Governance
Q1. Provide an assessment the three social security (Jan Suraksha) schemes – Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY) in providing social security net to the vulnerable people in the last eight years. (15M)
Introduction
The social security schemes under Jan Suraksha initiatives is being implemented in India to provide affordable insurance and pension coverage to vulnerable individuals. The three key schemes under Jan Suraksha are the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY), and Atal Pension Yojana (APY). These schemes provide social security and financial services to underprivileged individuals and to reduce financial vulnerability.
Body:
Jan suraksha scheme in India: PMJJBY, PMSBY and APY were launched by PM on 9th May, 2015 from Kolkata, these three social security schemes are dedicated to the welfare of the citizens, recognising the need for securing human life from unforeseen risks/losses and financial uncertainties.
Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY):
- It is a one-year accidental insurance scheme renewable yearly. It offers coverage for death or disability due to accident.
- Persons between 18-70 years having an individual bank or a post office account are entitled to enroll under the scheme.
- Accidental death-cum-disability cover of ₹2 lakhs (₹1 lakh in case of partial disability) are paid for a premium of ₹20 per annum.
Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY):
- It is a one-year life insurance scheme renewable yearly offers death coverage.
- Persons aged between 18-50 years having an individual bank or a post office account are entitled to enroll under the scheme.
- People who join the scheme before completing 50 can continue to have the risk of life covered up to the age of 55 years upon payment of regular premium.
- The life cover is for ₹ 2 lakh for a premium of ₹ 436 per annum.
Atal Pension Yojana (APY):
- the APY is open to all bank account holders aged 18 to 40 years who are not income tax payers and the contributions differ, based on the pension amount chosen.
- Subscribers would receive a guaranteed minimum monthly pension of ₹1,000 and multiples thereof up to ₹5,000 after completing 60 years based on the subscriber’s contribution.
Assessment of the above three social security schemes in providing social security net to the vulnerable people in the last eight years.
- Enrolment: According to finance ministry, The Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMJJBY), Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMSBY) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY) have recorded enrolments of 2 crore, 34.2 crore and 5.2 crore, respectively in eight years of its existence.
- Reducing vulnerability: These schemes aim to provide essential financial services to individuals from underprivileged backgrounds, thereby reducing their financial vulnerability.
- Simplified claim process: PMJJBY has provided a crucial support to 6.64 lakh families receiving ₹13,290-crore worth claims. Similarly, under the PMSBY scheme, over 1.15 lakh families benefitted by claiming ₹2,302 crores.
- The simplification of claim processes has resulted in speedier settlement under PMJJBY and PMSBY.
- Targeted approach: government has adopted a targeted approach for covering people in the rural areas and campaigns are being organised throughout the country at each Gram Panchayat providing coverage to eligible beneficiaries under the scheme.
- Covering the exigencies: While the PMJJBY and PMSBY provide access to low cost life/accidental insurance cover to the people from unorganised sector, the APY provides an opportunity for saving in the present for getting a regular pension in old age.
Conclusion
Thus, the Jan Suraksha schemes have played a significant role in increasing the penetration of social security coverage in India and addressing the financial risks faced by vulnerable sections of society. These schemes have also contributed to improving financial inclusion and promoting the well-being and security of individuals and families across the country.
Q2. Recent annual estimates for child stunting, overweight, underweight, and wasting indicate that India is far from reaching the 2025 World Health Assembly (WHA) global nutrition targets. Do you think India’s human development policies are ineffective? Critically examine. (15M)
Introduction
India is the largest country in southern Asia, which is where half of all children with wasting in the world live. India also had a stunting rate of 31.7 per cent in 2022, India had an overweight percentage of 2.8 per cent in 2022.
Achieving the World Health Assembly’s Global Nutrition Target of a 40% reduction in the number of under-5 stunted children and to reduce wasting to less than 5% by 2025 remains a challenge for India.
Body:
India’s human development policies are effective:
- Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). In addition to preschool education, it provides a supplemental nutrition programme, growth monitoring and promotion, nutrition and health education, immunisation, health check-ups, and health referrals.
- It has significantly helped improve the overall child’s health at ground level.
- Poshan abhiyaan: In order to promote nutrition among children, pregnant women, and nursing moms, India established the POSHAN Abhiyaan in 2017. With a view to attaining the second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), which is to eradicate hunger and achieve food security and enhanced nutrition.
- As per the recent report of NFHS-5 (2019-21), the nutrition indicators for children under 5 years have improved as compared with NFHS-4 (2015-16).
- To realise the vision of “Swasth Bharat,” the Government of India also organises intensive activities to increase nutrition awareness at the grassroots level through awareness drives, outreach programmes, and various camps and fairs targeted at women, children under the age of six, and adolescent girls.
- Mid-Day Meal Scheme: launched in 1995 as a centrally sponsored scheme. It provides that every child within the age group of six to fourteen years studying in classes I to VIII who enrols and attends the school shall be provided with a hot cooked meal, free of charge every day except on school holidays.
- This has helped improve the enrolment and health of a child.
- Other interventions: include ante-natal care (ANC) coverage, iron and folic acid supplementation, institutional delivery, early and exclusive breastfeeding, timely and age-appropriate complementary feeding, complete immunisation, growth monitoring with special focus on severe and acute malnutrition (SAM) and moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) identification and referral.
Ineffectiveness of India’s human development policies:
- Implementation Gaps: India has formulated comprehensive policies, the effectiveness of their implementation varies. Challenges such as inadequate funding, weak infrastructure, bureaucratic hurdles, and limited capacity at the grassroots level can hamper the successful execution of programs.
- Inadequate Government policies: Despite several government initiatives to tackle the issue of malnutrition, the problem persists. The government has failed to implement effective policies to address the underlying causes of malnutrition, such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of education.
- Fragmented Approach: The implementation of nutrition interventions in India has often suffered from a fragmented approach, with multiple government departments and agencies working independently.
- Poor healthcare facilities and inadequate access to healthcare contribute to malnutrition. Currently, government merely spends 5% of GDP on health sector.
- Hygiene: As much as 50 percent of malnutrition is caused, not by a lack of food or poor diets, but due to poor water, poor sanitation facilities, and unhygienic practices.
Measures needed:
- Food systems: The GOI should implement strong regulatory and policy frameworks to support healthier diets for all and should address the political economy of food. It is said that bio-fortification is one of the more cost-effective solutions to provide the desired levels of nutrients.
- Nutrition finance: Nutrition inequalities exist across states as well as within communities. Therefore, decisions on resource allocation should be informed by data through evidence-based and cost-effective solutions.
- Decentralisation: Local bodies should be allowed to have a bigger say in running welfare schemes.
- Diversification: The government should improve policy support for improving agricultural produce of traditional crops in the country. Farmers should be encouraged and incentivised for agricultural diversification.
- Improving social capacities of beneficiaries – empowerment, self-efficacy, aspiration, agency and well-being – can play a key role in the degree to which people access and utilise nutrition services that are available to them, thus improving nutrition outcomes.
- Awareness: Extensive use of communication channels should be made to reach the mothers in their local language, with a solution to the issue at hand.
Conclusion
While challenges and implementation gaps persist, it would be unfair to deem India’s policies as entirely ineffective. There is a need for continuous refinement, better implementation, enhanced monitoring, and greater accountability to accelerate progress and achieve the desired outcomes.
Value addition:
2025 World Health Assembly (WHA) global nutrition targets:
- Recognizing that accelerated global action is needed to address the pervasive and corrosive problem of the double burden of malnutrition, in 2012 the World Health Assembly Resolution 65.6 endorsed a Comprehensive implementation plan on maternal, infant and young child nutrition, which specified a set of six global nutrition targets that by 2025 aim to:
- achieve a 40% reduction in the number of children under-5 who are stunted;
- achieve a 50% reduction of anaemia in women of reproductive age;
- achieve a 30% reduction in low birth weight;
- ensure that there is no increase in childhood overweight;
- increase the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months up to at least 50%;
- reduce and maintain childhood wasting to less than 5%.
Ethics
Syllabus: “Contributions of moral thinkers and philosophers from India and world.”
Q3. How are moral teachings of Aristotle still relevant in the present circumstances? Explain (10M)
Introduction:
Aristotle, a renowned Greek philosopher of the ancient world, stands as one of the most influential thinkers in history.
Body:
His contributions to ethics, logic, and metaphysics continue to shape our understanding of human knowledge and moral philosophy.
- Virtue Ethics: According to an analysis by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the share of MPs with declared serious criminal cases is 29%, in present Lok Sabha, which highlights the need for cultivation of virtues as the foundation for moral behavior and character development.
- Golden Mean: finding the middle ground between extremes promotes moderation and balance. For example, the need for corporate social responsibility (CSR) to promote businesses and social impact.
- Eudaimonia: translated as “flourishing” or “human flourishing,” is relevant today in promoting individual and collective well-being. In India, today we can see the Gross National Happiness Index (GNH) adopted by some states like Sikkim.
- Intellectual and Moral Virtues: that are learned by instruction, and through habit and constant practice of those virtues respectively. This highlights the need for education to go beyond rote learning and emphasize practical application to develop virtuous character.
- Friendship and Community: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, like the concept of “sangha” (community) in Buddhism. Today, we have self-help groups in rural India that foster solidarity, cooperation, and economic empowerment among marginalized communities.
- Ethics in Leadership: “He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader”. Challenges such as climate change in recent times require leaders who are aware of the crisis and reduce emissions themselves.
- Happiness: According to Aristotle, happiness consists in achieving, through the course of a whole lifetime, all the goods — health, wealth, knowledge, friends, etc. Taking of drugs, is becoming more and more of a problem this short-term pleasure will lead to longer term pain.
- Instant gratification Aristotle draws attention to the concept of akrasia, or weakness of the will. The overwhelming prospect of some great pleasure obscures one’s perception of what is truly good. He proposes education and the constant aim to perfect virtue as a solution for this.
Conclusion:
From ethical leadership to decision-making processes and individual character development, his teachings provide valuable insights and guidance for addressing contemporary ethical challenges and promoting a more just and virtuous society.
Case study
Q4. You are appointed as a headmaster of a secondary school. It has been brought to your attention that some boys from the senior classes are caught smoking inside the school premises. You are furious that the school’s discipline has been breached so you immediately summon the boys to your office. Upon some inquiry you discover that the boys come from an impoverished part of the district where smoking is a norm among the elders of the house, from where they seem to have adopted the habit.
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- Discuss various ethical issues involved in the case.
- Discuss the values and the corresponding emotions needed while dealing with this case?
- You are determined to make the boys quit smoking. How do you plan on executing your will?
- When cultural normativity gets fashioned as behavior, discuss the responsibility of agents like schools in transforming behavior within society? (Answer in 250 words) 20M
Synopsis:
- The ethical issues involved in the case include:
- Cultural sensitivity vs. enforcement of school rules: cultural differences and practices and school’s code of conduct regarding smoking.
- Confidentiality and privacy vs. parental involvement: in addressing the issue of smoking.
- Autonomy and personal choice vs. student safety: while considering the potential harm and risks associated with smoking.
- Cultural norms vs. health promotion: and smoke-free environment within the school.
- Individual rights vs. collective well-being: and health of the entire school community.
- Support and guidance vs. punishment: Offering support, guidance, and counseling to the students to quit smoking while considering the need for disciplinary actions.
- Equity and fairness vs. addressing cultural influences: that may contribute to the adoption of smoking habits.
- Student-teacher positive relationship and trust vs. disciplinary action
- Educational responsibilities vs. personal beliefs: providing accurate information about the health risks of smoking, even if it conflicts with personal beliefs or cultural norms.
- Disciplinary action vs collaboration with the community: need for collective efforts to promote behavioral change.
- Values required to deal with the case:
Emotions required:
- I would consider the following steps in addressing the issue:
- Education and Awareness: Organize educational sessions using resources such as the WHO India campaign, “When You Quit” to communicate the harms of tobacco use and also promote interactive discussions to raise awareness among the students.
- Counseling and Support: individual and group counseling sessions to address their addiction. Collaborate with local NGOs or health organizations to provide resources and conduct workshops for the community on the dangers of smoking.
- Peer Influence and Mentorship: Encourage senior students who have successfully quit smoking to become mentors for the boys and organize peer support groups. For instance , Anand Kumar, founder of Super 30, who utilized the power of peer influence and succeeded in training many students.
- Engaging Parents and Community: like the “Parents in Education” initiative (PiE) in Singapore. Conducting awareness programs for parents, explaining the harmful effects of smoking and seeking their cooperation in supporting their children to quit.
- Holistic Approach and Life Skills Education: Hima Das, Indian sprinter and teacher, emphasizes holistic development. Integrate life skills education into the school curriculum. Teach coping mechanisms, and promote overall well-being to empower the boys to make positive choices.
These initiatives could pave the way for healthier and brighter futures for the students.
- Schools have the following transformative role, when cultural normativity gets fashioned as behavior:
- Social Integration: challenging stereotypes, norms, prejudices, and cultural barriers. The Akshaya Patra Foundation, an NGO in India, provides mid-day meals to children from diverse backgrounds, encouraging interaction.
- Social Placement: counseling services for students caught smoking supports social placement by discouraging detrimental habits.
- Socialization: Through formal and informal education, schools shape students’ understanding of acceptable behavior and cultural practices. Incorporating moral education programs or character-building initiatives helps.
- Social and Cultural Innovation: by fostering critical thinking, creativity, and open-mindedness.
By fulfilling these roles effectively, schools can transform behavior within society, challenging detrimental cultural norms and shaping individuals into responsible, empathetic, and socially conscious citizens.
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