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General Studies – 1
Topic: Diversity of India; Communalism, regionalism & secularism.
Introduction
Religion is the “final frontier” of personal prejudice, with attitudes to faith driving negative perceptions more than ethnicity or nationality in India. The latest census conducted in 2011 reported that approximately 80% of the population is Hindu, 14.2% are Muslim, 2% are Christian, and another 2% are Sikh. Buddhists, Jains, Baha’is, Jews, and observers of other small tribal religions collectively comprise less than 2% of India’s religious communities. Yet despite the diversity of religions represented, religious freedom in India has deteriorated swiftly in recent years
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Reasons for persisting religious intolerance in Indian society
- Communalization of Politics: Electoral politics in India has become more expensive and competitive. Different political parties are not hesitating to use any means, fair or foul, for electoral victory. They even create communal tensions and try to take political advantage out of it. Concessions are granted to various minority groups for appeasing them.
- Failure of Government: Both the Union and the State Governments often fail to prevent communalism in the country.
- Due to lack of prior information, they fail to take any preventive measures.
- The post-Godhra riot in Gujarat or Babri masjid demolition shows the inefficiency of the government to control the communal riot.
- Failure of immediate and effective steps has been a cause of the continuance of religious intolerance.
- Cross-Border factors: Intolerance and tensions in India sometimes are highly intensified due to the rule of two neighbouring theocratic countries. These countries try to create communal problems in the border states.
- The communal problems of Punjab and Jammu Kashmir are caused due to provocation of Pakistan.
- Recent Bangladesh incident has repercussions in Tripura in what is seen as a tit-for-tat action.
- Poverty: Mass poverty and unemployment create a sense of frustration among the people. It generates backwardness, illiteracy, ignorance, etc. The unemployed youth of both the communities can be easily trapped by religious fundamentalists and fanatics. They are used by them to cause communal riot Eg: Delhi riots, DG halli riots
Law alone is not sufficient: Need of the hour
- Economic:
- Poverty is one of the major factors for communal violence. Poverty alleviation measures are thus important for promoting communal harmony.
- Eradicating the problem of unemployment among the youths, illiteracy and poverty and that too with honesty and without any discrimination.
- Reducing educational and economic backwardness of minorities like Muslims.
- This can uplift their socio-economic status and reduce their deprivation compared to Hindus
- Social:
- The religious leaders and preachers should promote rational and practical things through religion promoting peace and security.
- Children in schools must be taught through textbooks and pamphlets to maintain brotherhood and respect for all religions
- Creating awareness in the society about the ill effects of communism through mass media
- Political:
- Political communalism should be avoided as per recent Supreme court’s directives
- Identification and mapping of riot prone areas. For Example, Delhi police used drones to monitor to maintain vigil during communal festivals
- Media, movies and other cultural platforms can be influential in promoting peace and harmony.
- Social Media should be monitored for violent and repulsive content and taken off immediately.
- Recommendations of Committee on National Integration
- Joint celebration of community festivals
- Observing restraint by Hindus while taking processions before the mosques
- Formation of peace and brotherhood communities at local level to prevent anti-social elements from engaging in communal riots
- Respect for religious customs, rituals and practices
Conclusion
Religious intolerance cannot be accepted as the necessary evil in the society. It is detrimental to the development, social change, democracy and the federal feature of the State. Jawaharlal Nehru had pointed out the issue and termed it as the greatest danger. And so, he said that anyone who loves India would hate communalism and anyone who hates India would love communalism.
General Studies – 2
Topic: Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary Ministries and Departments
Introduction
The vision document titled ‘Strategy for New India @ 75’, released by the NITI Aayog, amongst other things, proposes a spate of judicial reforms. The think-tank has come out batting for the creation of an All India Judicial Service(AIJS), akin to the other central services like the IAS and the IPS.
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The 14th Report on Reform of Judicial Administration — alluded to the need for creating a separate all-India service for judicial officers. This report favoured an AIJS to ensure that subordinate court judges are paid salaries and given perks at parity with government bureaucrats, thereby incentivising the option of the state judiciary as a viable career prospect.
Challenges faced by the Indian judiciary:
- The AIJS is an attempt to ensure that younger judges are promoted to the SC and HCs. In the existing system, recruits join as magistrates in the subordinate judiciary and take at least 10 years to become district judges.
- This is expected to ensure a transparent and efficient method of recruitment to attract the best talent in India’s legal profession.
- Currently India’s legal infrastructure is facing various issues, particularly the lower judiciary. At present India has just 13 judicial posts per million people, though the Law Commission had recommended 50 judges per million of the population, based on the ratio prevalent in the US previously.
- Judiciary is suffering from massive vacancies across the nation and the scarcity is worsened in some states due to judicial absenteeism. Hence there is need of urgent mechanism to appoint new judges.
- As a consequence, the pendency is high with the number of cases about 2.8 crores.
- Similarly, judiciary suffering from various infrastructures related issues, like newly appointed judges does not have required court rooms; hence there is need of huge investment.
Issues with AIJS:
Solving Vacancy issues:
- The AIJS is being proposed as a panacea to cure the chronic vacancy crisis plaguing the Indian subordinate judiciary.
- An all India service potentially offers is a more streamlined and regularised recruitment process for the limited number of vacancies for district judges in the country.
Violates Basic Structure Doctrine:
- Niti Aayog’s document rather ambitiously proposed an AIJS to cover entry level civil judges, prosecutors and legal advisers to comprise the service (subordinate judges).
- A sweeping mandate would require considerable amendments to the Constitution, especially with respect to the appointments process for the lower subordinate judiciary (that is, all ranks below that of a district judge).
- Presently, the appointments to the subordinate judiciary are made under Articles 233 and 234 of the Constitution under State High Court Purview.
- These amendments, establishing a centralised appointments mechanism, may arguably be constitutionally untenable and vulnerable to being struck down as flagrant violations of the basic structure doctrine and judicial federalism.
Oversimplification:
- The idea of an AIJS has been significantly contentious within the legal fraternity and other concerned stakeholders.
- The proposal for AIJS was floated by the ruling UPA government in 2012 but the draft bill was shelved again after opposition from High Court Chief Justices who labelled this an infringement of their rights.
- Taking into account local laws, practices and customs which vary widely across States and even training judges in this line would be a problem.
- The need to ensure reservation for locally domiciled citizens, the central selection mechanisms will throw up grave concerns impugning their utility and legality as judicial reforms.
Way Forward:
- It is through an all India judicial services examination conducted by the UPSC in order to maintain “high standards” in the judiciary.
- In addition to proposing an AIJS as a solution for judicial vacancies, it may be more prudent to investigate the reasons and causes for the large number of vacancies in the poorly performing States.
- AIJS is facing hurdles from the administrative block and also from High Courts, even though Supreme Court has asked for AIJS twice.
- Therefore, AIJS should be designed in a manner to remove its shortcomings and it can be an effective solution to the vacancy in Judiciary.
- Adequate judges can be made available only if they are recruited in large strength through AIJS just like we see in case of IAS, IPS, IFS and other civil services. Hence there should be no more delay.
- Moreover, after the selection, a Judicial service officer can be provided sufficient training to handle the job. A meritocratic judiciary is the need of the hour which is possible with a competitive recruitment process.
Value addition
Status of AIJS:
- The idea was first mooted by the Law Commission in the 1950s to have an AIJS. Under this the district judges will be recruited centrally through an all-India examination. They will then be allocated to each State along the lines of the AIS.
- The proposal for an All-India Judicial Service was first suggested in the Chief Justices’ Conference in 1961 as a way to remove any scope for judicial or executive intervention in the appointments to the judiciary in the High Courts and the Supreme Court in India. The idea had to be shelved after some states and High Courts opposed it.
- The Constitution was amended in 1976 (42nd Amendment) to provide for an AIJS under Article 312. Article 312 was amended to confer power on the Rajya Sabha to initiate the process for setting up an AIJS, by passing a resolution supported by two-thirds majority in the upper house.
- The proposal was again floated by the ruling UPA government in 2012 but the draft bill was shelved again after opposition from High Court Chief Justices who labelled this an infringement of their rights.
- Currently, on similar lines subordinate and district judges are recruited by High Courts on the basis of a common examination.
Topic: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States
Introduction
In 2009, there were 88 million elderly people in India. By 2050, this figure is expected to soar over 320 million. Between 2000 and 2050 the overall population of the country is anticipated to grow by 60 per cent whereas population of people of age 60 years and above would shoot by 360 per cent. The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was cleared by the Cabinet recently
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Problems of elderly population in India:
- Isolation and loneliness among the elderly is rising.
- Nearly half the elderly felt sad and neglected, 36 per cent felt they were a burden to the family.
- Rise in age-related chronic illness:
- Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic diseases will cause more death and illness worldwide than infectious or parasitic diseases over the next few years.
- In developed nations, this shift has already happened. Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are expected to almost double every 20 years, as life expectancy increases.
- Special challenges for less developed nations:
- Poorer countries will carry the double burden of caring for older people with chronic diseases, as well as dealing with continued high rates of infectious diseases.
- Increasing need for long-term care:
- The number of sick and frail elderly needing affordable nursing homes or assisted living centers will likely increase.
- Rise in the Health care costs:
- As older people stop working and their health care needs increase, governments could be overwhelmed by unprecedented costs.
- While there may be cause for optimism about population aging in some countries, the Pew survey reveals that residents of countries such as Japan, Italy, and Russia are the least confident about achieving an adequate standard of living in old age.
- Elderly women issues:
- They face life time of gender-based discrimination. The gendered nature of ageing is such that universally, women tend to live longer than men.
- In the advanced age of 80 years and above, widowhood dominates the status of women with 71 per cent of women and only 29 per cent of men having lost their spouse.
- Social mores inhibit women from re-marrying, resulting in an increased likelihood of women ending up alone.
- The life of a widow is riddled with stringent moral codes, with integral rights relinquished and liberties circumvented.
- Social bias often results in unjust allocation of resources, neglect, abuse, exploitation, gender-based violence, lack of access to basic services and prevention of ownership of assets.
- Ageing women are more likely to get excluded from social security schemes due to lower literacy and awareness levels.
- Ageing individual is expected to need health care for a longer period of time than previous generations but elderly care for a shorter period of time
Way forward:
- As a signatory to Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA), India has the responsibility to formulate and implement public policy on population ageing.
- Issues of poverty, migration, urbanization, realization and feminization compound the complexity of this emerging phenomenon. Public policy must respond to this bourgeoning need and mainstream action into developmental planning.
- Gender and social concerns of elderly, particularly elderly women, must be integrated at the policy level.
- The elderly, especially women, should be represented in decision making.
- With the WHO declaring 2020 to 2030 as “Decade of Healthy Ageing”, there is a need for Institutes like AIIMS to be in the forefront in promoting healthy ageing.
- Increasing social/widow pension and its universalization is critical for expanding the extent and reach of benefits.
- Renewed efforts should be made for raising widespread awareness and access to social security schemes such as National Old Age Pension and Widow Pension Scheme. Provisions in terms of special incentives for elderly women, disabled, widowed should also be considered.
- Government must proactively work on life style modification, non-communicable disease management, vision and hearing problem management and accessible health care through Ayushman Bharat.
Conclusion
The elderly are the fastest growing, underutilized resource that humanity has to address many other problems. Re-integration of the elderly into communities may save humanity from mindlessly changing into a technology driven ‘Industry 4.0’ which futurists are projecting: an economy of robots producing things for each other. Healthy elderly citizens can share their wealth of knowledge with younger generations, help with child care, and volunteer or hold jobs in their communities.
Topic: India and its neighborhood- relations.
Introduction
In a military coup in Myanmar, a state of emergency has been imposed for one year. The coup resulted in establishing military rule again in Myanmar. Myanmar conducted elections democratically in November 2020. Aung San Suu Kyi led Party won 396 out of 476 seats (combined lower and upper houses of Parliament) and won the elections. The military reserves 25% of seats as per their 2008 Constitution.
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Background
- Military (also called Junta and Tatmadaw) has alleged that the general elections held in November 2020 were full of irregularities and that therefore, the results are not valid.
- This marked the end of Myanmar’s short-lived experience with democracy which began in 2011, when military implemented parliamentary elections and other reforms
Challenges posed to India due to current situation in Myanmar
- Geopolitical interests: Myanmar sits at the intersection of India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ and ‘Act East Policy’ policies, and therefore is an essential element in India’s practice of regional diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific, and serves as a land bridge to connect South Asia and Southeast Asia.
- With an authoritarian government at the helm of affairs, overtures to China will increase and India’s interest may suffer.
- Strategic location: It serves as a buffer between India and China. Myanmar has coastal access to the Bay of Bengal. It connects Bangladesh, China and the restive North eastern states of India.
- It is also close to India’s Nicobar archipelago. Instability will have consequences on security situation in India.
- National security: Myanmar-China border has become the epicentre of local armed separatist groups operating on Myanmar soil, and Indian groups, ranging from ULFA in Assam to the NSCN (IM) in Nagaland.
- Economic interests: India has interests in natural resources of Myanmar and also developing certain projects like India–Myanmar–Thailand trilateral highway and Kaladan multi-modal project which is to link India’s landlocked north-eastern States to the Myanmar Port of Sittwe, located in the Bay of Bengal.
- Instability in Myanmar will be a roadblock to these ambitions.
- Countering China: A weakened Myanmar falling into the clutches of China as a satellite state will pressurize India to do Beijing’s bidding in regional affairs.
Steps to navigate the above challenges
- India can aid the democratically elected government if there was a request from Myanmar. Myanmar is India’s strategic partner like Nepal, Bangladesh.
- India can help Myanmar like that of erstwhile Bangladesh in 1971.
- India has to strengthen the existing cooperation. India currently has an active co-operation with Myanmar in areas of security, counter-terrorism, trade and investment, energy co-operation.
- India has to encourage more active co-operation in these fields.
- India can formalise border trade with Myanmar. Currently, India’s Border trade with Myanmar is at a very low level. ‘
- By formalising border trade like that of Border Haats in India-Bangladesh and providing enough support, we can improve people to people tie.
- It will also provide peace in long run.
- India can assist Myanmar in the implementation of the Kofi Annan Advisory Commission report on Rohingya Refugee issues.
- The commission has recommended investing in infrastructure projects.
- The recent Indian government move in developing the Sittwe port in Myanmar’s Rakhine state is one such move.
Conclusion
India should keep up the momentum by inviting Myanmar’s Foreign Minister & other important stakeholders such as leaders of political parties, civil society and think tanks to India for deliberations with their counterparts here. The single goal should be to put Myanmar back on the path of becoming “a stable, democratic and federal union”.
General Studies – 3
Topic: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment
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.
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Sustaining the growth and productivity in Indian agriculture 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.
Topic: Issues related to direct and indirect farm subsidies and minimum support prices; Public Distribution
Introduction
The government constituted an Inter-ministerial Committee, under Ashok Dalwai, in April 2016 to examine issues relating to the doubling of farmers income. Doubling farmers’ income is possible through increasing total output and better price realization in the market, reduction in production costs, diversification of product, efficient post-harvest management, value addition, etc.
While MSP may serve limited purpose for price realisation, an overhaul of agriculture is needed to ensure sustainable income for farmers.
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Rationale behind the legal guarantee for MSP
- The Centre currently announces the MSPs of 23 crops. They include 7 cereals (paddy, wheat, maize, bajra, jowar, ragi and barley), 5 pulses (chana, tur/arhar, moong, urad and masur), 7 oilseeds (rapeseed-mustard, groundnut, soyabean, sunflower, sesamum, safflower and nigerseed) and 4 commercial crops (sugarcane, cotton, copra and raw jute).
- While the MSPs technically ensure a minimum 50% return on all cultivation costs, these are largely on paper.
- In most crops grown across much of India, the prices received by farmers, especially during harvest time, are well below the officially-declared MSPs.
- And since MSPs have no statutory backing, they cannot demand these as a matter of right.
- The unions want the Modi government to enact legislation conferring mandatory status to MSP, rather than just being an indicative or desired price.
Challenges of granting statutory guarantee to MSP in India
- Statutory MSP is unsustainable:A policy paper by NITI Aayog’s agricultural economist Ramesh Chand argued against legalising MSP. It reasoned that any fixed pre-determined price will push away private traders whenever production is more than demand, and there is a price slump in the market. This, in turn, will lead to government de-facto becoming the primary buyer of most farm produce for which MSP is declared, which is unsustainable.
- Huge scope for corruption and recycling/leakageof wheat and rice, from godowns, ration shops or in transit.
- Disposal problems:While cereals and pulses can be sold through the public distribution system, disposal becomes complicated in the case of niger seed, sesamum or safflower.
- Inflation:Higher procurement cost would mean increase in prices of foodgrains, leading to inflation, which would eventually affect the poor.
- It will also impact India’s farm exports,if the MSP is higher than the prevailing rates in the international market. Farm exports account for 11% of the total exports of commodities.
- With a legally guaranteed higher MSP, India will face stiff opposition at the WTO.The US had successfully won a case against China at the WTO in 2019 which was concerned with China’s domestic support to agriculture in the form of Market Price Support (MPS).
- It would lead to a huge burden on the exchequer,since the government would have to procure all marketable surplus in the absence of private participation.
- Demands from other sectors:If the Centre makes a law to guarantee 100% procurement in all the 23 crops where MSP is announced, farmers cultivating fruits and vegetables, spices, and other crops will also demand the same.
Legal backing for MSP alone will not solve the agricultural sector woes
- Farmers face many other issues other than price, which itself is not guaranteed given the influence of politicians and cartels in mandis.
- They lack information on which crop to grow, when to sow, apply plant nutrients and which pest is attacking their crop.
- Farmers are also short of post-harvest technologies to ensure a better shelf life for their produce.
- In addition, they do not get adequate facilities to irrigate their lands, with nearly 50 per cent of the land being rain-fed and lacking ample warehouses to store their produce at the village level, besides proper roads to connect them to the mandis.
- Legal backing for the MSP could also lead to the danger of the trade keeping away from places where the law is implemented vigorously.
- For example, when Punjab said it would make MSP legal and binding, wheat traders said they would keep off the state to avoid trouble for themselves.
Conclusion
The government should shift its focus from providing only price support to farmers and focus on building better infrastructure, minimizing the gap between farmers and the market, land reforms, policy reforms to increase flow of credit to farmers, establishing food-processing industries for perishable goods, providing better irrigation facilities etc so, that agriculture emerges as a viable means of sustenance.
General Studies – 4
Topic: Ethical issues in international relations and funding;
Introduction
The Idealist Approach advocates morality as the means for securing the desired objective of making the world an ideal world. It concentrates more upon ‘what ought to be’ rather than ‘what is’. Moreover, it expects everyone to follow morality for the sake of peace and growth. This however is criticised by realists who believe that idealism cannot be practiced in this competitive world with limited resources.
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Idealist approach derives strength from the general idea of evolutionary progress in society and the spirit of liberal idealism which was at the back of American policies, particularly during the inter-war years. Eg: During the inter-war years (1919-39), the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson became its most forceful exponent. The idea was to prevent another world war with the establishment of eEage of nations which would act as a moral anchor for the nation.
For instance, consider ethics in international relations. Idealism stands for improving the course of international relations by eliminating war, hunger, inequality, tyranny, force, suppression and violence from international relations. To remove these evils is the objective before humankind. Idealism accepts the possibility of creating a world free from these evils by depending upon reason, science and education. It expects nations to be moral and not take undue advantage of each other. If nations were indeed moral and idealistic, issues of Colonialism, Slavery would not have emerged in the past.
In criticism to idealistic approach, realists believe in pragmatism at highest level. Acting in pursuit of interests is rational. It has its roots in human nature. To seek power in pursuit of one’s interests is to follow the basic dictates of the “laws” of nature. It is the highest moral and legal principle. It is a pragmatic and valid principle which can help the understanding of the whole of international relations and the formulation and implementation of policies designed to secure one’s national interest.
Conclusion
It is true that there would be peace and security if all of human kind practiced ethics that is idealistic in nature. However, there are various dimensions to ethics and it is highly subjective in nature. Universal ethics is impossible as people come from various contexts.
