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Higher Education – RUSA, NIRF, HEFA, etc.

Blended mode of teaching

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Blended learning

Mains level: Paper 2- Blended learning and related issues

Blended mode of teaching and its advantages

  • A recent circular by the University Grants Commission (UGC) proposes that all higher educational institutions (HEI) teach 40% of any course online and the rest 60% offline termed as blended learning (BL).
  • The UGC argues that this “blended mode of teaching” and learning paves the way for:
  • 1) Increased student engagement in learning.
  • 2) Enhanced student-teacher interactions.
  • 3) Improved student learning outcomes.
  • 4) More flexible teaching and learning environments, among other things.
  • 5) Other key benefits such as the increased opportunity for institutional collaborations at a distance and enhanced self-learning accruing from blended learning (BL).
  • 6) BL benefits the teachers as well. It shifts the role of the teacher from being a “knowledge provider to a coach and mentor”.
  • 7)  The note adds that BL introduces flexibility in assessment and evaluation patterns as well.

Challenges

  • All India Survey on Higher Education (2019-20) report shows that 60.56% of the 42,343 colleges in India are located in rural areas and 78.6% are privately managed.
  • Only big corporates are better placed to invest in technology and provide such learning.
  • Second, according to datareportal statistics, Internet penetration in India is only 45% as of January 2021.
  • This policy will only exacerbate the existing geographical and digital divide.
  • Third, BL leaves little room for all-round formation of the student that includes the development of their intelligent quotient, emotional quotient, social quotient, physical quotient and spiritual quotient.
  • The listening part and subsequent interactions with the teacher may get minimised.
  • Also, the concept note assumes that all students have similar learning styles and have a certain amount of digital literacy to cope with the suggested learning strategies of BL.
  • This is far from true. Education in India is driven by a teacher-centred approach.

Suggestions

  • The government should ensure equity in access to technology and bandwidth for all HEIs across the country free of cost.
  • Massive digital training programmes must be arranged for teachers.
  • Even the teacher-student ratio needs to be readjusted to implement BL effectively.
  • This may require the appointment of a greater number of teachers.
  • The design of the curriculum should be decentralised and based on a bottom-up approach.
  • More power in such education-related policymaking should be vested with the State governments.
  • Switching over from a teacher-centric mode of learning at schools to the BL mode at the tertiary level will be difficult for learners.
  • Hence, the government must think of overhauling the curriculum at the school level as well.
  • Finally, periodical discussions, feedback mechanisms and support services at all levels would revitalise the implementation of the learning programme of the National Education Policy 2020, BL.
  • It will also lead to the actualisation of the three cardinal principles of education policy: access, equity and quality.

Conclusion

Government must take steps to address the concerns with blended learning before implementing it.

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Economic Indicators and Various Reports On It- GDP, FD, EODB, WIR etc

It’s time for RBI to turn its attention to inflation

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: GDP Deflator

Mains level: Paper 3- Impact of inflation on various stakeholders

Recently, CPI inflation crossed the RBI’s upper limit of 6%. The article explains the implications of this for various stakeholders.

How inflation benefits government as a borrower

  • Rising inflation hurts lenders and benefits borrowers.
  • To that extent, the government, one of the biggest borrowers, stands to benefit as high inflation will lower the national debt load in relation to the size of the economy.
  • The Union budget 2021-22 assumed a 14.4 per cent growth in nominal GDP, however, actual growth is set to exceed this.
  • The GDP deflator, which measures the difference between nominal and real GDP, is a weighted average of WPI and CPI, with a higher weightage to WPI.
  • And given that nominal GDP is used as a base for computing the fiscal ratios, all of these will get deflated.
  • The value of past debt and debt servicing costs thus gets pared in real terms as inflation rises.
  • Viewed from a debt dynamics perspective, as the gap between growth and interest rates rises, the debt/GDP ratio falls.

Impact on other stakeholder

  • That inflation reduces purchasing power and hits private consumption is well known.
  • Overall food CPI inflation (5 per cent) was lower than non-food inflation (7.1 per cent) in May.
  • Lower food inflation, coupled with higher non-food inflation means reduced purchasing power for farmers.
  • Inflation trends, specifically input prices (reflected better by WPI), matter for corporate performance as well.
  • While producers seem to be bearing a part of the burden of rising input costs for now, these could get passed on in greater measure to consumers once demand recovers.
  • Rising inflation reduces returns on fixed income instruments, including bank deposits, which account for over 50 per cent of households’ financial savings.
  • This has already induced a shift to riskier asset classes such as equities, which has ramifications for overall financial stability.

Way forward

  • The RBI will have to closely monitor inflation trends and calibrate its policy response.
  • It has not intervened on high inflation since the onset of the pandemic and, rightly so, in order to support growth.
  • But the current spell of inflation is over a high base and a continuation of recent trends will persuade it to turn the focus back on inflation.
  •  Given the need for monetary policy to stay accommodative, it might be time to consider other supply-side interventions such as cuts in excise rates on petroleum products to soften the inflation blow.

Consider the question “As a one of the largest borrowers, how rising inflation benefits the government? How high inflation affects the other sections of the economy?”

Conclusion

Given the impact rising inflation has for the braoader sections of the economy, it is time for RBI to turn its attention to inflation.

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Parliament – Sessions, Procedures, Motions, Committees etc

The ‘Union government’ has a unifying effect

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Article 1, 2 and 3

Mains level: Read the attached story

The Tamil Nadu government has decided to shun the usage of the term ‘Central government’ in its official communications and replace it with ‘Union government’. This is a major step towards regaining the consciousness of our Constitution.

India the union

  • Seventy-one years since we adopted the Constitution, it is time we regained the original intent of our founding fathers beautifully etched in the parchment as Article 1: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States”.
  • The Constituent Assembly did not use the term ‘Centre’ or ‘Central government’ in all of its 395 Articles in 22 Parts and eight Schedules in the original Constitution.
  • What we have are the ‘Union’ and the ‘States’ with the executive powers of the Union wielded by the President acting on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister.

Where is Central Govt defined?

  • Even though we have no reference to the ‘Central government’ in the Constitution, the General Clauses Act, 1897 gives a definition for it.
  • The ‘Central government’ for all practical purposes is the President after the commencement of the Constitution.
  • Therefore, the real question is whether such definition for ‘Central government’ is constitutional as the Constitution itself does not approve of centralising power.

Intent of Constituent Assembly

  • On December 13, 1946, Pt Nehru introduced the aims and objects of the Assembly by resolving that India shall be a Union of territories willing to join the “Independent Sovereign Republic”.
  • The emphasis was on the consolidation and confluence of various provinces and territories to form a strong united country.
  • Many members of the Constituent Assembly were of the opinion that the principles of the British Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) be adopted, which contemplated a Central government with very limited powers whereas the provinces had substantial autonomy.
  • The Partition and the violence of 1947 in Kashmir forced the Constituent Assembly to revise its approach and it resolved in favour of a strong Centre.
  • The possibility of the secession of States from the Union weighed on the minds of the drafters of the Constitution and ensured that the Indian Union is “indestructible”.

Preventing the secession

  • In the Constituent Assembly, B.R Ambedkar, the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, observed that the word ‘Union’ was advisedly used in order to negative the right of secession of States.
  • Ambedkar justified the usage of ‘Union of States’ saying that the Drafting Committee wanted to make it clear that though India was to be a federation, it was not the result of an agreement.
  • Therefore, no State has the right to secede from it. “The federation is a Union because it is indestructible,” Ambedkar said.

Then criticism of the ‘Union’

  • The usage of ‘Union of States’ by Ambedkar was not approved by all and faced criticisms from Maulana Hasrat Mohani.
  • He argued that Ambedkar was changing the very nature of the Constitution.
  • Mohani made a fiery speech in the Assembly on September 18, 1949 where he contended that the usage of the words ‘Union of States’ would obscure the word ‘Republic’.
  • Mohani went to the extent of saying that Ambedkar wanted the ‘Union’ to be “something like the Union proposed by Prince Bismarck in Germany, and after him adopted by Kaiser William and after him by Adolf Hitler”.

Dr. Ambedkar’s clarification

  • Ambedkar clarified that the Union is not a league of States, united in a loose relationship; nor are the States the agencies of the Union, deriving powers from it.
  • Both the Union and the States are created by the Constitution, both derive their respective authority from the Constitution.
  • The one is not subordinate to the other in its own field… the authority of one is coordinate with that of the other.

Features of Indian Union

  • The sharing of powers between the Union and the States is not restricted to the executive organ of the government.
  • The judiciary is designed in the Constitution to ensure that the Supreme Court, the tallest court in the country, has no superintendence over the High Courts.
  • Though the Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction — not only over High Courts but also over other courts and tribunals — they are not declared to be subordinate to it.
  • In fact, the High Courts have wider powers to issue prerogative writs despite having the power of superintendence over the district and subordinate courts.
  • Parliament and Assemblies identify their boundaries and are circumspect to not cross their boundaries when it comes to the subject matter on which laws are made.
  • However, the Union Parliament will prevail if there is a conflict.

Answer this PYQ:

Q.Consider the following statements:

  1. The Executive Power of the Union of India is vested in the Prime Minister.
  2. The Prime Minister is the ex-offi cio Chairman of the Civil Services Board.

Which of the given statements is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

A wordplay indeed

  • The members of the Constituent Assembly were very cautious of not using the word ‘Centre’ or ‘Central government’ in the Constitution as they intended to keep away the tendency of centralizing of powers in one unit.
  • The ‘Union government’ or the ‘Government of India’ has a unifying effect as the message sought to be given is that the government is of all.
  • Even though the federal nature of the Constitution is its basic feature and cannot be altered, what remains to be seen is whether the actors wielding power intend to protect the federal feature of our Constitution.
  • As Nani Palkhivala famously said, “The only satisfactory and lasting solution of the vexed problem is to be found not in the statute book but in the conscience of men in power”.

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Digital India Initiatives

What is AgriStack?

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Agristack

Mains level: Digitalization of Agriculture

The Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare has entered into an MoU with Microsoft Corporation to start a pilot project in 100 villages to create a ‘Unified Farmer Service Interface’ through its cloud computing services.

AgriStack

  • The AgriStack is a collection of technologies and digital databases proposed by the Central Government focusing on India’s farmers and the agricultural sector.
  • The central government has claimed that these new databases are being built to primarily tackle issues such as poor access to credit and wastage in the agricultural supply chain.
  • Under AgriStack’, the government aims to provide ‘required data sets’ of farmers’ personal information to Microsoft to develop a farmer interface for ‘smart and well-organized agriculture’.
  • The digital repository will aid precise targeting of subsidies, services and policies, the officials added.
  • Under the programme, each farmer of the country will get what is being called an FID, or a farmers’ ID, linked to land records to uniquely identify them. India has 140 million operational farm-land holdings.
  • Alongside, the government is also developing a unified farmer service platform that will help digitise agricultural services delivery by the public and private sectors.

Issues with the move

  • Agriculture has become the latest sector getting a boost of ‘techno solutionism’ by the government.
  • But it has, since then, also become the latest sector to enter the whole debate about data privacy and surveillance.
  • Since the signing of the MoUs, several concerns related to sharing farmers’ data with private companies the major one being Microsoft whose owner Bill Gates is said to be the largest private farmland owner in the US.
  • In all the MoUs, there are provisions under which the agriculture ministry will enter into a data sharing agreement with the private companies of the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Patanjali.
  • The development has raised serious concerns about information asymmetry, data privacy and consent, profiling of farmers, mismanaged land records and corporatization of agriculture.
  • The formation of ‘Agristack’ also implies commercialization of agriculture extension activities as they will shift into a digital and private sphere.

Why such concerns?

  • The project was being implemented in the absence of a data protection legislation.
  • It might end up being an exercise where private data processing entities may know more about a farmer’s land than the farmer himself.
  • Without safeguards, private entities would be able to exploit farmers’ data to whatever extent they wish to.
  • This information asymmetry, tilted towards the technology companies, might further exploit farmers, especially small and marginal ones.

What are some major threats?

  • One of the biggest worries is the threat of financial exploitation.
  • We have already seen how microfinance firms have wreaked financial havoc in rural hinterlands.
  • Now, once Fintech companies are able to collect granular data about the farmers’ operations, they may offer them usurious rates of interest precisely when they would be in the direst need for credit.
  • With this, the risk of commodifying agriculture and farmer data ran high.

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Defence Sector – DPP, Missions, Schemes, Security Forces, etc.

What is a Full Ship Shock Trial (FSST)?

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Full Ship Shock Trial (FSST)

Mains level: Not Much

The US Navy Friday carried out a ‘full ship shock trial’ on its newest and most advanced nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to ensure its hardness was capable of withstanding battle conditions.

What is a Full Ship Shock Trial (FSST)?

  • During World War II, American warships suffered severe damage from enemy mines and torpedoes that had actually missed their target, but exploded underwater in close proximity.
  • The US Navy has since worked to improve the shockproofing of their ship systems to minimize damage from such “near miss” explosions.
  • In FSSTs, an underwater explosive charge is set off near an operational ship, and system and component failures are documented.
  • The FSST probes whether the components survive shock in their environment on the ship; it probes the possibilities of system failures, and large components that could not be otherwise tested.

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Bhutan’s Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) Programme

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: TIWB Programme

Mains level: Not Much

Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) programme has been recently launched.

TIWB Program

  • TIWB is a joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
  • India was chosen as the Partner Jurisdiction and has provided the Tax Expert for this programme.
  • It aims to aid Bhutan in strengthening its tax administration by transferring technical know-how and skills to its tax auditors, and through sharing of best audit practices.
  • The focus of the programme will be in the area of International Taxation and Transfer Pricing.
  • This programme is another milestone in the continued cooperation between India and Bhutan and India’s continued and active support for South-South cooperation.

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Services Sector

[pib] Guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSP)

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Other Service Providers (OSPs), Sectors of economy

Mains level: Not Much

The Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology has further liberalized the guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSPs).

Do you remember quaternary and quinary sectors of Economy from NCERTs?

What are OSPs?

  • These entities are business process outsourcing (BPO) organizations giving Voice based services, in India and abroad.
  • The term Business Process Outsourcing or BPO as it is popularly known, refers to outsourcing in all fields.
  • A BPO service provider usually administers and manages a particular business process for another company.
  • BPOs either use new technology or apply an existing technology in a new way to improve a particular business process.
  • India is currently the number one destination for business process outsourcing, as most companies in the US and UK outsource IT-related business processes to Indian service providers.

Main features of the liberalized guidelines

  • Distinction between Domestic and International OSPs has been removed. A BPO centre with common Telecom resources will now be able to serve customers located worldwide including in India.
  • EPABX (Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange) of the OSP can be located anywhere in the world. OSPs apart from utilising EPABX services of the Telecom Service Providers can also locate their EPABX at third Party Data Centres in India.
  • With the removal of the distinction between Domestic and International OSP centres, the interconnectivity between all types of OSP centres is now permitted.
  • Remote Agents of OSP can now connect directly with the Centralised EPABX/ EPABX of the OSP/ EPABX of the customer using any technology including Broadband over wireline/ wireless.
  • No restriction for data interconnectivity between any OSP centres of same company or group company or any unrelated company.

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