Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Need for investment in public healthcare in South Asia
The article contrasts the public healthcare system in South Asian countries with that of their Southeast Asian peers and highlights the shortcomings.
Subpar public healthcare system
- Super spreader events, a fragile health infrastructure neglected for decades, citizens not following health protocols, and logistical mismanagement were the factors responsible for the destruction in the second Covid-19 wave.
- What has exacerbated the situation is a subpar public healthcare system running on a meagre contribution of a little over 1% of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
- While the private medical sector is booming, the public healthcare sector has been operating at a pitiful 0.08 doctors per 1,000 people, World Health Organization’s (WHO) prescribed standard ois1:1000.
- India has only half a bed available for every 1,000 people, which is a deficient figure even for normal days.
- Bangladesh and Pakistan fare no better, with a bed to patient ratio of 0.8 and 0.6, respectively, and a doctor availability of less than one for every 1,000 people.
- While ideally, out-of-pocket expenditure should not surpass 15% to 20% of the total health expenditure, for India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, this figure stands at an appalling 62.67%, 73.87% and 56.24%, respectively.
Lack of investment in healthcare
- Major public sector investments by the ‘big three’ of South Asia, i.e., India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, are towards infrastructure and defence, with health taking a backseat.
- While India has the world’s third-largest military expenditure, its health budget is the fourth-lowest.
- Indian government in this year’s budget highlighted an increase of 137% in health and well-being expenditure, a closer look reveals a mismatch between facts and figures.
- In Pakistan, even amidst the pandemic, the defence budget was increased while the spending on health remained around $151 million.
- Not too far behind is Bangladesh, with decades of underfunding culminating in a crumbling public healthcare system.
- Major public sector investments by the ‘big three’ of South Asia, i.e., India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, are towards infrastructure and defence, with health taking a backseat.
- A quick look at pre-pandemic sectoral allocations explains the chronically low status of human development indicators in the three countries.
Learning from Southeast Asia
- Southeast Asia has prioritised investments in healthcare systems while broadening equitable access through universal health coverage schemes.
- Vietnam’s preventive measures focused on investments in disease surveillance and emergency response mechanisms.
- Even countries like Laos and Cambodia are making a constant effort towards improving the healthcare ecosystem.
- All have done much better than their South Asian peers.
Conclusion
Learning from the devastation unleashed by the pandemic, South Asian countries must step up investment in their public healthcare sectors to make them sustainable, up to date and pro-poor; most importantly, the system should not turn its back on citizens.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Scrutinising the States
The article highlights the excessive focus on the Union government and the lack of scrutiny of the functioning of the States in various areas.
Need for focus on the States
- In discussions on reforms or debates about public expenditure, there is an excessive focus on the Union government.
- This focus reflects our mindset that there is a “Centre”, though constitutionally, there is no “Centre”. There is the Union government.
- There is not as much interest in State Finance Commissions and their recommendations as it is in the Union Finance Commission’s recommendations.
- Alternatively, there is limited scrutiny of state-level expenditure, or fiscal devolution and decentralisation of decision-making within states, or tracking functioning of state legislatures.
- Most factor markets we seek to reform are on the concurrent list or the state list.
The Annual Review of State Laws 2020: Key findings
- PRS Legislative Research published this report and it focuses on the legislative work performed by states in the calendar year 2020.
- The annual review has been done in the pandemic year as 2020 saw the first wave of the pandemic.
- It covers 19 state legislatures, including the Union territory of Delhi, which together accounts for 90 per cent of the population of the country.
1) Low Productivity
- As a benchmark, the Parliament met for 33 days in 2020.
- Pre-2020, these 19 states met for an average of 29 days a year.
- In 2020, they met for an average of 18 days.
- When they met in 2020, States passed an average of 22 Bills (excluding Appropriation Bills).
- Karnataka passed 61 Bills, the highest in the country.
- The lowest was Delhi which passed one Bill, followed by West Bengal and Kerala, which passed two and three Bills respectively.
2) States pass Bills without scrutiny
- The report states that the State legislatures pass most Bills without detailed scrutiny.
- In 2020, 59 per cent of the Bills were passed on the same day that they were introduced in the legislature.
- A further 14 per cent were passed within a day of being introduced.
- In Parliament, Bills are often referred to Parliamentary Standing Committees for detailed examination.
- In most states, such committees are non-existent.
3) Information not shared by the legislature
- Information and data on state legislatures is not easily available.
- While some state legislatures publish data on a regular basis, many do not have a systematic way of reporting legislative proceedings and business.”
- Typically, information becomes available when countervailing pressure is generated.
- Reports like this help to do that.
Consider the question “In discussions on reforms, or debates about public expenditure, there is an excessive focus on the Union government. However, on reforms and public expenditures, we also need to focus on scrutinising the states”. Comment.
Conclusion
Scrutinising States on various areas of their functioning is important to hold them accountable. The availability of data from state legislatures is an opportunity to monitor them better.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Tackling disinformation
The article highlights the issues mentioned in the UNHRC report on disinformation and freedom of expression.
UNHRC Report: Upholding human rights helps dealing with falsehood
- The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Special Rapporteur submitted her report on “Disinformation and Freedom of Opinion and Expression” recently.
- The UNHRC report specifically speaks of information disorder that arises from disinformation.
- Impact of disinformation: Such information disorder leads to politically polarisation, hinders people from meaningfully exercising their human rights, and destroys their trust in governments and institutions.
- Human rights provide a powerful and appropriate framework to challenge falsehoods and present alternative viewpoints.
- Upholding human rights is useful in dealing with falsehood in two ways:
- 1) Freedom of opinion and expression enables governance and development.
- 2) Civil society, journalists and others are able to challenge falsehoods and present alternative viewpoints.
- So, the report says that human rights friendly governance is both possible and doable; it is also desirable, as it protects political power against itself.
Review of the business model needed
- The report asserts that reactive content moderation efforts” are unlikely to make any worthwhile difference in the absence of a serious review of the business model that underpins much of the drivers of disinformation and misinformation.
- Problems of inconsistent application of companies’ terms of service, inadequate redress mechanisms and a lack of transparency and access to data re-emerge constantly.
- Aalthough the platforms are global businesses, they do not appear to apply their policies consistently across all geographical areas or to uphold human rights in all jurisdictions to the same extent.
Need for legislative clarity on twin concept of misinformation and disinformation
- The report highlights the lack of legislative and judicial clarity on the twin concepts of “disinformation” and “misinformation”.
- It emphasises that the intention to harm is decisive to the disinformation.
- “Disinformation” is false information disseminated intentionally to cause serious social harm.
- In contrast, misinformation consists in the dissemination of false information unknowingly.
- Nor are these terms to be used interchangeably.
- Acknowledging the fact that “extremist or terrorist groups” frequently engage in the dissemination as part of their propaganda to radicalise and recruit members, the report disfavours any state response that adds to human rights concerns.
Other factors contributing to growth of disinformation
- The growth of disinformation in recent times cannot be attributed solely to technology or malicious actors, according to the report.
- Other factors such as digital transformation and competition from online platforms, state pressure, the absence of robust public information regimes, and digital and media literacy among the general public also matter.
- Moreover, disinformation enhance the frustrations and grievances such as economic deprivation, market failures, political disenfranchisement, and social inequalities.
- Disinformation is thus not the “cause but the consequence of societal crises and the breakdown of public trust in institutions”.
- Strategies to address disinformation will succeed only when these underlying factors are tackled.
Issue of use of disinformation by states
- A 2020 Oxford study of “Industrialised Disinformation” mentions that as many as “81 governments” use “social media to spread computational propaganda and disinformation about politics”.
- Some authoritarian countries like Russia, China and Iran capitalised on coronavirus disinformation to amplify anti-democratic narratives.
- Online disinformation also results in offline practices of violent social excursion on actually existing individuals and communities such as ethnic, gender, migrant, sexual minorities.
Consider the question “Reactive content moderation efforts are simply inadequate without a serious review of the business model that underpins much of the drivers of disinformation and misinformation on the social media platforms.” Critically examine.”
Conclusion
Will future itineraries of human rights in the digital era repeat past mistakes? The report offers grist to the mill for profound thought and conscientious action.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Variants of coronavirus
Mains level: Paper 3- Importance of genomic sequencing in dealing with the pandemic
The article highlights the importance of genomic sequencing in dealing effectively with the pandemic and suggest the scaling up of genomic sequencing.
Why genomic sequencing is important
- An effective COVID-19 pandemic response requires, inter alia, keeping track of emerging variants and then conducting further studies about their transmissibility, immune escape and potential to cause severe disease.
- The success of the United States and the United Kingdom in containing the virus also goes to scaled-up genomic sequencing, tracking the emerging variants and using that evidence for timely actions.
- The data from genomic sequencing has both policy and operational implications.
- Our scientific knowledge and understanding about emerging strains is going to be the key to deploy public health interventions (vaccines included) to fight the pandemic.
- The emerging variants — with early evidence of higher transmissibility, immune escape and breakthrough infections — demand continuous re-thinking and re-strategising of the pandemic response by every country.
Insufficient genomic sequencing in India
- Though the procedural steps such as setting up the Indian SARS-CoV2 Genomic Consortia, or INSACOG have been taken, the sequencing has remained at a very low level of a few thousand cases only.
- The challenge of insufficient genomic sequencing is further compounded by slow pace of data sharing.
Steps need to be taken
- 1) Scale-up genomic sequencing: India needs to scale up genomic sequencing, across all States.
- More genomic sequencing is needed from large urban agglomerations.
- A national-level analysis of collated genomic sequencing data should be done on a regular basis and findings shared publicly.
- 2) Research on vaccine effectiveness: The Indian government needs to invest and support more scientific and operational research on vaccine effectiveness.
- Rethink vaccine policy: There are early indications of immune escape and reduced vaccine effectiveness against the Delta variant (especially after one-shot).
- These are the questions that experts need to deliberate and come up with the answers.
Consider the question “What is genomic sequencing and how it could help in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic? Suggest the steps India need to take to use genomic sequencing in curbing the pandemic.”
Conclusion
As India prepares for the third wave, increasing genomic sequencing and use of scientific evidence for decision making are not a choice but an absolute essential.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Quad
Mains level: Paper 2- Pushback against China
The article discusses the future pushback against China in South Asia and Indo-Pacific as Quad gains more momentum.
Context
Recently, the Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh, Li Jiming, warned Dhaka that there will be “substantial damage” in bilateral ties between China and Bangladesh if the latter joins the Quad.
Bangladesh’s reaction
- Bangladesh Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen promptly and publicly challenged the Chinese envoy’s statement, underlining categorically that Dhaka pursues an independent foreign policy.
- That China’s remarks would reverberate far beyond South Asia was expected and perhaps intended.
- The spokesperson of U.S. State Department remarked, “What we would say is that we respect Bangladesh’s sovereignty and we respect Bangladesh’s right to make foreign policy decisions for itself.”
Implications for South Asia and Info-Pacific
- With its message to Bangladesh, Beijing was laying down a marker that nations should desist from engaging with the Quad.
- This episode captures the emerging fault lines in South Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific.
- For all its attempts to play down the relevance of the Quad, Beijing realises that the grouping, with all its weaknesses, is emerging as a reality and there is little it can do to prevent that.
- And so, it is agitated about Quad’s future role and its potential success in offering the regional states an alternative to its own strong-arm tactics.
About Quad’s agenda
- The Quad member states are figuring out a cohesive agenda amongst themselves and there are no plans for an expansion.
- There is a desire to work with like-minded nations but that can only happen if the four members of the Quad can build a credible platform first.
- Quad has not asked any country to join and no one has shown an interest.
- But China wants to ensure that after failing in its initial attempt to prevent the Quad from gaining any traction.
- Its message is well understood by other states who may harbour any desire of working closely with the Quad members.
Way forward
- Beijing has failed to prevent nations from the West to the East from coming out with their Indo-Pacific strategies.
- It has failed to prevent the operationalisation of the Quad, and now it might be worried about other nations in the region thinking of engaging with the Quad more proactively.
- Even Bangladesh is planning to come out with its own Indo-Pacific strategy and Beijing has now warned Dhaka that a close cooperation with the Quad should not be part of the policy mix.
- As the Quad gains more momentum and the churn in the waters of the Indo-Pacific leads to new countervailing coalitions against China, Beijing’s belligerence can only be expected to grow.
Conclusion
Beijing is more likely to demand clear-cut foreign policy choices from its regional interlocutors, as its warning to Bangladesh underscores. But as Dhaka’s robust response makes it clear, states are more likely to push back than become subservient to Chinese largesse.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Opportunity for India to expand ties with the West
The article takes an overview of the growing convergence of India’s interest with the West in the changing geopolitical scenario and opportunities it offers to India.
Significance of G-7 Summit for India
- Summit of the G-7, the Group of Seven industrial countries, will be hosted by the United Kingdom this week.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate digitally in this summit.
- This participation also marks an important step towards a new global compact between India and the West.
- The global financial crisis of 2008, the rapid rise of China, divisions within the West during the Trump years, and the chaotic response in North America and Europe to the Covid-19 pandemic, were the factors that indicated the decline of the West.
- In his first tour abroad as the US president wants to demonstrate that the collective West is an enduring force to reckon with under renewed American leadership.
- For India, the G-7 summit is an opportunity to expand the global dimension of India’s growing partnerships with the US and Europe.
Convergence of interests between India and the West
- The challenges from an increasingly aggressive China, the urgency of mitigating climate change, and the construction of a post-pandemic international order are generating convergence between the interests of India and the West.
- India’s current engagement with the G-7 is about global issues.
- The idea of a global democratic coalition that is based more broadly than the geographic West has gained ground in recent years.
- And India is at the very heart of that Western calculus.
- For India, too, the G-7summit comes amidst intensifying strategic cooperation with the West.
- This includes strong bilateral strategic cooperation with the US, France, UK as well as the Quad and the trilateral partnerships with France and Australia as well as Japan and Australia.
- India has also stepped up its engagement with the European Union.
China factor
- India’s increasing engagement with the US and the West has been triggered in part by the continuous deterioration of the relationship with China.
- Besides the threat to territorial security, India finds that its hopes for strong global cooperation with China have taken a big beating in recent years.
- China is the only great power that does not support India’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council and blocks India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
- At the end of the Cold War, India believed that China was a natural partner in the construction of a multipolar world.
- India now can’t escape the conclusion that China is the greatest obstacle to India’s global aspirations and the West is an emerging partner.
- India has relied on Western support to fend off China’s effort to internationalise the Kashmir question after the 2019 constitutional changes.
- India walked away from RCEP due to the growing trade imbalance with China and the negative impact of Chinese imports on India’s domestic manufacturing.
- After China’s aggression in Ladakh last April, India has also sought to actively limit its exposure to Chinese investments and technology.
Way forward
- The convergence of interests between India and the West does not mean the two sides will agree on everything.
- There are many areas of continuing divergence within the West — from the economic role of the state to the democratic regulation of social media and the technology giants.
- It will surely not be easy translating the broad convergences between India and the West into tangible cooperation.
- That would require sustained negotiations on converting shared interests.
Consider the question “The idea of a global democratic coalition that is based more broadly than the geographic West has gained ground in recent years. This offers India an opportunity to expand the global dimension of India’s growing partnerships with the US and Europe. Comment.”
Conclusion
While India continues to strengthen its partnerships in Asia and the global south, a more productive partnership with the West helps secure a growing array of India’s national interests and adds a new depth to India’s international relations.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Performance of the current government in the past seven years
The article compares the performance of the present government under Prime Minister Modi with the first seven years of the Manmohan Singh government on various fronts.
Context
The current government completed seven years at the Centre recently. It is time to reflect and look back at its performance on basic economic parameters over the last seven years. It may also be interesting to compare and see how it fared vis-à-vis the first seven years of UPA government (2004-05 to 2010-11) under Manmohan Singh.
Analysing the progress by studying key economic indicator
1) GDP growth
- One of the key economic parameters is GDP growth.
- It is not the most perfect one, as it does not capture specifically the impact on the poor, or on inequality.
- But higher GDP growth is considered central to economic performance as it enlarges the size of the economic pie.
- The average annual rate of growth of GDP under the Modi government so far has been just 4.8 per cent compared to 8.4 per cent during the first seven years of the Manmohan Singh government.
- If this continues as business as usual, the dream of a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25 is not likely to be achieved.
2) Inflation
- The Modi government scores much better on the inflation front with CPI (rural and urban combined) rising at 4.8 per cent per annum.
- It is well within the tolerance limits of RBI’s targeted inflation band and also much lower than 7.8 per cent during the first seven years of the Manmohan Singh government.
3) Forex reserves
- Also, at macro level, foreign exchange reserves provide resilience to the economy against any external shocks.
- On this score too, the Modi government fares quite well with forex reserves rising from $313 billion on May 23, 2014 to $593 billion on May 21, 2021.
4) Food and agriculture
- It engages the largest share of the workforce in the economy and matters most to poorer segments.
- On the agri-front, both governments recorded an annual average growth of 3.5 per cent during their respective first seven years.
- However, on the food and fertiliser subsidy front, the Modi government broke all records in FY21, by spending Rs 6.52 lakh crore and accumulating grain stocks exceeding 100 million tonnes in May end, 2021.
- One area in which the Modi government performed very poorly is agri-exports.
- In 2013-14 agri-exports had crossed $43 billion while during all the seven years of the Modi government agri-exports remained below this mark of $43 billion.
- Sluggish agri-exports with rising output put downward pressure on food prices.
- It helped contain CPI inflation, but subdued farmers’ incomes.
5) Infrastructure development
- The Modi government has done better in power generation by increasing it from 720 billion units per annum to 1,280 billion units per annum.
- Similarly, road construction too has been at least 30 per cent faster under the Modi government.
6) Social sector
- Based on an international definition of extreme poverty (2011 PPP of $ 1.9 per capita per day), the World Bank estimated India’s extreme poverty in 2015 to be about 13.4 per cent, down from 21.6 per cent in FY 2011-12.
- Even the incidence of multidimensional poverty hovered around 28 per cent in 2015-16.
- Three key indicators can be used to assess performance on this front:
- One, average annual person days generated under MGNREGA in the first five years since this programme started under the UPA in 2006-07 to 2010-11, which was 200 crore, and under Modi government it improved to 230 crore.
- Two, average annual number of houses completed under the Indira Awaas Yojana and PM Awaas Yojana-Gramin, which improved from 21 lakhs to 30 lakhs per annum.
- Three, open defecation free (ODF) which was only 38.7 per cent on October 2, 2014 and shot up to 100 per cent by October 2, 2019, as per government records.
Conclusion
The current government has turned out to be more welfare-oriented than reformist in revving up GDP growth. How long this welfare approach is sustainable without enlarging the size of GDP pie is an open question.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- One nation one election
The article deals with the issue frequent elections in the country and highlights the need for debate on the idea of “one nation, one election”.
Need for debate on one nation one election
The idea has been around since at least 1983, when the Election Commission first mooted it. The concept needs to be debated mainly around five issues.
1) Financial costs of conducting elections
- The costs of conducting each assembly or parliamentary election are huge and, in some senses, incalculable.
- Directly budgeted costs are around Rs 300 crore for a state the size of Bihar.
- But there are other financial costs, and incalculable economic costs.
- Before each election, a “revision” of electoral rolls is mandatory.
- The costs of the millions of man-hours used are not charged to the election budget.
- The economic costs of lost teaching weeks, delayed public works, badly delivered or undelivered welfare schemes to the poor have never been calculated.
2) Cost of repeated administrative freezes
- The Model Code of Conduct (MCC) has economic costs too.
- Works may have been announced long before an election is announced, but tenders cannot be finalised, nor work awarded, once the MCC comes into effect.
- Time overruns translate into cost overruns.
- But the huge costs of salaries and other administrative expenditures continue to be incurred.
- Add to this the invisible cost of a missing leadership.
- Important meetings and decisions get postponed, with costs and consequences that are difficult to calculate.
- A NITI Aayog paper says that the country has at least one election each year.
3) Visible and invisible costs of repeatedly deploying security forces
- There are also huge and visible costs of deploying security forces and transporting them, repeatedly.
- A bigger invisible cost is paid by the nation in terms of diverting these forces from sensitive areas.
4) Campaign and finance costs of political parties
- There is little doubt that the fiscal and economic costs of an election are not trivial, and that two elections, held separately, will almost double costs, including those incurred by political parties themselves.
5) Question of regional/smaller parties having a level playing field
- There are fears about the Centre somehow gaining greater power, or regional parties being at a disadvantage during simultaneously held elections.
- However, fixed five-year terms for state legislatures in fact take away the central government’s power to dissolve state assemblies.
- Until 1967 when simultaneous elections were the norm.
- The Constitution and other laws would need to be amended is obvious, but that is hardly an argument against the proposal.
Consider the question “There are huge costs associated with the frequent elections in the country. Is simultaneous elections a solution? What are the issues involved?”
Conclusion
As the elections in four states and one Union territory in March-April are suspected to have contributed to the second wave of Covid infections, a well-reasoned debate on a concept as important as “one nation, one election” is called for.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GST council decision making
Mains level: Paper 3- Issues with one state one vote system in GST council
The article highlights the issues with the one state one vote system adopted in the GST Council decision making.
Context
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council in India is still engaged in a discussion on whether life-saving and hard-to-come-by products should be taxed. Such delay in decision-making can largely be explained by the distorted design and incentive structure of the GST itself.
Imbalance in collection and distribution of taxes
- The taxes collected under GST are accumulated by the Union government and a portion is transferred back to each state under a formula.
- As is the case with most federal countries, there is a large imbalance in the collection and distribution of taxes between states.
- this holds true also for income accrued to, and distributed, from the GST pool.
- Four states — Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Gujarat contribute nearly as much as the remaining 27 states combined.
- Most federal countries exhibit this characteristic where a few large, rich, provinces or states contribute disproportionately.
Variation in dependence of States on transfers from the Union government
- Only about 30 per cent of the overall revenue of the states mentioned above — Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Karnataka — comes from the Union government.
- But for the remaining 27 states, roughly 60 per cent of their revenues are obtained through transfers from the Union government.
- For the smaller Northeastern states, these transfers from the Union government constitute 80-90 per cent of their total revenues.
- In effect, the states that contribute the most to the GST pool are the least dependent on transfers from the Union government while the ones that contribute the least are the most dependent.
Two problems in net-transfers in India
1) One-sided transfers
- In almost every federal union, net-transfers work to reduce differences in development between states over time.
- However, Over the last 25 years or so, net transfers have become increasingly one-sided in India.
- That is, the quantum of net-transfers diminishes, as states become more equal through such transfers.
- But in India, the opposite has occurred.
2) Indirect taxes and cess
- The Union government of the last seven years has greatly exacerbated this problem through two actions.
- First, it has reconstructed the composition of taxation away from the fair and progressive channel of direct taxation towards the inherently regressive and unfair channel of indirect taxes.
- Second, the Union has shifted a large proportion of taxation roughly 18 per cent of its overall revenues into cesses, a special form of taxes that remain outside the GST pool and hence do not have to be shared with the states.
- Since 2014, cess revenues grew 21 per cent every year leading to a doubling in terms of its share of GDP.
Implications of these two problems for fiscal federalism
- The combined effect of these problems is that all states (collectively) get a lower share of overall revenues.
- Individual states face an ever-increasing disparity in the ratio of funds received from the Union as a proportion of taxes collected by the Union from that state.
- This is an affront to fiscal federalism and an assault on “cooperative federalism”.
Issue of ‘one state one vote’ system
- States that are more dependent on transfers from the Union want to maximise GST collections while states that are less dependent can afford to be more sensitive to citizens’ concerns.
- The case of taxes on Covid products is perhaps the starkest instance of such differences.
- Most large states are ready to forego this tax revenue for humanitarian considerations.
- But 19 states representing the remaining 30 per cent of the population seem keen to continue to levy GST on Covid products.
- These are mostly smaller states.
- Given the smaller population of such states, the adverse impact of Covid taxes will be minimal for them.
- But they will reap the benefits of additional revenues from GST on Covid products levied on the much larger populations of the bigger states.
Conclusion
When direct tax policy decisions are legislated by Parliament, which has proportional representation from states according to their size of the population, indirect tax policy decisions should not be subject to one state one vote system.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Reservation debate
The article highlights the issues with Maratha reservation judgement delivered by the Supreme Court which rejected the positive discrimination of lower classes of dominant caste.
About the verdict
- The Supreme Court rendered a unanimous verdict on the validity of the SEBC Act, 2018 that was to grant reservation to Marathas.
- The court held that the classification of Marathas as a socially and educationally backward class was unreasonable.
- Court held that Maratha belonged to a politically dominant caste with significant economic resources.
Justification for 50% limit
- The court also concluded that the majority opinion in the Indra Sawhney case was correct and that the limit of 50 per cent for caste-based reservation did not need consideration by a larger bench.
- The court justified the fixed quantitative limit on caste-based reservation by postulating that it was intrinsic to the fundamental principle of equality.
- The court highlighted the need to safeguard the interests of unreserved sections and said that all sections have progressed after 70 years of independence.
- Based on this, the court rejected the state’s argument that the breach of the limit was necessitated by the fact that the population of backward classes was over 80 per cent.
Missed opportunity to acknowledge growing socio-economic differentiation within the dominant castes
Growing income difference
- If in 2011-12, the average per capita income of the Marathas was second only to the Brahmins at Rs 36,548, against Rs 47,427.
- Their highest quintile -20 per cent of the caste group- got 48 per cent of the total income of the Marathas with a mean per capita income of Rs 86,750.
- The lowest quintile earned 10 times less (Rs 7,198) and the 40 per cent poorest got less than 13 per cent of the total income of the caste — and were lagging behind the Scheduled Castes elite.
- In fact, the mean incomes of the highest Dalit quintile, Rs 63,030, and that of the second-highest, Rs 28,897, were above those of the three lowest quintiles of the Marathas.
What explains growing income difference
- This is partly due to changes on the education front.
- The percentage of graduates among Dalits in 2004-05 was 1.9 per cent and has more than doubled to 5.1 per cent in 2011-12.
- The corresponding figure for the OBCs was 3.5 per cent and has doubled to 7.6 per cent, while for the Marathas it was 4.6 per cent in 2004-05 and has come up to 8 per cent in 2011-12.
- Correlatively, the percentage of salaried people among the Dalits was about 28 per cent in Maharashtra in 2011-12, as against 30 per cent among the Marathas.
Issues with the Maratha quota judgment
- The Court refused to recognise the need for positive discrimination of the lower classes of the dominant castes which continue to be seen as a dominant bloc.
- It fails to admit the complexity that the role of class has introduced in post-liberalisation India.
- This is unequivocal confirmation of a dated approach to social realities and a purely arithmetic limit that finds no expression in the Constitution.
- The judgement also raises the issue of judicial supremacy in the broad area of social policy as it could lead to undesirable exclusion of beneficiaries.
- The court seems to have forgotten its own observation in NM Thomas case that functional democracy postulates participation of all sections of the people and fair representation in administration is an index of such participation.
Conclusion
The Supreme Court has rejected the determination of Marathas as backward by holding that their relative deprivation and under-representation with regard to other sections of the general category did not entitle them to affirmative action.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: COVAX
Mains level: Paper 2- Dealing with the vaccine inequality
Why vaccination gap is cause of worry
- By the end of May 2021, only 2.1% of Africans had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
- A widely vaccinated world population is the only way to end the pandemic; otherwise, the multiplication of variants is likely to undermine the effectiveness of existing vaccines.
- Vaccination is also a prerequisite for lifting the restrictions that are holding back our economies and freedoms.
- If the vaccination gap persists, it risks reversing the trend in recent decades of declining poverty and global inequalities.
- Such a negative dynamic would hold back economic activity and increase geopolitical tensions.
- The cost of inaction would for sure be much higher for advanced economies than what we collectively would have to spend to help vaccinate the whole world.
- The International Monetary Fund has proposed $50 billion plan in order to be able to vaccinate 40% of the world population in 2021 and 60% by mid-2022.
Need to resist the vaccine nationalism
- To achieve the goal set by IMF, we need closely coordinated multilateral action.
- We must resist the threat posed by linking the provision of vaccines to political goals and vaccine nationalism.
- The EU has been vaccinating its own population, while exporting large volumes of vaccines and contributing substantially to the vaccines roll-out in low-income countries.
- The EU has also exported 240 million doses to 90 countries, which is about as much as used within the EU.
- One-third of all COVAX doses delivered so far have been financed by the EU.
- India’s Vaccine Maitri is another example of global solidarity.
- However, this effort is still far from sufficient to prevent the vaccination gap from widening.
Way forward
- To fill widening vaccination gap, countries with the required knowledge and means should increase their production capacities, so that they can both vaccinate their own populations and export more vaccines.
- All countries must avoid restrictive measures that affect vaccine supply chains.
- We also need to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and technology, so that more countries can produce vaccines.
- Voluntary licensing is the privileged way to ensure such transfer of technology and know-how.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us that health is a global public good. Our common global COVID-19 vaccine action to close the vaccination gap must be the first step toward genuine global health cooperation, as foreseen by the Rome Declaration recently adopted at the Global Health Summit.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India-Bangladesh relations
The article highlights the need for Indian leaders to respect the sentiments of Bangladesh by avoiding adverse comments during elections and recognition of Bangladesh’s importance for India.
Diplomacy with Bangladesh
- Long-standing bilateral problems: As a neighbour nearly surrounded on all territorial sides by India, there are the inevitable bilateral problems of long duration.
- Such problems include a perennially favourable balance of trade for India, drought and flood in the 54 transboundary rivers flowing from India to Bangladesh, and the smuggling of goods and vulnerable human beings across the approximately 4,100 kilometre land border.
- Cultural ties with India: There are several sections who regard their Bengali roots and traditions as being of equal validity as their religious affiliation, and treasure the linguistic and cultural ties with adjacent India.
- India’s expectations: For India’s attentions and support, India’s expectations are that a neighbour will keep India’s concerns in mind when devising and pursuing its policies.
Steps taken to consolidate the bilateral ties
- Bangladesh has successfully dealt with Muslim fundamentalist terrorists.
- Bangladesh has also controlled the Northeast militant movements sheltering in Bangladesh.
- This has facilitated the pacification of India’s Northeast.
- Bangladesh facilitated a considerable degree of connectivity between India and its Northeast by land, river and the use of Bangladeshi ports.
- Indian investments in Bangladesh have been encouraged.
- There are at least 100,000 Indian nationals now living and working in that country.
- For economic integration along with free movement of commerce and capital, the movement of persons on the lines of Nepal and Bhutan will have to be considered.
Consider the question “To a certain degree both India and Bangladesh depend on each other for security and stability. In light of this, take an overview of the consolidation of the bilateral ties between the two countries and discuss the issues that need to be addressed between the two countries.”
Conclusion
Responsible individuals on both sides of the border, whether in government or the Opposition, must be actively discouraged from words and actions detrimental to the consolidation of the existing cordiality.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Growing tendency towards centralisation
The article highlights the challenges faced by the federalism in India in various domains and forms and suggests the ways to deal with these challenges.
Growing tendency towards Centralisation
- Moves to erode the powers of State governments are not new.
- The Centre, on several occasions, has used its powers to dismiss or use the Governor to intimidate democratically elected governments.
- During the Emergency, education was moved to the Concurrent list which was until then a State subject under the constitutional division of responsibilities.
- However, the changes to federal relations at present are more systemic.
- There has been increasing centralisation in resource allocations and welfare interventions.
- After GST, the gap between the revenue that State governments are allowed to generate and the expenditure that they are expected to incur has been widening.
- The Centre has been encroaching into domains under State government control through centrally sponsored schemes in sectors such as education and health.
Three domains in which federalism faces challenges
1) State-capital relation
- At present there is growing trend towards centralising economic power in conjunction with political centralisation.
- The consolidation and expansion of a few big business groups is taking place, probably at the expense of smaller players.
- On the one hand, the Centre has sought to insulate Indian big business from global competition by choosing not to enter into the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
- But the power of small businesses is eroded through support for GST and the call for a single national market.
- So, big businesses are more likely to benefit from a removal of State-level barriers to trade at the expense of smaller regional players.
2) Institutional transgression
- Central institutions are increasingly weakening the policy levers of State institutions.
- There are growing allegations of the misuse of institutions such as the Income Tax Department, the Enforcement Directorate and the National Investigation Agency are being used to intimidate opponents..
- Direct transfers to beneficiaries of welfare schemes bypassing States are also contributing to this dynamic.
- The Centre is increasingly ignoring elected representatives of State governments, holding meetings with State secretaries and district collectors on issues that are primarily under State control.
- Governors perform active administrative roles instead of their signatory roles.
- To ensure national uniformity in educational institutions NEET was introduced in medical education.
- But it subverts the affirmative action policies developed at the regional level in response to local.
- In the domain of health, the Centre has now put State governments at a disadvantage in vaccine usage by fixing differential pricing for procuring vaccines.
3) Socio-cultural foundations
- Beside the legal-constitutional aspects of federalism, it is diversity in cultural foundation of regions that sustains Indian federalism.
- Markers of regional identities and regional socio-cultural practices are now interpreted as belonging to a pan-Indian Hindu tradition.
Conclusion
To stem this trend towards centralisation we need to provide more legal and constitutional safeguard to the States, strong regional political assertion and a strong federal coalition.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Global Minimum corporate tax and issues associated with it
The article deals with the issue of global minimum tax proposal floated by the US, challenges it faces and its implications for India.
The US proposal for global minimum tax
- In its recent proposal, the U.S. sought to impose a global minimum tax on foreign income earned by U.S. corporations.
- The proposal is intended to disincentivise American companies from inverting their structures due to the increase in the U.S. corporate tax rate.
- The U.S. is now discussing a floor of 15% for the minimum tax rate.
- The proposal is similar to Pillar Two, except for the rate of the effective minimum tax.
Similarity with Pillar Two Proposal
- The Pillar Two proposal was the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) plan to plug the remaining Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) issues
- It provide jurisdictions the right to “tax back” where other jurisdictions have either not exercised their primary taxing right or have exercised it at low levels of effective taxation.
- For instance, if an Indian-headquartered multinational corporation (MNC) has an entity in Singapore or the Netherlands through which global operations are run, and its income from global operations is not taxed at an effective rate of 10% or 15%, then it can be taxed in India.
- India has been part of the Pillar Two discussions and has not objected in principle to the proposal.
How Global Minimum Tax would benefit India?
- The proposal, along with the increased tax bill for U.S. companies, may benefit the Indian revenue department.
- The State of Tax Justice report of 2020 notes that India loses over $10 billion in tax revenue due to the use of offshore structures, particularly through investments made by Indian residents through Mauritius, Singapore and the Netherlands.
- This is supported by the overseas direct investment (ODI) data from 2000 to 2021 published by the Reserve Bank of India.
- Start-ups and large Indian conglomerates commonly use offshore structures for conducting global operations.
- Revenue from such operations is often retained offshore and not repatriated to India.
- Tax advantages incentivise such structures, due to which taxes on such income are not paid in India.
- Once these proposals are implemented, Indian companies would have to pay additional taxes on their offshore structures to the extent that the effective rate of tax is lower than the global minimum tax rate.
Challenges
- Lack of consensus: Several countries have taken a different approach to the rate of global minimum tax.
- While France and Germany have expressed support, the EU has raised concerns regarding the high rate proposed by the United States.
- Tax sovereignty issue: Countries have stated that the proposal infringes upon their tax sovereignty and that the fight against unfair tax competition should not become a fight against competitive tax systems.
Consider the question “What are the factors that led to the demand of global minimum corporate tax? What will be its implications for India?”
Conclusion
As economies struggle amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the necessity of encouraging trade and economic activity should be prioritised over disagreements on tax allocations. A tax-related trade war or entrenchment of unilateral levies may further harm both global and national economies.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Challenges in dealing with child labour
The article highlights the risk posed by pandemic to the gains made by India on reducing the child labour in India.
Child labour in India
- A Government of India survey (NSS Report No. 585, 2017-18) suggests that only 79.6%. of the children in the age group of 14-17 years are attending educational institutions (formal and informal).
- The Census of India 2011 reports 10.1 million working children in the age group of 5-14 years.
- Out of whom 8.1 million are in rural areas mainly engaged as cultivators (26%) and agricultural labourers (32.9%).
- UNESCO estimates based on the 2011 Census record 38.1 million children as “out of school” i.e.18.3% of total children in the age group of 6-13 years.
- A Rapid Survey on Children (2013-14), jointly undertaken by the Ministry of Women and Child Development and UNICEF, found that less than half of children in the age group of 10-14 years have completed primary education.
How policies and initiatives helped reduce child labour in India (2001-11)
- Child labour in India decreased in the decade 2001 to 2011.
- Policy interventions such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) 2005, the Right to Education Act 2009 and the Mid Day Meal Scheme have paved the way for children to be in schools along with guaranteed wage employment (unskilled) for rural families.
- Efforts towards convergence of government schemes is also the focus of the implementation of the National Child Labour Project.
- Ratifying International Labour Organization Conventions Nos. 138 and 182 in 2017, the Indian government further demonstrated its commitment to the elimination of child labour.
- The Ministry of Labour and Employment-operated online portal allows to share information and coordinate on child labour cases at the national, State and local levels for effective enforcement of child labour laws.
Challenges ahead
- The economic contraction and lockdowns have worsened the situation, posing a real risk of backtracking the gains made in eliminating child labour.
- With increased economic insecurity, lack of social protection and reduced household income, children from poor households are being pushed to contribute to the family income.
- With closure of schools and challenges of distance learning, children may drop out leaving little scope for return unless affirmative and immediate actions are taken.
- As many schools and educational institutions are moving to online platforms for continuation of learning, the ‘digital divide’ is a challenge that India has to reconcile within the next several years.
- The NSS Report titled ‘Household Social Consumption on Education in India’ suggests that in 2017-18, only 24% of Indian households had access to an Internet facility.
- The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2020 survey highlights that a third of the total enrolled children received some kind of learning materials from their teachers during the reference period (October 2020) as digital mode of education was opted for.
Way forward
- It is through strategic partnerships and collaborations involving government, employers, trade unions, community-based organisations and child labour families that we could make a difference building back better and sooner.
- We need a strong alliance paving our way towards ending child labour in all its forms by 2025 to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 8.7.
Consider the question “What are the policy measures and programmatic intervention implemented to reduce the child labour in India. How Covid-19 threatens the gains made on reducing the child labour?”
Conclusion
To deal with the child labour challenge, we need the right level of commitment among all the relevant stakeholders and the right mix of policy and programmatic interventions are present.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Diplomatic fallout of the second covid wave
The article highlights the contrast in India’s diplomacy during the first wave of the pandemic and the second wave. It also discusses the challenges ahead for India.
India’s diplomatic structure in two Covid waves
- In the past month, the focus for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and Missions abroad has shifted.
- During the first wave of the pandemic, focus was on coordinating exports of COVID-19 medicines, flights to repatriate Indians abroad through the ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ after the lockdown, and then exporting vaccines worldwide- ‘Vaccine Maitri’.
- After the second wave, Covid Diplomacy 2.0 has a different order of tasks, both in the immediate and the long term.
- The immediate imperative was to deal with oxygen and medicine shortages that claimed the lives of thousands.
- The Ministry of External Affairs has had to deal with internal health concerns while galvanising help from abroad for others.
- Despite difficulties, the Ministry of External Affairs has completed the task of bringing in supplies in a timely manner, and with success.
Dealing with vaccine shortage
- Companies manufacturing AstraZeneca and Sputnik-V are stretched as far as future production is concerned.
- The Chinese vaccines are out of consideration given bilateral tensions.
- So, it is clear that India is looking to the U.S. to make up the shortfall.
- This could be done in the following ways:
- 1) Requesting the U.S. to share a substantial portion of its stockpile of AstraZeneca.
- The U.S. government is holding up its AstraZeneca exports until its own United States Food and Drug Administration approves them.
- 2) Asking the US to release more vaccine ingredients which are restricted for exports.
- 3) To buy more stock outright from the three U.S. manufacturers, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, and to encourage production in India of these vaccines.
- Production of Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccines in India, as had been announced during the Quad summit, will take some time.
- The U.S. companies seem set on getting both an indemnity waiver from India as well as Emergency Use Authorisation prior to supplying them.
- The Government may also need to make a change to its publicly announced policy that States in India will need to negotiate purchases directly, as the U.S. manufacturers want centralised orders, with payments up-front.
2) Patent waiver
- The promise of patent waivers, from India’s joint proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) will not reap early benefits.
- Even though it has received support from world leaders such as the U.S., Russia and China.
- Many countries including Japan, Australia, Brazil and EU are still holding out on the idea of freeing up intellectual property rights on vaccines for three years.
- That could ultimately hold up proceedings at the WTO, as it works by consensus.
3) Diplomatic fallout of vaccine collapse
- The Government has defended its decision to export more than 66 million vaccines doses to 95 countries between January and April this year.
- All exports were stopped as soon as cases in India began to soar.
- Both India’s neighbours and partners in Africa as well as global agencies depending on India for vaccines have been left in the lurch by the Government’s failure to balance its vaccine budget.
- For example, once India completed delivery of the first batch, of 550,000 Covishield doses, Bhutan completed the administration of the first dose to 93% of its population in a record 16 days.
- Two months later, Bhutan does not have any vaccines to complete the second dose and has been left requesting other countries for vaccines.
- It is no surprise that each of India’s neighbours has now sought help from China and the U.S. to complete their vaccination drives.
4) Tracing virus pathways
- India, as one of the worst pandemic-hit countries, must be at the forefront of demanding accountability on the origin of the virus.
- The World Health Organisation (WHO) which studied “pathways of emergence” of SARS-CoV2 in Wuhan, listed four possibilities:
- 1) Direct zoonotic transmission.
- 2) An intermediate host.
- 3) Cold chain or transmission through food.
- 4) A laboratory incident.
- China appears adamant on blocking these studies.
- Even the U.S. appears to have dragged its feet on a conclusive finding, possibly because the U.S. National Institutes of Health had funded some of the Wuhan Institute’s research.
Way forward on virus pathways
- India must call for a more definitive answer and also raise its voice for a stronger convention to regulate any research that could lead, by accident or design, to something as the current pandemic.
- It is necessary to revamp the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention to institute an implementation body to assess treaty compliance, and build safer standards for the future.
Consider the question “How different was the impact of two Covid-19 waves on India’s diplomacy? What are the challenges India faces in the near future in dealing with the fallout of the pandemic?”
Conclusion
With its seat at the UN Security Council as non-permanent member and its position on WHO’s Executive Board, India could seek to regain the footing it has lost over the past few months of COVID-19 mismanagement, by taking a lead role in ensuring the world is protected from the next such pandemic.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Israel-Palestine conflict
The article suggest the Indian model for peaceful coexistence as a possible solution to Israel-Palestine conflict.
Brief history of the conflict
- Britain renounced its Mandate over Palestine in 1948.
- This paved the way for the United Nations to divide Palestine between the Jews and Arabs, giving them about 55% and 45% of the land, respectively.
- The Jews, meanwhile, had declared the establishment of the state of Israel for which they had been working for long.
- The Palestinians, who lacked the resources to conceive of a state, failed to form a state of their own in the land allotted to them.
- Instead, a coalition of Arab countries invaded the nascent state of Israel to nip it in the bud.
- Israel defeated the Arab armies.
- Israel also destroyed about 600 Palestinian villages and expelled about 80% of Arabs from its territory.
- In 1967, in the Six-Day War, Israel captured not just more Palestinian land but also Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights.
- During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the Arabs came to realise that Israel is here to stay.
Need for realisation on both the sides
- The Arab states failed to impress the realisation of permanency of Israel upon their Palestinian brethren, a sizeable number of whom remain committed to seeking a solution through counter-violence.
- Vicious cycle of violence is not going to end unless there is realism on both sides.
- The Hamas should know that Israel will not give up on holding on to land it has held for years.
- Israel should understand that total subjugation, expulsion or even decimation of Palestinians will not make it any safer.
- A solution based on the common humanity of all stakeholders, one that is not riven by racial and religious schisms, needs to be explored.
Viability of Indian model
- The Indian model of democracy and secularism, which accommodates religious, ethnic, linguistic and other diversities, could be a viable model for the peaceful coexistence of formerly antagonistic groups.
- India evolved a unique model of accommodating the victors and the vanquished, without ever resorting to the latter’s decimation.
- A modus vivendi has to evolve on the basis of hard realities, the first of which is that neither the Jews nor the Palestinians are going to vanish.
- If the two-state solution is nowhere in the offing, a single state after the Indian model, i.e., a secular, democratic and pluralistic state, may be the only feasible option.
- The Palestinian refugees have a right to return.
- That the altered demographics would impinge on the religio-racial character of Israel is not an argument which behoves a modern democratic state.
- It is true that a nation state belongs to the group which constituted itself into a nation.
- A nation is an imagined community.
- As imagination expands, the foundations of the nation become deeper.
Consider the question “In the absence of two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, what lessons India could offer to the two parties for peaceful coexistence?”
Conclusion
Israel might not offer the right model of conflict resolution for India, but India presents a model of peaceful coexistence for Israel.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: SEATO and SENTO
Mains level: Paper 2- India-Pak relations
The article explains evolution of Pakistan’s approach towards forming alliances and maintaining strategic autonomy against the backdrop of U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
New dynamic Pakistan has to face
- As the US withdraws its troops from Afghanistan, Pakistan is eager to build a relationship with Washington that is not tied to US stakes in Afghanistan.
- Pakistan does not want to be totally alienated from U.S. in the new geopolitical jousting between the US and China.
- How Pakistan copes with the new dynamic between the US and China as well as manages the deepening crisis in Afghanistan would be of great interest to India.
Striking the balance between autonomy and alliance
- Autonomy is about the basic impulse for enhancing the degree of one’s freedom.
- Alliances are about coping with real or perceived threats to one’s security.
- Both are natural trends in international politics.
- Joining an alliance does not mean ceding one’s sovereignty.
- Within every alliance, there is a perennial tension between seeking more commitments from the partner in return for limiting one’s own.
Explaining Pakistan’s approach to alliances
- Pakistan’s insecurities in relation to India meant it was eager for alliances.
- And as the Anglo-Americans scouted for partners in the crusade against global communism, Pakistan signed a bilateral security treaty with the US and joined the South East Asia Treaty Organisation and Central Treaty Organisation in the mid-1950s.
- Rather than target Pakistan’s alliance with a West that was intensely hostile to Beijing in the 1950s, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai saw room to exploit Pakistan’s insecurities on India.
- While Pakistan’s ties with the US went up and down, its relationship with China has seen steady expansion.
- Pakistan’s relations with the US flourished after the Soviet Union sent its troops into Afghanistan at the end of 1979.
- The US and Pakistan reconnected in 2001 as Washington sought physical access and intelligence support to sustain its intervention in Afghanistan following the attacks on September 11.
- Now the US wants Pakistan to persuade the Taliban to accept a peaceful transition to a new political order in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s ability to adapt to shifting geopolitical trends
- Pakistan worries that its leverage in U.S. will diminish once the US turns its back on Afghanistan and towards the Indo-Pacific.
- Pakistan does not want to get in the Indo-Pacific crossfire between the US and China.
- It would also like to dent India’s growing importance in America’s Indo-Pacific strategy.
- India should not underestimate Pakistan’s agency in adapting to the shifting global currents.
- Pakistan has been good at using its great power alliances to its own benefit.
Three problems that complicates Pakistan’s strategic autonomy
- 1) Relative economic decline: Pakistan’s expected aggregate GDP at around $300 billion in 2021 is 10 times smaller than India’s.
- 2) Obsession with Kashmir: Pakistan’s enduring obsessions with separating Kashmir from India, and extending its political sway over Afghanistan; both look elusive despite massive political investments by the Pakistan army.
- Unsurprisingly, there is a recognition that Pakistan needs reorientation — from geopolitics to geoeconomics and permanent war with neighbours to peace of some sorts.
- 3) Using religion as political instrument: Turning Islam into a political instrument and empowering religious extremism seemed clever a few decades ago.
- However, today those forces have acquired a life of their own and severely constrain the capacity of the Pakistani state to build internal coherence and widen international options.
Conclusion
It will be unwise to rule out Pakistan’s positive reinvention; no country has a bigger stake in it than India. For now, though, Pakistan offers a cautionary tale on the dangers of squandering a nation’s strategic advantages — including a critical geopolitical location that it had inherited and the powerful partnerships that came its way.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IT Act 2000
Mains level: Paper 3- Issues involved in traceability of originator of information on social media
The article deals with the issues involved in the traceability requirement of the originator of information on social media platform as per new IT Rules.
Traceability clause and issues involved
- Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 imposes certain obligation on significant social media intermediaries.
- Rule 4(2) puts an obligations to ensure traceability of the originator of information on their platforms.
- Consequently, WhatsApp has filed a petition in the Delhi High Court.
- WhatsApp contends that the mandate for traceability violates the privacy rights of Indian citizens, by rendering WhatsApp unable to provide encrypted services.
Government’s response
- The Government primarily relies on the argument that: privacy is not an absolute right, and that the traceability obligation is proportionate, and sufficiently restricted.
- Notably, the new Rules mandate traceability only in the case of significant social media intermediaries i.e. those that meet a user threshold of 50 lakh users, which WhatsApp does.
- Traceability is also subject to an order being passed by a court or government agency and only in the absence of any alternatives.
- While it is indeed true that privacy is not an absolute right, the Supreme Court of India in the two K.S. Puttaswamy decisions of 2017 and 2018 has laid conditions for restricting this right.
- In Puttaswamy cases, the Supreme Court clarified that any restriction on this right must be necessary, proportionate and include safeguards against abuse.
Issues with traceability
- Not proportionate: A general obligation to enable traceability as a systemic feature across certain types of digital services is neither suitable nor proportionate.
- No safeguard against abuse: The Rules lack effective safeguards in that they fail to provide any system of independent oversight over tracing requests made by the executive.
- This allows government agencies the ability to seek any messaging user’s identity, virtually at will.
- Presumption of criminality: Weakening encryption — which a traceability mandate would do — would compromise the privacy and security of all individuals at all times, despite no illegal activity on their part, and would create a presumption of criminality.
Way forward
- Explore the alternatives: The Government already has numerous alternative means of securing relevant information to investigate online offences including by accessing unencrypted data such as metadata, and other digital trails from intermediaries.
- Already has ability to access encrypted data: The surveillance powers of the Government are in any case vast and overreaching, recognised even by the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee report of 2018.
- Importantly, the Government already has the ability to access encrypted data under the IT Act.
- Notably, Section 69(3) of the Information Technology Act and Rules 17 and 13 of the Information Technology Rules, 2009 require intermediaries to assist with decryption where they have the technical ability to do so, and where law enforcement has no alternatives.
- Judicial scrutiny of Section 79 of IT Act: The ability of the government to issue obligations under the guise of “due diligence” requirements under Section 79 of the IT Act must be subject to judicial scrutiny.
- Legislative changes needed: The long-term solution would be for legislative change along multiple avenues, including in the form of revising and reforming the now antiquated IT Act, 2000.
Consider the question “What are the issues involved in the traceability of the originator of the information on social media platforms as mandated by the new IT Rules 2021? Suggest the way forward.”
Conclusion
While, undoubtedly, there are numerous problems in the digital ecosystem that are often exacerbated or indeed created by the way intermediaries function, ill-considered regulation of the sort represented by the new intermediary rules is not the way forward.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Impact of second Covid wave on States' fiscal health
The article gives the overview of the impact of second Covid wave on the fiscal health of the States.
Impact of first Covid wave on fiscal health of states
- The analysis of the fiscal data for all states with the exception of Goa, Manipur, Meghalaya and Sikkim reveal a grim picture.
- The aggregate revenue deficit for 24 state governments soared to Rs 4 trillion as per the revised estimates (RE) for 2020-21, up from a modest budgeted amount of Rs 353 billion.
- And, despite a 16 per cent cut in capital spending, the fiscal deficit of these states deteriorated to Rs 8.7 trillion in 2020-21 (RE), up from the budgeted estimate of Rs 6.0 trillion.
How states had projected ambitious decline in revenue deficit
- The budgets for the ongoing fiscal year, had projected an ambitious, decline in the aggregate revenue deficit to Rs 1.2 trillion, lower than the pre-Covid-19 level of Rs 1.3 trillion in 2019-20.
- This has benefitted from the considerable expansion in their revenue receipts this year, forecasted at 24.7 per cent, compared to a moderate 12.4 per cent increase in their aggregate revenue expenditure.
- This anticipated shrinking of the revenue deficit has allowed states to plan for a substantial expansion in their capital expenditure and net lending pegged at 34.1 per cent.
- This anticipated shrinking also allowed the States to attempt a modest correction in their budgeted fiscal deficit, bringing it down to Rs 7.6 trillion in 2021-22 from Rs 8.7 trillion in 2020-21 (RE).
Fiscal concerns over second Covid wave
- The second wave of Covid-19 infections and its spread to rural areas has fanned fiscal concerns.
- The curtailed consumption of discretionary items and contact-intensive services will dampen the growth of states’ own tax revenues this year.
- Moreover, lower mobility during the regional lockdowns will constrain tax revenues that states earn on fuels.
- The data for the generation of GST e-way bills confirms that the staggered imposition of the localised lockdowns has had an adverse impact on economic activity since April.
- This will result in a sequential slowdown in GST collections that will be reported in the subsequent two months.
- Nevertheless, the GST collections is likely to nearly double to Rs 1.7 trillion in the first quarter of this year, up from Rs 0.9 trillion over the same period last year, boosted by the record-high collections in April,
- That reflected healthy economic activity in March.
The shortfall and way forward
- States’ own tax collections is estimated to trail their budget estimates as they were drawn up before the second wave.
- For this year, state GST collections would be at Rs 6.1 trillion, falling below their projected revenues of Rs 8.7 trillion.
- This indicates a GST compensation requirement of Rs 2.65 trillion — only 38 per cent of which may be met through the expected GST compensation cess collections.
- Following the meeting of the GST Council, the Finance Minister has indicated that a back-to-back loan of Rs 1.58 trillion will be provided to the states.
- If the tranches of this loan start flowing to the states soon, it will alleviate their anticipated revenue crunch over the next two months.
- Already, there has been a sharp rise in the size of the upcoming State Development Loan auction to Rs. 19,550 crore, relative to the modest average size of around Rs. 7,400 crore seen so far in the first eight auctions held in FY2022.
Conclusion
In any case, the capital spending budgeted by certain state governments this year appears to be optimistic. Moreover, localised restrictions imposed during the last two months are expected to have constrained activity.
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