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.
GS3 Full-Length Test
Q1. What are the tools used to understand the economic performance of the country? Explain their importance. What explains the gap between GDP and GVA in recent times? Analyze. 15M
Introduction
Economic performance describes the achievement of economic objectives. The economic policy objectives are goals set by governments to improve the economic situation of their countries. The main four economic objectives are growth, low unemployment, low and stable inflation, and a satisfactory balance of payments.
Economists and statisticians use several methods to track the economic performance of a country.
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Tools used to understand the economic performance in the country; –
- GNP: GNP measures the total income accruing to the population over a specified amount of time. Unlike a gross domestic product, it does not take into account income accruing to non-residents within that country’s territory; like GDP, it is only a measure of productivity, and it is not intended to be used as a measure of welfare or happiness of a country.
- GNI = GDP + Net Income from abroad
Importance
- Comparing GDP and GNP is a useful way of comparing income produced in the country and income flowing to its residents.
- It provides crucial information on manufacturing, savings, investments, employment, production outputs of major companies, and other economic variables.
- The information provided by GNP also helps in analyzing the balance of payments. The balance of payments is determined by the difference between a country’s exports to foreign countries and the value of the products and services imported.
- GDP: – GDP is the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period. It is the sum of private consumption, gross investment in the economy, government investment, government spending, and net foreign trade.
- Importance:
- It is the economic output from the consumers’ side.
- Thus, it is an excellent guide to the total number of marketable goods and services produced and consumed in an economy.
- Economists can use GDP to determine whether an economy is growing or experiencing a recession.
- Investors can use GDP to make investment decisions—a bad economy often means lower earnings and stock prices.
- GVA: GVA is the measure of total output and income in the economy. It provides the rupee value for the amount of goods and services produced in an economy after deducting the cost of inputs and raw materials that have gone into the production of those goods and services. It also gives a sector-specific picture like what is the growth in an area, industry, or sector of an economy.
- Importance
- GVA gives a picture of the state of economic activity from the producers’ side or supply side.
- A sector-wise breakdown provided by the GVA measure can better help the policymakers to decide which sectors need incentives/stimulus or vice versa.
- It is used to adjust GDP, which is a key indicator of the state of a nation’s total economy.
- Some consider GVA as a better gauge of the economy because a sharp increase in the output, only due to higher tax collections which could be on account of better compliance or coverage, may distort the real output situation.
- From a global data standards and uniformity perspective, GVA is an integral and necessary parameter in measuring a nation’s economic performance, and any country which seeks to attract capital and investment from overseas does need to conform to the global best practices in national income accounting.
- Importance
- Importance:
Difference between GVA & GDP
- GDP = GVA + Taxes earned by the government — subsidies provided by the government
- Simply put, GDP calculates national income from the demand side by adding up all expenditures in the economy.
- On the other hand, GVA calculates the national income from the supply side by looking at the value-added in each sector of the economy.
Gap between GDP and GVA: two measures of India’s economy— ‘gross value added’ and ‘gross domestic product’—have grown at widely different paces. While change in GDP significantly lagged the change in GVA in FY21, the story was opposite in FY22.
- In FY21, GDP growth lagged GVA growth as the Centre brought onto the books several years of dues owed to the Food Corporation of India.
- Food subsidy costs ballooned in one go in a year when tax collections were severely hit due to the lockdown. This created a massive gap between the GDP and GVA.
- In FY22, Tax Collections grew at a rapid pace (28%) due to a quick recovery in economic activity, while subsidies, despite remaining elevated, fell by over a third due to the base effect.
- This resulted in GDP growing 8.7%, while GVA rose just 8.1%.
Conclusion
Thus, every metrics have its own utility, and economists need to apply their judgement in ascertaining suitability on case to case basis. Instead of measuring economic performance in monetary terms countries need to move toward a more comprehensive measurement framework which incorporates both the economic and social performance of a country.
Q2. What is a genome? Discuss how genome sequencing can revolutionize healthcare in India. Also, enumerate the steps taken by India in this regard. 15M
Introduction
A genome is the complete set of genetic information in an organism. It provides all of the information the organism requires to function. In living organisms, the genome is stored in long molecules of DNA called chromosomes. In humans, the genome consists of 23 pairs of chromosomes located in the cell’s nucleus, as well as a small chromosome in the cell’s mitochondria.
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Genome sequencing is the process that involves deciphering the exact order of base pairs in an individual. This “deciphering” or reading of the genome is what sequencing is all about. Costs of sequencing differ based on the methods employed to do the reading or the accuracy stressed upon in decoding the genome.
Need for genome sequencing
- Ever since the human genome was first sequenced in 2003, it opened a fresh perspective on the link between disease and the unique genetic make-up of each individual.
- Nearly 10,000 diseases — including cystic fibrosis, thalassemia — are known to be the result of a single gene malfunctioning.
- While genes may render some insensitive to certain drugs, genome sequencing has shown that cancer too can be understood from the viewpoint of genetics, rather than being seen as a disease of certain organs
Genome sequencing and Healthcare in India: A revolution awaiting
- Personalised medicines: genome-wide association studies have enabled us to tailor the diagnostics and treatment of these diseases for individuals in the form of personalised medicine.
- Pharmacogenomics, though a relatively new field, has made its mark by contributing to the development of accurate, effective, and safe medications at dosages that are relevant to the patient’s genetic predisposition.
- Better understanding of diseases; – Most uses of genome sequencing have been in scientific research –for example to investigate models of human disease.
- INSACOG initiative of department of Biotechnology advocated Genome sequencing that allowed scientist to identify threats emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic and also how it spreads.
- Identifying threats: genome sequencing has been used to develop a suite of tools that scientists can use to better understand new and existing pathogens. It can also help identify genetic risk factors related to common diseases like Heart diseases.
- Developing new treatments: the potential of genome sequencing to impact the development and use of new treatments is tremendous. Genome-editing technologies have a major advantage over traditional drugs in that they can target the genetic basis of a disease, and do not require the development time and cost to understand and block interactions between biological molecules with complex three-dimensional topography.
- Identifying genetic diseases: it has huge potential in field of genetic diseases. India have witnessed the rise in cases of diseases like Sickle cell anaemia, thalassemia etc.
- Decreasing disease burden; genomic testing can help recognize what diseases people are at risk for so that could then also be quickly applied to the task of managing diseases in these groups as well as be used for genetic counselling that could reduce their incidence in future generations.
- Vaccine development: Only genome sequencing can identify various mutations which further will help in vaccine development and testing.
Steps taken in India
It is found that gene editing as technology seems easily acceptable for the treatment of diseases and healthcare.
- Over the years, India has developed rigorous regulatory policies to oversee research and applications done in the field of genomics and genetics.
- In the last 10 years, genetic testing in India has evolved by leaps and bounds, which can be recognized from the proliferation of genomic databases, such as Index-DB, Indian Genetic Disease Database (IGDD), to name a few.
- Mapmygenome project: With a vision to “Touch 100 million lives”, Mapmygenome was established in 2013, heralding the advent of improved healthcare through genomics-based healthcare. Mapmygenome also provides regular health checks and Covid testing along with Genomics in Hyderabad, Delhi and Bangalore.
- Genome India project: Taking inspiration from the Human Genome Project, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) initiated the ambitious “Genome India Project” (GIP) on 3rd January The GIP aims to collect 10,000 genetic samples from citizens across India, to build a reference genome.
- IndiGen initative: The IndiGen initiative was undertaken by CSIR in April 2019. The objective is to enable genetic epidemiology and develop public health technologies applications using population genome data.
- This has enabled benchmarking the scalability of genome sequencing and computational analysis at population scale in a defined timeline.
- Electronic health record (EHR) systems: is a collection of various medical records that get generated during any clinical encounter or events. EHR standards for India have been available since 2016 and adequate time has been provided to the hospitals for the implementation of the same.
Conclusion
While questions related to patient-privacy and the legal implications of sharing the genomic data of an individual will modulate these advancements in the forthcoming years, the health care system is now moving irrevocably forward towards integrating genomics into day-to-day medical practice and genomic solutions are going to see increased adoption and growth in the forthcoming decade.
Ethics
Q3. There is an imperative need to improve the service delivery mechanism in our country. Discuss the measures required in this regard. 10M
Introduction
The Service delivery mechanism is a tool that offers services for which there is a broad consensus that some type of government action is necessary.
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These services include essential functions ranging from ensuring law and order to development programs with a strong rationale for public sector involvement — such as irrigation, sanitation, improved water supply, and components of education and health.
Need to improve the service delivery mechanism:
- Economic growth: The quality of governance and public service delivery can affect economic growth through its impact on human capital, poverty and inequality, and corruption.
- Increase transparency, and accountability in the delivery of public services.
- Get rid of Identity politics: With a lack of grievance redressal, citizens tend to vote for leaders from their own community, caste, or religion creating a culture of ‘identity politics.’
- Improve levels of development: Annual budgetary allocations for health, including water and sanitation, have remained stagnant at less than 5% of GDP
- Eliminate Extreme Poverty: India needs to cover 67% of the population under PDS including 75% poor rural and 50% urban poor. Therefore, effective service delivery is important.
There has been a progress in the delivery of public services; it is unsatisfactory when compared with other countries at similar levels of development. There are large disparities between the poor and non-poor in the country and it is the poor that suffer much more due to weak public service delivery than those who can access these services from the market.
Steps to improve service delivery mechanisms:
Measures required:
- Decentralisation: Natural resources may be better conserved by local rather than top-down governments therefore there is a need to strengthen capacity of local governments through regular training of public officials.
- Affirmative action: Improved access to public services for marginalized groups.
- Performance-related pay: can increase overall effort by public officials and hence, improve public service delivery.
- Non-monetary incentives, e.g. transfers to a preferred location, can be an easy and effective reward for good performance.
- Community mobilization: is a Low-cost method of putting pressure on public officials to deliver.
- Such as the participation of women from poor, lower-caste, vulnerable households in Self-Help Groups (SHGs).
- Technology: can be leveraged to monitor and improve accountability in service delivery.
- Recent advances in using biometric identification and electronic transfers of benefits have led to a reduction in programme leakages.
- Using information and technology to enhance the efficiency of health care delivery.
- Cohesion and consensus among states: as all of these public services are essentially implemented at the state level.
The Sevottam model is developed with the objective of improving the quality of public service delivery in the country. If the Sevottam model is implemented it shall meet the basic standards of healthy competition for bringing excellence in service delivery in the country.
Conclusion:
There should be a platform where citizenry, media, executive and legislatures can come together and contribute to an informed debate on what is ailing our public systems and find out solution. Niti Ayog can be one such platform.
