Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Excise duty
Mains level: Crude oil pricing dynamics
In a move which would help the government to raise excise duty on fuel further in future, the government has raised the cap on special additional excise duty on petrol and diesel. These changes are as per the amendments in the Finance Bill passed in the Parliament.
Why such move?
- Government is increasing duties on petrol and diesel to raise revenues in view of a tight fiscal situation.
- Slump in global crude oil prices, alongside possibility of a global economic recession, has forced the government to look for avenues to raise revenues to support growth.
- With major companies going for production shut downs, industry players have suggested the government to boost fiscal stimulus in the wake of demand collapse triggered by the coronavirus.
- Earlier, Saudi Arabia had triggered the crash in prices by announcing a sharp increase in oil production after Russia declined to reduce oil supply to contain a fall in oil prices due to declining demand in a meeting of petroleum exporting countries.
Impact of the move
- Every rupee hike in excise duty is expected to yield roughly Rs 13,000-14,000 crore annually.
- The slump in global crude oil prices enables the government to raise these duties substantially without immediately putting the burden on the consumer.
- But there is expected to be a demand slowdown for fuels with a nearly country wide lockdown in the wake of coronavirus.
- With airlines, railways, trucks and passenger cars going off the roads, petrol, diesel and ATF (aviation turbine fuel) consumption is expected to fall drastically.
Back2Basics
What is Excise Duty?
- Excise duty is a form of tax imposed on goods for their production, licensing and sale.
- It is the opposite of Customs duty in sense that it applies to goods manufactured domestically in the country, while Customs is levied on those coming from outside of the country.
- At the central level, excise duty earlier used to be levied as Central Excise Duty, Additional Excise Duty, etc.
- Excise duty was levied on manufactured goods and levied at the time of removal of goods, while GST is levied on the supply of goods and services.
Purview of excise duty
- The GST introduction in July 2017 subsumed many types of excise duty.
- Today, excise duty applies only on petroleum and liquor.
- Alcohol does not come under the purview of GST as exclusion mandated by constitutional provision.
- States levy taxes on alcohol according to the same practice as was prevalent before the rollout of GST.
- After GST was introduced, excise duty was replaced by central GST because excise was levied by the central government. The revenue generated from CGST goes to the central government.
Types of excise duty in India
Before GST kicked in, there were three kinds of excise duties in India.
Basic Excise Duty
- Basic excise duty is also known as the Central Value Added Tax (CENVAT). This category of excise duty was levied on goods that were classified under the first schedule of the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985.
- This duty was levied under Section 3 (1) (a) of the Central Excise Act, 1944. This duty applied on all goods except salt.
Additional Excise Duty
- Additional excise duty was levied on goods of high importance, under the Additional Excise under Additional Duties of Excise (Goods of Special Importance) Act, 1957.
- This duty was levied on some special category of goods.
Special Excise Duty
- This type of excise duty was levied on special goods classified under the Second Schedule to the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985.
- Presently the central excise duty comprises of a Basic Excise Duty, Special Additional Excise Duty and Additional Excise Duty (Road and Infrastructure Cess) on auto fuels.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Significance of self-imposed curfew
To enforce a full lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19, law enforcement agencies have taken the help of various legal provisions in CrPC and IPC.
- The orders issued to curb the spread of the coronavirus have been framed under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, which lays down punishment as per Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
- Similarly, Sections 269 and 270 IPC are being invoked against persons who malignantly do any act which is likely to spread the infection of any disease dangerous to life.
Sections 269 and 270 of the IPC
- Sections 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) come under Chapter XIV of the IPC.
- The chapter is named ‘Of Offences Affecting The Public Health, Safety, Convenience, Decency and Morals’.
- While Section 269 provides for a jail term of six months and/or fine, Section 270 provides for a jail term of two years and/or fine.
- In Section 270, the word ‘malignantly’ indicates a deliberate intention on the part of the accused.
- During the coronavirus outbreak, penal provisions, such as Sections 188, 269 and 270 of the IPC, are being invoked to enforce the lockdown orders in various states.
Earlier instances of invocation
- Both Sections have been used for over a century to punish those disobeying orders issued for containing epidemics.
- The Sections were similarly enforced by colonial authorities during outbreaks of diseases such as smallpox and bubonic plague.
What is Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code?
- Section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, provides penalties for disobeying any regulation or order made under the Act.
- These are according to Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant).
- It is not necessary that the offender should intend to produce harm, or contemplate his disobedience as likely to produce harm.
- It is sufficient that he knows of the order which he disobeys, and that his disobedience produces, or is likely to produce, harm.
What happens if you violate the lockdown orders?
Under Section 188, there two offences:
1) Disobedience to an order lawfully promulgated by a public servant, If such disobedience causes obstruction, annoyance or injury to persons lawfully employed
Punishment: Simple Imprisonment for 1 month or fine of Rs 200 or both
2) If such disobedience causes danger to human life, health or safety, etc.
Punishment: Simple Imprisonment for 6 months or fine of Rs 1000 or both
According to the First Schedule of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), 1973, both offences are cognizable, bailable, and can be tried by any magistrate.
Triable By: Any Magistrate
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Supercomputers
Mains level: Applications of Supercomputers
The Union Ministry of Science & Technology has informed about the progress of the National Supercomputing Mission.
National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)
- NSM is a proposed plan by GoI to create a cluster of seventy supercomputers connecting various academic and research institutions across India.
- In April 2015 the government approved the NSM with a total outlay of Rs.4500 crore for a period of 7 years.
- The mission was set up to provide the country with supercomputing infrastructure to meet the increasing computational demands of academia, researchers, MSMEs, and startups by creating the capability design, manufacturing, of supercomputers indigenously in India.
- Currently there are four supercomputers from India in Top 500 list of supercomputers in the world.
Aims and objectives
- The target of the mission was set to establish a network of supercomputers ranging from a few Tera Flops (TF) to Hundreds of Tera Flops (TF) and three systems with greater than or equal to 3 Peta Flops (PF) in academic and research institutions of National importance across the country by 2022.
- This network of Supercomputers envisaging a total of 15-20 PF was approved in 2015 and was later revised to a total of 45 PF (45000 TFs), a jump of 6 times more compute power within the same cost and capable of solving large and complex computational problems.
IWhat is a Supercomputer?
- A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer.
- The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instructions per second (MIPS).
- Since 2017, there are supercomputers which can perform over a hundred quadrillion FLOPS (petaFLOPS).
- Since November 2017, all of the world’s fastest 500 supercomputers run Linux-based operating systems.
Why do we need supercomputers?
- Developed and almost-developed countries have begun ensuring high investments in supercomputers to boost their economies and tackle new social problems.
- These high-performance computers can simulate the real world, by processing massive amounts of data, making cars and planes safer, and more fuel-efficient and environment-friendly.
- They also aid in the extraction of new sources of oil and gas, development of alternative energy sources, and advancement in medical sciences.
- Supercomputers have also helped weather forecasters to accurately predict severe storms, enable better mitigation planning and warning systems.
- They are also used by financial services, manufacturing and internet companies and infrastructure systems like water-supply networks, energy grids, and transportation.
- Future applications of artificial intelligence (AI) also depend on supercomputing.
- Due to the potential of this technology, countries like the US, China, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia have created national-level supercomputing strategies and are investing substantially in these programmes.
When did India initiate its efforts to build supercomputers?
- India’s supercomputer programme initiated in the late 1980s, when the United States ceased the export of a Cray Supercomputer due to technology embargos.
- This resulted in India setting up C-DAC in 1988, which in 1991, unveiled the prototype of PARAM 800, benchmarked at 5 Gflops. This supercomputer was the second-fastest in the world at that time.
- Since June 2018, the USA’s Summit is the fastest supercomputer in the world, taking away this position from China.
- As of January 2018, Pratyush and Mihir are the fastest supercomputers in India with a maximum speed of Peta Flops.
What are the phases of the National Supercomputing Mission?
Phase I:
- In the first phase of the NSM, parts of the supercomputers are imported and assembled in India.
- A total of 6 supercomputers are to be installed in this phase.
- The first supercomputer that was assembled indigenously is called Param Shivay. It was installed in IIT (BHU) located in Varanasi.
- Similar systems, Param Shakti (IIT Kharagpur) and Param Brahma (IISER, Pune) were also later installed within the country.
- The rest will be installed at IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad and Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Studies (JNIAS).
Phase II:
- The supercomputers that are installed so far are about 60% indigenous.
- The 11 systems that are going to be installed in the next phase will have processors designed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and will have a cumulative capacity of 10 petaflops.
- These new systems are to be constructed more cost-effectively than the previous ones.
- One of the 11 proposed supercomputers will be installed
- at C-DAC exclusively for small and medium enterprises so that they can train employees as well as work on supercomputers at a very low cost.
Phase III:
- The third phase aims to build fully indigenous supercomputers.
- The government had also approved a project to develop a cryogenic cooling system that rapidly dispels the heat generated by a computing chip. This will be jointly built together by IIT-Bombay and C-DAC.
What are the advantages of the National Supercomputing Mission?
- The National Supercomputing Mission can ensure accessibility to supercomputers at an affordable rate to the scientific community and medium and small enterprises.
- It can exponentially enhance the quality and quantity of R&D and higher education in the areas of science and technology.
- It can solve the current and future challenges that are plaguing the country.
- Currently, the world’s top supercomputers are mostly under the control of advanced nations like the US, Japan, China and the European Union. This Mission has the potential to bring India into this select league of such nations.
- These supercomputers can be used in the areas of climate modelling, weather predictions, computational biology, atomic energy simulations, defence, disaster simulation, astrophysics etc.
- These computers have played a crucial role in scientific and technological advancements in numerous fields.
- Unlike other computers, these high-performance machines can crunch the most complex of data at a speed, which is millions of times faster than a desktop PC.
- This mission, aiming to provide supercomputing facilities to about 60-70 institutions across the nation and thousands of active researchers, academicians, is moving fast towards creating a computer infrastructure within the country.
- This mission can also enhance the country’s capacity to develop the next generation of supercomputer experts.
How do other countries make use of supercomputers?
China:
- Jiangsu Province has a supercomputer called “Sunway TaihuLight”.
- This supercomputer performs a wide range of tasks, including climate science, weather forecasting and earth-system modelling to help ships avoid rough seas, improve farmers’ yields and ensure the safety of offshore drilling.
- TaihuLight has already led to an increase in profits and a reduction in expenses that justify its cost ($270 million).
United States:
- In the US, supercomputers are radically transforming the healthcare system.
- The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) has used supercomputers to create a far more detailed model of the Hepatitis-C virus, a major cause of the liver disease that costs $9 billion in healthcare costs in the US alone.
- Using supercomputers, the researchers have now developed a model that comprehensively simulates heart down to the cellular level and can lead to a substantial reduction in heart diseases.
These are some of the very few cases of how supercomputers have enhanced breakthroughs in various fields.
How do supercomputers help fight coronavirus?
- Earlier, the US had established COVID-19 High-Performance Computing Consortium that will bring together industry, academic institutions, and federal laboratories to try to identify or create candidate compounds that might prevent or treat coronavirus infection.
- One of the members of the consortium, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, aimed to look into compounds that are already available in the market that might combat COVID-19.
- For this purpose, the world’s fastest supercomputer “Summit” was used.
- Like other viruses, the novel coronavirus uses a spike protein to inject cells.
- Using Summit with an algorithm to investigate which drugs could bind to the protein and prevent the virus from doing its duty, the researchers have a list of 77 drugs that show promise.
- Starting with 8,000 compounds, Summit has shortened the time of the experiment exponentially, ruling out the vast majority of possible medications before settling on 77 drugs, which are ranked based on how effective they are likely to be at halting the virus in the human body.
Way forward
- It is evident that supercomputers would become a vital part of our lives as it can provide solutions to the current and future problems and India, one of the most populous nations in the world, must ensure that it also has access to this technology for the welfare of its people.
- Supercomputers, as they operate at such incredible speeds, will encounter numerous barriers like network and interconnectivity hardware that previous generations of designers did not have to deal with.
- The cooling system is also one of the major design constraints.
- Hence, India must give a high emphasis on innovation to tackle these challenges.
- India must also give high emphasis to the application rather than the technology itself.
- Supercomputing research also requires fundamental research of the next stages of computing like quantum computing that are still in the theoretical stage.
- Bureaucratic red-tapism must be circumvented and scientists and researchers must be allowed to take bold and radical steps without fear of reprisal.
- The government must also invest in necessary physical and digital infrastructure.
- It must also address the challenges of:
- Limited funding and delayed release of funds
- The increasing need for imports for necessary hardware components to build supercomputers
Conclusion:
- Supercomputers are strategically important for India as it can help the country to become a knowledge-driven economy.
- This technology also can support cutting edge research that can benefit the economy, society, businesses, environment, etc.
- Thus, enhancing investments, improving flexibility for research and providing other necessary infrastructures must be ensured for it to grow.
- Without this technology, India risks being surpassed on the global stage by other nations and will consequently miss the huge benefits that come from having this strategically important technology at the disposal of the country’s best and brightest minds
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- China's growing influence at UN agencies and how it matters for Indian and the world.
Context
The WHO leadership, especially its Director-General, has been accused of serving China’s interests rather than preparing the world against the spread of the virus.
What is the basis of accusations?
- The first basis for these charges is the WHO’s endorsement of the Chinese claim in mid-January that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus.
- Second, consistent support for Beijing’s handling of the crisis.
- Third, WHO’s criticism of other nations for imposing travel restrictions to and from China.
- Critics also believe the WHO lulled the world into complacence by delaying the decision on calling it a global emergency.
The new geopolitics of multilateralism
- Whatever the merits of the above arguments, they point to the new geopolitics of multilateralism,
- It also disproves the assumptions in both the West and India on China’s role in the UN.
- It also underlines Beijing’s success in the leveraging of international organisations for its national advantage.
- Nations working together against the trans-national threat: On the face of it, the sentiment that nations must work together against common trans-national threats is an eminently sensible one. But it does not easily translate into concrete actions.
- Example of failure to act against a common threat: Take climate change. Attempts at developing collective solutions to the problem over the last three decades have foundered.
- Most leaders agree on the problem and the solutions but are not willing to accept the framework — either the domestic or international — for distributing the costs associated with the solutions.
- The US-China rivalry angle to the coronavirus outbreak: The problem of the cost-benefit distribution is compounded by great power rivalries. The coronavirus has shown up at a moment of deepening tensions between the US and China.
- The grave collective challenge that the virus constitutes has only sharpened the conflict.
- The blame game between the two: The US blames Beijing for letting this virus become a global monster and Beijing is doing all it can to deny that the virus came out of China.
How the relationship between China and WHO has transformed over the years?
- WHO’s actions in the past: Nearly two decades ago, during the SARS crisis, WHO was at the front and centre of pressing China to come clean on the unfolding pandemic.
- In 2003, it had issued the organisation’s first travel advisory ever on travel to and from the epicentre of the pandemic in southern China.
- As the SARS crisis escalated, Beijing’s traditional arguments about the centrality of state sovereignty yielded place to a new policy of working with the WHO and taking proactive steps to reassure neighbours in South East Asia.
- Reasons for change in WHO’s stance: Some attribute the turnaround in the relationship between Beijing and WHO to China’s growing financial contributions.
- China’s efforts to expand clout: Observers of the UN point to something more fundamental — a conscious and consequential Chinese effort to expand its clout in the multilateral system.
- China, which was admitted to the UN system in the 1970s, was focused on finding its way in the 1980s, cautiously raised its profile in the 1990s, took on some political initiatives at the turn of the millennium and seized the leadership in the last few years.
How India and the West are reacting to China’s rise?
- Unprepared to deal with China’s rise at UN: Neither the West nor India have been prepared to deal with the impact of China’s rise on the UN system.
- The US and its allies bet that China will be a “responsible stakeholder”. Put another way, they hoped that China will play by the rules set by the West.
- China’s ambitions: China, of course, wants to set its own rules. Only the political innocents will be shocked by China’s natural ambition.
- India’s past alignment with China: India, which considered US dominance over the international institutions in the 1990s as a major threat, chose to align with China in promoting a “multipolar world”.
- Delhi convinced itself that despite differences over the boundary, Pakistan and other issues, there is huge room for cooperation with China.
- Replacing the US as the dominant force: To their chagrin, the West and India are being compelled to respond to a very different environment at the UN. China wants to replace America as the dominant force in the UN.
- The US is now fighting back. Last month, Washington went all out to defeat the Chinese candidate for the leadership of an obscure UN agency called the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
Implications of China’s rise for India
- Chinese hegemony vs. American primacy: Delhi discovered that Chinese global hegemony could be a lot more problematic than American primacy.
- After all, it is China that complicates India’s plans for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, protects Pakistan against international pressures on cross-border terrorism, and relentlessly pushes the UN Security Council to take up the Kashmir question.
- India now turns to the US and its allies to pursue some of its interests in the UN.
- Multilateralism not an end in itself: Political ironies apart, if there is one lesson that India could learn from China’s experience with WHO and the UN, it is that multilateralism is not an end in itself for major powers.
- It is an important means to secure one’s national interest and shape the international environment.
- As a nation battered by the Cultural Revolution, China used international cooperation and global institutions to rebuild itself in the last decades of the 20th century.
- Ready to reorder global governance: Having developed its economy and advanced its scientific and technological base, China is now ready to reorder global governance and become a rule-maker.
- The effects are visible in the arena of global health.
- China’s expanding global engagement with the WHO, its substantive international health assistance programmes, and an impressive domestic health technology sector are poised to boost China’s ambition to build a “Global Silk Road for Health’.
Conclusion
On its part, Delhi needs to intensify the recalibration of India’s multilateralism, rewrite its diplomatic lexicon at the UN, and build new political coalitions that will simultaneously contribute to India’s internal modernisation and enhance its international influence. The corona crisis is a good moment to start writing a new script for India’s own health diplomacy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Mains level: Paper 3- Economic policy changes to mitigate the impact of slowdown on the vulnerable.
Context
India must use the windfall from oil to provide assistance to the most vulnerable to mitigate the impact due to COIVD-19 outbreak.
Estimates of impact
- Impact on major economies: Minus 40 per cent, -30 per cent, -22 per cent, and -14 per cent. These are the estimated impacts (at an annualised rate) on the quarterly growth rates of China, the UK, Eurozone, and the US because of the Covid-19 virus.
- Even excluding China and those that are closely tied to its supply chain — Korea and Taiwan — emerging markets (EM) are expected to go into recession in the first half of 2020, with the second quarter taking the biggest hit at over an 8 per cent quarterly decline.
- Impact on India: India will not be spared this growth shock. In fact, the economic impact could be deeper and longer in emerging markets where the capacity of public health systems is limited at the best of times.
Prospects of recovery
- Sudden stop to economic activity: We also know from the experiences of the countries already infected that the way to control the spread of the virus is through aggressive containment and social distancing that inevitably brings economic activity to a sudden stop.
- There doesn’t seem to be a middle path. We also know that unlike natural catastrophes like earthquakes, capital stock is not destroyed by the virus.
- Sharp recovery and conditions: Once the containment period is over and social interaction normalises, there is every reason to believe that activity can recover very sharply.
- Unless the containment period is long because of capacity constraints in the healthcare system which could turn supply chain disruptions into a long-term problem, or the credit stress created by the lack of earning by households and firms during the sudden stop stymies the recovery.
India needs to brace itself
- Unfortunately, India, where the virus still appears to be in the early stage, needs to brace for such a sudden stop.
- The lockdown could be for an extended period given the already stretched public health system.
- Impact on urban economy: The swathe of the economy that depends on social interaction — retail sales, entertainment, restaurants, and importantly construction and manufacturing — is very large.
- Even if one believes that rural areas with relatively low population densities will not be affected much, the impact on urban economic activity could be very large.
Role of economic policy
- What is the role of economic policy in such circumstances? It needs to “bridge the gap” between the brutal downturn and the eventual recovery.
- While public health policies force a sudden stop in the economy to save lives, economic policies need to ensure that the impact from the shutdown is cushioned, incomes of households and firms supported, credit stress is contained, and the recovery is not hamstrung by policy headwinds.
- This requires policy support to be operated on various fronts.
- Role of the Central bank: Central banks not only need to cut rates but also need to provide adequate liquidity and extend regulatory forbearance to prevent credit stress and non-performing loans from clogging up the already strained financial system when the economy starts to recover.
- Role of fiscal policy: The role of fiscal policy is even larger, from direct and indirect tax cuts or postponement to targeted credit support for sectors that are likely to be most affected such as airlines and retail trade.
- Support to the vulnerable: The key is income support to the most vulnerable: From daily wage earners to SMEs (small and medium enterprises).
- Using JAM trinity for cash transfer: It is here that the government’s efforts over the last five years make India one of the best-placed economies to deliver such cash transfers.
- Since 2015, substantial time, effort, and resources have been expended to establish Jan Dhan (bank accounts), Aadhaar and mobile banking (JAM), and Mudra, the programme that dispenses loans to SMEs.
- The objective of JAM and Mudra is to use Aadhaar as a way of accurately identifying beneficiaries and use mobile banking to digitally and seamlessly transfer cash/subsidies directly to households’ bank accounts and provide loans to SMEs without any leakages.
- According to government reports, the total number of Jan Dhan accounts stand at around 380 million and 59 million MUDRA loans were sanctioned last year.
- For a country with a population of 1.3 billion and about 63 million SMEs, even if there are duplicate accounts, JAM and Mudra should be able to cover almost all households and SMEs.
- With Aadhaar accurately targeting beneficiaries, leakages should be minimised. If there ever was a time that India needed JAM and Mudra it is now.
Issue of fiscal space and solution
- Some will argue that India doesn’t have the fiscal space. But it does.
- Use oil windfall: In the last month or so, the crude oil price has dropped from around $60/bbl to around $30 and is likely to stay at this level given the breakdown in agreement among oil-producing countries and the massive collapse in global demand.
- If the government simply taxed the oil windfall by raising excise duties, as it did during the 2014-15 oil price collapse, it could potentially raise almost 1 per cent of GDP or a staggering Rs 2.25 trillion.
- If 50 million households have to be provided assistance because of the shutdown, it comes to about Rs 14,000 per month for three months or about Rs 24,000 a month to half of the 63 million SMEs.
- And this without even having to increase this year’s budgeted deficit.
Conclusion
The government might have other uses for the oil windfall. But if India is forced into lockdown, the economic costs will be very large and the recovery will crucially depend on whether the pilot-light of the economy is kept lit through this period. This critically requires income transfers to vulnerable households and SMEs. India cannot complain that it does not have the fiscal space or the infrastructure to provide it.
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Context
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights filed an application seeking to intervene as amicus curiae in the pending litigation in the Supreme Court against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
What are the implications of intervention?
- Concern over international attention: That the case has attracted the attention of the international human rights agency is a matter of concern for the Indian government.
- International law principles: The intervention may enable the Supreme Court to read in public international law principles in determining the constitutionality of CAA.
- Law on concepts of sovereignty: Ultimately, this would assist in laying down the law on concepts of sovereignty in addition to determining the obligations of a nation-state to the international community at large.
Why the intervention matters?
- Basis of the application: The application is based on the belief that the High Commissioner’s intervention will provide the Court “with an overview of the international human rights norms and standards with respect to the state’s obligations to provide international protection to persons at risk of persecution in their countries of origin”.
- This application stands out for a number of reasons.
- First, this is a voluntary application rather than at the invitation of the Supreme Court.
- Second, she accepts that India is a state party and signatory to various international conventions including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Culture Rights which contain important non-discrimination clauses, including on the ground of religion.
- India’s obligations towards migrants: India is obliged, under international law, to ensure that migrants in its territory or under its jurisdiction receive equal and non-discriminatory treatment regardless of their legal status or the documentations they possess.
- Locus standi issue raised by India: In response, the External Affairs Ministry argued that “no foreign party has any locus standi on issues pertaining to India’s sovereignty”.
- The High Commissioner has filed similar amicus curiae briefs on issues of pubic importance before a range of international and national judicial fora.
- A precedent for future: This intervention, if permitted, would serve as a precedent for a number of future applications. It would also provide an opportunity for the Supreme Court to lay down the law on whether such applications interfere with national sovereignty.
Sovereignty as responsibility
- Defining sovereignty: International Court of Justice judge James Crawford defines sovereignty as, among other things, the “capacity to exercise, to the exclusion of other states, state functions on or related to that territory, and includes the capacity to make binding commitments under international law” and states that “such sovereignty is exercisable by the governmental institutions established within the state”.
- Sovereignty in Indian Constitution: The Preamble to the Constitution lays out the position, wherein the people of India have resolved to constitute the Indian Republic into a sovereign and not just any one authority.
- As such, the courts (judiciary), the government (executive) and elected legislatures (legislature) are equally sovereign authorities.
- No one can claim exclusivity over sovereignty. Furthermore, Article 51 (c) of the Constitution directs the state to “foster respect for international law”.
Responsibility to citizens and the international community
- Responsibility of political authority: According to the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, “national political authorities are responsible to the citizens internally and to the international community through the UN”.
- Constraints on sovereignty: Therefore, it is trite to say that an authority’s right to sovereignty is not unfettered. It is subject to constraints including the responsibility to protect its citizenry and the larger international community.
- Extending Article 14: Furthermore, Article 14 extends the right to equality to all persons, which is wider than the definition of citizens. Even illegal immigrants shall, consequently, be treated by the government in a manner that ensures equal protection of Indian laws.
Conclusion
It is hoped that the Supreme Court will conclude that the intervention is necessary as the Court would benefit from the High Commissioner’s expertise in public international law principles.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NM-QTA
Mains level: Paper 3- Research on Quantum technology and its applications in India.
Context
With the Budget announcement providing direction for the development in quantum technology, the stakeholders need to roll-out the national mission quickly.
Pushing India into second quantum revolution
- Budgetary allocation for NM-QTA: In the Budget 2020 speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a welcome announcement for Indian science — over the next five years she proposed spending ₹8,000 crores (~ $1.2 billion) on a National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications.
- This promises to catapult India into the midst of the second quantum revolution, a major scientific effort that is being pursued by the United States, Europe, China and others.
Timeline of the development of Quantum Mechanics
- Science to describe nature on atomic-scale: Quantum mechanics was developed in the early 20th century to describe nature in the small — at the scale of atoms and elementary particles.
- Foundation for understanding: For over a century it has provided the foundations of our understanding of the physical world, including the interaction of light and matter.
- It also led to ubiquitous inventions such as lasers and semiconductor transistors.
- Despite a century of research, the quantum world still remains mysterious and far removed from our experiences based on everyday life.
- Second revolution: A second revolution is currently underway with the goal of putting our growing understanding of these mysteries to use by actually controlling nature and harnessing the benefits of the weird and wondrous properties of quantum mechanics.
- Challenge of experimental realisation: One of the most striking of these is the tremendous computing power of quantum computers, whose actual experimental realisation is one of the great challenges of our times.
- Quantum supremacy: The announcement by Google, in October 2019, where they claimed to have demonstrated the so-called “quantum supremacy”, is one of the first steps towards this goal.
Applications and challenges
- Applications: Besides computing, exploring the quantum world promises other dramatic applications including the creation of novel materials, enhanced metrology, secure communication, to name just a few.
- Some of these are already around the corner.
- Application in communication: China recently demonstrated secure quantum communication links between terrestrial stations and satellites.
- Applications in cryptography: Computer scientists are working towards deploying schemes for post-quantum cryptography — clever schemes by which existing computers can keep communication secure even against quantum computers of the future.
- Exploring fundamental questions: Beyond these applications, some of the deepest foundational questions in physics and computer science are being driven by quantum information science. This includes subjects such as quantum gravity and black holes.
- The need for collaboration: Pursuing these challenges will require unprecedented collaboration between physicists (both experimentalists and theorists), computer scientists, material scientists and engineers.
- Challenges on the experimental front: On the experimental front, the challenge lies in harnessing the weird and wonderful properties of quantum superposition and entanglement in a highly controlled manner by building a system composed of carefully designed building blocks called quantum bits or qubits.
- These qubits tend to be very fragile and lose their “quantumness” if not controlled properly, and a careful choice of materials, design and engineering is required to get them to work.
- Challenges on the theoretical front: On the theoretical front lies the challenge of creating the algorithms and applications for quantum computers.
- These projects will also place new demands on classical control hardware as well as software platforms.
Where India stands
- India late in starting work on technology: Globally, research in this area is about two decades old, but in India, serious experimental work has been underway for only about five years, and in a handful of locations.
- What are the constraints on Indian progress in this field? So far we have been plagued by a lack of sufficient resources, high-quality manpower, timeliness and flexibility.
- Resource and quality manpower problem: The new announcement in the Budget would greatly help fix the resource problem but high-quality manpower is in global demand.
- In a fast-moving field like this, timeliness is everything — delayed funding by even one year is an enormous hit.
- A previous programme called Quantum Enabled Science and Technology has just been fully rolled out, more than two years after the call for proposals.
- Laudable announcement: One has to laud the government’s announcement of this new mission on a massive scale and on a par with similar programmes announced recently by the United States and Europe.
Limits and way forward
- But there are some limits that come from how the government must do business with public funds.
- Role of the private sector: Here, private funding, both via industry and philanthropy, can play an outsized role even with much smaller amounts.
- For example, unrestricted funds that can be used to attract and retain high-quality manpower and to build international networks — all at short notice — can and will make an enormous difference to the success of this enterprise.
- Private participation is the effective way: This is the most effective way (as China and Singapore discovered) to catch up scientifically with the international community, while quickly creating a vibrant intellectual environment to help attract top researchers.
- Connection with industry: Further, connections with the Indian industry from the start would also help quantum technologies become commercialised successfully, allowing the Indian industry to benefit from the quantum revolution.
- We must encourage industrial houses and strategic philanthropists to take an interest and reach out to Indian institutions with an existing presence in this emerging field.
- For example, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), home to India’s first superconducting quantum computing lab, would be delighted to engage.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Price Support operations under MSP Operations
Mains level: MSP mechanism
The Centre will spend ₹1,061 crore to reimburse the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) and its sub-agent in Maharashtra for procuring cotton at the minimum support price in that State since 2014.
Why Centre reimburses to states?
In the event of fall in market prices, the Centre intervenes through following schemes-
Market Intervention Scheme
- Similar to MSP, there is a Market Intervention Scheme (MIS), which is implemented on the request of State Governments for procurement of perishable and horticultural commodities in the event of fall in market prices.
- The Scheme is implemented when there is at least 10% increase in production or 10% decrease in the ruling rates over the previous normal year.
- Proposal of MIS is approved on the specific request of State/UT Government, if the State/UT Government is ready to bear 50% loss (25% in case of North-Eastern States), if any, incurred on its implementation.
- Under MIS, funds are not allocated to the States.
- Instead, central share of losses as per the guidelines of MIS is released to the State Governments/UTs, for which MIS has been approved based on specific proposals received from them.
Price Supports Scheme (PSS)
- The Department of Agriculture & Cooperation implements the PSS for procurement of oil seeds, pulses and cotton, through NAFED which is the Central nodal agency, at the MSP declared by the government.
- NAFED undertakes procurement as and when prices fall below the MSP. Procurement under PSS is continued till prices stabilize at or above the MSP.
- Losses, if any incurred by NAFED in undertaking MSP operations are reimbursed by the central Government.
- Profit, if any, earned in undertaking MSP operations is credited to the central government.
Back2Basics
Minimum Support Price (MSP)
- MSP is a form of market intervention by the GoI to insure agricultural producers against any sharp fall in farm prices.
- The MSP are announced at the beginning of the sowing season for certain crops on the basis of the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP).
- MSP is price fixed to protect the producer – farmers – against excessive fall in price during bumper production years.
- In case the market price for the commodity falls below the announced minimum price due to bumper production and glut in the market, govt. agencies purchase the entire quantity offered by the farmers at the announced minimum price.
- The minimum support prices are a guarantee price for their produce from the Government.
- The major objectives are to support the farmers from distress sales and to procure food grains for public distribution.
Methods of calculation
- In formulating the level of MSP and other non-price measures, the CACP takes into account a comprehensive view of the entire structure of the economy of a particular commodity or group of commodities.
- The CACP makes use of both micro-level data and aggregates at the level of district, state and the country.
- Other factors include cost of production, changes in input prices, input-output price parity, trends in market prices, demand and supply, inter-crop price parity, effect on industrial cost structure, effect on cost of living, effect on general price level, international price situation, parity between prices paid and prices received by the farmers and effect on issue prices and implications for subsidy.
Procurement agencies
- Food Corporation of India (FCI) is the designated central nodal agency for price support operations for cereals, pulses and oilseeds.
- Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) is the central nodal agency for undertaking price support operations for Cotton.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Various stages of a pandemic
Mains level: Coronovirus outbreak and its mitigation
Over the past few weeks, India has been dreading the possibility that the novel coronavirus outbreak will move to the stage of community transmission.
What are the stages of a pandemic?
Stage I
- In the first stage of a disease epidemic that eventually takes the form of a pandemic sweeping the globe, cases are imported into a country in which the infection did not originate.
- An infection whose spread is contained within the boundaries of one or a few countries is obviously not a pandemic.
Stage II
- The second stage is when the virus starts being transmitted locally.
- Local transmission means that the source of the infection is from within a particular area and the trajectory the virus has taken from one person to the next is clearly established.
Stage III
- The third stage is that of community transmission. It is usually localised.
- According to the WHO community transmission is evidenced by the inability to relate confirmed cases through chains of transmission for a large number of cases, or by increasing positive tests through sentinel samples.
- In layman terms, it means that the virus is now circulating in the community, and can infect people with no history either of travel to affected areas or of contact with an infected person.
- If and when community transmission happens, there might arise the need for a full lockdown because in that situation it is theoretically possible for every person, regardless of where they are from and who they have been in contact with, to spread the disease.
Stage IV
- There is also a fourth stage in every pandemic. It is when the disease, COVID-19 in this case, becomes endemic in some countries.
- The Indian government’s containment plan takes this possibility into account.
- Among diseases that are currently endemic in India — meaning they occur round the year across the country — are malaria and dengue.
How does categorising an outbreak in this manner help?
- The stages of a pandemic are uniform the world over.
- This is so because, in today’s interconnected world, it is important to have a standardised phraseology that conveys the same thing to every person around the world, and helps countries prepare better.
- The categorization helps countries take specific actions that are necessary to target just that particular scenario.
- For example, India imposed travel restrictions to China from very early on as the cases they were all imported from China.
- Later, as cases started being imported from other European countries, flight and visa restrictions were put in place for those countries.
- India has now shut itself to individuals coming from all countries — this is because the virus is now confirmed as circulating in at least 177 countries and territories.
Worldwide, in which stage is the COVID-19 pandemic now?
- The pandemic has spread to nearly every country on the planet. In most, though, it is in the stage of either imported cases or local transmission.
- Among the countries where community transmission seems to be operating are China, Italy, Iran, South Korea and Japan.
- China adopted a graded approach in dealing with the infection but the epicentre, Hubei, was in a state of complete lockdown at the peak of the infection.
- It something that Italy has now effected in a bid to stop the virus from wreaking more havoc, given the country’s ageing population.
How long before India enters community transmission?
- It is totally unpredictable. Some doctors perceive that community transmission is inevitable; other experts feel it may have already happened.
- There are some reports of one strain having less mortality. If indeed a milder strain has come to India, it could change the course of the epidemic.
- There is another theory that all the various viruses circulating in South Asia and the generally lower levels of hygiene may give us some immunity.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: AYUSH Health-Wellness Centres
Mains level: Self-care practices and its benefits
What is the news: The Union Cabinet has approved the inclusion of AYUSH Health and Wellness Centre (AYUSH HWC) component of Ayushman Bharat in the National AYUSH Mission (NAM).
- A total of 12,500 Ayush health and wellness centres throughout the country will be operationalised within a period of five years.
- The implementation of the proposal will establish a holistic wellness model based on Ayush principles and practices focusing on preventive promotive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative healthcare by integration with the existing public health care system.
Why such a move?
- The move is aimed at establishing a holistic wellness model based on AYUSH principles and practices focusing on preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative healthcare by integration with the existing public health care system.
- The National Health Policy 2017 has advocated mainstreaming the potential of AYUSH systems (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sows-rigpa and Homoeopathy) within a pluralistic system of Integrative healthcare.
- The vision of the proposal is to establish a holistic wellness model based on AYUSH principles and practices, to empower masses for ‘self care’ to reduce the disease burden and out of pocket expenditure and to provide informed choice of the needy public.
What is National AYUSH Mission (NAM)?
- Department of AYUSH, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India has launched National AYUSH Mission (NAM) during 12th Plan for implementing through States/UTs.
- The basic objective of NAM is to promote AYUSH medical systems through cost effective AYUSH services, strengthening of educational systems, facilitate the enforcement of quality control of ASU &H drugs and sustainable availability of ASU & H raw-materials.
- It envisages flexibility of implementation of the programmes which will lead to substantial participation of the State Governments/UT.
- The NAM contemplates establishment of a National Mission as well as corresponding Missions in the State level.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Vitamin C
Mains level: Coronovirus outbreak and its mitigation
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Janata curfew
Mains level: Social distancing and its significance
What is the news: As India observed a “janata curfew” from 7 am to 9 pm on 22nd March refraining from making any non-essential movements, they are implementing a version of what is referred to, most commonly in the United States, as a “shelter in place” order.
What exactly is a “Shelter in Place”?
- In the context of the US, it is not a precise legal term, and its meaning and implications vary.
- It conveys the broad idea of a set of restrictions being put into place, but follows not set definition.
- Broadly, “shelter in place” orders everywhere social distancing, which is the key to “flattening the curve”, that is, spreading out the incidence of infection over a longer time so that healthcare systems are not overwhelmed.
- Ultimately, the intent of the protocols is to decide what people should and shouldn’t do based on a particular threat to the public.
Indian concept of self-imposed curfew
- There is no exact definition of a “Janata curfew” — the PM has laid down guidelines for what Indians should not do, and authorities have taken steps to ensure compliance through appeals, advisories, and executive action such as invoking prohibitory orders.
- In the cities, traders’ associations and housing societies have voluntarily put curbs on themselves in response to the PM’s call.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Carissa carandas
Mains level: NA
Carissa carandas, a multi-utility wild berry, whose thorny plant the British had used to build a barrier through India in the 1870s, has a hitherto unknown wilder cousin in Assam, a new study has revealed.
Carissa carandas
- The Carissa carandas was also among several thorny plants the British had grown 140 years ago for a 1,100-mile barrier apparently to enforce taxes and stop the smuggling of salt.
- It has been used as a traditional herbal medicine for a number of ailments such as diarrhoea, anaemia, constipation, indigestion, skin infections and urinary disorders.
- The leaves have been used as fodder for silkworms while a paste of its pounded roots serves as a fly repellent.
- It is better known as karonda in Hindi, kalakkai in Tamil, koromcha in Bengali and karja tenga in Assamese, the Carissa kopilii is threatened by the very river it is named after — Kopili in central Assam.
- The “sun-loving” plant was distributed sparsely, rooted in rocky crevices along the Kopili riverbed at altitudes ranging from 85-600 metres above sea level.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Prospects of revival of SAARC and India's leadership in the aftermath of COVID-19.
Context
If PM Modi’s gesture to SAARC is to go some way towards a solution for the region, India, which will be picking up the pieces itself, must have something to offer to its neighbours.
Background
- Not a viable option: Since 2014, when the last SAARC summit was held in Kathmandu, India had made it more than clear that it no longer considers the South Asia grouping viable.
- It was Islamabad’s turn to host the next summit in 2016, but the Uri attack intervened, and India refused to attend.
- SAARC in limbo: Under the SAARC charter, the summit cannot be held even if a single nation stays away, and the grouping has remained in limbo since.
- India’s increased engagement with other groups: In the last five years, India has actively sought to isolate Pakistan in the region.
- India hyped up its engagement with other regional groupings such as-
- BBIN (Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal), and
- BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation), which includes Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan.
How to read the sudden resurrection of SAARC?
- Officials denied revival speculation: Despite hopes that this might be a SAARC revival, officials have discounted such speculation. That would require India to climb down from its position that Pakistan has taken verifiable steps to address India’s concerns on terrorism. There is no evidence at all that Delhi is about to do that.
- No hope of move from Pakistan: It would need Pakistan to turn over a new leaf, stop playing with free radicals to use against India, in Kashmir or elsewhere when the time is ripe. Neither is about to happen.
No cooperative response in the works
- First to call the neighbours: At a time when leaders across the globe appeared to be engrossed in the COVID-19 calamity of their own nations, Modi was the first to think of calling the neighbours.
- Why cooperation among neighbours matter? Almost all South Asian countries are bound to each other by land borders and frequent inter-travel, and it is important that the region liaises to stop the disease from spreading across the Subcontinent.
- Countries not willing to learn from each other: It was a trifle disappointing, therefore, that beyond the experience of witnessing a unique video summit, there is not much to suggest that a cooperative response is in the works.
- There is no evidence that each country is willing to learn from the other’s experiences, or public health systems, or that we are tracking each other’s data and responses.
- What were the proposals made in the summit? Two proposals were made:
- One by India for a regional fund that Modi has generously offered to put aside $10 million for.
- Pakistan proposed the setting up of a diseases surveillance centre for sharing real-time data. India has said it would prepare emergency response task forces to help out the member countries in need.
- Delhi is said to be in the process of sending medical supplies worth $1 million to Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives, which sounds like a fraction of what they may eventually require.
- Pakistan has said China will give it testing kits, protective gear and portable ventilators, as well as a cash grant for a state-of-the-art isolation centre.
- Beijing, eager to live down its image as the point of origin for this global mayhem, will make the same offer to other South Asian countries soon.
What were the lessons India need to learn from video-summit?
- Indian need to go beyond Big Brother events: If the intention was to try and restore the aura Prime Minister Modi enjoyed in the region at the beginning of NDA-1, as some have not improbably suggested, it has to go beyond this Big Boss event.
- The video summit saw polite attendance by all SAARC leaders, with the exception of Pakistan which sent its health minister.
- But going by the scant media coverage that the summit, the first after six years, received in the neighbourhood, no one is holding their breath.
- India has lost heft it once held: For many countries in the region now, India has lost the heft it used to have in the last century.
- A proximate reason is that it is no longer an economic powerhouse nor holds the promise of being one in the near future.
- The other reason is that it no longer offers itself as a model nation, pulling together its complex diversities, pluralism and political ideologies in a broad-minded vision.
- CAA factor and changing the perception of India: The real damage to India’s standing was, of course, done by the badmouthing of the Muslim countries in the neighbourhood to justify the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019.
- Larger image of themselves: Seen from the eyes of other countries in South Asia today, India is now just a larger version of themselves and their political and economic dysfunctions.
- While additionally possessing and wielding the instruments to be vengeful and punitive in its foreign policy — including arm-twisting them now and then in its constant quest to isolate Pakistan.
Conclusion
- The real test for India lies ahead: The real test of Modi’s leadership of South Asia, and by extension of India’s, will come after the pandemic subsides, when each country has to deal with what remains of its economy.
- The tourism economy of Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka would have been crushed by then. Pakistan will be worse off than it is now.
- There will be more unemployment and hardship everywhere in the region.
- Some of these countries will inevitably turn to China.
- India must have something to offer as a solution: If Modi’s gesture is to go some way as part of the solution for the region, India, which will be picking up the pieces itself, must have something to offer to its South Asian neighbours six months to a year down the line.
- Is there such a plan? Can India put aside the prejudices of its domestic communalism, and its own economic woes, demonstrate large-heartedness to all the countries of the region, irrespective of what religion its people follow, irrespective of its historical hostilities with at least one?
- There may be more economic refugees knocking on India’s doors, apart from a host of other inter-regional problems.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Improving the standard and status of State universities and problems faced by them?
Context
State universities will have to deliver more to the State where they are located
Status of the state universities in India
- Significance of state universities: Out of about a thousand higher education institutions (HEIs) that are authorised to award degrees in India, about 400 are state public universities.
- These state universities produce over 90% of our graduates (including those from the colleges affiliated to them) and contribute to about one-third of the research publications from this country.
- Poor quality: That their quality and performance is poor in most cases is accepted as a given today.
- It is evidenced by their poor performance in institutional rankings,
- the poor employment status of their students,
- rather poor quality of their publications,
- negligible presence in national-level policy/decision-making bodies,
- poor track record in receiving national awards and recognition, poor share in research funding and so on.
- Stated reasons for poor performance– Commonly stated reasons for these observations include government/political interference in the management of the university, lack of autonomy, poor governance structures, corruption, poor quality of teachers, outdated curricula, plagiarism, poor infrastructure and facilities, overcrowding, evils of the “affiliation” system and poor linkages with alumni and industry.
- Symptoms of the problem: While many of these observations are no doubt valid, they appear to be only the symptoms and consequences of some deeper malaise and not the underlying cause.
Core causative factors for the poor state of state universities
- Lack of support: State universities are not supported the way Central universities are supported by the Central government as well as given patronage by the section of society.
- It is as though State-level players do not have much stake in the stability and performance of the State university system.
- What could be the reason for lack of support? One reason why State-level players do not feel compelled to back the State university system more strongly could be that the latter does not commit itself to anything that may be of particular interest and value to the State where the university is located.
- What could be the solution? In order to receive much more funding and support from the State system then, State universities would have to commit to delivering lots more to the State and its people where they are located.
- New vision and programmes: They must come up with a new vision and programmes specifically addressing the needs of the State, its industry, economy and society, and on the basis of it make the State-level players commit to providing full ownership and support to them.
Conclusion
The initiative to start a larger dialogue on the future of our State universities would have to be taken primarily by the academic community of these institutions.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- What are the attitudinal problems in India's healthcare system and how India should deal with the outbreak of COVID-19?
Context
The COVID-19 pandemic has repercussions beyond the biomedical sector — it impinges on industry, transport, finance, banking and education sectors. All of them must act in unison.
Virus different from its nearest relative
- Comparison with SARS and MERS: The rapid spread of the zoonotic (transmitted from animal-to-human) coronavirus infection in Wuhan in China — several hundreds every day — in December 2019 and January 2020 was a clear signal that COVID-19 is drastically different from its nearest relative viz.-
- the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus,
- and its distant relative, the Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus.
- The former spread slowly among humans in 2002-2003. It was checked globally within nine months by screening passengers and quarantining travellers from infected countries.
- There have been no cases since July 2003. MERS coronavirus is, by and large, an inefficient spreader — it has been confined to the Middle-East.
- How COVID-19 is different? COVID-19 has assumed a pandemic form.
- In less than three months, it has reached more than 180 countries and claimed more than 10,000 lives.
- The disease has claimed more people in Italy than in the country of its origin.
- Travel bans, screening travellers and quarantines are necessary to slow the spread of COVID-19.
- However, there is a limit to the utility of these measures.
- Community transmission: When the infection becomes widespread, screening procedures will become inefficient — the virus will spread stealthily.
- Indigenous transmission — the virus spreading within communities — has begun in many countries.
- This is typical of viruses that spread from human to human through the respiratory system.
How India’s health management systems deals with the disease burden?
- Medicine consists of three components —
- universal healthcare,
- public health, and
- research to constantly contextualise solutions to local problems.
- Reaction after falling ill: Many of us in India believe that disease is a matter of fate or karma and disease prevention is not always in human hands — we only react after falling ill.
- No focus on prevention and control: Therapeutics and surgeries — healthcare interventions — are valued much, but not disease prevention and control.
- Cultural beliefs matter: Attitudes and cultural beliefs do matter. If victims are somehow regarded as responsible for their maladies, universal healthcare is perceived as an optional service — not mandatory.
Good reasons to change the attitude
- There are good reasons for such thinking to change.
- Every person who contracts a communicable disease stands the risk of spreading it to others.
- Prevention of disease is states’ duty: At the same time, the state, too, is responsible for the spread of diseases by not mitigating the environmental and social risk factors or determinants. Prevention of disease is the state’s duty.
- Investment in health and its implications: Healthy people create wealth. For example, every year, uncontrolled tuberculosis drains India’s economy of the equivalent of the GDP of roughly 2 million people.
- Investment in health, therefore, can have implications for the country’s economy.
- But Indians have never really demanded an effective public health system.
- Healthcare has never become a political slogan. That’s one reason for the sorry state of India’s public health system.
- Absence of effective public health system: The country does have international obligations to control TB, malaria and leprosy, and eliminate polio.
- Ad hoc measures: In the absence of an effective public health system, the country has depended on fulfilling these obligations through ad hoc measures that are targeted towards one disease.
- Need for robust health system: Robust public health systems are needed to prevent typhoid, cholera, dysentery, leptospirosis, brucellosis, water-born hepatitis and influenza.
- Overburdened healthcare system with communicable disease: The absence of an effective preventive element means that healthcare services in the public sector are over-burdened with uncontrolled communicable diseases.
- The entry of the private sector: This encourages private sector healthcare providers to step in, which brings in problems related to unregulated profits.
- Questions are often raised over the quality of service.
- COVID-19 could compound the systems problems: Moreover, uncontrolled communicable diseases vie with the non-communicable ones for the healthcare provider’s attention. The COVID-19 outbreak could compound the system’s problems.
One step ahead of the virus
- SARS and Nipah in Kerala: The SARS and Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala in 2018 were crises that required short bursts of professional activity. Our healthcare systems coped with them.
- But endemic diseases, even influenza, that has a vaccine, require sustained interventions.
- Test for the country’s healthcare system: Herein lies the test for the country’s healthcare system.
- It has often been seen that the system is not able to sustain its initial momentum.
- There is a possibility that COVID-19 could follow the path taken by the HINI influenza – after the epidemic died down, the disease became endemic.
- The country’s healthcare system has to prepare for that. In other words, it has to be one step ahead of the virus.
Way forward
- Equipping district hospitals: Every district hospital must be equipped to diagnose infections caused by serious communicable diseases — these affect the lungs, brain, liver and kidneys.
- The system should also ensure that healthcare personnel do not get infected.
- Allocate 5% of GDP to health budget: The country needs to allocate 5 per cent of the GDP to the health budget to have a health management system that can take care of public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 outbreak — and its aftermath.
- Unified control machinery: A unified command and control machinery, under the prime minister’s guidance, to control the spread of COVID-19 is overdue by at least six weeks in the country.
- Define the tasks of various authorities: The tasks of the Directorate-General of Health Services, National Centre for Disease Control, Indian Council of Medical Research, National Health Mission and state health ministries must be clearly defined.
- The mechanism for coordination: Most importantly, a mechanism for coordination between these agencies should be set up to deal with the COVID-19 threat.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has repercussions beyond the biomedical sector — it impinges on industry, transport, finance, banking and education sectors. All of them must act in unison.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: SAARC and BIMSTEC
Mains level: Paper 2- Why should India revive the SAARC?
Context
Prime Minister Narendra Modi signalled a change in India’s rejection of SAARC as a platform for regional cooperation by inviting all heads of state and government of SAARC countries to a video summit to promote a region-wide response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
SAARC in virtual deep freeze
- Who attended the video conference? The video summit was attended by all SAARC leaders, except for Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan, who deputed his special assistant for health to represent him.
- Status of SAARC: SAARC has been in a virtual deep freeze since India conveyed it would not attend the 19th SAARC summit, to be hosted by Pakistan in 2017, in the wake of the cross-border terrorist incidents at Pathankot and Uri.
- Other SAARC leaders also declined to attend.
- The summit was indefinitely postponed.
- Focus on BIMSTEC: Since then India has downgraded SAARC as an instrument of its “Neighbourhood First” policy and shifted the focus to the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) instead.
Backdrop of SAARC revival
- For his swearing-in ceremony in 2014, PM Modi had invited leaders of all SAARC countries including Pakistan.
- For the swearing-in ceremony in 2019, it is BIMSTEC leaders who were the invited guests.
- Soon after taking over as external affairs minister, S Jaishankar referred to SAARC having “certain problems” while BIMSTEC was described as having both energy and possibility and “a mindset which fits in with that very optimistic vision of economic cooperation that we want.”
- Deliberate political message: Against this backdrop, Modi’s initiative in convening a SAARC video summit, instead of a BIMSTEC video summit, conveys a deliberate political message.
Proposal of SAARC Covid-19 Fund and Health Ministers’ Conference
- At the conference, Modi gave a call for the countries of SAARC “coming together and not going apart.”
- A SAARC Covid-19 Fund has been proposed with India committing US$10 million.
- Modi referred to the role which could be played by an existing SAARC institution, the Disaster Management Centre, in enabling a coordinated response to Covid-19.
- Suggestions were made by several leaders, including the Pakistani representative, for a SAARC Health Ministers’ Conference to follow up on the summit. This is likely to be convened soon.
Pakistan on defensive
- India seen as undermining SAARC: Modi’s initiative has put Pakistan on the defensive. So far, it was India which was seen as undermining SAARC in which other South Asian countries have a keen interest.
- BIMSTEC no alternative to SAARC: While there has been readiness on their part to participate in BIMSTEC, they do not consider the latter as an alternative to SAARC. In taking this initiative, Modi may be responding to these sentiments.
- Onus on Pakistan: If Pakistan now drags its feet, then the onus will be on her for weakening the Association.
- There is a new situation as a result of the abrogation of Article 370 relating to Kashmir, which has been denounced by Pakistan.
- Difficulty for Pakistan: It would be difficult for Pakistan to accept cooperation with India under SAARC because this would compromise its stand on Kashmir.
BIMSTEC not delivered expected results
- Not yielded the expected result: It is also a fact that the focus on BIMSTEC has not yielded the results India may have expected.
- Trade below the set target: Current trade among its members is US$40 billion, though the potential was set at $250 billion.
- Act East policy stalled: India’s Act East policy, which involved a key role for India’s Northeast, has stalled.
- RCEP factor: The Northeast is in political turmoil while India has opted out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which would have added substance to BIMSTEC.
Why India should revive SAARC
1.BIMSTEC not a credible option to SAARC
- Today it is difficult to see BIMSTEC as a credible and preferred alternative to SAARC.
- Cooperation both through SAARC and BIMSTEC: In any case, it makes better sense for India to pursue regional economic cooperation both through SAARC as well as BIMSTEC rather than project them as competing entities.
- SCO membership a contradictory position: If the argument is that regional cooperation involving Pakistan is a non-starter due to its ingrained hostility towards India, then being part of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), where both are members, becomes a somewhat contradictory position.
2.The China factor
- China making inroad into the neighbourhood: In determining its position towards SAARC, India must also take into account the significant inroads that China has been making in its sub-continental neighbourhood.
- BRI initiative: With the exception of Bhutan, every South Asian country has signed on to China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
- A number of Chinese infrastructure projects are already in place or are being planned in each of our neighbours.
- China likely to become a key player: With SAARC becoming inoperative and BIMSTEC not living up to its promise, China is likely to become a key economic partner for South Asia and India’s hitherto pre-eminent role will be further eroded.
- On this count, too, it is advisable for India to advance regional cooperation both under SAARC as well as BIMSTEC. Both are necessary.
3.Pakistan factor
- Should not give up on Pakistan: Despite the frustration in dealing with Pakistan, India should not give up on its western neighbour.
- Relation needs to be managed: Relations with Islamabad will remain adversarial for the foreseeable future but still need to be managed with two ends in mind.
- One, to ensure that tensions do not escalate into open hostilities and,
- two, to reduce leverage which third countries may exercise over both countries on the pretext of reducing tensions between them.
- No compromise in position on terrorism: This does not in any way compromise our firm stand against cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan. The revival of SAARC could be an added constraint on Pakistan’s recourse to terrorism as an instrument of state policy.
4.Afghanistan factor
- Finally, the revival of SAARC would also support the Ashraf Ghani government in Kabul in navigating through a difficult and complex peace process involving a Pakistan-sponsored Taliban.
Conclusion
While these are essentially tactical considerations, there is a compelling reality which we ignore at our peril. Whether it is a health crisis like the Covid-19 or climate change, the melting of Himalayan glaciers or rising sea levels, all such challenges are better and more efficiently dealt with through regional cooperation. The Indian Subcontinent is an ecologically integrated entity and only regionally structured and collaborative responses can work.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Desertification and Land Degradation
Mains level: Various initiatives for water conservation
The Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has provided useful information about land degradation in India citing the Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas.
Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India
- Space Applications Centre (SAC), ISRO has released out an inventory and monitoring of desertification of the entire country in 2016.
- This Atlas presents state-wise desertification and land degradation status maps depicting land use, process of degradation and severity level.
- This was prepared using IRS Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) data of 2011-13 and 2003-05 time frames in GIS environment.
- Area under desertification / land degradation for the both time frames and changes are reported state-wise as well as for the entire country.
Degraded land in India
- About 29.32% of the Total Geographical Area of the country is undergoing the process of desertification/land degradation.
- Approximately 6.35% of land in Uttar Pradesh is undergoing desertification/degradation.
Various move for land conservation
- National Afforestation & Eco Development Board (NAEB) Division of the MoEFCC is implementing the “National Afforestation Programme (NAP)” for ecological restoration of degraded forest areas.
- Various other schemes like Green India Mission, fund accumulated under Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), Nagar Van Yojana etc. also help in checking degradation and restoration of forest landscape.
- MoEF&CC also promote tree outside forests realizing that the country has a huge potential for increasing its Trees Outside Forest (TOF) area primarily through expansion of agroforestry, optimum use of wastelands and vacant lands.
Various institutions for land conservation
- Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation (IISWC): Bio-engineering measures to check soil erosion due to run-off of rain water
- Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI), Jodhpur: Sand dune stabilization and shelter belt technology to check wind erosion
- Council through Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Karnal: Reclamation technology, sub-surface drainage, bio-drainage, agroforestry interventions and salt tolerant crop varieties to improve the productivity of saline, sodic and waterlogged soils in the country
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: SPECS
Mains level: Not Much
The Union Cabinet has approved Scheme for Promotion of manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors.
About SPECS
- The scheme aims to offer the financial incentive of 25% of capital expenditure for the manufacturing of goods that constitute the supply chain of electronic products.
- The scheme will help offset the disability for domestic manufacturing of electronic components and semiconductors in order to strengthen the electronic manufacturing ecosystem in the country.
Benefits
The proposal, when implemented, will lead to the development of electronic components manufacturing ecosystem in the country. Following are the expected outputs/outcomes in terms of measurable indicators for the scheme:
- Development of electronic components manufacturing ecosystem in the country and deepening of Electronics value chain
- New investments in Electronics Sector to the tune of at least Rs. 20,000 crore
- Total employment potential of the scheme is approximately 6,00,000
- Reducing dependence on import of components by large scale domestic manufacturing that will also enhance the digital security of the nation
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Defence Procurement Procedure
Mains level: Defence procurement in India
Raksha Mantri unveiled the draft Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2020 that aims at further increasing indigenous manufacturing and reducing timelines for procurement of defence equipment.
Defence Procurement Procedure
- The draft of DPP 2020 has been prepared by a Review Committee headed by Director General (Acquisition) based on the recommendations of all stakeholders, including private industry.
- The first DPP was promulgated in 2002 and has since been revised a number of times to provide impetus to the growing domestic industry and achieve enhanced self-reliance in defence manufacturing.
Features:
- The government is constantly striving to formulate policies to empower the private industry including MSMEs in order to develop the eco-system for indigenous defence production.
- The major changes proposed in the new DPP are:
1) Indigenous Content ratio hiked
- The draft proposes increasing the Indigenous Content (IC) stipulated in various categories of procurement by about 10% to support the ‘Make in India’ initiative.
- A simple and realistic methodology has been incorporated for verification of indigenous content for the first time.
2) New Category: “Buy Global” Manufacture in India
- It has been introduced with minimum 50% indigenous content on cost basis of total contract value.
- Only the minimum necessary will be bought from abroad while the balance quantities will be manufactured in India.
- This would be in preference to the ‘Buy Global’ category as manufacturing will happen in India and jobs will be created in the country.
3) Leasing introduced as a new category
- Leasing has been introduced as a new category for acquisition in addition to existing ‘Buy’ & ‘Make’ categories to substitute huge initial capital outlays with periodical rental payments.
- Leasing is permitted under two categories e, Lease (Indian) where Lessor is an Indian entity and is the owner of the assets and Lease (Global) where Lessor is a Global entity.
- This will be useful for military equipment not used in actual warfare like transport fleets, trainers, simulators, etc.
4) Product support
- The scope and options for Product Support have been widened to include contemporary concepts in vogue, namely Performance Based Logistics (PBL), Life Cycle Support Contract (LCSC), Comprehensive Maintenance Contract (CMC), etc to optimize life cycle support for equipment.
- The capital acquisition contract would normally also include support for five years beyond the warranty period.
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