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General Studies – 1
Topic: Urbanization, their problems and their remedies.
Reference: Indian Express
Introduction:
The growth of large cities can be attributed to their role as economic engines in a rapidly globalising world. However, the Covid crisis has clearly underlined the false urban-rural binary and the sheer neglect of urban areas by the Governments. The state of our cities has been a matter of concern for decades. Be it air quality and unsafe drinking water, or now, the virus, the precarious nature of urban living has never been more pronounced. In contrast to the imagination of the city as a hub of social and economic activity, it is now perceived as the centre of disease and distress.
Body:
Challenges of infrastructure in urban areas across India:
- Large cities control a significant share of the Indian economy, the propulsive industries, and new economic opportunities.
- A majority of cities in India face hard challenges related to housing, transport, electricity, water supply, pollution, and congestion.
- Internally, most cities are also marked by significant social exclusion, crime, and violence.
- The health systems in megacities like Delhi and Mumbai are also overburdened and face a shortage of hospital staff and beds.
- Class I cities (more than a lakh population) have 1.4 beds per 1,000 people. Delhi has 1.5 beds per 1,000 people whereas Mumbai has one bed per 1,000 people.
- This congestion is most evident in slums in large cities and poses a grave health and environmental challenge.
- The risk of contagious diseases is more potent in these areas as residents also suffer from a lack of basic services such as safe drinking water and sanitation.
- The low number of COVID-19 tests conducted in these towns reveals a lack of capacity, which, in turn, distorts the scale of the current crisis.
- The challenges of urban poverty and congestion cry for more attention, more government support. Further neglect will lead to grave health and environmental challenges.
- City infrastructure across India is in disrepair, and 2017 gave us a series of unfortunate examples in Mumbai: multiple building collapses, a stampede after a pedestrian bridge collapsed, lamentable monsoon floods, and a horrific fire in the Kamla Mills complex
Policy issues impacting the urbanization:
- India suffers from the ‘Tyranny of Capitals’ – with a majority of commercial and demographic activity concentrated into regional seats of power. This concentration skews resource allocation and prevents the development of second cities.
- The Swachh Bharat Mission has disregarded the gravity of the sanitation and hygiene crisis in cities — the Centre’s allocation for the rural component of the Mission is about seven times more than for urban areas.
- The urban support under the National Health Mission is just three per cent of the total allocation, while 97 per cent of the funds are set aside for rural areas.
- Urban development programmes such as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (2005-2014) allocated the bulk of funds to large cities (70 per cent to large cities and 30 per cent to smaller towns).
- Current infrastructure development schemes, including the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and the Smart Cities Mission, focus on Class I cities.
- Both these schemes focus on development projects and provide funds for the more developed cities that already have relatively better infrastructure and overlook the nearly seven crore people who live in smaller towns.
- These smaller towns where population range between 20,000 and one lakh are towns that lag behind in services and infrastructure as compared to the big cities.
- While the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) provides employment opportunities to rural households, there is no equivalent scheme for the poor in urban areas.
Way forward:
- ‘Housing for All’ policy should be pursued with a vigorous annual review that ranks States on the basis of performance. The Centre should also take its own National Urban Transport Policy on developing cities around mobility networks seriously.
- Urban governance policies, although mainly in the domain of the States, must be aligned with national commitments on reduction of carbon emissions under the Paris Agreement, and to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 11.
- There is a need for a plan of action to achieve sustainable human settlements. It should ensure adequate shelter, water, energy, sanitation and solid waste management, along with other elements.
- There is a need for proper planning and various deficits relating to infrastructure, housing, slum upgradation, reduce pollution, employment, education and health in urban areas need to be through public and private participation.
- The point of a city is to facilitate interactions between citizens, businesses, and public institutions.
- These interactions are what drive economic growth within cities – investments from companies, consumption of citizenry, the city investing in interventions that aid its organic growth, and business activity.
- These factors work best when they are not mutually exclusive.
- By investing in the development of sustainable cities, India needs to break away from the myth of the compartmentalized city
Conclusion:
Thus, Small towns that are urban in nature but rural in character are the most neglected in the current policy environment. They are forced to exist with poorer services and policy neglect while having to meet the demands of a large population. They are most prone to plunge into distress, as the current crisis has revealed.
General Studies – 2
Topic: Comparison of the Indian constitutional scheme with that of other countries.
Reference: Indian Express
Introduction:
Modern democratic governments are classified into parliamentary and presidential on the basis of nature of relations between the executive and the legislative organs of the government. The parliamentary system of government is the one in which the executive is responsible to the legislature for its policies and acts. This type of model is prevalent in Britain, Canada, India and Japan. The presidential system of government on the other hand is one in which the executive is not responsible to the legislature for its policies and acts, and is constitutionally independent of the legislature in respect of its term of office. USA, Brazil and Russia are examples of this type of model of government.
Body:
Features of presidential system:
- President is both the head of the state and the head of the government. As the head of the state he/she occupies a ceremonial position and as the head of the government he/she leads the executive organ of the government.
- The President is elected by an electoral college for a fixed tenure. He/she cannot be removed by the legislature except by the impeachment for the grave constitutional act.
- The President governs with the help of a cabinet or smaller body called ‘Kitchen Cabinet’. It is only an advisory body and consists of non-elected departmental secretaries. They are selected and appointed by him/her, are responsible only to him/her and can be removed by him/her any time.
- The President and his/her secretaries are not responsible to the congress for their acts. They neither possess membership in the legislature nor attend its session.
- The President cannot dissolve the legislature.
- The doctrine of separation of power is the basis of Presidential system. The legislature, executive and judicial powers of the government are separated and vested in the three independent organs of the government.
Merits of presidential system:
- Stable government: The Presidential system provides a stable government. There is surety that government would survive for its tenure unless the President commits grave constitutional act and is impeached.
- Definiteness in policies: The Presidential system is conducive for the formulation and implementation of long-term policies due certainty of the tenure of the government.
- Based on separation of powers: There is complete and rigid separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial organs of the state. This prevents the despotic tendencies of any one organ and balances the distribution of power.
- Government by experts: The Presidential system is conducive to the administrative efficiency as ministers or secretaries are the experts in their fields. The President is free to choose his/her secretaries from the wide range of candidates and experts in their respective fields.
Demerits of Presidential system-
- Conflict between Legislature and Executive: It is biggest drawback of the Presidential system as conflict between legislature and executive can arose due to rigid separation of powers. This may stall the functioning of government and defeat the very purpose of governance.
- Non-responsible government: In Presidential system executives are not responsible to the legislature for their acts and policies. Thus it is difficult for elected representatives or legislative organ to exercise control over executives.
- Autocratic tendencies: In this system executive authority is vested in single person that is President and when President enjoys support in legislature, could lead to dictatorial tendencies.
- Narrow representation: In Presidential system secretaries are not elected members of the legislature but they are appointed by President. This restricts the scope of the wide representation and is limited to President’s favour.
Need for a shift from Parliamentary to Presidential system:
- The disgraceful political shenanigans the nation has witnessed, most recently in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, and the horse-trading of MLAs to switch allegiances for power and pelf, are not merely an occasion for breast-beating about morality in politics or the opportunism of the cash-rich ruling party.
- For 25 years till 2014, our system has also produced coalition governments which have been obliged to focus more on politics than on policy or performance. It has forced governments to concentrate less on governing than on staying in office, and obliged them to cater to the lowest common denominator of their coalitions, since withdrawal of support can bring governments down. The parliamentary system has distorted the voting preferences of an electorate that knows which individuals it wants but not necessarily which parties or policies.
- Besides, India’s many challenges require political arrangements that permit decisive action, whereas ours increasingly promote drift and indecision. We must have a system of government whose leaders can focus on governance rather than on staying in power.
- Our parliamentary system has created a unique breed of legislator, largely unqualified to legislate, who has sought election only in order to wield executive power.
- It has produced governments dependent on a fickle legislative majority, who are therefore obliged to focus more on politics than on policy or performance.
- It has distorted the voting preferences of an electorate that knows which individuals it wants to vote for but not necessarily which parties.
- It has spawned parties that are shifting alliances of selfish individual interests, not vehicles of coherent sets of ideas.
- It has forced governments to concentrate less on governing than on staying in office, and obliged them to cater to the lowest common denominator of their coalitions.
- The parliamentary system has failed us.
- Pluralist democracy is India’s greatest strength, but its current manner of operation is the source of our major weaknesses.
Should India adopt the Presidential system?
- A presidential system centralizes power in one individual unlike the parliamentary system, where the Prime Minister is the first among equals. The surrender to the authority of one individual, as in the presidential system, is dangerous for democracy.
- The over-centralization of power in one individual is something we have to guard against.
- Those who argue in favor of a presidential system often state that the safeguards and checks are in place: that a powerful President can be stalled by a powerful legislature.
- But if the legislature is dominated by the same party to which the President belongs, a charismatic President or a “strong President” may prevent any move from the legislature.
- On the other hand, if the legislature is dominated by a party opposed to the President’s party and decides to checkmate him, it could lead to a stalemate in governance because both the President and the legislature would have democratic legitimacy.
- A diverse country like India cannot function without consensus-building. This “winner takes it all” approach, which is a necessary consequence of the presidential system, is likely to lead to a situation where the views of an individual can ride roughshod over the interests of different segments.
- Thus India is performing well on the scale of Parliamentary system and needs to strengthen it.
Conclusion:
India’s constitutional makers adopted the Parliamentary system due to factors like familiarity of the system, preference to more responsibility, need to avoid Legislative-Executive conflict and nature of Indian society. These factors still stand relevant at present for Indian polity. In fact, the matter whether to change for Presidential system was considered in detail by Swaran Singh Committee appointed by the congress government in 1975. The committee opined that the parliamentary system has been doing well and there is no need to replace with Presidential system.
Topic: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Human Resources.
Reference: The Hindu
Introduction:
Frontline workers providing basic services through various government programmes form the backbone of the country’s social welfare system. The various frontline workers ensure health, nutrition, well-being, education and all round development of every child and her parent to ensure better human development.
There is not enough attention paid to the conditions under which they work or the value that is attributed to their work.
Body:
The frontline government workers are the true implementers of the various welfare schemes and public service delivery. They work at the grass-roots level, thus aware of needs of the citizens’ better, thereby acting as a primary feed-back collector.
The issues faced by such workers are:
- Low salary:
- Anganwadi workers provide a long list of services, ranging from teaching pre-schoolers to visiting homes of young children for nutrition and health counselling. Despite that, these workers get about Rs 5,000 a month, which is less than the minimum wages.
- Despite the importance of the work, their positions are considered “honorary” and their emoluments kept out of all norms of minimum wages and pay grades.
- Government school teachers with salaries presumed at Rs 40-50,000 a month and upwards, their lack of commitment to teaching is seen as unpardonable.
- Delay in funds allocation:
- Salaries delayed: A study of six states by the Centre for Equity Studies in 2016 revealed that 35 per cent of the workers had not received their previous month’s salary.
- Inadequate funds to run the program at ground-level: 50 per cent of the workers felt that the funds they received for running the day-to-day activities of the centre were inadequate.
- Spending at Own Cost: 40 per cent reported spending their own money to keep the centre’s activities going.
- Overburdened:
- Low financial allocations to the education sector (about 3% of GDP) have meant that state governments cannot afford to hire teachers at the Pay Commission scales.
- Over the years, they have hired fewer teachers, leading to huge vacancies and overburdening the hired teachers.
- There are no fixed timings of work and this upsets their work-life balance.
- The anganwadi, school teachers are saddled with a host of administrative work like election duties, census work etc.
- Poor Infrastructure:
- Infrastructure is a major concern. The lack of buildings or dilapidated buildings poses grave threats to workers as well as the children patients etc.
- To add to this, basic facilities like electricity, drinking water, sanitation, internet connectivity is mostly absent.
- Lack of adequate training facilities lead to poor-quality work, increased risk to the service- receivers.
- Job Insecurity:
- Most of them are hired as contractual
- The RTE banned contract teachers; non-regular teachers were no longer referred to as contract or para teachers, but in fact continue to function as such.
- Their contracts are “permanent”, but their terms are not that of a regular government employee.
- The lack of safe work environment makes them vulnerable to sexual harassments.
Impacts of such issues faced by the frontline workers result in
- Rampant absenteeism.
- Poor attention to core responsibilities.
- Lack of commitment to work.
- Corruption and bribery to satiate their needs.
- Strikes, protest and unrest.
- Poor Human Development Indicators like high IMR, MMR, wasting, stunting and underweight.
- High levels of preventable diseases incidences like polio, TB etc.
- Poor quality of education outcome as shown in ASER survey.
Way Forward:
- Government spending on education and health must be increased to 6% and 4% respectively as recommended by many expert committees.
- Timely allocation of funds must be done to reduce spending from frontline worker’ pockets.
- Salaries must be uniform and fixed across the country based on pay commission recommendations. The salaries must be disbursed on fixed date of month.
- Use of NSQF for Trainings and certifications must be mandated as per existing laws. Intermittent trainings must be provided for the frontline workers to keep themselves updated with new trends.
- Measures like RTI, Social Audit, Citizens Charters can help keep a check on such delays as accountability of government increases.
- Increase digital penetration to reduce administrative overhead and planning of activities to coincide with cultural calendar of the region.
- Infrastructure can be improved by collaborating with the NGO’s, using CSR funds of companies and philanthropists.
- Grievance Redressal Mechanism to address the woes of the frontline workers.
Conclusion:
India’s ability to achieve its SDGs or to have a healthy skilled workforce that contributes towards economic progress or social and human development depends to a large extent on the performance of teachers, nurses, anganwadi workers, panchayat secretaries and PWD staff. Thus, a closer look at their governance architectures is necessary.
Topic: India and its neighbourhood- relations.
Reference: The Print , Hindustan Times
Introduction:
Israel and India are exploring to open new vistas of partnership in the world of finance, including collaboration between market regulators and allowing Israeli investment in corporate bonds, taking advantage of a favourable climate in both countries.
During these testing times of pandemic, a team of high-ranking Israeli Defence Ministry research and development team is coming to India to develop rapid testing for COVID-19 in under 30 seconds along with their Indian counterparts. They will also deliver the breakthrough emerging Israeli technologies for combating COVID-19, which have been donated by the Israeli Foreign Ministry (MFA) and private sector, meant to bolster India’s response to the outbreak. Lastly, mechanical ventilators, which were given special permission by the Government of Israel for export to India is also being sent to India.
Most recently, India is making emergency military purchases from several countries including Israel to bolster the military’s capabilities amid border tensions with China in eastern Ladakh.
Body:
Evolution of defence ties between India-Israel:
- Defence relations between India and Israel are longstanding.
- The strategic communication between the two countries began during the Sino-India War of 1962 when PM Jawaharlal Nehru wrote his Israeli counterpart David Ben-Gurion for shipments of arms and ammunition.
- In 1965, Israel supplied M-58 160-mm mortar ammunition to India in the war against Pakistan.
- It was one of the few countries that chose not to condemn India’s Pokhran nuclear tests in 1998.
- It continued its arms trade with India at a steadily increasing rate even after the sanctions and international isolation that followed the nuclear tests.
- For India, the credibility of Israel as a reliable defence partner was reinforced during the Kargil War of 1999 when it supplied the Indian Air Force (IAF) with the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) ‘Searcher’ and surveillance systems for Jaguar and Mirage squadrons.
- It also upgraded the MiG-21 combat aircraft for the IAF.
- The Indian Army also received Laser Guided Bombs (LGB) and 160-mm mortar ammunition.
- In the 2000s, the India-Israel arms trade mostly involved surveillance and intelligence-related equipment – notably Super Dvora-class patrol vessels and the airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system EL/M-2075 Phalcon.
- India also purchased 98 Searcher and 50 Heron UAVs.
- Israel supplied Barak surface-to-air missile system with the Vertical Launching System (VLS) module for the modernisation of the Indian Navy during the period 2003-2006.
India- Israel Defence ties in recent times:
- India and Israel’s military research and development cooperation is well known for its success.
- There has been great progress in strategic cooperation between the two countries and there are possibilities of further strengthening defence engagements.
- India already has robust defence ties with Israel which is expected to strengthen further.
- India is the largest arms buyer from Israel; trade is to the tune of approximately $600 million.
- If defence ties keep increasing at the same rate, Israel may replace Russia as India’s largest arms supplier.
- Last year, India signed the biggest weapons deal in Israeli defence history, which is nearly $2 billion.
- This will provide India with an advanced defence system of medium-range surface-to-air missiles, launchers and communications technology.
- Space:
- The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has teamed up with the Israel Space Agency (ISA) for joint programmes in space cooperation. ISRO launched TecSAR – the Israeli Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite – in January 2008, which was followed by the launch of the IAI-assisted India’s own radar imaging satellite RISAT-2.
- Counter Terrorism and Cyber Security:
- In counter terrorism, intelligence gathering and retaliation, Israel has an exceptional good record and India need to learn from Israel how they have been able to mount surgical strikes all over.
- Both India and Israel are vulnerable to cyber-attack. Cyber security would be very important concern of all governments.
- Following the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Israel offered a team of about 40 special-operations forces and assistance in the investigation. Paramedics, medics and other professionals from Israel were also sent to aid India.
However, the depth and cooperation in the India-Israel bilateral ties doesn’t end here. The ambit of India-Israel defence cooperation has widened to include other domains like economy, agriculture, etc.; however, the cornerstone remains Israeli arms sales to India.
Other Areas of Co-operation:
- Economic Relations:
- Trade, technology and tourism are the three key areas in India-Israel economic relations.
- Over the last 25 years, bilateral trade has increased from $200 million to more than $4 billion (excluding defence) in 2016-17.
- Given India’s large market and huge consumer base, the numbers are low compared to India’s economic relations with other countries.
- Israel will invest $68.6 million to boost cooperation with India in areas like tourism, technology, agriculture and innovation over a period of four years.
- The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and its Israeli counterpart are exploring partnerships and the two sides are also focusing on cyber security collaboration to safeguard their financial markets
- Water and Agriculture:
- India and Israel are set to jointly develop new crop varieties and share post-harvest technologies following the success of the 10-year-old Indo-Israeli Agriculture Project (IIAP).
- Israel has become one of the foremost technology superpowers in areas such as rainwater harvesting, use of oceanic water and using that for irrigation in the driest land.
- Israel has mastered water conservation techniques and India can learn from it.
- It helps India to face its water stressed condition.
- Another area of potential cooperation is cleaning polluted rivers.
Challenges:
- It is difficult to delink Israel and Palestine in India’s foreign policy, making it a significant consideration while strategizing the diplomatic relationship with Israel and other nations in the Middle East.
- India’s ties with Iran are challenged in the current situation due to its close ties with Israel and the US, making it choose between these nations.
- Israel’s politics dominated by its antagonistic attitude towards the Palestinians is also making it difficult for India to enhance the diplomatic relationship.
- Israel’s discrimination towards minorities, especially the Jewish minorities from India is hindering the diplomatic ties.
- The inflexible stance by the current government in Israel and the US makes it highly difficult for India to manoeuvre and balance its ties with Iran and other nations that are against Israel.
Way forward:
- Together, the existing Indian and Israeli innovation ecosystem can create a global impact.
- Israeli companies can join hands with India’s manufacturing sectors to scale up the innovations.
- Greater partnership in new R&D projects in India in areas like digital healthcare, agriculture and water.
- India can leverage its space technologies to Israel for its developmental purposes where India enjoys upper hand.
- India could well take a cue from how Israel maintains stringent external and internal security, allowing Israeli settlements right up to the border of conflict zones.
- Israeli defence industries are well inclined towards joint ventures to give a boost to the ‘Make in India’ campaign.
- India-Israeli deal to jointly develop a medium range surface-to-air missile system is a good business model to work on.
- A joint research and development fund can work wonders.
- Indian-Israeli companies with their innovation can together stimulate domestic manufacturing and agriculture sector.
- The Israeli dairy genetic material can revolutionise the dairy industry in India.
- Israel will be benefited from large pool of skilled Indian engineers and doctors as Isreali PM quoted “Indian talent and Israeli technology equals India-Israel ties for tomorrow.”
Conclusion:
For too long, India has, under the guise of maintaining its strategic autonomy, shied away from explicit friendships in the international scenario. The India-Israel relationship must continue to expand. What just needs to be done away with is the normative posturing of the relationship which could potentially endanger India’s international relations and also its domestic situation.
General Studies – 3
Topic: Issues related to direct and indirect farm subsidies and minimum support prices; Public Distribution System-objectives, functioning, limitations, revamping; issues of buffer stocks and food security; Technology missions; economics of animal-rearing.
Reference: Hindustan Times
Introduction:
The Indian economy is all set to contract this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There is only bright spot in this year’s economic story; the agriculture sector. A good rabi crop harvest, adequate rainfall during the ongoing monsoon and encouraging data on sowing on kharif crops, all point towards a good performance by agriculture.
Body:
Farm incomes have been squeezed by slower output growth, higher costs and increased vulnerability to a changing climate. Economists said that the GDP deflator for agriculture is negative for the first time in many years. The NSSO Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households (2013) shows that 52% of farming households are indebted, with rates as high as 89-92% in some States.
Need for policy intervention:
- Farmers income remained low:
- India had record food production in 2017-18, but farmers’ income remained low and stagnant.
- According to Ashok Dalwai committee, farmer’s income remained about 15-40% of consumer’s price.
- Studies conducted by the International Food Policy Research Institute and World Bank have confirmed this.
- Government Policies:
- India has excessively dependent on MSP to drive crop planning by farmers. MSP is restricted only to few crops.
- In good harvest years, neither are MSP increased to ensure a floor price that covers costs and offers a remunerative return, nor is enough procured to ensure that even the MSP offered serves as a floor for market prices.
- The government continues to use old draconian measures, including stocking restrictions and bans on exports and futures trading, to even small increase in food prices. Such steps may bring temporary relief to consumers, but end up hurting farmers.
- Fiscal conservatism has adversely affected public investment in irrigation, drainage and flood control.
- Liberalised imports of agricultural commodities including foodgrains and cotton have dampened domestic prices
- Middlemen troubles:
- As pointed out by Ramesh Chand, in Punjab, there are as many as 22,000 commission agents and innumerable middlemen in each market.
- According to Ashok Gulati, former chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, commission agents in Delhi charge exorbitant fees ranging from 6 per cent to 15 per cent.
- Rigid Market Structure:
- Prevalence of APMC markers, trader cartels due to which low price for agri produce is offered specially due to bumper crop production.
- Poor Infrastructure and Logistics:
- Lack of diffusion of adequate storage facilities lead to wastage. For instance, farmers dump truckloads of vegetables on road.
- Food Parks projects concentrated near to cities and poor maintenance leads to spoilage of the crops.
- Cold storage units exist in less than one-tenth of the markets and grading facilities in less than one-third; electronic weigh-bridges are available only in a few markets.
- Aggressive cultivation led to plunge in demand:
- Once prices have increased farmers cultivated the crop aggressively leading to plunging of prices.
- Two years ago, garlic fetched an average Rs 60 per kg rate in Rajasthan’s Kota mandi. Enthused by it, farmers in the Hadoti region planted more area, only to see prices halve last May.
- Similar was the case for other vegetables. Example: Tomato, Toor Dal etc.
- Pro-Consumer bias:
- In most years, for the majority of agri-products, the policymakers used restrictive export policies to keep domestic prices low. This showed the pro-consumer bias in the policy complex.
- Information Asymmetry:
- A bumper crop can pull down prices in wholesale markets. Price spikes after a poor crop are inevitably dealt with through cheap imports in a bid to protect consumers. The opposite is done less frequently. This is due to lack of information.
- The bountiful rains of 2016 resulted in record farm output. Prices crashed. Farmers are reported to have not been able to even recover the cost for some crops.
- The prospects of a good monsoon pushed up rural wages. The reality of rock bottom prices then destroyed profit margins.
Measures needed:
- Credit, finance and Insurance:
- A functional institutional credit system which is accessible and accountable to all cultivators.
- This covers not only land-owning farmers but also sharecroppers, tenants, adivasi and women farmers, and animal-rearers.
- Credit products for agriculture need to be tailor-made based on cropping and rain cycle, specific to a particular region. The regional offices of commercial banks should contribute in this exercise. Registration of all cultivators and providing Kisan credit cards.
- The period of crop loan should be extendable to four years, given that, on average, every second or third year the spatial distribution of rain pattern is erratic in India.
- Strengthen agricultural insurance, reforming agricultural marketing and introduction of model contract farming act
- Input Costs:
- It is more important to make agriculture sustainable by reducing input costs of seeds, fertilizers and other inputs.
- Remunerative Prices:
- Extending reach of minimum support price which has been dedicated to few crops and in a narrow geographical area is important.
- Set up of Futures and Trade markets, tie up of farmer and private companies for procurement should be looked into as alternative methods against distress sale.
- Agro- Produce Marketing and Processing:
- The agro-processing industry and warehousing needs to expand so that agricultural produce can be stored when prices plunge.
- Promoting viable farmer collectives to act as a “collective voice of marginal and small farmers”.
- Legislations on the basis of NITI Aayog’s new model law — Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing (Promotion and Facilitating) Act (APLM) should be enacted in all states.
- Technology:
- Use of technology to aid farmers like drip and sprinkler irrigation.
- Precision agriculture, GM Crops should be encouraged drought prone areas.
- Space technology and Mobiles should act as “Eyes and Ears” of the farmers to assist in farming.
- Distress Management:
- Establish farmers’ distress and disaster relief commissions at the national and State levels, based on the model of Kerala Farmers’ Debt Relief Commission.
Conclusion:
Farmers’ distress is due to low prices and low productivity. Limited procurement, measures to improve low productivity, and consolidation of land holdings to gain the benefits of size, can help in reducing agrarian distress. The challenge before government is to deliver on the institutional solutions backed by a long term policy demanded by farmers as against temporary solutions of loan waivers
Topic: Security challenges and their management in border areas – linkages of organized crime with terrorism; money-laundering and its prevention.
Reference: The Hindu
Introduction:
The seizure of contraband gold from a diplomatic consignment in Thiruvananthapuram has come as a major embarrassment for the Kerala government. It has not only put the spotlight on gold smuggling in the State, but has prompted the Centre to despatch the National Investigation Agency.
The seizure of 30 kg of gold, worth ₹14.82 crore, at the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport recently would have ended up as another routine seizure made by the Commissionerate of Customs (Preventive) if not for the fact that the contraband had arrived in a diplomatic consignment meant for the Charge d’Affaires of the UAE.
Body:
According to the World Gold Council, India has gold reserves totalling 618 tonnes, the 10th largest gold reserve in the world. India in 2018 produced 281.3 tonnes of fine gold from both gold and silver dore that were imported to the country. It was the highest on record and its share to gross gold imports touched 37 per cent, and it share of total imports for domestic consumption (net imports) touched 55 per cent. International non-government organisation IMPACT, in its latest report, has said that India has become one of the largest gold smuggling hubs in the world.
Findings of the report:
- Gold possibly tied to conflict, human rights abuses and corruption in Africa and South America is entering legal international markets through India, said the Canada-headquartered organisation in a statement.
- The NGO said it had uncovered how the country imported about 1,000 tonnes of gold per year — a quarter more than the official figures indicated.
- The report said that one third of the world’s gold passed through India, identifying three primary factors for smuggling: tax breaks, falsified origin documents and complicit allies.
- To boost India’s refinery sector, the government had introduced tax breaks in 2013 for unrefined gold. this led to traders covering up questionable provenance claims by falsifying documentation to take advantage of lower taxes.
- The report says gold is either smuggled into India surreptitiously, “with tons of refined bullion evading the authorities”, or it simply enters with the help of “falsified paperwork”.
- The source of spikes in gold doré imports can be traced to countries that “lack strong internal controls or are linked to supply chains with weak evidence of due diligence”
- The import of unrefined gold shot from 23 tonnes in 2012 to over 229 tonnes in 2015.
- The report said that refined gold was being smuggled into India primarily from the United Arab Emirates, while key traders and refiners in Africa’s Great Lakes region with links to India were identified as being part of the illicit gold trade.
Measures needed:
- There is a need to address the issue of gold smuggling in India: the harmonisation of taxes, followed by an enhanced regulatory system at the border to filter falsified documentation.
- Harmonising of taxes and enhanced regulatory controls with additional valid information for all imports to discourage smuggling.
- Authorities must take action to remove incentives for gold smuggling and ensure the gold industry implements due diligence.
- There is a need to strengthen the detection of the smuggling of gold through the border areas, which is challenging due to the topography and porosity of the land border.
Conclusion:
IMPACT also calls on actors across India’s gold industry to implement due diligence on their gold supply chains. Gold traders, refiners, and jewellers have a responsibility to understand, mitigate, and publically report on any risks in their supply chain—all the way back to the mine site.
Topic: Disaster and disaster management.
Reference: Hindustan Times
Introduction:
Floods have once again inundated Assam and Bihar. A study by the Asian Development Bank says that floods already account for at least half of all climate-related disasters in the country. The trend of extreme rainfall and erratic monsoon patterns will only exacerbate this challenge. India must rethink its flood-control strategies.
Body:
Recent floods in India:
- In an unnerving reminder of 2017 devastating floods, Kerala’s worst in about 100 years, incessant precipitation has deluged many districts, causing havoc, snapping communication lines and claiming several lives.
- Rains have battered Karnataka and Maharashtra, too in 2019, leaving many dead and several missing.
- Meanwhile, dramatic visuals from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat in 2019 have revealed widespread distress.
- Parts of Bihar and Assam are also reeling under torrential rainfall every year, with a large number of people left battling grim circumstances.
Impacts:
- The deluge has displaced thousands of people, destroyed infrastructure, and wiped out rich, generations-old biodiversity.
- The two states have moved people and livestock out to temporary shelters, and provided them with food and medical help.
- In Assam, the government has the additional responsibility of rescuing and providing food and veterinary services to the wild animals of the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve, 85% of which is submerged.
Challenges in tackling the flood:
- The first flaw is in the official understanding and assessment of floods as destructive, which require construction-led solutions.
- Floods have been part of the lives of riverine people because they bring silt, vegetation, sediment, and fish into the water systems of an area. They only became a “menace” when engineers, starting from the British era, designed engineering solutions — embankments and barrages and dams — to control them.
- People also started encroaching on floodplains, choking urban drainage systems, paving green spaces, and destroying ponds and lakes.
- Floods in South Asia are now acknowledged as an ecological force mediated by social, cultural and political interventions rather than exclusively borne out as an effect of nature.
Changes needed in strategy to tackle floods:
- India’s policymakers must do away with the pro-embankment strategy; restore agricultural practices that make best use of floods; ensure re-vegetation of catchments to control rapid soil loss; revive dry springs; and ensure greater percolation of rainwater.
- The dire need is for watershed-based master planning and development legislated guidelines for each major river basin, especially those that impact densely populated settlements.
- There must be a demarcation of ecologically sensitive zones using existing village survey maps and public participation.
- There must be clear land use plan for these zones specifying flood plains, protected forest areas, agricultural and plantation zones, with details of the types of crops, building usages permitted and the density of buildings permitted.
- To compensate owners in non-buildable areas, there must be strategies such as Transfer of Development Rights to buildable zones in cities.
- The master plan should focus on permitting only ecologically sensitive building strategies for these areas by proposing new construction techniques.
- Controlled development can be proposed using building height rules, floor area ratio control, and restrictions on cutting and filling natural land.
- Strategies to make sure that all infrastructure projects are carried out in a scientific manner with strict scrutiny must be specified.
- This should include roads built on difficult terrain and all public infrastructure projects in wetlands and the High Ranges.
- Copenhagen in Denmark, which faces a similar problem of repeated flooding, has come up with active cloudburst responsive planning as a process to develop the city in line with climate change needs.
Conclusion:
A complete overhaul of processes to hire technical expertise which allows access to necessary skills, and with a long-term vision of capacity building of local agencies, is the way forward.
