Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Various committees and their roles.
Mains level: Paper 2- Role of parliamentary committees
The article discusses the important role played by the various committees and their significance.
Committee system for legislative scrutiny
- Over the years, the Indian Parliament has increasingly adopted the committee system as did the other democracies in the world.
- This helped in housekeeping, to enhance the efficacy of the House to cope with the technical issues confronting it and to feel the public pulse.
- But the committee approach also helped to guard its turf and keep it abreast to exercise accountability on the government.
Important role played by the committees
- Committees are the guardians of the autonomy of the House: consider the role of committees of scrutiny and oversight.
- In the discharge of their mandate, the committee can solicit expert advice and elicit public opinion.
- Besides the standing committees, the Houses of Parliament set up, from time to time, ad hoc committees to enquire and report on specific subjects which include Select Committees of a House or Joint Select Committees of both the Houses.
- Departmentally-related Standing Committees (DRSCs) were envisaged to be the face of Parliament in a set of inter-related departments and ministries.
Issues
- Committees of scrutiny and advice, both standing and ad hoc, have been confined to the margins or left in the lurch in the last few years.
- While 60% of the Bills in the 14th Lok Sabha and 71% in the 15th Lok Sabha were wetted by the DRSCs concerned, this proportion came down to 27% in the 16th Lok Sabha.
- The government has shown extreme reluctance to refer Bills to Select Committees of the Houses or Joint Parliamentary Committees.
Conclusion
The government must not forget that the primary role of Parliament is deliberation, discussion and reconsideration, the hallmarks of democratic institutions, and not a platform that endorses decisions already arrived at.
Back2Bascis: Parliamentary Committees
Broadly, they are classified into two categories — standing committees and ad hoc committees.
1) Standing Committees
- As the name suggests, these committees cover all the ministries and departments of the Government of India.
- Standing committees are more permanent in nature, and are constituted from time to time in pursuance of the provisions of an Act of Parliament or Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha.
- The standing committees are further divided into financial committees and departmentally-related standing committees (DRSCs).
- There are 24 DRSCs in total — 16 from Lok Sabha and 8 from the Rajya Sabha.
- Financial committees are of three kinds — the estimates committee, the public accounts committee and the committee on public undertakings.
2) Ad hoc committees
- Ad hoc committees are appointed for a specific purpose and they cease to exist after they finish the task assigned to them and submit a report.
- These include advisory committees and inquiry committees.
- Advisory committees include select and joint committees on bills.
- Inquiry committees are constituted to inquire into a specific issue and report on it.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Sustainable Development
Mains level: Paper 3- Sustainable development
The article explains the importance of focusing on the green supply chain for ensuring sustainability along with the progress of the organisations.
Sustainability as an essential issue
- The U.N’s. Millennium Development Goals and the World Bank Group’s global practices have recognised sustainability as an essential issue of global importance.
- Economic, social and other forms of sustainability have evolved over the years, but it is environmental sustainability that has gained significant popularity.
Economy and sustainability
- Some firms have positioned environmental practices at the forefront due to legislation, and industry and government commitments.
- Several firms have prioritised environmental practices due to compelling regulatory norms, and a potential to manage costs, risks and optimise eco-friendly practices.
- However, organisations in the manufacturing sector focus on waste reduction and energy efficiency improvements excessively and fail to see the big picture of environmentalism.
Adopting green supply chains for long-lasting benefits
- Only through organisational learning can people be urged to work towards long-lasting benefits.
- In this context, green supply chain practices are useful.
- These include green procurement, green manufacturing, green distribution, and reverse logistics.
- With practices starting from acquisition of eco-friendly raw material to disposal/ reuse/ recycle of used products, employees, suppliers, distributors, retailers and customers will be able to integrate environmental concerns in the daily operations of a firm.
- Thus, green supply chain practices enable organisational learning in environmental sustainability.
- Research shows that the positive impacts of environmentalism can only be felt in the long term when they get embedded into organisational learning systems through green supply chain practices.
- The resultant learning system smoothens the knowledge flow in the organisation.
Focusing on linkages
- Linkages between green supply chain practices, corporate environmental performance, corporate economic performance is necessary for an organisation’s progress and environmental protection.
- When the different players of a manufacturing supply chain realise the inherent benefits associated with organisational learning dimensions, their drive towards environmentalism increases.
Conclusion
Policymakers should support this thinking by not merely imposing environmental practices as regulatory norms but by emphasising on the creation of green supply chain-based learning systems in manufacturing.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Social Stock Exchange
Mains level: Paper 2- Social Stock Exchange
Context
- The Securities and Exchange Board’s (SEBI) working group has submitted its report with recommendations regarding the structure, mechanisms, and regulatory framework for the proposed Social Stock Exchange (SSE).
What are Social Stock Exchanges (SSEs)?
- An SSE is a platform which allows investors to buy shares in social enterprises vetted by an official exchange.
- The Union Budget 2019 proposed setting up of first of its kind SSE in India.
- The SSE will function as a common platform where social enterprises can raise funds from the public.
- It will function on the lines of major stock exchanges like BSE and NSE. However, the purpose of the Social Stock Exchange will be different – not profit, but social welfare.
- Under the regulatory ambit of SEBI, a listing of social enterprises and voluntary organizations will be undertaken so that they can raise capital as equity, debt or as units like a mutual fund.
Issues with the idea of Social Stock Exchange
- SSE exists in one form or another in UK, Singapore, South Africa, Canada and Brazil, but it is yet to take off in any country.
- It has been an instrument focussed on social enterprises with rather poor results.
- The proposed SSE in our country could have been an interesting innovation if it was first.
- Replicating an experiment from elsewhere in an extremely complex environment of endemic poverty, high inequality and regional variation does not seem a reasoned decision.
- It is therefore important to analyse why it has been pushed as a key policy.
Why civil society is sceptical
- The 2020-21 Union Budget says that not-for-profit organisations will need to apply every five years for income tax registration to ascertain their charitable status.
- They will also need to renew their 80(G) certificate that provides tax relief to their donors.
- The not-for-profit sector would not be able to survive without the tax-exempt charitable status.
- These restrictions will open the gates to corruption and bullying by the tax and government bureaucracy.
- The SEBI working group was constituted of business leaders, government and SEBI officials with a token representative from civil society.
- Composition of the committee reflects the real intent of the SSE, which is to create instruments for market to enter the social sector.
- However, the way the exchange is envisioned makes it clear that the interests of the private sector are guiding the idea of SSE.
Will the entry of private sector benefit social sector
- The proponents of the SSE argue that it would help set standards and a performance matrix for the social sector.
- SSE is also expected to help bench-marking of sector actors (credibility checks), organise information and data, help in impact assessments, and do capacity building for the sector.
Solving complex social problems
- Poverty or injustice are essentially systemic and political questions that need multi-pronged dynamic engagement.
- Developing set standards of impact assessment and performance matrix has the risk of privileging only one approach to the developmental challenges at hand.
- The SSE would create more intermediaries and benefit larger organisations.
- More than 99 per cent of the three million NGOs in the country are in the small category and will be untouched by the SSE.
Conclusion
The core business of the SSE is to strengthen the social sector and bring new resources to it, SEBI for sure itself would admit that it is not the appropriate anchor.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: RTI
Mains level: Paper 2- RTI and issue of transparency
The article discusses the issue of growing lack of transparency in the functioning of government.
Issues with Transparent Governance in India
1) Electoral bond
- They were introduced in February 2017— they allowed anonymous donations to political parties and, therefore, protected the privacy of the donors.
- The Election Commission of India (ECI) criticised the opacity of this financial mechanism.
- The ECI told the government that this arrangement would prevent the state from ascertaining whether a political party has taken any donation in violation of provisions under Section 29B of the Representation of the People Act.
- Section 29B prohibits the political parties from taking donations from government companies and foreign sources.
- Electoral bonds also made it impossible to check whether a company was giving to parties more than what the Companies Act (2013) permitted, that is 7.5 per cent of the net average profit of the three preceding financial years.
2) Sealed envelopes
- Sealed envelope has become a modus operandi in several Indian institutions, including the Supreme Court (SC).
- In the case of political funding by electoral bonds or otherwise, a three-judge bench in 2019 directed political parties to submit the details of donations received to the ECI in sealed cover.
- The Assam administration had to show the progress it was making in the implementation of the National Register of Citizens by submitting reports in sealed covers.
3) Undermining RTI
(A) Reluctance to fill vacancies
- The government did not appoint a Chief Information Commissioner for a year after the incumbent retired in August 2014.
- Similaryly, government did not fill vacant information commissioner posts in the Central Information Commission (CIC) between 2016 and 2018.
- The backlog of pending appeals had reached 30,000 cases in late 2019 as the CIC has become a rather dysfunctional body.
(B) Government refusing to disclose infromation
- The government refused to disclose information which was previously available under the RTI Act.
- Queries about phone tapping are not responded to anymore.
- In 2016-17, the home and finance ministries rejected close to 15 per cent of the applications they received while the RBI and public sector banks rejected 33 per cent.
- The RBI, for instance, refused to give any information about the decision-making process that led to demonetisation.
(C) Limiting the powers of CIC
- During the 2019 Monsoon Session of Parliament, government amended the RTI Act to limit the power of the CIC.
- The five-year fixed tenure for the Chief Information Commissioner and information commissioners was abolished.
- Their salaries were not fixed any more, but notified separately by the government.
4.Diluting Whisleblower’s Protection Act
- Whistleblowers can now be prosecuted for possessing the documents on which the complaint has been made.
- Issues flagged by them have to be in “public interest”.
- Issues flagged should not be “affecting the sovereignty and integrity of India”, related to “commercial confidence” or “information received in confidence from a foreign government.
5.Issues with statistical information
- The National Statistical Commission and the Chief Statistician of India faced a credibility crisis when the new GDP series was released.
- Similarly, the National Crime Records Bureau has been affected by delays (its 2017 report was released in October 2019) and deletions.
- The National Sample Survey Office has also raised several concerns.
Conclusion
Transparency is not only necessary for maintaining a democratic polity, it is also necessary for making the economy work. Government actions must be informed by this fact.
B2BASICS
Electoral bond
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Online education and issues with it
Pandemic has forced learning to the online mode. But there are several concerns with the online leaning. The article discusses the same.
Providing learning opportunity in pandemic
- The main thrust of providing learning opportunities while schools are shut is online teaching.
- There are several sets of guidelines and plans issues by the government, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for this purpose.
- The Internet space is teeming with learning schemes, teaching videos, sites and portals for learning opportunities.
3 issues with online learning
1) Increasing inequality
- Calamities, be they natural or man-made, affect the underprivileged the hardest, COVID-19 is no exception.
- The COVID-19 shutdown has affected opportunity for the poor even harder than their counterparts from well-to-do sections of society.
- The government began plans for students with no online access only by the end of August.
- But online or digital education is available is for students with only online access.
- Thus, digital India may become even more unequal and divided than it already is.
2) Pedagogical issues leading to bad quality education
- The quality of online teaching-learning leaves much to be desired.
- Listening to lectures on the mobile phone, copying from the board where the teacher is writing, frequent disconnections can hardly and organically connect the child’s present understanding with the logically organised bodies of human knowledge.
- The secondary students are in a better position still because of their relative independence in learning and possible self-discipline.
- The beginners in the lower primary can get nothing at all from this mode of teaching.
3) An unwarranted thrust on online education, post-COVID-19
- All reliable studies seem to indicate that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the classroom helps in already well-functioning systems, and either has no benefits or negative impact in poorly performing systems.
- That does not indicate much hope from IT in our education system.
- Transformation of schools in the current understanding of pedagogy, suitability of learning material and quality of learning provided through IT will further devastate the already inadequate system of school education in the country.
- Of course, IT can be used in a balanced manner where it can help; but it should not be seen as a silver bullet to remedy all ills in the education system.
Importance of institutional environment
- The institutional environment plays an important role online teaching.
- Even when the institutions function sub-optimally, students themselves create an environment that supports their growth morally, socially and intellectually in conversations and interactions with each other.
- The online mode of teaching completely forecloses this opportunity.
Conclusion
Our democracy and public education system should try to address the issues raised here while promoting the online mode of education.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Agri bills related to agri markets and contract farming
The faremers have been protesting against the agri bill. This article explains the rationale behind the bill and how it could help the farmers.
Challenges Indian agriculture face
- Indian agriculture has been characterised by fragmentation due to small holding sizes, weather dependence, production uncertainties, huge wastage and market unpredictability.
- This makes agriculture risky and inefficient with respect to both input and output management.
Recent steps to help farmers
- The government has taken various steps in this direction, for example-
- The implementation of the Swaminathan committee’s recommendation regarding fixing MSP at least 50 per cent profits on the cost of production.
- Increasing the agri budget by more than 11 times in the past 10 years.
- Establishing e-NAM mandis.
- An Agriculture Infrastructure Fund of Rs 1 lakh crore under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Package, the scheme for the formation of 10,000 FPOs, etc.
What the agri bills seek to achieve
- The bills will create an ecosystem where farmers and traders enjoy the freedom of choice of sale and purchase of farming produce.
- This freedom of choice will help to facilitate remunerative prices to farmers through competitive alternative trading channels.
- This will promote barrier-free inter-state and intra-state trade and commerce of farming produce outside the physical premises of markets notified under state agricultural produce marketing legislation.
- The farm bills also lay the ground of a legal framework for fair and transparent farming agreements between farmers and sponsors.
- This framework will facilitate greater certainty in quality and price, adoption of quality and grading standards, linkage of farming agreements with insurance and credit instruments and also enable the farmer to access modern technology and better inputs.
- These recommendations have been made by the Swaminathan Committee, which suggested the removal of the mandi tax, creation of a single market and facilitating contract farming.
Safeguard in the bill
- The bill have several safeguards such as the prohibition of sale, lease or mortgage of farmers’ land and farmers’ land is also protected against any recovery.
- Farming agreements cannot be entered into, if they are in derogation of the rights of a sharecropper.
- Farmers will have access to flexible prices subject to a guaranteed price in agreements.
- The sponsor has to ensure the timely acceptance of delivery and payment of produce to farmers and farmers’ liability is limited to only the advance received and cost of inputs provided by the sponsor.
- Disputes will be resolved through a Conciliation Board, to be constituted by the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM), failing which an aggrieved party may approach the concerned SDM for the settlement of the dispute.
Consider the question “What are the changes introduced by the two recent bills passed by the government related to agri markets and contract farming how will these changes be helpful to the farmers?”
Conclusion
These farm bills will bring transformative changes in our agricultural sector and reduce wastage, increase efficiency, unlock value for our farmers and increase farmers’ incomes.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Indra exercise
Mains level: Paper 2-India-Russia relations
The article analyses the challenges in the India-Russia relations against the background of changing global order.
Context
- India decided to pull out of Russia’s Kavkaz 2020 military exercises, where it was scheduled to participate alongside other Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states.
Russia’s role in India-China dispute
- The ongoing conflict between two prominent members, and both close partners of Russia, has given rise to concerns about its impact on India-Russia ties.
- Moscow has been playing a quiet diplomatic role during the recent border clashes without actively taking sides.
- Recent visits by India’s Defence Minister to Russia saw detailed discussions around furthering the India-Russia defence relationship alongside the promise to accelerate certain supplies based on New Delhi’s requirements.
- The September visit coincided with the biannual Indo-Russian naval exercises, INDRA.
India-Russia relations
- India and Russia have spent the past few years strengthening their partnership, particularly since the 2018 Sochi informal summit.
- From substantive defence engagement to regional questions in Central Asia, Afghanistan and West Asia, a conversation with Moscow remains an important element of Indian foreign policy.
- India and Russia are pragmatic players looking at maximising their strategic manoeuvrability,
- Both recognise the value of having a diversified portfolio of ties. .
- India on its part has sought to include Russia in its vision of the Indo-Pacific that does not see the region as ‘a strategy or as a club of limited members’.
- Reports indicate that a proposal for a India-Russia-Japan trilateral is being explored.
Multilateral forums and Challenges in India-Russia relation
- The multilateral forums are important as they foster continued India-Russia cooperation at the bilateral and multilateral levels.
- Increasingly divergent foreign policies of its members pose challenges of agenda-setting and overall scope.
- At this moment of flux, countries such as India and Russia are keeping all their options open.
- We live in a ‘curious world’ where one cannot view engagement with different parties as a ‘zero-sum game’.
- Worsening India-China ties or a burgeoning China-Russia relationship does not automatically mean a breakdown of the India-Russia strategic partnership.
- It is the combination of a changing regional order, closer Russia-China ties and India’s alignment with the United States and other like-minded countries to manage Beijing’s rise that has the potential to create hurdles for India-Russia cooperation in the Asia.
Consider the question “Despite difficulties in pursuing convergent policies, India-China relations retains its relevance. Comment.”
Conclusion
Although the evolving global order makes it difficult for India and Russia to pursue fully convergent policies, it does not preclude the bilateral relationship from retaining its relevance.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Issues with the agriculture bill
The article analyses the issue of farmers opposition to the three agricultural bills.
Context
- Farmers have been protesting against the three bills related to agriculture.
- These three Bills are-
- 1) The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020
- 2) The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020.
- 3) The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020.
What are the aims of the bills?
- The Bills aim to do away with government interference in agricultural trade by creating trading areas outside the structure of Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs).
- One of the bills aims at removing restrictions of private stockholding (under Essential Commodities Act 1955) of agricultural produce.
- One of the bills deals with the regulation of contract farming.
Issues with the Bills
- The government has failed to hold any discussion with the various stakeholders including farmers and middlemen.
- The attempt to pass the Bills without proper consultation adds to the mistrust among various stakeholders including State governments.
- Farmer organisations see these Bills as an attempt to weaken the APMCs and eventual withdrawal of the Minimum Support Prices (MSP).
- Farmers in Punjab and Haryana have genuine concern about the continuance of the MSP-based public procurement given the large-scale procurement operations in these States.
Understanding the role of APMC
- APMCs do play an important role of price discovery essential for agricultural trade and production choices.
- The middlemen are a part of the larger ecosystem of agricultural trade, with deep links between farmers and traders.
- The preference for corporate interests at the cost of farmers’ interests and a lack of regulation in these non-APMC mandis are cause for concern.
- To understand the role of APMC, consider the example of Bihar.
- After Bihar abolished APMCs in 2006, farmers in Bihar on average received lower prices compared to the MSP for most crops.
- Despite the shortcomings and regional variations, farmers still see the APMC mandis as essential to ensuring the survival of MSP regime.
Conclusion
The protests by farmers are essentially a reflection of the mistrust between farmers and the stated objective of these reforms.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GST Council, GST compensation etc.
Mains level: Paper 3- GST compensation issue
The article deal with the issue of GST compensation and analyses the various estimates of revenue shortfall given by the Centre.
Context
- The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting has now been deferred to the first week of October due to sharp disagreement between the States and the Centre.
Background of GST
- The Centre had brought the States on board GST by promising higher revenue collection.
- States were lured by the promise of 14% annual growth in GST revenue over the base year of 2015-16.
- Any shortfall from this (for five years) was to be compensated by levying a cess on luxury and sin goods.
What are the options given by the Centre
- The transfers due since April 2020 have been withheld.
- In the last GST Council meeting held on August 27, the Centre gave the States two options.
- First, they could borrow ₹97,000 crore (the shortfall in the GST revenue compensation) from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under a special window at a low rate of interest.
- Second, borrow ₹2.35-lakh crore (the total compensation shortfall) from the market with the RBI facilitating it.
- The burden of repayment would be borne by the future collections from the compensation cess.
- It was proposed that this cess which was to end in June 2022 could be extended to facilitate the repayment of the debt.
Issues with the estimates
- Given the uncertainty, how accuracy of the estimates of ₹97,000 crore and ₹2.35-lakh crore offered to the States is questionable.
- When the Ministry of Finance is refusing to give a figure for growth in 2020-21, how such estimates are arrived at gains significance.
Budgetary calculations
- The Union Budget presented on February 1, 2020 assumed a nominal growth of 10%.
- But optimistically, the Centre’s budgetary calculations will be off by at least 20%.
- Revenue will fall by much more than 20%.
- So, income tax collection will also be short by much more than 20%.
- The direct tax/GDP per cent may be expected to fall from 5.5% last year to less than 4% this fiscal.
- Thus, at an optimistic guess, if the economy declines by only 10%, the total tax collection will be down by about ₹12-lakh crore in 2020-21.
Conclusion
As many predictions are that the economy will be down by much more than 10% used in the calculations above, the revenue shortfall is likely to be far greater. This points to the dire position of the Centre (and the States) and the inevitability of a large borrowing programme. Only the Centre is in a position to do such massive borrowing.
Back2Basics: Two options for the GST compensation
- Option 1 has a special window for states, coordinated by the Finance Ministry, to borrow the projected shortfall of Rs 97,000 crore only on account of GST implementation — and not the Covid-19 pandemic.
- This amount can be fully repaid from the compensation cess fund, without being counted as states’ debt.
- Option 2 takes into account the impact of the pandemic, proposing states to borrow the entire Rs 2.35 lakh crore and bearing the interest burden though principal will be repaid from the cess proceeds.
- The GST shortfall amount (Rs 97,000 crore) will not be counted as states’ debt, while the rest of the amount of Rs 1.38 lakh crore will be counted in the books of the states.
Source:
https://indianexpress.com/article/business/economy/gst-compensation-centre-gives-states-2-options-easier-terms-for-lower-borrowing-6575499/
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Afghan peace process and India's role
The U.S. objectives
- Following 4 were the states as objectives of the Afghan peace process.
- 1) An end to violence by declaring a ceasefire.
- 2) An intra-Afghan dialogue for a lasting peace.
- 3) The Taliban cutting ties with terrorist organisations such as al Qaeda.
- 4) U.S. troop withdrawal.
Evolving Indian stand in the peace process
- India’s vision of a sovereign, united, stable, plural and democratic Afghanistan is one that is shared by a large constituency in Afghanistan, cutting across ethnic and provincial lines.
- At Doha meeting, India’s External Affairs Ministerreiterated that the peace process must be “Afghan led, Afghan owned and Afghan controlled”.
- But Indian policy has evolved from its earlier hands-off approach to the Taliban.
- U.S. and Russian representatives suggested if India had concerns regarding anti-India activities of terrorist groups, it must engage directly with the Taliban. In other words.
Limited interest of the major powers
- Major powers have limited interests in the peace process.
- The European Union has made it clear that its financial contribution will depend on the security environment and the human rights record.
- China can always lean on Pakistan to preserve its security and connectivity interests.
- For Russia, blocking the drug supply and keeping its southern periphery secure from extremist influences is key.
- That is why no major power is taking ownership for the reconciliation talks, but merely content with being facilitators.
Conclusion
A more active engagement will enable India to work with like-minded forces in the region to ensure that the vacuum created by the U.S. withdrawal does not lead to an unravelling of the gains registered during the last two decades.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Seventh Schedule
Mains level: Paper 2- Federal system
The article analyses the issues of distribution of powers under the Constitution and the issues linked with it.
Debate on the role of Centre and states
- There is an argument for the need to re-examine the distribution of powers under the Seventh Schedule so as to rationalise the Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs).
- Under the Centrally Sponsored SchemesCentre extends support in sectors pertaining to the State List.
- Spending by the Centre on a state subject like health and need for states’ contribute to a Union subject like defence is considered.
- However, the constitutional assignments between the Centre and subnational governments in federations, are done broadly on the basis of their respective comparative advantage.
- That is why the provision of national public goods is in the federal domain and those with the state-level public service span are assigned to the states.
3 settled issues in the debate
- The debate seems to have settled on at least three counts.
- One, the federal organisation of powers can be revisited and reframed.
- Two, the CSSs must continue but they should be restructured.
- Three, there is a need for an appropriate forum to discuss the complex and contentious issue of reviewing federal organisation of powers and restructuring of central transfers.
Review of the subjects in lists
- In spite of health being a state subject, the response to collective threats linked to the subject required some kind of organisation of federal responsibilities on a functional basis.
- A typical response is to recommend shifting subjects to the Concurrent List to enable an active role for the Centre.
- The High-Level Group, constituted by the 15th Finance Commission, recommended shifting health from the State to the Concurrent List.
- A similar recommendation was made earlier by the Ashok Chawla Committee for water.
Challenges
- Shifting of subjects from the State to Concurrent List in times of acute sub-nationalism, deep territorialisation and competitive federalism is going to be challenging.
Way forward
- The most collective threats and the challenges of coping with emerging risks of sustainability are linked to either the State List subjects or require actions by states — water, agriculture, biodiversity, pollution, climate change.
- This extended role of ensuring security against threats to sustainability of resources forms a new layer of considerations.
- This should define the contours of a coordinated response between the Centre and States — as it happened during the pandemic.
- In fact, such threats and challenges require the states to play a dominant role.
- At the same time, the Centre must expand its role beyond the mitigation of inter-state externalities and address the challenges of security and sustainability.
Consider the question “The federal organisation of powers under the Constitution’s Seventh Schedule needs review. In light of this, examine the problems faced by the distribution and suggest the challenge the review would face.”
Conclusion
The ongoing friction between the Centre and the states over GST reforms tells us that consensus-building is not a one-time exercise. It has to allow sustained dialogue and deliberation. Perhaps it is time to revisit the proposal for an elevated and empowered Inter-State Council.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Paris Agreement
Mains level: Paper 3- Paris Agreement and India's progress on climate action
The article takes stock of India’s climate action and the issue of phasing out the use of coal.
Context
- The UN Secretary-General called on India to give up coal immediately and reduce emissions by 45% by 2030.
State of India’s climate action
- India’s renewable energy programme is ambitious and its energy efficiency programme is delivering, especially in the domestic consumption sector.
- India is one of the few countries with at least 2° Celsius warming compliant climate action.
- India is also among one of smaller list of countries on track to fulfilling their Paris Agreement commitments.
- India’s annual emissions, at 0.5 tonnes per capita, are well below the global average of 1.3 tonnes.
- In terms of cumulative emissions, India’s contribution by 2017 was only 4% for a population of 1.3 billion.
How West is performing?
- While talking about their phasing out of coal, the global North has obscured the reality of its continued dependence on oil and natural gas, both equally fossil fuels, with no timeline for their phaseout.
- While it is amply clear that their commitments into the future set the world on a path for almost 3°C warming, they have diverted attention by fuzzy talk of “carbon neutrality” by 2050.
- Environmentalists in developed countries, unable to summon up the domestic political support have turned to pressure the developing countries.
- All of these are accompanied by increasing appeals to multilateral or First World financial and development institutions to force this agenda on to developing countries.
Implications of ending coal investment for India
- Currently, roughly 2 GW of coal-based generation is being decommissioned per year.
- But meeting the 2030 electricity consumption target of 1,580 to 1,660 units per person per year, will require anywhere between 650 GW to 750 GW of renewable energy.
- Unlike the developed nations, India cannot substitute coal substantially by oil and gas and despite some wind potential, a huge part of this growth needs to come from solar.
- However, renewables at best can meet residential consumption and some part of the demand from the service sector.
- Currently, manufacturing growth powered by fossil fuel-based energy is itself a necessity.
Conclusion
India must unanimously reject the UN Secretary General’s call and reiterate its long-standing commitment to an equitable response to the challenge of global warming.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India-China relations
Context
- After the skirmish at the border, Beijing started to concentrate troops, armoured vehicles and munitions opposite our posts in Aksai China at Galwan.
2 interpretations of China’s move
- First believes that the Chinese exercise was a territorial snatch in Aksai Chin, which they believe is entirely theirs.
- The move was accompanied by a “lesson” to the Indians on aggressive Indian behaviour in not conceding Aksai Chin.
- The second school of thought in India believes that territory has nothing to do with it.
- They believe that, due to growing economic power, Beijing will lay down the rules of world governance.
How it matters for India
- India contest China’s entire southern border, refuse to join the Belt and Road initiative, create an anti-China maritime coalition, compete with them for influence in South East Asia and Africa.
- India is also unsupportive of their crackdown on Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang and move ever closer to the United States.
- When China assumes hegemonic power after 2030, India is going to get a nasty surprise.
- Secularism, democracy and the rights of man will play no part in Chinese foreign policy.
- China will overturn every international, financial, trade, diplomatic, arms control and nuclear agreement that the world has put together in seven decades.
Way forward
- We in India need to conduct a large and vociferous debate on Chinese intentions.
- If the Chinese intention is to “teach us a lesson” we need a new national strategy, combining diplomatic and military means.
- If our national goal is to concentrate on the creation of wealth and growing GDP, let us proclaim it, tighten our belt, look down and avoid conflict.
Conclusion
What China wants is Indian acceptance of Beijing’s benign superiority, and that is a purely Chinese trait, not to be confused with the known rules of international diplomacy. Talking from a position of inferiority will not lead to an equitable solution. But first, a national debate.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Reorganisation of States
Mains level: Paper 2- Federalism in India
The article analyses the challenges federalism in India faces and the important role played by the division of states based on the languages.
Three conceptions of nationalism in India
- Following three conceptions of nationalism were prevalent in India before independence.
- The first, the idea that a community with a strongly unified culture must have a single state of its own.
- The second saw the nation as defined by a common culture whose adherents must have a state of their own.
- But this common culture was not ethno-religious.
- It conceives common culture in terms of a strong idea of unity that marginalises or excludes other particular identities.
- A third nationalism accepts that communities nourished by distinct, territorially concentrated regional cultures have the capacity to design states of their own as also educational, legal, economic, and other institutions.
- This may be called a coalescent nationalism consistent with a fairly strong linguistic federalism.
- The central state associated with it is not multi-national.
- At best, it is a multi-national state without labels, one that does not call itself so; a self-effacing multi-national state.
Suspicion of linguistic identities
- After Partition, the Indian ruling class began to view with suspicion the political expression of even linguistic identities.
- It was feared that federation structured along ethno-linguistic lines might tempt politicians to mobilise permanently on the basis of language.
- The second fear was about an increase in the likelihood of inter-ethnic violence, encourage separatism and eventually lead to India’s break up.
- Thus, when the Constitution came into force in 1950, India adopted unitary, civic nationalism as its official ideology.
Formation of states on linguistic basis and its implications
- A unitary mindset shaped by the experience of a centralised colonial state was resurrected.
- The second tier of government was justified in functional terms, not on ethical grounds of the recognition of group cultures.
- Following the Committee’s recommendations, States were reorganised in 1956.
- India slowly became a coalescent nation-state, moving from the ‘holding together’ variety to what is called the ‘coming together’ form of (linguistic) federalism.
- This meant that regional parties were stronger than earlier in their own regions and at the centre.
- This let to more durable centre because it was grounded more on the consent and participation of regional groups that, at another level, were also self-governing.
- Indian federalism also attempted to remove its rigidities by incorporating asymmetries in the relation between the Centre and different States.
- Treating all States as equals required the acknowledgement of their specific needs and according them differential treatment.
Conclusion
Coalescent nationalism has served India well, benefiting several groups in India. True, it has not worked as well in India’s border areas such as the North-east and Kashmir. But their problems can only be resolved by deepening not abandoning coalescent nationalism.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Basic Structure doctrine
Mains level: Paper 2- Basic Structure and essential feature doctrine
The article revisits the impact and significance of the case for the democracy in India.
Understanding the Basic Structure doctrine
- Basic Structure and essential features doctrine was expounded in the Kesavananda Bharati case.
- In the case, the validity of the 29th amendment which immunised, in the Ninth Schedule Kerala’s takeover of the religious mutt’s property was challenged.
- Basic structure is the power of judicial review and essential features are what the Court identifies as such in the exercise of that power.
- Justice Bhagwati remarkably enunciated as an essential feature the “harmony” between fundamental rights and directive principles.
- The crucial message though is that the apex court has, in the rarest of rare cases, the constituent power to pronounce a constitutional amendment invalid.
Limits on the powers of Supreme Court
- The Court is bound by the “golden triangle” of rights created by Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution.
- Court must derive the “spirit” of the Constitution by reference to the provisions of the Constitution.
- Since 1973, the evidence shows the Apex Court has shown utmost democratic responsibility and rectitude in interpreting the doctrine of BSEF.
Consider the question asked by the UPSC in 2019 “Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution is limited power and it cannot be enlarged into absolute power”. In light of this statement explain whether parliament under article 368 of the constitution can destroy the Basic Structure of the Constitution by expanding its amending power? “
Conclusion
The ultimate message of BSEF doctrine is not merely to set limits to the power of the managers of people, but to make little by little the tasks of emancipation less onerous.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Issue of employment in India
The article discusses the issue of vulnerability of informal jobs in India and suggests the steps to address the problem.
The urban unemployment in India crept up to 9.83% in August as against 9.15% in July, according to monthly unemployment data released Tuesday by the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). In other words, roughly one in every 10 person in urban areas cannot find work
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2-National Education Policy
The article analyses the missing focus on the rural youth in the National Education Policy 2020 and its implications.
Education in rural India and NEP
- Poor quality education marks and mars the lives of rural citizens.
- The NEP fails to address the growing school differentiation in which government schools are now primarily attended by children of disadvantaged castes and Adivasi groups.
- The mushrooming of private schools caters to the aspirations of the more advantaged castes and classes.
- The NEP overlooks the complexity of contemporary rural India, which is marked by a sharp deceleration of its economy, extant forms of distress, and widespread poverty.
- Rural candidates are finding it increasingly difficult to gain entry into professional education.
- The lack of fit between their degrees and the job market means that several lakhs of them find themselves both “unemployable” and unemployed.
What the NEP misses
- NEP overlooks the general adverse integration of the rural into the larger macroeconomy and into poor quality mass higher education.
- The report calls for the “establishment of large, multi-discipline universities and colleges” and places emphasis on online and distance learning (ODL).
- However, correspondence courses and distance education degrees have become a source of revenue generation for universities.
- The possibility of forging and promoting environmental studies for local ecological restoration and conservation are missing.
- Emphasis on local health and healing traditions from the vast repertoire of medical knowledge is missing.
- Vernacular architectural traditions and craftsmanship to use local resources find no mention at all in the NEP.
Neoliberal ideas in NEP
- The NEP moots the possibility of establishing “Special Education Zones” in disadvantaged areas and in “aspirational districts”.
- But the report provides no details as to how such SEZs will function and who will be the beneficiaries of such institutions.
Conclusion
The NEP fails to cater to the needs of rural India’s marginalised majority, who in so many ways are rendered into being subjects rather than citizens.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Peace in the Middle East
Realignment of relations is taking place in the Middle East with wider implications for the future of the region. India needs to reconsider its framework based on the non-involvement.
Recent geopolitical developments
- India-China tensions have soared over the border issue.
- The Afghan peace process is underway with the first direct talks between Kabul and the Taliban insurgents at Doha, in Qatar.
- The normalisation of the relations between Israel and Arab countries began with the UAE and Bahrain normalising the relations.
Issues with the development
- The chances of failure in Afghanistan are real.
- The momentum behind the normalisation of ties between Israel and the Gulf kingdoms, may not necessarily lead to broader peace in the Middle East.
- The US initiatives in Afghanistan and Arabia are driven by President Donald Trump’s quest for diplomatic victories.
Why it matters to India
1) The vulnerability of the peace process
- Because of competing interests, the peace process in Afghanistan and the Middle East remain vulnerable.
- The unfolding dynamic will alter the geopolitical landscape in both places.
- Whether peace breaks out in Afghanistan or not, the Taliban is here to stay.
- As UAE and Bahrain join Egypt and Jordan in having formal relationships with Israel, the contradiction between Arabs and Israelis is no longer the dominant one in the region.
2) India should recognise the importance of Arabia
- India’s strategic community tends to take too narrow a view of the Arabian salience.
- The focus is mostly on ensuring oil supplies, promoting manpower exports, and managing the Pakistan problem.
- We should consider that the Afghan peace talks are taking place in Qatar, a tiny Gulf Kingdom.
- The UAE and Saudi Arabia were the only countries to recognise the Taliban government in the late 1990s.
- This time around, they appear to have taken a backseat.
- Delhi will need to pay more attention to the unfolding realignments between the Arabs and non-Arab states like Iran, Turkey and Israel.
3) Paradox of American power
- The U.S. is being seen as a declining power in the matters of the Middle East and Afghanistan.
- But the reality remains that the US is the one forcing a change in both the places.
4) Implications of strategic vacuum created by the U.S. exit
- As the US steps back from the region, the resulting strategic vacuum is likely to be filled by Russia and China.
- Russia and China are quite active in both the Middle East and Afghanistan.
- China’s future role in Afghanistan, in partnership with Pakistan, could be quite significant and will be of some concern for India.
- Regional powers have already acquired much say in the new geopolitics of the Middle East.
- Qatar and UAE punch way above their weight, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are locked in a major contest for regional influence.
5) Domestic politics in the country
- Religious radicalism, sectarian and ethnic divisions, and the clamour for more representative governments are sharpening conflicts within and between countries.
- The collapse of the oil market is undermining the region’s economic fortunes.
- Collapsing oil market is also making it harder for political elites to address the emerging political challenges.
Consider the question “Middle East is going through the major realignment of relations. What are its implications for India?.
Conclusion
As the old order begins to crumble in the greater Middle East, the question is no longer whether India should join the geopolitical jousting there; but when, how and in partnership with whom.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Question hour and zero hour comparison
Mains level: Paper 2- Question hour and its significance
The article highlights the significance of question hour in democracy.
Context
- The decision to go without “Question Hour” during the Monsoon Session of Parliament, beginning September 14, has evoked serious concerns about the democratic functioning of the institution.
Significance of question hour
- Question Hour is an opportunity for the members to raise questions,
- It is also a parliamentary device primarily meant for exercising legislative control over executive actions.
- It is also a device to criticise government policies and programmes, ventilate public grievances, expose the government’s lapses, extract promises from ministers.
- In short, question hour helps to ensure accountability and transparency in governance.
Right to question the executive: Historical background
- The right to question the executive has been exercised by members of the House from the colonial period.
- The first Legislative Council in British India under the Charter Act, 1853, allowed members the power to ask questions to the executive.
- The Indian Council Act of 1861 allowed members to elicit information by means of questions.
- However, it was the Indian Council Act, 1892, which formulated the rules for asking questions including short notice questions.
- The Indian Council Act, 1909, which incorporated provisions for asking supplementary questions by members.
- The Montague-Chelmsford reforms brought forth a significant change in 1919 by incorporating a rule that the first hour of every meeting was earmarked for questions.
- Parliament has continued this tradition.
- Since 1921, the question on which a member desired to have an oral answer, was distinguished by him with an asterisk, a star.
Recent instances in which right to ask questions was curtailed
- The government passed important bills in the first session of the 17th Lok Sabha before the formation of department-related standing committees.
- The Constitution Amendment Bill on J&K was introduced without circulating copies to the members.
- Several important bills were passed as Finance Bills to avoid scrutiny of the Rajya Sabha.
- Standing committees are an extension of Parliament.
- Any person has the right to present his/her opinion to a Bill during the process of consideration.
Consider the question “What is the significance of question hour in the context of democracy in India? What is the implication of its suspension due to pandemic?”
Conclusion
The government’s actions erode the constitutional mandate of parliamentary oversight over executive actions as envisaged under Article 75 (3) of the Indian Constitution.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Malnutrition and health of the child
The article analyses the problem of malnutrition in India and suggests the pathways to achieve the malnutrition free India by 2030.
Severity of the nourishment problem in India
- There were 189.2 million undernourished people (28 per cent of the world) in India in 2017-19, as per the combined report of FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO (FAO, et.al. 2020) on “The state of Food Security and Nutrition in the World”.
- India accounts for 28 per cent (40.3 million) of the world’s stunted children (low height-for-age) under five years of age, and 43 per cent (20.1 million) of the world’s wasted children (low weight-for-height) in 2019.
- In India, the problem has been more severe amongst children below the age of five years.
- As per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS, 2015-16), the proportion of underweight and stunted children was as high as 35.8 per cent and 38.4 per cent respectively.
- In several districts of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and even Gujarat, the proportion of underweight children was more than 40 per cent.
Aims of the National Nutrition Mission (NNM)
- Ending all forms of malnutrition by 2030 is also the target of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-2) of Zero Hunger.
- Towards this end, NNM aims to reduce stunting, underweight and low birth weight each by 2 per cent per annum.
- It aims to reduce anaemia among children, adolescent girls and women, each by 3 per cent per annum by 2022.
- However, the Global Burden of Disease Study 1990–2017 has estimated that if the current trend continues, India cannot achieve these targets under NNM by 2022.
Understanding the key determinants and deciding policy response
1) Mothers’ education
- Mothers’ education, particularly higher education, has the strongest inverse association with under-nutrition.
- Women’s education has a multiplier effect not only on household food security but also on the child’s feeding practice and the sanitation facility.
- Despite India’s considerable improvement in female literacy, only 13.7 per cent of women have received higher education (NFHS, 2015-16).
- Therefore, programmes that promote women’s higher education such as liberal scholarships for women need to be accorded a much higher priority.
2) Sanitation and access to safe drinking water
- The second key determinant of child under-nutrition is the wealth index, which subsumes access to sanitation facilities and safe drinking water.
- WASH initiatives, that is, safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, are critical for improving child nutritional outcomes.
- In this context, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan aims to eliminate open defecation and bring about behavioural changes in hygiene and sanitation practices.
- In five years of the Abhiyan, as per government records, rural sanitation coverage has gone from 38.7 per cent in 2014 to 100 per cent in 2019, while the sanitation coverage in urban cites has gone up to 99 per cent by September 2020.
- This remarkable achievement of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, subject to third-party evaluations, is expected to have a multiplier effect on nutritional outcomes.
3) Leveraging agricultural policies
- We should leverage agricultural policies and programmes to be more “nutrition-sensitive” and reinforcing diet diversification towards a nutrient-rich diet.
- Food-based safety nets in India are biased in favour of staples: rice and wheat.
- They need to provide a more diversified food basket, including coarse grains, millets, pulses and bio-fortified staples.
- Bio-fortification is very cost-effective in improving the diet of households and the nutritional status of children.
- The Harvest-Plus programme of CGIAR can work with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to grow new varieties of nutrient-rich staple food crops.
4) Promotion of exclusive breastfeeding, complementary foods, diversified diet
- The promotion of exclusive breastfeeding and the introduction of complementary foods and a diversified diet after the first six months is essential to meet the nutritional needs of infants and ensure appropriate growth and cognitive development of children.
5) Access to prenatal and postnatal care
- Access and utilisation of prenatal and postnatal health care services also play a significant role in curbing undernutrition among children.
- Aanganwadi workers and community participation can bring significant improvements in child-caring practices.
Consider the question “Assess the severity the problem of malnutrition in India and suggest the measure to achieve the goal of malnutrition free India by 2030”
Conclusion
To contribute towards the holistic nourishment of children and a malnutrition free India by 2030, the government needs to address the multi-dimensional determinants of malnutrition on an urgent basis.
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