[ Day 30 – Synopsis ] 75 Days Mains Revision Plan 2023 – Indian Economy & Ethics

Indian Economy

Q1. Outline the aims and significance of seven priorities (“Saptarishi”) unveiled in the Union Budget 2023-24 for Indian economy? (10M)

Introduction

In 2023-24 Budget, announcement Finance minister of India listed seven priorities of the Union Budget and said that they complement each other and act as the ‘Saptarishi’ guiding us through the Amrit Kaal. They are as follows: 1) Inclusive Development 2) Reaching the Last Mile 3) Infrastructure and Investment 4) Unleashing the Potential 5) Green Growth 6) Youth Power 7) Financial Sector.

Body:

Aims of seven priorities (“Saptarishi”) unveiled in the Union Budget 2023-24

1. Inclusive development: Government aims to make sure that everyone in society benefits equally from the nation’s expansion and progress; Promote fair growth, lessen inequalities, and build a more inclusive society.
2. Reaching the last mile: To concentrate on making sure that its policies and initiatives reach the most isolated and neglected facets of society. This will be done by utilising technology and innovative approaches.
3. Infrastructure and investment: Address the urgent demand for better infrastructure in the country
4. Unleashing the potential: Eliminating obstacles to the expansion and advancement of the economy. This will be accomplished by implementing reforms in vital sectors including labour, land, and education.
5. Green growth. The government will prioritize encouraging environmentally friendly and sustainable growth, involving spending on renewable energy, protecting the environment, and taking action to mitigate the effects of climate change.
6. Youth power: Investments in education and skill development, the creation of job opportunities, and the encouragement of entrepreneurship will all help in achieving this.
7. Financial sector: This entails taking steps to encourage financial inclusion, expand credit availability, and enhance the effectiveness and stability of the financial sector.

Significance of seven priorities (“Saptarishi”) unveiled in the Union Budget 2023-24:

• Vision for the amrit kaal: These priorities will direct the nation toward ‘Amrit Kaal’.” Amrit Kaal is described by the government as the 25-year period culminating in the centenary of India’s independence.
• builds a strong foundation for the future with a focus on clean energy in India. It reflects the government’s continued push towards sustainable growth and energy transition.
• Aims to empower the youth and help the ‘Amrit Peedhi’ realize their dreams through various initiatives.
• Complementing aspect: The aspects mentioned complement each other and act as the Saptarishi guiding us through Amrit Kaal.
• Envisions to reduce development lag between villages and cities, thus bettering the lives of Indian citizens.
• Underlines the significance of inclusive development and last mile delivery of welfare measures of government.
• These priorities align with India’s long-term developmental goals. This includes sectors such as infrastructure development, education, healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, digital transformation, sustainable development, and social welfare.

Conclusion

The 75th year of India’s Independence has seen the Indian economy being recognized as a ‘bright star’ globally. The unveiling of the seven priorities (“Saptarishi”) in the Union Budget 2023-24 signifies a significant turnaround in India’s transformation towards becoming a more developed, inclusive, and vibrant society by the time it completes 100 years of independence.

Q2. How do cooperatives contribute to the overall economic growth and inclusive development of rural communities in India? (15M)

Introduction

A cooperative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically controlled. The need for profitability is balanced by the needs of the members and the wider interest of the community.

Body:

Role of cooperatives in overall economic growth and inclusive development of rural communities

• Empowering Rural Communities: Cooperatives provide a platform for rural communities to come together and pool their resources, skills, and knowledge.
  • By joining forces, individuals who may not have the means or opportunities individually can collectively engage in economic activities, access markets, and negotiate better terms.
  • g. role of Grameen Bank in rural areas.
• Enhanced Access to Markets: Cooperatives enable small-scale farmers, artisans, and rural entrepreneurs to access larger markets that would otherwise be difficult to reach individually.
  • g. Dairy cooperatives, like Amul, Sudha, Nandini etc. have transformed the lives of countless rural households by organizing milk collection, processing, and marketing.
• Financial Inclusion: this can provide financial services to people who are excluded from the formal banking system. Cooperatives offer a range of financial services, including savings, loans, and insurance, that enable members to meet their financial needs and build assets over time.
  • g. Cooperative banks, cater to the financial needs of rural communities.
• Poverty Reduction: it can contribute to poverty reduction by providing members with access to credit, training, and other resources that enable them to start or expand their own businesses.
  • g. Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) that focuses on empowering women in the informal sector and lifting them out of poverty.
• Employment Generation: they can create employment opportunities in areas where traditional employment opportunities are limited. Cooperatives provide jobs for their members and their families, and often employ people from disadvantaged communities, women, and youth.
  • For instance, the Indian Coffee House
• Empowering marginalised sections: Cooperatives empower marginalized sections of society, including women and marginalized castes, by providing them with economic opportunities and a platform to voice their concerns.
  • These organizations promote gender equality, social justice, and inclusivity, helping to uplift rural communities as a whole.
• Support to agriculture sector: Agriculture is the backbone of rural communities, and agricultural cooperatives have been instrumental in improving the livelihoods of small farmers.
  • These cooperatives provide farmers with access to credit, seeds, fertilizers, and modern farming techniques. By pooling their resources, farmers can negotiate better prices for their produce, reduce input costs, and enhance their bargaining power in the market.
  • g. Sahaja Samrudha Organic Farmers’ Cooperative (SSOFC) that focuses on promoting organic farming practices and supporting small-scale farmers.

Way forward:

• Principle of the cooperative movement is to unite everyone, even while remaining anonymous. The cooperative movement has the capacity to solve people’s problems.
  • The pandemic seems to have increased the significance of community effort.
• Implementing the steps provided by the Vaidyanathan committee on credit cooperative societies.
• The idea of cooperatives must take the agenda beyond agriculture, milk, credit and housing cooperatives
• New areas are emerging with the advancement of technology and cooperative societies can play a huge role in making people familiar with those areas and technologies.
• There is a need to create more cooperatives with women at the helm of it.
• The latest National Sample Survey (NSS 2020-21) shows that 47 percent income of the agricultural households comes from non-agricultural sources. Cooperatives are needed to boost these sectors also.
• The irregularities in cooperatives need to be checked and the need of the hour is to have rules and stricter implementation of same.
  • India has to encourage more active co-operation in these fields.

Conclusion

India has a mixed experience with cooperatives, with many like AMUL, IFFCO and KRIBHCO more successful than others. The vast extent to which India can benefit from cooperatives is yet to be fully realised. Cooperatives are a medium to facilitate the shift from rising dependence of farmers on the State to empowered and self-reliant farmers in true spirit and change the course from Ashrit Krishi to Atmanirbhar Krishi.

Ethics

Syllabus: Laws, rules, regulations, and conscience as sources of ethical guidance

Q3. Should laws override the directions given by your conscience when confronted by moral dilemmas in life? Critically Analyse (10M)

Introduction

Laws and conscience are both guiding tools to make decisions or differentiate what is right and wrong. While both have their own justifiable nature, certain complex issues involving moral dilemmas could make it hard choosing between the two.

Body

• Laws are a set of rules and regulations that are designed largely based on the social, economic and political thought processes of the ruling State.
• Conscience would literally mean “privilege of knowledge” or “moral awareness.”
  • In other words, conscience would refer to the overall consolidation of value percepts based on the upbringing and socio-economic, cultural background of an individual, or simply, a person’s inner instinct.

Values/factors/principles that uphold laws:

• Neutrality:
  • Neutrality advocates taking decisions that are not based on bias, prejudice or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons.
  • Laws offer the neutrality aspect in making decisions in most of the situations.
• Deontology:
  • Deontology is an ethical theory that says actions are good or bad according to a clear set of rules.
  • Going by deontological ethics, laws would override conscience in any given situation.
• Emotional Intelligence:
  • An emotionally balanced person would not be driven by the subjectivity of conscience. Instead, laws or other objective principles takes upper hand.

Deciding based on conscience:

• Integrity:
  • Integrity refers to doing duties only when it is in consistence with one’s conscience.
  • In other words, it would mean refraining from making decisions or taking up duties that are not in line with one’s conscience, even if the decisions and duties are consistent with the law of the land.
• Rousseau:
  • Conscience is central to one’s identity and a component in the moral decision-making process.
  • However, conscientious judgments can be seriously erroneous due to their relativistic nature.
  • So, conscience may promote situations in which one’s conscience is manipulated by people to provide unjustified justifications for non-virtuous and selfish acts.
• Thomas Hobbes – Conscience could be misunderstood. Opinions formed on the basis of conscience, even when formed with full honest conviction, should not always be trusted.

Conclusion

Conscience upholds the value of integrity that is key to making honest decisions. However, conscience that is not backed by adequate external, altruistic, and normative values may be regarded as morally blind and potentially dangerous to making appropriate decisions.

Case Study

Q4 As a District Collector you meet the public directly in the weekly grievance redressal day. A young couple Antony and Saraswati reach you. Following is the description of the two persons:

1. 1. Saraswati lost her vision at age of four while she was suffering typhoid, in few months she lost her parents. Without any siblings, from then she was taken care by a Government Blind School and now a Blind-Persons Protection Centre (BPPC).
   2. Antony, months back joined BPPC as an employee for a salary of Rs. 6000 per month. Antony is a compassionate person and, he genuinely wished to marry Saraswati after a short relation of friendship with her.

Antony’s demand to you is to convince his parents and ensure that with their consent he can marry Saraswati and claims he approached you since a Collector is a stakeholder in welfare of vulnerable like Saraswati. You are the Chairman of District Vulnerable Welfare Committee.

On interrogation, you come to know the reason behind Antony expecting his parent’s consent if he can live with them and their income can complement his meager salary. Without his parent’s financial support, it is difficult to manage a married life with Saraswati.

You summon Antony’s parents and you come to know the following shocking truths from his parents:

1. 1. His mother says, Antony is an immature person who can’t take a reasonable decision
   2. He is also lazy and cannot take care of himself, then how can he care a blind woman?

iii.  He is highly sensitive and short-tempered which is unsuitable for Saraswati as her supposed husband needs intense patience

1. 1. He, despite being 25 years old, is a coward who never spent a single night alone at home and expects his parent’s company when he steps out of the home during night times
   2. She sums up him as “a 25-year-old man with 15-year-old boy’s maturity”.

 You understand that the above information by his mom is true and you are now in a dilemma. Antony cries and begs his mom to accept their marriage, but she repeatedly makes a sensible comment that “I am not worried about you, but about that blind girl, marrying you will spoil her life.”

 Finally, her mom comes out with a solution. Since she feels this decision of Antony might be hasty and lacking introspection, she asks her son to wait for 1 year so that she can test his relationship’s gravity and strength and his maturity. If their relation stands test of time, she will accept their decision to marry.

 But her son is stubborn, impatient and is not giving a second thought. Finally, he says to you, if his parents are unwilling, he is ready to abandon them and go ahead to marry Saraswati and live alone. Saraswati repeatedly claims she is confident of Antony and wants to marry him immediately. The law in no way prevents them from marrying.

 What will be your decision keeping in mind that Saraswati needs a long-lasting durable relationship? (20M, 250W)

Introduction

The above situation clearly presents a case of taking a call between laws and conscience. While individuals’ choices are legally valid in marriage, the traits and vulnerabilities of the persons involved create the value-conflict and a moral dilemma here.

Factors to be considered

• Saraswati’s vulnerability and the required support in particular, and Differently-abled people’s priorities in general
• Antony’s immature nature
• The couple’s willingness and mutual understanding; Antony’s stubbornness to marry Saraswati at any cost; Saraswati’s trust in Antony
• Individual choice on marriage and its legal validity
• Antony’s mother’s genuine concerns

Dilemmas/issues involved in the case

• Law and morality
• Democratic values and people-oriented values
• Justice (objective) and Fairness (subjective)
• Crisis of conscience – Being unable to decide which is right and wrong

Possible decisions that could be taken

Option 1: Not acceding to the couple’s demand and restricting their marriage

Option 2: Agreeing to the mother’s suggestion

Course of action for Saraswati to get a long-lasting durable relationship

• As the District Collector, I would go with Option 3 and offer the protection called for by Antony and Saraswati for their marriage.
• I will communicate to Antony’s parents the legal and ethical justifications of the situation to draw in their support.
• At the same time, the family’s concerns cannot be ignored altogether. Keeping this in mind, as well as being the Chairman of District Vulnerable Welfare Committee, I would take the opinion and advice of the BPPC to ensure the necessary technical and policy support for Saraswati to deal with her visual challenge and lead a smooth life.
• As with Antony’s nature, I will approach a psychology centre in the district to understand his nature and advise him to take the necessary therapy or treatment to lead a responsible and mature marital life in the long-run.
  • The same institution can be roped in as a monitoring mechanism to intermittently check if Antony and Saraswati’s family life is in peace and order.
• In case, if the Parents do not agree, Antony can be advised to make best use of the available government social welfare schemes to run the family for the time being even without the financial back up of the family. Over the course of time, parents’ consent can be garnered.

Conclusion

In issues where there is a crisis of conscience to balance the legal and ethical concerns, it is prudent to act by situational ethics wherein the subjective demands and challenges of the situation are addressed and balanced to do justice to the situation and the concerned persons.

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