Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- India's preparedness to deal with epidemics.
Context
With multiple cities in China under a public health lockdown, global supply chains of various essential products and consumer goods are likely to be affected. This should be particularly worrisome for India, which has a roughly $93 billion total trade and about $57 billion trade imbalance with China.
Cause of worry turned into a reality
- Public health experts have worried most about an animal virus-
- That gets into humans.
- Causes human-to-human transmission.
- Has high infectivity and a range of clinical severity.
- With no human immunity, no diagnostic tests, drugs or vaccines.
- An emerging virus, called the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), appears to be just that.
- With the World Health Organisation declaring it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), this outbreak is now a pandemic.
What is coronavirus
- Group of animal virus: Coronaviruses are a group of animal viruses identified by their crown-like (corona) appearance under a microscope.
- SAARS connection: The 2019-nCoV belongs to this group of viruses, six of which, including the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the 2012 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) viruses, were earlier known to cause disease in humans.
- Genetic similarity with other viruses: Genetic sequencing of the virus from five patients showed it to be 5 per cent identical to the SARS virus.
- Bats as hosts: Since the SARS outbreak in 2003, scientists have discovered a large number of SARS-related coronaviruses from their natural hosts-bats.
- Previous studies have shown some of these bat coronaviruses to have the potential to infect humans.
- Genetic sequencing showed it to human coronavirus to be over 96 per cent identical to a bat coronavirus.
- Thus, 2019-nCoV clearly originated from bats, jumped into humans either directly or through an intermediate host, and adapted itself to human-to-human transmission.
- Bats are a particularly rich reservoir for viruses with the potential to infect humans.
- Examples of these include viruses such as Hanta, Rabies, Nipah, Ebola and Marburg viruses, and others that have caused high levels of mortality and morbidity in humans.
- India has 117 species and 100 sub-species of bats, but we know little about the viruses they harbour and their disease potential.
India’s response
- India’s response includes-
- Surveillance of arriving passengers at airports.
- Awareness drives in the border states.
- Designation of hospitals with isolation wards and the availability of protective gear (e.g. masks) to health workers.
- SOP: There are clear operating procedures for sample collection and its transport to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, which is the nodal testing centre.
- A self-declaration mechanism is in place and a 24×7 telephone helpline has been set up.
- Two areas of concern
- 1. Promotion of untested medicines: There is mixed messaging promoting AYUSH products that are untested and of questionable efficacy.
- 2. India- a hot zone of zoonotic pathogens: India has been a “hot zone” for the emergence of new zoonotic (animal-derived) pathogens for over a decade.
- But we continue to lack the capacity to quickly identify, isolate and characterise a novel pathogen.
- Example of China: China is a good example of how investments in research and public health will allow it to take a lead on developing diagnostic tests, vaccines and drugs for this new virus. We must do the same and prepare for the future.
- Disruption in global supply chains and concerns for India
- With multiple cities in China under a public health lockdown, global supply chains of various essential products and consumer goods are likely to be affected.
- This should be particularly worrisome for India, which has a roughly $93 billion total trade and about $57 billion trade imbalance with China.
- Disruption in medicine supply: The Indian pharmaceuticals industry imports about 85 per cent of its active pharmaceutical ingredients from China.
- Any disruption in this supply chain would adversely affect the availability of medicines in India, which would be required in an outbreak situation.
- Need to support local pharma. industry: India must, therefore, take steps to correct this imbalance and support the local pharmaceuticals industry in reducing its dependence on China
Possible scenarios
- Public health experts estimate that the epidemic will peak in three months.
- From here on, there are a few possible scenarios, but which of these would play out is hard to guess.
- 1st possibility: There could be very large numbers of cases and global spread of the virus with a low CFR of 0.1-0.5 per cent, like the bad flu. Or the same with increased CFR, which would lead to significant mortality.
- 2nd possibility: It is also possible that the outbreak spiralled in China due to a combination of factors not present elsewhere, such as population density, food habits and the Chinese New Year, which sees large population movements.
- It is also possible that the pandemic may not sustain outside China and die out like the 2003 SARS outbreak.
- Whatever be the case, surveillance and sensible public health measures will be needed over the next few months.
Conclusion
India escaped the 2003 SARS and 2012 MERS outbreaks largely unscathed. This may still be the case with 2019-nCoV, but the laws of probability are likely to catch up soon. It would help to invest, build capacity and be ready.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Types of the GST returns.
Mains level: Paper 3- How the GST has performed and ways to improve it.
Context
Even as the 31-month-old GST evolves, the debate on its success rages on. Many have argued that GST is losing its sheen and needs a complete overhaul while others contend that the new tax system is on course and the trials and tribulations were not unexpected.
Analysis of GST collection
- 39% increase over the average of the base year 2015-16: The average monthly GST collection for the period August 2017 to January 2020 stands at Rs 97,188 crore which is an impressive 39 per cent increase over the average monthly collection of subsumed taxes in the base year 2015-16, at around Rs 70,000 crore.
- The average growth rate of 9.7% per year: This is an average growth rate of 9.7 per cent over the almost 4-year period post-2015-16 and a compounded growth rate of 8.55 per cent.
- Though less than 14% but not insignificant: This compounded growth rate is not insignificant even though it is just about 0.61 times the very ambitious 14 per cent rate of growth promised to the states before GST rollout.
- Perception of infectiveness due to ambitious 14% promise: The average growth rate of the collection in 18 non-special category states (accounting for the bulk of the revenue) during the 3-year period immediately preceding GST stood at around 8.9 per cent.
- Thus, if the perception about the effectiveness of GST has not been very encouraging, it is only in the context of the very ambitious 14 per cent compounded annual growth rate promised to the states.
Reasons for tepid growth in GST collections
- The overall economic situation in the country: The revenue performance of GST during the current fiscal year is not out of sync with the overall economic situation in the country.
- The growth rate in tax yield at 4.69 %: Accordingly, during the 10-month period ending January 2020, the growth rate in tax yield was 4.69 per cent.
- The relatively tepid growth was primarily due to a negative growth of 4.03 per cent in September-October 2019.
- After the dip in September-October 2019, GST collections rebounded and this is a reminder that one need not write GST off in a hurry.
- Complacency in the states due to 14% promise: Complacency in the states on account of assured 14 per cent growth cannot be ruled out.
- States were jolted with the delay in compensation for August-September 2019 and resorted to vigorous monitoring of compliance and action against toxic and unverified credits, circular trading and tax evasion which had resulted in unmatched credit claims of around Rs 50,000 crore.
Two suggestions as corrective measures
- The GST Council deliberated on the recent trends in revenue collection and was cognizant of the need for corrective measures. Two options were suggested. One was the “big bang” approach-
- Big Bang approach: It involves an overhaul of-
- The legal framework.
- Processes and systems and-
- Re-writing GST almost de novo.
- A steady-state approach: A “steady-state” approach involved-
- Incremental reforms.
- Solving problems as they arise.
- Plugging loopholes.
- Improving the compliance environment through increased monitoring with better tools.
- The Council chose the second approach and the signs are already showing.
The steps taken-
- Red flag reports: The GSTN has developed red flag reports based on GSTR-1, auto-generated GSTR-2A, GSTR-3B and the national e-way bill system.
- These reports identify non-filers so that action can be taken against active taxpayers who defaulted in filing returns.
- Till November 2019, around 6 lakh dealers had defaulted in furnishing one or more returns from July 2017 involving estimated tax liabilities of around Rs 25,000 crore.
- Increase in the filing: An SOP has been developed for proceeding against such return defaulters and this has helped increase the percentage of filing which has contributed to revenue.
- Making Aadhaar mandatory: To further the ease of doing business, it was decided to grant registration without physical verification and a system of deemed registration was put in place.
- Spot verification has unearthed non-existent dealers and led to the cancellation of around 1 million entities.
- It has now been decided to mandate Aadhaar authentication for taking new registration and thereafter the existing registered taxpayer population would have to undergo Aadhaar authentication in a phased manner.
- Use of analytical tools: Advanced analytic tools are being used to unravel complex networks of firms created just for generating credit and these analyses are being strengthened through machine learning and AI.
- An all-India offence/enforcement database is being built.
- System of data exchange with other agencies: In order to identify dealers posing a “hazard” to revenue and do a 360-degree profile of risky taxpayers, a system of regular data exchange with banks, CBDT, ED, RoC and other agencies is being put in place.
- Fraudsters will find it almost impossible to game the system.
- The new return system set to roll from April 1 is expected to curb incidences of unmatched turnovers and utilisation of un-validated.
- System of e-invoicing: In order to validate and improve the quality and fidelity of invoice reporting and return filing, a system of e-invoicing is proposed to be implemented in a phased manner beginning April 1.
- This will begin with taxpayers with turnovers exceeding Rs 500 crore and will auto-populate e-way bill generation and filing of Anx-1 in the new return system apart from validating credit flow from taxpayers.
Conclusion
These measures will effect qualitative improvement to the compliance eco-system which will not only lead to an improvement in the collection but will also make life easier for taxpayers and tax authorities alike.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Globalisation and its impact on Climate Change, Lessons from Nordic Model.
Context
Social inequalities and the grim problems of stark and continuing poverty are at the epicentre of the new world.
The ugly face of capitalism and growing inequalities
- The concentration of the health: The latest Oxfam Report presented at Davos points out that 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than 4.6 billion people.
- Rising poverty: The emergence of billionaires and oligarchs in different parts of the world coincides with increased poverty among the already poor people, especially children.
- Concept of stakeholder’s capitalism: These realities make observers question the tenability of stakeholder capitalism as a concept.
- Faults in the capitalism on display in 2008: The ugliest face of this capitalism was visible during the 2007-2008 economic crisis, first in the U.S. and thereafter across the European Union.
- At that time, it appeared as if the global economy was on the verge of collapse.
Intensification of energy use and sustainability
- The relation between growth and energy: One of the chief characteristics of economic development is the intensification of energy use.
- There is an unprecedented concentration of high energy density in all economic development strategies.
- Use of non-renewable sources: The bulk of the energy continues to be generated from non-renewable sources.
- Developing world capturing energy-generating sources: The developed world’s, and China’s, central objective is to capture energy-generating resources from across continents and put them to use to push GDP growth to greater heights.
- In the process, sustainability is becoming a casualty.
- Higher waste generation: The higher the use of energy, the larger the amount of waste generated. Entropy, like time, is always unidirectional, it only goes forward.
Disposal of e-waste
- High energy consumption and disposal of waste: Egregious consumption of energy by the developed world has been accompanied by the disposal of residual products (‘e-waste’) on the shores of many African and Asian countries.
- Impact on the developing world: As a result of the disposal, the poor in the developing world are, unwittingly, drawn and exposed to toxic, hazardous materials like lead, cadmium and arsenic.
- Hence, the ‘globalisation’ phenomenon has turned out to be nothing other than the exploitation of the developing world, with most countries being treated as a source of cheap labour and critical raw material.
Unfairness involved in the Globalisation
- Increasing consumption in the developing world: Countries in the developed world, and China, are ferociously using up finite raw materials without care or concern for the welfare of present and future generations.
- Bright and the dark side of the development: Certainly, there has been significant technological progress which has brought about a revolution in the fields of healthcare and communications, but there is also a dark side to this.
- System loaded in the favour of the rich: High expenses and Intellectual Property Rights load the system further in favour of the rich.
- Pernicious system of carbon credit: To demonstrate how unfair the system is, one can look at the pernicious plan to set up a carbon credit system.
- Under this, countries with high energy consumption trends can simply offset their consumption patterns by purchasing carbon credits, the unutilised carbon footprint, from poor developing countries.
Understanding the Nordic Economic Model
- ‘Nordic Economic Model’: It pertains to the remarkable achievements of the Scandinavian countries comprising Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, and allied territories. They also have-
- Large public sector enterprises.
- Extensive and generous universal welfare systems.
- High levels of taxation.
- And considerable state involvement in promoting and upholding welfare states.
- Among the happiest countries: UN reports also indicate that the Nordic countries are the happiest countries in the world. The U.S., in contrast, is in 19th place.
- The total population of the Nordic countries is estimated at almost 27 million people.
- Among the richest countries: These nations are among the richest in the world when measured in terms of GDP per capita.
Enlightened Global Order
- Taking the Nordic model as a template, there are some ingredients that could be part of a new ‘enlightened global order’.
- What does the Global Order include? These should include-
- Effective welfare safety nets for all.
- Corruption-free governance.
- A fundamental right to tuition-free education including higher education.
- And a fundamental right to good medical care.
- Shutting of tax havens.
- Tax structure: In Nordic countries, personal and corporate income tax rates are very high, especially on the very rich. If a just, new world order is to arise, taxes everywhere should go up.
- Holding companies responsible: When it comes to the corporate sector, there are some new perspectives.
- Changing the parameters of profit: In traditional business accounting, ‘bottom line’ refers to the financial year’s profit or loss earned or incurred by the company on pure financial parameters.
- The four ‘Ps’: Following vigorous debates, a new format has emerged under which a company’s performance is measured through four ‘Ps’.
- The first is ‘P’ for ‘profit’.
- The second ‘P’ is for people — how the company’s actions impact not only employees but society as a whole.
- The third ‘P’ is for the planet — are the company’s actions and plans sensitive to the environment?
- The fourth ‘P’ is for purpose, which means the companies and individuals must develop a larger purpose than ‘business as usual’. They must ask: what is the larger purpose of the company, apart from generating profits?
- Using performance in terms of four ‘P’s: Using big data and text analytics, a company’s performance can be measured in terms of all the four ‘P’s and a corporate entity can be thus held accountable. Market capitalisation need not be the only way to measure the value of a company.
Conclusion
Much work is yet to be done to uplift the global economic order, but the important point is that new tools are now emerging. What is required is a global consensus and the will to make the planet more sustainable, so that all individuals can live with justice and equality, ensuring that not a single child is hungry or seriously unwell because of poverty or lack of affordable medical help.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Inclusive growth and need to focus on gender budgeting in India.
Context
When it came to allocating funds, the budget relegates women’s economic participation to secondary importance.
The current status of women in India
- Lack of Equality: India continues to struggle to provide its women with equal opportunity.
- A low score on international measures: On international measures of gender equality.
- India scores low on women’s overall health and survival and ability to access economic opportunities.
- Why it matters? Since the woman’s economic engagement is related to her own and her family’s well-being, the continuing decline in rural women’s labour force participation is a cause for concern, and both affects and reflects these worrying gender gaps.
Why female labour force participation matters beyond social cause?
- Source of economic growth: Ignoring India’s declining female labour force participation at a time of economic distress is a mistake.
- Not just a social cause: Involving women in the economy is not a social cause — it is a source of efficiency gains and economic growth.
- Missing out on many things: In a country where young women’s education is now at par with men’s, ignoring that half of the population isn’t participating equally in the economy means we are missing out on many things, like-
- Innovation.
- Entrepreneurship.
- And productivity gains.
- Large potential to increase in GDP: The large potential increases in GDP that could accrue to India and countries around the world, if they could only close their labour force gender gaps, are often cited.
- 60% increase in GDP: A report by McKinsey Global Institute suggests that if women participated in the Indian economy at the level men do, annual GDP could be increased by 60 per cent above its projected GDP by 2025.
- Underlying conclusion: The underlying conclusion is that women’s potential to contribute to GDP is huge.
- Gain larger than any other region: The same analysis also suggested that India’s potential GDP gains through achieving economic gender parity were larger than gains in any of the other regions they studied.
How can the state be responsive to women?
It can be ensured in the following two ways-
- 1.MGNREGA-Important focus: An important focus could be a smarter policy and gender-intentional implementation.
- A key example comes from MGNREGA, a programme whose official policy has long been to pay individual workers in their own bank accounts.
- It is observed that this policy was typically not implemented and that women’s wages were usually being paid into the bank account of the woman’s husband.
- Why paying wages in women’s account matters?
- Giving women digital control of her wage:
- This seemingly small change — giving a woman digital control of her wages — had a big impact.
- Working women more outside their home: Women who received digital accounts plus training worked more outside their homes, not only for MGNREGA but also in private employment.
- Higher economic engagement and lessening patriarchy
- Importantly, women from especially conservative households reported higher economic engagement and an improved ability to move about their communities unaccompanied.
- Lessening of patriarchal norms: Surveys conducted showed that the payment in account also began to influence restrictive patriarchal norms.
- 2.Need to move beyond MGNREGA
- Ease of doing business and reform in labour market reforms: Continuing to improve ease of doing business and addressing rigid labour market regulations can also draw more women into high-potential sectors.
- Such as those supported under Assemble in India.
- Potential in manufacturing: Rural women’s relative participation in manufacturing has grown compared to men’s, and manufacturing stands out as a promising means to pull young women, in particular, into the economy.
- Potential in SMEs: Ensuring better support to small and medium-sized enterprises can help new businesses.
Conclusion
- Attune schemes to the aspiration of women: Ensuring that these programmes are attuned to the needs and aspirations of women is not expensive. But it makes a much difference.
- Review of policy and programme: It requires a review of individual policies and programme implementation.
- Increase the funding: The government needs to increase funding to programmes targeting women. Until then, the policy can build on the fact that pulling women into the economy isn’t just a function of budget allocations or social sector programmes. It’s also a matter of thoughtful policy design and political will.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Applying digital revolution to transform governance.
Context
Data-based governance can assist in reducing traffic congestion, as illustrated by a pilot study in Hyderabad.
How the Digital revolution is transforming lives
- Seamless and efficient interaction: The digital revolution has made interactions between humans and machines, and among citizens, governments and businesses, seamless and efficient.
- Helping efficient delivery of services: Today, e-governance enables and empowers citizens to directly engage with the state, thereby eliminating barriers in the delivery of public services.
- The next wave of transformation: The next wave of transformation in digital governance is at the intersection of data and the public good.
- Data as a strategic asset: The key to this transformation lies in incorporating data as a strategic asset in all aspects of-
- Policy.
- Planning.
- Service delivery and-
- Operations of the government.
Transportation system improvement by leveraging Digital revolution
- Loss caused by the congestion
- Congestion caused an estimated $24 billion to the four metro cities in India in 2018.
- Given the limited land resources available, the key to solving congestion lies in improving the efficiency of existing transportation systems.
- How can Digital revolution help tackle the problem?
- An efficient transportation system would help ease congestion, reduce travel time and cost, and provide greater convenience.
- How it will work? Data from multiple sources such as-
- CCTV cameras.
- Automatic traffic
- Map services and-
- Transportation service providers could be used.
- Results of the previous studies
- London example: A study by Transport for London estimates that its open data initiative on sharing of real-time transit data has helped add £130 million a year to London’s economy by improving productivity and efficiency.
- Results from China: In China, an artificial intelligence-based traffic management platform developed by Alibaba has helped improve average speeds by 15%.
Hyderabad Open Transit Data portal
- Hyderabad Open Transit Data, launched by Open Data Telangana, is the country’s first data portal.
- What does it do? It publishes datasets on bus stops, bus routes, metro routes, metro stations, schedules, fares, and frequency of public transit services.
- The objective of the portal: The objective is to empower start-ups and developers to create useful mobility applications.
- The datasets were built after an intensive exercise carried out by the Open Data Team and Telangana State Road Transport Corporation to collect, verify and digitise the data.
- Collaboration with the private sector: Hyderabad has also begun collaborating with the private sector to improve traffic infrastructure.
- MoU with Ola Mobility Institute: One such partnership followed a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Telangana government and Ola Mobility Institute.
- Monitoring the quality of roads in the city: Under this collaboration, Ola has developed a tool, Ola City Sense, to provide data-based insights that can monitor the quality of Hyderabad’s roads and identify bad quality patches.
- Other areas in which the data is used: The information thus given is useful not only for carrying out road repairs, it also helps officials take initiatives to improve road safety, monitor quality of construction, and study the role of bad roads in causing congestion.
- A pilot project to prioritisation of repairs: A pilot was implemented in a municipal zone to gauge the efficacy of the data in supporting road monitoring and prioritisation of repairs.
- The early results of this pilot project were encouraging. The dashboard helped city officials plan the pre-monsoon repair work and budget for repairs last year.
Conclusion
- The willingness of the government to apply data-based insights: The Hyderabad project and the pilot demonstrated the willingness of government departments to apply data-based insights for better decision making.
- This could also serve as a model for other cities to emulate.
- Making the departments data-centric: The Hyderabad example also shows that governments can make their departments data-centric by-
- Institutionalising data collection.
- Building technology platforms.
- And helping the departments develop the capacity to handle the insights generated from the data.
- Smart cities as a starting point: Command and control centres under the ‘smart cities’ initiative can be an ideal starting point.
- Data security and privacy: Such interventions, however, also need to address genuine concerns around data security and privacy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Bharatiya Poshan Krishi Kosh
Mains level: Paper 2- Despite having many schemes to address the malnutrition the problems still looms large, why?
Context
There are well-equipped schemes to address the malnutrition, plugging the policy gaps is the problem.
Nutrition and hunger in India
- Global Hunger Index rank 102: A few months ago, the Global Hunger Index, reported that India suffers from “serious” hunger, ranked 102 out of 117 countries.
- Only one-tenth of children getting proper diet: Just a tenth of children between six to 23 months are fed a minimum acceptable diet.
- Urgency reflected in the budget: The urgency around nutrition was reflected in the Union Finance Minister’s Budget speech, as she referred to the “unprecedented” scale of developments under the scheme for Holistic Nutrition, or POSHAN Abhiyaan, the National Nutrition Mission with efforts to track the status of 10 crore households.
- The Economic Survey notes that “Food is not just an end in itself but also an essential ingredient in the growth of human capital and therefore important for national wealth creation”.
- How malnutrition affects? Malnutrition affects cognitive ability, workforce days and health, impacting as much as 16% of GDP (World Food Programme and World Bank).
Addressing Nutrition through Agriculture
- Multiple dimension of malnutrition: There are multiple dimensions of malnutrition that include-
- Calorific deficiency.
- Protein hunger.
- Micronutrient deficiency.
- Addressing the issue through Agriculture: An important approach to address nutrition is through agriculture.
- The Bharatiya Poshan Krishi Kosh which was launched in 2019 is a recent attempt to bridge this gap.
- The krishi kosh was launched by Ministry of Women and Child Development along with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
- Existing schemes can well address India’s malnutrition dilemma. Following is the analysis of budgetary allocation and expenditure in the previous year.
First- Calorific deficiency
- The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme provides a package of services including-
- Supplementary nutrition.
- Nutrition and health education.
- Health check-ups and
- Referral services addressing children, pregnant and lactating mothers and adolescent girls, key groups to address community malnutrition, and which also tackle calorific deficiency and beyond.
- Underutilisation of funds: For 2019-20, the allotment was ₹27,584.37 crore but revised estimates are ₹24,954.50 crore, which points to an underutilisation of resources.
- Which area needs the emphasis: The allocation this year is marginally higher, but clearly, the emphasis needs to be on implementation.
- Mid-Day Meal Scheme: Another pathway to address hunger is the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, to enhance the nutrition of schoolchildren.
- Here too, the issue is not with allocation but with expenditure.
- The 2019-20 Budget allocation was ₹11,000 crore and revised estimates are only ₹9,912 crores.
Second-Protein Hunger
- Contribution of pulses: Pulses are a major contributor to address protein hunger.
- Underutilisation of funds: A scheme for State and Union Territories aims to reach pulses into welfare schemes (Mid-Day Meal, Public Distribution System, ICDS) has revised estimates standing at just ₹370 crores against ₹800 crore allocation in the 2019-20 Budget.
Third-micronutrient deficiency
- Horticulture Mission: The Horticulture Mission can be one of the ways to address micronutrient deficiency effectively, but here too implementation is low.
- Revised estimates for 2019-20 stand at ₹1,583.50 crores against an allocation of ₹2,225 crores.
- National Millet Mission: In 2018-19, the Government of India launched a national millet mission which included renaming millets as “nutri-cereals” also launching a Year of Millets in 2018-19 to promote nutritious cereals in a campaign mode across the country.
- This could have been further emphasised in the Budget as well as in the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) which includes millets.
- Under-utilisation of funds: The NFSM strains to implement the allocation of ₹2,000 crores during 2019-20, as revised expenditures stand at ₹1,776.90 crore.
- Need to sustain the momentum: As millets have the potential to address micronutrient deficiencies, the momentum given to these cereals needs to be sustained.
POSHAN Abhiyan and issues involved
- 72% expenditure on technology: The National Nutrition Mission which is a major initiative to address malnutrition, had 72% of total expenditure going into “Information and Communication Technology.
- Misplaced focus: The focus of the bulk of the funding has been on technology, whereas, actually, it is a convergence that is crucial to address nutrition.
- Under-utilisation of funds: Only 34% of funds released by the Government of India were spent from FY 2017-18 to FY 2019-20 till November 30, 2019.
- Limiting the possibility of an increase in the allocation: With underspending, allocations for subsequent years will also be affected, limiting the possibility of increasing budgets and the focus on nutrition schemes.
Agriculture-nutrition link
- The agriculture-nutrition link is another piece of the puzzle.
- Link not explicitly mentioned: While agriculture dominated the initial Budget speech, the link between agriculture and nutrition was not explicit.
- Why the link is important: The link is important because about three-fifths of rural households are agricultural in India (National Sample Survey Office, 70th round)
- The malnutrition rates, particularly in rural areas are high (National Family Health Survey-4).
- Need for greater emphasis: Agriculture-nutrition linkage schemes have the potential for greater impact and need greater emphasis.
Way forward
- Focus: Focus on nutrition-related interventions, beyond digitisation.
- Bring all departments in one place: Intensify the convergence component of POSHAN Abhiyaan, using the platform to bring all departments in one place to address nutrition.
- Nutrition based activities by farmer-producer: Direct the announcement to form 10,000 farmer producer organisations with an allocation of ₹500 crores to nutrition-based activities.
- Youth schemes: Promotion of youth schemes to be directed to nutrition-agriculture link activities in rural areas.
- Emphasis on fund allocation: Give explicit emphasis and fund allocation to agriculture-nutrition linked schemes.
- Early disbursement and utilisation of funds: Ensure early disbursement of funds and optimum utilisation of schemes linked to nutrition.
Conclusion
Nutrition goes beyond just food, with economic, health, water sanitation, gender perspectives and social norms contributing to better nutrition. This is why the implementation of multiple schemes can contribute to better nutrition.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Trade deal with the US, issues involved.
Context
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomes U.S. President Donald Trump to India this month the two leaders are expected to sign a first-ever trade agreement.
What will be on the agenda of the trade deal?
- GSP issues: The restoration of India’s Generalised System of Preferences benefits,
- Pricing of medical devices.
- And agriculture trade are all important.
- Incremental outcomes: If the two sides continue efforts to achieve incremental outcomes, the start of negotiations on a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) could even be a credible scenario. Presently, this is not the case.
What could be the incremental outcomes?
- The most obvious candidates are-
- Intellectual property rights (IPR).
- IPR has historically been an area of contention between the two, but discussions on IPR have progressed well in recent years.
- Digital trade.
- Both are grappling with the appropriate scope and approach for regulating electronic commerce issues in this digital age.
- Ideally, there should be room to seriously consider better ways to encourage skilled professionals to work in the other’s economy.
- Progress on the investment
There are already some shared interests in the area of investment.
- For example, India invests in the U.S. and continues to seek U.S. investment in India.
- FDI issue: Foreign direct investment (FDI), this is an important moment to do more to encourage it than simply welcoming it.
- Need to negotiate o investment: Ideally, the two sides should move ahead to negotiate an agreement on investment matters that can provide greater transparency, predictability, and regulatory certainty to investors from the other country.
- Negotiation on FDI off the table: It appears that the traditional approach through which countries pursue commitments on FDI, bilateral investment treaties, or ‘BITs’ (bilateral investment treaties) is off the table.
- The Trump administration has put a hold on negotiating additional BITs and appears to be suspicious of how well they balance U.S. interests.
- The Indian government is similarly sceptical of BITs, having cancelled all existing ones soon after it came into office.
Need for the new approach on the investment issues
- Until they resume their work on BITs, the two sides may find common ground in devising a new approach to investment issue.
- What the new approach involve?
- Taking cues from their respective FTAs: A starting point should be to review what they have done in their recent FTAs.
- Abandonment of investor-state dispute settlement: The recently concluded U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement contains a novel approach on investment notably its abandonment of investor-state dispute settlement with respect to the U.S. and Canada.
- Similarly, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which India had been negotiating with ASEAN, Australia, China, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand, does not include investor-state dispute settlement.
- While India chose not to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership when it was concluded at the end of last year, it appears to have been on board with the FTA’s investment provisions.
- Where the agreement focus as of now? For now, however, both countries should focus on what is doable. A U.S.-India investment agreement could focus on-
- Fair treatment for investors from the other country.
- Regulatory transparency and predictability.
- And approaches for resolving concerns short of investor-state dispute settlements.
- At a later stage: At a later stage-
- Most likely when the two are prepared to negotiate a more comprehensive bilateral FTA, they can go further on investment matters.
Conclusion
A new, hybrid approach on investment would be a substantial step in the right direction. It will be critical to sustaining momentum coming out of a first trade deal when the two leaders meet in Delhi. If India and the U.S. fail this test, the trade relationship is more likely to languish than blossom.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Why fiscal stimulus is not the elixir as it is made out to be?
Context
In the run-up to the budget, there was enormous pressure on the finance minister to launch a fiscal stimulus so as to pump-prime the economy. That she did not succumb to the temptation is a big relief.
Why fiscal stimulus is unwarranted?
- There is already considerable stimulus in the system.
- Excessive fiscal deficit: To her credit, the finance minister took a step towards transparency by admitting to off-balance-sheet borrowings of 0.8 per cent of GDP for both the current and next fiscal year.
- Acknowledging that the fiscal deficit would actually be higher at 4.6 per cent and 4.3 per cent of GDP respectively. This is already excessive.
- Unrealistic projection of revenue growth: Add to this the unrealistic projections of revenue growth and disinvestment proceeds for next year and we have a potentially unsustainable fiscal situation.
- Any stimulus on top of this would have been clearly
Possibility of undermining the RBI’s efforts
Fiscal pressure could harm the RBI’s efforts to revive the economy in the following ways-
- Harming long term investment rates: Fiscal pressures will undermine the Reserve Bank of India’s struggle to revive investment by bringing down long-term interest rates.
- Rating downgrades: It could result in a sovereign rating downgrade and jeopardise efforts to attract foreign capital.
- Increase in inflationary pressure: It can stoke inflationary pressures, something we cannot afford when inflation is above the RBI’s target rate.
- Pressure on the external sector: And most importantly, it can lead to pressures on the external sector.
- Past experiences: The balance of payments crisis of 1991 and the near crisis of 2013 in the wake of taper tantrums were, at their heart, a consequence of extended fiscal profligacy.
Counter-arguments of the supporters of the stimulus and fallacies in it
- Low Debt-to-GDP ratio: It is argued that our debt-to-GDP ratio is low in international terms.
- Misleading comparison: The data don’t bear this out. In any case, our experience, as well as research, shows that international comparisons of debt-to-GDP ratios, without reference to other parameters, are misleading.
- Debt in domestic currency: It is also argued that we do not need to worry because our debt is mostly in domestic currency unlike that of many emerging economies.
- The fallacy in this argument: Our debt in the domestic market didn’t protect us from previous crises, and there is no reason to believe that it will protect us from the next one, especially as our foreign debt is proportionally higher than before.
- Robust foreign exchange reserves: It is argued that our foreign exchange reserves are robust and a balance of payments crisis is improbable. Such complacency is misplaced.
- Fallacy- No forex is large enough in bad times: We should not forget the lesson that in good times any amount of forex reserves looks like it is too large, but in bad times no amount of reserves is large enough.
Quality of fiscal consolidation
- Quality a cause for concern: As much as the headline fiscal deficit numbers are a cause for concern, the underlying quality of fiscal consolidation is a bigger concern.
- Increasing revenue deficit: Conveniently off the radar, the revenue deficit, far from coming down, is actually going up.
- Two-third borrowing to finance revenue expenditure: This year, more than two-thirds of what the government is borrowing is going to finance current expenditures like salaries, pensions, interest payments and subsidies.
- That ratio will rise to three-quarters next year.
- Crowding out of the expenditure: This debt-financed revenue expenditure is simply unsustainable as it will increasingly crowd out capital expenditure.
- Red flags on the state finances.
- Another dimension of the quality of fiscal consolidation is the combined fiscal position of states which is, in fact, the big elephant in the room.
- Together, states spend one-and-a-half times more than the Centre.
- Larger development impact than Centre: Studies show that how efficiently states spend their money has a much greater development impact as compared to the Centre.
- Red flags by the RBI on states finances: The states are not doing a good job. In its latest annual report on state finances, the RBI raised several red flags on state finances-
- states’ increasing weakness in their own revenue generation.
- Their unsustainable debt burdens.
- And their tendency to retrench capital expenditures in order to accommodate fiscal shocks such as farm loan waivers, power sector loans under UDAY and a host of income transfer schemes.
- Consequences in the market: The market will penalise mismanagement of public finances; it does not care who is responsible — the Centre or states — for an unsustainable fiscal stance.
Conclusion
- The fear of one-off fiscal stimulus becoming permanent: By far the biggest fear about a fiscal stimulus is that it is tempting to plunge into a spending programme saying it is a one-off and will be withdrawn when the pressure eases. Experience shows that it is very difficult to bail out. It is good that the finance minster avoided doing any such thing.
- As Milton Friedman famously said, there is nothing more permanent than a temporary government programme.
- Need to kick-start the private investment: What the economy needs for a sustained turnaround is kick-starting private investment.
- Implementation of reforms: A necessary condition for inspiring investor confidence is the implementation of structural and governance reforms. This will be a long-haul.
- That the budget did not launch the journey is a big disappointment. But, at least, the budget did not make a bad situation worse by embarking on fiscal adventurism.
- It’s better, as Keynes said, to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Will allowing participation of private sector in the public healthcare system beneficial for India?
Context
In India, multiple policy pronouncements over the last few years have expressed an implicit intent to emulate certain features of the U.S. health system which is one of the most prodigal health systems, and it is a well-known reality that it is infamously poor-performing.
Emulating the U.S. health system in India and problems in this approach
- Implicit intent to emulate the U.S. system: In India, multiple policy pronouncements over the last few years have expressed an implicit intent to emulate certain features of the U.S. health system like-
- Enhance private initiative.
- And uphold the insurance route as the way to go for health care.
- AB-NHPS scheme: These are being largely envisaged while riding on the back of the Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection Scheme (AB-NHPS).
- AB-NHPS aims to provide insurance cover to nearly 50 crores poor Indians.
- The mechanism to check insurance frauds: The AB-NHPS affirmed strong mechanisms to check insurance fraud which was commonplace in its precursor programme, the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY).
- New of fraud in AB-NHPS: Recently, 171 hospitals were reported to have been de-empanelled from the AB-NHPS on charges of fraud.
- How are the frauds in AB-NHPS sought to be tackled? The response to these has been envisaged through an unprecedented bolstering of administratively-heavy and technology-driven mechanisms.
- Anti-fraud units: National- and state anti-fraud units have been established and partnerships with fraud control companies conceived.
- One would ask this question: what is wrong in all of this?
- What is wrong with this approach? Let us return to the U.S. once again.
- Administrative intensive: Multiple layers of complex arrangements and concomitant complex regulatory provisions have made the U.S. system one of the most administratively and technologically intensive systems in the world.
- 50% spending going for the wages: More than 50% of health-care spending in the U.S. in 2010 went into health worker’s wages, with a large chunk of the growth in health-care labour taking place in the form of non-clinical workers.
- Very little going into improving health: What this entails is that for every penny spent on health care, very little goes into actually improving health.
What are the concerns in emulating the U.S. system?
- Sub-satisfactory operations at the large cost: The new system necessitates-
- A battery of new structures.
- Personnel cadres.
- Data systems.
- And working arrangements only in order to sub-satisfactorily operate an insurance scheme that would cover less than half the population.
- Disregarding the death spiral that policy-driven over-reliance on private health care could lead to considerable costs which would not primarily contribute to improving health outcomes.
- Ethical concerns over unnecessary spending: While a besottedness with cutting-edge technology and state-of-the-art systems can help garner eyes and promote businesses, each unnecessary penny incurred this way raises significant ethical concerns.
- Problems of inadequate funding
- Funding sufficient only for a quarter of beneficiary: Gupta and Roy have shown how the allocation for the AB-NHPS for 2019-20 would have covered less than a quarter of the targeted beneficiaries.
- Paltry increase in allocations: For 2020-21, there has been a paltry increase in health-care sector allocation (5.7% above 2019-20 RE), while the allocation for the AB-NHPS is unchanged.
- It is very possible that the AB-NHPS continues to remain insufficiently funded and incapable of extending considerable financial risk protection to the poor.
- Diversion of limited funds to wasteful areas
- Attractive on face: Embracing the complexities associated with robust regulation of the insurance programme and making the requisite technological and administrative investments appear attractive and commendable on the face.
- Diversion of limited fund: However, these complexities entail diverting highly limited resources towards wasteful and dispensable high-end areas.
- These funds could have been set aside for much more pressing and productive domains, such as public hospitals and health centres.
- Improvements in these areas would have strongly reflected in terms of tangibly better health outcomes.
- AB-NHPS reinforcing contradictions: Rather, the AB-NHPS appears attuned to reinforcing a stark contradiction wherein trailblazing but unproductive high-end structures thrive alongside decrepit but potentially fructuos basic structures.
Conclusion
The fanfare with which AB-NHPS was launched, can hide the pressing concerns which lie underneath. The government must ensure that every penny spent on improving healthcare is used in the most optimal way and ensure that India’s AB-NHPS won’t end up the US healthcare way.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Coronavirus threat and its implications for India and the rest of the world.
Context
The coronavirus epidemic poses a challenge to China’s place in global affairs, its political leadership.
The possible implications of coronavirus crisis
- The Chines leadership might not be able to escape the blame: If the epidemic turns into a pandemic, as some analysts bet, China’s all-powerful leader Xi Jinping might not be able to escape the blame.
- And will likely come under considerable political pressure.
- It could also turn into a systemic threat: Some also speculate that the backlash against the government’s mishandling of the crisis could turn into a systemic threat against the dominance of the Chinese Communist Party.
- Speculations as perennial hope among China’s critics: Sceptics, however, dismiss above speculation as merely reflecting the perennial hope among Beijing’s harshest critics who can’t wait to see a China without the CCP.
- Realist’s stand: Realists point to the massive mobilisation of state power by President Xi in limiting the spread of the virus.
Handling of the crisis by China
- Initial faltering response: To be sure, there were major failures in the initial faltering response to the crisis.
- Cover-up attempts from the lower level: The attempts at the lower levels to cover-up or underplays the crisis and the inadequate appreciation at the higher levels of the potential consequences are common to all large bureaucracies. The party-state in China is not an exception.
- Praise for handling the crisis: China’s handling of the crisis had drawn much respect, grudging or otherwise, from the international community.
- Whether it is the lockdown of Hubei province and its capital Wuhan, from where the virus began to spread.
- Or in deploying thousands of doctors and health workers in the province and building massive hospitals for treating the infected.
- Possibility of some political impact: Yet, there is no question that a crisis of this magnitude -will have some political impact.
- The party-state is certainly having some difficulty in containing the public outrage against the initial failures.
- Efforts to shield top leadership from blame: The CCP, however, is bound to shield the supreme leader from any damaging criticism and in fact, celebrate a triumph in containing the spread through a determined effort.
- Responsibility will be affixed on provincial officials in Hubei and a purge of some kind may have already begun.
Addressing the economic consequences of the crisis
- International dimension: Nearly two decades after the SARS epidemic -China is now a much larger economy and its interdependence with the world has only deepened.
- This interdependence, in turn, lends a strong international dimension to China’s crisis.
- Optimist’s hope of future uptick: Optimists hope that a sharp drop in economic activity in the current quarter will be followed by a steep uptick in growth in the next when the virus is contained and normalcy returns.
- Pessimist’s fear of economic disruption: Pessimists suggest that the economic disruption — in terms of the impact on internal and external trade and the breakdown of the global supply chains- could have lasting effects.
- Reinforcing the disruption: Some suspect that the disruption could reinforce the slowdown driven by a number of other internal and external factors including the trade war with the US.
China’s response to the rest of the world
- Channelling of resentment against the West: Some in the West hope that a prolonged economic crisis might turn the people against the CCP. For now, though, Beijing is channelling the resentment against the West.
- Terming evacuation as an over-reaction: Beijing has criticised the advisories from various countries against travel to China and the cancellation of flights as over-reaction.
- Lukewarm response to evacuation efforts: China has also been lukewarm to efforts of various countries to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan and Hubei.
- India evacuated students: India has managed to convince Beijing to let India airlift its students from Wuhan.
- Pakistan has declared that it will not evacuate its students as a gesture of political solidarity with China in a time of crisis.
- South Asian neighbour’s response: Many of India’s other South Asian neighbours are torn between the reluctance to offend Chinese sentiment and the mounting domestic pressures to bring students back.
- Cooperation with the US: While being critical of the US travel restrictions against China, Beijing has certainly been open to cooperation with the US in dealing with the crisis.
- India’s offer to help other countries in evacuation: The external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said last week that India has been willing to bring back students from all the neighbouring countries.
- Balancing between Delhi and Beijing: The logic of balancing between Delhi and Beijing has prevented most of the smaller neighbours from requesting Indian assistance.
- The Maldives has been the only exception.
- The response of the East and Southeast Asia: Beyond South Asia, many countries in East and Southeast Asia have been hesitant to be seen as rushing to cut themselves from China.
- What is making these countries hesitant: Deep economic interdependence and massive flows of Chinese tourists led to much dithering among the East Asian countries in their early responses to the crisis.
Conclusion
India must explore all potential cooperative engagement with Beijing as well as its other international partners on pandemics-an important but the under-addressed challenge for national, regional and international security.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Shortcomings in the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act 1971 and need of the more progressive abortion law in the country.
Context
The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill doesn’t do enough to secure women’s choices and interests.
Deaths due to unsafe abortion and previous attempts to legislate
- Deaths due to unsafe abortions: Recent reports have shown that more than 10 women die every day due to unsafe abortions in India.
- And backward abortion laws only contribute to women seeking illegal and unsafe options.
- The Cabinet has recently approved the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (MTP Bill, 2020) which will soon be tabled in Parliament.
- It seeks to amend the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 (MTP Act) and follows the MTP Bills of 2014, 2017 and 2018, all of which previously lapsed in Parliament.
Provisions of the current law
- Foetus-age based division: The MTP Act divides its regulatory framework for allowing abortions into categories, according to the gestational age of the foetus.
- Up to 12 weeks: Under Section 3, for foetuses that are aged up to 12 weeks-
- Only one medical practitioner’s opinion is required to the effect that the continuance of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the life of the mother or cause grave injury to her physical or mental health.
- Or there is a substantial risk that if the child is born, it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.
- Between 12 weeks and 20 weeks: But if the foetus is aged between 12 weeks and 20 weeks-
- At least two medical practitioners’ opinions conforming to either of the two conditions are required.
- What beyond 20 weeks? Beyond 20 weeks, termination may be carried out where it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman.
- Definition of grave injury: The MTP Act also specifies that ‘grave injury’ may be explained as
- The anguish caused by a pregnancy arising out of rape, or the anguish caused by an unwanted pregnancy arising out of the failure of a contraceptive used by a married woman or her husband.
What are the issues with the current law?
- Several issues arise from the current framework under the MTP Act.
- First-Lac of autonomy of women: At all stages of the pregnancy, the healthcare providers, rather than the women seeking an abortion, have the final say on whether the abortion can be carried out.
- It is true that factors such as failure of contraceptives or grave injury are not required to be proved under the MTP Act.
- However, to get the pregnancy terminated solely based on her will, the woman may be compelled to lie or plead with the doctor.
- Thus, at present, pregnant women lack autonomy in making the decision to terminate their pregnancy and have to bear additional mental stress, as well as the financial burden of getting a doctor’s approval.
- On request abortion in 67 countries: Indian’s law is unlike the abortion laws in 67 countries, including Iceland, France, Canada, South Africa and Uruguay, where a woman can get an abortion ‘on request’ with or without a specific gestational limit (which is usually 12 weeks).
- Second-Prejudice against unmarried women: The MTP Act embodies a clear prejudice against unmarried women.
- According to ‘Explanation 2’ provided under Section 3(2) of the Act, where a pregnancy occurs due to failure of any birth control device or method used by any “married woman or her husband”, the anguish caused is presumed to constitute a “grave injury” to the mental health of the pregnant woman.
- While the applicability of this provision to unmarried women is contested, there is always the danger of a more restrictive interpretation, especially when the final decision rests with the doctor and not the woman herself.
- Third-Restriction of 20 weeks’ limit: Due to advancements in science, foetal abnormalities can now be detected even after 20 weeks.
- Danger to mother’s life only condition after 20 weeks: The MTP Act presently allows abortion post 20 weeks only where it is necessary to save the life of the mother.
- Problem with this restriction: The above restriction means that even if a substantial foetal abnormality is detected and the mother doesn’t want to bear life-long caregiving responsibilities and the mental agony associated with it, the law gives her no recourse unless there is a prospect of her death.
What does the bill fail to address?
- While the MTP Bill, 2020, is a step in the right direction, it still fails to address most of the problems with the MTP
- First, it doesn’t allow abortion on request at any point after the pregnancy.
- Second, it doesn’t take a step towards removing the prejudice against unmarried women by amending the relevant provision.
- And finally, it enhances the gestational limit for legal abortion from 20 to 24 weeks only for specific categories of women such as survivors of rape, victims of incest, and minors.
- This means that a woman who does not fall into these categories would not be able to seek an abortion beyond 20 weeks, even if she suffers from a grave physical or mental injury due to the pregnancy.
What are the provisions for the case of foetal abnormality in the bill?
- Limit irrelevant if the foetal abnormality is diagnosed by the Medical Board: The Bill does make the upper gestational limit irrelevant in procuring an abortion if there are substantial foetal abnormalities diagnosed by the Medical Board.
- This means that even if there is no threat to the mother’s life, she would be able to procure an abortion as soon as a substantial foetal abnormality comes to light.
- While this is an important step and would have in the past helped many women who fought long battles in Court without recourse.
- Rules against unnecessary delays: It is crucial that this provision is accompanied by appropriate rules for the Medical Boards that guard against unnecessary delays, which only increase the risks associated with a late abortion.
Conclusion
- Recognition of women’s right: The Supreme Court has recognised women’s right to make reproductive choices and their decision to abort as a dimension of their personal liberty (in X v. Union of India,2017) and as falling within the realm of the fundamental right to privacy (in K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, 2017). Yet, current abortion laws fail to allow the exercise of this right.
- The bill does not do enough: While it is hoped that MTP Bill, 2020 will not lapse in Parliament like its predecessors, it is evident that it does not do enough to secure women’s interests, and there is still a long road ahead for progressive abortion laws.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Making the justice system more victim-centric.
Context
The recent judgment in Rekha Murarka vs The State Of West Bengal, the SC has held that the victims’ private counsel cannot orally examine or cross-examine the witnesses.
Place of the victim in the present criminal justice system
- Removed from the proceedings: Under our criminal justice system, victims find themselves removed from the proceedings.
- Their identities are reduced to being mere witnesses.
- The harm they suffer is reduced to being aggravating or mitigating factors at the time of sentencing.
- Stage props in a larger scheme: With the state appropriating their victimisation, the actual victims become mere stage props in a larger scheme.
- Need of The victim-centric notion of justice-Law Commission suggestion: In 1996, the 154th Law Commission Report suggested a paradigm shift in India’s criminal justice system towards a victim-centric notion of justice.
- Partial acceptance: The Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Act, 2009 partially accepted the Law Commission suggestion and granted some rights to the victims of crime.
- The Act introduced victims’ right to a private counsel under Section 24(8).
- Move toward victim’s participation: The Code of Criminal Procedure already allowed for pleaders engaged by private persons to submit written arguments with the permission of the court under Sections 301(2) and 302 allowed a person to conduct the prosecution with permission of the court.
- These sections were read together to partially secure the victims’ right to participation.
Steps take towards securing justice for victims
- Right to legal assistance to victims of sexual assault: In the case of Delhi Domestic Working Women’s Forum v. Union of India (1994), the SC called for the extension of the right to legal assistance to victims of sexual assault at the pre-trial stages.
- The SC opinion over asymmetry in rights of victims and the accused: In Mallikarjun Kodagali (Dead) … vs The State Of Karnataka (2018), the Court accepted that under the criminal justice system, the rights of the accused far outweigh the rights of the victim.
- Introduction of victim impact statement right to appeal against the adverse order: The Supreme Court not only called for the introduction of a victim impact statement in order to guarantee the participation of the victim in the trial proceedings.
- The SC also reinstated the victims’ right to appeal against an adverse order.
Provisions on the international level for the victim’s participation
- Despite these advances, the scheme of victim participation remains far removed from the ideals embedded in the Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power; India is a signatory.
- What does the declaration require? It requires that the views and concerns of victims should be allowed and considered at all appropriate stages without prejudice to the accused.
- Need to increase the victims’ advocate’s role: Presently, the victims’ advocate has an extremely limited role to play wherein he “assists” the prosecutor rather than represent the interests of the victim before the court.
- The only substantial opportunity provided to a private counsel is after the closing of evidence when written arguments may be submitted to the court only after seeking the permission of the court.
- Contrast with ICC: In contrast, the International Criminal Court (ICC) provides for victim participation at the stage of-
- First, a challenge to the jurisdiction of the ICC.
- Second, framing of charges.
- Third, opening and closing statements.
- Fourth, making a written submission wherever the personal interests of the victims are affected.
- And finally, for presenting witnesses to give evidence on issues relating to the personal interests of the victims.
What the SC judgement means
- Missed opportunity: The Supreme Court in Rekha Murarkahas missed the opportunity to forward the jurisprudence on victim justice and rectify the lacunae in our laws.
- Instead, the judgment goes against the jurisprudential current specified above.
- Indeed, the victim’s right to participation cannot be secured by restricting the rights of the accused.
- Why the victim’s advocate is not allowed the right to participate in the SC’s opinion: According to the judgment, a victim’s advocate cannot be allowed the right to participate because-
- First- Insistence by the victim’s counsel to examine a witness deliberately left out by the prosecution may weaken the prosecution’s case;
- Second– The trial will derogate into a “vindictive battle” between the victim’s counsel and the accused.
- Third- A lack of experience on the part of the victim’s counsel may lead to lapses.
- The problem in the SC ruling: The judgment further assumes that prosecutions effectively take the victim’s needs into account.
- SC ignored why the need for private counsel arise: The judgement ignores the fact that the need for a private counsel arises precisely because intentional or unintentional prosecutorial lapses directly lead to injustice to the victims.
- The court expects the victim’s counsel to make the prosecutor aware of any aspects that have not been addressed in the examination of witnesses or the arguments advanced by the public prosecutor.
- In the process, it assumes that the prosecutor will address such lapses.
Conclusion
Under the role currently envisaged in our criminal justice system, the public prosecutor cannot sufficiently take into account the interests, needs and requirements of the victims. The cause of victim justice would be greatly served if the Supreme Court decided to revisit its reasoning and assumptions to appropriately amend this provision in light of the above.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: LTRO-Long Term Rero by the RBI, what is it?
Mains level: Paper 3- Novel approach adopted by the RBI to push the growth.
Context
February signalled a new dynamic-Monetary policy is no longer driven by MPC.
What changed after December MPC review
- Pause in the rate cut by MPC: In its December policy, the Reserve Bank of India suddenly paused on cutting rates, putting the ball in the government’s court to support growth.
- Conservative union budget: With last week’s Union Budget belying expectations of short-term growth boosters, the ball was back in the RBI’s court.
- The Budget opted for fiscal conservativism over activism, consolidating the fiscal deficit to 3.5 per cent of GDP in 2020-21 from 3.8 per cent in 2019-20– bypassing any ambitious expenditure boost or significant tax cuts.
- Rise in the inflation in Dec-Feb interval: Meanwhile, the policy arithmetic turned more complicated for the MPC.
- At the time of the December policy meeting, CPI inflation was trending close to 5 per cent (the October reading was 4.6 per cent).
- Since then a combination of supply-side shocks, which led for example to unseasonally high vegetable and protein prices, buoyed inflation to over 7 per cent, nearly 140 basis points above the RBI’s upper bound comfort zone of 6 per cent.
- As a primarily inflation-targeting central bank, this effectively stopped the MPC from easing further.
Key takeaways from February MPC meeting
- The February policy meeting removed two key uncertainties in the current policy scenario.
- First, the RBI is still very concerned about growth and the burgeoning negative gap between the current growth trajectory and potential growth.
- Second, monetary policy is no longer strictly limited to the MPC’s decision-making.
- Because of the risk of supply-side shocks hitting inflation, it is understandable that the RBI has summarised its outlook on inflation as “highly uncertain”.
- Hence, of the policy measures that the RBI has at its disposal, the MPC’s “conventional” arrow of rate cuts was left unused.
- Instead, the RBI has opted for macroprudential intervention, unveiling two other “unconventional” policy arrows.
RBI opting for macroprudential intervention in two ways
- Policy transmission via LTRO-the first arrow: The primary macro challenge has been transmission via the credit channel — banks are not lowering their deposit rates.
- Why? This is due to competition from the small savings rate and to protect saver, and in turn are keeping lending rates high.
- How it impacts economy: Sectors considered higher risk (real estate, MSMEs) find themselves credit-starved.
- In a move that seems inspired by the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing in 2011, the RBI’s announcement on long term repo operations (LTROs) has been aimed at promising banks longer-duration liquidity at the repo rate, which is cheaper relative to their current deposit rates.
- The aim is to nudge them to kick-start the credit cycle.
- The exemption of cash reserve ratio for incremental loans to MSMEs and the retail sector is also aimed at lowering costs for banks, which ideally should be passed onto these sectors.
- Managing the stress in financial system-the second arrow: It is aimed at managing the looming stress in the financial system from bad loans, especially as deleveraging becomes more difficult during an economic slowdown.
- Extension to restructuring durations: The extension of the restructuring scheme on MSME loans and projects in the commercial real estate sector is aimed at releasing capital for banks in the short term.
- Though banks will ultimately need to recognise loans that are non-performing.
- Easing guidelines on the classification of loans: Similarly, easing guidelines on the classification of loans for projects in the commercial real estate sector that have been delayed is essentially designed to provide some breathing space to banks.
What does this mean for the macro outlook?
- Recovery in demand is a must: The RBI’s new macroprudential measures, its “unconventional” policy arrows, while well-meaning, are ultimately supply-side measures.
- For the RBI to attain its goals, be it on asset quality or transmission, there eventually needs to be a recovery in demand conditions.
- ECB’s LTRO experience: To be fair, even the ECB’s LTRO programme has had mixed success — a central bank can flood the market with liquidity, but the ultimate onus on releasing it to the real economy rests with banks.
- So far, excess liquidity has not benefitted segments considered high risk (real estate developers, MSMEs).
Conclusion
The ECB introduced the LTRO programme when growth was weak and the euro area was struggling with a severe sovereign debt crisis. With the RBI embarking on something similar, albeit on a smaller scale, the niggling concern is if there is more financial instability lurking around the corner but not yet evident in the current data.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Efficacy of Model Code of Conduct to ensure free fair and pure elections
Context
Campaign for the Delhi Assembly election in which the development debate was overshadowed by hate-mongering and outpouring of communal vitriol underscores need to do more.
Understanding the Model Code of Conduct (MCC)
- Behavioural guidelines: It is a set of behavioural guidelines for political parties and candidates for-
- The peaceful conduct of elections.
- To prevent hate speech.
- Malpractices.
- Corruption and
- Misuse of government machinery by the ruling party.
- Not judicially enforceable: Since it is not an Act passed by Parliament, the Code is not judicially enforceable.
- The action against a violator usually takes the form of an advice, warning or censure.
- No punitive action can be taken.
- No wonder, many consider the Code as toothless.
- Moral authority: It is not toothless though. Its moral authority far outweighs its legal sanctity.
- Political leaders worth their salt are scared of inviting a notice for a violation, as it creates negative public opinion.
- Besides, unlike the legal processes, its impact is instant.
The legality of the MCC
- Test of legality in the courts: The legality of the code has been judicially tested.
- First legal acceptance: Its first judicial acceptance came in 1997 when the Punjab and Haryana High Court gave the EC the power to enforce the code.
- “Such a code of conduct when it is seen that it does not violate any of the statutory provisions can certainly be adopted by the Election Commission for the conduct of free and fair election, which should be pure as well,” the Court said.
- The SC has repeatedly held that this must be enforced strictly.
Parallels between the MCC and other legal provision
- The first section of the MCC lays down that-Part 1 (1) “ No party or candidate shall include in any activity which may aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred or cause tension between different castes and communities, religious or linguistic.”
- “…Criticism of other parties or their workers based on unverified allegations or distortion shall be avoided.”
- Parallels with RPA: The Representation of the People Act (1951) categorically defines the above two as corrupt practices in Section 123 (3A) and Section 123 (4) respectively.
- Section 125 of RPA provides for punishment for similar violations.
- Parallels with IPC: It is important to note that Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code has a similar provision:
- Promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.
Refreshing change
- Prompt action: It must be appreciated that the EC was prompt in its action against the leaders accused of hate speech in Delhi election campaign.
- While it instantly, suo moto, deprived the two leaders of their star campaigner status, it also punished them with a gag order, using the ultimate weapon provided by Article 324.
- The EC flexing its muscle outside the so-called “toothless” MCC and invoking Article 324 is indeed a refreshing change.
- In earlier instances, it often had to let the culprits go with a mere “warning, caution or censure”.
- In its notice to a leader, the EC cited Sections 123 and 125 of the RP Act.
Conclusion
- Historically, the EC has always taken simultaneous action under the Model Code of Conduct and the other two provisions. While the MCC produces instant results, the penal provisions involve endless judicial processes. Not taking action under the IPC encouraged violators to commit repeat offences.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India-Sri Lanka relations, issues involved-Tamil minority, Chinese growing influence etc.
Context
During Mahinda Rajapaksa’s India visit, New Delhi is likely to talk to Colombo on the Tamil issue and counterbalance Beijing’s influence in the Indian Ocean.
Background of the current politics in Sri Lanka
- Sri Lankan Prime Minister official visit to India is taking place a few months after he assumed office and his brother was sworn in as president
- Nationalist wave after attacks: The brothers were voted to the office on a Sinhala nationalist wave, a sentiment that is a fallout of the Easter attacks on Christian shrines, including the Saint Anthony’s shrine, in April last year.
- The attacks had killed more than 250 people, six months before the elections.
- The polarisation worked in favour of the Rajapaksas vis-à-vis Sri Lanka’s 10 per cent Muslim population, mostly Tamils, who are especially numerous on the country’s east coast.
Tamil issue in Sri Lanka
- No engagement with Hindu Tamil: While Muslims have become the number one scapegoat for the Easter tragedy, the Rajapaksas have not tried to engage the Hindu Tamils
- LTTE background: Hindu Tamils, who make about 11 per cent of Sri Lanka’s population, have had an acrimonious relationship with Mahinda Rajapaksa ever since he wiped out the LTTE in 2009.
- Many members of the community became collateral victims in the process.
- Implications for India-Sri Lanka relations: Gotabaya was the defence secretary at that time. The Hindu Tamil factor may complicate India-Sri Lanka relations.
- No inclusion minorities from Sri Lanka in CAA: In the Citizenship Amendment Act the Indian Parliament passed in 2019, the persecuted minorities of Sri Lanka are not taken into account.
- However, the Hindu Tamils of Sri Lanka are feeling insecure again.
China-Sri Lanka axis
- The China factor is likely to aggravate the complication: The Rajapaksas are known to be pro-Sri Lanka. Mahinda Rajapaksa was largely responsible for opening Sri Lanka to massive — and strategic -Chinese investments.
- The Hambantota port issue: The Hambantota Port and 15,000 acres have been conceded to China on a 99-year lease, causing considerable consternation in New Delhi, which apprehends that this deep seaport could be used for military purposes, and not just trade.
- The deal was put on a hold by former PM but the present dispensation wants it to be restored.
- China’s growing clout in the Indian Ocean: India’s efforts were also designed to thwart China extending its influence in Sri Lanka at a time when the Narendra Modi administration is trying to counter Beijing’s clout in the Indian Ocean.
- Modi’s visited on May 30, 2019, just after beginning his second tenure as PM.
Past engagement events
- New Delhi has tried to engage the new Sri Lankan government after the Rajapaksas assumed office.
- India’s foreign minister S Jaishankar, landed in Sri Lanka on November 20, 2019, to invite Gotabaya for his first visit to India — rather than to China.
- Gotabaya visited New Delhi for three days in late November last year.
- Tamil issue discussed: Jaishankar is said to have told Gotabaya that India expects his government to treat Tamils with dignity in the process of reconciliation.
- There is speculation that India might appoint an ambassador of Tamil origin to Colombo.
- Cooperation against terrorism: The Indian PM went further when Gotabaya Rajapaksa visited New Delhi: He announced a $50 million line of credit for security and counter-terrorism
- Line of credit for Infra: India also announced another $400 million for development and infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka.
- That the counter-terror fund would further strengthen cooperation against terrorism.
- Allaying the fears over China: Gotabaya allayed India’s fears on China by saying that Sri Lanka would not allow a third country to affect Sri Lanka-India ties.
Conclusion
While addressing the issue of minority and growing Chinese influence in Sri Lanka both countries need to focus on the other areas of cooperation like counter-terrorism, trade, security, development, technology etc.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- How UPI is transforming payment and settlement, what makes UPI a success.
Context
India has crossed the target of a billion monthly digital payments. Now, to a billion transactions a day.
The story of payment revolution and financial inclusion in India
- Progress on the financial inclusion: India was long a financially excluded nation –only 17 per cent of Indians had a bank account in 2011.
- 50 more years estimate: The World Bank suggests it would have taken 50 more years for 80 per cent of Indians to get a bank account at the pre-2011 speed.
- Yet, we reached that milestone in 2018.
- How? A magical combination of
- Political will (Jan Dhana Yojana and Aadhaar embedding).
- A proactive central bank (creating a non-profit market participant entity and levelling the playing field between non-banks and banks).
- And a technology stack with three layers (identity, payments, and data).
- The rise of UPI
- The swift rise in use: The digital payment transactions on the Universal Payment Interface (UPI) platform rising from 0.1 million in October 2016 to 1.3 billion in January 2020.
- Result of working together: This represents the magic of entrepreneurs, nonprofits and policymakers working together.
- And gives us a new target — a billion transactions a day.
- India’s Payment revolution
- What are the components of the payment revolution: India’s payment revolution comes from-
- A clear vision: Shifting the system from low volume, high value, and high cost to high volume, low value, low cost.
- A clear strategy: Regulated and unregulated private players innovating on top of public infrastructure.
- And trade-offs balanced by design: Regulation vs innovation, privacy vs personalisation, and ease-of-use vs fraud prevention.
- What consumers wanted?
- Consumers wanted a payment experience that was mobile-first, low-cost, 24/7, instant, convenient, interoperable, fintech friendly, inside banking, and safe.
- Answers lies in UPI.
- What did UPI achieve?
- Interoperability: UPI created interoperability between all sources and recipients of funds -consumers, businesses, fintechs, wallets, 140 member banks.
- Instant settlement: UPI settles instantly inside the central bank in fiat money -state-issued money declared by the sovereign to be legal tender.
- Blunted data monopolies: Big tech firms have strong autonomy but weak fiduciary responsibilities over customer data, it was taken care of by UPI.
5 Policy lessons from the success of UPI
- First- how the India stack: Interconnected yet independent platforms or open APIs — are a public good that-
- Lowers costs, spur innovation and blunts the natural digital winner-takes-all.
- Replication in other areas: Replicating this in education, healthcare, and government services are likely to be a harbinger of large scale multi-domain collaborative innovation.
- Second-collaboration: Collaboration can create ecosystems that overcome the birth defects of its constituents–
- The execution deficit of government, the trust deficit of private companies, and the scale deficit of nonprofits.
- Third-policy intervention: Complementary policy interventions are important.
- Demonetisation and GST are changing the stories that firms and individuals tell themselves around cash and informality.
- Fourth-human capital and diversity matter: This revolution needed career bureaucrats to partner with academics, tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, global giants and private firms.
- The final lesson-Western model is not needed always: India doesn’t need to be Western or Chinese to be modern. If our policymakers had copied Alipay or US banks, we wouldn’t have leapfrogged their birth defects.
Way forward
- Fix the deadline: The central government must deadline digitising all its payments.
- RBI implement 100+ action items: The RBI must implement the 100-plus action items arising from its own Vision 2021 document and the Nandan Nilekani Committee for Deepening Digital Payments.
- UPI for inward remittances: RBI must also make UPI and RuPay fit for use in our $70 billion inward remittances that currently come through exploitative financial institutions which don’t have clients but hostages.
- Replication of UPI in bank credit: The RBI must replicate the core design of UPI — fierce but sustainable private and public competition in bank credit-
- Our 50 per cent credit-to -GDP ratio is one of the reasons India is poor.
- China’s 300 per cent is the wrong number, but reaching the OECD average of 100 per cent needs the RBI to do many things-
- Raising its human capital and technology game in regulation and supervision.
- Catalysing an ecosystem for lending against the rapidly expanding digital exhaust of small firms and individuals.
- Issuing more private bank licences, facilitating management changes in old private banks with market caps that signal questions about book value, and shepherding governance and human capital revolution at PSU banks.
Conclusion
Converting the collective independence our citizens got in 1947 to individual freedom surely involved universal financial inclusion. The gap between this aspiration and reality was not a lie but a disappointment because our capital got handicapped without labour and our labour got handicapped without capital. Change has begun -the RBI, the finance ministry, and many individuals deserve our gratitude and dues for a billion digital payments a month. We now ask you for a billion digital payments a day.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act amendment and issues involved.
Context
The Union Cabinet’s approval of the amended Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Bill 2020 was reported on January 29. This amendment was long due and has made some anticipated changes demanded by women’s groups and courts, including the Supreme Court.
Why the amendment was necessitated?
- Abortion (unsafe) accounts for almost 10 per cent of maternal deaths in India.
- No provision to avoid unsafe abortion: The amended Act doesn’t have any new substantial provisions to avoid unsafe abortions.
- The right to safe abortion (at least till 12 weeks, when it is safer) would have made the state responsible to provide safe abortion services.
- Reduce the burden on judiciary: The proposed amendments will definitely reduce the burden on the judiciary, especially given the plethora of cases seeking permission for abortion beyond the prescribed duration of 20 weeks.
- Two types of Court cases: The court cases are broadly two types.
- The first group of cases: These are pregnancies that extend beyond 20 weeks of gestation as a result of rape, incest or of minor women.
- The new Act rightly addresses these by extending prescribed period abortion to 24 weeks.
- However, such cases form a minuscule proportion of the total number. For such cases, even the 24-week cap can be done away with, provided the abortions can be safely done.
- The second group of cases
- These are of pregnancies that become unwanted after congenital foetal anomalies are found upon testing.
- With advancements in prenatal foetal screening/diagnostic technologies, more such cases are knocking at the doors of courts.
- Marginal interval under the current act: Anomalies detected at 17-20 weeks provide only a marginal interval to conduct an abortion under the current Act.
- The extension to 24 weeks seems to give cover to these cases for abortion services, reducing the burden on courts.
How the law could be misused?
- Possibility of using any anomaly as a ground for abortion: The amendments have opened up the possibility for any congenital anomaly to be used as grounds for abortion.
- Anomalies which are incompatible with life provide grounds for access to abortion at any time during pregnancy -not just 24 weeks of gestation-as long as the woman desires it and it doesn’t endanger her health.
- But with advancements in diagnostic technologies, more anomalies will be detected, including those which are compatible with life.
- Social acceptability and anomaly: What constitutes an anomaly changes depending on what is considered socially desirable.
- Issue of raising children with disability: Technology-aided detection of “undesirability” could now find social support, as has been the case with female foetuses.
- This raises concerns that raising children with disability, especially in the absence of state support and poor social attitudes, could go down a similar path.
The risk to the life of women
- Abortion beyond 12 weeks carries serious health risks.
- 12 weeks provision under current law: Current law requires the expert opinion of two registered medical practitioners for the abortion beyond 12 weeks.
- Extending the limit to 20 weeks and risk involved: 12-week requirement has been delayed till 20 weeks, though the physiology of pregnancy and risks associated with procedures for second-trimester abortions haven’t changed significantly.
- Possibility of more complications: Without the strengthening of public services, easing second-trimester abortions between 12-20 weeks opens the possibilities of more complications and endangers the life of the woman.
Conclusion
With congenital anomalies as a ground for abortion, the eugenic mindset of having socially desirable children could push more women into risky late abortions. The approach of medical boards advising courts in cases of late abortions under this Act will be critical to balancing women’s right to choose with risk to the woman and the motives for abortion. The rules framed under the Act must address this in no uncertain terms.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Suggest the ways to ensure the neutrality of the Speaker in cases under 10th Schedule.
Context
Recently the Supreme Court of India recommended that Parliament should rethink as to whether disqualification petitions ought to be entrusted to a Speaker as a quasi-judicial authority when such a Speaker continues to belong to a particular political party either de jure or de facto.
What the SC recommended?
- Provision of a ‘Permanent Tribunal’: The SC was of the opinion that Parliament may seriously consider a Constitutional amendment to substitute-
- The Speaker of the Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies with a ‘permanent Tribunal headed by a retired Supreme Court judge or a retired Chief Justice of a High Court.
- Or some other outside independent mechanism.
- What the ‘Permanent Tribunal’ achieve?
- Impartiality and timely decisions: This is to ensure that such disputes are decided both swiftly and impartially.
- Proper functioning of the democracy: It will give teeth to the provisions contained in the Tenth Schedule, which are so vital in the proper functioning of India’s democracy’.
Range of functions of the Speaker
- What is the nature of the duties of the Speaker?
- Role under 10th schedule: Under 10th Schedule, the nature of duties of the Speaker, is as an “arbiter” or a “quasi-judicial body”. But it also extends to a range of its functions.
- What other functions are performed by the Speaker? While facilitating the business of the House and to maintain decorum in the House, the Speaker has ‘extensive functions to perform in matters regulatory, administrative and judicial, falling under her domain.
- She enjoys vast authority under the Constitution and the Rules, as well as inherently’.
- Ultimate interpreter: She is the ‘ultimate interpreter and arbiter of those provisions which relate to the functioning of the House. Her decisions are final and binding and ordinarily cannot be easily challenged.
- She decides the duration of debates, can discipline members and even override decisions by committees.
- A representative of the House: She represents the collective voice of the House and is the sole representative of the House in the international arena’
Issue of alleged bias
- Allegations of bias by the Speaker: On several occasions, the Speaker’s role has been questioned on the allegation of bias. The office has been criticised for being an agent of pernicious partisan politics.
- The Supreme Court has observed in Jagjit Singh versus State of Haryana“…certain questions have been raised about the confidence in the matter of impartiality on some issues having political overtones which are decided by the Speaker in his capacity as a Tribunal.”
- As a minority view, Justice J.S. Verma in Kihoto Hollohan vs Zachillhu And Others observed: “The Speaker being an authority within the House and his tenure being dependent on the will of the majority therein, the likelihood of suspicion of bias could not be ruled out.”
- What is the problem with the neutrality of the Speaker? Howsoever desirable the proposition of neutrality maybe, in the present circumstances, it would be unrealistic to expect a Speaker to completely abjure all party considerations.
- Structural issues: There are structural issues regarding the manner of appointment of the Speaker and her tenure in office.
- Why the Speaker prefers to maintain party membership: A member is appointed to the office of the Speaker if a motion nominating her is carried in the House.
- Since the electoral system and conventions in India have ‘not developed to ensure protection to the office, there are cogent reasons for Speakers to retain party membership.
- Elections are not always by consensus and there have been cases when different parties have fielded their own candidates.
- All political parties campaign in the constituency of the Speaker.
- Even if the Speaker is re-elected to the House, the office of the Speaker in India is still open for elections’.
- Way forward
- Revamp the structure: What is required is not merely incidental changes in the powers of the Speaker; rather a major revamp in the structure of the office itself is necessary.
- How to ensure the neutrality of the Speaker? The scheme should be brought wherein Speakers should renounce all political affiliations, membership and activity once they have been elected, both within the Assembly and in the country as a whole.
- Replicating the UK model:
- Reference can be sought from the United Kingdom where the ‘main characteristic of the Speaker of the House of Commons is neutrality.
- Once elected, the Speaker gives up all-partisan affiliation, as in other Parliaments of British tradition, but remains in office until retirement, even though the majority may change.
- She does not express any political views during debates and is an election candidate without any ticket.
- Impartiality, fairness and autonomy in decision-making are the hallmarks of a robust institution.
- It is the freedom from interference and pressures which provide the necessary atmosphere where one can work with an absolute commitment to the cause of neutrality as a constitutional value.
Conclusion
At a time when India’s fall in ranks in the latest Democracy Index has evoked concern, it is expected that Parliament will pay heed to the reasoning of the Supreme Court and take steps to strengthen the institution of the Speaker.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- How could focusing on inclusive growth help spur the Indian economy.
Context
As the Indian economy is going through a severe crisis, a major solution to the present economic crisis is to go in for inclusive growth; it also means shared prosperity.
Where India stands on poverty and how the slowdown is impacting the poor.
- Bottom 30-40% adversely impacted: The slowing economy has had an adverse impact on the bottom 30%-40% of the population.
- Absolute poverty on the rise: The incidence of absolute poverty, which has been falling since 1972-73, has increased to 30% (4% jump).
- 44% population below the multi-dimensional Poverty line: The Human Development Report (2019) has shown, more than 44% of the Indian population is under the multi-dimensional poverty line.
- Rising inequality: The poorest 50% population at present owns only 4.1% of the national wealth.
- While the richest 10% of people own 73% of the total wealth in India (Suisse Credit 2019).
- Rampant malnourishment: India has 15.2% population malnourished (women 15%) as against 9.3% in China.
- And 50% of the malnourished children in the world are in India.
- At 112th position on global hunger: India’s global hunger rank has gone up to 112 while Brazil is 18, China is 25 and South Africa, 59.
- Dismal performance on education: In the field of education as per a UN report (2015), overall literacy in India is 74.04% (more than the 25% are totally illiterate) against 94.3% in South Africa, 96.6% in China and 92.6% in Brazil.
- Almost 40-45% population is either illiterate or has studied up to standard 4.
- Poor quality of education: Given the quality of education in India, the overall population is very poorly educated, with the share of ‘educated unemployment’ rising by leaps and bounds.
What needs to be realised?
- Focus on domestic demand: It needs to be realised that when exports are declining, the economy will have to depend on domestic demand for growth.
- It is no more feasible for the top 20-25% population to continue growing without depending on the demand from the bottom 40-45% population.
- Demand by the bottom 40% a must: There is thus a strong reason now for the economy to increase effective demand of this bottom 40-45% population at least to continue growing-to reach a $5-trillion economy by 2024.
What is wrong with the growth process?
- Bottom 40% not getting the fair share of growth: A major reason for the crisis is that the growth process has marginalised the bottom 40-plus% of the population.
- It is in the sense that they do not get a fair share of the economic growth, and are more or less deprived of productive employment with a decent income.
- They have not been used as active participants in the growth process. Their potential has not been promoted.
- Less spending for the poor and its consequences: Though the bottom population depends on the government for basic health and elementary education (and also for access to higher educational opportunities)-
- The government spends just 4% of GDP on health (against the norm of 4-6% of GDP) and 3% of GDP on education (against the norm of 6-8% of GDP).
- How this dismal spending affects the poor: As a result of this below norm spending, these people are left hardly literate and sick, with poor nutrition and high morbidity.
- They are incapable of acquiring any meaningful skills or participating actively when new technology is spreading in the rest of the economy.
- The sub-optimal use of labour force: This sub-optimal use of the labour force in the economy is not likely to enable India to achieve optimal growth with proper use of the national resources -the labour force.
Inclusive growth- a solution to the present economic crisis
- Inclusive growth also includes shared prosperity: Here, inclusive growth does not mean only including all sections of the population in the growth process as producers and beneficiaries; it also means “shared prosperity”.
- Since India has already committed to sustainable and inclusive growth at the UN General Assembly, India is definitely obliged to implement inclusive growth.
- This should be our “New India”.
- What “New India” would involve?
- Improve the capability and opportunities: To start with, to improve the capabilities of the masses as well as their well-being by expanding productive employment opportunities for them.
- What expanding productive employment mean? The main steps to expand productive employment for all in the economy should be made up of-
- A process of inclusion.
- Expanding the quality of basic health for all.
- And ensuring quality education to all.
- How will “New India” help?
- Which will by itself generate large-scale employment in the government.
- Having a well-educated and healthy labour force will ensure high employability.
- Such people will be able to participate actively in the development process.
- The cycle of more productive employment: Having a well-educated labour force will help start-ups and MSMEs, in turn triggering a cycle of more productive employment in the economy.
- Global competitiveness increase: This will also improve the global competitiveness of our production units.
- Labour absorption potential of MGNREGA: Employment guarantee schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) will also increase employment.
- Assets generated under MGNREGA will expand capital formation in the economy, thereby raising the labour-absorbing capacity of the mainstream economy.
- Why this strategy is advantageous?
- Such a strategy has multiple advantages:
- First– it will raise incomes and the well-being of those who need it most urgently.
- Second– it will raise effective demand rapidly, which is so badly needed in the economy today to raise economic growth.
- Third– growth will be equitable and sustainable.
Way forward
- Finally, how does one raise resources to increase new public investments in the selected sectors?
- Raise direct taxes: One major strategy is to raise direct taxes, both capital tax and wealth tax.
- Past growth has failed to reach the poor: Growth led by providing tax cut and extra incentives, but this growth does not much percolate to the poor.
- Consequently, taxing the rich has to be a major strategy to raise government revenue.
- Treat public expenditure as an investment: The public expenditure on raising capabilities should be treated as social investment rather than social welfare, policymakers will be willing to spend on this capital formation.
- Let the fiscal deficit slip: Finally, there was no sound economic reason to control fiscal deficit ratio. Sound macroeconomics never supports this.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- India-France relations
Context
Defence cooperation has been one of the fundamentals of the bilateral relationship between India and France, which developed a close and ambitious strategic partnership for over 20 years.
Defence cooperation between France and India
- A long history of cooperation: The defence cooperation between our two countries can be traced back to the first few years following India’s Independence.
- As early as 1953, the Indian Air Force was equipped with a hundred Toofani fighter jets from Dassault, then the Mystère IV, which defended India in tough times.
- This marked the first page in the history of cooperation in military aviation, which also recorded the supply of 60 Mirage 2000s in the 1980s.
- Rafale deal: The ongoing delivery of 36 Rafales is being done as per the schedule.
- The first batch of aircraft, currently being used to train Indian pilots, will land at Air Force Station Ambala within a few months.
- Partnership in maritime domain: Today, the partnership has been deployed in the maritime domain, in support of our joint strategic vision for the maintenance of stability and security in the Indo-Pacific.
- As far as naval equipment is concerned, the Indian Navy has already commissioned two of the six submarines built in Mumbai as part of an industrial partnership between Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) and Naval Group.
Industrial cooperation between the two countries
- Support to indigenous production: As for industrial cooperation, the French approach has always been, whenever possible, to offer partial indigenous production in India.
- France was largely a precursor with regard to Make in India, with HAL manufacturing the light helicopters Cheetah and Chetak, and BDL’s Milan anti-tank missile in India in the 1960s.
- It continues this policy today. The plant built under the Dassault Aviation and Reliance joint venture will enable, for example, the complete production of the Falcon 2000 business jet here in India by 2022.
- Transfer of technology: After the delivery of the first two Scorpene submarines, transfers of technology provided by the Naval Group enabled MDL to be solely in charge of building the next four submarines.
- The design of these submarines has thus become largely Indian knowhow.
- Safran will soon inaugurate an aircraft wiring systems factory in Hyderabad and also build another major facility to manufacture LEAP turbofan engine components.
- Thales is investing massively in engineering works in Bengaluru, MBDA is building a plant in Coimbatore and French aeronautical equipment manufacturer Latécoère recently inaugurated a factory in Belgaum.
Opportunities for further cooperation
- Developing the supply chain at all the levels: The French aerospace industries association, GIFAS, and GICAN, the French Marine Industry Group, are organising a seminar focused on this subject during DefExpo.
- Along with the Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM), they are exploring opportunities for developing Indo-French industrial partnerships at all stages of the production chain.
- Promoting Make in India: India can count on France being by its side for its Make in India enterprise.
Conclusion
India and France both share the same vision for a new balanced multipolar world, which must be based on the rule of law. They also share the same vision on the main challenges of the times, be they security developments in Asia and the Indo-Pacific, or combating international terrorism. But it is by possessing the capability of ensuring national security and making strategic choices that most efficiently defend their shared principles and visions.
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