Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Human Migration: Reasons and Impact
Context
- India has used Aadhaar (digital identity) and UPI (digital payments) extensively to address the challenges of identification and financial inclusion in social protection delivery, particularly in the case of migrants.
Who is a migrant worker?
- A “migrant worker” is a person who either migrates within their home country or outside it to pursue work.
- Usually, migrant workers do not have the intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work.
- As per the census 2011, the total number of internal migrants in India is 36 crore or 37% of the country’s population.
- The Economic Survey pegged the size of the migrant workforce at roughly 20 percent or over 10 crores in 2016.
What are the problems faced by migrants?
- Issues with finding local Employment: Most migrant workers have a seasonal nature of employment. During off-seasons, they struggle to feed their families. Repeated lockdowns made situations more difficult for migrants to find jobs in their localities. They faced travel restrictions which hindered their job search as well.
- Lack of Insurance Benefits in a Pandemic Environment: Migrant workers work in precarious conditions with little wages and no access to government schemes and services. Poor and unsafe working and living conditions make them prone to diseases. Greater threats of occupational illnesses, nutritional diseases, alcoholism, HIV, and communicable diseases are rampant in the migrant workforce.
- Issue of timely and Fair Payment of Wages: The informal workforce in India consists of more than 150.6 million regular and daily wage earners. Most of these workers are unaware of their rights as ‘migrant workers. Many unscrupulous agents coerce them and don’t pay minimum wages as per law.
- Lack of portability of benefits: Migrants registered to claim access to benefits at one location lose access upon migration to a different location. This is especially true of access to entitlements under the PDS. The ration card required to access benefits under the PDS is issued by state governments and is not portable across states. This system excludes inter-state migrants from the PDS unless they surrender their card from the home state and get a new one from the host state.
- Lack of affordable housing: The proportion of migrants in urban population is 47%. In 2015, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs identified migrants in urban areas as the largest population needing housing in cities. There is inadequate supply of low-income ownership and rental housing options.
Government steps for migrant workers
- Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana: After the lockdown, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana with a financial package of Rs. 1.7 lakh crore was launched to help poor, needy, and unorganized sector workers of the country.
- PM SVANidhi Scheme: PM SVANidhi Scheme was launched to facilitate collateral-free working capital loans up to Rs.10,000/- of one-year tenure, to approximately, 50 lakh street vendors, to resume their businesses.
- Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan: In order to facilitate the employment of migrant workers who have gone back to their home state, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan was initiated in 116 districts in Mission Mode.
- State migrant cell: Migrant workers’ Cell is being created to prepare a database of migrant workers in states with mapping.
- eShram portal: It is a national database created to register the unorganised workers in the country, including the migrant workers.
- National policy on migrant workers: NITI Aayog has been mandated to prepare a draft national policy on migrant workers to reimagine labour-capital relations while integrating the migrant workers within the formal workforce.
How technology could provide Solutions?
- Providing digital public infrastructure (DPI): Digital public infrastructure systems that enable the effective provision of essential society-wide functions and services can enable a paradigm shift, allowing governments to co-create solutions with the private sector and civil society.
- Adopting Public private partnership models: There are three key areas where DPI can enable public-private partnerships (PPP) in the delivery of social protection of migrants,
- Awareness of entitlements: One barrier faced at the initial stage is lack of awareness of entitlements or of the need to reapply, when migrants move from one state to another. Jan Saathi is an application that provides migrants withinformation on eligible social security schemes. Organisations such as Haqdarshak not only inform potential beneficiaries about their eligibility for various schemes, Central or State, but also help them avail entitlements.
- Information about livelihoods and housing: The informal nature of the labour market makes access to affordable and safe living conditions a challenge, especially if the family migrates as a unit. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairshas introduced the Affordable Rental Housing Complexes under PMAY-Urban but the availability of such facilities is inadequate compared to the number of migrants. Bandhu’s ecosystem of applications connect migrant workers directly with employers and housing providers, to give them more informed choices. Jobsgaar and MyRojgaar also play a similar role by connecting workers to employers.
- Healthy Grievance redressal Mechanism: Gram Vaani bridges the gap in grievance redressal by providing a platform where citizens can use Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to record their grievance in accessing entitlements. Aajeevika Bureau and The Working People’s Charter built the India Labourline to provide legal aid and mediation services to migrant workers.
- Adopting a well-designed data: While a growing ecosystem of private players (NGOs, civil society organisations, not-for-profit and for-profit entities) are addressing these needs, well designed data exchanges can help unlock a strong public-private collaboration in the delivery of social protection.
What more government can do to address the issue of migrants?
- Creating centralized data: The state’s digital efforts are often in siloes and the need to maximize the use of data across schemes and departments is a high priority.
- E-Shram: Initiatives such as direct benefit transfers and linking schemes for the portability of entitlements have shown promise. e-Shram, which is a national database of unorganized workers, aims to reduce access barriers to social protection for migrants.
- Making portable entitlement: Recent announcements of API-based integration of e-Shram with the various state government labor departments and with the One Nation One Ration Card scheme are a step in that direction.
- Working with the private sector: Enabling linkages of migrant data with the private sector can lead to benefits on the demand side, in the form of reduced transaction costs in identifying jobs, affordable housing, and redressal of grievances.
- Engaging the private sector: Private players who have established relationships with these mobile populations can help the state in planning and forecasting the demand for benefits. An example of this is the digital payment ecosystem since the introduction of UPI.
Conclusion
- Digital technologies have potential solutions to problems and transform the livelihood of migrants. The need for adequate data protection and safeguards is essential for the implementation of any such initiative.
Mains Question
Q.Enlist the problem faced by migrant workers? Elaborate on how use of technology can solve the many problems of migrants.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Urab floods,Urban challenges and solutions
Context
- After flooding of major metropolitan cities of Bengaluru, Gurgaon and Delhi following heavy rainfall, the Centre has pointed to two cities – Davanagere and Agartala – as successful examples of cities that have curbed urban flooding.
Why cities are so important in India?
- Drivers of Growth: Urbanisation has played and will continue to play a critical role in India’s growth story in the 21st century.
- Cities are seen as GDP multipliers: By some estimates, Indian cities already contribute up to 70% of the country’s GDP. Yet, depending on which official estimates you use, India is just 26% or 31% urban. But there is growing evidence that India is more urban than is officially recognized.
- Cities have more productivity: Well-functioning and diverse cities allow for the sharing and cross-pollination of ideas, which in turn drive greater productivity.
- Lack of Planning: current urban planning policies and practice have led to suboptimal use of land in Indian cities. This has multiple consequences. There is not enough floor space for accommodating migrants in search of economic opportunities; they make space for themselves in informal settlements. There is also not enough land in the public domain for developing adequate open spaces or augmenting infrastructure capacities.
- Lack of Housing:The pandemic revealed that the cities’ economies rely on migrant populations in the formal and informal sectors. Workers in both markets move from rural to urban and urban to urban areas as they find better opportunities; they are mobile and need adequate rental options. Today, in most Indian cities, this demand is not met and leads to unaffordable options, pushing the poorer sections out to slums and other informal settlements.
- Lack of Transport: Indian cities are infamous for their road congestion; three of them rank in the 10 most congested in the world according to the 2020 TomTom Travel Index with Mumbai ranking second. The existing public transportation systems are already overcrowded and of poor quality.
- Lack of Public health: Like other health crises, the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the need to ensure adequate healthcare services and sanitation infrastructure for a healthy population in cities. In the initial months of the outbreak, the focus of health services shifted entirely towards addressing the novel coronavirus, leaving other health issues unaddressed and shutting down routine care services.
- Impact on Environment: The causes for low air quality are multiple; vehicular movement and on-road congestion are major contributors. A safe and clean environment is key to good public health.
- Problems faced by vulnerable sections: The economic shock and work from home guidelines changed migration patterns; workers in cities returned to their home towns and villages. Slum dwellers, with limited access to adequate infrastructure, and migrant workers, disenfranchised from social protection systems or daily wagers, were more vulnerable to this shock. In the medium and long term, it is difficult to predict what the job market will be in cities.
What can be done to address the urban challenges?
- Future planning is necessary: Manage the spatial growth of cities and allow them to build more planned road networks for future horizontal expansion and revoke faulty policies that constrain the use of floor space to build vertically.
- Housing for all scheme is important: Focus on providing public housing for the poor; India can learn from successful models in Singapore or Hong Kong and understand the strategic challenges of other international examples such as Mexico. India can also work toenable efficient rental markets
- Holistic transport should be focused: Integrate formal and informal modes of transportation into holistic transportation strategies to ensure seamless mobility, as well as first and last mile connectivity.
- Increasing funds to Cities: Decentralise fiscal powers to the local level and train city authorities so that they can make more strategic decisions in health expenditures or public health infrastructure, as well as gain the capacity to raise their own resources.
- Need of a healthy Environment: Increase the number of open spaces in the public domain, maintain them and monitor their use. Prepare for disasters with robust framework of physical infrastructures, road networks and large open spaces. Build adequate infrastructure to support the sustainable development of emerging Tier-2 and Tier 3 towns.
- More attention to vulnerable: Develop more systematic identification mechanisms of the urban poor to ameliorate the delivery of public services and social protection. Collect accurate data on migrant population and capture their socio-economic diversity to better address their needs. Monitor access to services, housing and jobs of the vulnerable communities in real time.
Conclusion
- Urban infrastructure is crumbling day by day. In the next 25 years, cities will have more population than rural areas. Indian cities need urgent reform in order to unlock their economic potential and transform quality of life.
Mains Question
Q.Discuss the urban infrastructure challenges? What are the governments scheme and actions to address the urbanization challenges?
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Critical Minerals,rare earth minerals
Mains level: critical minerals and applications ,Aatmanirbharta in Energy security.
Context
- In his Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi exhorted the country to pursue aatmanirbhar bharta in energy by focusing on clean energy technologies. Securing access to key critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth metals is critical for building resilient and indigenous supply chains for clean energy technologies.
Background
- Concerns over the pricing and availability of oil and gas in the wake of the Ukraine crisis continue to fuel global policy debates on energy security. However, the fragility of clean energy supply chains obscures pathways for countries to reduce dependence on fossil fuel.
- Imported inflationary pressures through exposure to volatile oil and gas markets also pose risks to macroeconomic growth and stability, particularly for India, import dependent for around 85% of its oil and half of its gas needs.
What are Critical Minerals?
- Critical minerals are elements that are the building blocks of essential modern-day technologies, and are at risk of supply chain disruptions.
- These minerals are now used everywhere from making mobile phones, computers to batteries, electric vehicles and green technologies like solar panels and wind turbines.
- Based on their individual needs and strategic considerations, different countries create their own lists.
- However, such lists mostly include graphite, lithium, cobalt, rare earths and silicon which is a key mineral for making computer chips, solar panels and batteries.
- Aerospace, communications and defence industries also rely on several such minerals as they are used in manufacturing fighter jets, drones, radio sets and other critical equipment.
Why is this resource critical?
- As countries around the world scale up their transition towards clean energy and digital economy, these critical resources are key to the ecosystem that fuels this change.
- Any supply shock can severely imperil the economy and strategic autonomy of a country over-dependent on others to procure critical minerals.
- But these supply risks exist due to rare availability, growing demand and complex processing value chain.
- Many times the complex supply chain can be disrupted by hostile regimes, or due to politically unstable regions.
- They are critical as the world is fast shifting from a fossil fuel-intensive to a mineral-intensive energy system.
What are Rare Earth Metals?
- The rare earth elements (REE) are a set of seventeen metallic elements. These include the fifteen lanthanides on the periodic table plus scandium and yttrium.
- Rare earth elements are an essential part of many high-tech devices.
- They have a wide range of applications, especially high-tech consumer products, such as cellular telephones, computer hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles, and flat-screen monitors and televisions.
- Significant defense applications include electronic displays, guidance systems, lasers, and radar and sonar systems.
- Rare earth minerals, with names like neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium, are crucial to the manufacture of magnets used in industries of the future, such as wind turbines and electric cars.
Applications of REMs in various fields:
- Electronics: Television screens, computers, cell phones, silicon chips, monitor displays, long-life rechargeable batteries, camera lenses, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), baggage scanners, marine propulsion systems.
- Defense Sector: Rare earth elements play an essential role in our national defense. The military uses night-vision goggles, precision-guided weapons, communications equipment, GPS equipment, batteries, and other defense electronics. These give the United States military an enormous advantage. Rare earth metals are key ingredients for making the very hard alloys used in armored vehicles and projectiles that shatter upon impact.
- Renewable Energy: Solar panels, Hybrid automobiles, wind turbines, next-generation rechargeable batteries, bio-fuel catalysts.
- Manufacturing: High strength magnets, metal alloys, stress gauges, ceramic pigments, colorants in glassware, chemical oxidizing agent, polishing powders, plastics creation, as additives for strengthening other metals, automotive catalytic converters
- Medical Science: Portable x-ray machines, x-ray tubes, magnetic resonance imagery (MRI) contrast agents, nuclear medicine imaging, cancer treatment applications, and for genetic screening tests, medical and dental lasers.
- Technology: Lasers, optical glass, fiber optics, masers, radar detection devices, nuclear fuel rods, mercury-vapor lamps, highly reflective glass, computer memory, nuclear batteries, high-temperature superconductors.
DO YOU KNOW?
Metals such as cadmium, lead are often used in manufacturing plastic and over time can enter coastal waters. These are acutely harmful for coastal wildlife and humans.Different kinds of plastic releases different kinds of metals that may release when exposed to water and UV lights.
- Deposits in geopolitically sensitive regions: Reserves are often concentrated in regions that are geopolitically sensitive or fare poorly from an ease of doing business perspective.
- Controlled production: A portion of existing production is controlled by geostrategic competitors. For example, China wields considerable influence in cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo through direct equity investments and its Belt and Road Initiative.
- Agreements in advance from outside: Future mine production is often tied up in off take agreements, in advance, by buyers from other countries to cater to upcoming demand.
A step taken by Indian government for sourcing strategic minerals
- For sourcing of strategic minerals, the Indian government established Khanij Bidesh India Limited (KABIL) in 2019 with the mandate to secure mineral supply for the domestic market.
What is Khanij Bidesh India Limited (KABIL)?
- Joint venture: A joint venture company namely Khanij Bidesh India Ltd. (KABIL) set up with the participation of three Central Public Sector Enterprises namely, National Aluminium Company Ltd.(NALCO), Hindustan Copper Ltd.(HCL) and Mineral Exploration Company Ltd. (MECL).
- Objective: The objective of constituting KABIL is to ensure a consistent supply of critical and strategic minerals to Indian domestic market. While KABIL would ensure mineral security of the Nation, it would also help in realizing the overall objective of import substitution.
Suggestions based on Council on energy environment and water (CEEW) to achieve the objective of KABIL
- Mapping out the domestic requirement: Figure out the mineral requirements of the domestic industry. This could best be accomplished by a task force which includes the ministries of power, new and renewable energy, heavy industry, and science and technology.
- Clear road map for indigenous manufacturing: Five year road maps with clear targets for deployment and indigenous manufacturing across clean energy applications would provide visibility to domestic investors. Assess the technology mix that would support this deployment. On this basis, determine the quantities of minerals necessary to support indigenous manufacturing.
- Better coordination between different stakeholders: Coordinate with the domestic industry to determine where strategic interventions by the government would be necessary for the purpose.KABIL could collaborate with industry to bolster its market intelligence capabilities for tracking global supply side developments.
- Preemptive agreements through KABIL for reliable supply: If conducive investment opportunities don’t exist KABIL should preemptively sign off take agreements with global mineral suppliers to secure future production. It could aggregate reliable supply of minerals for domestic requirements and sign back to back sales agreements with the domestic industry .Such large scale centralised national procurement could be done at preferential terms.
- Joint Investment In mining assets to mitigate investment risks: The government should jointly invest in mining assets with geostrategic partners. KABIL should make equity investments in mining jurisdictions that private sector investors may deem too risky. It should leverage government to government partnerships to mitigate investment risks. This could be done through joint investments with sovereign entities from geostrategic partners or private sector entities with expertise in specific geographies.
- Finding the alternatives: Technologies such as sodium ion batteries could reduce requirements for sourcing minerals from beyond India’s borders. It could also propose co development of such technologies with geostrategic partners.
- Developing policies on sustainable urban mining and recycling: Develop policies on urban mining aimed at recycling mineral inputs from deployments that have completed their useful life. These could help further reduce dependence on international sourcing.
Conclusion
- Besides Ukraine, other potential geopolitical flash points also exist against a backdrop of dwindling multilateral cooperation. India must act immediately and decisively to mitigate these risks to its energy security.
Mains Question
Q.What are critical minerals? Why the critical minerals are so important? What steps India can take to achieve the objective of Atmanirbhar Bharat in domestic mineral supply and thereby mitigating energy security risks?
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Nobel Prize
Mains level: Not Much
The Nobel Prize for Economics in 2022 was awarded to Ben S Bernanke, Douglas W Diamond and Philip H Dybvig for research on banks and financial crises.
Do you know?
- The economics prize is not one of the original five awards created in the 1895 will of industrialist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel.
- It was established by Sweden’s central bank and first awarded in 1969, its full and formal name being the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
Why was the Nobel given to these three scholars?
- The research of the three laureates has helped us understand the role of banks in the economy, particularly during financial crises.
- Their research shows why avoiding a bank collapse is very important for the economy.
Which bank did these scholars study?
- In 1656, the then-king of Sweden approved the foundation of Sweden’s first bank, the Stockholms Banco, which also became the first bank to issue banknotes in Europe.
- However, Banco over-issued notes leading to its liquidation in 1667.
- In 1668, the Swedish Nobles decided to found the Riksens Standers Bank, which was later renamed as Sveriges Riksbank in 1867.
- In 1968, on its tercentenary, the Sveriges Riksbank decided to award the economics prize in memory of Alfred Nobel.
- The award itself was the result of an ongoing crisis and conflict between the central bank and the government.
- The purpose of mentioning this history is to highlight how failures are central to banks.
- Banks have failed ever since they were created.
What does Ben Bernanke say about banking crises?
- In the 1930s, the world economy faced a serious economic contraction called the Great Depression.
- For many years, it was thought the Great Depression was due to a lack of policy stimulus.
- The economist John Maynard Keynes had argued that monetary policy was ineffective in such crises as interest rates could not go lower than zero percent, and one needed a large fiscal stimulus.
- Milton Friedman argued that central banks could create money even when interest rates were zero by buying assets, thereby increasing the money supply.
Reasons behind the crisis
- Bernanke said that while a lack of policy stimulus explains the contraction, it does not explain why the Great Depression continued for such a long time.
- The economic contraction had led to a large number of bank failures.
- His argument was that it was this large-scale failure of banks which prolonged the crisis.
- Banks were not in a position to channel loans towards productive activities, leading to the crisis becoming more severe in the US.
How is bank failure attributed to the financial crisis?
- Banks have special insights into companies, and when a bank fails, all this information is lost.
- A failed banking system takes many years to repair and the economy performs very poorly in this period.
- This explains why the Great Depression became such a prolonged crisis.
- Bernanke drew his analysis from a deep understanding of economic and monetary history.
- This prize also shows the importance of history, which is becoming rarer in economic research.
What are Diamond’s and Dybvig’s insights into banking crises?
- Bernanke explained what happens when banks fail. But Diamond and Dybvig explained why banks fail.
- In joint research, hence called the Diamond-Dybvig model, they explain that banks fail when depositors rush for their money.
- In their model, banks are seen as financial intermediaries that intermediate funds from depositors to loan seekers.
- The deposits are for shorter durations whereas loans are typically given for longer durations (technically called the maturity transformation function of banks).
- The banks are seen as entities that help savers meet investors, and by channeling loans towards good projects, banks help an economy grow.
How bank failure is related to depositors?
- Banks are prone to runs by depositors.
- In their research, they show that once there is a rumor about a bank’s weakness, it spreads like wildfire, causing a bank run, when depositors literally run for their funds to the bank.
- As banks lend most of the funds towards long-term projects, the loans cannot be recalled easily to repay the depositors.
- If the rumor is not addressed, it leads to eventual bank failure.
Is it Nobel-worthy?
- While many know this is basically how banks fail, the prize-winning duo formalized the model.
- They also presented a solution for bank failures via deposit insurance, which was also introduced before their research.
- In 1933, the US was the first country to adopt deposit insurance, followed by India in 1962.
- Both adopted deposit insurance after a significant number of banks failed in these countries.
What does the prize mean for Indian banking?
- India has been facing sporadic banking crises from 2013 where few banks failed.
- Bernanke’s research shows how once a crisis starts, it can prolong not just banking problems but also lower economic growth over time.
- Diamond-Dybvig’s research shows how the weak performance of individual banks like the Punjab and Maharashtra Urban Cooperative Bank and Yes Bank lead to runs.
- Such banks need to be bailed out by the government.
- There was also the case of ICICI bank which faced a run in 2008 based on rumours, but the run was stalled by the central bank by issuing a notification assuring the sound health of the bank.
You must know this!
- Economist and former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) chief Raghuram Rajan seemed to have missed out on the award.
- He is a leading scholar on banking and has written many research papers with this year’s awardee, Douglass Diamond.
- The Nobel committee has cited 12 of his research papers, which are a significant contribution to the field of banking.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: INSPACE, NSIL
Mains level: India's space economy
India’s space economy is likely to be worth nearly $13 billion by 2025, with the satellite launch services segment set to witness the fastest growth due to increasing private participation.
About the report
- The report is released by the Indian Space Association (ISpA) and Ernst & Young.
- It says that the growing demand for smaller satellites is set to boost satellite manufacturing in the country.
- It will attract global start-ups in the sector to help incubate space tech companies to India.
Key highlights
- India’s space economy was pegged at $9.6 billion in 2020 and is expected to touch $12.8 billion by 2025.
- In dollar terms, the satellite services and applications segment would be the largest with a turnover of $4.6 billion by 2025, followed by the ground segment at $4 billion.
- Satellite manufacturing stands at $3.2 billion and launch services at $1 billion.
- The launch services segment was pegged at $600 million in 2020 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13 percent to reach $1 billion by 2025.
Key drivers of this demand
- India has of over 100 space tech start-ups with investments in the segment touching $68 million in 2021.
- The availability of low-cost satellite launch vehicles coupled with mass production will lead to demand from customers around the world.
- Several companies are utilising cutting-edge technologies to develop innovative launch solutions in India.
Where does India stand in the global space market?
- As per SpaceTech Analytics, India is the sixth-largest player in the industry internationally having 3.6% of the world’s space-tech companies (as of 2021).
- US holds the leader’s spot housing 56.4% of all companies in the space-tech ecosystem.
- Other major players include UK (6.5%), Canada (5.3%), China (4.7%) and Germany (4.1%).
- The Indian Space Industry was valued at $7 billion in 2019 and aspires to grow to $50 billion by 2024.
Why does India matter in the global space-tech market?
- The country’s standout feature is its cost-effectiveness.
- India holds the distinction of being the first country to have reached the Mars’ orbit in its first attempt and at $75 million — way cheaper than Western standards.
Future prospects of India’s private ‘Space’
Ans. India may lead in space junk management
- Almost 60-odd start-ups had registered with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) this year.
- A majority of them were dealing in projects related to space debris management.
- As space becomes more congested with satellites, the technology would thus help in managing ‘space junk’ (debris of old spacecraft and satellites).
How is the private sector’s involvement regulated in India?
- In June 2020, the Union government announced reforms in the space sector enabling more private players to provide end-to-end services.
- The central idea was to bring forth a predictable policy and regulatory environment for them and additionally provide access to ISRO facilities and assets to improve their capacities.
(1) Establishment of IN-SPACe
- An announcement for the establishment of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) was made.
- It was mandated the task of promoting, authorising and licensing private players to carry out space activities.
- As an oversight and regulatory body, it is responsible for devising mechanisms to offer sharing of technology, expertise, and facilities free of cost to promote non-government private entities (NGPEs).
- IN-SPACe’s Monitoring and Promotion Directorate oversees NGPE’s activities as per prescribed regulations and reports back in case any corrective actions or resolutions are required.
- ISRO shares its expertise in matters pertaining to quality and reliability protocols, documentation, and testing procedure through IN-SPACe’s ‘interface mechanism’.
(2) Establishment of NSIL
- Additionally, constituted in March 2019, New Space India Ltd (NSIL), is mandated to transfer the matured technologies developed by the ISRO to Indian industries.
- All of them are under the purview of the Ministry of Defence.
- Private sector’s involvement in the long term, as with other commercial sectors, is believed to help spur investment and expertise in the realm which is capital-intensive and demands high technology.
Where does India lack?
Ans. Undisputedly, it is the finances
- The US and Canada were the highest receivers of space-related investment in 2021.
- The US’s space budget was $41 billion in 2021, $23.3 billion of which was focused on NASA.
- India’s total budgetary allocation for FY2022-23 towards the Department of Space was ₹13,700 crore ($172 million).
- Further, as per Tracxn data, funding into the sector’s start-ups (in India) nearly tripled to $67.2 million on a year-over-year basis in 2021.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Collegium system, NJAC
Mains level: Read the attached story
The Supreme Court Collegium has issued an unprecedented statement acknowledging differences between Chief Justice of India and two senior judges over the procedure to select candidates for appointment as apex court judges.
What is the news?
- Two senior judges of the apex court objected to the CJI’s never-before act of circulating his written recommendations among the collegium members for their approval.
- The standard procedure instead is to have adopt across-the-table discussions.
What is the issue over this?
- CJI Lalit is slated to retire on 8
- As per the Supreme Court convention, the outgoing CJI does not hold collegium meetings when the appointment of his successor has already started.
What exactly is the Collegium System?
- The collegium system was born out of years of friction between the judiciary and the executive.
- The hostility was further accentuated by instances of court-packing (the practice of changing the composition of judges in a court), mass transfer of HC judges and two supersessions to the office of the CJI in the 1970s.
- The Three Judges cases saw the evolution of the collegium system.
Evolution: The Judges Cases
- First Judges Case (1981) ruled that the “consultation” with the CJI in the matter of appointments must be full and effective.
- However, it rejected the idea that the CJI’s opinion, albeit carrying great weight, should have primacy.
- Second Judges Case (1993) introduced the Collegium system, holding that “consultation” really meant “concurrence”.
- It added that it was not the CJI’s individual opinion, but an institutional opinion formed in consultation with the two senior-most judges in the Supreme Court.
- Third Judges Case (1998): On a Presidential Reference for its opinion, the Supreme Court, in the Third Judges Case (1998) expanded the Collegium to a five-member body, comprising the CJI and four of his senior-most colleagues.
How does the collegium system work?
- The collegium of the CJI and four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court make recommendations for appointments to the apex court and High Courts.
- The collegium can veto the government if the names are sent back by the latter for reconsideration.
- The basic tenet behind the collegium system is that the judiciary should have primacy over the government in matters of appointments and transfers in order to remain independent.
The procedure followed by the Collegium
Appointment of CJI
- The President of India appoints the CJI and the other SC judges.
- As far as the CJI is concerned, the outgoing CJI recommends his successor.
- In practice, it has been strictly by seniority ever since the supersession controversy of the 1970s.
- The Union Law Minister forwards the recommendation to the PM who, in turn, advises the President.
Other SC Judges
- For other judges of the top court, the proposal is initiated by the CJI.
- The CJI consults the rest of the Collegium members, as well as the senior-most judge of the court hailing from the High Court to which the recommended person belongs.
- The consultees must record their opinions in writing and it should form part of the file.
- The Collegium sends the recommendation to the Law Minister, who forwards it to the Prime Minister to advise the President.
For High Courts
- The CJs of High Courts are appointed as per the policy of having Chief Justices from outside the respective States. The Collegium takes the call on the elevation.
- High Court judges are recommended by a Collegium comprising the CJI and two senior-most judges.
- The proposal, however, is initiated by the Chief Justice of the High Court concerned in consultation with two senior-most colleagues.
- The recommendation is sent to the Chief Minister, who advises the Governor to send the proposal to the Union Law Minister.
Does the Collegium recommend transfers too?
- Yes, the Collegium also recommends the transfer of Chief Justices and other judges.
- Article 222 of the Constitution provides for the transfer of a judge from one High Court to another.
- When a CJ is transferred, a replacement must also be simultaneously found for the High Court concerned. There can be an acting CJ in a High Court for not more than a month.
- In matters of transfers, the opinion of the CJI “is determinative”, and the consent of the judge concerned is not required.
- However, the CJI should take into account the views of the CJ of the High Court concerned and the views of one or more SC judges who are in a position to do so.
- All transfers must be made in the public interest, that is, “for the betterment of the administration of justice”.
Loopholes in the Collegium system
- Lack of Transparency: Opaqueness and a lack of transparency, and the scope for nepotism are cited often.
- Judges appointing Judge: The attempt made to replace it with a ‘National Judicial Appointments Commission’ was struck down by the court in 2015 on the ground that it posed a threat to the independence of the judiciary.
- Criteria: Some do not believe in full disclosure of reasons for transfers, as it may make lawyers in the destination court chary of the transferred judge. It has even been accused of nepotism.
Way ahead
- In respect of appointments, there has been an acknowledgment that the “zone of consideration” must be expanded to avoid criticism that many appointees hail from families of retired judges.
- The status of a proposed new memorandum of procedure, to infuse greater accountability, is also unclear.
- Even the majority of opinions admitted the need for transparency, now Collegiums’ resolutions are now posted online, but reasons are not given.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Mental healthcare in India
10th October, yesterday was observed as World Mental Health Day.
What is the news?
- The Lancet released a new report calling for radical action to end stigma and discrimination in mental health.
- It stated that 90% of people living with mental health conditions feel negatively impacted by stigma and discrimination.
Mental Illness in India
- Mental disorders are now among the top leading causes of health burden worldwide, with no evidence of global reduction since 1990.
- In 2017, an estimation of the burden of mental health conditions for the states across India revealed that as many as 197.3 million people required care for mental health conditions.
- This included around 45.7 million people with depressive disorders and 44.9 million people with anxiety disorders.
- The situation has been exacerbated due to the Covid-19 pandemic, making it a serious concern the world over.
Reasons for Persistence of Mental Illness
- Stigma to seek help: The staggering figures are void of millions of others directly, or indirectly impacted by the challenge and those who face deep-rooted stigma, many times rendering them unable to seek help.
- Lack of awareness: This growing challenge in dealing with mental health issues is further compounded by a lack of information and awareness, self-diagnosis, and stigma.
- Psycho-social factors: Institutions like gender, race, and ethnicity, are also responsible for mental health conditions.
- Post-Treatment gap: There is a need for proper rehabilitation of mentally ill persons post/her treatment which is currently not present.
- Rise in Severity: Mental health problems tend to increase during economic downturns, therefore special attention is needed during times of economic distress.
Need for immediate intervention
- Neglected Area: Mental health which forms the core of our personhood is often neglected which impeded the development of an individual to full potential.
- Disproportionate impact: It is the poor, dispossessed and marginalised who bear the greatest burden of mental health problems, but historically their sufferings are dismissed as a natural extension of their social and economic conditions.
- Vulnerability of the ills: Mentally ill patients are vulnerable to and usually suffer from drug abuse, wrongful confinement, even at homes and mental healthcare facilities which is a cause of concern and a gross human right violation.
- Suicidal tendencies: Suicidal behavior was found to have relation with female gender, working condition, independent decision making, premarital sex, physical abuse and sexual abuse.
- Gendered nature: Females are more predisposed to mental disorders due to rapid social change, gender discrimination, social exclusion, gender disadvantage like marrying at young age, concern about the husband’s substance misuse habits, and domestic violence.
Policy initiatives
- National Mental Health Program (NMHP): To address the huge burden of mental disorders and shortage of qualified professionals in the field of mental health, the government has been implementing the NMHP since 1982.
- Mental HealthCare Act 2017: It guarantees every affected person access to mental healthcare and treatment from services run or funded by the government.
- Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2017: The Act acknowledges mental illness as a disability and seeks to enhance the Rights and Entitlements of the Disabled and provide an effective mechanism for ensuring their empowerment and inclusion in the society
- Manodarpan Initiative: An initiative under Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan aims to provide psycho-social support to students for their mental health and well-being.
Way Forward
- Policy boost: Mental health situation in India demands active policy interventions and resource allocation by the government.
- Public sensitization: To reduce the stigma around mental health, we need measures to train and sensitize the community/society.
- Awareness: People should be made aware of the significance of mental health, as much as that of physical health.
- Destigmatising: Sharing one’s story about mental health (through media campaigns) is the most effective strategy to reduce stigma attached with mental illness
- Community Approach: There is need to deploy community health workers who, with appropriate training and supervision, effectively deliver psychosocial interventions for the needy
- Broadening the scope: Mental health care must embrace the diversity of experiences and strategies which work, well beyond the narrow confines of traditional biomedicine with its emphasis on “doctors, diagnoses, and drugs”.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: SCO
Mains level: Not Much
Pakistan has been invited to the closing ceremony of the ongoing Joint Anti-Terror Exercise (JATE) within the ambit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) being hosted by India.
What is the news?
- The National Security Guard (NSG) is hosting the multinational JATE “Manesar Anti-Terror 2022”, under the framework of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS).
- Pakistan team would be participating in the event as a member of the SCO.
What is SCO RATS?
- Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) is a permanent organ of the SCO which serves to promote cooperation of member states against the three evils of terrorism, separatism and extremism.
- It is headquartered in Tashkent.
- Its head is elected to three-year term.
- Each member state of SCO sends permanent representative to RATS
About Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO)
- The SCO, in which China plays an influential role, is also comprised of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan.
- India and Pakistan were admitted into the bloc in 2017.
- It is Eurasian economic, political and security organisation headquartered in Beijing, China.
- Its main objective is military cooperation between member states.
- It is primarily centred on security-related concerns of Central Asian members with main threats being terrorism, separatism and extremism.
- It was established in June 2001 as a successor of Shanghai Five mechanism which was established in 1996 with China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan as members.
- Iran, Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia enjoy observer status of SCO.
- Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Nepal are dialogue partners of SCO.
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