Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Consumer Protection Act, 2019
Mains level: Paper 2- Right to repair
Context
Apple recently announced that consumers will have the right to purchase spare components of their products, following an order of the Federal Trade Commission of the United States, which directs manufacturers to remedy unfair anti-competitive practice and asks them to make sure that consumers can make repairs, either themselves or by a third-party agency. The momentum is, however, not so strong in India.
Challenges in repairing of electronic goods
- Repairing is becoming unreasonably expensive or pretty much impossible because of technology becoming obsolete.
- Incompatibility: Companies avoid the publication of manuals that can help users make repairs easily.
- No repair manual: The absence of repair manuals means that manufacturers hold near-monopoly over repair workshops that charge consumers exorbitant prices.
- Incompatibility: Manufacturers have proprietary control over spare parts and most firms refuse to make their products compatible with those of other firms.
- Planned obsolescence results in products breaking down too soon and buying a replacement is often cheaper and easier than repairing them.
- Big companies often deploy mechanisms that practically forbid other enterprises to repair their products.
- Digital warranty cards, for instance, ensure that by getting a product from a “non-recognised” outfit, a customer loses the right to claim a warranty.
Right to repair
- The rationale behind the “right to repair” is that the individual who purchases a product must own it completely.
- This implies that apart from being able to use the product, consumers must be able to repair and modify the product the way they want to.
- Monopoly on repair processes infringes the customer’s’ “right to choose” recognised by the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
- In Shamsher Kataria v Honda Siel Cars India Ltd (2017), for instance, the Competition Commission of India ruled that restricting the access of independent automobile repair units to spare parts by way of an end-user license agreement was anti-competitive.
International practices
- Many countries have taken initiatives, adopted policies and even tried to enact legislation that recognise the “right to repair” to reduce electronic waste.
- Some jurisdictions offer limited scope for exercising the right to repair.
- For instance, under the Australian Consumer Law consumers have a right to request that certain goods be repaired if they break too easily or do not work properly.
- The Massachusetts Motor Vehicle Owners’ Right to Repair Act, 2012 requires automobile manufacturers to provide spare parts and diagnostics to buyers and even independent third-party mechanics.
- The UK also introduced the path-breaking “right to repair” in 2021 that makes it legally binding on manufacturers to provide spare parts.
Way forward
- Well-drafted legislation will not only uphold the right to repair but may aid in striking a much-needed balance between intellectual property and competitive laws in the country.
Conclusion
If people want to fix things in a timely, safe and cost-effective way, whether by doing it themselves or taking it
to a service centre of their choice, providing access to spare parts and information is imperative.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India-UK ties
Context
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosts British premier Boris Johnson this week in India, the moment is ripe to turn the expansive new possibilities — in trade, investment, high technology, defence, and regional cooperation— into concrete outcomes.
Background of the India-UK ties and paradoxes
- Legacies of colonialism: The bitter legacies of colonialism had made it impossible for the two sides to pursue a sensible relationship in the past.
- India’s post-colonial engagement with Britain has been riddled with multiple paradoxes.
- 1] India’s post-post colonial resentment and UK’s claim for special role: Delhi’s lingering post-colonial resentments and London’s unacceptable claim for a special role in the Subcontinent generated unending friction.
- The consequences of Partition and the Cold War made it harder for Delhi and London to construct a sustainable partnership.
- The important role played by the US: It was the US that first recognised India’s rapidly-growing relative weight in the international system.
- At the turn of the millennium, Washington unveiled a policy of assisting India’s rise.
- This was based on a bipartisan American consensus that a stronger India will serve US interests in Asia and the world.
- Over the last two decades, it has led to a quick transformation of US relations with India.
- 2] Washington is setting the pace for Delhi’s relationship with London: At the dawn of Independence, India saw London as the natural interlocutor with an unfamiliar Washington.
- Today it is Washington that is setting the pace for Delhi’s relationship with London.
- 3] China’s role in shaping India’s relations with the West: For Washington, the strategic commitment to assist India’s rise was rooted in the recognition of the dangers of a China-dominated Asia.
- London in the last two decades was moving in the other direction — a full embrace of Beijing.
- Once the American deep state decided to confront Chinese power in the late 2010s, London had to extricate itself from the Chinese Communist Party’s powerful spell.
- As the US unveiled a new Asian strategy, Britain followed with its own “Indo-Pacific tilt” that helped secure the region against China’s muscular policies.
- 4] Historic tilt towards Pakistan: Unlike the US and France, which are committed to an “India first” strategy in South Asia, Britain remains torn between its new enthusiasm for India and the inertia of its historic tilt towards Pakistan.
- But India is confident that Pakistan’s relative decline in the region is bound to make it a less weighty factor in India’s bilateral relations with Britain.
- The question of Pakistan brings us to the fourth paradox—the domestic dynamics of Britain that have tended to sour ties with India.
- Delhi has figured out that the interconnected politics of India and Britain — shaped by the large South Asian diaspora of nearly four million — can be cut both ways.
- 5] Making best of historic ties: If the Tories are romantic about the Raj, nationalists in India bristle at the British imperial connection.
- Yet, together they are constructing a new relationship between India and Britain.
Better outlook for bilateral ties
- As the two sides make a determined effort to transcend the paradoxes, the regional and international circumstances provide a new basis for mutually beneficial engagement.
- Over the last couple of years, Delhi and London have begun a promising and pragmatic engagement devoid of sentiment and resentment.
- Having walked out of Europe, Britain needs all the partners it can find and a rising India is naturally among the top political and economic priorities.
- Delhi meanwhile has become supremely self-assured in dealing with London.
- With the Indian economy set to become larger than Britain’s in the next couple of years, Delhi is no longer defensive about engaging Britain.
- Even more important, Delhi recognises the value of a deep strategic partnership with London.
Conclusion
The UK has a significant international military presence and wide-ranging political influence. Realists in Delhi are trying to leverage these British strengths for India’s strategic benefit.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: BRI
Mains level: Paper 2- Debt trap diplomacy
Context
China’s intervention has proved disastrous for the economies of Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
China-Myanmar relations and its implications
- Myanmar, China’s closest neighbour with a long history of cross border trade, was the first country to voluntarily turn towards Beijing, from 1988, when the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) took over the reins of government.
- World sanctions followed, but Beijing reassured the generals of its continued support and in 1989, signed a treaty of trade and cooperation that made China the sole supporter of the illegitimate military government.
- The strong western sanctions after 2007, made China virtually its sole trading partner.
- The link with China became essential for the regime’s survival but did little to increase economic prosperity.
- Wood alone accounts for about 70 per cent of Myanmar’s exports to China.
- It’s clear that China is stripping bare Myanmar’s centuries-old teak forests.
Implications for Pakistan
- In 2012, Pakistan signed on to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor.
- New Delhi and Washington imagined wrongly that the CPEC would lead to a major People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) expansion into the Indian Ocean through Gwadar, which even now is a largely disused port.
- As a conservative IMF estimate put it, Islamabad’s poor management of the economy and reckless borrowing has put its immediate financial needs (2022) at $51 billion.
- Projects chosen are unviable like the Gwadar port and the Lahore Metro and attracted huge public criticism. The CPEC was put on hold and rebooted.
- The IMF warned Islamabad of the CPEC repayment boosting the current account deficit, forcing Pakistan to cut Chinese interest payments for 10 years.
- The CPEC has been a humbling experience for China and an economic disaster for Pakistan.
Implications for Sri Lanka
- Against all economic surveys and advice, the Hambantota port was built, it floundered and Sri Lanka transferred the land as equity to China for 99 years.
- From 2012 to 2016, China accounted for 30 per cent of all FDI to Sri Lanka, becoming the top source of foreign investment
- Today China is funding 50 projects in the country, involving more than $1 billion, including the Colombo Port and the Lakvijaya thermal power plant.
- Today, the Sri Lankan economy is in complete meltdown, with China holding the largest amount of Sri Lankan debt.
- Private banks have run out of funds to finance imports. Its main sources of revenue, tourism and remittances, have dried up, and the government is in a crisis.
Conclusion
The recourse to availing Chinese money by Myanmar, Pakistan and Sri Lanka has led to a feeling of hubris among the leaders, inducing them to take bad economic decisions in the perception that Beijing is footing the bills.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: World food program
Mains level: Paper 2- Impact of Russia-Ukraine war on the developing and least developed countries
Context
Beyond Ukraine’s borders, far beyond the media spotlight, the war has launched a silent assault on the developing world. This crisis could throw up to 1.7 billion people — over one-fifth of humanity — into poverty, destitution and hunger on a scale not seen in decades.
Impact of the war on the developing world
- Ukraine and the Russian Federation provide 30 per cent of the world’s wheat and barley, one-fifth of its maize, and over half of its sunflower oil.
- Together, their grain feeds the poorest and most vulnerable people, providing more than one-third of the wheat imported by 45 African and least-developed countries.
- At the same time, Russia is the world’s top natural gas exporter, and second-largest oil exporter.
- But the war is preventing farmers from tending their crops while closing ports, ending grain exports, disrupting supply chains and sending prices skyrocketing.
- The World Food Programme has warned that it faces the impossible choice of taking from the hungry to feed the starving.
- It urgently needs $8 billion to support its operations in Yemen, Chad and Niger.
- But while much of the world has stepped up in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, there is no sign of the same support for the 1.7 billion other potential victims of this war.
The Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance
- The group aims to develop coordinated solutions to these interlinked crises, with governments, international financial institutions and other key partners.
- 1] On food, the group is urging all countries to keep markets open, resist hoarding and unjustified and unnecessary export restrictions, and make reserves available to countries at the highest risk of hunger and famine.
- 2] On energy, the use of strategic stockpiles and additional reserves could help to ease this energy crisis in the short term.
- But the only medium- and long-term solution is to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy.
- 3] And on finance, the G20 and international financial institutions must go into emergency mode.
- They must find ways to increase liquidity and fiscal space, so that governments in developing countries can invest in the poorest and most vulnerable, and in the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Social protection, including cash transfers, will be essential to support desperate families through this crisis.
- But many developing countries with large external debts do not have the liquidity to provide these safety nets.
Conclusion
The only lasting solution to the war in Ukraine and its assault on the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world is peace.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: MDR TB
Mains level: Paper 2- TB challenge
Context
Historical importance of good nutrition was ignored by the modern therapist who tried to control TB initially with streptomycin injection, isoniazid and para-aminosalisylic acid. In the ecstasy of finding antibiotics killing the germs, the social determinants of disease were ignored.
Lack of patient-centric TB treatment
- With more drug arsenals such as rifampicin, ethambutol, pyrazinamide, the fight against TB bacteria continued, which became multidrug resistant.
- The regimes and the mode of delivery of drugs were changed to plug the loopholes of non-compliance of patients.
- Blister packs of a multi-drug regime were provided at the doorstep, and the directly observed treatment/therapy (DOT) mechanism set up.
- Many of the poor discontinued blister-packaged free drugs thinking that these were “hot and strong” drugs not suited for the hunger pains they experienced every night.
Role of nutrition in dealing with TB
- India has around 2.8 million active cases. It is a disease of the poor.
- And the poor are three times less likely to go for treatment and four times less likely to complete their treatment for TB, according to WHO, in 2002.
- The fact is that 90% of Indians exposed to TB remain dormant if their nutritional status and thereby the immune system, is good.
- When the infected person is immunocompromised, TB as a disease manifests itself in 10% of the infected.
- The 2019 Global TB report identified malnutrition as the single-most associated risk factor for the development of TB, accounting for more cases than four other risks, i.e., smoking, the harmful use of alcohol, diabetes and HIV.
- The work and the findings of a team at the Jan Swasthya Sahayog hospital at Ganiyari, Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh established the association of poor nutritional status with a higher risk of TB.
Way forward
- Chhattisgarh initiated the supply of groundnut, moong dhal and soya oil, and from April 2018, under the Nikshay Poshan Yojana of the National Health Mission.
- All States began extending cash support of ₹500 per month to TB patients to buy food. This amount needs to be raised.
- Nutrition education and counselling support: Without simultaneous nutrition education and counselling support, this cash transfer will not have the desired outcome.
Conclusion
Food is a guaranteed right for life under the Constitution for all citizens, more so for TB patients. Thus, the goals of reducing the incidence of TB in India and of reducing TB mortality cannot be reached without addressing undernutrition.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: JAM
Mains level: Paper 2- Need for data sharing
Context
While this year’s Economic Survey focuses on improving the quality and quantity of data for better and quicker assessment of the state of the economy, it pays little attention to access to the data by citizens, ignoring the criticality of data for a healthy and informed public discourse on issues of policy relevance.
Strengthening data architecture
- The government has been proactively strengthening the data architecture for tackling corruption and better targeting of beneficiaries.
- Since 2014, the scope of UIDAI has seen a huge expansion.
- JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) has private details of citizens.
- The government is sufficiently empowered to collect and use information about its citizens touching all the spheres of their life.
- Along with traditional instruments such as the Census, sample surveys and registers of various departments, the government is now armed with real-time data.
Erosion in citizens’ right to access data and widening information gap
- Delayed release of survey data: The citizen’s right to access relevant data for quality public discussion seems to be gradually eroding.
- In this process, the government has refused to hold itself accountable.
- This is evident from repeated events of delayed release of various survey data.
- For example, data from the consumption survey 2017-18 has not yet been released.
- Similarly, the first Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS 2017-18) was released only after the 2019 general election.
- Undermining of scientific data: Further, instead of relying on the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), a systematically designed survey for estimation of industrial sector GDP, the government has started to depend on self-reported, unverified data submitted to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs since 2011.
- Now that ASI is nearly redundant for official estimation purposes, the future of this database is uncertain.
- Another example of undermining the scientific database is the delay in the release of Water and Sanitation Survey data 2018.
- The information gaps in the area of migration are well documented.
- Information gap: While the JAM architecture and pandemic induced tracking tools allow for the mapping of individuals, researchers and the civil society do not have access to that information, which is useful to ascertain the level and prevalence of migration across regions within the country.
Conclusion
This data divide between the state and its citizens is a potential threat to the smooth functioning of a democracy. Without bridging this data gap, the scope of modern technology for tracking development cannot be realised.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Dealing with the hate speech
Context
Hate speech is at the root of many forms of violence that are being perpetrated and has become one of the biggest challenges to the rule of law and to our democratic conscience.
Consequences of hate speech
- Electoral mobilisation along the communal line: One of the most visible consequences of hate speech is increased electoral mobilisation along communal lines which is also paying some electoral dividends.
- Hate speech, in itself, must be understood and treated as a violent act and urgently so.
- With elected members currently sitting in the legislative assemblies and Parliament giving political sanction to citizens mobilised into mob violence and complicit public officials, hate speech is becoming the dominant mode of public political participation.
Role of Election Commission
- In 2019, the Supreme Court reprimanded the Election Commission, calling it “toothless” for not taking action against candidates engaging in hate speech during the election campaigns in UP.
- The Commission responded by saying that it had limited powers to take action in this matter.
- So far, the Supreme Court does not appear to have acted decisively in response to allegations of hate speech in electoral campaigns, indicating that the EC must assume more responsibility and the EC has argued that in matters of hate speech, it is largely “powerless”.
- In any case, the EC’s role is confined to the election period.
Legal provisions to deal with hate speech
- The Indian Penal Code, as per Sections 153A, 295A and 298, criminalises the promotion of enmity between different groups of people on grounds of religion and language, alongside acts that are prejudicial to maintaining communal harmony.
- Section 125 of the Representation of People Act deems that any person, in connection with the election, promoting feelings of enmity and hatred on grounds of religion and caste is punishable with imprisonment up to three years and fine or both.
- Section 505 criminalises multiple kinds of speech, including statements made with the intention of inducing, or which are likely to induce, fear or alarm to the public.
- It covers incitement of violence against the state or another community, as well as promotion of class hatred.
Recommendations and suggestions
- The Law Commission in its 267th report published in March 2017, recommended introduction of new provisions within the penal code that specifically punish incitement to violence in addition to the existing ones.
- Responsibility of Media: In recent years, hate speech in all its varieties has acquired a systemic presence in the media and the internet, from electoral campaigns to everyday life.
- This epidemic of mediatised hate speech is, in fact, a global phenomenon.
- According to the Washington Post, 2018 can be considered as “the year of online hate”.
Conclusion
Enough damage has been done. We cannot wait another day to address this growing challenge.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Zonal Councils
Mains level: Paper 3- Inter-State collaboration for dealing with pollution crisis
Context
With the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) governing both Delhi and Punjab, collaboration for clean air should be the mantra for both State governments.
Impact of air pollution on Delhi and Punjab
- Punjab is home to nine of the 132 most polluted cities in the country identified by the Central Pollution Control Board.
- In 2019, Delhi and Punjab together faced economic losses estimated to be approximately ₹18,000 crore due to worsening air pollution.
- Therefore, by collaborating for clean air, both States can ensure improvements in citizen well-being and labour productivity.
How can the two States collaborate?
1] Arrive at a common understanding of sources
- Those in charge of the two States must talk.
- Setting aside their disagreements on the contribution of stubble burning to Delhi’s air pollution, the States should arrive at a common understanding of sources polluting the region.
2] Create platforms for knowledge exchange
- Cross-learning on possible solutions: A common knowledge centre should be set up to facilitate cross-learning on possible solutions to developmental challenges in both States.
- Such a centre would especially benefit Punjab given the host of measures that the Delhi government has already taken to improve air quality in Delhi.
- Information on air quality levels and source assessment studies are critical in developing long-term strategies for pollution mitigation.
3] Collaborate to execute proven solutions
- Co-design solutions: The two States could co-design solutions that would improve air quality.
- Institutionalise a task force: They could jointly institutionalise a task force comprising experts from State-run institutions to pilot these solutions and assess their impact.
- This would ensure wider acceptance of the proposed solution, which has not been the case in the past.
- For instance, the PUSA bio-decomposer (developed by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute), has received mixed reviews from farmers.
- The decomposer only makes sense for early maturing varieties of paddy, as even with the decomposer, stubble would take between 25 to 30 days to decompose.
- Therefore, it is of little use in high burn districts such as Sangrur, Punjab, where late-maturing paddy varieties are dominant.
4] Create a market for diversified crop products
- Moving away from paddy-wheat cycle: Shifting away from the ‘paddy-wheat cycle’ through crop diversification is a sure shot solution to stubble burning.
- But, the lack of an assured market for agricultural products, other than wheat and paddy, has acted as a deterrent.
- For years now, the Delhi government has toyed with the idea of introducing ‘Aam Aadmi kitchens’ in Delhi.
- These community kitchens could potentially incorporate crops other than wheat and paddy in meals offered.
5] Extending inter-State cooperation to other States in Indo-Gangetic plains
- Both State governments should assert the need for extending inter-State cooperation to other States in the Indo-Gangetic plains in different inter-State forums.
- One such forum is the Northern Zonal Council which has representation from Chandigarh, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
- Both Delhi and Punjab must use this platform to highlight the need for coordination with neighbouring States to alleviate the pollution crisis.
Conclusion
With a collaborative plan of action, we can be optimistic about cleaner air in the years to come.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: 1995 UNIDROIT
Mains level: Paper 1- Dealing with the issue of idol theft
Context
Building an inventory of antiquities should be the first step in dealing with the problem.
Measures taken by the worldwide organisations
- CAG in its 2013 Report stated that “131 antiquities were stolen from monuments/sites and 37 antiquities from Site Museums from 1981 to 2012″
- It added that in similar situations, worldwide, organisations took many more effective steps:
- 1] Checking of catalogues of international auction house(s),
- 2] Posting news of such theft on websites.
- 3] Posting information about theft in the International Art Loss Registry.
- 4] Sending photographs of stolen objects electronically to dealers and auction houses and intimate scholars in the field.
- Lack of legal provisions: The report also stated that the ASI had never participated or collected information on Indian antiquities put on sale at well-known international auction houses viz. Sotheby’s, Christie’s, etc. as there was no explicit provision in the AAT (Antiquities and Art Treasures) Act, 1972 for doing so.
International conventions and treaties
- India is a signatory to the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. (We ratified it in 1977).
- Perhaps we should also sign the 1995 UNIDROIT (International Institute for the Unification of Private Law) Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects.
Lessons from Italy
- Italy also suffers and several stolen antiquities have been returned by the US to Italy.
- That being the case, it shouldn’t be surprising that many best practices originate in Italy.
- The following list is illustrative.
- (1) A specific law on protecting cultural heritage, with enhanced penalties;
- (2) Centralised management before granting authorisation for archaeological research;
- (3) Specialisation in cultural heritage for public prosecutors;
- (4) An inter-ministerial committee for recovery and return of cultural objects;
- (5) MOUs and bilateral agreements with other countries and international organisations to prevent illegal trafficking;
- (6) Involvement of private organisations and individuals in protection;
- (7) A complete inventory of moveable and immoveable cultural heritage, with detailed catalogues;
- (8) Monitoring and inspection of cultural sites; and
- (9) Centralised granting of export requests.
Way forward
- One could say the 2013 CAG Report did a bit of (8), but that was a one-off and isn’t a permanent solution.
- This isn’t a binary, nor is it possible to accomplish everything overnight. However, incrementally, one can move towards (1), (3), (4), (5), (6), (8) and, especially, (7).
- We should start with that inventory.
Conclusion
While fingers can rightly be pointed at Western museums and auction-houses (this isn’t only about the colonial era), there is internal connivance.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Languages in the Eighth Schedule
Mains level: Paper 2- Eighth Schedule
Context
Language sensitivity has been a feature of selfhood in the case of every Indian language.
Sensitivity to language
- From ancient times, a sensitivity to language difference has almost been the core of Dravidic self-hood.
- A similar sensitivity existed among the speakers of Prakrits in ancient times.
- It was in one of the Prakrits that Mahavir had presented his teachings in the sixth century BCE.
- Eighteen centuries later, Acharya Hemachandra, a major Jain scholar, poet, mathematician and philosopher, produced his Desinamamala, a treatise on the importance of Prakrit words used in Gujarat of his times as against those from Sanskrit.
- Mahatma Gandhi, who defined the idea of selfhood for India in Hind Swaraj (1909), chose to write this iconic book in Gujarati.
Constitutional provision
- The official language used for communication between the States shall be the language that has been in use at the time of adoption of the Constitution.
- The move from English to Hindi can take place only if, ‘two or more states agree’ for the shift.
- Article 344 (4) provides for a ‘Committee consisting of thirty members’, ‘twenty’ from the Parliament and ‘ten’ from State assemblies, for safeguarding language-related provisions.
The distribution between two ministries
- The functions and the scope of the committee, as laid down by the Constitution, are further clarified by the practice of distribution of language as a subject between two Ministries, the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry and the Home Ministry.
- The scope of the HRD Ministry extends to education and the promotion of cultural expression.
- The Home Ministry’s scope extends to safeguarding relations of the States with the ‘union’, protecting the linguistic rights of language minorities and the promotion of Hindi.
- The last of these, the Constitution states, has to be ‘without interference with other languages.
Data on language decline
- In 2011, Hindi speakers accounted for 43.63% of the total population, with a total of 52.83 crore speakers.
- In 1971, the number was 20.27 crore, accounting for 36.99% of the total population.
- Between 2001 and 2011, the growth in proportion of the population was 2.6%.
- The next most spoken language, Bangla, had negative growth.
- It was spoken by 8.30% of Indians in 1991, 8.11% in 2001 and by 8.03% in 2011.
- Telugu, which slid from 7.87% in 1991, to 7.19% in 2001 and 6.70% in 2011, has a similar story to tell.
- Tamil recorded 6.32% of the total population in 1991, 5.91% in 2001 and 5.70% in 2011.
- The only major language to show decadal growth (though small) was Gujarati.
- And the only small yet scheduled language to show good growth was Sanskrit.
Reasons for Hindi’s growth
- The 52.83 crore speakers of Hindi (as recorded in 2011) included not just the speaker of ‘Hindi’ but also those of more than 50 other languages.
- Bhojpuri and most languages of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Jharkhand have also been pushed into the Hindi package.
- Had the Census not included these other languages under Hindi, the strength of Hindi speakers would have gone down to about 39 crore, — just a little under 32% of the total population in 2011 — and would have looked not too different from those of other scheduled languages.
- The data for English speakers is far more truthful. Census 2011 reports a total of 3,88,793 Indians as English speakers (2,59,678 men and 1,29,115 women).
Hindi in comparison to other languages in the Eighth schedule
- Among the languages included in the Eighth Schedule, Hindi falls within the younger lot of languages.
- On the other hand, Tamil, Kannada, Kashmiri, Marathi, Oriya, Sindhi, Nepali and Assamiya have a much longer/older history.
- As a language of knowledge too, Tamil, Kannada, Bangla and Marathi (with their abundance of encyclopaedias and historical literature), quite easily outshine Hindi.
Conclusion
A language evolves slowly and cannot be forced to grow by issuing ordinances.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Gross Enrolment Ratio
Mains level: Paper 2- Issues with CUET
Context
The introduction of the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) can be seen as a step in the direction of aligning India with international standards.
About CUET
- The UGC’s rationale for introducing the test is to address the disparity in the allocation of marks by different examination boards, and provide a “level playing field” to students from different sections of society and diverse regions.
- The CUET has been envisaged as a corrective.
- Of the 48 central universities, 45 seem to have the requirements to institute the test.
- The CUET is going to decide the fate of approximately 1.3 crore students for roughly 5.4 lakh undergraduate seats in 45 central universities.
Issues with the CUET
- Students to contend with two examinations: The marks obtained in the board examination will remain vital for admission to state and private universities as well as job applications.
- The students will now have to contend with two examinations.
- Impetus to coaching classes: Many educationists argue that the new examination is likely to give an impetus to coaching classes.
- Coaching and private tuition will flourish without much concern for quality in the preparation of the study material.
- Not all State Boards prescribe NCERT textbooks: The CUET syllabus will be based on NCERT (under the Ministry of Education) textbooks even though not all state boards prescribe these books.
- The coaching industry stands to take advantage of this situation and students will have a hard time navigating two sets of textbooks.
- The impact is likely to be harsher on disadvantaged sections of the society for whom access to higher education is seen as the only route to upward mobility.
Way forward
- The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) is constantly increasing for higher secondary education (51.4 per cent according to UDISE, 2019-20) and higher education (27.1 per cent to AISHE, 2019-20).
- The figures indicate that higher education has acquired a mass base in the country.
- This has important implications for a knowledge-based economy and society.
- Maintaining the momentum of GER would require more teachers, schools and higher education institutions of quality and slow down the rush for a few but highly sought after universities and colleges.
Conclusion
The new examination would put additional pressure on both students and teachers at a time when they are trying to overcome the exactions of the pandemic. It appears to diverge from the objective of the National Education Policy-2020 — equitable access to good quality higher education for all students.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Competition Commission of India
Mains level: Privacy as a metric of quality
Context
In February, Facebook stated that its revenue in 2022 is anticipated to reduce by $10 billion due to steps undertaken by Apple to enhance user privacy on its mobile operating system.
Move towards more privacy-preserving options
- Apple introduced AppTrackingTransparency feature that requires apps to request permission from users before tracking them across other apps and websites or sharing their information with and from third parties.
- Through this change, Apple effectively shut the door on “permissionless” internet tracking and has given consumers more control over how their data is used.
- Privacy experts have welcomed this move because it is predicted to enhance awareness and nudge other actors to move towards more privacy-preserving options, leading to a market for “Privacy Enhancing Technologies”.
- Google’s Privacy Sandbox project is a case in point, though it remains to be seen whether it will be truly privacy-preserving.
Big Tech dominance and issues related to it
- Privacy and acquisitions: One standout feature of the Big Tech dominance has been the non-price factors such as quality of service (QoS) in general and privacy and acquisitions in particular.
- Acquisitions to kill competition: Acquisitions by Big Tech are regular and eat up big bucks, not always to promote efficiency but to eliminate potential competition, described evocatively as “kill zone” by specialists.
- According to a report released by the Federal Trade Commission, between 2010 and 2019, Big Tech made 616 acquisitions.
- In the absence of a modern framework, competition law continues to rely on Bork’s theory of consumer welfare which postulated that the sole normative objective of antitrust should be to maximise consumer welfare, best pursued through promoting economic efficiency.
- Market structure thus became irrelevant and conduct became the sole criterion for judgement.
- Conduct now predominantly revolves around QoS which, like much else surrounding digital platforms, is pushing competition authorities to fortify their existing regulatory toolkits.
Privacy as a metric of quality
- Companies such as Apple and DuckDuckGo (with its slogan “the search engine that doesn’t track you”) are employing enhanced user privacy as a competitive metric.
- It has been shown that “websites which do not face strong competition are significantly more likely to ask for more personal information than other services provided for free”.
- In 2018, OECD accepted that privacy is a relevant dimension of quality despite the low quality that may be prevalent due to lack of market development.
- Regulators across the globe are recognising privacy as a serious metric of quality.
- For instance, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in 2021 took suo moto cognisance of changes to WhatsApp’s “take-it” or “leave-it” privacy policy that made it mandatory for every user to share data with Facebook.
- In its prima facie order, the CCI inter alia observed that this amounts to degradation of privacy and therefore quality.
Way forward
- Privacy and competition have overlapping boundaries.
- If privacy becomes a competitive constraint, then companies will have the incentive to create privacy-preserving and enhancing technologies.
- Barriers for new entrants: On the other hand, care must be taken so that Big Tech, aka the gatekeepers in the EU’s Digital Markets Act, do not misuse privacy to create barriers for newer entrants.
- Restricting third-party tracking is not novel and other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft’s Edge have already done so.
- But Google, which owns 65 per cent of the global browser market, is different.
- By disabling third parties from tracking but continuing to use that data in its own ad tech stack, Google harms competition.
- The use of privacy as a tool for market development, therefore, has to tread this tightrope between enabling and stifling competition.
Conclusion
An approach that balances user autonomy, consumer protection, innovation, and market competition in digital markets is a real win-win and worth investing in.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IRMS
Mains level: Paper 3- IRMS training
Context
A recent Gazette notification regarding the creation of the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) marks a paradigm shift in the management of one of the world’s largest rail networks.
About the merger and IRMS
- A nearly 8,000 strong cadre of the erstwhile eight services is now merged into one.
- Eight out of 10 Group-A Indian Railway services have been merged to create the IRMS.
- The merged services are: Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS), Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS), Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS), Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engineers (IRSEE), Indian Railway Service of Signal Engineers (IRSS), Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers (IRSME), Indian Railway Service of Civil Engineers (IRSE) and Indian Railway Stores Service (IRSS).
- Aims of the restructuring: Besides removing silos, this restructuring also aims at rationalising the top-heavy bureaucracy of the Indian Railways.
Way forward: Training
- Training the future leaders of India’s public transporter in the rapidly evolving logistics sector of the country is the most important task ahead.
- The UPSC will recruit a few hundred IRMS officers each year from now, they will remain much less in number when compared to already serving officers for a long time to come.
- Training of the existing cadre of officers: The fact remains that even after the creation of the IRMS, the 8,000 strong (already serving) officers of the Indian Railways will need to work in coordination and not in silos, as they will be serving in the organisation for decades to come.
- This highlights the importance of training of the existing cadre of officers as they will have to deliver on the ambitious Gati-Shakti projects.
- The task of training such a dynamic talent pool assumes importance in view of India’s aspirations of becoming a $5 trillion economy.
- All this will require a massive revamp of the capacity building ecosystem of the Indian Railways.
- Redesign the training: The merger of services provides an opportunity to redesign the training for newly recruited IRMS officers to make them future-ready. Initial training along with mid-career training programmes may be reoriented.
- The IRMS training needs to be designed based on the competencies required for different leadership roles.
- Mission Karmayogi of the Government of India provides for competencies based postings of officers.
- The Integrated Government Online Training (iGOT) programme of the Government of India will be instrumental in shaping the career progression of IRMS officers.
Conclusion
Future IRMS officers should be ready to face the challenges of working in an organisation that is involved in round the clock and round the year operations, has substantial social obligations to meet and, at the same time, which must earn for itself.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Implications of Pakistan's internal crisis
Context
As Pakistan goes through a major political convulsion, India must resist the temptation to see the changes across our western frontiers through the narrow prism of bilateral relations.
Why Pakistan matters
- Pakistan is an important regional piece in the power play between the US, China and Russia.
- Given its location at the crossroads of the Subcontinent, Middle East, Eurasia, and China, Pakistan has always been a vital piece of real estate that was actively sought by contending geopolitical blocs.
- The internal and external have always been tightly linked in Pakistan.
- Today, Pakistan’s internal battles are tied to external geopolitical rivalry.
Two important factors in the political trajectory of Pakistan
- Any Indian strategy in dealing with the new government in Islamabad would depend on an assessment of Pakistan’s post-Imran political trajectory.
- Two important factors stand out.
- 1] First is the changing nature of civil military relations in Pakistan.
- It is part of a serious intra-elite struggle that transcends the well-known military dominance over Pakistan’s polity.
- One of the more interesting questions to come out of the current episode is whether the army’s famed internal coherence and unity of command might endure the crisis.
- 2] Second is the growing fragility of Pakistan’s polity triggered by the deepening economic crisis and sharpening social contradictions.
- There is no guarantee that the army’s ties with new civilian rulers will be smooth nor can we assume that the civilian coalition against Imran Khan will survive the many challenges ahead as it confronts difficult policy challenges on multiple fronts.
Geopolitical challenges of Pakistan
- Engaging India is unlikely to be a high priority for the new government in Islamabad.
- Today, Pakistan has many other things to worry about — reviving its flagging economic fortunes, stabilising the Durand Line with Afghanistan, and rebalancing its ties with the major actors in the Middle East, including Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
- Pakistan, which traditionally enjoyed good relations with the West as well as China, is finding it hard to maintain a balance in its great power relations.
- While the army and the new government are eager to restore ties with the US, Imran Khan has made it hard for them.
- Imran Khan’s repeated praise for India’s independent foreign policy was in essence a critique of the Pakistan army that has long steered Islamabad’s international relations.
Way forward
- Delhi should focus on the potential shifts in Pakistan’s strategic orientation triggered by the current crisis.
- The good news from Pakistan is that India is not part of the argument between the political classes or between Imran Khan and the “deep state” represented by the army.
Conclusion
An India that gets an accurate sense of Pakistan’s changing geopolitics will be able to better deal with Islamabad.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Liquidity Adjustment Framework
Mains level: Paper 3- Standing Deposit Facility
Context
The first bi-monthly meeting of the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) for the current financial year reaffirmed its focus on inflation management.
Towards the normalisation of monetary policy
- The MPC voted to keep the policy rate unchanged at 4 per cent and retained its accommodative stance.
- However, the wording was changed to “remain accommodative while focusing on withdrawal of accommodation to ensure that inflation remains within the target going forward, while supporting growth.”
- This statement sets the stage for a shift to a neutral stance in the next meeting and policy rate hikes in subsequent meetings.
- RBI has announced the withdrawal of some of the steps taken during the pandemic to support the economy.
- These will foster the normalisation of monetary policy.
Inflation challenge
- The central bank has acknowledged that the disruptions caused by the Russia-Ukraine crisis have upended their growth and inflation outlook.
- It has steeply revised its inflation projection from 4.5 per cent earlier to 5.7 per cent now for the current financial year.
- The projection is based on an average global crude oil price of $100 per barrel.
- The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) Food Price Index, a gauge of global food prices, posted a record growth of 12.6 per cent from February.
Formalisation of Liquidity Adjustment Framework (LAF)
- The RBI has been managing liquidity infused into the system during the pandemic through the Variable Rate Reverse Repo Auctions (VRRR) to withdraw liquidity and Variable Rate Repo auctions to inject liquidity.
- RBI has now formalised the Liquidity Adjustment Framework (LAF).
- The LAF is a framework to absorb and inject liquidity into the banking system.
- The LAF is now a symmetric corridor with a width of 50 basis points.
- The policy repo rate is at the centre of the corridor, with the MSF 25 basis points above the policy rate and the SDF 25 basis points below the policy rate.
What is a Standing Deposit Facility
- The RBI has introduced the Standing Deposit Facility (SDF) as the lower bound of the LAF corridor to absorb liquidity.
- The idea of the SDF was first mooted by the Urjit Patel Committee report on the monetary policy framework.
- The RBI Act was amended through the Finance Act of 2018 to allow RBI to use this instrument.
- The SDF will be a facility available to banks to park their funds.
- The SDF will serve as the standing liquidity absorption facility at the lower end of the LAF corridor.
- At the upper end of the corridor is the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) to inject liquidity.
- Through the SDF, the RBI can absorb liquidity without placing government securities as collateral, hence it will give greater flexibility to the central bank.
- The change also marks a shift away from reverse repo being the effective policy rate.
Key takeaways
- While on the face of it, there are no rate hikes, the shift from the reverse repo rate to the SDF signals a tightening of monetary policy.
- There is a 40 basis points increase in the floor rate.
- In the medium run, the call money rate would move towards the new LAF corridor, thus bringing orderly conditions in the money market.
- As RBI begins to normalise liquidity in a calibrated manner, its ability to manage bond yields will likely be limited.
- Yields on bonds are likely to inch up and remain above the 7 per cent mark.
- Going forward, the trade-off between managing inflation and the borrowing programme of the government will become challenging.
Conclusion
For now the RBI has rightly decided to place top priority on inflation management. This will help in maintaining the credibility of the inflation targeting framework.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: ILO
Mains level: Paper 2- Supporting care economy
Context
The importance of care work is now widely acknowledged and covered in various international commitments such as the SDGs. However, the investment in the care economy has not matched the pace.
Significance of care work
- Care work encompasses direct activities such as feeding a baby or nursing an ill partner, and indirect care activities such as cooking and cleaning’.
- Whether paid or unpaid, direct or indirect, care work is vital for human well-being and economies.
- Unpaid care work is linked to labour market inequalities, yet it has yet to receive adequate attention in policy formulation.
- Paid care workers, such as domestic workers and anganwadis in India, also struggle to access rights and entitlements as workers.
- Greater investment in care services can create an additional 300 million jobs globally, many of which will be for women.
- In turn this will help increase female labour force participation and advance Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8.
- This year, to commemorate International Women’s Day, the ILO brought out its new report titled, ‘Care at work: Investing in care leave and services for a more gender-equal world of work’.
- The report highlights the importance of maternity, paternity, and special care leave, which help balance women’s and men’s work and family responsibilities throughout their lives.
Gaps in the current policies
- Bridging the gaps in current policies and service provisions to nurture childcare and elderly care services will deliver the benefits of child development, aging in dignity and independent living as the population grows older and also generate more and better employment opportunities, especially for women.
- Maternity leave: Maternity leave is a universal human and labour right.
- Yet, it remains unfulfilled across countries, leaving millions of workers with family responsibilities without adequate protection and support. India fares better than its peers in offering 26 weeks of maternity leave, against the ILO’s standard mandate of 14 weeks that exists in 120 countries.
- However, this coverage extends to only a tiny proportion of women workers in formal employment in India, where 89% of employed women are in informal employment (as given by ILOSTAT, or the ILO’s central portal to labour statistics).
- While paternity leave is recognised as an enabler for both mothers and fathers to better balance work and family responsibilities, it is not provided in many countries, including India.
- Access to quality and affordable care services such as childcare, elderly care and care for people with disabilities is a challenge workers with family responsibilities face globally.
- Limited implementation: While India has a long history of mandating the provision of crèches in factories and establishments, there is limited information on its actual implementation.
- Domestic workers, on whom Indian households are heavily reliant, also face challenges in accessing decent work.
- According to the Government’s 2019 estimates, 26 lakh of the 39 lakh domestic workers in India are female.
- Ensure decent work for domestic workers: While important developments have extended formal coverage to domestic workers in India, such as the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act and the minimum wage schedule in many States, more efforts are required to ensure decent work for them.
Way forward
- Increase spending: India spends less than 1% of its GDP on the care economy; increasing this percentage would unfurl a plethora of benefits for workers and the overall economy.
- Strategy: In consultation with employers’ and workers’ organisations and the relevant stakeholders, the Government needs to conceptualise a strategy and action plan for improved care policies, care service provisions and decent working conditions for care workers.
- 5R Framework: The ILO proposes a 5R framework for decent care work centred around achieving gender equality. The framework urges the Recognition, Reduction, and Redistribution of unpaid care work, promotes Rewarding care workers with more and decent work, and enables their Representation in social dialogue and collective bargaining.
Conclusion
A human-centred and inclusive recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic that benefits workers, employers, and the government, requires a more significant investment in and commitment to supporting the care economy, which cares for the society at large.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Dealing with disinformation problem
Context
Social media platforms have adopted design choices that have led to a proliferation and mainstreaming of misinformation while allowing themselves to be weaponised by powerful vested interests for political and commercial benefit.
Problems created by social media and issues with response to it
- The consequent free flow of disinformation, hate and targeted intimidation has led to real-world harm and degradation of democracy in India: Mainstreamed anti-minority hate, polarised communities and sowed confusion have made it difficult to establish a shared foundation of truth.
- Political agenda: Organised misinformation (disinformation) has a political and/or commercial agenda.
- Apolitical and episodic discourse in India: The discourse in India has remained apolitical and episodic — focused on individual pieces of content and events, and generalised outrage against big tech instead of locating it in the larger political context or structural design issues.
- Problematic global discourse: The evolution of the global discourse on misinformation too has allowed itself to get mired in the details of content standards, enforcement, fact-checking, takedowns, de-platforming, etc.
- Moderating misinformation vs. safeguarding freedom of expression: Such framework lends itself to bitter partisan contest over individual pieces of content while allowing platforms to disingenuously conflate the discourse on moderating misinformation with safeguards for freedom of expression.
- The current system of content moderation is more a public relations exercise for platforms than being geared to stop the spread of disinformation.
Framework to combat disinformation
- Consider it as a political problem: The issue is as much about bad actors as individual pieces of content.
- Content distribution and moderation are interventions in the political process.
- Comprehensive transparency law: There is thus a need for a comprehensive transparency law to enforce relevant disclosures by social media platforms.
- Bipartisan political process for content moderation: Content moderation and allied functions such as standard setting, fact-checking and de-platforming must be embedded in the sovereign bipartisan political process if they are to have democratic legitimacy.
- Regulatory body should be grounded in democratic principles: Any regulatory body must be grounded in democratic principles — its own and of platforms.
- Three approaches to distribution that can be adopted by platforms: 1) Constrain distribution to organic reach (chronological feed);
- 2) take editorial responsibility for amplified content;
- 3) amplify only credible sources (irrespective of ideological affiliation).
- Review of content creator: The current approach to misinformation that relies on fact-checking a small subset of content in a vast ocean of unreviewed content is inadequate for the task and needs to be supplemented by a review of content creators itself.
Conclusion
Social media cannot be wished away. But its structure and manner of use are choices we must make as a polity after deliberation instead of accepting as them fait accompli or simply being overtaken by developments along the way.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016
Mains level: Paper 2- Reservation for disabled
Context
In a case that the SC is currently hearing, the petitioner has challenged a notification issued by the Department of Empowerment for Persons with Disabilities (Department).
About the notification
- The impugned notification exempts all categories of posts in the Indian Police Service, the Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli Police Service, as well as the Indian Railway Protection Force Service from the mandated 4 per cent reservation for persons with disabilities under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 [RPwD Act].
Issues with the notification
1] Against combat and non-combat classification
- On the same day as the issuing of the impugned notification, the Department also issued another notification exempting from the purview of reservation under the RPwD Act posts only of “combatant” nature in the paramilitary police.
- This classification between combat and non-combat posts was premised on a clear recognition of the fact that persons with disabilities are capable of occupying non-combat posts in the central forces.
- The Department has offered no justification as to why this classification would not hold good as regards the services covered in the impugned notification.
2] Against the identification of posts suitable for reservation for the disabled
- The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment had identified a range of ministerial/civilian posts as being suitable for reservation for the disabled.
- The impugned notification goes against this identification exercise, by virtue of its blanket character.
- Further, on November 22, 2021, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs released Draft Accessibility Standards/Guidelines for built infrastructure under its purview (police stations, prisons and disaster mitigation centres) and services associated with them.
- These Draft Standards state that the police staff on civil duty could be persons with disabilities.
3] Exercise of power
- As per the RPwD Act, the grant of any exemption has to be preceded by consultation with the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities.
- However, the office of the chief commissioner has been lying vacant for many years, with the secretary in the Department officiating in that role.
Conclusion
This case presents the SC with the opportunity to rule that the disabled are not a monolithic entity. Every disabled person is different, and it is unfair to paint all disabled people with the same broad brush, based on a stereotypical understanding of what they can do.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: SWIFT
Mains level: Paper 2- Implications of Ukraine crisis for BRICS
Context
The current crisis in Ukraine will consolidate BRICS as the group will make further efforts to become a real alternative to the West to create a real multipolar world.
BRICS’ efforts to change world economic system
- The group was brought together by geopolitical rather than economic considerations and this can be seen in the strategic interests shared by Russia and China.
- Inclusion of non-Western states in international financial institutions: BRICS is actively involved in the efforts to change the world economic system by increasing the number of non-Western states in international financial institutes.
- The BRICS countries decided to create the $100 billion BRICS Development Bank and a reserve currency pool worth over another $100 billion to offer an alternative to countries in the non-Western world when it comes to choosing the sources of funding for development or coping with serious economic crises.
Consequences of Ukraine crisis for BRICS
- It demonstrates that the West has not abandoned the idea of a unipolar world and will continue building it up by drawing into its foreign policy orbit issues it calls “international” or even “common to mankind.”
- Many non-Western states look at this as a new wave of colonialism.
- This will increase the desire of non-Western countries to enhance their coordination and perhaps the current conflict is already showing signs in this respect.
- The BRICS states are different in many respects and their disagreements with the West are rooted in different historical and political circumstances.
- The current crisis in Ukraine will consolidate BRICS as the group will make further efforts to become a real alternative to the West to create a real multipolar world.
- RIC controls 22 per cent of the global GDP and 16 per cent of global exports of goods and services.
- The fallout from Russia’s alienation from the G-8 group of nations, raises the prospect that — tactically at least — Russia, India, and China might be playing their own triangular integrationist card within BRICS at Moscow’s initiative.
- Eurasian integrationist core: This will create a north Eurasian integrationist core within BRICS, whichever way Moscow’s relations with the US and Europe play out.
Implications for India
- Both the Asian giants — India and China — may stand to reap the “best of both worlds” as the Ukraine imbroglio plays out.
- Investment: This could mean greater industrial and energy cross investments between Russia and India as well as between Russia and China.
- Additionally, the proposed arrangement for rupee-ruble cross currency pairing could result in settlement of payments in non-dollar currencies with more countries looking at India’s sovereign Financial Messaging Systems (SFMS), while also remaining connected with a central system like SWIFT.
- Dedicated payment mechanism: This should also anchor India’s quest to build a dedicated payment mechanism for energy-related payments and settlements as a long-haul measure.
- This could change the contours of the global payments landscape and benefit the rupee immensely.
Spotlight on India
- As the war progresses, New Delhi has been receiving a stream of high-profile visitors from around the world.
- This has included delegations from the US, Australia and Japan, India’s partners in the Quad.
- The foreign minister of Greece has also been to India and the Israeli prime minister is scheduled to visit soon.
- Even traditional rival China is making overtures to India at this time, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit.
- Another suitor is Russia, which is now also becoming a supplier of discounted crude oil to India as Moscow recoils from sanctions enforced by western consumers of its natural gas.
Conclusion
New Delhi is basking in its well-deserved spotlight with well-crafted diplomacy. India could be looking at a new dawn.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: UN Human Right Council
Mains level: Paper 2- Crisis in Sri Lanka and contradictions in its polity
Context
Sri Lanka’s ruling Rajapaksa family is facing mounting public anger, calls for resignations and political defections amidst the island’s worst economic crisis in its post-independence history.
Reasons for the crisis
- 1] Overnight switch to organic farming and import ban on fertiliser: There was the decision to ban fertiliser imports and switch overnight to organic farming.
- The decision was reversed after sustained farmer protests but not before damage had already been done to crop yields.
- 2] Then, precious foreign exchange was wasted in propping up the rupee while imposing controls on key imports that led to shortages and price rise.
- 3] For several months, as the crisis deepened with rolling power-cuts and shortages of essentials, the government refused to seek IMF assistance.
- It has now relented on the IMF, but Sri Lanka’s economic distress has been prolonged and deepened by this indecision.
Contradictions in the Sri Lanka’s politics
- While the immediate causes of popular anger are explicable, the crisis also reveals a more enduring contradiction at the foundation of Sri Lanka’s politics.
- Sinhala nationalist-inspired policies: What this crisis shows is that Sinhala nationalist-inspired policies are no longer financially or politically viable.
- Hardline approach toward Tamils: The Rajapaksas first rode to power in September 2005 on the wave of Sinhala nationalist antipathy against the then-ongoing Norwegian-mediated peace process with the LTTE.
- Upon his election as president, Mahinda expanded the military and launched a full-frontal military offensive that ended with the LTTE’s total defeat and destruction in May 2009.
- After the war, instead of seeking a political settlement with the Tamils, Mahinda Rajapaksa unrolled a de-facto militarised siege of the Tamil-speaking areas and population.
- Assertive foreign policy: The hardline approach to the Tamils and their demands was also linked to a new, more assertive foreign policy.
- The government turned away the long-established pattern of alignments with Western states and India.
- Mistrust of India: There is a long-standing mistrust of India amongst Sinhala Buddhist nationalists who see it as the source of historic Tamil invasions.
- The Rajapaksas translated this sentiment into policy, pushing back against Indian attempts to forge closer economic ties and a constitutional settlement of the Tamil question.
- Ties with China: In place of these ties, the Rajapaksas ostentatiously set out to forge new alliances, principally with China.
- The Rajapaksas also bet on a new geo-political optimism.
- They believed that with China’s rise, Sri Lanka’s location on east-west trade lanes would become a prized asset.
- They were confident that in the global competition for power triggered by China’s rise, international actors would be compelled to seek Sri Lanka’s favour for fear of “losing” it to the other side.
- With this geo-political calculus in mind, they assuredly rebuffed Western and Indian demands.
- None of the great powers who were supposed to be competing for Sri Lanka’s favour have stepped up to offer a bailout, although the sums are quite small by global standards.
- The bid for total sovereign autonomy has crash-landed and yet the alternatives are also politically difficult.
More leverage to international actors
- The irony of Sri Lanka’s push for total sovereign autonomy is that it has given international actors more leverage than they had before.
- Going to the IMF will require concessions on human rights and good governance to secure preferential access to European markets.
- At the same time, Indian bilateral assistance has conditionalities on clearing controversial investments.
Way forward
- Push non-reversible changes: International actors who really want to help Sri Lanka should use this leverage to push for tangible and non-reversible changes in the treatment of Tamils and Muslims whatever leadership emerges in Colombo.
- Eemilitarisation and normalisation of relations with the Tamils and Muslims: The crisis can serve as a reality check for the Sinhala nationalist leadership and electorate. The model of economic and political governance they have pursued is unsustainable, and the alternatives must be faced.
- The most pressing of these is the demilitarisation and normalisation of relations with the Tamils and Muslims.
- Sinhala political attention can perhaps then be turned to the other pressing failures of governance that have brought Sri Lanka to this state.
Conclusion
The Rajapaksas may be the principal protagonists of this crisis but the underlying script they have followed is a Sinhala Buddhist one and until Sri Lanka finds a new script it cannot find peace or stability.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now