Covid-19: Time to think of key tax reforms (Financial Express)

Mains Paper 3:Economy 
Prelims level: Tax reforms 
Mains level: Evolutions of the major tax reforms and its outcomes 

Context:

• Two major laws, income-tax and customs were legislated during the national emergency in 1962. They have stood the test of time, revealing that the best policy measure evolves when human minds are sharpest and there is coordinated action, seeking light in chaos. 
• The current crisis, as it settles, will draw a renewed attention of policymakers on tax revenue mobilisation and its impact will drive areas of government expenditure and fiscal stimulus to businesses. 

Key tax reforms for an impactful outcome:

• The current or the new tax code, will enlist the broad principles on which the detailed tax law is based, which is the legislated tax policy.
• The tax law that must be interpreted considering the former. The current approach of the statute is that it is the reference point for both the law and the legislative intent, owing to which interpretation-linked disputes arise and require the courts to fine-comb the law. 

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Why this radical reform is the need of the hour? 

• The law today, due to many reasons, including incoherent drafting and target-driven approach of the administration, discourages most business enterprises and instead promotes taxpayers to resort to tax mitigation and at times evasive approaches, which enhances litigation.
• The policy today is a complex mesh of varied and often competing objectives. For instance, specifically directed tax incentives, say SEZs and manufacturing-linked corporate tax rates.
• Tax exemption provisions witness most disputes and varying tax rates give opportunities for business to reorganise their affairs. 
• At the same time, the tax law is replete with ominous anti-avoidance provisions, such as GAAR, and the past decade has witnessed plethora of specific anti-avoidance (also called SAAR) provisions, whose only purpose is to deter business from resorting to tax-mitigation measures.
• An inherent inter se tension between such competing stances manifests itself in tax litigation, which overwhelms all the three branches of the state-executive, legislative and judicial-consuming massive time and resource costs of taxpayers, besides resulting in an ineffective system. 

Is such a situation avoidable?

• Perhaps, a qualified yes, or even a tacit no, as in a large measure it is contingent upon the lawmakers, who play the role of both the script director and a major actor.
• The long-term fiscal policy of 1985, a first major attempt in the pre-economic reforms era, replete with enviable propositions, is forgotten in the liberalisation zeal. 
• Rationalisation of tax rates mooted three decades ago is still relevant. 
• With innovative suggestions such as a national tax court, a comprehensive tax-policy rewrite is the need for the hour; one resulting into a coherent tax law which de-hyphenates businesses from opportunistic tax-motivated manoeuvres.
• Classification of corporate tax rates: 15% for MSMEs, 18% for manufacturing business and 20% for all others, with no room for any form of tax holiday. 
• The suggestion may sound strange in an environment where the government’s tax revenues are already under stress and with the health crisis it will merely get accentuated. 
• An underlying objective here is simplicity, which in our view will obviate most disputes and low tax-incidence will reinvigorate business sentiment.

Lowering surcharge/cess rate: 

• As a measure to overcome immediate needs, a surcharge/cess not exceeding 10% can be considered, with a provision for carry back of losses, such that businesses reeling under losses are able to recoup.
• Such provisions should be one-off in nature, say, applicable for 2-3 years. 
• For individual taxpayers, other than businesses, a maximum marginal rate of 25% with no tax below annual income of Rs 8 lakh shall address the hardship factor and instil the capacity-to-pay principle, besides moderate tax rates. 

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Scope of tax on agricultural income: 

• With political will, it is time to bring agricultural income within the scope of tax. 
• As a start, rich farmers with income above 1 crore be taxed. 
• Since this will require a constitutional amendment with the support of states, let the entire proceeds of such collections devolve upon states, as quid pro quo.
• This will also reduce devolution commitment of the Union. 
• The sense of inequitable treatment will be addressed that emanates from this sector getting the largesse of farm-loan incentives without tax obligations.

Enforcement and appellate functioning: 

• Indeed, there is no economic rationale for keeping away such large earners outside the tax basket.
• These changes will de-clutter the administration’s time and space from regular annual amendments unless they are essential. 
• More importantly, the administration’s focus shall significantly move away from enforcement and appellate functioning, leaving space to focus on technology, policy and taxpayer service. 
• Faceless/e-assessment coupled with taxpayers’ charter are a good start, but to make them effective, these must be backed with a change in mindset and investment in technology and rigorous training.

Administrative reforms: 

• The additional, deputy and assistant commissioners be allocated to a group of other taxpayers under cooperative compliance function. 
• Similarly, let there be stratification of taxpayers like large corporates, MSMEs, individuals and others. 
• The degree of taxpayer services for businesses should be similar to the focus given for individuals, assessment and refund mechanism, which have been largely streamlined in the recent years.
• These officers should be reskilled from the mindset of ‘assessing’ to ‘assist’, who will work with taxpayers in collaborative fashion to proactively fulfil compliance requirement, address contentious positions and thus avoid glaring tax controversies. 
• The limited resources should be allocated for assessment or audit, which must be aligned to the faceless/e-assessment route scheme. 
• Even limited resources should be allocated for enforcement function, dealing with search and investigation cases.

Establishing an independent appellate: 

• An independent appellate functioning of the department (commissioner, Appeals) should be supplemented with a mechanism to settle disputes via a collegium of senior officials in the department of revenue and not via filed officials, due to inherent conflicts. 
• Such collegium should be empowered to compromise/settle a dispute under the overall supervision of CBDT and not subjected to any vigilance oversight to ensure smooth decision-making. 
• This will ensure that select cases of disagreement will trigger a dispute, unlike discretionary positions of assessments. 
• All of this will entail material change in (re)allocation of work and skills, particularly at the level of commissioner and above, without which change will be meaningless.

Conclusion: 

• Changed times offer an opportunity to usher in overdue administrative reforms, which is even more time-critical as businesses recover from the shock and view them as an avenue for incentivising economic growth.
• Equally, it should not dither the government from pursuing its goal to garner tax revenues for addressing rising demands from social commitments by balancing needs of the business. 
• A calibrated approach to balance welfare economics with a vision to pioneer economic activity and national growth is needed.
• Such balance is tricky, but cannot be shied away by any nation and policymakers ought to display a crisis-driven change that will build a stronger and resilient India.

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It’s about food, nutrition and livelihood security (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3:Economy 
Prelims level: Public Distribution System
Mains level: Highlights the different dimensions of the food security problem 

Context:

• The current national lockdown to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the problems of food, nutrition and livelihood security confronting a large number of rural people, in particular, migrants to cities. 

Measures taken: 

• Provisions such as by giving of additional rice or wheat, some pulses and oil free of cost.
• As well as Rs.1,000 cash for the purchase of other essential commodities through the Public Distribution System (PDS).

Dimensions in food security: 
Availability of food in the market:

• The first is the availability of food in the market, and this is seen as a function of production. 
• Because of Green Revolution, today we have enough food in the market and in government godowns.
• This is a great accomplishment by Indian farmers who converted a “ship to mouth” situation to a “right to food” commitment. Yet we cannot take farmers’ contributions in terms of sustaining production for granted. 
• While some special exemptions have been given to the agricultural sector, farmers are confronted at the moment with labour shortages, many of the inputs, including seeds, are expensive or unavailable, marketing arrangements including supply chains are not fully functional, pricing is not remunerative, and public procurement is also not adequate. 

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Widen the food basket: 

• The second dimension is the access to food, which is a function of purchasing power, as unless you are a farmer and grow your own food, others have to buy it. 
• The government, through the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and the PDS, has assured some additional food to every individual during this crisis. 
• This should be further strengthened and the food basket widened by including millets, pulses and oil. Steps should also be taken to avoid hidden hunger caused by the deficiency of micronutrients in the diet. 
• In light of the closure of schools and anganwadi centres, and the consequent disruptions in the provision of midday meals or other nutritional inputs.
• It is important to pay attention to the life cycle approach advocated in the NFSA, particularly the first thousand days in a child’s life, when the cognitive abilities of the child are shaped. 
• We may otherwise see negative effects on nutritional security in the medium to longer term. 

Nutritious and good quality of food: 

• Food security and access to nutritious, good quality food is also contingent on job security. 
• Today, a lot of people employed both on farms and in the non-farm sector are without jobs. 
• If job security is threatened, then so is food and nutrition security. 
• We have to ensure people do not lose their jobs, and one way of doing this will be to ensure value addition to primary products. 
• An example of such value addition is the Rice Biopark in Myanmar, wherein the straw, bran, and the entire biomass are utilised. 
• This would of course mean some attention to and investment in new technologies that can contribute to biomass utilisation. 
• The Amul model provides a good example from the dairy sector of improved incomes to milk producers through value addition. 

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Work under MGNREGA:

• To livelihood security for small and marginal farmers and landless households, and women within them, is strengthening the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). 
• The definition of a worker in MGNREGA has so far been applied only to unskilled, manual work, and not to skilled jobs in agriculture and allied activities. 
• Given the lack of jobs and incomes during the COVID-19 crisis, it is imperative to expand the definition of work in MGNREGA to cover skilled work related to farmers and their farming activities. 
• This is particularly important for women farmers and workers, who should not just be given tasks of carrying stones or digging mud. 
• Apart from farming, they engage in a range of essential care tasks, including caring for children, the elderly and sick people. 
• These tasks, often invisible, need to be recognised as work and supported with appropriate education, including on nutrition. 

Focus on non-food factors:

• The third dimension of food security is absorption of food in the body or its utilisation, which is dependent importantly on sanitation, drinking water and other non-food factors, including public health services. 
• Ensuring that these services are functional depends on the capacities of the local panchayats and their coordination with other local bodies. 
• The lack of adequate clean water in particular has come to the fore in both rural areas and urban slums in the context of COVID-19, where one of the key measures for stopping transmission relates to frequent hand-washing. 

Way ahead: 

• If we can ensure food availability, food access and food absorption, then we have a fairly robust system of food and nutrition security. 
• All the above dimensions are, however, now threatened by the novel coronavirus, as discussed earlier. 
• It is very critical to highlight the linkages between agriculture, nutrition and health. 
• While the PDS may be able to meet calorie needs, the inability to harvest, transport and market perishable fruits and vegetables at remunerative prices during the current crisis, has not just deprived farmers of incomes and livelihoods, but consumers too are deprived of micronutrients in their diets.
• Farmers making losses, and agriculture moving from being job-led to jobless, raise questions about the sustainability of the production cycle. At the same time, this can have long-term consequences on nutrition and health security. 

Conclusion:

• Today’s problems are not as daunting. 
• Through a combination of farmers’ cooperation, technological upgrading and favourable public policies in procurement, pricing and distribution, we can deal with the fallouts of the pandemic. 
• We hope that this pandemic will help recognise the contribution of our farmers.

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Ominous contraction: On core sector output (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3:Economy 
Prelims level: Coal sector 
Mains level: Effect of COVID-19 pandemic fall in India’s core sector 

Context:

• The latest data on core sector output is signalling that considerable economic pain lies ahead in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide lockdown that commenced on March 25. 

Highlights of the data released by the Government: 

• The provisional figures released by the Commerce Ministry show that production at all but one of the eight industries comprising the core sector shrank in March from a year earlier.
• It resulting in the sharpest contraction in the index since the new series began in April 2012. 
• The output contracted by as much as 6.5% in a month when most economic activities ground to a halt only in the last seven days. 
• The output at petroleum refineries slid only by a marginal 0.5% as a bulk of the transportation sector was idled only in the last week of March, the 7.2% and 13% contractions in electricity and steel production, respectively, reflect the underlying stress in the economy, most crucially on the demand side. 
• With all non-essential industries and commercial establishments ordered shut as part of the lockdown, demand for electricity declined by more than 9% in March, according to data from the National Load Despatch Centre. 

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Positive figure:

• Coal, the only sector to post a positive figure in March as output expanded 4%, also presents a far from reassuring picture as growth slowed sharply from February’s 11.2% and was less than half the 9.1% pace seen in March 2019. 
• With demand for coal from user sectors spanning thermal generators and the key process industries of steel and cement unlikely to revive any time soon, production of the crucial commodity is very likely to shrink in April. 
• With the construction sector hit hard by the lockdown and likely to face serious labour supply issues even after the economy gradually reopens, cement may see production shrink in the first month of the new fiscal year by an even greater extent than the 25% drop seen in March. 

Way forward:

• The fall of oil market with global crude prices tumbling is also certain to undermine the industries in the energy sector. April’s overall core output appears headed for an even sharper contraction. 
• The eight major industries having a weight of 40.3% in the broader Index of Industrial Production, it is certain to drag industrial output as a whole into negative territory. 
• The Centre may be left with little option but to massively lift public spending on infrastructure once the lockdown eases in order to revive the reeling economy.

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Recovering early: On India’s COVID-19 patients (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:Health 
Prelims level: COVID 19
Mains level: Process of the recovering COVID 19 patients 

Context:

• Data for COVID-19 is still a long way from giving a complete picture, but it is encouraging that the basic metric of the number of those recovering as a share of confirmed infections is showing improvement in India. 

Cautions over data: 

• The Health Ministry has said that the percentage of recoveries currently stands at just over 25.
• It is almost double of what it was two weeks ago. 
• National data on other parameters appear similar to disease trends witnessed globally, with the worst outcomes encountered among elderly patients — translating into a case fatality rate of 51.2% for Indians older than 60. 

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Required early testing: 

• It is therefore imperative to find positive cases early and assess the pace of recovery accurately. 
• Among the countries moving to a mass-testing strategy after a measured lockdown and successful control over viral transmission is New Zealand. 
• In terms of deaths, there could be unknown fatalities caused by COVID-19 outside hospitals. 
• Doctors in the United States have made a contrasting determination: of people who had the virus, but died of unrelated causes. 

Key highlights about research findings in India: 

• These findings and trends underscore the importance of research on the progression of the pandemic in India.
• Indiaofficially estimated at 3.2%, which seems low; it remains a topic for systematic study. 
• There are many hypotheses for the less dismal outcome in India based on the impact of climate, benefits of immunisation, and other possible factors, but they remain untested. 
• India’s fatalities may be low, and an improved recovery rate will help revive the economy, there is genuine worry that patients with non-COVID-19 conditions are at greater risk for poor health outcomes due to lack of access to care during the pandemic. 
• The public health strategy for COVID-19 has to sharply focus on helping people determine their infection status through widely available testing. 

Way forward: 

• This will enable selective quarantining, planning of welfare measures and participation of people who have recovered in trials for potential therapies such as convalescent plasma transfusion. 
• With a relaxation of the lockdown, India’s strategy will need precise and intensive measures to drive down the reproduction number for the virus.

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Plasma therapy is no silver bullet (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:Health 
Prelims level: Plasma therapy
Mains level: Development of the scientific study in the field of plasma therapy

Context:

• The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedentedchallenges to governments, health professionals and the general public at large, around the world. 
• Every response, administrative, social, economic or medical is being subjected to intense public scrutiny, as it rightly should be in the spirit of mature democracy.

Plasma therapy:

• The therapy involves infusingpatients suffering from COVID-19 with plasma from recovered patients.
• In theory, the antibodies of the recovered person may help that patient’s immune system fight the virus. 
• While showing great promise, it is a line of treatment that is yet to be validatedfor efficacy and safety and cannot be deployed widely without caution.

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Possible benefits: 

• The current evidence to conclude anything about the true benefits of this therapy is very thin.
• Scientific research in medicine is the only means to overcome novel and complex diseases such as COVID-19 and that too thriveson the same spirit of debate and criticism. 
• The difference, however, is that the standards of evidence required, to generate consensus and arrive at the most optimalprotocols, are far more rigorousand time-taking than in most other walks of life.

Convalescent plasma therapy:

• The convalescent plasma therapy is being currently studied by the Indian Council of Medical Research, through open label, randomised controlled trial to evaluate it for both safety and efficacy. 
• Already, four patients have been enrolled in Ahmedabad and the study will be rolled out in 20 hospitals by the end of this week and at more centres over the next month.

Need for more research:

• The most important principle in medical ethics is “do no harm”. The transfusion of convalescent plasma is also not without risks, which range from mild reactions like fever, itching, to life-threatening allergic reactions and lung injury. 
• To recommend a therapy without studying it thoroughly with robust scientific methods may cause more harm than good.
• Till date, there have been only three published case series for convalescent plasma in COVID-19 with a cumulative of 19 patients. 

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Randomised controlled trial:

• To say with certainty whether a drug is truly effective or not, the gold standard in medicine is to conduct a randomised controlled trial, where half the patients get the experimental drug and the other half do not. Only if patients in the first half show substantial improvement over those in the second half, it indicates the drug is beneficial.
• Further, convalescent plasma therapy requires intensive resources, healthy COVID-19 survivors to donate, a blood bank with proper machinery and trained personnel to remove plasma, equipment to store it and testing facilities to make sure it has an adequate amount of antibodies. 
• Too much focus on one approach can take away the focus from other important therapeutic modalities like use of oxygen therapy, antivirals, and antibiotics for complicated hospital courses. 
• To overcome the pandemic comprehensively, we should focus on strengthening health systems at all levels, including referral systems, supply chain, logistics and inventory management. 
• We need to work on protecting our healthcare workers, improving prevention methods, promoting cough etiquettes,effective quarantining and accurate testing.

Conclusion:

• Even these times of collective uncertainty are no reason to lower scientific temper. While it is good to be hopeful, the fact remains there are no real silver bullets in medicine and health outcomes are a result of not just a few pills or therapies but a complex set of factors. 
• Science should be driven by reason and evidence with hope as a catalyst but not by either fear or populism. Pushing one or the other therapy without evidence or caution can only set back our larger fight against COVID-19.

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The making of the modern public intellectual (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 4:Ethics 
Prelims level: Not much 
Mains level: Moral conscience of society

Context:

• This article is based on fundamentals of a just law. Law is not the source of its own moral authority and legitimacy.

A setback to democracy:

• Centuries later, M.K. Gandhi reiteratedthat a law is binding only if it satisfies the unwritten codes of public ethics. He spoke in the context of colonial rule. Surely democratic regimes ought to respect the right of citizens to dissent.
• In today’s India, however, holders of state power refuse to tolerate ideas, reflection, debate, and discussion. Two years ago, the government arrestedeminent members of civil society on charges that were clearly produced by conspiratorial imaginations. 
• On April 14, two of India’s well-known scholars/activists, Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha, surrendered before the National Investigation Agency. 
• In early April, an FIR was filed by the Uttar Pradesh government against the editor of the news website, The Wire, Siddharth Varadarajan. The charges in these cases are flimsy. It is obvious that intellectuals are being penalised for taking on the government.

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Depressing commentary:

• The arrests are a depressing commentaryon the nature of the present government. Sophisticatedsocieties respect intellectuals because they subject the present to historically informed investigation, interpretation, critique and prescription. This is integral to the idea of democratic politics as self-critique. 
• Politics establishes rules that govern multiple transactions of society. It cannot be its own defendant, judge and jury. If politics is, as Aristotle put it, the master science (science for Greeks is knowledge), it has to accept reflective and critical activity. Politics is too important to be left to politicians alone.
• While authoritarian societies breedcourt historians, mature democracies appreciate critical scholarship. But today intellectualism is dismissed contemptuously as elitist. Not only does this attitude foster a culture of mediocrity, intellectuals who hold a mirror to the state are hounded and arrested. This is a setback to democracy, because it foreclosesengagement with structures of power. Without its public intellectuals, democracy slides into authoritarianism.

Dreyfus affair:

• The first public intellectual was, of course, Socrates. The modern notion of the public intellectual is, however, fairly recent. It took shape in the tumultuousdays of what has come to be known as the ‘Dreyfus affair’ in France in 1894. Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish Army officer, had allegedly handed over important government documents to the Germans. He was convicted of treasonamidst a roar of revolting anti-Semitism.
• When Dreyfus was stripped of his medals, the crowd shouted ‘Death to the Jew’. The atmosphere was charged, mob mentality ruled, and sanevoices were drowned in the din. Scholars, artists, and novelists could hardly keep away. 
• They had to summon their knowledge to reflect on citizens’ rights, the irrationalbehaviour of crowds, the ugly slogans that stereotypedan entire community, and the unholy gleewith which crowds watched the humiliation of an army officer. 
• The incident propelled Paris-based intellectuals into the mainstream of French politics. This was the time when scholars came out from their ivory towersand took sides, despite massive crowd hysteriathat broke boundsof civility.

Injustice, prejudice and intolerance:

• Dreyfus was later exonerated,but the affair split the French intelligentsia wide open. Emile Zola wrote an open letter, J’Accuse, in support of the beleagueredarmy officer. Zola attacked injustice, prejudiceand intolerance. 
• He reserved for the intellectual the function that Socrates had reserved for the philosopher: stand by the universal in the quest for truth and in the fight against injustice. Julien Benda, a noted Jewish intellectual, argued that the duty of the intellectual is to defend universal values over and above the politics of the moment.

Commitment to truth, reason and justice: 

• But other scholars propagatedanti-Semitism. In 1942, the philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote an account of the anti-Semitism directed at Dreyfus by right-wing intellectuals in France. 
• Intellectuals who upheldRepublicanism and basic rights were too weak to confront the power of the mob. Mobs are fickle, their rhetoric is blood-curdling, they hate debate, detestinstitutions, and hero-worship leaders. 
• When intellectuals follow the mob or, worse, the leader, they pave the way for fascism, the destruction of institutions, the emergence of the hero, and pogromsof the minority. When intellectuals fail to live up to codes of public ethics, they uphold injustice. 
• Their commitment to truth, reason and justice lapses; they become partners in injustice.

Moral conscience of society:

• The Dreyfus affairlegitimisedthe idea that a public intellectual has to denounce injustice despite the power of the mob. Since then it has been held that intellectuals are not defined by what they are — professors, writers, artists or journalists — but by what they do. Intellectuals have to be competent in their own field, otherwise they will not be taken seriously by anyone. 
• But there is more to being an intellectual. Scholars have to be public intellectuals. They have to cast their scholarly gaze(look) on issues that cause explosions, siftout the details, analyse, evaluate, and take a position. An intellectual has to be involved in public affairs.
• Public intellectuals are the moral conscience of society, simply because they think. To think is to question, to call for freedom, and to invoke the right to disobey. 
• Our intellectuals have to be reflective, philosophical beings, philosophical in the sense that they think about issues, addresses contemporary social problems and see them as the legacies of previously unresolved issues of social injustice

In India:

• It is precisely the unresolved issue of social injustice that has been taken up by Mr. Teltumbde, Mr. Navlakha and Mr. Varadarajan repeatedly and insistently. All three of them have battled the reproduction of injustice in their own ways. 
• Mr. Teltumbde is a fine chronicler of the injustice that has been heapedon the Dalit community. Mr. Navlakha has fiercelycastigatedviolations of civil liberties. And Mr. Varadarajan has exposed the horrific crimes committed by the merchants of hate. 
• None of them has advocatedviolence, none of them has asked the Indian people to revolt against the elected regime. All they ask for is that the provisions of the Constitution be honoured by our leaders. 

Conclusion:

• Leaders wield the scalpel, they ought to be the healers. Their touch should nurse the wounds in the body politic. 
• Public intellectuals are the conscience of our country. They should be respected because they speak out against injustice wherever it occurs, not be subjected to punitiveaction. 

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Religion and freedom: On India and communal violence(The Hindu)

Mains Paper 1:Society 
Prelims level: Communal violence
Mains level: Communal violence and its effects on Indian democracy 

Context:

• Religious freedom is of paramount importance, not because it is about religion, but because it is about freedom. 
• The characterisation by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) of India as a country of particular concern.
• In its annual report, is not entirely surprising, considering its dimand known views about sectarian violence and aggravatinggovernmental measures over the last year. 

Repudiation: 

• The Indian government not only repudiatedthe report but also ridiculedthe USCIRF. The autonomous, bipartisancommission’s influence over any U.S. executive action is limited and occasional but its presumption of global authority appears amusingly expansive.
• Whether or not the U.S. government acts on its recommendation to impose targeted sanctionson Indian government agencies and officials depends on American strategic interests. 
• The U.S. has used arguments of freedom, democracy, tolerance, and transparency as tools in its strategic pursuits(tracking), but there is no proof of any uniform or predictable pattern of enforcement of such moral attributes.

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Embracing and rejecting:

• The process can be selective and often arbitraryin spotlighting countries. Mirroring this pattern, India selectively approaches global opinions on itself, embracing and celebrating laudatoryones and rejecting inconvenient ones. 
• The frantic, and relatively successful, efforts to raise its Ease of Doing Business ranking by the World Bank is a case in point. 
• Many of these reports have a circulatory life — the USCIRF report quotes U.N. Special Rapporteurs to buttressits point on the discriminatory outcome of the National Register ofCitizens in Assam.
• Overall, such reports contribute to the construction of an image of a country, and the Indian government is cognisantof this pattern. 
• In March, the Indian government told Niti Aayog to track 32 global indices and engage with the bodies that measure them, to advance reform and growth. 

 Multi-religious democracy:

• India advertises itself as a multi-religious democracy and as an adherentto global norms of rule of law. It also aspires to be on the table of global rule making. For a country with such stated ambitions, its record on religious freedom as reflected through events of the last one year is deeply disconcerting.
• The catalogueof religious violence, incitementand wreckingof the rule of law in several parts of the country remains an unsettling fact. The partisannature of the ruling dispensationis also difficult to wish away.  

Conclusion:

• Reputation is important for a country’s economic development and global standing but beyond that instrumental perspective, rule of law and communal harmony are essential for any functioning democracy. 
• India must protect its freedoms, and come down heavilyreligious violence.

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Strategic shift: On home isolation of mild coronavirus cases(The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:Health 
Prelims level: Segregation
Mains level: Rules in home isolation due to COVID 19 lockdown

Context:

• On March 28, only 130 districts of India’s 736 had reported COVID-19 cases. 
• The Health Ministry’s strategy then, after the national lockdown, was to ensure State supervision of those who manifestedsymptoms — as well as their high-risk contacts — and who had a travel history. 

Segregation: 

• Suspected high-risk contacts or those likely to have been exposed to the infection were subjected to varying degrees of State quarantine.
• Those not showing signs of the disease or ‘mild’ manifestations, were put in care centres and those noticeably sicker, in hospitals. The idea always was that if the sick and their contacts were segregatedfrom the community long enough, the transmission chain would be broken and the disease extinguished. 
• As April ends, the number of affected districts stands at 401 and confirmed cases have risen by a 1,000 a day; the daily death count hoversbetween 50 and 60. 
• In a containment strategy tweak, those with a mild form of the disease, or are presymptomatic, would have the option of home quarantining. But their homes ought to have self-isolation facilities, a full-time caregiver, and daily health-status reports given to the district surveillanceofficer.

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Relative relaxation:

• The Health Ministry has not explained what promptedthis relative relaxation. However, anecdotalevidence suggests doctors and health-care workers have been disproportionately vulnerable to the infection and a single case leads to entire hospitals being shut down. 
• Unlike in the U.S. and western Europe, India’s hospitals are not yet cloggedwith seriously ill patients. It could be due to India’s relatively low case-count and also people not turning up fearing infection. 
• Allowing home quarantine could be seen as health authorities inferringthat quarantining in public facilities posed more risks. India is now forced to reserve its health-care facilities for those who need it the most.

Fortify health workers and hospitals:

• The presymptomatics and asymptomaticsdid not benefit from treatment and were potentvirus spreaders, and therefore endangeredthe staff and health workers. They also stretched State resources in maintenance. 
• The Ministry also found that among those who tested positive, there were two presymptomatics or asymptomatics for every symptomatic. 
• The disease spread, it appears, is now beyond the abilityof the state to contain, by quarantine, and it was far more prudentto fortifyhealth workers and hospitals with the best facilities available to handle patients. 

Conclusion:

• Officially, there is no community transmission in India but at this magnitude of cases, it does not practically matter. 
• Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi are powering the spread of cases and only consistent declines here can broachdiscussion on the end of the pandemic. 
• From a month ago, India, on paper, is equipped with better supply channels of personal protective equipment, infusion pumps (for oxygen), hospital beds, laboratories for testing and PCR kits. 
• If the lockdown is lifted on May 3, the rationale behind the government’s containment strategy will be put to a stringenttest.

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(Report) Mandal Commission Report

• Medium: English

• E-BOOK NAME : Mandal Commission Report Part-1

• PRICE: FREE

• File Type: PDF File Download Link via Email

Contents

Volume I: MAIN REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS 

Forwarding letter to the President . . . . 

Composition and Terms of Reference of the Commission . 
. 

• Chapter I : The First Backward Classes Commission

• Chapter II : Status of Other Backward Classes in Some States

• Chapter III : Methodology and Data Base

• Chapter IV : Social Backwardness and Caste

• Chapter V : Social Dynamics of Caste

• Chapter VI : Social Justice, Merit and Privilege

• Chapter VII : Social Justics, Constitution and the Law

• Chapter VIII : North-South Comparison of Other Backward Classes Welfarc (A casc Study of Four States)

• Chapter IX : Evidence by Central and State Governments (A Review)

• Chapter X : Evidence by the public

• Chapter XI : Socio-Educational Field Survey and Criteria of Hackwardness 

• Chapter XII :  Idendfication of O.B.C

• Chapter XIII : Recommendations

• Chapter XIV : Summary of the Report

Covid crisis shows India’s science capacity (Mint)

Mains Paper 3:Science and Tech 
Prelims level: Covid-19
Mains level: Role of Indian Science and Technology fraternity to combat COVID 19

Context:

• Right now, because there’s no cure or vaccine yet globally, the focus is on testing, tagging, tracking, significantly cutting down the transmission, planning for the post-lockdown scenarios and managing the Covid-19 cases. 

Role of science: 

• In all of these, the role of science is paramount. 
• Whether it is in the understanding of virus behaviour, its impact on the human body, or its modes of transmission, it is science that has given us the answers, enabling us to formulate meaningful strategies. 
• Now, the next steps are to connect strongly globally to search for vaccines and drugs. 
• Work on all of these fronts has begun actively in India with several labs, academia, startups and companies working in tandem on hospital supplies, therapies, vaccines and on inexpensive, rapid diagnostics for large scale testing.

Do you think the Indian Science and Technology fraternity has responded well to Covid-19?

• Our scientific fraternity has responded well in the area of managing the infected people. Several new and inexpensive designs of ventilators and other respiratory support systems have come up rapidly, some of which are designed for non-ICU use including home care. 
• A plethora of effective PPEs, masks, sanitisers and novel disinfecting systems have been developed and begun to be manufactured at scale. The experimental trials for alternative therapies like convalescent plasma therapy in critical cases have begun.
• On another front inexpensive, fast and accurate methods of diagnosis, driven by cutting edge science, have evolved in India within the past month. 

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Does Indian science have answers to challenges faced, and the ability to handle crises?

• India has a very deep scientific knowledge base and infrastructure across the country in various institutions and Research and Development labs. 
• We are number three in the world in number of scientific and engineering publications, and also at number three in many cutting-edge fields like nanosciences and materials science. 
• We shouldn’t underestimate the brilliance of our scientific human resources, who are among the best in the world. Given a challenge, we can rise to meet it. Some areas do need improvement. 
• While our quantity of research is adequate, the quality of research can further improve by shifting from incremental research to research that is profound, disruptive where needed, cutting edge and relevant.

How does India compare with other countries? Poorly, in some aspects?

• We don’t compare poorly in research with other nations. We think the point you make is given all our strengths, why don’t we see enough technology solutions and commercial activity based on them on the scale seen in some other countries.
• The point we often miss is that there are two distinct systems that need to seamlessly collaborate to make this possible – systems that generate knowledge (academia, Research and Development labs) and systems that consume knowledge (industry, startups …). 
• The knowledge generated needs a push, which combined with an equally effective pull of the knowledge consuming system, allows societal and commercial translation of knowledge. 
• The pull factor becomes stronger in a knowledge based economy that aspires to be globally competitive. It is in this push-pull connect and the strength of pull that we have been historically weak.
• Covid-19 has helped us see these forces at work very clearly. 
• If there is a clear and present challenge and a clear resulting opportunity, then our knowledge ecosystem can work holistically from research to development to translation to prototyping to scale up to commercialisation. 
• Then, both the goddess of wealth, Laxmi, and the goddess of knowledge, Saraswati, see the value of mutual collaboration for the fulfilment of each.

What should be the roles of private industry and government?

• As in many knowledge-based economies, industries should create a strong pull factor for knowledge, for example, by attracting the bright young minds and creating knowledge-based culture which can interface strongly with academia, labs and startups to translate research into scalable technological solutions. 
• Government through its policies and direct support, creates an enabling environment for Research and Development, innovation and its connections to industry. 
• Our education and academic research should also bring the elements of innovation, relevance and critical independent thinking to produce the best of scientists.

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Afghan peace and India’s elbow room (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:International Relations 
Prelims level: India- Afghanistan relations 
Mains level: Bilateral groupings and agreements 

Context:

• Earlier this month, the United Nations Secretariat held a meeting of what it calls the “6+2+1” group on regional efforts to support peace in Afghanistan.
• A group that includes six neighbouring countries: China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan; global players the United States and Russia, and Afghanistan itself. 
• India was conspicuous by its absence from the meeting on April 16, given its historical and strategic ties with Afghanistan, but not for the first time.
• Left out, but some recovery
• The Indian team led by special envoy arrived in Germany’s Petersberg hotel near Bonn, where the famous Bonn agreement was negotiated, to find no reservations had been made for them at the official venue. 
• In January 2010, India was invited to attend the “London Conference” on Afghanistan, but left out of the room during a crucial meeting that decided on opening talks with the Taliban.
• In 2020, the reason given for keeping India out of regional discussions on Afghanistan was ostensibly that it holds no “boundary” with Afghanistan; but it is because New Delhi has never announced its support for the U.S.-Taliban peace process. 
• In both 2001 and 2010, however, India fought back its exclusion successfully. At the Bonn agreement, Ambassador of India was widely credited for ensuring that Northern Alliance leaders came to a consensus to accept Hamid Karzai as the Chairman of the interim arrangement that replaced the Taliban regime. 

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New Delhi’s stand:

• India’s resistance to publicly talking to the Taliban has made it an awkward interlocutor at any table. 
• Its position that only an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned, and Afghan-controlled process can be allowed is a principled one, but has no takers. 
• Kabul, or the Ashraf Ghani government does not lead, own or control the reconciliation process today, comprising the U.S.-Taliban negotiation for an American troops withdrawal, and intra-Afghan talks on power sharing. 
• The U.S.-Taliban peace deal means that the Taliban, which has not let up on violent attacks on the Afghan Army, will become more potent as the U.S. withdraws soldiers from the country, and will hold more sway in the inter-Afghan process as well, as the U.S. withdraws funding for the government in Kabul.

Two-fold effect: 

• Its voice in the reconciliation process has been limited, and it has weakened India’s position with other leaders of the deeply divided democratic setup in Kabul such as the former chief executive Abdullah Abdullah. 
• India’s presence inside Afghanistan, which has been painstakingly built up since 2001, is being threatened anew by terror groups such as the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), believed to be backed by Pakistan’s establishment. 
• Intercepts showed that the brutal attack, in March, that killed 25 at a gurudwara in Kabul was meant for the embassy in Kabul, and intelligence agencies had warned of suicide car bomb threats to the consulates in Jalalabad and Herat last December.

What dents India’s goodwill?

• The government must also consider the damage done to the vast reservoir of goodwill India enjoys in Afghanistan because of recent events in the country, especially the controversy over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. 
• The building blocks of that goodwill are India’s assistance in infrastructure projects, health care, education, trade and food security, and also in the liberal access to Afghans to study, train and work in India.  
• Afghanistan’s majority-Muslim citizens, many of whom have treated India as a second home, have felt cut out of the move to offer fast track citizenship to only Afghan minorities, as much as they have by reports of anti-Muslim rhetoric and incidents of violence in India.
• India’s assistance of more than $3 billion in projects, trade of about $1 billion, a $20 billion projected development expenditure of an alternate route through Chabahar, as well as its support to the Afghan National Army, bureaucrats, doctors and other professionals for training in India should assure it a leading position in Afghanistan’s regional formulation.
• Three major projects:The Afghan Parliament, the Zaranj-Delaram Highway, and the Afghanistan-India Friendship Dam (Salma dam), along with hundreds of small development projects (of schools, hospitals and water projects) have cemented that position in Afghan hearts nationwide.

Making a leap:

• India must also pursue opportunities to fulfil its role in the peace efforts in Afghanistan, starting with efforts to bridge the Ghani-Abdullah divide, and bringing together other major leaders with whom India has built ties for decades. 
• It would be an utter tragedy if the Taliban were to enter the government in Kabul as the U.S. deal envisages, to find the opposing front collapse as it did in 1996.
• The conversation India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had with the U.S.’s Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad last week, where they discussed India’s “engagement” in the peace process, appears to open a window in that direction.
• An understanding between Iran and the U.S. on Afghanistan is necessary for lasting peace as well, and India could play a mediatory part, as it did in order for the Chabahar project.

Way ahead:

• New Delhi should use the United Nations’s call for a pause in conflicts during the novel coronavirus pandemic, to ensure a hold on hostilities with Pakistan. 
• This will be even more difficult than it sounds, given the abyss that bilateral relations have fallen into in the past year over Kashmir and the rise in firepower exchanged at the Line of Control.
• However, if there is one lesson that the the U.S.-Taliban talks have imparted, it is that both have found it necessary to come to the table for talks on Afghanistan’s future. 
• For India, given its abiding interest in Afghanistan’s success and traditional warmth for its people, making that leap should be a bit easier.

Conclusion: 

• Above all, the government must consider the appointment of a special envoy, as it has been done in the past, to deal with its efforts in Afghanistan, which need both diplomatic agility and a firmness of purpose at a watershed moment in that country’s history.

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A task for South Asia (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2:Health 
Prelims level: SAARC
Mains level: Healthcare system in South Asia region 

Context:

• South Asia, one of the world’s most populous regions, is also affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Both Karachi and Mumbai, among the world’s most densely populated cities, where we live and work, are being overwhelmed by cases. 
• While the death rate in these places may not be as alarming as in Europe and the U.S., the collateraldamage of the lockdown is taking its own toll.
• While there are many differences amongst the countries of the region, there are also common features which impact the health of its people, some of them a result of our shared cultural and geopolitical history. 
• The collective experience of dealing with COVID-19 may provide important lessons, which transcendnational boundaries.

Poor healthcare system: 

• South Asian countries have invested very little in health. This is reflected in our abysmallylow health parameters. 
• It is interesting that Britain, which formulated our health policies before independence, went on to form one of the world’s strongest public health systems, the National Health Service, whereas its South Asian colonies chose to strayfrom that path. This resulted in a dysfunctional public healthcare system.

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Privatisation:

• Whilst privatisation has brought in advanced technology and expertise, the high costs of treatment in the private sector have resulted in impoverishment as most of the population has no insurance or third-party coverage, and pays out of pocket. 
• The sector has also been poorly regulated. The result is that it is responsible for several excesses in its quest for profit. 

Other problems:

• Hunger, malnutrition, poor sanitation and large-scale migration are features of this region. Existing infectious diseases like TB, HIV and malaria have been worsened by emerging ones like dengue, chikungunya, healthcare-associated infections and antimicrobial resistance. The region is also an epicentre of an epidemic of lifestyle diseases.
• Constant internal and external conflicts in South Asia not only consume a large portion of national budgets, but also divert the attention of the public and policymakers from healthcare needs. 
• Defence budgets take the largest share of national budgets, and obviously adverselyimpact social sector spending. Underfunded public health is going to hinder our capacity to fight COVID-19.

Religion:

• Religion continues to occupy a central space in the society and politics of the region. Though it offers succourto many, religious dogmacan impact health policy and health-seeking behaviour. 
• The refusal of devotees across Pakistan to avoid religious congregations during Ramadan despite the government’s orders has significantly fed the community spread of the virus. On the other hand, the Tablighi Jamaat congregationin Delhi was used to whip upsentiments against the entire Muslim population in India. 
• This will only put a further strain on the social fabric. The medical community must emphasise that religious practices cannot be exceptions to epidemic-control practices.

A silver lining:

• If there is a silver liningCOVID-19 has forced us to seriously reflect on our healthcare system. This is welcome if it results in policy change. 
• Healthcare professionals and bodies must seize this opportunity to push our respective governments to address it seriously and not just as a pre-election strategy. A long-term commitment to universal health care, with not only a national but also a regional and global focus, is needed.
• The SAARC heads of state have already offered help to one another. A regional strategy has a better chance of controlling the pandemic than isolated national-level efforts. 
• Pooling of resources and sharing data may not only help flatten the curve but perhaps even develop into longer-term efforts towards effective treatment. 
• It is being speculated that our populations are behaving differently; that the BCG vaccinemay be a protective influence. Joint research into such areas can be a unifying point for SAARC.

Way ahead:

• The region’s healthcare community has many tasks. We have the responsibility of upholding science as the guiding principle of policy, of guarding against fake cures, unethical experimentation and quackery.
• We also have theoneroustask of convincing our people that regional conflicts fuelledby geopolitical interests are not in our mutual interest. 
• This could even mean standing up to populist narratives on nationalism and reminding our citizens that the real threat to the security of our nations is our misplaced priorities. 

Conclusion:

• It is in our collective interest to look at health security and not just national security. By the accident of their birth, South Asians haveendured a lot. They meritbetter.

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It is now essential to begin end of lockdown (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2:Governance 
Prelims level: Lockdown
Mains level: Arguments behind to exiting from the lockdown 

Context:

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi held his fourth round of consultations with state governments on April 27 to review the COVID-19 situation. 
• The draconian lockdown, which completes 40 days on May 3, was discussed. 
• As in the earlier meetings, several chief ministers urged that the lockdown be extended. While no decision was announced, the lockdown might well continue.

Experience from lockdown: 

• For governments everywhere, more so after the experience of Italy, Britain and the United States, where governments did too little too late, imposing and continuing lockdowns is a risk-averse strategy. 
• If the spread can be curbed, it would bring political kudos. If it is not, the microbe is to blame. 
• It is the equivalent of a one-way option in financial markets, where you cannot lose. This is even more attractive now as it conforms to herd-behaviour by governments worldwide. 

Real dilemma from exiting lockdown: 

• Exit from a lockdown poses a real dilemma for governments. 
• It is about decision-making under high uncertainty, which requires conviction and confidence.
• This dilemma will always be larger than life when there is a single objective of saving lives in a pandemic. 
• But it must also be recognised that the health of people and the health of an economy are interdependent, where both shape the wellbeing of people. Thus, saving livelihoods is an equally important objective. 

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Importance of lockdown: 

• Lockdowns, combined with mass-testing, contact-tracing, containment-zones, mandatory-quarantines, can only slow down the speed at which the infection spreads. 
• This might help in countries where public health facilities are robust, yet not adequate for large numbers. 
• But our public health system is poor and could never suffice for our large population if the pandemic spreads. 
• There is no vaccine yet. From development through trials to production will be at least one year, and far longer before it becomes available in sufficient quantities for our massive population.

Begin the process of exit from the lockdown:

• It would enable the government to find some balance between the twin objectives of saving lives and saving livelihoods.
• It would help restart the economy, which has been almost completely shut down, and the collateral damage is bound to be far greater if the lockdown is extended.
• A calibrated, planned and phased exit could also help manage the spread of the virus. So far, morbidity and mortality associated with 
• Lower COVID-19 cases in India is possibly attributable to our immune systems, which have antibodies that could be effective in resisting the virus. 
• It suggests that there are already some elements of herd-immunity in India that would grow stronger as the lockdown is lifted slowly.
• The economic and social consequences of the lockdown have been severe. 
• A large proportion of the self-employed, casual workers on daily wages, and informal workers, who constitute 90 per cent of the total workforce, have lost their livelihoods. 
• Demand has dropped sharply as employment has contracted. Supply has been strangled by the massive reduction in output. 
• Government revenues, for both Centre and states, have collapsed. And, even if the lockdown is lifted now, economic growth during 2020-21 would be zero or negative.
• For the poor – 75 per cent of rural households and 50 per cent of urban households – food security is at risk. It is a matter of survival. 
• For micro-small-medium enterprises, their survival is at stake. Large firms, except those with deep pockets, will also struggle. 
• Whatever the government might stipulate, most firms will find it difficult to pay the wages of their employees, for these will only add to their cash losses during the lockdown. 
• Healthcare for patients, except those with COVID-19, has diminished in terms of both access and quality. 
• In education, learning outcomes, already poor, will get worse as schools and colleges remain closed. 
• In every sphere, the short-term effects of the lockdown will have long-term consequences – hysteresis – as future outcomes will be shaped by this past.

Way ahead: 

• For the economy, the sooner the lockdown is lifted the better. 
• But the process of exit from the lockdown will have to be in calibrated steps based on a planned transition path in terms of sequence and speed.
• In this phasing, the geographical size and diversity of India provide degrees of freedom that are missing in most countries.
• Economic activity can be resumed in districts without infections and in green zones. 
• The orange zone districts can be brought in as they turn green. 
• The lockdown should continue in states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi (with limited relaxations where possible) and in red zone districts, containment-zones or hot spots within cities, as long as necessary.

Conclusion: 

• In this decision to begin exit from the lockdown, PM Modi will need to act with the same confidence as he did when imposing the lockdown.

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Schools are functioning despite extraordinary challenges, no ground to deny them fees (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2:Education 
Prelims level: Rule 165 of the Delhi School Education Rules 1973
Mains level: Judiciary 

Context:

• The Delhi High Court has rightly dismissed a petition seeking exemption from payment of school fees, including tuition fees, for the duration of the lockdown. 
• The petition argued that the crisis had led to job losses and pay cuts, and parents should not be forced to pay fees to schools as the premises are shut and only online classes are being conducted. 

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Constitutional background: 

• It invoked Rule 165 of the Delhi School Education Rules, 1973, which states that if a school is shut on the 10th day of a month—the period by when fees need to be paid—the payment can be deferred till the 10th day after it reopens. 
• Though it is unclear how this rules applies, the petitioner argued that since schools remain shut, even tuition fees shouldn’t be charged. 
• However, the High Court rejected this invocation of Rule 165, ruling that the it specified only the payability conditions of fees, and not the chargeability of it.

Key arguments behind this decision: 

• It is much more difficult for teachers to take classes online, as the High Court rightly noted, and their efforts cannot be ignored. 
• Even with online classes, schools are incurring considerable expenditure in arranging for, and maintaining the required digital infrastructure. 
• Schools hiring platforms to deliver e-lessons also need to pay the fees these charge. 
• To suggest that schools should not charge the tuition fees because they are shut is without foundation, because their fundamental deliverables have not been suspended. 

Conclusion: 

• The current economic milieu has put pressures on all sectors. 
• The fact that schools have not stopped teaching is something that should be appreciated and supported by guardians and the society at large.

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India’s lightbulb moment (Financial Express)

Mains Paper 3:Economy 
Prelims level: Electricity Amendment Bill 2020
Mains level: Issues pertaining with electricity sector in India 

Context:

• The 9-minute lights-off on April 5 was the appeal of the PM’s call, the extent of public participation, and the expert management of the national electricity grid. 
• Switching off, and then bringing back in just a few minutes, a massive 32,000 MW of power, is a great technical accomplishment.

Key issues for sustainable future: 

• Continues to integrate renewable energy (RE): In keeping with energy security and climate change goals, a market-based, automatic mechanism for integration of infirm renewable power into the grid is non-negotiable. 
• Doing with inefficient coal plants: The plan to retrofit 440 power units aggregating to 166.5GW with flue gas desulphurisation (FGD) systems by December 2022 is way behind schedule. 
• Trend of low power demand: In the post-Covid economy, and increased RE generation, will continue to put a ceiling on the PLF of the thermal fleet. 

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Plan for sustainable future: 

• Chance for ‘Make in India: It is an opportunity to bring in fresh Covid-influenced industrial investment from Korea and Japan, which are diversifying away from China. 
• Lower industrial power tariffsto meet the competition: Lowering industrial tariffs obliges the unravelling of the cross-subsidy regime. The key issue is of agricultural tariffs, and a permanent solution is needed. 
• There is a precedent for from the successful marketisation of fuel oils.
• Making these long-delayed changes would also address the perennial and oldest issue of the financial health of the discoms. 

Electricity Amendment Bill 2020:

• The proposed Electricity Amendment Bill, 2020, is an ambitious step in the right direction—with bold moves to institute cost-reflective tariffs, remove subsidies, and strengthen the sanctity of contracts through greater enforcement and provision of payment security to generators. 
• Each state can be asked to endorse the legislation with its variant, which could become a condition to accept the Centre’s band-aid assistance.

Shortcomings: 

• However, the proposed Bill could have gone further to introduce the radical reforms needed. 
• In the current draft, many of the reforms proposed earlier—carriage and content separation, more effective RPOs, and default open access to RE—have either been dropped or watered down. 
• A bold reform move would be the complete abolition of cross-subsidy at a defined future date. 
• The discoms should also be required to implement “DBT” for paying any subsidy on electricity (rather than this being borne by the discom, as is the case presently). 
• Removing the cross-subsidy will create the urgency to solve the subsidy problem, and concurrently make power tariffs more competitive—something we need to attract factories relocating from China.

Conclusion: 

• It is said that India reforms only when there is a crisis. 
• We have a monster of a crisis now, and to not use this crisis for meaningful reform would be a waste of talent, leadership, and this rare lightbulb moment at every level.

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(Notification) UPPSC :  ACF RFO EXAM Notification 2020

Post Detail :

1- Candidates applying for Assistant Conservator of Forest / Range Forest Officer Services Examination-2020 should note that they are required to appear in the Combined State / Upper Subordinate Services (Preliminary) Examination 2020 and qualify the same for going to the second stage of Assistant Conservator of Forest / Range Forest Officer Services Main Examination (Written) and Interview.

2- Candidates desirous of applying for Assistant Conservator of Forest / Range Forest Officer Services Examination as well as for Combined State / Upper Subordinate Services Examination can apply through a Common Online Application Form subject to meeting the requisite Eligibility Criteria by them.

3- If at any stage it is found that the candidate has concealed or misrepresented any desired/required information, his candidature may be cancelled and other appropriate action like debarment may be initiated against him.

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Education Qualification:

Pay Scale :

1. Assistant conservator :  Rs.15600/- to Rs.39100/-, Grade Pay- Rs.5400/-, (Levelof Forest 10 in the pay matrix Group) Group “B”, Gazetted.
2. Range Forest Officer  : Rs.9300/- to Rs.34800/-, Grade Pay – Rs.4800/-, (Levelof Forest 8 pay matrix 47600 - 151100) Group “B”, Gazetted.

Age :

Candidates must have attained the age of 21 years and must not have crossed the age of 40 years on July 1, 2020 i.e. they must have not been born earlier than 2nd July, 1980 and not later than July 1, 1999. For PH candidates, the maximum age limit is 55 years i.e. they must have not been born before 02 July, 1965. 

How to Apply :

At the top of the page there is a Declaration. The candidates are advised to go through the contents of the Declaration carefully. Candidate has the option either to agree or disagree with the contents of Declaration by clicking on 'I agree' or 'I do not agree' buttons. In case the candidate opts to disagree, the application will be dropped, and the procedure will be terminated. Accepting to agree only will submit the candidate's On-line Application. Notification Details: This section shows information relevant to notification. Personal Details: This section shows information about candidate's personal details i.e. Registration Number, Candidate's Name, Father/Husband's Name, Gender, Date of Birth, UP domicile, Category, Marital Status, Email-ID and Contact Number. Other Details of Candidate: Other details of candidate shows the information details about UP Freedom Fighter, Ex Army, service duration and your physical deformity. Education & Experience Details: It shows your educational and experience details. Candidate Address, Photo & Signature details: Here you will see your complete communication address and photo with your signature. Declaration Segment: At the bottom of the page there is a 'Declaration' for the candidates. Candidates are advised to go through the contents of the Declaration carefully. After filling all above particulars there is provision for preview your detail before final submission of application form on clicking on “Preview” button. Preview page will display all facts/particulars that you have mentioned on entry time if you are sure with filled details then click on “Submit” button to finally push data into server with successfully submission report that you can print. Otherwise using “Back” button option you can modify your details. [CANDIDATES ARE ADVISED TO TAKE A PRINT OF THIS PAGE BY CLICKING ON THE “PRINT” OPTION AVAILABLE]

1. On clicking “View Application status” option in candidate Segment page you can see current status of candidate.
2. On clicking “Result” option in candidate Segment page candidate can see result status of periodically.
3. “Interview/Exam Schedule” option in candidate Segment page candidate can see interview and examination schedule details periodically.
4. On clicking “Key Answer Sheet” candidate can download key answer sheet.
5. On clicking “Admit Card/Hall Ticket” candidate can download their Admit Card using with some basic credential of candidate.
6. On clicking “List of Rejected Candidate” candidate can view rejected candidate list.
7. On clicking “Syllabus” candidate can view syllabus of particular examination. (Candidates applying On-line need NOT send hard copy of the On-line Application filled by them On-line or any other document/certificate/testimonial to the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission. However they are advised to take printout of the On-line Application and retain it for further communication with the UPPSC.) (The Candidates applying for the examination should ensure that they fulfill all eligibility conditions for admission to examination. Their admission at all the stages of the examination will be purely provisional subject to satisfying the prescribed eligibility conditions). UPPSC takes up verification of eligibility conditions with reference to original documents at subsequent stages of examination process. 

LAST DATE FOR RECEIPT OF APPLICATIONS: On-line Application process must be completed (including filling up of Part-I, Part-II and Part-III of the Form) before last date of form submission according to advertisement, after which the Web. Link will be disabled.

Fee Payment :

In the ON-LINE Application process, after completing the procedure of first stage, Category wise prescribed examination fee is to be deposited as per instructions provided in second stage. The prescribed fee of preliminary examination for different categories is as under:- 

(i) Unreserved/Economically weaker sections/ : Exam fee Rs. 100/- + On-line processing fee 
 Other Backward Class Rs. 25/- Total = Rs. 125/-

(ii) Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe : Exam fee Rs. 40/- + On-line processing fee Rs. 25/- Total = Rs. 65/-
(iii) Handicapped : Exam fee NIL+ On-line processing fee Rs. 25/- Total = Rs. 25/-
(iv) Ex-Serviceman : Exam fee Rs. 40/- + On-line processing fee  Rs. 25/- Total = Rs. 65/-
(v) Dependents of the Freedom : According to their original category  Fighters/Women

Important Dates: 

• Date of Commencement of On-line Application: 21/04/2020
• Last Date for Receipt of Examination Fee On-line in the Bank: 18/05/2020
• Last Date for Submission of On-line Application: 21/05/2020

Breathing easy on ventilator quality (Financial Express)

Mains Paper 2:Health 
Prelims level: Ventilator
Mains level: Process to increase the production of good ventilators to increase the survival rate of COVID 19 patients 

Context:

• If one were to name the one hallmark feature of the 21st century, we would venture to say it is innovation. 
• Our modernity enables us, more than ever, to make, for instance, better predictions. 
• That because of the fundamental reason is technological advancement, which has now enabled us not only to generate humongous volumes of data but also to collate this and make sense of it.

What are we to do? 

• The first step towards solving a problem is identifying it. The critical challenge, obviously, is developing a vaccine against the disease. 
• With researchers and scientists already engaged in this, success is not a matter of possibility, but merely one of time. 
• However, until then, we are faced with more immediate challenges, which it is imperative we resolve as soon as possible. Let us take a look at one such critical problem.

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The crisis:

• When Covid-19 broke out of China, it caught the world off-guard.
• Its impact has sent nations into lockdown, while hospitals and medical centres teem with overwhelming activity. 
• As front line healthcare professionals, supporting staff and public servants work tirelessly to tend to infected masses, the world was woken up to a realisation.
• Most of us were not prepared to deal with a health crisis of such catastrophic levels. 
• This realisation was triggered by shortage of an equipment that is an essential tool in our collective battle against the deadly virus—the ventilator.

Need to increase the supply of ventilators: 

• Boosting the supply of ventilators across the country and the globe is essential to setting the world on the path to resuscitation.
• Covid-19 poses the most risk to individuals with respiratory challenges since the virus targets the lungs. 
• In the worst-case scenario, the virus can lead an individual to develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). 
• Most ARDS patients need the help of a machine to breathe—this is where ventilators come into the picture. 
• A mechanical ventilator pushes air into the lungs and forces some of the fluid out of the air sacs. 
• Another key step in caring for ARDS patients is supplying them with supplemental oxygen. Thus, doctors also leverage ventilators to optimise patients’ blood oxygen levels.

Finding the perfect ventilator:

• A ventilator, at its most basic, is any instrument penetrating via the mouth (endotracheal tube), nose, or skin (tracheostomy tube through a stoma, a surgically-created hole in the windpipe) to serve as an artificial airway. 
• In the absence of such machines, doctors may have to use a manual resuscitator called a bag valve mask, or an Ambu bag, which forces air into the lungs of patients who are either not breathing or not breathing adequately. 
• This cannot be used to help critical Covid-19 patients as it is not suitable for continuous use and needs a highly-trained operator to make use of it.
• A good ventilator design must keep the health of caregivers as a primary consideration.

The best bet:

• In the wake of the pandemic, most countries have stopped exports of medical equipment, and all global ventilators have been snapped up. Even components for ventilators are in short supply. 
• In India, the cottage industry has inevitably been stirred into action, with every other player claiming to have a ventilator that can meet present needs. 
• In their understandable desperation, driven by the grief of the human tragedy underway, local authorities, government bodies, and corporations are pumping capital into procuring sub-standard products. 
• This, instead of advancing our struggle, is forcing us to take a step back. 

How, then, do we hit the mark amidst all this noise?

• We need to move cautiously and home in on the answer by a calculated process of elimination. 
• Although we are engaged in a race against time, jumping the gun is not an option.
• We need to make an informed decision by considering valid factors so that we can identify and pick a solution that represents the best of not only the modern industry, but also the modern age.
• We cannot afford to treat our ‘suitable ventilator’ as a mere electronic item—it will be a high-precision product of the combination of top-class engineering efforts, optimum manufacturing capability, and robust financial backing. 
• Hence, while scrutinising a ventilator, we need to ask: Who has designed it? Who has manufactured it? Will the product stand the test of time? Can the company maintain the product over the next 3-5 years—not only until our battle with Covid-19 is won but also beyond, for future emergencies?

Ideal strategy to improve survival in Covid-19 patients: 

• The ideal strategy to improve survival in Covid-19 patients while preventing lung injury is invasive mechanical ventilation with low tidal volumes and high levels of positive end-expiratory pressure. 
• •    This primarily aims to provide oxygen, remove carbon dioxide, decrease the work of breathing, and reverse life-threatening conditions such as hypoxemia, or insufficient oxygenation of arterial blood.
• •    As much as low ventilator inventory is a grave concern due to its shortage being directly proportional to the mortality rate, the absence of a suitable ventilator design is equally worthy of consideration. 
• •    And, we can generate a fair idea of what an ideal ventilator looks like, and of what it can do. 

Conclusion: 

• •    A good ventilator must be a high-precision product, a combination of top-class engineering efforts, optimum manufacturing capability, and robust financial backing.
• •    Hence, considering the lineage of the company creating the new-age ventilator is crucial. 
• •    The good news is that India, the third-largest startup ecosystem, is well-equipped to breed such innovators.

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Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Online Education: Ending an apartheid (Financial Express)

Mains Paper 2:Education 
Prelims level: Ilbert Bill of 1884
Mains level: Role of online education to reduce the existing challenges in global higher education institutions 

Context:

• India’s current online university regulations create a similar apartheid by allowing only seven of our 993 universities to launch online courses; 
• During the Covid-19 lockdown overseas universities have signed up 100,000+ students in India for online courses. 
• The lockdown exposes the folly and unfairness of the UGC 2018 online regulations; 
• It must immediately allow all accredited universities to launch online courses with full flexibility in design, delivery, and assessment. 

Enrolments in Indian universities: 

• India’s universities have delivered quantity, but uneven quality and employability. 
• There have roughly 38 million university students; of these, 34 million are on campuses, 4 million are in traditional distance education, and only 25,000 students have opted for online education. 
• UGC banned online education in 2015, but notified new licensing guidelines in 2018. 
• Since then, UGC has only licensed seven universities for online courses. 

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This raises three important questions:

• Why aren’t all accredited universities automatically allowed to launch online courses when India can’t stop overseas universities from signing students in India? 
• Why distinguish between licensing for paper-based distance learning and online learning? 
• Why not give universities flexibility in curriculum, design, delivery, and assessment of online courses rather than force them to be the equivalent of an ATM machine with a teller physically handing out cash?

The Ilbert Bill of 1884: 

• It is a proposed law that would make English and Indian judges equal in the British Raj.
• It was withdrawn after an uproar from Englishmen that benefited from the apartheid.

Pre-existing challenges in higher education system: 

• The global higher education system has ten multi-decade, pre-existing challenges. 
• Crisis of affordability:Many US college classrooms now cost $200 per hour. 
• Crisis of education returns:Estimates before Covid-19 suggested that 50% of the $1.5 trillion student debt (`1,14,75,150 crore) was slated to default. 
• Broken promise of employability: The college graduates include 60% of Korean taxi drivers, 31% of US retail checkout clerks in the US, and 15% of Indian high-end security guards. 
• Differential needs of adult learners: They need anytime, anywhere, and affordable learning that they can do concurrently with their jobs. 
• Massive shortage of quality faculty. 
• Problem of diversity: The typical university student is no longer an 18-year old privileged urban male studying full-time; today’s students are just as likely to be female, poor, older, from rural areas, or studying part-time. These education outsiders need more flexible admission criteria, rolling admissions, continuous assessments, on-demand, on-the-go, always-on, qualification modularity and multi-modal delivery. 
• Change in the definition of employability:The most important 21st-century skill is learning how to learn. 
• Create a new balance between repair, prepare and upgrade:A new world of work where employment shifting from a lifetime contract to a taxicab relationship needs a new balance between repair, prepare and upgrade.
• Blurring of the line between corporate training and higher education; research suggests that employed-learners are expected to cross traditional learners within five years. 
• The attractive self-financing, employability and signalling value of degree linked apprenticeships. 
• Online higher education not only addresses these ten challenges, but the lockdown has brought forward its destiny from 2030 to 2020 in one month.
• Many Indian universities don’t balance cost, quality, scale, and employability because regulations stifle innovation. 

Modification of UGC Online Regulations 2018:

• The UGC Online Regulations 2018 needs modification in five ways; 
• a) Remove clauses 4(1)(i), 4(1)(ii), 4(1) (iii), and 6 that restrict licensing, and prescribe a discretionary approval process and replace them with something that authorises all accredited universities to design, develop and deliver their own online programmes. 
• b) Modify clause 4 (2) to allow innovation, flexibility, and relevance in an online curriculum that allows universities to work closely with industries on their list of courses, and ensure the integrity of purpose.
• c) Rewrite clause 7(2)(i) appropriately to allow universities to work with the best technology platforms without holding them hostage to a state sponsored system. 
• d) Modify clause 7(3)(viii) to allow rolling admissions, and, 
• e) Replace clause 7(2)(vi) with clause 4(4)(iv) to allow technology-driven, on-demand, and credible online assessments.

Conclusion:

• The Covid crisis of 2020 should lead to Poorna Swaraj for all Indian universities to go online.

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Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials