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General Studies – 1
Topic:The Freedom Struggle — its various stages and important contributors/contributions from different parts of the country.
Reference: Modern Indian history by Bipin Chandra
Why the question:
The questions talks about participation of women in Indian freedom movement and role of political leaders like Gandhi and Nehru and their failure in ensuring full participation of women in the movement.
Key Demand of the question:
Explain the participation of women in Indian freedom movement and critically analyse the factors that limited the participation.
Directive:
Critically analyze – When asked to analyse, you have to examine methodically the structure or nature of the topic by separating it into component parts and present them as a whole in a summary. When ‘critically’ is suffixed or prefixed to a directive, one needs to look at the good and bad of the topic and give a fair judgment.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start briefly by mentioning participation of women in Indian freedom struggle.
Body:
Hundreds and thousands of women of India had participated in the freedom movement with courage. The entire history of the freedom movement is replete with the saga of bravery, sacrifice and political sagacity of women.
Discuss role of women briefly; explain the factors that were responsible for their restricted participation. Women did not get the benefit of Western education. Despite mobilization, the role of women was mostly confined to support activities and seldom in leadership had roles, which was more of a reflective of society that was India, as women in general also performed support work mostly. Thus, most women were comfortable only in women’s gatherings and proceedings. It won’t be correct to blame the leadership for this lacuna.
Conclusion:
Conclude with importance.
Introduction:
The history of Indian freedom struggle would be incomplete without mentioning the contribution of women. The sacrifice made by the women of India newline will occupy the foremost place. The history of freedom struggle is replete with the saga of sacrifice, selflessness, bravery of women. Many of us don’t know that there were hundreds of women who fought side by side with their male counterparts. They fought with true spirit and undismayed courage. The Indian women broke away from various restrictions and got out of their traditional home-oriented roles and responsibilities.
Body:
The participation of women in the freedom struggle and National awakening is simply incredible and praiseworthy. However, it is not easy for women to fight as warriors in the male dominating society.
- Even though females tried to change the perception of such orthodox people who thought women are meant to do only household chores.
- In the pre-independence period, the status of women within the country was in a deprived state. The major cause of this was, there was a prevalence of male dominance. The major responsibilities of the women were dedicated towards the implementation of household responsibilities and they were not allowed to participate in the implementation of other tasks and activities, no where they allowed to express their ideas and viewpoints.
- During this period, number of systems, were put into operation, which imposed unfavorable effects upon women. These include child marriages, restraints were imposed upon widow remarriage, female foeticide, female infanticide, purdah system, sati and polygamy.
- During the period of the East India Company, many social reformers such as Raja Ram Mohan Rai, Ishwar Chander Vidya Sagar and Jyotiba Phule had undergone numerous challenges that were associated with bringing about changes in the status of women within the Indian society.
- The women in large numbers provided food and shelter, carried messages and arms. They were not always from the elite educated society. The uneducated poor women played this role without waiting for any social sanction. Thus the women’s invisible role in the nationalist movement, which provided greater support to it had received very little formal acknowledgement.
- Similarly women’s active participation also remained invisible. Some British women who made Indian Nationalism their own cause, played an important role as helpers as well as ‘catalysts’, such as Annie Besant,Margaret Cousins,Irish sister Nivedita etc. Margaret cousins wrote a spirited letter to Gandhiji for his division of work by sex, as women had been left in the ashram and Sabarmati, while men accompanied him in his Dandi March.
- As a consequence the Gandhian appeal first attracted the educated elite women with well-placed husbands and servants. To these women family was the first priority than Nation. The new patriarchy of nationalism gave women a new social responsibility of not to alienate men, but to maintain the cohesiveness of family life and solidarity with the kin group. In addition by associating the task of “female emancipation” with sovereign nationhood, nationalism bound them to yet legitimate subordination.
- The social reform did help to improve the status of Indian women but the merger of both had diluted the strength of both the movement. Everything the women had to do within the patriarchal family was not given importance as because the women were not seen as individuals. It was their hard work and readiness for come what may have helped them to prove their strength during the Civil Disobedience Movement, Salt Satyagraha and the Quit India Movement.
- It is the inner strength of women that came up during the Extremist Movement in Bengal, when a galaxy of young girls readily sacrificed their lives for the freedom movement and innumerable number of women provided support to freedom fighters, looked after their families in the absence of their fathers, husbands and sons.
- Participation in the national movement was not limited within the elite class. They did provided the organizational base and ideas to the common women but once aroused they became a strong part in the national movement. The Swadeshi Movement marked the formation of women organizations. These organizations became the medium for expression of women’s opinion.
- At the same time they were a training ground for the women, who would later take up the leadership role in the social and political institutions. Renowned historian Geraldine Forbes had pointed out that ‘these institutions played an important role in the formation of Nation’. The women organizations though build on the western model tried their best to adapt the role of an ideal Indian woman, as a companion of man and an ideal mother and at the same time standing for the savior of the country.
- Some important organizations of the period are Mahila Shilpa Samiti (1906-1908), Bharat Stri Mahamandal, The Hindu Ladies Social and Literacy Cell, Gujrati Stree Mondal. The Bharat Mahila Parishad organized several educational programmes in which notable women like Ramabai, Annie Besant, Sarojini Naidu and several others gave speech.
- Local Muslim women’s organization was also found in the early 20th Century by the upper class Muslim women. In these organizations both Hindu and Muslim women started to define their own interests and proposed solution, and action was taken through association. Thus we see though the associations were initially urban and organized by upper class elite women yet it had the desire to serve all class of women. It was the members of these associations who were drawn to the nationalist movement by nationalist leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.
- In the swadeshi movement the Bengali men sought the help of women to strengthen it. The nationalists gave religious colour to the movement, by comparing women with ‘Shakti’ (primal power). It is the hidden strength in every woman which comes in front in the period of crisis. This touched the heart of women who could effortlessly identify themselves as parts however small with ‘Shakti’.
- Women as a form of protest observed ‘arandhan’, ‘rakshabandhan’ etc. with great enthusiasm. Swarna kumari Debi, Kumudini Mitra, Banalata Debi and many others actively propagated for using Swadeshi goods. Sarala Debi played an important organizational role, she established at her residence in Calcutta a centre for physical culture. She also tried to infuse a martial sprit in the members of the club by introducing Birastami Brata and by organizing Pratapaditya and Udayaditya Utsav.
- In the first phase of revolutionary movement we also see women participating in manufacturing bombs. Radha Rani Roy wife of Motilal Roy and Netrakshi Ghosh niece of Sagarkali Ghosh became expert in mixing and pounding chemicals for manufacturing crude explosives.
- During the Non- Cooperation Movement women in different parts of India joined processions, propagated the use of khadi and charkha, some of them left government schools and colleges. Renuka Roy, Vijaylaxmi Pundit and many others left the government institutions and joined the movement. Basanti Debi wife of C.R.Das asked women to boycott foreign goods. In Bengal women in numbers joined the protest. Women of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri took the idea of spinning wheels. Helen Lepcha joined the Ahmedabad session of Indian National Congress
- In the Salt satyagraha, Sarojini Naidu along with a band of women followed Gandhi inspite of his objection in the beginning. Women in large number joined her to Dharasana where Gandhi had given her the Leadership. Not only did the women supported the salt Satyagraha, they also turned their own houses the shelter of Congress workers. They started selling small packages of salt at street corners, picketed shops and prevented men from entering liquor shops. The awakening of these women was mostly self-motivated.
- Beside the women joining the nationalist movement called by Gandhi, there were few women who did not believe in the path of non- violence.
- They were active in Bengal, Dacca, Comilla and Chittagong. Kalpana Joshi, Preetilata wadedkar were associated with the Chittagong armoury raid, Preetilata died while assisting Masterda Surya Sen.
- Shanti and Suniti two young girls of Commilla shot dead Stevens the District Magistrate of Commilla in December 1931 and were given life imprisonments. Few of them had come in front but there were many others whose life and contribution still had to be reconstructed.
- The peasant women were in large participants of various Gandhian movements; they from time to time refused to pay tax and had protested even in lying down on streets. But in the Tebhaga movement their expression was much matured, they fought for their own cause.
- In the Quit India Movement almost all the top leaders of congress were arrested even before the movement took its shape, yet the movement was carried on with the full enthusiasm of the participants.
- Aruna Asaf Ali and Usha Mehta efficiently took up the mantel of leadership of Congress.
- In Assam a young girl named Kanaklata Barua led a procession of five hundred women and was killed by the police.
- In Midnapore Matangini Hazra was killed while leading a protest procession.
- Thus we see that the Gandhian movement broke its restriction and move on its own discourse and the women were more formative in their protest.
Conclusion:
Though initially sidelined in their early phase of Gandhian movement, but Mahatma Gandhi realized the importance of women as we saw a gradual increase in the participation of women in the national movement thereafter. They even became an important part in upper leadership with Sarojini Naidu becoming President of Kanpur Congression session. But overall leadership remained with men.
The nationalist discourse of the nineteenth century had thus given a new shape to the traditional role of Indian women as mothers and wives in a modernized form with a patriotic flavor. Politics was integrated with the women social reform movements. The women long secluded in their private domain controlled by men came out in large numbers. In their political participation thus comes out their collective aspirations along with their nationalistic demand.
General Studies – 2
Topic : Indian Constitution—historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure.
Reference: The Hindu
Why the question:
The article brings to us the importance of Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala.
Key Demand of the question:
Discuss in detail the importance of the Kesavananda Bharati case in upholding the values Indian democracy.
Directive:
Discuss – This is an all-encompassing directive – you have to debate on paper by going through the details of the issues concerned by examining each one of them. You have to give reasons for both for and against arguments.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start by explaining what the case was.
Body:
Explain that the case was crucial in upholding the supremacy of the Constitution and preventing authoritarian rule by a single party.
on April 24, 1973, Chief Justice Sikri and 12 judges of the Supreme Court assembled to deliver the most important judgment in its history. The case of Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala had been heard for 68 days, the arguments commencing on October 31, 1972, and ending on March 23, 1973. The hard work and scholarship that had gone into the preparation of this case was breathtaking. Literally hundreds of cases had been cited and the then Attorney-General had made a comparative chart analyzing the provisions of the Constitutions of 71 different countries.
Talk about the Article 368 in the context of the case, explain its significance today.
Conclusion:
Conclude by highlighting how the case saved the constitutional rights and upheld the democracy.
Introduction:
The Kesavananda Bharati judgment introduced the Basic Structure doctrine which limited Parliament’s power to make drastic amendments that may affect the core values enshrined in the Constitution like secularism and federalism. The verdict upheld the power of the Supreme Court to judicially review laws of Parliament. It evolved the concept of separation of powers among the three branches of governance — legislative, executive and the judiciary.
Body:
The pre-Kesavanada position:
- Parliament’s authority to amend the Constitution, particularly the chapter on the fundamental rights of citizens, was challenged as early as in 1951. After independence, several laws were enacted in the states with the aim of reforming land ownership and tenancy structures. This was in keeping with the ruling Congress party’s electoral promise of implementing the socialistic goals of the Constitution contained in Article 39(b) and (c) of the Directive Principles of State Policy that required equitable distribution of resources of production among all citizens and prevention of concentration of wealth in the hands of a few.
- Property owners — adversely affected by these laws — petitioned the courts. The courts struck down the land reforms laws saying that they transgressed the fundamental right to property guaranteed by the Constitution. Piqued by the unfavourable judgements, Parliament placed these laws in the Ninth Scheduleof the Constitution through the First and Fourth amendments (1951 and 1952 respectively), thereby effectively removing them from the scope of judicial review.
- Parliament added the Ninth Schedule to the Constitution through the very first amendment in 1951as a means of immunising certain laws against judicial review. Under the provisions of Article 31, which themselves were amended several times later, laws placed in the Ninth Schedule — pertaining to acquisition of private property and compensation payable for such acquisition — cannot be challenged in a court of law on the ground that they violated the fundamental rights of citizens.
- This protective umbrella covers more than 250 laws passed by state legislatures with the aim of regulating the size of land holdings and abolishing various tenancy systems. The Ninth Schedule was created with the primary objective of preventing the judiciary – which upheld the citizens’ right to property on several occasions – from derailing the Congress party led government’s agenda for a social revolution.
- Property owners again challenged the constitutional amendments which placed land reforms laws in the Ninth Schedule before the Supreme Court, saying that they violated Article 13 (2) of the Constitution.
- Article 13 (2) provides for the protection of the fundamental rights of the citizen. Parliament and the state legislatures are clearly prohibited from making laws that may take away or abridge the fundamental rights guaranteed to the citizen.
- They argued that any amendment to the Constitution had the status of a law as understood by Article 13 (2). In 1952 Sankari Prasad Singh Deo v. Unionof India and 1955 Sajjan Singh v. Rajasthan the Supreme Court rejected both arguments and upheld the power of Parliament to amend any part of the Constitution including that which affects the fundamental rights of citizens. Significantly though, two dissenting judges in Sajjan Singh v.Rajasthan case raised doubts whether the fundamental rights of citizens could become a plaything of the majority party in Parliament.
The Golaknath verdict:
- In 1967 an eleven-judge bench of the Supreme Court reversed its position. Delivering its 6:5 majority judgement in the Golaknath v. State of Punjab case [7], It put forth the curious position that Article 368, that contained provisions related to the amendment of the Constitution,merely laid down the amending procedure. Article 368 did not confer upon Parliament the power to amend the Constitution.
- The majority judgement invoked the concept of implied limitations on Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution. This view held that the Constitution gives a place of permanence to the fundamental freedoms of the citizen. In giving the Constitution to themselves, the people had reserved the fundamental rights for themselves. Article 13, according to the majority view, expressed this limitation on the powers of Parliament. Parliament could not modify, restrict or impair fundamental freedoms due to this very scheme of the Constitution and the nature of the freedoms granted under it.
- The judges stated that the fundamental rights were so sacrosanct and transcendental in importance that they could not be restricted even if such a move were to receive unanimous approval of both houses of Parliament.
Emergence of the Basic Structure Concept- the Kesavanada milestone
- Through a spate of amendments made between July 1971 and June 1972 Parliament sought to regain lost ground. It restored for itself the absolute power to amend any part of the Constitution including Part III, dealing with fundamental rights. Even the President was made duty bound to give his assent to any amendment bill passed by both houses of Parliament. Several curbs on the right property were passed into law. The right to equality before the law and equal protection of the laws (Article 14)and the fundamental freedoms guaranteed under Article 19 were made subordinate to Article 39 (b) & (c) in the Directive Principles of State Policy. Privy purses of erstwhile princes were abolished and an entire category of legislation dealing with land reforms was placed in the Ninth Schedule beyond the scope of judicial review.
- Inevitably, the constitutional validity of these amendments was challenged before a full bench of the Supreme Court (thirteen judges). The seminal concept of ‘basic structure’ of the Constitution gained recognition in the majority verdict.
- All judges upheld the validity of the Twenty-fourthamendment saying that Parliament had the power to amend any or all provisions of the Constitution. All signatories to the summary held that the Golaknath case had been decided wrongly and that Article 368 contained both the power and the procedure for amending the Constitution. However they were clear that an amendment to the Constitution was not the same as a law as understood by Article 13 (2).
- Parliament’s constituent power was subject to inherent limitations. Parliament could not use its amending powers underArticle 368 to ‘damage’, ’emasculate’, ‘destroy’, ‘abrogate’, ‘change’ or ‘alter’ the ‘basic structure’ or framework of the Constitution.
- The ‘basic structure’ doctrine has since been interpreted to include the supremacy of the Constitution, the rule of law, Independence of the judiciary, doctrine of separation of powers, sovereign democratic republic, the parliamentary system of government, the principle of free and fair elections, welfare state, etc.
Basic Structure concept reaffirmed- the Indira Gandhi Election case:
- In 1975, a challenge to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s election victory was upheld by the Allahabad High Court on grounds of electoral malpractice in 1975.
- Meanwhile, Parliament passed the Thirty-ninth amendmentto the Constitution which removed the authority of the Supreme Court to adjudicate petitions regarding elections of the President, Vice President, Prime Minister and Speaker of the Lok Sabha. Section 4 of the Amendment Bill effectively thwarted any attempt to challenge the election of an incumbent, occupying any of the above offices in a court of law.
- Four out of five judges on the bench upheld the Thirty-ninth amendment, but only after striking down that part which sought to curb the power of the judiciary to adjudicate in the current election dispute as judicial review was the part of basic structure of the constitution.
Basic structure doctrine reaffirmed- the Minerva Mills and Waman Rao cases:
- The Forty-second amendmentwas challenged before the Supreme Court in the Minerva Mills case.
- The majority view upheld the power of judicial review of constitutional amendments. They maintained that clauses (4) and (5) of Article 368 conferred unlimited power on Parliament to amend the Constitution. They said that this deprived courts of the ability to question the amendment even if it damaged or destroyed the Constitution’s basic structure. It ruled that a limited amending power itselfis a basic feature of the Constitution.
- The majority held the amendment to Article 31Cunconstitutional as it destroyed the harmony and balance between fundamental rights and directive principles which is an essential or basic feature of the Constitution.
- All laws placed in the Ninth Scheduleafter the date of the Kesavananda Bharati judgement were also open to review in the courts. They can be challenged on the ground that they are beyond Parliament’s constituent power or that they have damaged the basic structure of the Constitution. In essence, the Supreme Court struck a balance between its authority to interpret the Constitution and Parliament’s power to amend it.
Conclusion:
The sovereign, democratic and secular character of the polity, rule of law, independence of the judiciary, fundamental rights of citizens etc. are some of the essential features of the Constitution that have appeared time and again in the apex court’s pronouncements. One certainty that emerged out of this tussle between Parliament and the judiciary is that all laws and constitutional amendments are now subject to judicial review and laws that transgress the basic structure are likely to be struck down by the Supreme Court. In essence Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution is not absolute and the Supreme Court is the final arbiter over and interpreter of all constitutional amendments. This was the inherent and implied limitation on the amending power of Parliament. This basic structure doctrine, as future events showed, saved Indian democracy and Kesavananda Bharati will always occupy a hallowed place in our constitutional history.
Topic: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
Reference: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Why the question:
The question is straightforward and talks about the Public healthcare system in India.
Key Demand of the question:
Discuss the issues with the public healthcare system in India and explain how these issues can be addressed.
Directive:
Explain – Clarify the topic by giving a detailed account as to how and why it occurred, or what is the particular context. You must be defining key terms where ever appropriate, and substantiate with relevant associated facts.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Introduce by discussing public healthcare system & its components in India.
Body:
The public healthcare system in India comprises the public infrastructure and various schemes provided by the government in the delivery of health services. It includes the primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare institutions, professional research and training institutions, personnel implementing various health programs and health management information systems.
Enumerate the issues associated with the public healthcare system in India like insufficient expenditure, inadequate physical infrastructure, inadequate human resources etc.
Highlight the measures that can be taken to address these issues.
Conclusion:
Conclude on the basis of aforementioned points.
Introduction:
Post-Independence there has been a significant improvement, in the health status of people. Public health and health services have been synonymous in India. This integration has dwarfed the growth of a comprehensive public health system, which is critical to overcome some of the systemic challenges in healthcare. Poor strata of population have denied proper health care due to lack of universal healthcare.
Body:
The major challenges faced by healthcare system in India are:
- The unprecedented pandemic has exposed the weaknesses and inadequacies in the public health sector in India right from shortage of doctors, beds, emergency equipment and medicines.
- Finance: At about 1.3% of the national income, India’s public healthcare spending between 2008 and 2015, has virtually remained stagnant. This is way less than the global average of 6 per cent. It is a herculean task to implement a scheme that could potentially cost Rs 5 lakh per person and benefit 53.7 crore out of India’s 121 crore citizenry, or roughly about 44% of the country’s population. Over 70 per cent of the total healthcare expenditure is accounted for by the private sector.
- Crumbling public health infrastructure: Given the country’s crumbling public healthcare infrastructure, most patients are forced to go to private clinics and hospitals. There is a shortage of PHCs (22%) and sub-health centres (20%), while only 7% sub-health centres and 12% primary health centres meet Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) norms.
- Approximately 70 per cent of the healthcare services in India are provided by private players. If private healthcare crumbles due to economic constraints or other factors, India’s entire healthcare system can crumble.
- High Out of Pocket Expenditure: Reports suggest that 70% of the medical spending is from the patient’s pockets leading to huge burden and pushing many into poverty. Most consumers complain of rising costs. Hundred days into the PMJAY, it remains to be seen if private hospitals provide knee replacement at Rs 80,000 (current charges Rs 3.5 lakh) bypass surgery at Rs 1.7 lakh (against Rs 4 lakh).
- Insurance: India has one of the lowest per capita healthcare expenditures in the world. Government contribution to insurance stands at roughly 32 percent, as opposed to 83.5 percent in the UK. The high out-of-pocket expenses in India stem from the fact that 76 percent of Indians do not have health insurance.
- Doctor-Density Ratio: India has a doctor-to-population ratio well below the level recommended by the WHO — 1:1,445, which adds up to a total of roughly 1,159,000 doctors. The WHO says the ideal ratio is 1:1,000.
- Shortage of Medical Personnel: Data by IndiaSpend show that there is a staggering shortage of medical and paramedical staff at all levels of care: 10,907 auxiliary nurse midwives and 3,673 doctors are needed at sub-health and primary health centres, while for community health centres the figure is 18,422 specialists.
- Rural-urban disparity: The rural healthcare infrastructure is three-tiered and includes a sub-center, primary health centre (PHC) and CHC. PHCs are short of more than 3,000 doctors, with the shortage up by 200 per cent over the last 10 years to 27,421. Private hospitals don’t have adequate presence in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities and there is a trend towards super specialisation in Tier-1 cities.
- Social Inequality: The growth of health facilities has been highly imbalanced in India. Rural, hilly and remote areas of the country are under served while in urban areas and cities, health facility is well developed. The SC/ST and the poor people are far away from modern health service.
- Poor healthcare ranking: India ranks as low as 145th among 195 countries in healthcare quality and accessibility, behind even Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
- Commercial motive: lack of transparency and unethical practices in the private sector.
- Lack of level playing field between the public and private hospitals: This has been a major concern as public hospitals would continue receiving budgetary support. This would dissuade the private players from actively participating in the scheme.
- Scheme flaws: The overall situation with the National Health Mission, India’s flagship programme in primary health care, continues to be dismal. The NHM’s share in the health budget fell from 73% in 2006 to 50% in 2019 in the absence of uniform and substantial increases in health spending by States.
Steps taken up currently:
- The National Health Policy (NHP) 2017 advocated allocating resources of up to two-thirds or more to primary care as it enunciated the goal of achieving “the highest possible level of good health and well-being, through a preventive and promotive healthcare orientation”.
- A 167% increase in allocation this year for the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) — the insurance programme which aims to cover 10 crore poor families for hospitalisation expenses of up to ₹5 lakh per family per annum.
- The Independence Day address of the Prime Minister launching the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) during an unprecedented novel coronavirus pandemic crisis, with ab larger aim to health for all, right from grassroots level.
- The government’s recent steps to incentivise the private sector to open hospitals in Tier II and Tier III cities.
- Individual states are adopting technology to support health-insurance schemes. For instance, Remedinet Technology (India’s first completely electronic cashless health insurance claims processing network) has been signed on as the technology partner for the Karnataka Government’s recently announced cashless health insurance schemes.
Way forward:
- There is an immediate need to increase the public spending to 2.5% of GDP, despite that being lower than global average of 5.4%.
- The achievement of a distress-free and comprehensive wellness system for all hinges on the performance of health and wellness centers as they will be instrumental in reducing the greater burden of out-of-pocket expenditure on health.
- There is a need to depart from the current trend of erratic and insufficient increases in health spending and make substantial and sustained investments in public health over the next decade.
- A National Health Regulatory and Development Framework needs to be made for improving the quality (for example registration of health practitioners), performance, equity, efficacy and accountability of healthcare delivery across the country.
- Increase the Public-Private Partnerships to increase the last-mile reach of healthcare.
- Generic drugs and Jan Aushadi Kendras should be increased to make medicines affordable and reduce the major component of Out of Pocket Expenditure.
- The government’s National Innovation Council, which is mandated to provide a platform for collaboration amongst healthcare domain experts, stakeholders and key participants, should encourage a culture of innovation in India and help develop policy on innovations that will focus on an Indian model for inclusive growth.
- India should take cue from other developing countries like Thailand to work towards providing Universal Health Coverage. UHC includes three components: Population coverage, disease coverage and cost coverage.
- Leveraging the benefits of Information Technology like computer and mobile-phone based e-health and m-health initiatives to improve quality of healthcare service delivery. Start-ups are investing in healthcare sector from process automation to diagnostics to low-cost innovations. Policy and regulatory support should be provided to make healthcare accessible and affordable.
- Leveraging AYUSH services in non-critical care as demonstrated during the pandemic can be vital to augment the capacity of the allopathic services.
Conclusion:
As we get ready to face a future which is full of possibility and uncertainty in equal measure, let us recognize these and other challenges and prepare to meet them, remembering that the fight against ill health is the fight against all that is harmful to humanity.
General Studies – 3
Topic: Role of external state and non-state actors in creating challenges to internal security.
Reference: The Hindu
Why the question:
The article talks about the search for an end to the complex Naga conflict.
Key Demand of the question:
Explain in detail the relevance and importance of compromise in the regions of armed insurgencies.
Directive:
Analyze – When asked to analyse, you have to examine methodically the structure or nature of the topic by separating it into component parts and present them as a whole in a summary.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
One can start by explaining the current status with respect to the Naga conflict.
Body:
Despite having huge strategic significance, India’s northeastern frontier has largely remained marginal in the country’s popular imagination as well as mainstream politics. The region has witnessed multiple crises including bloody insurgencies, but still lacks the emotional resonance of the Kashmir conflict due to geographical, cultural, and ethnic factors.
Rooted in the politics of sub-nationalism, complexities of regional geopolitics and the evolving dynamics of counterinsurgency tactics, the Naga insurgency has defied a lasting solution; it is an extraordinarily complicated conflict whose management has involved a mix of violent response and bargaining.
Discuss why and how the resolution involving “compromise” is important to address the regions of Insurgencies.
Conclusion:
Conclude by suggesting solutions.
Introduction:
The Indian success in counter-insurgency campaigns owes a lot to its very political approach to counter-insurgency. The Indian state has always seen counter-insurgency as a political rather than a military problem, and it has insisted that the Indian Army accept it as such. At times, the resolution process takes after mutual compromise.
Body:
Conventional forces tend to have difficulty fighting counter-insurgency campaigns because the most effective and appropriate method to fight such wars, which requires dispersal of forces and small unit operations, are also the most difficult for conventional forces to adopt because the latter tend to emphasize the opposite: concentration of forces and large-scale operations. Two factors are emphasized.
- First, though military force is a necessary ingredient in counter-insurgency campaigns, such use of force needs to be carefully modulated for it to be effective.
- Second from the Indian experience, it is clear that patience and a long-term perspective are essential attitudinal requirements in fighting counter-insurgency campaigns.
Resolution through compromise:
- Recognizing sincere efforts to reach a negotiated settlement can be difficult because belligerents often engage in negotiations to buy time to recover from setbacks and to prepare for the next round of fighting. If the conflict has been protracted, the belligerents’ expectations of a purely military victory will probably be tempered, and they then will be more likely to seek genuine compromise.
- that the insurgents believe they can win an election or otherwise achieve their goals through legal political participation
- Incorporation into the government’s negotiating position of a liberal amnesty offer and mechanisms for former insurgents to participate in the legal political process.
- A dramatic and unexpected battlefield victory by one of the belligerents that is quickly followed by overtures to negotiate. Neither party wants to negotiate from a position of weakness, nor may a belligerent on the decline seek a symbolic victory to improve its bargaining position.
- Evidence that foreign patrons or allies are cutting off support or are pressing the insurgents or the government to negotiate.
- A change of government that brings to power a strong leader whom the insurgents view as personally committed to resolving the conflict and capable of ensuring the compliance of other government elements.
- Willingness of both sides to accept third-party mediation and monitoring of a cease-fire and the eventual implementation of an agreement.
- However, compromise might not always lead to a permanent solution.
An analysis of resolution of armed insurgencies in India:
- Prevention rather than cure:
- it is important to respond to grievances amongst the smaller ethnic groups if they are unhappy with the federal authorities or regional power-centres like the state governments. Solutions, more substantive than mere transfer of federal largesses, have to be offered centering round comprehensive devolution of power and support for development of infrastructure—and this has to happen before the ethnicities turn to armed guerrilla warfare.
- Assam chief Hiteswar Saikia’s offer in 1993-94 to create autonomous councils for many ethnic groups rather than offer one to the Bodos and than face similar demands from other communities is a case in point.
- Creating stake-holders, not surrogates:
- For instance, in Tripura, it was important to tackle the problem of tribal landlessness than just bringing about the surrender of rebel groups and then providing them attractive rehabilitation packages.
- Attempt at reconciliation, not just buy time:
- Long drawn negotiations, like the one with the NSCN, may weaken or discredit existing rebel groups but they don’t end up providing durable political solutions to issues that are political.
- The settlement has worked in Mizoram because it offered the rebels—and the Mizo people—a comprehensive political package including statehood. Long drawn negotiations may weaken groups like the NSCN but unless the issue is resolved, some other rebel outfit may emerge with the unfinished agenda.
- Split work, but comprehensive settlements work better:
- Split, so frequently used by India in northeast, has been useful to weaken rebel groups when they are fighting but the benefits are primarily tactical—it creates multiple contenders for the same political space and fails to bring about a consensus needed for a durable and a comprehensive settlement—that is why the settlement has worked in Mizoram because Laldenga could carry the entire MNF behind it.
Conclusion:
The Indian Union has one of the world’s most successful records in fighting insurgencies. Victory and loss in insurgency campaigns is, of course, relative, as expressed in the general belief among military professionals. This would find support in the Indian record: most of India’s domestic insurgencies continue, though the Indian Army and other security forces have managed to contain their intensity to very low levels. Mizo insurgency can be considered to have been resolved and on the same lines all the good work done in Naga Accord of 2015 must be preserved.
Topic: Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology. Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.
Reference: The Quint
Why the question:
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) conducted a flight test of the hypersonic technology demonstrator vehicle (HSTDV). Thus the question.
Key Demand of the question:
The question is Straightforward one must explain in detail two key features and significance of the hypersonic rose vehicle test.
Directive:
Discuss – This is an all-encompassing directive – you have to debate on paper by going through the details of the issues concerned by examining each one of them. You have to give reasons for both for and against arguments.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Explain what hypersonic cruise vehicle is.
Body:
Features of the HSTDV:
The hypersonic cruise vehicle was launched using a proven solid rocket motor, which took it to an altitude of 30 km, where the aerodynamic heat shields were separated at hypersonic speed.
It attained a speed of Mach 6 (6 times the speed of sound) i.e, nearly 2 km/s.
It uses a scramjet engine, in which air enters at supersonic speed and comes out at hypersonic speeds.
The vehicle reaches a certain altitude, then cruises and also, reaches very high temperatures, up to 1,000°-2,000° Celsius, during re-entry.
Significance:
The DRDO has successfully demonstrated the hypersonic air-breathing scramjet technology.
With this technology, cruise missiles can now travel at hypersonic speeds.
Testing paves the way for the development of more critical technologies, materials and hypersonic vehicles. It will help in the development of hypersonic cruise missiles.
Most engines use the ramjet engine which operates at supersonic speeds of up to Mach 3.
This puts India in a select club of nations that have demonstrated this technology.
Conclusion:
Conclude with its relevance and importance to India.
Introudction:
The DRDO test fired the Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV), which is expected to lay the foundation for the development of a hypersonic cruise missile system. With this successful test, India joins a select club developing Hypersonic Vehicles. These travel in excess of five times the speed of sound (Mach-5), and presently, there is no known missile system that can defeat them.
Body:
Key features of hypersonic cruise missile system:
- Hypersonic missiles travel at speeds faster than 3,800 miles per hour or 6,115 km per hour, much faster than other ballistic and cruise missiles. They can deliver conventional or nuclear payloads within minutes.
- They are highly manoeuvrable and do not follow a predictable arc as they travel. They are said to combine the speed of ballistic missiles with the manoeuvring capabilities of cruise missiles. The speed makes them hard to track compared to traditional missile tech.
- They are divided in to two types
- Hypersonic Cruise Missiles(HCM): This is typically propelled to high speeds initially using a small rocket, and then, powered to the target by a supersonic combustion ram jet (‘scramjet’) for hypersonic flight. This is what India, under its ‘Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle’ /Mach-7 BrahMos-II program, has tested.
- Hypersonic Glide Vehicles(HGV): The HGV is a ‘boost-glide’ weapon. It is first ‘boosted’ into near-space atop a conventional rocket, and then released at an appropriate altitude and speed. The release height depends on the intended trajectory to the target. Thereafter, the HGV starts to fall back to Earth, gaining more speed and gliding along the upper atmosphere, before diving onto the target.
- A cruise missile either locates its target or has a preset target. It navigates using a guidance system — such as inertial or beyond visual range satellite GPS guidance — and comprises a payload and aircraft propulsion system.
- Cruise missiles can be launched from land, sea or air for land attacks and anti-shipping purposes,and can travel at subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic speeds.
- Since they stay relatively close to the surface of the earth, they cannot be detected easily byanti-missile systems, and are designed to carry large payloads with high precision.
- Ballistic missiles, meanwhile, are launched directly into the upper layers of the earth’s atmosphere. They travel outside the atmosphere, where the warhead detaches from the missile and falls towards a predetermined target. They are rocket-propelled self-guided weapons systems which can carry conventional or nuclear munitions. They can be launched from aircraft, ships and submarines, and land.
Significance of hypersonic cruise missile system:
- The HSTDV is an unmanned scramjet demonstration aircraft for hypersonic speed flight. Hypersonic flight means a speed greater than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5).
- Apart from being used as a vehicle for hypersonic and long-range cruise missiles, the HSTDV is a dual-use technology that will have multiple civilian applications, including the launch of small satellites at low cost.
- Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (range <3,500-5,500 kms>) and Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (range > 5,500 kms) usually rise to a very high altitude (1000-1200 kms). After the various stages burn out, the missile, pulled by gravity, falls on a prescribed course. Because these missiles rise so high, they can be detected for interception by anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems particularly in the mid-course and terminal phase of their flight. This will not happen with Hypersonic missiles.
- The detection-interception time in case of HCMs and HGVs, travelling at speeds between Mach-5 and Mach-20, would be far less. Besides, HGVs do not rise above 100-110 kms altitude; HCMs fly even lower, at about 20-30 kms altitude. Their flatter trajectories vis-à-vis ICBMs, along with the Earth’s curvature, further complicates the dynamics of detecting-intercepting.
- An August 2017 assessment by the Nuclear Threat Initiative premises that the President of the US has just 2-4 minutes to render a decision on intercepting incoming ballistic missiles fired by China/Russia and launch its own missiles against the latter. In case of contiguous nations (example: India-Pakistan; India-China), this timeline would get further compressed. Hypersonic missile can be an answer to this complex question.
- HSTDV used the indigenously developed scramjet propulsion system, which is an improvement over the Ramjet engines which work efficiently at supersonic speeds of around Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound).
Conclusion:
Developing hypersonic weapons is one thing – exploiting their full combat potential is quite another. One main problem is associated with the need for a series of networked sensors-and-feedback mechanisms – to strike a time-sensitive target thousands of miles away in less than an hour, one needs very definitive, near-real-time intelligence with progressive feedback.
Overall, the hypersonic arms race holds ominous portents. Both HCMs and HGVs involve esoteric technologies. Operationalising them would also require ‘intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance’ (ISTAR) assets.
General Studies – 4
Topic : Ethics and Human Interface: Essence, determinants and consequences of Ethics in-human actions; dimensions of ethics; ethics – in private and public relationships. Human Values – lessons from the lives and teachings of great leaders, reformers and administrators; role of Family society and educational institutions in inculcating values.
Reference: case study based; Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude by Lexicon Publications.
Why the question:
The question is premised on the dilemma faced by a police officer in deciding one firing the event of protesting mob.
Key Demand of the question:
Discuss in detail the means and ways of resolving the dilemma faced by the police officer give your opinion whether his or her actions should be based on deontology or consequentialism.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start by explaining the dilemma being faced with the police officer in case of deciding on fire emits protesting mob.
Body:
A police officer is always in a dilemma during massive and uncontrolled protest of people on any sensitive issue whether to use hard force for maintaining law and order, which is his prime duty, or to consider and gauge the consequences before taking any measure to restore law and order.
In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology is the normative ethical position that judges the morality of an action based on rules. It is sometimes described as “duty-” or “obligation-” or “rule-” based ethics, because rules “bind you to your duty”. In deontology, action is more important than the consequences.
Whereas Consequentialism is the class of normative ethical theories holding that the consequences of one’s conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act (or omission from acting) is one that will produce a good outcome, or consequence.
Thus if a protesting crowd turns aggressive, unrelenting and violent, a police officer needs to resort to force to establish law and order and secure life and property of the innocent citizens. This may call for using tear gas, water guns, pellet guns, rubber cannons or even real bullets— but in such cases the limit to the use of force is set by permissible harm or minimum deterrence to miscreants and anti-social elements.
Conclusion:
Conclude that Thus, in variety of situations just relying on normative criteria, viz., deontology or consequences of an act would never prove to be a complete guide to a police officer. Ethical pragmatism can be a better guide.
Introduction:
Past few years we have seen protests by mob across the world for different reasons. At times we they turn violent and turn into a law and order situation for the police to handle. In 2020 itself we saw Anti NRC/CAA protests in India, Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, Protests against killing for George Floyd which later turned in to Black Lives matter movement and recent Protest against brutality of SARS in Nigeria.
Body:
Protests by nature which are peaceful, which involves gathering of mobs can turn volatile and violent in matter of minutes due to a few miscreants. When they turn violent, it is the duty of the police to prevent escalation to in order to minimize the damage to life and property.
Police has a standard protocol in place to deal with them. They give warnings, which are followed by water canons, tear gas and mild lathi charge. But even then if the crowd cannot be controlled or if there is imminent threat to the security of police or civilians or protestors themselves, the police are left with no option but to resort to firing.
But what principles should an officer be guided before he orders firing on the mob is complex ethical dilemma. Nonetheless, officers are given vast discretionary powers and the authority to use force when needed. Many officers are profoundly influenced by normative subculture values, which, in some cases, are contrary to law and policy, especially in cases where those behaviors are positively reinforced by peer. Because most officers have a strong positive image of themselves as good, caring individuals, they often attempt to justify their actions by arguing for the “greater good”—that is, society will benefit by removing a dangerous criminal from the streets.
Utilitarian ethical systems, most often credited to philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, rely on the ends (outcomes) to justify the means (actions). Utilitarianism and other teleological systems weigh the utility and disutility of actions to determine their relative goodness. Because crime damages not only victims but also the larger society, officers may believe it is their duty to deter criminal behavior by any means necessary for the greater good. This may be especially true for offenders who harm officers. Unfortunately, utilitarian logic relies on the erroneous belief that one can predict the outcome of a given course of action, a belief wholly void of empirical support.
Utilitarianism describes “noble cause” policing as an ends-based commitment to doing something about “bad people.” Noble cause, however, becomes corrupted when officers violate the law on behalf of personally held moral values—a notion frequently celebrated in television and movies where the protagonist operates outside the law. By glorifying force through the cult of masculinity, officers are better able to cope with the moral ambiguity inherent in applications of coercive force.
The ethos of force is exalted in law enforcement agencies throughout the nation through the repetition of myths and stories. Younger officers hear tales regaling the virtues of employing extralegal force on criminals or other undesirable members of society, complete with concomitant rationalizations—contributing to a morally insulted police identity. The application of extralegal force is further neutralized by the persona of officer as crime fighter—an image that depicts police officers as doing society’s dirty work against overwhelming odds and at great personal risk. By employing this utilitarian framework, an officer is simply applying whatever amount of force is necessary to overcome a greater wrong while making society a safer place for all.
In addition to a distorted view of noble-cause policing, a distorted view of deontological justice can contribute to excessive or unnecessary force. Immanuel Kant argued that offenders should receive punishment simply because they deserve it with no need to justify it as necessary for the greater good. Some officers may defend excessive force under the philosophy that offenders deserve such treatment as punishment for their crimes (accompanied perhaps by the concurrent rationale that the courts will not punish the offender appropriately). However, despite attempts to justify (his view as a valid form of Kantian ethics, the underlying logic is flawed. In his writings, Kant focused on ethical duty, including the protection of all members of society. Officers have a duty to apply laws, policies, and other universal human rights equally across the board, effectively rendering any unnecessary or illegal force untenable according to the precepts of deontological ethics. Moreover, using coercive power to punish is unacceptable because it fails to conform to universalism—the idea that standards should be applied universally to all people in similar situations, with a person’s behavior in a given context serving as the prototype for the behavior of all other people under similar circumstances—and other pans of Kant’s categorical imperative.
Conclusion:
Clearly, an officer’s decision to use force is based on a number of situational and individual factors, as well as an officer’s moral and social reasoning. Proper ethical reasoning, however, requires exposure to an appropriately complex set of moral dilemmas, as well as an appropriate level of training in decision making, critical thinking, and problem solving. The logical inter-face with force seems clear enough: Moral reasoning is a dynamic process dependent on a number of variables, each of which is further influenced by myriad factors. This conception of ethical reasoning makes sense if an officer pauses to consider how the application of coercive force is potentially dependent not only on logical reasoning, but a set of broader, underlying moral and philosophical principles.
Topic: Attitude: content, structure, function; its influence and relation with thought and behaviour; moral and political attitudes; social influence and persuasion.
Reference: Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude by Lexicon Publications.
Why the question:
The question is based on the factors contributing to formation of conscience in an individual.
Key Demand of the question:
Discuss in detail factors contributing to formation of conscience in an individual and also explain its importance in decision making.
Directive:
Explain – Clarify the topic by giving a detailed account as to how and why it occurred, or what is the particular context. You must be defining key terms where ever appropriate, and substantiate with relevant associated facts.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start by defining what you understand by conscience; Conscience is a special act of the mind that comes into being when the intellect passes judgment on the goodness or badness of a particular act. It is a practical judgment on particular, concrete, human actions.
Body:
A human being always comes across ethical dilemmas in decision making process.
An ethical dilemma can be described as a circumstance that requires a choice between competing sets of principles in a given, usually undesirable or perplexing, situation. Conflicts of interest are possibly the most obvious example that could place sector leaders in an ethical dilemma.
At this point conscience acts as the guide for taking correct decisions. Conscience of an individual helps in analyzing the situation from different perspectives and help in taking the right decision.
Proper education develops wisdom which helps in differentiating between right and wrong. It helps in taking rational decisions.
Law and authority instill fear of punishment to develop conscience. Forbidden actions in the society are accompanied by punishment becomes associated with pain and the threat of punishment.
Conclusion:
Conclude that thus, conscience is, in effect, a social mechanism for the development of ethics in a society.
Introduction:
Conscience is the human “inner ear” for the voice which tells us what we should do and what we should leave undone, what the pattern and purpose of our lives should be. But it is more than the existence of this voice -it is the particular human ability to hear this voice within.
Conscience thus acts as a warning mechanism, telling us that certain work, thoughts, feelings or acts, are wrong-headed or evil; at other times conscience acts as a calling, urging and impelling action, words, thoughts or feelings as being right and dutiful. All adult humans have this conscience within.
Body:
Conscience is described by such terms as moral approbation and disapprobation; and involves, when highly developed, a peculiar and unmistakable revulsion of mind at what is wrong, and a strong resentment towards the wrong-doer, which become Remorse, in the case of self.
Conscience is shaped by two forces that are essentially outside our control natural endowment and social conditioning and one that is, in some measure, within our control-moral choice. The specific attributes of our conscience, including its sensitivity to moral issues and the degree of its influence on our behavior, are due to one or more of these forces. Let’s examine each of them in turn.
Any action that is hostile to our interest, excites a form of disapprobation, such as belongs to wounded self-interest; and any action that puts another to pain may so affect our natural sympathy as to be disapproved, and resented on that ground. These natural or inborn feelings are always liable to coincide with moral right and wrong, although they are not its criterion or measure in the mind of each individual.
But in those cases where an unusually strong feeling of moral disapprobation is awakened, there is apt to be a concurrence of the primitive motives of self, and of fellow-feeling; and it is the ideal of good law, and good morality, to coincide with a certain well-proportioned adjustment of the Prudential and the Sympathetic regards of the individual. The requisite allowance being made for the natural impulses, we must now adduce the facts, showing that the characteristic of the Moral Sense is an education under Law, or Authority, through the instrumentality of Punishment.
We are conditioned by our experiences in grade school, by our widening circle of acquaintances, and perhaps by our beginning contact with institutional religion. We perceive similarities and differences in the attitudes of our teachers and classmates. We observe their behavior, form impressions, sense (quite subliminally and vaguely, to be sure) the level of development of their consciences. We observe and learn from our priest, minister, or rabbi. Perhaps in all these situations, it is not the formal so much as the informal contact, the mere introduction to their personalities, habits, and patterns of behavior, that affects us in powerful, though subconscious, ways. Though memory may cloud, experience remains indelible.
It is a fact that human beings living in society are placed under discipline, accompanied by punishment. Certain actions are forbidden, and the doers of them are subjected to some painful infliction; which is increased in severity, if they are persisted in. Now, what would be, the natural consequence of such a system, under the known laws of feeling, will, and intellect? Would not an action that always brings down punishment be associated with the pain and the dread of punishment?
The arbitrary ceremonial customs of nations, with reference to such points as ablutions, clothing, eating and abstinence from meats,—when rendered obligatory by the force of penalties, occupy exactly the same place in the mind as the principles of moral right and wrong.
Importance of conscience in decision-making:
- Conscience makes us feel that we ought to do what we believe to be right. In the same connection we may say, that it makes us feel that we ought not to do what we believe to be wrong. Both amount to the same thing; for, failing to do right, is doing wrong.
- A boy sees tempting fruit in a neighbor’s garden. He knows that it would be wrong to steal it. Now, whether we say, his conscience admonishes him that it is right to let it alone, or that it is wrong to steal it, our meaning is of course the same.
- On returning from the bank, a man finds that the teller has accidentally counted to him a ten dollar note too much. We mean the same, whether we say, his conscience reminds him that he ought to return it, or, that it would be wrong not to do so.
- Conscience is to afford us a delightful feeling of self-approval when we have done what we believe to be right. This feeling is especially vivid, after a successful encounter with a strong and dangerous temptation to do wrong. When a severe struggle has been had, and a triumph has been won on the side of virtue, the feeling of satisfaction is peculiarly rich and delightful.
- A human being always comes across ethical dilemmas in the decision making the process. Conscience acts as the guide for taking correct decisions when we have to choose between competing sets of principles in a given, usually undesirable or perplexing, situation.
- For instance, helping an accident victim during the golden hour.
- The conscience of an individual helps in analyzing the situation from different perspectives and help in taking the right decision.
- For instance, one will not turn away genuine people in times of distress, like an old destitute woman who has lost all her documents and is trying to register for a government scheme.
- Conscience helps in avoiding Conflicts of interest for better decision making.
- For e.g. deciding between personal gains and public welfare.
- Conscience is our ability to make a practical decision in light of ethical values and principles.
- Example: Follow the orders from superior vis-à-vis to follow the right path.
Conclusion:
Conscience indicates ‘a person’s moral sense of right and wrong’ as well as the consciousness of one’s actions. Expressions such as ‘gut feeling’ and ‘guilt’ are often applied in conjunction with a conscience. In this sense, the conscience is not essentially a product of a rational deduction but is something that can be influenced by the indoctrination of one’s parentage, social class, religion or culture.
