges after waiver
1) Conditions of the waiver
- If the experience of negotiating such waivers, especially on TRIPS, were anything to go by, it would be too early to celebrate.
- In the aftermath of the HIV/AIDS crisis the WTO adopted a decision in 2003 waiving certain TRIPS obligations to increase the accessibility of medicines.
- However, this waiver (later incorporated as Article 31 bis in the TRIPS agreement) was subject to several stringent requirements such as the drugs so manufactured are to be exported to that nation only; the medicines should be easily identifiable through different colour.
- Given these cumbersome requirements, hardly any country, in the last 17 years, made effective use of this waiver.
2) Countries will protect the interest of pharma companies
- India and South Africa proposed a waiver not just on vaccines but also on medicines and other therapeutics and technologies related to the treatment of COVID-19.
- So, the U.S. has already narrowed down the scope of the waiver considerably by restricting it to vaccines.
- Medicines useful in treating COVID-19 and other therapeutics must be also included in the waiver.
- While the U.S. would not like to be seen as blocking the TRIPS waiver and attracting the ire of the global community, make no mistake that it would resolutely defend the interests of its pharmaceutical corporations.
3) Lack of access to technology
- The TRIPS waiver would lift the legal restrictions on manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines.
- But it would not solve the problem of the lack of access to technological ‘know-how’ related to manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines.
- Waiving IP protection does not impose a legal requirement on pharmaceutical companies to transfer or share technology.
- While individual countries may adopt coercive legal measures for a forced transfer of technology, it would be too draconian and counterproductive.
- Therefore, governments would have to be proactive in negotiating and cajoling pharmaceutical companies to transfer technology using various legal and policy tools including financial incentives.
4) Domestic IP regulation
- While a TRIPS waiver would enable countries to escape WTO obligations, it will not change the nature of domestic IP regulations.
- Therefore, countries should start working towards making suitable changes in their domestic legal framework to operationalise and enforce the TRIPS waiver.
- In this regard, the Indian government should immediately put in place a team of best IP lawyers who could study the various TRIPS waiver scenarios and accordingly recommend the changes to be made in the Indian legal framework.
Conclusion
Notwithstanding the usefulness of the TRIPS waiver, it is not a magic pill. It would work well only if countries simultaneously address the non-IP bottlenecks.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: TRIPS
Mains level: Paper 2- Implications of patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccine
The article highlights the implications of patent waiver for Covid-19 for global health equity.
Where the opposition to waiver proposal came from
- Recently, the US agreed to support the India-South Africa proposal, seeking a waiver of patent protection for technologies needed to combat and contain COVID-19.
- Response to the proposal was divided during earlier debates at the WTO.
- While many low and middle income countries supported it, resistance came from the U.S., the United Kingdom, the European Union, Switzerland, Australia and Japan.
- Since the WTO operates on consensus rather than by voting, the proposal did not advance despite drawing support of over 60 countries.
- Predictably, the pharmaceutical industry fiercely opposed it and vigorously lobbied many governments.
- Right-wing political groups in the high income countries sided with the industry.
Issues with the reasons given for opposition to the waiver proposal
1) Quality and safety of vaccine production in low and middle-income countries
- It was argued that the capacity for producing vaccines of assured quality and safety was limited to some laboratories.
- So, it is argued that it would be hazardous to permit manufacturers in low and middle-income countries.
- However, pharmaceutical manufacturers have no reservations about contracting industries in those countries to manufacture their patent-protected vaccines for the global market.
2) Licenced manufacturing
- The counter to patent waiver is an offer to license manufacturers in developing countries while retaining patent rights.
- This restricts the opportunity for production to a chosen few.
- The terms of those agreements are opaque and offer no assurance of equity in access to the products at affordable prices, either to the country of manufacture or to other developing countries.
3) Supplying vaccines through COVAX facility
- It was also stated that developing countries could be supplied vaccines through the COVAX facility, set up by several international agencies and donors.
- While well-intended, it has fallen far short of promised delivery.
- Some U.S. states have received more vaccines than entire Africa has from COVAX.
4) No availability of extra capacity for vaccine production
- Critics of a patent waiver say there is no evidence that extra capacity exists for producing vaccines outside of firms undertaking them now.
- Even before the change in the U.S.’s position, manufacturers from many countries expressed their readiness and avidly sought opportunities to produce the approved vaccines.
- They included industries in Canada and South Korea, suggesting that capable manufacturers in high income countries too are ready to avail of patent waivers but are not being allowed to enter a restricted circle.
- The World Health Organization’s mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub has already drawn interest from over 50 firms.
- Instead of arguing that capacity is limited, high-income countries and other donors should be supporting the growth of more capacity to meet the current and likely future pandemic.
- They should learn from the manner in which India built up capacity and gained a reputation as a respected global pharmacy by moving from product patenting to process patenting between 1970 and 2005.
5) Time required to utilise patented technology is long
- Patent waivers are also dismissed as useless on the grounds that the time taken for their utilisation by new firms will be too long to help combat the present pandemic.
- But many countries have low vaccination rates and variants are gleefully emerging from unprotected populations.
- This makes it difficult to put the end date for the pandemic to end
6) China factor
- An argument put forth by multinational pharmaceutical firms is that a breach in the patent barricade will allow China to steal their technologies, now and in the future.
- The original genomic sequence was openly shared by China, which gave these firms a head start in developing vaccines.
Issue of rewarding innovation financially
- Much of the foundational science that built the path for vaccine production came from public-funded universities and research institutes.
- Further, what use is it to hold on to patents when global health and the global economy are devastated?
- It is often argued that for defending patent protection, is that innovation and investment by industry need to be financially rewarded to incentivise them to develop new products.
- Even if compulsory licences are issued bypassing patent restrictions, royalties are paid to the original innovators and patent holders.
Way forward
- Developing countries must take heart from his gesture and start issuing compulsory licences.
- The Doha declaration on TRIPS flexibilities permits their use in a public health emergency.
- High-income countries and multilateral agencies should provide financial and technical support to enable expansion of global production capacity.
Consider the question “Why are the implications of patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccine for the global health equity? What were the reasons for opposition to waiver proposal?”
Conclusion
The U.S.-supported patent waiver in the COVID fight has the potential to bring in much-needed global health equity.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GVA
Mains level: Paper 3- Role informal sector can play in Atmanirbhar Bharat
The article highlights the important role the informal sector can play in the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat.
Economic development through Atmanirbhar Bharat
- The vision of the Atmanirbhar Bharat is rooted in the classical paradigm of economic development, based on demand injection in the economy via two sources, domestic and external.
- ‘Vocal for local’ exhorts a distinct and decisive shift in consumer preferences towards locally-produced goods and services.
- ‘Make for the world’ is more ambitious and resembles the export-led growth strategy adopted in East Asia.
- Thus, the Atmanirbhar Bharat categorically bestows the Indian economy with twin engines of growth.
Important role informal sector can play
- The strategy is based on an assumption of lack of adequate demand.
- So a prognosis of supply side with respect to the ability of domestic producers of goods and services to seize the opportunity at the requisite scale and scope is pertinent.
- The nature, character, structure and contributions of the informal sector require retrospection.
- The size of India’s informal sector is massive, it accounts for about 50% of GVA and a major share in the export basket.
- This position proffers it with growth opportunities emanating from domestic as well as external sources.
Constraints faced by informal sector
- Most firms are micro in size and deploy little capital.
- They have a small scale of production, substandard/unbranded quality of products, and localised scope of procuring raw material and marketing their products.
- They are vulnerable to business downturns and other market uncertainties, as reflected in high mortality.
- Their access to cheap, reliable and long-term credit sources is highly restricted.
- The sector also endures a lack of official identity and recognition of its existence and contribution.
Three transformations informal sector need to adopt
- Atmanirbhar Bharat promises enhanced demand for domestically-produced goods and services, but the exposure to stiff global competition, especially for informal sector units, is imminent.
- In such a scenario, the informal sector must embrace for three tectonic shifts with respect to internal transformation, strategic positioning and labour-market dynamics.
1) Internal transformation
- Enterprises must undergo drastic internal transformation, progressively converging at incremental formalisation through spontaneous and self-propelled transition into economically-viable units.
- It requires infusion of capital to ensure enhanced labour productivity and higher wages.
- A systemic disruption, fostering natural growth must be ushered in, which would also curb the birth of new informal enterprises.
- Moreover, internal consolidation in the sector via merger and acquisitions of units would bring benefits accruing from scale economies.
2) Strategic positioning
- Two, because the vision of the Atmanirbhar Bharat exposes the informal sector to global competition, entrepreneurs must embrace the subtle art of strategic positioning in global mega-supply chains.
- They must pick their products and markets with utmost care, and engrain two mantras of success at the global stage in the DNA of their business strategies.
- Global mega-supply chains demand ultra-flexibility in production cycle in addition to heightened resilience to withstand headwinds emanating from not just domestic factors but also global.
3) Labour market dynamics
- The informal sector employs more than 80% of India’s workforce.
- The changes in the first two spheres i.e. higher capital intensity-led enhanced labour productivity and ultra-flexibility in production cycles may have severe repercussions on the availability and quality of jobs in India.
- To alleviate these concerns, the first assumption is that the proportionate increase in expected demand must be more than the enhanced labour productivity to at least retain the currently employed workers.
- To generate good quality jobs, diversification (both horizontal and vertical) must be encouraged.
- Vertical diversification entails products not just be partly produced or assembled in India, they must be the end-products of fully indigenised and integrated production and supply chains, from design to made in India.
- Horizontal diversification involves expansion into newer products and markets, smartly aligning with India’s comparative advantage of surplus labour.
Consider the question ” India’s vast informal sector is poised to play an instrumental, decisive and intriguing role in the vision of the Atmanirbhar Bharat. But the sector, in its current form, appears severely constrained to harness the opportunities. In lights of this, examine the constraints faced by the sector and suggest the measures needed to transform the sector.”
Conclusion
The vision of the Atmanirbhar Bharat is an inflexion point for India’s informal sector, which stipulates adroit manoeuvring between contrasting forces of continuity and change.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Exploring potential for a Westward trade push
After walking away from the RCEP, India needs to find alternative trading partners that can offer the potential for trade expansion. The article suggests a Westward trade push as an alternative.
Forging trade deals with the Western countries
- Our rejection of RCEP, which covers much of the eastern hemisphere, had exposed us to the risk of losing out on cross-border commercial relations in a highly dynamic part of the world.
- To compensate for the opportunity cost of that decision, it was imperative to strike other alliances.
- As a part of this, India adopted a roadmap for the rest of this decade to elevate ties with the UK and also moving to revive free-trade talks with the EU.
- An India-UK plan unveiled recently will raise our bilateral relationship to a ‘comprehensive strategic partnership in such areas as economic affairs, defence and health.
- The two countries signed a £1-billion trade investment pact that is expected to generate jobs in both.
- Separately, India and the EU are reportedly working out how to resume stalled negotiations for a trade deal.
Issues India may face
- The signing of pacts would involve mutual tariff reductions and the lowering of other barriers, both of which have proven thorny so far.
- In general, while the West wants us to lower import duties, our negotiators have been citing India’s sovereign right to protect domestic businesses under World Trade Organization rules.
- Globally, even before covid knocked the wind out of the sails of cargo ships, commerce across borders had been doing badly under the extended effects of a financial crisis that shook things up in 2008-09.
- But world trade remains a reliable path to global prosperity and must therefore regain its gusto.
- For us, deal-making would mean opening up markets to imports in lieu of easier access to foreign ones.
Way forward
- Concessions that cause very few job losses in India can easily be made. A broad cost-benefit analysis will have to guide our approach to talks, on complex issues like US visa rules which affect our software exports.
- Since it is governments that thrash out deals, geopolitical convergences are often sought too.
- We seem to be in a favourable position on this, given the West’s need to keep China’s rise in check.
- The UK’s Rolls-Royce has just inked a memorandum with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd for warship engines, a sign of our strategic ties.
- Technology could come our way from the US, too.
- If we can leverage an ability to play a role in Asia’s balance of power to our economic benefit, we should.
Conclusion
Mutually assured flexibility on tariff concessions would help India and its Western partners score economic gains and also counterbalance China’s growing dominance of world trade.
—————————————————//———————————-
B2B
[pib] India-UK Virtual Summit
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Strategic implications of Covid second wave
Foreign policy consequences
- The devastation caused by the second Covid wave prompted India to accept foreign aid after a gap of 17 years.
- This is bound to have far-reaching strategic implications for India.
- As a direct consequence of the pandemic, India’s claim to regional primacy and leadership will take a major hit.
- India ‘leading power’ aspirations will be dented, and accentuate its domestic political contestations.
- These in turn will impact the content and conduct of India’s foreign policy in the years to come.
What would be the strategic implications?
1) Impact on India’s regional primacy
- COVID 2.0 has quickened the demise of India’s regional primacy.
- India’s geopolitical decline is likely to begin in the neighbourhood itself.
- India’s traditional primacy in the region was built on a mix of material aid, political influence and historical ties.
- Its political influence is steadily declining, its ability to materially help the neighbourhood will shrink in the wake of COVID-19.
- Its historical ties alone may not do wonders to hold on to a region hungry for development assistance and political autonomy.
2) Impact on India’s great power aspiration
- India aspires to be a leading power, rather than just a balancing power.
- While the Indo-Pacific is geopolitically keen and ready to engage with India, the pandemic could adversely impact India’s ability and desire to contribute to the Indo-Pacific and the Quad.
- COVID-19, for instance, will prevent any ambitious military spending or modernisation plans.
- Covid-19 will also limit the country’s attention on global diplomacy and regional geopolitics, be it Afghanistan or Sri Lanka or the Indo-Pacific.
- With reduced military spending and lesser diplomatic attention to regional geopolitics, New Delhi’s ability to project power and contribute to the growth of the Quad will be uncertain.
3) Domestic political contestation and its impact on strategic ambition
- Domestic political contestations in the wake of the COVID-19 devastation in the country could also limit India’s strategic ambitions.
- General economic distress, a fall in foreign direct investment and industrial production, and a rise in unemployment have already lowered the mood in the country.
- A depressed economy, politically volatile domestic space combined with a lack of elite consensus on strategic matters would hardly inspire confidence in the international system about India.
4) Impact on India-China equation
- From competing with China’s vaccine diplomacy a few months ago, New Delhi today is forced to seek help from the international community.
- China has, compared to most other countries, emerged stronger in the wake of the pandemic.
- The world, notwithstanding its anti-China rhetoric, will continue to do business with Beijing — it already has been, and it will only increase.
- Claims that India could compete with China as a global investment and manufacturing destination would be dented.
- India’s ability to stand up to China stands vastly diminished today: in material power, in terms of balance of power considerations, and political will.
5) Depressed foreign policy
- Given the much reduced political capital within the government to pursue ambitious foreign policy goals, the diplomatic bandwidth for expansive foreign policy goals would be limited.
- This, however, might take the aggressive edge off of India’s foreign policy.
- Less aggression could potentially translate into more accommodation, reconciliation and cooperation especially in the neighbourhood, with Pakistan on the one hand and within the broader South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) framework on the other.
- COVID-19 has forced us to reimagine, to some extent at least, the friend enemy equations in global geopolitics.
- While the United States seemed hesitant, at least initially, Russia was quick to come to India’s aid.
6) Implications for strategic autonomy
- The pandemic would, at the very least indirectly, impact India’s policy of maintaining strategic autonomy.
- As pointed out above, the strategic consequences of the pandemic are bound to shape and structure India’s foreign policy choices as well as constrain India’s foreign policy agency.
- It could, for instance, become more susceptible to external criticism for, after all, India cannot say ‘yes’ to just aid and ‘no’ to criticism.
Consider the question “Examine the strategic implications of Covid for India.”
Way forward
- COVID-19 will also do is open up new regional opportunities for cooperation especially under the ambit of SAARC.
- India might do well to get the region’s collective focus on ‘regional health multilateralism’ to promote mutual assistance and joint action on health emergencies such as this.
- Classical geopolitics should be brought on a par with health diplomacy, environmental concerns and regional connectivity in South Asia.
Conclusion
While the outpouring of global aid to India shows that the world realises India is too important to fail, the international community might also reach the conclusion that post-COVID-19 India is too fragile to lead and be a ‘leading power’.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Zoonotic diseases
Mains level: Paper 2- 'One Health' approach to deal with infections diseases
The article highlights the need for a holistic approach to animal and human health as more than two-thirds of existing and emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic.
Need to document the link between environment animal and human health
- Studies indicate that more than two-thirds of existing and emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, or can be transferred between animals and humans, and vice versa.
- Another category of diseases, anthropozoonotic infections, gets transferred from humans to animals.
- The transboundary impact of viral outbreaks in recent years such as the Nipah virus, Ebola, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) has reinforced the need for us to consistently document the linkages between the environment, animals, and human health.
India’s ‘One Health’ vision
- India’s ‘One Health’ vision derives its blueprint from the agreement between the tripartite-plus alliance.
- The alliance comprises the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) — a global initiative supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank under the overarching goal of contributing to ‘One World, One Health’.
- In keeping with the long-term objectives, India established a National Standing Committee on Zoonoses as far back as the 1980s.
- This year, funds were sanctioned for setting up a ‘Centre for One Health’ at Nagpur.
- Further, the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DAHD) has launched several schemes to mitigate the prevalence of animal diseases since 2015.
- Hence, under the National Animal Disease Control Programme, ₹13,343 crore have been sanctioned for Foot and Mouth disease and Brucellosis control.
- In addition, DAHD will soon establish a ‘One Health’ unit within the Ministry.
- Additionally, the government is working to revamp programmes that focus on capacity building for veterinarians such as Assistance to States for Control of Animal Diseases (ASCAD).
- There is increased focus on vaccination against livestock diseases and backyard poultry.
- DAHD has partnered with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in the National Action Plan for Eliminating Dog Mediated Rabies.
Need for coordination
- There are more than 1.7 million viruses circulating in wildlife, and many of them are likely to be zoonotic.
- Therefore, unless there is timely detection, India risks facing many more pandemics in times to come.
- There is need to address challenges pertaining to veterinary manpower shortages, the lack of information sharing between human and animal health institutions, and inadequate coordination on food safety at slaughter.
- These issues can be remedied by consolidating existing animal health and disease surveillance systems — e.g., the Information Network for Animal Productivity and Health, and the National Animal Disease Reporting System.
Conclusion
As we battle yet another wave of a deadly zoonotic disease (COVID-19), awareness generation, and increased investments toward meeting ‘One Health’ targets is the need of the hour.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India-Britain relations
The article highlights the factors that make building sustainable partnership with Britain hard for India and suggests the ways to find fresh basis for bilateral relationship.
Need to tap potential for bilateral strategic cooperation
- The long-scheduled summit between Prime Ministers of India and UK will take place with a digital conversation scheduled for Tuesday.
- India and the UK must tap into the enormous potential for bilateral strategic cooperation in the health sector and contributions to the global war on the virus.
- Foreign ministers of India, Japan and Australia would also join this meeting to set the stage for the “Group of Seven Plus Three” physical summit next month hosted by the British Prime Minister.
Challenges in forming a sustainable partnership with Britain
- Few Western powers are as deeply connected to India as Britain.
- While India’s relations with countries as different as the US and France have dramatically improved in recent years, ties with Britain have lagged.
- One reason for this failure has been the colonial prism that has distorted mutual perceptions.
- The bitter legacies of the Partition and Britain’s perceived tilt to Pakistan have long complicated the engagement between Delhi and London.
- Also, the large South Asian diaspora in the UK transmits the internal and intra-regional conflicts in the subcontinent into Britain’s domestic politics.
Finding fresh basis for bilateral relationship
- The two leaders are expected to announce a 10-year roadmap to transform the bilateral relationship that will cover a range of areas.
- Both countries are on the rebound from their respective regional blocs.
- Britain has walked out of the European Union and India has refused to join the China-centred Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
- Although both will continue to trade with their regional partners, they are eager to build new global economic partnerships.
- While remaining a security actor in Europe, Britain is tilting to the Indo-Pacific, where India is a natural ally.
- India needs as wide a coalition as possible to restore a semblance of regional balance.
- Britain could also contribute to the strengthening of India’s domestic defence industrial base.
- The two sides could also expand India’s regional reach through sharing of logistical facilities.
- Both countries are said to be exploring an agreement on “migration and mobility” to facilitate the legal movement of Indians into Britain.
- Both sides are committed to finding common ground on climate change.
Consder the question “What are the factors that introduce friction in the sustainability of India’s bilateral relations with the Britain? Identify the areas in which both the countries can find fresh basis for the bilateral relations?”
Conclusion
If leaders of both the countries succeed in laying down mutually beneficial terms of endearment, future governments might be less tempted to undermine the partnership.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 139A
Mains level: Paper 3- Judicial federalism and autonomy of the High Courts
The article discusses the idea of judicial federalism and autonomy of the High Courts.
Issue of transfer of cases from High Courts to Supreme Court
- Under Article 139A of the Constitution, the Supreme Court does have the power to transfer cases from the High Courts to itself if cases involve the same questions of law.
- In Parmanand Katara v. Union of India (1989), the Supreme Court underlined that the right to emergency medical treatment is part of the citizen’s fundamental rights.
- As such, constitutional courts owe a duty to protect this right.
- In the face of a de facto COVID-19 health emergency, the High Courts of Delhi, Gujarat, Madras and Bombay, among others, have done exactly that.
- These High Courts among others have directed the state governments on various issues related to COVID-19 health emergency.
- However, Supreme Court issued an order asking the State governments and the Union Territories to “show cause why uniform orders” should not be passed by the Supreme Court.
- Therefore, the Supreme Court indicated the possibility of the transfer of cases to itself.
Issues with the SC’s move
- According to the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, public health and hospitals come under the State List as Item No. 6.
- There could be related subjects coming under the Union List or Concurrent List.
- Also, there may be areas of inter-State conflicts.
- But as of now, the respective High Courts have been dealing with specific challenges at the regional level, the resolution of which does not warrant the top court’s interference.
- In addition to the geographical reasons, the constitutional scheme of the Indian judiciary is pertinent.
- In L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997), the Supreme Court itself said that the High Courts are “institutions endowed with glorious judicial traditions” since they “had been in existence since the 19th century”.
- Even otherwise, in a way, the power of the High Court under Article 226 is wider than the Supreme Court’s under Article 32.
- This position was reiterated by the court soon after its inception in State of Orissa v. Madan Gopal Rungta (1951).
- Judicial federalism has intrinsic and instrumental benefits which are essentially political.
- The United States is an illustrative case.
- The U.S. Supreme Court reviews “only a relative handful of cases from state courts” which ensures “a large measure of autonomy in the application of federal law” for the State courts.
- The need for a uniform judicial order across India is warranted only when it is unavoidable — for example, in cases of an apparent conflict of laws or judgments on legal interpretation.
- Otherwise, autonomy, not uniformity, is the rule.
- Decentralisation, not centrism, is the principle.
Consider the question “Under Article 139A of the Constitution, the Supreme Court does have the power to transfer cases from the High Courts to itself if cases involve the same questions of law. However, transferring such cases should not impinge on judicial federalism. Comment.”
Conclusion
In the COVID-19-related cases, High Courts across the country have acted with an immense sense of judicial responsibility. This is a legal landscape that deserves to be encouraged. To do this, the Supreme Court must simply stay away.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now