NOTE: Please remember that following ‘answers’ are NOT ‘model answers’. They are NOT synopsis too if we go by definition of the term. What we are providing is content that both meets demand of the question and at the same time gives you extra points in the form of background information.
General Studies – 2
Reference: Financial Express
Introduction
India is striving to fulfill the objective of ‘aspirational India’, ‘economic development for all’ and ‘building a caring society’. Achieving any of these would require extraordinary efforts on the social sector front starting with allocating additional resources for health, education, nutrition, employment guarantee, and social security schemes.
Aspirational Districts Programme is one such initiative to make the vision successful.
Body
About Aspirational Districts Programme
- Launched in January 2018, the ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts’ programme aims to quickly and effectively transform some of the most underdeveloped districts of the country.
- The broad contours of the programme are Convergence (of Central & State Schemes), Collaboration (of Central, State level ‘Prabhari’ Officers & District Collectors), and Competition among districts driven by a Mass Movement or a Jan Andolan.
- With States as the main drivers, this program will focus on the strength of each district, identify low-hanging fruits for immediate improvement, measure progress, and rank districts.
- The ADP extends evidence-based policymaking to 112 ‘aspirational districts’, monitors these on 49 KPIs and 81 data points, and ranks these across multiple sectors every month
Significance and role in overall development at grassroots level
- Health outcomes in the mentored districts reveal significant improvements between the first and second third-party household surveys (in June-August 2018 and January-March 2019).
- There were increases in registering pregnant women into the health system (from 73 per cent to 86 per cent), institutional delivery of babies (66 per cent to 74 per cent), and anti-diarrheal treatment via ORS (51 per cent to 67 per cent) and zinc (34 per cent to 53 per cent).
- Decentralization of Development: ADP focuses on outcomes, that enables local experimentation based on a firm appreciation of ground realities.
- Inclusive approach: The delta ranking of the Aspirational Districts combines the innovative use of data with pragmatic administration, keeping the district at the locus of inclusive development.
- Through ADP government seeks to uplift those districts which have shown relatively lesser progress in achieving key social outcomes.
- Districts affected my militancy and left-wing extremism are given focus and resources to uplift them through development which will have direct influence on stability and peace.
- Collaborative approach: To facilitate the convergence of ideas and funds, the ADP operates on a three-tier collaborative model.
- For each ‘aspirational district’, there is a Central Prabhari Officer as well as a State Prabhari Officer.
- These two, along with the district administration, work with a host of development partners on various development parameters.
- Evidence-based policy: Data collection is often delayed or lacking in quality in India, distorting the development policy efforts. With real time data in ADP, those on the ground level can alter strategies after accurate feedback.
In a way, the ADP reorients how government does its business of delivering development.
Conclusion
The ADP’s genesis was inspired from the policy experiments of state governments and is now in turn becoming a model for them to replicate back at the block or gram panchayat level. It is proving to be a shining example of cooperative-competitive federalism.
Reference: The Hindu
Introduction
It has been widely recognised that Business Correspondents (BCs) are the prime drivers of financial inclusion in India. Under the BC model, supported by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), banks in India have been engaging third party/retail agents since 2006 to drive greater financial participation among low-income populace.
Body
Women Business Correspondents: Financial Inclusion
- By enabling last mile delivery of financial services in the absence of physical banking facilities, BCs have emerged successful in communicating the benefits of financial offerings, facilitating transactions and principally functioning as the face of the bank by being a mini-branch themselves.
- But when considering the ability to BCs to positively impact the financial inclusion of 23.09 crore women Jan Dhan account holders (55 per cent of the total base), the “gender” of the agent becomes an important factor.
- To this effect, in 2015-16, the National Rural Livelihoods Mission adapted a gender-focused variant of the traditional BC model called the ‘Bank Sakhi’ (or female banker friend) model, which was further piloted across seven low-income states in India. By February 2020, 6,094 Bank Sakhis across 12 states had collectively completed 748,454 transactions worth ₹26,635 lakh (approximately $40 Million).
- It was women banking agents who were poised to deepen the last mile delivery of financial services, especially for women customers, in hard-to-reach rural areas and would go on to play a sustainable role in driving women’s financial inclusion.
Significance of Women Business Correspondents
- The unique strengths of women BCs positively influence low-income women’s engagement with financial services and therefore, position them as a great resource for banks to hire as BCs.
- Research shows that women agents have distinctive strengths that help them better serve their customers.
- Women customers find women agents easier to approach, trustworthy, and great at maintaining confidentiality. This is corroborated by another research where women customers transacted more with women agents and they felt more comfortable with them especially when disclosing financial information.
- In another recent project with a large public sector bank, women agents completed 19 per cent more transactions and had 45 per cent higher conversions on a newly-launched small savings scheme than their male counterparts.
- This is because women agents are able to visit women customers more freely at their home, interact with them closely and cherish their trust.
- By being greatly entrenched in the community they also have the potential to play a role model for other women and become a catalyst to bridge the financial inclusion gender gap.
- Their relatively higher customer base, greater transaction volumes as well as ability to increase uptake of other products, further contribute to strengthening the business case for them.
- Furthermore, it has been noted that women agents are more likely to stay agents for longer duration even when transactions do not generate as much revenue for the agent, providing continued access to the community.
Way Forward
- Affirmative actions are needed from financial service providers to correct the current under-representation of women BCs.
- By designing a gendered recruitment strategy to attract more women BCs, including setting specific targets for their staff and corporate BCs, and training and incentivising corporate BCs to identify potential women candidates can help overcome the structural barriers that women face.
- The key is to reduce entry barriers by taking favourable actions such as providing equipment and rental support (rather than requiring women to make upfront capital investments), adding incentives such as an initial stipend for the first year, solving mobility issues, offering flexible hours of operation and providing protection to women BCs and their families, on the lines of health insurance, etc. which will encourage more women to opt in.
- Finally, creating a supportive environment for women BCs through training, mentoring, ensuring ongoing support (through dedicated officials) and creating women agent communities, will then help them thrive long term.
Reference: Indian Express
Introduction
The propagation and promotion of languages has been a very contentious issue in India since its independence. Like its predecessors, the NEP 2020 also fall short to propose and uphold a multilingual approach to education.
Body
Three language formula in NEP 2020
- The NEP 2020 brings with it a novel concept of early implementation of the three-language formula comes with the view to promote multilingualism and national unity.
- As per the new education policy, it is up to the state to decide which is the language of their choice.
- The NEP 2020 provides fluidity to the three-language formula as there is no specific language that shall be imposed on any state. The states, regions, and the students as well, are free to choose the three languages which the students want to learn whereas at least two of them are to be native to India.
- However, the students can change one or more of the three languages which he or she is studying. They may do so in Grade 6 or 7 as long as they are able to learn the basic proficiency of the three languages by the end of secondary school.
- The NEP 2020 further states about the medium of instruction and says that the medium of instruction will be the home or local or regional language or mother tongue until at least Grade 5 but It may prefer till 8 Grade and beyond. This will be mandatory for both private as well as government schools.
Criticism of language policy
- Mother tongue: The NEP making mother tongue/regional language the mandatory medium of instruction till Grade 5—even beyond if this can be done—ignores several realities. With inter-state migration for employment both in the informal and formal sectors, and India’s large diversity of languages, regional language will hobble some students’ learning.
- English is now the lingua franca of employment in a globalised, connected world—with nearly 800 million of the global population speaking the language as a first or second language.
- Coping with higher education:Students from vernacular-medium schooling have found it difficult to cope with higher education with the medium of instruction being English—indeed, this is a reason cited by IIT authorities to explain the high drop-out numbers at the country’s premier engineering education institutes.
- English competence: Critics of English as the language of instruction frequently point to the rise of Japan and China despite these countries having focussed on their native languages, but the fact is that India’s service-sector-led growth, especially in IT & ITeS, has been on the back of its English competence.
- The additional burden to the students at an early age: Irrespective of the former policy, the new policy has introduced the three-language policy at the initial stage. So it is being criticized on the ground that it will put an additional mental burden on the young students to learn different languages.
- Back Door Entry for Hindi: The state of Tamil Nadu has two language systems. The introduction of the new policy creates a fear among them that this would lead to the entrance of Hindi into the state from the back door. Therefore, the state of Tamil Nadu has opposed the new education policy on the abovementioned grounds.
- Non-Hindi Teachers Shortage: Various linguistic and educationists have observed that there is a huge scarcity of Non-Hindi language teachers throughout the country and it will eventually lead the students to learn Hindi only because of this shortage.
Conclusion
Language is the most vital part of our education system that plays a key role in strengthening the societal fabric as a whole. It plays an important role in imparting education to the children. The true performative nature of language is multilinguality and the education enterprise cannot be successful unless we allow the voice of every child to find a space in classroom processes.
Reference: Economic Times
Introduction
It implies that jobs that will be created in a state will be first offered to only people who belong to that state. This policy is populist in nature. Unemployment or employment creation has been a major issue in recent times. This policy is also the result of the fear of some locals who believe that their jobs are being taken away from them and provided to the people not belonging to the state.
Body
Background
- Recently Haryana government notified its Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Bill, 2020. This bill provides job reservation in the private sector for locals.
- Prior to Haryana, States such as Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh also tried to provide reservation in private jobs.
Issues with reservation for locals
- Delaying Economic Recovery: The pandemic scenario has made it imperative for states to focus on fast and effective economic recovery. However, compulsion on companies to employ locals might compromise quality and delay the recovery phase.
- Discourages Investment: Compulsions to employ decreases the competitiveness of companies. Apart from that, such measures directly discourage investment potential in a state.
- Impracticability: The shortage of qualified workers in a state may impact its implementation. And also, the private sector cannot employ outsiders without the permission of concerned authorities. It might lead to the inspector raj prior to 1991 economic reforms.
- A threat to unity: This step would create friction among locals and non-locals in the implementing states. This will shake the fundamental of Indian democracy(Unity in Diversity) in long run.
- Against constitutional provisions: These laws are against the spirit of constitutional provisions:
- Article 14 allows for equality before the law. But the reservations to locals are against that equality.
- Reservation to locals also violates Article 19(1)(g) is violated by Haryana’s law as outsiders won’t be able to effectively do any job of their choice in the state.
- Article 16(3) allows reservation based on the residence by a parliamentary law in matters of public employment and not in private employment.
- Against the reservation ceiling: Giving 75% reservation goes against the Supreme court’s ceiling of 50% for maintaining meritocracy.
Need of the hour
- Enhanced Expenditure on Education: Government must increase expenditure to 6% of GDP and ensure better learning outcomes.
- Skills Training: Skill India program launched in 2015 has an objective of enabling a large number of Indian youths to take up industry-relevant skill training that will help them in securing a better livelihood.
- India needs to learn from technical and vocational training/education models in China, Germany, Japan, Brazil, and Singapore, who had similar challenges in the past, along with learning from its own experiences to adopt a comprehensive model that can bridge the skill gaps and ensure employability of youths.
- There are number of labour-intensive manufacturing sectors in India such as food processing, leather and footwear, wood manufacturers and furniture, textiles and apparel and garments. Special packages, individually designed for each industry are needed to create jobs.
- Public investment in sectors like health, education, police and judiciary can create many government jobs.
- Decentralisation of Industrial activities is necessary so that people of every region get employment.
- Development of the rural areas will help mitigate the migration of the rural people to the urban areas thus decreasing the pressure on the urban area jobs.
- Concrete measures aimed at removing the social barriers for women’s entry and their continuous participation in the job market is needed.
- Government needs to keep a strict watch on the education system and should try to implement new ways to generate skilled labour force.
Conclusion
Political milieu alone cannot be consideration of reservation policy. It leads to extreme inefficiencies and will have a deleterious effect on all round development of the nation. Instead, target must be to focus on development of human capital.
General Studies – 3
Reference: Indian Express
Introduction
Climate change directly affects agricultural production as this sector is inherently sensitive to climatic conditions and is one of the most vulnerable sectors at the risk and impact of global climate change.
Body
India’s vulnerability: Need to adopt climate resilient agriculture
- India’s agricultural ecosystem is distinguished by high monsoon dependence and with 85% small and marginal landholdings, it is highly sensitive to weather abnormalities.
- There has been less than normal rainfall during the last four years, with 2014 and 2015 declared as drought years.
- There are also reports of an escalation in heat waves, which in turn affecting crops, aquatic systems and livestock.
- The Economic Survey 2017-18 has estimated farm income losses between 15% and 18% on average, which could rise to 20%-25% for unirrigated areas without any policy interventions.
- These projections underline the need for strategic change in dealing with climate change in agriculture.
- There will be an increased risk of pests and diseases due to change in the pattern of host and pathogen interaction. For every two-degree rise in temperature, the agriculture GDP of India will reduce by five percent.
- The recent locust attack is also attributed to climate change, which can have highly disastrous effect on food security.
- Poor agricultural performance can lead to inflation, farmer distress and unrest, and larger political and social disaffection, all of which can hold back the economy. It will force farmers to either adapt to challenges of climate change or face the risk of getting poorer.
Measures taken by the government
- National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) to make agriculture productive, sustainable and remunerative and climate-resilient. It also developed the capacity of farmers and stakeholders in the domain of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.
- Soil health card scheme in 2015 which will carry crop-wise recommendations of nutrients and fertilizers required for the individual farms to help farmers to improve productivity through judicious use of inputs.
- Climate Change Knowledge Network in Indian Agriculture to establish ICT-enabled approaches for knowledge exchange on climate change adaptation in Indian agriculture.
- The eArik project was initiated in North East to disseminate climate-smart agricultural practices.
- Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana is in the direction of government saving farmers from the wrath of frequently changing climate patterns.
- Apart from all this, the government of India started National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) to make the farmers self-reliant by the use of climate-resilient agricultural technologies.
Conclusion
India being a hotspot for climate change and having 15 broad agro-climatic zones and 127 sub-zones, the presentation of climate change and its effects will vary from region to region. Hence a ‘one size fits all’ approach will be detrimental to the agriculture and food security of the country.
Reference: The Hindu
Introduction
Recent international decisions against Government of India in the cases of Cairn Energy and Vodafone in the final quarter of 2020, and the decision by India to appeal against these awards, have served to puncture the bag of investor trust and India’s promise to honour its commitments to foreign investors under bilateral investment treaties (BITs).
Body
Arbitration ruling
- In May 2007, Vodafone had bought a 67% stake in Hutchison Whampoa for $11 billion. In September that year, the India government for the first time raised a demand of Rs 7,990 crore in capital gains and withholding tax from Vodafone, saying the company should have deducted the tax at source before making a payment to Hutchison.
- Vodafone challenged the demand notice in the Bombay High Court, which ruled in favour of the Income Tax Department.
- Subsequently, Vodafone challenged the High Court judgment in the Supreme Court, which in 2012 ruled that Vodafone Group’s interpretation of the Income Tax Act of 1961 was correct and that it did not have to pay any taxes for the stake purchase.
- The government came up with the Amendment and onus to pay tax once again fell on Vodafone. This time Vodafone invoked the Bilateral Investment Treaty clause with Netherlands and India, which settled the matter in former’s favour.
Issues with India’s response
- Since inception of the dispute, the Government of India has fervently defended its sovereign taxation powers. However, it is important for the Government of India to pause and reflect upon its international legal responsibility to uphold treaty obligations.
- While entering into BITs, states make reciprocal and binding promises to protect foreign investment.
- In a tug of war, sovereign powers that are legal under national laws may not hold water before sovereign commitments under international law.
- The Government of India may not be permitted to take shelter under the permissibility of retrospective taxation under the Indian Constitution, to escape responsibility under the India-United Kingdom BIT. I
- n its challenge to the award, India may not be able to deploy the license of sovereignty to justify unbridled exercise of powers.
- However, what it could use is a defence of international public policy against tax avoidance, and the sovereignty of a state to determine what transactions can or cannot be taxable.
- Parthasarathi Shome panel had suggested that retrospective amendment of tax laws should occur in exceptional or rarest of rare cases and with particular objectives and apply to matters that are “genuinely clarificatory” in nature.
- Such taxation policy creation policy instability leading to reduced investments.
- It deteriorates the confidence of business investors in India, thereby reducing capital inflows into the country.
- Not only time but huge number of resources are spent on costly litigations and arbitrations abroad. It does not bode well for investor sentiments and acts as a disincentive for prospective investors.
- When India promised no longer “tax terror”, such policies go against the very fabric of stated objectives.
- Possibility of seizing sovereign property can lead to big humiliation for India.
Way forward
- It is essential for foreign investors to foster synergies with India and tap into the infinite potential that the market holds.
- India boasts of being among the top 12 recipients of FDI globally. The increased FDI inflows in India over the years are testament to the attractive investment opportunities available for foreign investors in India.
- Therefore, it is important for parties to foster open dialogue with investors and explore alternatives that lead to the road of settlement. It may not be conducive to weave a web of litigation entangling stakeholders and closing exit routes. This is anti-synergetic.
- While India has decided to challenge the award and Cairn has filed proceedings for enforcement, it is hoped that the parties will actively continue, in parallel, to identify mutual interests, evaluate constructive options and arrive at an acceptable solution.
General Studies – 4
Reference: Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude by Lexicon Publications
Introduction
Citizen’s grievance essentially means the problem faced by citizen in day to day lives in sphere of accessing resources that are vital to livelihood and comfort. Eg, electricity, food, transport, services of bank, healthcare and education. If citizens are unable to get their work done through the government machinery, such difficulties are termed as grievances.
Body
Importance of Citizen grievance redressal
- In a developing country like ours, Government has to perform many functions. The citizens depend on the services provided by various government agencies. To levy rice, wheat and sugar from a ration shop, a citizen has to have a ration card issued by the Government.
- To obtain a ration card is not very difficult, but the quality of services is far from satisfactory. For most things in life, citizens depend on the services and facilities provided by government agencies.
- It is a common experience that the citizens often face difficulties in dealing with government agencies. Too many rules and regulations are there, resulting in unnecessary delay. Trains or buses may not run, on time. The banks, the hospitals, the police are often not co-operative
- Delay or harassment and unhelpful attitude of government departments and agencies create a bad image of government. At the same time, it has to be accepted that government has to undertake many functions in the interest of the public.
- The difficulties that the members of the public face in getting services, make the people unhappy and dissatisfied. The poor people suffer most. They badly need government support and services, but they are the ones who are often harassed and turned down.
- This is obviously bad for the healthy democracy. The average citizen wants sympathetic, courteous and helpful public administration. If there are too many public grievances against the government agencies, corrective measures have to be taken to redress those grievances.
Grievance Redressal Mechanism in India
- Ombudsman: In India Government has appointed Ombudsmen to resolve grievances in the following sectors.
- Insurance Ombudsman
- Banking Ombudsman
- Income Tax Ombudsman
- Lokpal: Lokpal was established under the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act 2013 to investigate corruption against public functionaries, even the Prime Minister. Lokpal can order investigation from its internal inquiry wing, Central Bureau Investigation (CBI), Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).
- Tribunals: Tribunals are formed to address delays in disposal of cases in courts. These are quasi-judicial institutions. Eg: NGT, CAT etc
- Committee on Petitions – Parliamentary Committee: This is a Parliamentary Committee which works on redressing grievances of the public, and a citizen can submit petitions to secure redress against grievances.
- CPGRAMS: It is an online web-enabled system developed by National Informatics Centre (Ministry of Electronics & IT [MeitY]), in association with Directorate of Public Grievances (DPG) and Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG). The underlying idea was to receive, redress and monitor the grievances of the public.
- Right to Information Act (RTI): The RTI act was passed in 2005. It empowers the citizens to ask any questions to the Government, seeks information, obtains Government documents, inspects Government works. This act is to not only empower citizens but also promote transparency and accountability in the functioning of Government.
- Citizens Charter: The task of formulating and operationalising Citizens Charter was undertaken by DARPG. The idea was to bring in transparency in public services and to correct things when they go wrong. The idea of Citizen Charter was first pioneered in the United Kingdom in 1991, with a focus on public services. However there have been many loopholes in the citizens charter which needs to be fixed.
Conclusion
With increased focus on e-governance, the mechanism of grievance redressal is set to go paperless, cashless, and faceless with limited or no human interface. This would reduce the discretion and biases from the system. Also, with increasing education levels and rising awareness regarding one’s rights and obligation for government, the demands for better GRM will further increase.
