Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: e-RMB
Mains level: Cryptocurrency and its feasiblity
China in a significant move has launched a trial of digital yuan in four urban centres of the country for specific services even as the world grapples with the containment of Covid.
What is a cryptocurrency? Discuss how a vibrant cryptocurrency segment could add value to India’s financial sector. (250 W)
Prelims Perspective:-
1. Subtle differences btn digital and virtual currency – e.g. Regulatory issues
2. Which countries have official virtual currency – e.g. Petro of Venezuela
e-RMB
- It will be the electronic form of the renminbi, with a value equivalent to the paper notes and coins in circulation.
- The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, will be the sole issuer of the digital yuan, initially offering the digital money to commercial banks and other operators.
- It will be launched in major cities of Shenzhen, Suzhou and Chengdu, as well as the Xiong’an New Area.
- It aims to change the financial system in big ways — by cutting costs and making transactions easier, more convenient and more transparent.
- The public would be able to convert money in their bank accounts to the digital version and make deposits via electronic wallets.
Back2Basics: Cryptocurrency
- A Cryptocurrency is an internet-based medium of exchange which uses cryptographical functions to conduct financial transactions.
- It leverages blockchain technology to gain decentralization, transparency, and immutability.
- The most important feature of a cryptocurrency is that it is not controlled by any central authority: the decentralized nature of the blockchain makes cryptocurrencies theoretically immune to the old ways of government control and interference.
- It can be sent directly between two parties via the use of private and public keys.
- Unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, that allow users to transfer value with no central authority or third party involved, the government-backed digital currency is preferred.
What are Blockchains?
- Blockchain, sometimes referred to as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), makes the history of any digital asset unalterable and transparent through the use of decentralization and cryptographic hashing.
- Blockchain consists of three important concepts: blocks, nodes and miners.
- Nodes can be any kind of electronic device that maintains copies of the blockchain and keeps the network functioning.
- Miners create new blocks on the chain through a process called mining.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: India in Labour Party (UK) manifestos
Mains level: Not Much
The UK Labour party’s newly appointed leader Keir Starmer said Kashmir was a bilateral issue for India and Pakistan to resolve peacefully. These remarks were seen as an attempt to re-position his party’s stance on Kashmir and reach out to the Indian community in Britain.
What was the Labour party’s stance before?
- The party’s relations with the Indian diaspora have been strained, especially after its delegates passed an emergency policy motion in September 2019 criticizing India’s decision to revoke Article 370.
- It maintained that the people of Kashmir should have self-determination rights.
Why is the Labour Party’s relationship with the Indian diaspora important?
- Indians are the largest ethnic community in the UK, numbering over 1.5 million people or accounting for over 2.3 per cent of the country’s population.
- Therefore, they form a significant vote share for any party.
- In the 2017 general elections, 50 per cent of the Indians living in the UK had voted for Labour.
India in Labour Party (UK) manifestos
Over the years, issues relating to India have found various mention in many election manifestos in the UK:
- 1945: India’s freedom had been a campaign promise of the Labour party, its manifesto pledging “the advancement of India to responsible self-government”.
- 1947: The Indian Independence Act, 1947, was passed when Attlee was Prime Minister.
- 1949: all the Commonwealth Prime Ministers welcomed the free choice of India, Pakistan and Ceylon to join the Commonwealth as full and equal members.
- 2019: Issue a formal apology for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: International Whaling Commission (IWC)
Mains level: Not Much
Iceland will not be hunting any whales in 2020. Iceland, alongside Norway and Japan, has frequently broken the International Whaling Commission’s 1986 worldwide moratorium, which indefinitely “paused” commercial whaling.
Regarding IWC, we can expect a statement based prelim question asking-
1) If IWC has a UN or any other parent organization
2) If India is a member/observer etc.
About International Whaling Commission (IWC)
- The IWC is an Inter-Governmental Organisation set up by the terms of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) signed in Washington, D.C in 1946.
- It aims to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry.
- The main duty of the IWC is to keep under review and revise as necessary the measures laid down in the Schedule to the Convention which governs the conduct of whaling throughout the world.
- The body is the first piece of International Environmental Legislation established in 1946.
- Commercial whaling was banned by the IWC in 1986 after some species were almost driven to extinction.
- 89 countries have the membership of in IWC and all the member countries are signatories to this convention.
- India is a member state of the IWC.
Earlier reference
- Japan has last year withdrawn from the IWC citing domestic reasons.
- Thus, it resumed commercial whaling after 31 years, meeting a long-cherished goal of its traditionalists.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Sariska Tiger Reserve
Mains level: Not Much
The Ministry of Tourism’s Dekho Apna Desh webinar featured a presentation and virtual tour of ‘Destination- Sariska Tiger reserve’.
Tourism and tourist sites carry high stakes for possible prelims questions. Take time to quickly revise the Swadesh Darshan , PRASHAD Schemes. Click here for the repository of all such initiatives.
Sariska Tiger Reserve
- It is located in the Aravalli Hills, 35 km from Alwar, 250 km SW of Delhi and 110 km NE of Jaipur.
- The former hunting reserve of the Maharaja of Alwar, the Sariska valley is home to a variety of flora and fauna.
- The park has populations of tigers, leopards, Nilgai, Sambar, chital etc.
- The place is a paradise for bird lovers as it shelters a large population of Indian peafowl, crested serpent eagles, sand grouse, golden-backed woodpeckers, great Indian horned owls, tree pies, vultures and many others.
- It is the first reserve in the world with successfully relocated tigers. It is an important biodiversity area in the Northern Aravalli leopard and wildlife corridor.
Features of this episode
- Alwar is a city dotted with heritage buildings, Forts, tombs and palaces. Some of the important sights not to be missed are Bala Qila, Vijai Mandir Lake Palaces, Fateh Jung ki Gumbad, Moti Doongri etc.
- The sanctuary is strewn with ruins of ancient temples dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries.
- Some of the highlights are the ruins of the Kankwari Fort and the 10th-century Neelkanth temples, which have Khajuraho-like carvings as key features.
- Neelkanth Mahadeva houses the ruins of over 300 Hindu and Jain temples constructed between the 8th and 12th Centuries.
- Chand Baoli (stepwell) at Abhaneri is enormous with 3500 steep steps built by the Nikhumbha dynasty is one of the largest step-wells in the world.
About DekhoApnaDesh
- Under this, a series of webinars will showcase the diverse and remarkable history and culture of India through a documentary series on various cities.
- It will be including various monuments, cuisine, arts, dance forms, natural landscapes, festivals and many other aspects of the rich Indian civilization.
- The objective of the webinar series is to create awareness about and promote various tourism destinations of India – including the lesser-known destinations and lesser-known facets of popular destinations.
- The webinar will be available in the public domain through the Ministry’s social media handles- “Incredible India” on Instagram and Facebook.
Back2Basics: Project Tiger
- Project Tiger is a tiger conservation programme launched in April 1973 by during PM Indira Gandhi’s tenure.
- It is administered by the National Tiger Conservation Authority.
- The project aims at ensuring a viable population of Bengal tigers in their natural habitats, protecting them from extinction, and preserving areas of biological importance as a natural heritage forever represented as close as possible the diversity of ecosystems across the distribution of tigers in the country.
- The project’s task force visualized these tiger reserves as breeding nuclei, from which surplus animals would migrate to adjacent forests.
- The government has set up a Tiger Protection Force to combat poachers and funded relocation of villagers to minimize human-tiger conflicts.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Role of the RBI.
Mains level: Paper 3- Role of the RBI and trade-offs involved in its decisions.
The article discusses three things for the RBI to follow in fulfilling its role, these are- 1) Prudence 2) Flexibility 3) Acting within the mandate. Besides that, problems the RBI has been facing are also discussed. These things are discussed against the backdrop of Covid-19.
Role of the RBI
- A central bank like the RBI must replace intellectual certainty with the continuous debate over their actions.
- RBI’s job involves complex trade-offs — next quarter vs quarter century, growth vs stability, and mandates vs expectations.
- A global anthropological shock-like COVID makes these trade-offs — they are not conflicts — even harder.
- The RBI must remember three things — acting prudently to balance the next quarter and quarter century, acting flexibly to blunt this economic cataclysm, and acting within their mandate to ensure institutional legitimacy and immunity.
These three things are discussed below-
1. Acting prudently
- If everybody believed that in the long run we are all dead, we would never sit under trees planted by people who had no chance of sitting under them.
- The coronavirus is a human tragedy but a central bank must not act like a commercial bank because that would compromise the balance between today and tomorrow.
- A narcissism — bordering on solipsism — already reflects in global debt levels that steal from our grandchildren.
- More importantly, India doesn’t have the economic strength to copy the US Federal Reserve’s $2.3 trillion offer to lend to businesses of all sizes and sorts.
- And run anything close to this year’s expected US fiscal deficit of 15 per cent of GDP, or sustain Japan’s public debt levels at 240 per cent of GDP.
- We are all in the same storm but we are all not in the same boat.
2. Acting flexibly within the mandate
- Renaissance physician Paracelsus had important advice for central banks; the dose makes the poison.
- Anything powerful enough to help has the power to hurt; handling the inevitable tensions between the RBI’s dual mandate of growth and stability requires continuous work.
- Our inflation targeting regime is a macroeconomic gift to India.
- But recognising that is hardly inconsistent with acknowledging that inflation’s secular decline has many parents, some economic models are useful but all are incomplete, and the fog of war involves making second-best choices as long as they are reversible, proportional, and accountable.
- Central banks often undertake liquidity management while leaving policy rates unchanged; current actions are not a conspiracy to undermine the MPC or its interest rate corridor (between reverse repo rate and MSF rate with repo rate midpoint targeting and call rate operating target).
- They are a pragmatic encouragement for banks to lend to clients rather than lend Rs 7 lakh crore to the RBI.
- Other virus flexibility includes repayment moratoriums (with 10 per cent provisions), bad loan accounting forbearance (despite past experience of breaking the thermometer doing little for the fever) and bank windows for NBFC/Mutual Fund liquidity.
- Listening is hardly compromise.
- Especially if accompanied by a will to unwind liquidity, asymmetry and forbearance when the planet’s gap year ends.
3. Follow the mandate
- Central bank governance is a fine balance; they function best when they don’t declare separation from the government and they aren’t considered a part of the finance ministry.
- The difficulty of balance isn’t uniquely Indian.
- The RBI must build on its track record of wisely balancing the trade-offs between depositors vs borrowers, companies vs banks, and stability vs growth.
- And it must continue to stay out of the government’s domain.
- The central bank crisis role debate is skewed by the great book, Lords of Finance, by Liaquat Ahamed that shows how central bankers of the 1920s failed to fight the Great Depression.
- History matters but nobody knows if this is the beginning or ending of the virus.
- Yet the global central bank COVID toolbox has been substantial; buying corporate bonds, making corporate loans, cutting interest rates, conducting open market operations, and reducing reserve ratios.
- Additionally, banks have been permitted to grant loan moratoriums, hold less capital, restructure loans, pay lower deposit insurance premiums and delay bad loan recognition.
- The emergency authority under Section 13 of the US Federal Reserve Act being used — prematurely — also exists in Section 18 of the RBI Act.
- But emergency powers are the last resort. We are not there yet.
- The recovery being V-shaped, U-shaped, or Bathtub-shaped is only modellable after the lockdown.
Pre-existing problems facing the RBI
- The RBI’s COVID balm is constrained by pre-existing conditions in Indian banking, which are given below-
- Bad loans which peaked at Rs 14 lakh crore but still large.
- Inadequate competition- scheduled commercial bank numbers have hovered between 90 and 100 since 1947.
- Private bank governance- CEO so powerful that boards and shareholders are weak.
- Public sector bank governance- shareholder so powerful that boards and CEOs are weak.
- And the RBI’s own game (process, technology and human capital in regulation and supervision).
- All these must be tackled with urgency when normalcy returns.
A question based on the role of the central bank can be asked by the UPSC. Consider the following question “Crises have always tested the utility of central banks, be it the Great Depression, 2008 financial crisis or Covid-19. In light of this statement, explains the trade-offs involved in the RBI’s decisions and how shocks like Covid-19 makes these trade-offs even harder.”
Way forward
- Supplementing India’s fiscal and monetary policy interventions by announcing two bold reform plans — 90-day flick-of-pen and one-year structural — that tackle overdue reforms in labour, education, cities, finance, compliance, and civil services, will catalyse hope among employers, employees, banks, and overseas investors.
Conclusion
Creating a prosperous India needs many things. One of them is an independent, accountable, and boundaried central bank that listens.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: National Food Security Act.
Mains level: Paper 3-Ensuring food security with all its dimension amid corona pandemic.
The article discusses the three dimensions of food security-1)Availability 2)Acces 3) Absorption. The first two are also dependent on job security. All these are now being threatened by the pandemic. Ways to safeguard food security along with its 3 dimensions are suggested at the end of the article.
1. Availability of food in the market
- The first is the availability of food in the market, and this is seen as a function of production.
- Fortunately, thanks to the Green Revolution, today we have enough food in the market and in government godowns.
- This is a great accomplishment by Indian farmers who converted a “ship to mouth” situation to a “right to food” commitment.
- Yet we cannot take farmers’ contributions in terms of sustaining production for granted.
- Some special exemptions have been given to the agricultural sector, farmers are confronted at the moment with labour shortages.
- But many of the inputs, including seeds, are expensive or unavailable, marketing arrangements including supply chains are not fully functional, pricing is not remunerative, and public procurement is also not adequate.
- There is no room for complacency, as in the absence of demand, the lack of storage or value addition facilities, especially for perishable commodities, we do not yet know exactly what the impact of the current pandemic will be on the kharif sowing and food availability in the future.
2. Access to food
- The second dimension is the access to food, which is a function of purchasing power, as unless you are a farmer and grow your own food, others have to buy it.
- Fortunately, the government, through the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and the PDS, has assured some additional food to every individual during this crisis.
- Strengthening the food basket: This should be further strengthened and the food basket widened by including millets, pulses and oil.
- Hidden hunger: Steps should also be taken to avoid hidden hunger caused by the deficiency of micronutrients in the diet.
- In light of the closure of schools and anganwadi centres, and the consequent disruptions in the provision of midday meals or other nutritional inputs, it is important to pay attention to the life cycle approach advocated in the NFSA, particularly the first thousand days in a child’s life, when the cognitive abilities of the child are shaped.
- We may otherwise see negative effects on nutritional security in the medium to longer term.
After reading the article you’ll be able to answer the question such as this one- “In the ongoing crisis, maintaining the level of food security has become one of the most essential need. In light of the above statement, critically examine the priority areas for maintaining food security in the country. Suggest measures to make accessibility and availability of food easier for all.”
Job security to ensure food security and access to food
- Food security and access to nutritious, good quality food is also contingent on job security.
- Today, a lot of people employed both on farms and in the non-farm sector are without jobs.
- If job security is threatened, then so is food and nutrition security.
- We have to ensure people do not lose their jobs, and one way of doing this will be to ensure value addition to primary products.
- One example of such value addition is the Rice Biopark in Myanmar, wherein the straw, bran, and the entire biomass are utilised.
- This would mean some attention to and investment in new technologies that can contribute to biomass utilisation.
- The Amul model provides a good example from the dairy sector of improved incomes to milk producers through value addition.
- Similar attention needs to be given to the horticulture sector on a priority basis.
- Women farmers are at the forefront of horticulture and special attention needs to be given to both their technological and economic empowerment during this crisis.
- A second pathway to livelihood security is strengthening the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
- Need to cover skilled work: Given the lack of jobs and incomes during the COVID-19 crisis, it is imperative to expand the definition of work in MGNREGA to cover skilled work related to farmers and their farming activities.
- This is particularly important for women farmers and workers, who should not just be given tasks of carrying stones or digging mud.
- Apart from farming, they engage in a range of essential care tasks, including caring for children, the elderly and sick people.
- These tasks, often invisible, need to be recognised as work and supported with appropriate education, including on nutrition.
3. Absorption of food in the body and its utilisation
- The third dimension of food security is the absorption of food in the body or its utilisation.
- Absorption and utilisation of food is dependent importantly on sanitation, drinking water and other non-food factors, including public health services.
- Ensuring that these services are functional depends on the capacities of the local panchayats and their coordination with other local bodies.
- The lack of adequate clean water, in particular, has come to the fore in both rural areas and urban slums in the context of COVID-19, where one of the key measures for stopping transmission relates to frequent hand-washing.
Food security threatened by pandemic
- If we can ensure food availability, food access and food absorption, then we have a fairly robust system of food and nutrition security.
- All the above dimensions are, however, now threatened by the novel coronavirus, as discussed earlier.
- It is very critical to highlight the linkages between agriculture, nutrition and health.
- The inability to harvest, transport and market perishable fruits and vegetables at remunerative prices during the current crisis has deprived farmers of incomes and livelihoods.
- It has also deprived consumers of micronutrients in their diets.
- Farmers making losses, and agriculture moving from being job-led to jobless, raise questions about the sustainability of the production cycle.
- At the same time, this can have long-term consequences on nutrition and health security.
A question based on the dimension of the food security can be asked by the UPSC for ex- “Food security involved the security of food in all three dimensions, availability of food, access to food and absorption of food. How far the food security act is effective in ensuring security in all three dimensions?”
Conclusion
India avoided what could have been a big famine in the 1960s through the help of technology and public policy, which actively worked with and supported farmers to achieve significant increases in yield. Through a combination of farmers’ cooperation, technological upgrading and favourable public policies in procurement, pricing and distribution, we can deal with the fallouts of the pandemic.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Opportunity cost.
Mains level: Paper 2- Easing the lockdown, strategy that could be adopted.
The article discusses the performance of India so far and the strategy for reopening of the economy. Dividing the districts based on the number of cases and adopting a suitable approach for opening the economy there while keeping the spread of the virus in control is suggested in the article.
India performing better
- While the OECD countries are reeling under the COVID-19 impact, India is clearly ahead of the curve.
- This is not merely in terms of the confirmed cases in the country but is also strongly reflected in very low mortality numbers (8.5 deaths per lakh population) compared to other nations (4,040 in the UK and 1,930 in the US).
- While the first cases were reported in most hotspot countries and India around the same time (last week of January), today, the outbreak is far more manageable in India than in most other countries.
- It was pragmatic for a resource-poor country to be pre-emptive and declare a national lockdown when the total number of cases were still low at 500.
- The subsequent growth of the pandemic clearly shows a perceptible decline in the number of cases due to the lockdown.
- Though stringent, this was much-needed and a timely policy intervention by the government.
- It is important, however, to appreciate the high and growing opportunity costs that are involved during a lockdown.
- We must brace ourselves for long-term pandemic management (18 to 24 months) with significant economic impact on our lives.
Policy interventions by government and two major concerns
- The immediate costs of the lockdown are borne by the most economically vulnerable people in society.
- This perhaps was the rationale behind the first round of economic policy interventions announced by the finance minister within a few days of the lockdown.
- They targeted front-loading of cash transfers through PM-Kisan, support to construction workers, self-help groups, food distribution through the public distribution system, among others.
- Two major concerns: Beyond welfare concerns, there are significant growth concerns that are mounting with every day of economic inactivity in the country.
- Companies are struggling to honour payroll and maintain their workforce against cancelling orders and declining demand for their goods and services.
- These in turn will lead to greater delays and defaults in loan repayments, thereby further weakening the fragile banking sector and struggling credit markets.
The RBI’s intervention and increasing damage to the economy
- The Reserve Bank of India stepped in for some timely monetary interventions.
- However, the longstanding climate of risk aversion within the banking sector will mean that transmission of these monetary interventions is unlikely to be timely or adequate.
- All eyes are set expectantly in one direction.
- Historically, when economies are faced with major calamities, governments step in to stabilise the environment and boost confidence within the business community.
- We have seen this response from all major economies disrupted by COVID-19 over the last several weeks.
- India will not be an exception to this as the government fine-tunes its strategy to support and kickstart our immobilised economy.
- The opportunity cost of time, however, is ballooning with each passing day.
- Just like the spread of the virus, we are up against the full force and power of compounding.
- Mindful policy interventions, when timed well, can cut growing losses and the misfortune of many.
How the states are performing against Covid-19?
- While we have succeeded in slowing the growth of the virus at the national level, the true gains and pains are at the state and local level.
- As the data reveals, currently we have three states that have made remarkable gains and “flattened the curve” of COVID cases.
- These are Kerala, Haryana and Tamil Nadu where recoveries are growing and active cases are rapidly declining.
- States like Karnataka and Telangana are improving their recovery rates consistently, despite fluctuations.
- Every state and local administration has to keep eternal vigil and double down on containment and testing.
- They have to aggressively improve their contact tracing efforts with the help of their police who are trained in debriefing, call record mapping and have more manpower than public health departments of local administrations.
The article contains the policy and governance aspects which are important from Mains Paper-2, and economic issues such as the size of the package and opportunity cost of time involved are important from the Mains Paper-3 perspective. Take note of these issues.
What should be the strategy?
- Given the scale and variation in infection control across the country, our national strategy needs to be informed and calibrated.
- Currently, there are more than 300 districts in the country which have reported zero COVID-19 cases.
- This can be confirmed quickly with some random testing and the lockdown can be lifted effective immediately.
- Then there are about 225 districts which have reported less than 10 cases each.
- With adequate ring-fencing at the level of the block where these cases are reported, these districts too can afford to lift their lockdowns.
- There are, however, approximately 30 districts across the country which have reported large numbers of confirmed cases and are identified as “hotspots”.
- The lockdown in these places needs to continue with some relaxations for basic trade and essential services.
- Not surprisingly, these “hotspots” are also important economic centres of the country.
- The capacity of the local administration to develop and enforce appropriate strategies of containment, contact tracing and testing, should determine their decisions to ring-fence and isolate blocks while allowing other parts of the district/city to resume economic activity.
Way forward
- Given the uncertainty of the virus, we seem prepared for large hospitalisation and care if the need arises.
- The efforts now must be to further contain the growth of the infection.
- Acting against the power of compounding: If the current rate persists, we will reach over lakh cases within three weeks. That is the power of compounding we are against.
- Public health support team: Beyond knowledge sharing across states and adopting successful containment strategies from each other, there is a role for the central government in providing “NSG-like” public health support teams to states that need them.
- Economic package: On the economy front similarly, the central government’s timely economic package should flatten the curve of exponentially rising opportunity costs across the sectors.
Conclusion
Given the relative scale and virulence of the COVID-19 virus in India, the odds seem stacked in favour of a calibrated opening of the economy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Electoral College of President
Mains level: President’s election and impeachment process
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has replied ambiguously to an RTI query if the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir will be part of the Electoral College for the election of the President of India.
This newscard invokes our basic GYAN acquired from the holy ‘Indian Polity’ by M. Laxmikanth. After reading this, ask yourself questions about the following :
1) What comprises the electoral college of the President of India?
2) Cases where the Constitutional Amendment Acts are required and wherever not
What did ECI say?
- The RTI request sought a list of the State and UTs Legislative Assemblies which were part of the Electoral College for the election of the President.
- The query also asked the EC to clarify whether the newly-formed UT of Jammu and Kashmir was part of the Electoral College.
- The EC sent a single-line response, merely saying- for the information, the applicant may be informed to refer Article 54 of the Constitution of India.
What is Article 54 of the Constitution?
- Under Article 54, the President is elected by an Electoral College, which consists of the elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of all the States and also of NCT of Delhi and the UT of Puducherry.
- The art. 54, thus, only specifically mentions NCT of Delhi and Puducherry as eligible to be part of the Electoral College.
- There is no word about the newly-formed UTs of J&K and Ladakh.
Ambiguity over J&K
- The J&K Reorganization Act, which came into existence from August 2019, does not specify anything about whether the legislature of J&K would be able to vote in the election for a President.
- A passing mention is made in Section 13 of the 2019 Act, which claims that J&K Legislature would have the same powers as its Puducherry counterpart.
- The astonishing thing to note is that not a single MP in the parliamentary debate has pointed out this fact yet.
A constitutional amendment is required
- Inclusion of new members in the Electoral College in Article 54 would require a Constitutional Amendment to be carried out through two-thirds majority in Parliament and ratification by over 50% of the States.
- This matter involves principles of federalism, hence constitutional amendment is a must.
- Delhi and Puducherry were included as Electoral College members under Article 54 through the Constitution (Seventieth) Amendment Act of 1992.
- Before that, Article 54 consisted of only the elected Members of Parliament as well as the Legislative Assemblies of the States.
Back2Basics: Presidential Election in India
- The President is elected by an Electoral College, which consists of the elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the Legislative Assemblies of all the States and also of NCT of Delhi and the UT of Puducherry.
- The authority to conduct elections to the Office of President is vested in the Election Commission of India.
- The election of the President is held in accordance with the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote and the voting at such election shall be by secret ballot.
- The notification calling the election to the office of the President can be issued by the Election Commission on any day within the period of sixty days before the expiry of the term of office.
- The election schedule shall be so fixed, that the President-elect is able to enter upon his office on the day following the expiry of the term of the outgoing President.
With inputs from: TOI
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP)
Mains level: Read the attached story
- To augment infrastructure and create jobs in the country, the government task force on National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), which in its report projected total investment of Rs 111 lakh crore in infra projects over five years.
- It said that 18 per cent of the targeted investment is expected to be made in the road sector.
It is estimated that India would need to spend $4.5 trillion on infrastructure by 2030 to sustain its growth rate. The endeavour of the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), is to make this happen in an efficient manner.
What is the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP)?
- NIP includes economic and social infrastructure projects.
- During the fiscals 2020 to 2025, sectors such as Energy (24%), Roads (19%), Urban (16%), and Railways (13%) amount to around 70% of the projected capital expenditure in infrastructure in India.
- It has outlined plans to invest more than ₹102 lakh crore on infrastructure projects by 2024-25, with the Centre, States and the private sector to share the capital expenditure in a 39:39:22 formula.
Key benefits of NIP
- Economic: Well-planned NIP will enable more infra projects, grow businesses, create jobs, improve ease of living, and provide equitable access to infrastructure for all, making growth more inclusive.
- Government: Well-developed infrastructure enhances the level of economic activity, creates additional fiscal space by improving the revenue base of the government, and ensures the quality of expenditure focused in productive areas.
- Developers: Provides a better view of project supply, provides time to be better prepared for project bidding, reduces aggressive bids/ failure in project delivery, ensures enhanced access to sources of finance as a result of increased investor confidence.
- Banks/financial institutions (F1s)/investors: Builds investor confidence as identified projects are likely to be better prepared, exposures less likely to suffer stress given active project monitoring, thereby less likelihood of NPAs.
Projects include
- The report contains recommendations on general and sector reforms relating to key infrastructure sectors for implementation by the Centre and states.
- These projects will be implemented under the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), a first of its kind exercise, by consulting states, relevant ministries and departments.
- Three committees will be set up to monitor project progress, eliminate delays, and find ways to raise resources, along with a steering committee in each of the infrastructure ministries.
- Sectors such as energy (24%), roads (18%), urban (17%) and railways (12%) amount to around 71% of the projected investments.
- The projects will also be spread across sectors such as irrigation, mobility, education, health, water and the digital sector.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Rebate of State Levies (ROSL) Scheme
Mains level: Textile sector of India and its global competitiveness
The Department of Revenue has allowed the release of pending Rebate of State Levies (RoSL) worth Rs 464.13 crore to garment exporters.
We may expect a prelim question like- “The Rebate of State Levies (ROSL) Scheme is related to which of the following industrial sector? ” with some unrelatedly looking options.
Rebate of State Levies (ROSL) Scheme
- Last year, the Union Cabinet has approved the Scheme to Rebate State and Central Embedded Taxes to Support the Textile Sector.
- The scheme aimed to reimburse the State levies that garment and made-up exports incurred.
- But it was discontinued on and replaced with the Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies scheme.
Why was such a scheme needed?
- ROSL plays a vital role for the exporters by providing zero-rated taxation on apparel and made-up products.
- This scheme enabled the exporters to increase traffic, enhance competitiveness among the global market, and compete against countries such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam, who enjoy zero taxation.
- This also benefits the traders who export to the European Union (EU), India’s largest export market for the apparel sector, facing a tariff variation of 9.6 per cent.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Kashmir Saffron
Mains level: GI tags and their significance
Kashmir saffron has been given the Geographical Indication (GI) tag by the Geographical Indications Registry.
Must read:
GI Tags in news for 2020 Prelims
All time GI tags in news
Kashmir saffron
- It is cultivated and harvested in the Karewa (highlands) in some regions of Kashmir, including Pulwama, Budgam, Kishtwar and Srinagar.
- It is a very precious and costly product. Iran is the largest producer of saffron and India is a close competitor.
- It rejuvenates health and is used in cosmetics and for medicinal purposes.
- It has been associated with traditional Kashmiri cuisine and represents the rich cultural heritage of the region.
- Saffron cultivation is believed to have been introduced in Kashmir by Central Asian immigrants around 1st Century BCE. In ancient Sanskrit literature, saffron is referred to as ‘bahukam’.
3 Types
The saffron available in Kashmir is of three types —
- ‘Lachha Saffron’, with stigmas just separated from the flowers and dried without further processing;
- ‘Mongra Saffron’, in which stigmas are detached from the flower, dried in the sun and processed traditionally; and
- ‘Guchhi Saffron’, which is the same as Lachha, except that the latter’s dried stigmas are packed loosely in air-tight containers while the former has stigmas joined together in a bundle tied with a cloth thread
Whats’ so special about Kashmir Saffron?
- The unique characteristics of Kashmir saffron are its longer and thicker stigmas, natural deep-red colour, high aroma, bitter flavour, chemical-free processing, and high quantity of crocin (colouring strength), safranal (flavour) and picrocrocin (bitterness).
- It is the only saffron in the world grown at an altitude of 1,600 m to 1,800 m AMSL (above mean sea level), which adds to its uniqueness and differentiates it from other saffron varieties available the world over.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Himalayan rivers, Zanskar Padam
Mains level: Read the attached story
Indian researchers have studied rivers in Ladakh Himalaya, bringing out 35 thousand-year histories of river erosion and identified hotspots of erosion and wide valleys that act buffer zones.
Click here to read more about the Himalayan river systems and its orogeny
Erosion hotspot: Ladakh region
- The Ladakh Himalaya forms a high altitude desert between Greater Himalayan ranges and Karakoram Ranges.
- The Indus and its tributaries are major rivers flowing through the terrain.
- The Zanskar River is one of the largest tributaries of the upper Indus catchment, draining orthogonally through highly deformed Zanskar ranges.
Zanskar: A major river in Ladakh
- Two prominent tributaries of Zanskar River are the Doda and Tsrap Lingti Chu, which confluence at Padam village in the upper valley to form the Zanskar River.
- Zanskar catchment was explored to understand the landform evolution in the transitional climatic zone, using morpho-stratigraphy and study of landforms like valley fill terraces, alluvial fans (triangle-shaped deposit of gravel, sand, and even smaller pieces of sediment, such as silt).
Zanskar Padam
- Zanskar river makes a deep gorge in its lower reaches with the headwaters in upper Zanskar makes wide basin called as Padam.
- The basin stores large amount of sediments in form of fans and river terrace deposits
- The research suggested that the wide valley of Padam, with an area of 48 square km, in the upper Zanskar, has stored a vast amount of sediments in these landforms.
- Thus Padam valley is a hotspot of sediment buffering in the Zanskar.
Sediment study reveals the erosion
- The study suggested that most sediments were derived from Higher Himalayan crystalline that lies in the headwater region of Zanskar.
- It was found out that dominant factors responsible for sediment erosion were deglaciation and Indian Summer Monsoon derived precipitation in the headwaters despite the presence of a geomorphic barrier (the deep, narrow gorge).
Significance of the study
- The scientists have traced where the rivers draining Himalaya and its foreland erode the most and identify the zones that receive these eroded sediments and fill up.
- The study will help understand river-borne erosion and sedimentation, which are the main drivers that make large riverine plains, terraces, and deltas that eventually become the cradle to evolving civilizations.
- It will also help study the dynamics of devastating floods created by these Himalayan rivers in recent times.
- Thus, the understanding of water and sediment routing becomes crucial while developing infrastructure and for other development works in the river catchment area.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: YASH Program
Mains level: NA
National Council for Science & Technology Communication (NCSTC) has launched a programme on health and risk communication ‘Year of Awareness on Science & Health (YASH)’ with focus on COVID-19.
There are various initiatives named with Hindi acronyms. YASH is newer among them. It is very unlikely to frame a prelim question on it. Still, we should know it for the sake of general awareness.
YASH Program
- YASH is a comprehensive and effective science and health communication effort for promoting grass-root level appreciation and response to health.
- The current pandemic scenario has posed concerns and challenges all around, where scientific awareness and health preparedness play a significant role to help combat the situation.
- This requires translation and usage of authentic scientific information to convey the risks involved and facilitates communities to overcome the situation.
- The programme will encompass the development of science, health, and risk communication software, publications, audio-visual, digital platforms, folk performances, trained communicators, especially in regional languages to cater to various cross-sections of the society in the country.
- It would help to save and shaping the lives of people at large, as well as build confidence, inculcate a scientific temper and promote health consciousness among them.
Activities under YASH
- The programme is aimed at minimizing risks at all levels with the help of public communication and outreach activities.
- It would promote public understanding of common minimum science for community care and health safety measures like personal sanitation and hygiene, physical distancing, maintaining desired collective behaviour and so on.
- It also includes information dissemination mechanisms to reduce the fear of risks and build confidence with necessary understanding for adopting sustainable healthy lifestyles and nurturing scientific culture among masses and societies.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Kisan Sabha App and its purpose
Mains level: Technology intervention for supply-chain dynamics of farm produces in India
Kisan Sabha App developed by CSIR to connect farmers to supply chain and freight transportation management system was recently launched.
Initiatives as such are less likely to be asked in the prelims as the name and purpose create no different analogy. But for the sake of information and mains perspective, it is vital to remember such technology interventions while emphasizing on Agricultural marketing reforms.
Kisan Sabha App
- Kisan Sabha aims to provide the most economical and timely logistics support to the farmers and increase their profit margins by minimizing the interference of middlemen and directly connecting with the institutional buyers.
- It will also help in providing the best market rates of crops by comparing nearest mandis, booking of freight vehicle at the cheapest cost thereby giving maximum benefit to the farmers.
- The portal connects the farmers, transporters, Service providers (like pesticides/ fertilizer/ dealers, cold store and warehouse owner), mandi dealers, customers and other related entities for a timely and effective solution.
- The app has 6 major modules taking care of Farmers/Mandi Dealers/Transporters/Mandi Board Members/ Service Providers/Consumers.
Facilities provided by the app
- The portal acts as a single stop for every entity related to agriculture, be they a farmer who needs better price for the crops or mandi dealer who wants to connect to more farmers or truckers who invariably go empty from the mandis.
- It provides a platform for people who want to buy directly from the farmers.
- It would also prove to be useful for those associated with cold store(s) or godown(s).
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: e-VTOLs.
Mains level: Paper 3- Recovery strategy after Covid-19 and adoption of green technologies.
The article discusses the recovery strategies for India. There are three examples from the past from which we can draw the lessons. 1) Recovery of the US and Europe after the World Wars 2) Recovery of Japan after World War 3) China’s stimulus package after the 2008 financial crisis. In the case of the first two, climate change was not the factor. But in case of the 2008 financial package, China emphasised green technologies and was benefited from it. Drawing on China’s example, the article suggests three pronged strategy for India’s recovery taking into account the climate change factor.
Decisions on recovery and lessons from the past recovery frameworks
- The decisions and directions taken by states from hereon will be judged ruthlessly by historical lenses.
- Though India has managed the pandemic with relative precision, we cannot deny an impending emergence of a new socio-economic order, where the recovery is going to be hard-earned.
- This is not the first time the world has faced an economic crisis and won’t be the last.
- Can a country like India, which might be one of the few countries to come out of the crisis without a recession, take lessons from past recovery frameworks?
- Recovery frameworks: Even though the very nature of the current health crisis is much different from the past crises like World Wars and their repercussions in Europe, the US and Japan.
- But the evidence shows that ambitious recovery plans made these nation-states more prosperous than the pre-crisis period.
Recovery lessons form the western world after the World Wars
- Hurt by the two World Wars and a Great Depression in between, the western world demonstrated unprecedented recovery to attain post-war full employment and stabilized income levels.
- Almost thirty years between World War II and 1973 recession (“Glorious Thirties“), the countries like the US, Canada, Germany, and France experienced a golden period of growth.
- In the US, the labour productivity grew at 2.82% per year which meant that productivity doubled every 25 years thanks to better machines driven by electricity and internal combustion engines, better education and massive capital investment.
- The world wars accelerated technological innovations in energy, manufacturing and vastly improved the labour pool.
Recovery of Japan after World War
- Severely hit by the war, Japan’s miraculous growth from 1950 to 1990 is another example of a state using great adversity to propel itself towards prosperity.
- Post-war liberalization was augmented by multilateral trade agreements and export promotion schemes.
- That propelled the Japanese economy to dizzying heights making it the second-largest economy at the time.
- Apart from fiscal stimuli, immense efforts went into strengthening human capital by promoting R&D and skilling activities.
- Suddenly, Japan becomes one of the most ingenious economies churning out one innovative product after another in fields like electronics.
- In addition, pioneering quality systems made Japan the first Asian economy to become a developed state.
Recoveries based on values and technological innovations
- All the above recoveries are rooted in modern values like create, explore and meet challenges.
- While large investments garner a lot of attention, role played by massive skilling and resultant technological innovation should not be forgotten.
- Skilling and innovation enabled creating goods and services of the future.
Climate change and recovery
- These successful recovery plans did not have the responsibility to plan for an impending climate change hanging over our head by a thread.
- The times were different; the needs were different: more importantly, the evidences were not as irrefutable as now.
- A 2018 study titled ‘Earth’s future’, estimated that India will lose 10% of its GDP annually in a 3°C scenario and lose 14% of its GDP annually in a 4°C scenario in the long term.
- And the time to act is ‘now’, as consequences of inaction are existential.
China’s stimulus after the 2008 crisis with a focus on green technologies
- Fast-forwarding to the 21st century, the 2008–09 Chinese economic stimulus plan pumped in $586 billion to manage the crisis.
- With serious money of $586 billion going into upgrading selected industrial sectors to firm up its presence in the global value chains (GVC).
- Interestingly, a sizeable portion went into green technologies.
- China understood that if the world is provided with affordable green technologies at scale, the states will incentivize the increasingly eco-aware consumers to buy these products.
- Catalyzed by plans like “Ten Cities, Thousand Vehicles and “Thousand Talents Program (TTP)” and generous state incentives, China became a global leader in e-vehicles.
- Chinese-made buses started roaming famous cities across the world, the roads traditionally dominated by European makers.
- Powered by generous capital infusion, China also attained leadership in solar panels, batteries and associated supply chains in a short period setting up a sustainable growth module.
- A lesson in fiscal prudence: The 2008–09 Chinese economic stimulus plan is also criticized for raising the Chinese debt levels, hence giving us lessons in fiscal prudence.
Should India opt for a green recovery module?
- Can a developing India afford to allocate a significant portion of its precious resources towards a green recovery module?
- Unbridled economic growth and sustainable development are not mutually exclusive.
- In fact, we might not have a choice, given the movement of global supply chain towards green technologies and tightening screws around strict sustainability standards.
- European Commission, for instance, has announced that every euro into the recovery plan will be linked to green recovery.
A three-pronged approach is suggested for recovery
1. Investment and incentives for green economic activities in the selected sectors
- First, ambitious investment and incentives in catalyzing futuristic green economic activities in selected sectors.
- Developing, manufacturing and deploying low carbon products could help India create more jobs: the kind of jobs that will survive into the future.
- With Giga scale battery and solar manufacturing plans already underway, there is a huge demand globally for sustainable supply chain of even traditional sectors such as textiles.
- India could choose 5 sectors where it can fill the sustainability vacuum helping the sub-continent emerge as a new global leader in those sectors.
- India has the potential to scale-up currently ready technologies like e-VTOLs (intra-city electric aerial mobility), which will upend the global mobility modules, increasing the profitability of growing Indian e-mobility supply chain.
- Companies like Hyundai who have already announced manufacturing of e-VTOLs should be attracted to India.
- Crisis situations often provide policy windows, where all the stakeholders are empowered, and historically time-consuming decisions are fast-forwarded.
- If India manages to efficiently remove regulatory bottlenecks and creates standards for e-VTOLs before anyone else, it will take a huge chunk of the global future mobility pie.
- Similar initiatives for other strategic sectors could be carried out.
2. Resolve regulatory and on-ground legacy issues
- Aggressively resolving on-ground legacy issues and challenges.
- Shackles around entrepreneurship from labour laws to clearances regimes should be broken one by one.
- It could be done by leveraging the cooperative and competitive federalism evidenced through the crisis under the able leadership of the Hon’ble Prime Minister.
- And the current policy window might be an ideal opportunity for Indian democracy to deliver.
3. Focus on skilling people
- Third, a big-ticket omni-channel skilling architecture should be instituted.
- Universities should be empowered and enabled to come up with new-age educational programmes to serve futuristic industries.
- A special focus should be given to develop enough trainers to train the millions of Indian youth getting ready for the labour market every year, in new-age skills.
- Adequate online-offline training courses must be designed in a way that it does not affect daily wages drastically.
- The big-ticket vocational programmes, specially directed at the informal sector which constitute more than 90% of the total workforce, has the potential to employ displaced and poor labourers.
- A strategic skill committee may be empowered to dynamically identify key skills and tweak the training modules.
- This can be integrated with the Ministry of Environment’s Green Skill Development Program to train 10 million youth by 2030.
The issues discussed here are important for achieving sustainable and inclusive growth. A question based on this theme was asked by UPSC in 2019.
Consider the question “It is argued that the strategy of inclusive growth is intended to meet the objectives of inclusiveness and sustainability together. Comment on this statement.”
Conclusion
The current pandemic calls for deep-set forces and scientific concepts of development for building a dynamic and modern economy. Green growth is one such concept that will add a new dimension to the economic dynamism of the sub-continent helping it serve the aspirations of its citizens.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: TRIPS.
Mains level: Paper 3- How Covid-19 could impact the intellectual property rights?
The article discusses the idea of creating a patent pool of the patents dealing with Covid-19. Such a patent pool will be effective in avoiding the possibility of the hostile response of societies towards patent rights. And also avoid the conflict between nations. corporations and international organisations.
Purpose of patent rights
- The purpose of creating and recognising patent rights is for the common public good, i.e., innovation should be made public in exchange for a limited monopoly.
- Thus, patents need to be disclosed to the public in order to enable further research.
- Should pandemics such as COVID-19be an exception to this?
- With the outbreak of COVID-19, there are several innovations.
- All these innovations may be the subject matter of patent applications around the world.
- It will be a few years before patents are even granted.
- However, friction already exists among various stakeholders.
- For instance, one country made attempts to obtain exclusive rights to a vaccine being developed.
- On the other hand, there are also collaborations taking place.
- However, the spirit of collaborative solutions is only on the anvil.
- The question that arises is whether the exclusivity that is recognised by patent rights will be detrimental to society.
- Will patents create roadblocks or is there a solution?
Possibility of conflicts over patent rights
- Governments and international organisations need to arrive at a consensus in advance to ensure that the system is ready.
- Procrastination would be disastrous.
- Creating hindrances through exclusivity claims, in the wake of a pandemic, will result in dividing countries, corporations and international organisations.
- This will not benefit patients and the world as a whole.
- If patent owners create impediments on the strength of patent rights, the world will start despising patents and that is not a situation IP owners ought to be in.
- Under the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) regime, there are several tools such as compulsory licensing that are available to ensure access to medicines.
- However, beyond the laws, society needs to respect innovation.
- To protect the sanctity and integrity of patent systems, and in order to ensure that an anti-IP sentiment is not generated globally, answers need to be found within the existing regime.
- In exceptional circumstances such as these, there is a likelihood that societies may resort to extreme steps to protect themselves.
- Before such ideas are floated, solutions should be created.
The idea of creating a patent pool
- One method by which aggregation and dissemination of innovative products can be ensured is by creating a patent pool.
- Patent pools are usually effective in aggregating, administering and licensing patents related to specific areas of technology.
- Such pools are usually managed by a central agency and the patents which become part of the pool are readily made available for licensing.
- Some pools even publish the royalty rates payable for such licences.
- Anyone who wishes to obtain a licence will be able to approach the pool, agree to the terms, and begin to manufacture and sell the products.
- Such pools are prevalent in, for instance, standard essential patents related to telecom and digital innovations.
- At the moment, individual efforts are being made by research organisations to create their own pools.
- A more fruitful endeavour would be to create a global pool of COVID-19-related innovations, or innovations related to rare pandemics, in respect of vaccines and medicines.
- This could be managed by a trustworthy international organisation.
- All countries ought to have the right to implement these innovations without further permission from the patent-holders.
- This would not require countries resorting to provisions such as compulsory licensing, state acquisition, etc.
- Even if royalties are at a minimal level, the revenues would still be in billions of dollars owing to the large swathes of the population affected by the pandemic, who will need to be administered these products.
Way forward
- Creation of a pool and immediate licensing will ensure that there are hundreds of manufacturers across the world.
- As a result, vaccines and medicines will be quickly available.
- Such a pool needs the cooperation of not just countries and international organisations but also the hundreds of researchers, innovators, companies and universities involved.
- Doha Declaration: Pooling of patent resources is also in line with the Doha Declaration on Public Health which is a part of the TRIPS agreement.
- This declaration recognises the need for taking measures to ‘protect public health’ and ‘promote access to medicines’.
A direct question on the issue can be asked by the UPSC, for ex-“Though IPRs have been provided to respect and protect the innovations and ideas, but in the wake of corona crisis, some strict provisions need to be changed. In light of the above statement, discuss the limitations of the exclusivity clause under the patents rights. And how can it be overcome in emergency situations?”
Conclusion
Public-private partnerships (PPP) need to be scaled up. Creation of the ‘PPP-pandemic patent pool’ at a global level, to pool all innovations, is the way forward. Let us not wait any longer.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Convalescent plasma therapy.
Mains level: Paper 3- What is plasma therapy and issues involved in its adoption.
The article discusses the issues with convalescent plasma therapy. The therapy has been in the news as a cure to Covid-19. The lack of conclusive evidence is a major issue. There are certain risks involved in large scale adoption. All such issues are dealt with in detail here.
Importance of scientific research in dealing with Covid-19
- The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to governments, health professionals and the general public at large, around the world.
- Every response, administrative, social, economic or medical is being subjected to intense public scrutiny, as it rightly should be in the spirit of mature democracy.
- Scientific research in medicine is the only means to overcome novel and complex diseases such as COVID-19 and that too thrives on the same spirit of debate and criticism.
- Difficulty in establishing protocols: The difference is that the standards of evidence required, to generate consensus and arrive at the most optimal protocols, are far more rigorous and time-taking than in most other walks of life.
Issues with plasma therapy
- The convalescent plasma therapy, that is being currently studied by the Indian Council of Medical Research, through open-label, randomised controlled trial to evaluate it for both safety and efficacy.
- The problem with the therapy is of the lack of established protocols.
- What is involved in therapy? The therapy involves infusing patients suffering from COVID-19 with plasma from recovered patients.
- In theory, the antibodies of the recovered person may help that patient’s immune system fight the virus.
- While showing great promise, it is a line of treatment that is yet to be validated for efficacy and safety and cannot be deployed widely without caution.
- The current evidence to conclude anything about the true benefits of this therapy is very thin.
- Till date, there have been only three published case series for convalescent plasma in COVID-19 with a cumulative of 19 patients.
- Given the very small number of patients involved in these studies and a publication bias in medicine, we cannot conclude the therapy will work on all patients all the time or even believe that the convalescent plasma was the only reason for their improvement.
- The most important principle in medical ethics is “do no harm”.
- The transfusion of convalescent plasma is also not without risks, which range from mild reactions like fever, itching, to life-threatening allergic reactions and lung injury.
- To recommend a therapy without studying it thoroughly with robust scientific methods may cause more harm than good.
- Further, convalescent plasma therapy requires intensive resources, healthy COVID-19 survivors to donate, a blood bank with proper machinery and trained personnel to remove plasma, equipment to store it and testing facilities to make sure it has an adequate amount of antibodies.
Need for the Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT)
- To say with certainty whether a drug is truly effective or not, the gold standard in medicine is to conduct a randomised controlled trial.
- In RCT half the patients get the experimental drug and the other half do not.
- Only if patients in the first half show substantial improvement over those in the second half, it indicates the drug is beneficial.
Exploring other options and focusing on health infrastructure
- Too much focus on one approach can take away the focus from other important therapeutic modalities like the use of oxygen therapy, antivirals, and antibiotics for complicated hospital courses.
- To overcome the pandemic comprehensively, we should focus on strengthening health systems at all levels, including referral systems, supply chain, logistics and inventory management.
- We need to work on protecting our healthcare workers, improving prevention methods, promoting cough etiquettes, effective quarantining and accurate testing.
A direct question based on the therapy like- “What is convalescent plasma therapy and what are the issues involved in its adoption?” can be asked by the UPSC.
Conclusion
Even these times of collective uncertainty are no reason to lower scientific temper. Science should be driven by reason and evidence with hope as a catalyst but not by either fear or populism. Pushing one or the other therapy without evidence or caution can only set back our larger fight against COVID-19.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Mekon River
Mains level: India-China Relations
A new study highlighting the impact of China’s dams on the Mekong River has raised fresh questions on whether dams being built on other rivers that originate in China, such as the Brahmaputra, may similarly impact countries downstream.
Make a note of:
1) Tributaries of R. Brahmaputra
2) Countries swept by R. Mekong
3) Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (reminds us seeing R. Mekong)
China’s dams on the Mekong River
- The Mekong flows from China to Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
- The Mekong River Commission, which comprises Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, has said more scientific evidence was needed to establish whether dams caused a 2019 drought.
- While China’s southwestern Yunnan province which usually has above-average rainfall, there was “severe lack of water in the lower Mekong.
Mekong dams raise some questions
- The Mekong study was not conclusive on the question of how China’s dams had affected the quantity of flows.
- To state that the basin had less water because of activities in China alone is misleading, mainly because that only considers the water flowing into the lower basin at one station in Thailand.
- The study did not consider other dams and water-use along the course of the river.
- The lower basin isn’t entirely dependent on flows from China but also receives water from tributaries in all four countries, which the study did not account for.
Concerns for India
- India does not have a water-sharing agreement with China, but both sides share hydrological data.
- India has long expressed concerns over dam-building on the Brahmaptura.
- In 2015, China operationalised its first hydropower project at Zangmu, while three other dams at Dagu, Jiexu and Jiacha are being developed.
- India need to raise the issue of river waters in the Brahmaputra with China, as that appears to be the only methodology to ensure what happened on Mekong does not happen on Brahmaputra.
A management problem
- The dams are not likely to impact the quantity of the Brahmaputra’s flows because they are only storing water for power generation.
- Moreover, the Brahmaputra is not entirely dependent on upstream flows and an estimated 35% of its basin is in India.
- However, India concerns more about activity in China affecting quality, ecological balance, and flood management.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Permanent Missions to the UN
Mains level: Terms of reference for the mission
Syed Akbaruddin, a fiery spokesperson, who is credited with effectively presenting India’s position on a range of crucial issues at the UN headquarters in New York for the last several years, has retired. A 1985-batch IFS officer T S Tirumurti, currently serving as Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs will succeed him.
Permanent Missions to the United Nations
- The Permanent Mission is the diplomatic mission that every member state deputies to the UN, and is headed by a Permanent Representative, who is also referred to as the “UN ambassador”.
- Article 1 (7) of the Vienna Convention on the Representation of States provides for a permanent mission.
- UN Permanent Representatives are assigned to the UN headquarters in New York City, and can also be appointed to other UN offices in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi.
- The Mission in New York is housed in a 27-story building designed by the noted architect Charles Correa in 1993 and is decorated with MF Hussain paintings.
The Indian Permanent Mission at the UN
- According to the website of the Permanent Mission of India in New York, there are currently eight Indians in senior leadership positions at the UN at the levels of Under-Secretary-General and Assistant Secretary-General.
- The first Indian delegates at the UN included statesman Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar, and freedom fighters Hansa Mehta, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, and Lakshmi Menon.
- Mehta and Pandit were among the 15 women members of the Indian Constituent Assembly.
- India was among the select members of the United Nations that signed the United Nations Declaration at Washington on January 1, 1942.
- India also participated in the historic UN Conference of International Organization at San Francisco from April 25 to June 26, 1945.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: The Haymarket incident, Singaravelu Chettiar, Self Respect Movement
Mains level: Labour reforms in India before and after independence
Today (May 1) is May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day and as Labour Day in different parts of the world. It is an occasion that commemorates the contributions of workers and the historic labour movement.
Personality based history question in the UPSC CSE prelims is on the way to become the new normal. Kindly note all such phenomena in the news which tend to invoke some aspects of the modern Indian history. You can find all such news here.
The Haymarket incident
- While observed as an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival, May 1 became associated with the labour movement in the late 19th century, after trade unions and socialist groups designated it as a day in support of workers.
- It was decided to do so in memory of the Haymarket affair of 1886, in Chicago in the United States, in which a peaceful rally in support of workers led to a violent clash with the police, leading to the deaths of 4 civilians and 7 police officers.
- Many of the agitationists, who were protesting workers’ rights violations, straining work hours, poor working conditions, low wages and child labour, were arrested and served terms of life imprisonment, death sentences, etc., and those who died were hailed as “Haymarket Martyrs”.
- The incident is believed to have given the workers’ movement a great impetus.
Linked to the Russian Revolution
- In 1889, The Second Communist International, an organisation created by socialist and labour parties, declared that May 1 would be commemorated as International Workers’ Day from then on.
- Finally, in 1916, the US began to recognise eight-hour work timings after years of protests and uprisings.
- In 1904, the International Socialist Congress at Amsterdam called on to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day.
- After the Russian Revolution in 1917, the celebration was embraced by the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc nations during the Cold War– becoming a national holiday in many of them.
- Parades were a part of the celebration– the one at Moscow’s Red Square was attended by top Communists leaders and displayed Soviet military might.
Indian Case
- In India, May Day was first celebrated on May 1, 1923, after the Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan initiated and Comrade Singaravelar (Singaravelu Chettiar) helmed the celebrations.
- Chettiar was known for being one of the leaders of Self Respect Movement in the Madras Presidency and for his fight for the rights of backward classes.
- In one of his meetings, Chettiar passed a resolution stating the government should allow everybody a national holiday on Labour Day.
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