- Prelims: Current events of national importance, democracy, global Environment Performance Index etc
- Mains GS Paper I and II: Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, institutions and other measures etc
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
- The Pew Research Center surveyed the citizens of many countries in 2023 to gauge how many prefer authoritarian rulers to multi-party democracy.
INSIGHTS ON THE ISSUE
Context
Democracy:
- Democracy is a form of government in which rulers are elected by the people in a free and fair elections, on universal adult franchise.
- Fundamental rules: It is governed on the basis of certain fundamental rules like a constitution.
- Political philosophy: It has been a part of contemporary political philosophy and other social choice theories.
- Discussions: Democracy is about a government by discussion but that discussion should not divide us into two hard brackets.
Pew Research Center surveyed :
The numbers choosing dictators will dismay democrats:
- In the Global South:
- India (85%)
- Indonesia (77%)
- South Africa (66%)
- Brazil (57%).
- In the West:
- the United Kingdom (37%)
- the United States (32%),
India:
- It has 5% of the world’s population living on only 2.4% of the world’s land.
- In 2014, India ranked 155 out of 178 countries in the global Environment Performance Index.
- In 2022, India slipped to the very bottom — 180 out of 180.
Systems’ knowledge:
- It has been devalued by specialization.
- Heart specialists can keep the heart alive with amazing technologies.
- Brain specialists delve deeper into the biology of the brain.
- They lose sight of the whole human being.
- Climate scientists research how to remove carbon from the atmosphere
- The effects of their solutions on the livelihoods of citizens are not in their science’s scope.
- High-tech solutions can improve parts of complex systems while reducing overall health and well-being.
Way Forward
- Systems acting to improve the world for everyone must be driven by organizations whose purpose is cooperation, not by organizations driven by competition.
- The purpose of business corporations and armies is to make more profit and gain more power
- The purpose of families is to improve the well-being of their members.
- Women’s contributions to the well-being of families and societies are under-valued in money terms and not counted in GDP.
- The world needs more caring, less competition.
- Women are natural family builders and systems facilitators whereas men are brought up to compete.
- Rather than men teaching women to think like men and compete with them in hierarchies of the formal labor force
- men must learn the caring ways of women to make the world better for everyone.
QUESTION FOR PRACTICE
On what grounds a people’s representative can be disqualified under the Representation of People Act, 1951? Also mention the remedies available to such person against his disqualification.(UPSC 2019) (200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)
