Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Israel-Palestine conflict
The article highlights the challenges in the success of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict and suggests the one-state solution instead.
Background of the two-state solution
- It involves dividing Palestine between the state of Israel and the indigenous population of Palestine.
- It was first offered by the British in 1937 and rejected by the Palestinians already then.
- In 1947 the United Nations insisted that the Palestinians should give half of their homeland to the settler movement of Zionism.
- The two-state solution, offered for the first time by liberal Zionists and the United States in the 1980s, is seen by some Palestinians as the best way of ending of the occupation of the West Bank .
- It will also lead to the partial fulfilment of the Palestinian right for self-determination and independence.
Interpretation of two-state solution
- The Israeli interpretation, until 2009, was that the two-state solution is another means of having the territories, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, without incorporating most of the people living there.
- In order to ensure it, Israel partitioned the West Bank which is 20% of historical Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab part.
- This was in the second phase of the Oslo Accords, known as the Oslo II agreement of 1995.
- One area, called area C, which consists of 60% of the West Bank was directly ruled from 1995 until today by Israel.
- Now, Israel is in the process of officially annexing this area.
- 40% of the West Bank, areas A and B under Oslo II, were put under the Palestinian Authority.
- Palestinian Authority calls itself the state of Palestine, but in essence has no power whatsoever, unless the one given to it, and withdrawn from it, by Israel.
- In 2018 a citizenship law was passed known as the nationality law.
- As per the citizenship law, the Palestinian citizens who live in Israel proper which is Israel prior to the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and who are supposedly equal citizens of the Jewish state, will in essence become the Africans of a new Israeli Jewish apartheid state.
Issues with two-state solution
- The endless negotiation on the two-state solution was based on the formula that once the two states become a reality, Israel will stop these severe violations of the Palestinian civil and human rights.
- But while the wait continued, more Palestinians were expelled and the Jewish settler community in the West Bank grew in size.
- The two-state solution is not going to stop the ethnic cleansing; instead, talking about it provides Israel international immunity to continue it.
Way forward
- The only alternative is to decolonise historical Palestine.
- New state should a state for all its citizens all over the country, based on the dismantlement of colonialist institutions, fair redistribution of the country’s natural resources, compensation of the victims of the ethnic cleansing and allowing their repatriation.
- Settlers and natives should together build a new state that is democratic, part of the Arab world and not against it, and an inspiration for the rest of the region.
Conclusion
The one-state solution is the way forward in Palestine and that should be the state for all citizens.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- The U.S. exit from Afghanistan and its implications for the region
The article highlights the implications of the U.S. exit from Afghanistan for the region.
Status of the Afghanistan peace process
- The Afghanistan peace process has been in disarray as the conference to be hosted by the United Nations in Istanbul, remains suspended due to the reluctance of Afghan’s Taliban.
- Now there is some hope of breaking the impasse as the Taliban have expressed an openness to attend the Istanbul summit.
- United States President Joe Biden is insistent on withdrawing the troops on September 11, even without any power-sharing deal between the warring parties.
- Taliban leadership, who may feel the urgency to resuming negotiations than completely abandoning them for fear of losing the international legitimacy they enjoy at the moment.
How the U.S. exit will affect Pakistan
- After months of negotiations, the U.S.-Taliban deal was signed in February 2020, and Pakistan took full credit for it.
- As the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan for almost two decades had kept the U.S. reliant on Pakistan for operational and other support.
- Pakistan smartly mobilised this factor against India.
- With the disappearance of this lethal dependence, Pakistan faces an uphill task in conducting a viable Afghan policy.
- Pakistan cannot keep America invested in it on military, economic, and societal fronts without partnering with the U.S. to ensure a smooth transition of power in Kabul.
Impact on China
- The Taliban now draw support from a wide variety of regional powers, including Russia, China and Iran.
- However, these countries too want the insurgent group to moderate its position.
- China, which has a beneficiary of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, seems confused as the American exit looms large.
- The U.S. exit would leave Beijing vulnerable to its spillover effects particularly in the restive Xinjiang province.
- That is why China has remained invested in all major regional Afghan-centric negotiations.
Implications for India
- India has been the key regional backer of an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled peace process.
- India is concerned that the Taliban-dominated regime in Afghanistan might allow Pakistan to dictate Afghanistan’s India policy.
- That is why India has underlined the need for a genuine double peace i.e. within and around Afghanistan.
- But despite being offered a seat at Istanbul at the U.S.’s behest, India remains a peripheral player.
- The strategic competition between the China and the U.S., China’s growing rivalry with India, and New Delhi’s tense relationship with Islamabad are some of the factors which will certainly affect the situation in Afghanistan as the U.S. leaves the country.
Consider the question “What are the implications of the U.S. exit from Afghanistan for the region? Examine its impact on India.
Conclusion
While the exit would bring the U.S.’s “forever war” to an end, it is unlikely to result in peace if Afghan stakeholders show their utter inability to take the process forward.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Role of civil society in pandemic
The article highlights the important role played by civil society and suggest the need for the new framework for the participation of community in the solution of problems.
Important role played by civil society in second wave of Covid
- We also have to realise that the state or the market cannot be the only provider for what citizens need.
- Effective social interactions and community participation can play an important role in scaling up some of the actions that have been found useful.
- During the second wave of Covid infections, communities emerged as resilient entities across the country.
- Active engagement with civil society: Recently, the Prime Minister called for an active engagement of civil society in coping with the pandemic.
- The empowered group of secretaries has also identified the role of civil society during this period of crisis.
Tasks for NITI Aayog: New framework
- NITI should engage government institutions that encourage public participation and also support new frameworks for crisis management.
- This new framework should critically look into the weaknesses and failures of the existing ones in attracting community participation in an effective manner.
- This would also help in NITI’s own goal of localisation of development as part of its SDG strategy.
- NITI should create mechanisms for facilitating the creation of required space for community initiatives.
- It should leverage advanced technologies ABCD — artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing and data analytics for bridging demand-supply gaps.
- It is time for NITI to apply the institutional framework where it has to, to rationalise select activities of communities and overcome the failure of the state where it is imminent.
- NITI should partner with willing state governments to explore the launch of platforms that promote cross-learning and experience-sharing to reduce the cost of operations.
- This may help in scaling up and, in some cases, overcome the asymmetric flow of information.
- Opportunities for the participation of communities in decision making and their implementation at local levels may be explored.
- The advantage for NITI is DARPAN, its portal for all voluntary organisations/non-governmental organisations engaged in development activities.
- Several informal entities, start-ups and others, at times undefined, may also have to be engaged.
Initiatives and micro-models
- Several micro-models are coming up, but few have a larger footprint.
- In Nandurbar, for instance, a district collector could achieve what now seems a rare coordination between beds, number of critical patients and supply of oxygen.
- At the end of the day, they had more beds with oxygen than required.
- Breathe India and HelpNow represent an array of options, these apps have facilitated access to oxygen concentrators, hospitals and ambulances.
- There are several such initiatives that are taking place across the country with little connection with each other.
- These micro-models need to be scaled up.
Consider the question “The role played by the civil society during the second covid wave highlighted its importance. What we need is a new framework for community participation. In light of this, discuss the important aspects of such framework.”
Conclusion
Solutions to any social problem call for an effective collective action that coordinates the aspirations of several groups of stakeholders. The present situation underlines the necessity of combined efforts to face this challenge.
B2BASICS
What is civil Society?
- The society considered as a community of citizens linked by common interests and collective activity is a civil society.
- It is the aggregate of non-governmental organizations and institutions that manifest interests and will of citizens.
- It is referred to as the third sector of the society distinct from government and business.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Worsening inequality amid pandemic
Pandemic hit hard the lives, livelihood and the economy. It has also worsened income inequality. The article deals with the issues of impacts of pandemic and suggests ways to revive growth the deal with income inequality.
Need to address growth and inequality issue
- The second wave of the pandemic is spreading to rural areas also.
- It is known that rural areas have poor health infrastructure.
- Similar to the first wave, inequalities are also increasing during the second wave.
- The country has to address the issue of rising inequalities for achieving higher sustainable growth and the well-being of a larger population.
- According to the State of Working in India 2021 report of the Azim Premji University, the pandemic would push 230 million people into poverty.
- CMIE data shows a decline in incomes and rising unemployment during the second wave.
- U-shaped impact: The recent RBI Bulletin says that the impact of the second wave appears to be U-shaped.
- In the well of the U are the most vulnerable — blue collar groups who have to risk exposure for a living and for rest of society to survive.
K-shaped recovery and rising inequality
- The recovery seemed to be K-shaped during the first wave.
- The share of wages declined as compared to that of profits.
- A large part of the corporate sector managed the pandemic with many listed companies recording higher profits.
- On the other hand, the informal workers including daily wage labourers, migrants, MSMEs etc. suffered a lot with loss of incomes and employment.
- The recovery post the second wave is also likely to be K-shaped with rising inequalities.
Policies needed for higher growth and reduction in inequality
1) Vaccination and healthcare facilities
- An aggressive vaccination programme and improving the healthcare facilities in both rural and urban areas is needed.
- Reducing the health crisis can lead to an economic revival.
- Vaccine inequality between urban and rural areas has to be reduced.
- The crisis can be used as an opportunity to create universal healthcare facilities for all, particularly rural areas.
- Other states can learn from Kerala on building health infrastructure.
2) Investment in infrastructure
- The budget offered some good announcements relating to capital investment in infrastructure.
- The Development Financial Institution (DFI) for funding long-term infrastructure projects is being established.
- This can revive employment and reduce inequalities.
- The government has to fast track infra investment.
3) Safety net for vulnerable
- The informal workers and other vulnerable sections including MSMEs have been dealt back-to-back blows due to the first and second waves.
- A majority of workers have experienced a loss of earnings.
- Therefore, the government has to provide safety nets in the form of free food grains for six more months, expand work offered under MGNREGA in both rural and urban areas.
- The government also need to undertake a cash transfer to provide minimum basic income.
Policies for growth
- Focus on demand: On economic growth, the RBI Bulletin says that the biggest toll of the second wave is in terms of a demand shock as aggregate supply is less impacted.
- Investment: In the medium term, the investment rate has to be increased from the present 30 per cent of GDP to 35 per cent and 40 per cent of GDP for higher growth and job creation.
- Export: It is one of the main engines of growth and employment creation.
- There is positive news on exports as the global economy is reviving.
- Protectionist trade policy: In recent years India’s trade policy has become more protectionist and the country has to reduce import tariff rates.
- Role of fiscal policy: In the near term, fiscal policy has to play a more important role in achieving the objectives of growth, jobs and equity by expanding the fiscal space by restructuring expenditure, widening the tax base and increasing non-tax revenue.
Consider the question “Two waves of the Covid pandemic have worsened the inequality. India has to address the issue of rising inequalities for achieving higher sustainable growth and the well-being of a larger population. Suggest the policies that India should follow for higher growth and reduction in inequality.”
Conclusion
Vaccination, expansion in rural healthcare and cash transfers should be part of the strategy to boost demand and address inequalities.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Tax buoyancy
Mains level: Paper 3- Recalibration of growth projections
The article highlights the challenges the second Covid wave poses to India’s path to fiscal consolidation.
Recalibration to growth projection due to second Covid wave
- The growth projections of different national and international agencies and the fiscal projections of Centre’s 2021-22 Budget require recalibration.
- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had forecast real GDP growth for 2021-22 at 12.5%.
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had forecast real GDP growth for 2021-22 at 10.5%.
- The Ministry of Finance’s Economic Survey had forecast real GDP growth for 2021-22 at 11.0%.
Growth rate of 8.7% to keep GDP at same level as in 2019-20
- Moody’s has recently projected India’s GDP growth in 2021-22 at 9.3%.
- Benchmark growth rate: 9.3% is close to the benchmark growth rate of 8.7% which would keep India’s GDP at 2011-12 prices at the same level as in 2019-20.
- This level of growth may be achieved based on the assumption that the economy normalises in the second half of the fiscal year.
- The 2019-20 real GDP was ₹145.7-lakh crore at 2011-12 prices.
- It fell to ₹134.1-lakh crore in 2020-21, implying a contraction of minus 8.0%.
- At 8.7% real growth, the nominal GDP growth would be close to 13.5%, assuming an inflation rate of 4.5%.
- This would be lower than the nominal growth of 14.4% assumed in the Union Budget.
- At 13.5% growth, the estimated GDP for 2021-22 is ₹222.4-lakh crore at current prices.
- Impact: This will lead to a lowering of tax and non-tax revenues and an increase in the fiscal deficit as compared to the budgeted magnitudes.
How much the gross tax revenue would be impacted?
- The budgeted gross and net tax revenues for 2021-22 were ₹22.2-lakh crore and ₹15.4-lakh crore, respectively.
- The assumed buoyancy for the Centre’s gross tax revenues (GTR) was 1.2.
- If, however, the buoyancy of 1.2 proves optimistic and instead a buoyancy of 0.9, which is the average buoyancy of the five years preceding the COVID-19 year, is applied, the nominal growth of GTR would be 12.2%.
- This would lead to the Centre’s GTR of about ₹21.3-lakh crore.
- The corresponding shortfall in the Centre’s net tax revenues is estimated to be about ₹0.6 lakh crore.
- The budgeted magnitudes for non-tax revenues and non-debt capital receipts at ₹2.4-lakh crore and ₹1.9-lakh crore, respectively, may also prove to be optimistic.
- In these cases, the budgeted growth rates were 15.4% and 304.3%, respectively.
- The excessively high growth for the non-debt capital receipts was premised on implementing an ambitious asset monetisation and disinvestment programme.
- Together with the tax revenue shortfall of nearly 0.6 lakh crore, the total shortfall on the receipts side may be about ₹2.1-lakh crore.
Impact on fiscal deficit estimates
- Two factors will affect the fiscal deficit estimate of 6.76% of GDP in 2021-22.
- First, there would be a change in the budgeted nominal GDP growth.
- Second, there would be a shortfall in the receipts from tax, non-tax and non-debt sources.
- Together, these two factors may lead to a slippage in fiscal deficit which may be close to 7.7% of GDP in 2021-22 if total expenditures are kept at the budgeted levels.
- This would call for revising the fiscal road map again.
- Protecting total expenditures at the budgeted level is, however, important given the need to support the economy in these challenging time.
Vaccination policy and role of Central government
- Positive externalities: COVID-19 vaccination is characterised by strong inter-State positive externalities, making it primarily the responsibility of the central government.
- The entire vaccination bill should be borne by the central government.
- If the central government is the single agency for vaccine procurement, the economies of scale and the Centre’s bargaining power would keep the average vaccine price low.
- The central government may transfer the vaccines rather than the money that it has budgeted for transfer.
- Some of the smaller States may find procuring vaccines through a global tender to be quite challenging.
Conclusion
Protecting total expenditures at the budgeted level and mass vaccination are important in India’s pandemic situation.
Back2basics: Tax buoyancy
- There is a strong connection between the government’s tax revenue earnings and economic growth.
- Tax buoyancy explains this relationship between the changes in government’s tax revenue growth and the changes in GDP.
- It refers to the responsiveness of tax revenue growth to changes in GDP.
- When a tax is buoyant, its revenue increases without increasing the tax rate.
- In 2007-08, everything was fine for the economy, GDP growth rate was nearly 9 per cent.
- Tax revenue of the government, especially, that of direct taxes registered a growth rate of 45 per cent in 2007-08.
- We can say that the tax buoyancy was five (45/9).
What is tax elasticity?
- It refers to changes in tax revenue in response to changes in tax rate.
- For example, how tax revenue changes if the government reduces corporate income tax from 30 per cent to 25 per cent indicate tax elasticity.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Benefits of environmental tax
The article highlights the advantages of environmental fiscal reforms in India.
Status of out-of-pocket spending on health in India
- As per WHO data, in 2011, 17.33% of the population in India made out-of-pocket payments on health that was more than 10% of their income.
- The percentage was higher in rural areas compared to urban areas.
- Globally, 12.67% of the population spent more than 10% of their income (out of their pocket) on health.
- In Southeast Asia, 16% spent more than 10% of their household income on health.
- Similarly, 3.9% of the population in India made more than 25% of out-of-pocket payments on health, with 4.34% of it in the rural areas.
Alternate source of health financing: Eco tax
- The Economic Survey of India 2019-20 has outlined that an increase in public spending from 1% to 2.5-3% of GDP, can decrease out-of-pocket expenditure from 65% to 30% of overall healthcare expenses.
- The National Health Policy of 2017 also envisages increase in public spending from 1% to 2.5-3% of GDP.
- This is where the importance of alternate sources of health financing in India needs to be stressed.
- Fiscal reforms for managing the environment are important, and India has great potential for revenue generation in this aspect.
Environmental tax reforms
- Environmental tax reforms generally involve three complementary activities:
- 1. Eliminating existing subsidies and taxes that have a harmful impact on the environment;
- 2. Restructuring existing taxes in an environmentally supportive manner;
- 3. Initiating new environmental taxes.
- Taxes can be designed either as revenue neutral or revenue augmenting.
- Revenue augmenting model: In case of revenue augmenting, the additional revenue can either be targeted towards the provision of environmental public goods or directed towards the overall revenue pool.
- In developing countries like India, the revenue can be used to a greater extent for the provision of environmental public goods and addressing environmental health issues.
Eco tax
- The success of an eco tax (environment tax) in India would depend on its architecture, that is, how well it is planned and designed.
- It should be credible, transparent and predictable.
- Ideally, the eco tax rate ought to be equal to the marginal social cost arising from the negative externalities associated with the production, consumption or disposal of goods and services.
- This would include the adverse impacts on the health of people, climate change, etc.
- The eco tax rate may, thus, be fixed commensurate to the marginal social cost so evaluated.
- There is also a need to integrate environmental taxes in the Goods and Service Tax framework.
In India, eco taxes can target three main areas
- One, differential taxation on vehicles in the transport sector purely oriented towards fuel efficiency and GPS-based congestion charges.
- Two, in the energy sector by taxing fuels which feed into energy generation.
- Three, waste generation and use of natural resources.
Benefits of implementation of eco taxes
- The implementation of an environmental tax in India will have three broad benefits: fiscal, environmental and poverty reduction.
- Finance basic public services: Environmental tax reforms can mobilise revenues to finance basic public services when raising revenue through other sources proves to be difficult or burdensome.
- Reduce distorting taxes: It can can also help to reduce other distorting taxes such as fiscal dividend.
- Finance research: Environmental tax reforms help internalise the externalities, and the said revenue can finance research and the development of new technologies.
Impact
- Environmental regulations may lead to slow productivity growth and high cost of compliance in private sector.
- This could result in the possible increase in the prices of goods and services.
- However, the European experience shows that most of the taxes also generate substantial revenue and there is no evidence on green taxes with sustainable development goals leading to a ‘no growth’ economy.
- Negligible impact on GDP: Most countries’ experiences suggest negligible impact on the GDP, though such revenues have not necessarily been used for environmental considerations.
- The negligible impact on the GDP may be a temporary phenomenon.
Conclusion
This is the right time for India to adopt environmental fiscal reforms as they will reduce environmental pollution and also generate resources for financing the health sector.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 342A (1)
Mains level: Paper 2- Interpretation of 102nd Amendment
The article highlights the issues with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the 102nd amendment depriving the States of power to identify the SEBCs.
How 102nd Constitution Amendment was interpreted by the SC?
- Supreme Court held that the 102nd Constitution Amendment has taken away the power of the states to identify and prepare a list of Socially and Economically Backward Classes (SEBCs).
- The Supreme Court has interpreted the 102nd constitutional amendment to the effect that only the President can publish a list of backward classes in relation to each state and that only Parliament can make inclusions and exclusions in that list.
- The Supreme Court has also directed the central government to notify the list of SEBCs for each state and Union Territory.
- Until such lists are prepared, the court directed that the present state list would continue to be in operation.
Time-honoured authority of the States
- The states have been exercising the power to identify the list of SEBCs from the beginning of the 20th century.
- In states like the Madras Presidency, Mysore, Bombay, Travancore-Cochin, reservation and other benefits to OBCs were in practice since the 1920s.
- The Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951 and the insertion of Article 15(4), empowered the states to make “special provision for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes of citizens”.
- In states like Bihar, 26 per cent reservation to OBCs in jobs and educational institutions were provided in 1978 on the recommendations of the Mungeri Lal Commission.
- Similarly, in more than a dozen states, reservation in jobs and educational institutions were provided on recommendations of the respective state commissions.
- Till 1992, there was no central list of SEBCs and no reservation in jobs and educational institutions in the central government.
- In the Indra Sawhney judgment in 1992, the Supreme Court upheld 27 per cent reservation in central government jobs for SEBCs.
- After Indra Sawhney, the Union government was authorised to prepare a central list for reservation of SEBCs in central government jobs and take other affirmative actions.
- Acting on the directions of the Supreme Court in Indra Sawhney, the central and several state governments enacted laws for setting up commissions to ascertain and identify the backward class of citizens.
- Therefore, after 1992, there was a “central list” for central government services and a “state list” that was prepared by state governments for state-specific jobs.
Intention of the Union government
- The intention was not to change the status quo and to take away the power of the state governments to prepare and notify a separate state list of SEBCs.
- Even during the discussion in the select committee of Parliament on the 102nd Constitution Amendment, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment clarified that the proposed insertion of Article 342A (1) and (2) did not interfere with the power of state governments to identify SEBCs.
- In the affidavit filed by the central government before the Supreme Court, it was submitted that the power of Parliament to identify SEBCs lay with reference to the central list and states would have a separate list of SEBCs for reservation.
Way forward
- If the review petition fails to convince the Supreme Court, the central government would have to expeditiously bring a constitutional amendment to resolve this crisis.
Consider the question “Examine the issues with the Supreme Courts interpretation of the 102nd constitutional amendment regarding the States’ right to identify the socially and economically backward class.”
Conclusion
The majority judgement by 3:2 has failed to appreciate that Article 15 empowers the states to identify socially and economically backward classes of citizens and that this power has not been changed by the 102nd Constitution Amendment.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: TRIPS
Mains level: Paper 3- Ensuring affordability and availability of Covid-19 vaccines
The possibilities of new strain of Covid-19 emerging from any region of the world could derail the global recovery. To prevent that from happening vaccines need to be made available and affordable to all. This article discusses the ways to ensure that.
Ensuring affordability and availability of Covid vaccines
- To achieve global herd immunity and prevent new strains of COVID-19 from emerging, vaccines need to be affordable and available in massive quantities throughout the globe.
- Following three are the ways to ensure vaccine availability and affordability.
- 1) Voluntary linceses: This can happen through patent owners voluntarily licensing their products to other companies, especially Indian producers who are experienced at mass-producing low-cost medications.
- 2) Compulsory licenses: This can also be done by temporarily suspending patent rights for COVID vaccines.
- 3) COVAX option: Some favour ensuring access to COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX programme.
Options to ensure vaccine availability and affordability
1) Voluntary licencing: Lessons from fight against AIDS
- Due to anti-TRIPS activism from low-income countries and low profits from low-income markets some manufacturers placed licensing agreements to produce AIDS drugs for which they owned patent rights in the UN-affiliated Medicines Patent Pool.
- Several India-based companies then used these voluntary licences to manufacture these drugs on a massive scale and sold them at prices they determined.
- This effort brought down the price of key AIDS medications in these countries.
- The United Nations’ Medicines Patent Pool and the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool are important tools in an effort to promote voluntary licensing for COVID products.
- Sharing patent rights through voluntary licensing would need to involve India’s large pharmaceutical sector.
Challenges in voluntary licensing
- So far, no patent holders have joined the WHO’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool.
- This is why India and South Africa called on the WTO to temporarily waive patent protections for COVID-19.
- Meanwhile, the UN Medicines Patent Pool stands ready to accept voluntary licences for COVID-19.
2) Compulsory licenses
- Compulsory licenses override patent rights to allow local production or import of drugs by generic manufacturers in the event of a public health crisis.
- Since 2003, this right has been enshrined in the Doha Declaration addendum to the WTO’s TRIPS agreement and this is what India and South Africa are lobbying for.
- The Doha addendum, Section 5c, offers AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis as examples of what qualifies as a health emergency.
- By this standard, COVID-19 should easily qualify.
Issues with compulsory licensing
- Good will: Manufacturers in India say they prefer to work with voluntary licences because there is more good will between companies while compulsory licences often come with a legal battle brought by the patent holder.
- Time factor: Voluntary licences also enable production to begin more expeditiously as they usually are accompanied by “technology transfer” meaning that the patent holder reveals to the licensee how to manufacture the medication.
- No need to reverse engineer: Volunatry licensing spares the licensee the lengthy and costly process of figuring out how to reverse engineer the product.
3) COVAX option and issues
- COVAX programme was established to purchase vaccine doses and donate them to low-income countries.
- It does not involve modifying patent rights.
- Underfunded: COVAX is also currently underfunded.
- Delay: The Director-General of WHO warned that people in the lowest-income countries might have to wait until 2022 to get vaccinated through this programme.
Government aid should entail an obligation
- The billions of dollars in government aid given to companies to help develop COVID-19 treatments should entail an obligation to enable the mass production of affordable vaccines.
- Patents are not ironclad ownership rights, they are a temporary contract that balances the public interest with the claims of the innovator.
Consider the question “What is the importance of ensuring availability and affordability of Covid-19 vaccine throughout the world? What are the options available to ensure that?”
Conclusion
This is not just a question of social justice and ensuring life-saving therapies are available to the world’s poor. It is a necessary step to prevent deadlier, more contagious and possibly vaccine-resistant variants of COVID-19 from proliferating in an under-vaccinated world.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Issues with the bureaucracy
The second wave of Covid has exposed the inherent weakness of the bureaucracy in India. The article highlights the necessity for reforms in the way bureaucracy functions in India.
Features of traditional bureaucracy
- Preference to generalist: Weberian bureaucracy still prefers a generalist over a specialist.
- Preference to leadership of position: The leadership of position is preferred over leadership of function in the traditional bureaucracy.
- The leadership of function is when a person has expert knowledge of a particular responsibility in a particular situation.
- The role of the leader is to explain the situation instead of issuing orders.
- Every official involved in a particular role responds to the situation rather than relying on some dictation from someone occupying a particular position.
- Lack of innovation: The rigid adherence to rules has resulted in the rejection of innovation.
Covid exposed limits of traditional bureaucracy
- A generalist officer IAS and State civil service officials are deemed an expert and as a result, superior in traditional bureaucracy.
- Specialists in every government department have to remain subordinate to the generalist officers.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the weakness of this system.
- Healthcare professionals who are specialists have been made to work under generalist officers and the policy options have been left to the generalists when they should be in the hands of the specialists.
- The justification is that the generalist provides a broader perspective compared to the specialist.
Is privatisation and private sector managerial techniques an answer?
- The reform often suggested in India is new public management.
- This as a reform movement promotes privatisation and managerial techniques of the private sector as an effective tool to seek improvements in public service delivery and governance.
- But this isn’t a viable solution in India where there is social inequality and regional variations in development.
- It renders the state a bystander among the multiple market players with a lack of accountability.
- Further, COVID-19 has shown that the private sector has also failed in public service delivery.
Way forward: Collaborative governance
- The most appropriate administrative reform is the model of new public governance.
- Work together: In collaborative governance, the public sector, private players and civil society, especially public service organisations (NGOs), work together for effective public service delivery.
- As part of new public governance, a network of social actors and private players would take responsibility in various aspects of governance with public bureaucracy steering the ship rather than rowing it.
- As part of new public governance, the role of civil society has to be institutionalised.
- It needs a change in the behaviour of bureaucracy.
- Openness to reforms: It needs flexibility in the hierarchy, a relook at the generalist versus specialist debate, and an openness to reforms such as lateral entry and collaboration with a network of social actors.
- All major revolutions with huge implications on public service delivery have come through the collaboration of public bureaucracy with so-called outsiders.
- These include the Green Revolution (M.S. Swaminathan), the White Revolution (Verghese Kurien), Aadhaar-enabled services (Nandan Nilekani) and the IT revolution (Sam Pitroda).
Consider the question “What are the weaknesses of bureaucracy in India? Suggest the measures to improve the quality of public service delivery in India.”
Conclusion
New public governance is the future of governance, especially public service delivery.
Back2Basics: The Weberian Model of bureaucracy
- The classic model of bureaucracy is typically called the ideal Weberian model, and it was developed by Max Weber, an early German sociologist.
- Weber argued that the increasing complexity of life would simultaneously increase the demands of citizens for government services.
- Therefore, the ideal type of bureaucracy, the Weberian model, was one in which agencies are apolitical, hierarchically organized, and governed by formal procedures.
- Furthermore, specialized bureaucrats would be better able to solve problems through logical reasoning.
- Such efforts would eliminate entrenched patronage, stop problematic decision-making by those in charge,, impose order and efficiency, create a clear understanding of the service provided, reduce arbitrariness, ensure accountability, and limit discretion.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Poor public health infrastructure in India and its consequences
The poor public health infrastructure in India hits the poor hard. The article examines the factors responsible for poor public health infrastructure and suggests the measures to deal with it.
Poor state of health infrastructure
- World Bank data reveal the poor state of India’s health infrastructure.
- It reveals that India had 85.7 physicians per 1,00,000 people in 2017.
- In contrast, it is 98 in Pakistan, 58 in Bangladesh, 100 in Sri Lanka and 241 in Japan.
- India had 53 beds per 1,00,000 people.
- It is 63 in Pakistan, 79.5 in Bangladesh, 415 in Sri Lanka and 1,298 in Japan.
- India had172.7 nurses and midwives per 1,00,000 people in contrast to 220 in Sri Lanka, 40 in Bangladesh, 70 in Pakistan, and 1,220 in Japan.
What are the factors responsible for poor health infrastructure?
- Stagnant expenditure: Analysis by the Centre for Economic Data and Analysis (CEDA), Ashoka University, shows that health expenditure has been stagnant for years.
- Lack of expertise with states: Despite health being a state subject, the main bodies with technical expertise are under central control.
- The States lack corresponding expert bodies such as the National Centre for Disease Control or the Indian Council of Medical Research.
- Inter-State variation: States also differ a great deal in terms of the fiscal space to deal with the novel coronavirus pandemic because of the wide variation in per capita health expenditure.
- Kerala and Delhi have been close to top in years from 2011 to 2019-20.
- Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, States that have been consistently towards the bottom of the ranking in the same years.
Out-of-pocket expenditure and its impact on the poor
- Due to low levels of public health provision, the World Health Organization estimates that 62% of the total health expenditure in India is OOP, among the highest in the world.
- Some of the poorest States, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Odisha, have a high ratio of OOP expenditures in total health expenditure.
- Impact on the poor: High ratio of OOP means that the poor in the poorest States, the most vulnerable sections, are the worst victims of a health emergency.
Way forward
1) Coordinated national plan
- The inter-State variation in health expenditure highlights the need for a coordinated national plan at the central level to fight the pandemic.
- The Centre already tightly controls major decisions, including additional resources raised specifically for pandemic relief, e.g. the PM CARES Fund.
- The need for a coordinated strategy on essential supplies of oxygen and vaccines is acute.
- The Centre can bargain for a good price from vaccine manufacturers in its capacity as a single large buyer like the European Union did for its member states.
- Centre will also benefit from the economies of scale in transportation of vaccines into the country.
- Once the vaccines arrive in India, these could be distributed across States equitably in a needs-based and transparent manner.
- Another benefit of central coordination is that distribution of constrained resources like medical supplies, financial resources can internalise the existing disparities in health infrastructure across States.
2) Form Pandemic Preparedness Unit
- There is a need for the creation of a “Pandemic Preparedness Unit” (PPU) by the central government.
- PPU would streamline disease surveillance and reporting systems; coordinate public health management and policy responses across all levels of government.
- It will also formulate policies to mitigate economic and social costs, and communicate effectively about the health crisis.
Consider the question “India has among the highest out-of-pocket expenditure in the world, which is the result of poor public health infrastructure. Examine the factors responsible for poor public health infrastructure and suggest the ways to deal with it.”
Conclusion
As and when we emerge on the other side of the pandemic, bolstering public health-care systems has to be the topmost priority for all governments: the Centre as well as States.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CAPF
Mains level: Paper 2- Issues with MHA's decision to deploy CAPF for the security of MLAs
The article deals with the issue of the Home Ministry’s decision to provide security to BJP MLAs in West Bengal.
Context
Recently, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) decided to provide security cover to 77 MLAs of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who were elected earlier this month after the West Bengal Assembly poll.
Issues with the decision
1) Threat perception discussed for a group and not one by one person
- Decisions to provide security to persons under threat is taken by a committee in the MHA.
- The committee comprises officials from the MHA, the Intelligence Bureau, Delhi Police and senior officials of the Central Armed Police Forces.
- In the meetings of the committee, the threat perception of each of the person to be secured is discussed one by one and not collectively for any group as such.
- However, in the decision to deploy CAPF personnel for the 77 MLAs, threat perception for each of the persons was not discussed.
2) Law and order is a state subject
- Law and order being a State subject, West Bengal is duty-bound to protect every citizen of the State, more so the MLAs.
- By deploying central forces, the Centre has sent a clear signal that it does not rely upon the State government to provide fool-proof security to the BJP MLAs.
- This is not a good sign for Centre-State relations.
- The Central government’s distrust of officers who are considered close to a State’s ruling dispensation does not bode well for police officers across the country.
3) Burdening the security forces
- The number of protected persons has increased in recent years.
- In 2019, as many as 66,043 police and CAPF personnel were deployed to protect 19,467 persons against the sanctioned strength of 43,556 personnel, as per the Data on Police Organisations.
- Constant deployment of CAPF personnel on protection duties impacts their training schedule.
Curbing the tendency to have security as status symbol
- To curb the tendency of demanding security personnel around themselves, leaders and prominent persons should be asked to bear the expenditure.
- Similarly, Members of Parliament and leaders with criminal records should be charged a fee for the security personnel deployed to protect them.
Conclusion
The Centre’s decision to provide security to the MLAs would set a wrong precedent and does not bode well for federalism.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Provision in Social Security Code 2020
Mains level: Paper 2- Issues with the Social Security Code 2020
Provisions in Social Security Code 2020
- India’s Parliament in September 2020 passed a Social Security Code (SS Code 2020).
- The SS Code 2020 merges existing social security laws and attempts to include informal workers within the ambit of social security administration.
- The SS Code 2020 amalgamates and rationalises the provisions of eight existing central labour laws.
- Of these acts, employees provident fund, employees state insurance (ESI), maternity benefit, gratuity are entirely for organised sector workers.
- Employee threshold removed: For employees’ state insurance, the existing employee threshold has been withdrawn.
- Now the central government can extend ESI benefits to any organisation irrespective of the number of workers employed.
Key benefits not available to informal workers in Social Security Code 2020
- Maternity benefit: Under the SS Code, the provision of maternity benefit has not been made universal.
- Maternity benefit is presently applicable for establishments employing 10 workers or more.
- The definition of ‘Establishment’ in the proposed code did not include the unorganised sector.
- Hence, women engaged in the unorganised sector would remain outside the purview of maternity benefit.
- Employees Provident Fund: The SS Code maintains that the Employees’ Provident Fund Scheme will remain applicable, as before, to every establishment in which 20 or more employees are employed.
- Thus, for informal sector workers, access to employees’ provident fund remains unfulfilled too in the new code.
- Payment of gratuity: Gratuity shall be payable to eligible employees by every shop or establishment in which 10 or more employees are employed, or were employed, on any day of the preceding 12 months.
- But although payment of gratuity was expanded in the new Code, it still remains inaccessible for a vast majority of informal workers.
Challenges faced by informal workers in availing social security
- Registration barrier: To avail social security, an informal worker must register herself on the specified online portal to be developed by the central government.
- Absence of definition: The absence of definite and unambiguous provisions in the present code would further complicate achievement of universal registration.
- Lack of awareness: Experience shows that there is an awful lack of awareness among informal workers regarding social security schemes.
- Lack of digital literacy: Online registration places a further challenge as most informal workers lack digital literacy and connectivity.
- Lack of documents: Informal workers also find it difficult to furnish all documentary papers required as part of the registration process.
- Furnishing proof of livelihood and income details in the absence of tangible employer-employee relations is very difficult.
- Such requirements deter informal workers from completing the registration and they continue to remain outside the social security ambit.
Way forward
The provision of social security could be used to formalise the workforce to a certain extent. Employers could have been made to own up to the responsibility of providing social security to their workers.
1) Inter-State cooperation
- As unorganised workers are spread across the length and breadth of India, inter-State arrangement and cooperation becomes imperative.
- The central government should conceptualise a basic structure, which if successful, should be adopted by States after necessary customisation.
2) Universal coverage
- The unorganised workforce is all encompassing, minus the minuscule regular workers of organised sectors.
- This identity should be primal and all unorganised workers should have basic social security coverage, irrespective of labour market classifications.
- The code fails to undertake such inclusion in a meaningful way.
Conclusion
The Social Security Code fails to provide adequate protection to informal workers, who constitute 91% of the workforce. The pandemic and misery brought by it on these informal workers highligths the need for universal social security.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 342A
Mains level: Paper 2- Interpretation of 102nd Amendment and issues created by it
The article highlights the issues with the Supreme Court judgement in the Maratha reservation case.
Three findings from Maratha reservation judgement
- Recently, the Supreme Court of India declared as unconstitutional a Maharashtra law which provided for reservation to the Maratha community.
- Three primary findings emanated from the judgement-
- 1) Maratha not backward class: The Court held that the Maratha community did not constitute a socially and educationally backward class.
- 2) Breach of 50% limit: The bench said that the law was in breach of a rule previously set by the Court disallowing reservations made in excess of 50% of the total available positions.
- 3) Power of the States: The Court held that State governments had no independent power to declare a group as a backward class.
Issues with the judgement
The latter two findings run against the values of equality and federalism, which the Court has long regarded as integral to India’s democracy.
1) 50% limit does not stem from the Constitution
- Articles 16(4) and 15(4) which confer power on the government to make reservations do not contains 50% limitation.
- Reservation as an exception: Originally, however, these clauses were seen by the Supreme Court as exceptions to a broad rule of formal equality envisioned by the Constitution.
- To that end, the Court held that to allow reservation in excess of 50% would lead to an exception overriding a rule.
- Reservation as basic guarantee: Countering the reservations as an exception position, a seven-judge Bench, in State of Kerala vs N.M. Thomas (1975), held that a programme of reservation was inherent in the Constitution’s basic guarantee of equal treatment.
- This judgment held that affirmative action by the state was compelled by an objective of attaining substantive equality.
- With this judgement the rule requiring that reservations stay under 50% ought to have been deemed incongruous.
- But when the Court sat as a nine-judge Bench in Indra Sawhney vs Union of India (1992) it sustained the 50% limit.
- The majority on the Bench ruled, on the one hand, that N.M. Thomas was correct in seeing reservations as embedded in a constitutional vision of substantive equality.
- On the other hand, the bench accepted that reservation made in excess of 50%, barring exceptional circumstances, was harmful to that very vision.
2) Interpretation of 102nd Amendment curtails the powers of the State governments to declare groups as backward
- After Indra Sawhney judgement, the determination of backward classes was made by the National Commission for the Backward Classes, at the level of the Centre, and by regional commissions at the level of the State governments.
- This division in power, gave States autonomy to classify groups as backward.
- In contrast, the power to prepare lists of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, vested solely with the Union government.
- The 102nd Amendment (2018), introduced Article 342A.
- Article 342A stipulated that the President of India may, after consultation with the State government, notify groups of persons within such a State who are deemed to be socially and educationally backward.
- Any such “Central List”, the clause clarified, could only be altered by Parliament.
- Article 366(26C) was also added, and “socially and educationally backward classes” was defined as “such backward classes as are so deemed under Article 342A for the purposes of this Constitution”.
- In interpreting these changes, a majority in the Maratha reservation judgement concluded that the power for determination of other backward classes rests solely with the Centre.
How this interpretation goes against the federalism
- This interpretation of 102nd Amendment altogether dispossess States from exercising a time-honoured authority.
- But yet the amendment, in the Court’s belief, did not violate the Constitution’s basic structure.
- This was because, according to the majority, the alterations neither took away “the very essence of federalism” nor denuded the States of their effective power to legislate.
- But divesting states of power this critical, to classify groups as backward, entitling many communities to protection under Articles 15(4) and 16(4) is offensive to the “essence” of federalism.
- The changes, as interpreted by the Court, directly impede the ability of States to secure just social order.
Consider the question “What are the implications for the States of the interpretation of the 102nd Amendment by the Supreme Court in the Maratha reservation case?”
Conclusion
It is imperative that Parliament amend the Constitution and grants to States an express power to determine backwardness. Any other result will offend the delicate balance at the heart of Indian federalism.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India's health worker brain drain
The article highlights the issue of shortage of healthcare workers in India even as it exports its healthcare workers to other countries.
India as an exporter of healthcare workers
- For several decades, India has been a major exporter of healthcare workers to developed nations particularly to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Europe and other English-speaking countries.
- As per OECD data, around 69,000 Indian trained doctors worked in the UK, US, Canada and Australia in 2017.
- In these four countries, 56,000 Indian-trained nurses were working in the same year.
- There is also large-scale migration of health workers to the GCC countries but there is a lack of credible data on the stock of such workers in these nations.
- There is no real-time data on high-skilled migration from India as in the case of low-skilled and semi-skilled migration.
Shortage of nurses and doctors
- The migration of healthcare workers is part of the reason for the shortage in nurses and doctors.
- If we look at the figures for countries where we export our healthcare workers, we see just how big the difference is between the sending and the receiving countries.
- As per government reports, India has 1.7 nurses per 1,000 population and a doctor to patient ratio of 1:1,404.
- This is well below the WHO norm of 3 nurses per 1,000 population and a doctor to patient ratio of 1:1,100.
- But, this does not convey the entire problem.
- The distribution of doctors and nurses is heavily skewed against some regions.
- Moreover, there is high concentration in some urban pockets.
Factors driving migration
- There are strong pull factors associated with the migration of healthcare workers, in terms of higher pay and better opportunities in the destination countries.
- However, there are strong push factors that often drive these workers to migrate abroad.
- The low wages in private sector outfits along with reduced opportunities in the public sector plays a big role in them seeking employment opportunities outside the country.
- The lack of government investment in healthcare and delayed appointments to public health institutions act as a catalyst for such migration.
Measures to check brain drain and issues with it
- Over the years, the government has taken measures to check the brain drain of healthcare workers with little or no success.
- In 2014, it stopped issuing No Objection to Return to India (NORI) certificates to doctors migrating to the US.
- The NORI certificate is a US government requirement for doctors who migrate to America on a J1 visa and seek to extend their stay beyond three years.
- The non-issuance of the NORI would ensure that the doctors will have to return to India at the end of the three-year period.
- The government has included nurses in the Emigration Check Required (ECR) category.
- This move was taken to bring about transparency in nursing recruitment and reduce the exploitation of nurses in the destination countries.
- The government’s policies to check brain drain are restrictive in nature and do not give us a real long-term solution to the problem.
Way forward
- We require systematic changes that could range from increased investment in health infrastructure, ensuring decent pay to workers and building an overall environment to motivate them to stay in the country.
- The government should focus on framing policies that promote circular migration and return migration — policies that incentivise healthcare workers to return home after the completion of their training or studies.
- It could also work towards framing bilateral agreements that could help shape a policy of “brain-share” between the sending and receiving countries.
- The 2020 Human Development Report shows that India has five hospital beds per 10,000 people — one of the lowest in the world.
- Increased investment in healthcare, especially in the public sector, is thus the need of the hour.
- This would, in turn, increase employment opportunities for health workers.
Consider the question “What are the factors driving the migration of healthcare workers from India? Suggest the measure to stem their migration.”
Conclusion
India needs systematic changes that could range from increased investment in health infrastructure, ensuring decent pay to health workers and building an overall environment that could prove to be beneficial for them and motivate them to stay in the country.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- China's wolf warrior foreign policy and its implications for India's neighbours
The article explains the implications of China’s assertive foreign policy for India’s neighbours.
Chinese warning to Bangladesh
- The Chinese ambassador to Bangladesh warned Bangladesh against joining the Quad and added that it will risk “significant damage” to its relationship with Beijing if it warms up to the Quad.
- This came as a surprise as China was warning Bangladesh against joining a club that has no plans to invite new members, let alone Bangladesh.
- China always used tough language when it came to issues of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
- The aggressive style now covers a much broader range of issues.
- Beijing is conscious that Bangladesh’s impressive economic performance in recent years as well as its location at the top of the Bay of Bengal littoral lends a new strategic salience to Bangladesh.
- China notes India’s growing diplomatic investment in developing a strategic partnership with Bangladesh.
- China is also not blind to the emerging interest in US and Japan to expand cooperation with Dhaka.
- Bangladesh, which supports China’s Belt and Road Initiative, is open to similar infrastructure cooperation with the US, Japan and India.
China’s wolf worrier diplomacy
- The new wolf warrior diplomacy confronts head-on any criticism of China in the public sphere.
- India has been at the receiving end of this policy for a while — especially during the recent crises of Doklam and Ladakh.
- But India’s South Asian neighbours, all of whom enjoy good relations with China, are only now getting a taste of Beijing’s new diplomatic medicine.
- Chinese Ambassador’s public remarks about the Quad were about telling Bangladesh to resist any Indo-Pacific temptation.
- Pre-emption is very much part of Beijing’s strategic culture.
What such assertive diplomacy mean for South Asia
- Delhi has learnt after long that too much diplomatic interference in the Subcontinent has tended to undermine the pursuit of India’s regional objectives.
- China, as the world’s newest superpower, probably bets that its substantive leverages — including economic, diplomatic, and military — will limit the costs while deterring smaller nations from crossing the markers that it lays down.
- South Asian elites have always seethed at India meddling in their internal affairs; they have held up China’s non-interventionist policy as a welcome alternative.
- The controversy in Bangladesh over China’s remark on joining Quad should help update their past images of Beijing
- India is now more circumspect than before about interventions in the region.
- It recognises that avoiding knee-jerk interventions is a sensible policy.
- Our neighbours have always complained about India’s inefficiency in implementing economic projects and contrasted this with China’s speed and purposefulness.
- But they are also discovering the flip side of Chinese economic efficiency — the capacity to set and implement terms of cooperation that are not always in favour of the host nation.
- All the regimes in the region have had access to different sections of the Indian elite and some capacity to shape the discourse on neighbourhood policies.
- They have no political recourse at all in China’s closed political system.
Consider the question “As Beijing becomes ever more assertive in South Asia, the costs of relying on China are likely to become more apparent to South Asia’s smaller nations. Comment.”
Conclusion
Until now, Chinese support against India seemed free of cost. As Beijing becomes ever more assertive in South Asia, the costs of relying on China are likely to become more apparent.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Factors driving engagement among West Asian countries
The article highlights the unprecedented engagement among the countries of West Asia even among the rivals and explains its significance.
New diplomatic engagements in West Asia
- Recently, there have been interactions between senior Saudi and Iranian officials, the first since diplomatic ties were broken in January 2016.
- Following the removal of the diplomatic and economic blockade on Qatar that was imposed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt, Doha has made efforts to mend ties with both Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in tandem with similar initiatives of its doctrinal and political ally, Turkey.
- On May 5, Turkey and Egypt had their first diplomatic meeting in Cairo after they had broken diplomatic ties in 2013.
- The two countries, on opposite sides on almost all regional issues, are now exploring how to address their differences.
Driving force behind these engagements
- The driving force behind these unprecedented engagements is the advent of the Biden administration at the helm of politics in the United States.
- He has taken a tough line on Saudi Arabia, scrutinising its human rights record and opposition to the war in Yemen.
- Besides concerns in West Asian capitals, the broader message is that the U.S. is now likely to be less engaged with the region’s quarrels.
- These signals of new U.S. policies have occurred even as the novel coronavirus pandemic is devastating West Asia.
- Finally, one major factor is the recognition that the ongoing regional conflicts, in Syria, Yemen and Libya, despite the massive death and destruction, have yielded no military outcome and now demand fresh diplomatic approaches.
Long way to go in resolving differences
- Egypt remains uneasy about Turkey’s ties with the Brotherhood and its regional ambitions.
- Saudi Arabia has similar concerns about Turkey’s doctrinal affiliations and its relations with Iran.
- There are difficulties in reshaping Saudi-Iran relations as well.
- Iran may ease the pressure on the kingdom in Yemen and gradually yield ground in Iraq.
- However, Syria will test their diplomatic skills as they explore how to accommodate their competing strategic interests in that devastated country.
Historic period for West Asian diplomacy
- This is truly a historic period for West Asian diplomacy.
- The major states are displaying unprecedented self-confidence in pursuing initiatives without the involvement of western powers that have dominated regional affairs for at least a couple of centuries.
- This has left a pervasive sense of insecurity across West Asia and made the countries dependent on western alliances to ensure their interests.
- This has left a pervasive sense of insecurity across West Asia and made the countries dependent on western alliances to ensure their interests.
Role for India
- Given that regional contentions are inter-connected, third-party facilitators will be needed to promote mutual confidence and prepare the ground for a comprehensive regional security arrangement.
- This will bring together regional and external states with a stake in West Asia security.
- This arrangement will have provisions for participating states to uphold regional peace and promote mutually beneficial cooperation in energy, economic and logistical connectivity areas.
- Given its close ties with all the regional states, India is well-placed to build an association of like-minded states — Japan, Russia, South Korea — to shape and pursue such an initiative for West Asian peace.
Conclusion
These new diplomatic engagements with erstwhile rivals could in time overturn existing regional alignments and possibly end ongoing conflicts.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: TRIPS
Mains level: Paper 3- TRIPS waiver and India's stand
The article highlights the variance in India’s stand on intellectual property rights waiver for Covid related drugs on the international level and domestic level.
Removing the IPR barrier
- When the pandemic hit the globe, India and South Africa piloted the proposal to waive key provisions of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement on COVID-19 vaccines, drugs, therapeutics, and related technologies.
- The core idea is that IPRs such as patents should not become barriers in scaling up production of medical products essential to combat COVID-19.
- The TRIPS waiver proposal, now backed by the U.S. would give immunity to member countries from a legal challenge at the WTO if their domestic IPR laws suspend or do not enforce IP protection on COVID-19 medical products.
- Member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are under an obligation to ensure that their domestic intellectual property rights (IPR) laws conform to the requirements of the TRIPS agreement.
No use of compulsory licencing in India
- The existing flexibilities under the Patents Act of 1970, such as compulsory licences, which are consistent with the TRIPS agreement, can be used to increase the supply of COVID-19 medical products.
- However, despite the nudging by the judiciary and others, the government inexplicably hasn’t made use of compulsory licences in the pandemic.
- While issuing compulsory licences for COVID-19 vaccines in the absence of technology transfer is easier said than done, they can be used to augment the supply of drugs and other therapeutics.
- For instance, there are demands that compulsory licences be issued for drugs such as Remdesivir to augment supply.
- Natco, an Indian pharmaceutical company, has requested a compulsory licence under Section 92 of the Patents Act for Baricitinib, a COVID-19 drug.
- This is ironic because India has historically played a leading role in mainstreaming TRIPS flexibilities like the compulsory licence at the WTO.
- The Central government, in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, states that the main constraint in boosting the production of drugs like Remdesivir is the unavailability of raw materials and essential inputs.
- The affidavit further states, “it is presumptuous to assume that the patent holder will not agree to more voluntary licences”.
Issues with the government’s stand
- If that is the real bottleneck, and not IPR-related legal hurdles, why is India pushing for a TRIPS waiver at the WTO?
- The first step in advocating for the removal of IPR-related impediments at the WTO is to make use of the existing lawful means.
- Therefore, the government’s stand before the Supreme Court is not only contradictory with India’s position at the WTO but also severely undermines it.
Way forward
- To make its TRIPS waiver stand convincing, the government needs to make aggressive use of Sections 92 and 100 of the Patents Act to license all patents necessary to make COVID-19 medical products.
- The government should not only transfer Covaxin’s technology to domestic pharmaceutical companies, to boost national supplies, but also offer it to foreign corporations.
- By unlocking its vaccine technical know-how to the world, India would demonstrate its resolve to walk the talk on the TRIPS waiver.
Conclusion
India must take a consistent stand on IPRs on COVID-19 medical products internationally and domestically.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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