Chasing the cure (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: Health
Prelims level: Alzheimer
Mains level: Key findings about the new Alzheimer’s drug

Context

• For nearly two decades, doctors treating Alzheimer’s patients have been frustrated by the lack of advance in medical research.
• The most advanced drug that is used to treat the disease was developed in 2003.

Alzheimer

• It was first identified in 1906 by the German physician, Alois Alzheimer.
• Drugs currently in use treat the neuro-degenerative disorder symptomatically at best.
• They leaving doctors almost helpless about elderly patients who may forget familiar facts and, at times, even the faces of family members.

Latest update

• The new drug, Oligomannate, a sugar derived from a Chinese seaweed, works by modifying gut bacteria to reduce inflammation in the brain.
• Green Valley, the Chinese biotech company that has developed the drug.
• A clinical trial on 818 people “demonstrated solid and consistent cognition improvement among those treated versus a control group”.
• The method adopted by the Chinese researchers is a departure from Alzheimer’s drug development that has focussed on attacking the plaque that forms in the brains of patients; this protein build-up interferes with neural signaling.
• Last year, pharma major El Lilly threw in the towel during the final stages of trials of a drug that targets the plaque accumulation in brain cells, leading researchers to think of alternate disease pathways — the microbiome, for instance.

Way ahead

• However there is a good reason for tempering the optimism around the new drug.
• In China, the regulatory agency has asked Green Valley to conduct more research on Oligomannate’s safety it has, however, allowed the company to market the drug by the last week of December.
• The complete data on how exactly the cognitive function improved for patients on the drug versus those on placebo and how meaningful that was in the patients’ lives is still not known outside select circles in China.
• Oligomannate must be tested on diverse groups of people to be affirmed as a panacea for Alzheimer’s globally. And, these trials need to include many more than 818 individuals.

Conclusion

• Once knowledge on the mode of action of the Chinese seaweed spreads among medical researchers worldwide, more potent compounds could be developed to target Alzheimer’s people.

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Lost opportunity (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: International Relations
Prelims level: Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
Mains level: What India should have stayed to joining Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership?

Context

• India has chosen to hold back from joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement, turning its back on one of the most dynamic regions in the world.

Legitimate concerns

• Certain segments which lobbied against the deal might be relieved at the outcome, but the loss to the economy far exceeds the short-term perceived benefits of staying out of the pact.
• While the political rhetoric continues to centre around free trade, the government’s action signals a distinct shift towards a protectionist stance.
• Much of the domestic opposition to joining the RCEP is rooted in the fear that the influx of cheap Chinese products, non-tariff barriers which tend to restrict market access, and cheaper dairy products from New Zealand would worsen the already ballooning trade deficit and dent the domestic industry.

Key arguments

• There are reasonable arguments to be made that certain sectors, agriculture in particular, would need safeguards.
• Though the details of these negotiations are not yet known, the Indian side should have made greater effort to convince other countries for carve-outs for certain sectors, and for allowing a gradual phasing out of tariffs to ease domestic fears.
• New Delhi should have used this as an opportunity to push through contentious but necessary reforms that would boost competitiveness.
• But, by deciding not to join, it has succumbed to the protectionist impulses that have guided much of its recent trade moves.
• While it is possible that the deeper than expected slowdown in the economy may have tilted the balance in favour of not joining, a certain policy incoherence marks this government’s approach. On the one hand, it wants India to become a manufacturing hub.
• Yet, staying out of the RCEP reduces opportunities for trading with these countries, which together account for roughly a third of global trade.
• Manufacturing today requires greater integration with global supply chains. Signing the agreement would have signalled an embrace of freer trade, which could have aided in the shift of companies out of China to India. But the move has complicated India’s course to integrate into global value chains. With this, India has also ceded space to China to have greater say in the region.

Way forward

• The failure to do so, bowing to the pressure of various interest groups, shows that parliamentary strength alone is not sufficient to push through contentious but necessary reform.

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Police reform is possible, but the political executive has failed to make it happen

Mains Paper 3: Defence and security
Prelims level: Model Police Act in 2006
Mains level: Police reforms and consequences

Context

• “Namumkin Ab Mumkin Hai, Swachch Bharat, Ayushman Bharat, Electricity – Ujjwala and Sukanya Yojana and so on.
• An area where even what was mumkin (possible) has not been achieved — it is about reformative changes in the police with a view to transforming it into an instrument of service to the people.

Background

• The Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment in 2006, clearly said that “the commitment, devotion and accountability of the police has to be only to the rule of law” and that “the supervision and control has to be such that it ensures that the police serves the people without any regard, whatsoever, to the status and position of any person while investigating a crime or taking preventive measures”.
• It is a great pity that even after 12 years, there has been only partial and, in some states, farcical compliance of the directions.
• The Police Act Drafting Committee headed by Soli Sorabjee had prepared a Model Police Act in 2006.
• Besides, Article 252 of the Constitution gives Parliament the power to legislate for two or more states by consent and lays down that such an Act shall apply to the consenting states “and to any other by which it is adopted through a resolution passed in that behalf by the House or, where there are two Houses, by each of the Houses of the legislature of that State”.
• It is ironical that while the British India had one police Act for the entire country, we are confronted with a situation where every state has a different Act with sharp differences in
  essential features.
• The prime minister SMART police a police, which would be sensitive, mobile, accountable, responsive and techno-savvy.

Way forward

• There has hardly been any follow up action and only some cosmetic steps were taken to augment the manpower and infrastructure of the forces.
• New India its policing remains mired in a colonial structure.
• The total strength of state police forces is 2.46 million and there are about 25,000 police stations and outposts across the country.
• We need to understand that stable law and order provides the foundation for sustained economic development.
• A healthy democracy also needs a healthy police.
• In fact, if police is not able to enforce the rule of law and is constrained to take directions from persons of questionable antecedents at the helm, it will be the beginning of the end of
  democracy.

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The case Bayer is fighting over glyphosate-based herbicides

Mains Paper 3: Science and Tech
Prelims level : Glyphosate
Mains level : Uses of Glyphosate

Context

• German pharma company Bayer is facing thousands of lawsuits over one of its products.
• 42,700 plaintiffs in the US are blaming Bayer’s herbicides for their cancer, up from 18,400 plaintiffs in July this year.
• It should have warned of the alleged cancer risks.

What are these herbicides?

• The herbicides are based on a compound called glyphosate. First developed in 1970, glyphosate is scientifically N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine under the IUPAC system of nomenclature. It is applied to the leaves of plants to kill weeds. It is widely used in India, too.
• According to a 2016 bulletin published by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the weedkiller in India goes by various brand names, including Roundup, Glycel, and Brake.
• Describing the herbicide’s reach in the country, it says, “Glyphosate was highly accepted by the tea planters in the past two decades.
• It has a very good market size in the tea sector of West Bengal and Assam.
• The consumption of glyphosate is highest in Maharas(h)tra as it is becoming a key herbicide in sugarcane, maize and many fruit crops including mango, banana, grapes, pomegranate and citrus.”

Why it is a worry

• In 2015, the Word Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer published a study that found glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans”.
• Activists have been campaignig against glyphosate-based products.
• France, Italy, and Vietnam banned the herbicide’s use after the IARC finding.

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To slow on sanitation

Mains Paper 2: Social Justice
Prelims level: Faecal Sludge Treatment Plants
Mains level: Welfare schemes to the vulnerable sections of the society

Context

• The tragic death of six people who entered a septic tank in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur town is a grim reminder that sanitation remains a low-priority area despite the high political profile of Swachh Bharat.
• Public understanding of the science of managing septic tanks continues to be poor, and the availability of cheap labour to clean these structures has slowed efforts to develop technologies that can safely remove and transport the waste.
• Sanitation thus remains a challenge in thousands of unsewered towns.
• What sets the incident apart from the several instances of people dying of asphyxiation in the tanks is that some of the victims were the owners of the property and not workers.
• Three people collapsed while inspecting their residential septic tank, and others who tried to save them also perished.
• Although workers were not affected in this case, it confirms Tamil Nadu’s abysmal overall record at raising sanitation standards.

Analysing the data

• Since 1993, when the first law was passed against manual cleaning, there were at least 144 worker deaths in Tamil Nadu as of November 2018.
• According to official data reported to the Centre for grant of compensation. Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab also fared badly with a cumulative toll of 146 lives lost during that period.
• This is obviously a gross underestimate, since the Safai Karmachari Andolan, which has litigated in the Supreme Court seeking to aggressively prosecute offenders, contends that septic tank cleaning claimed nearly 1,500 lives between 2014 and 2016.
• More reports of deaths continue to come in.

Constitutional Provision

• Every death of a manual worker represents a crime, since the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 makes the use of such labour to clean septic tanks an offence punishable with imprisonment of two years or with a fine of Rs. 2 lakh or both even in the first instance.
• If State governments are reluctant to prosecute offenders, they are also slow to adopt newer technologies such as Faecal Sludge Treatment Plants (FSTP), which can be combined with omniprocessors for safe treatment of waste. For the task of cleaning the tanks, indigenous innovation in robotics looks promising.

Way forward

• A prototype is planned to be tested by the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and such devices can potentially transform sanitation in India and other developing countries.
• But the pace of adoption will depend on the priority that governments accord to the long-neglected problem.
• Last year, Tamil Nadu, and some other States, notably Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, announced plans to scale up FSTP infrastructure.
• This is a task that deserves the highest importance, and needs to be completed on deadline.
• What happened in Sriperumbudur highlights the heavy price that communities pay for the lack of scientific sanitation.
• If governments remain apathetic, citizens would expect the courts to step in to uphold the law against manual scavenging and make individual departments accountable.
• The science on sanitation has advanced, and policy must urgently catch up.

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Need a common manifesto

Mains Paper 3: Environment
Prelims level: Climate Change
Mains level: Environment Impact assessment

Context

• Another election is upon us, and we are preoccupied with some matters that are grave and many that are not. But noticeable by its absence in any of the manifestos and declarations by political parties is a debate about the future of human civilisation.
• In October 2018, UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that without radical course correction, the world will exhaust its carbon budget to keep global temperature increase below 1.5°C by 2030, just two general elections away.
• Any increase above that will trigger runaway changes to global climate that could leave large portions of the planet uninhabitable.
• That is not all. In March, UN’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services warned that human societies are using up nature faster than it can renew itself and compromising its ability to sustain life on the planet.

A myopic preoccupation

• Scientists reassure us, though, that it is still not too late to avert the worst-case scenarios of ecosystem collapse and a climate-run riot.
• But for that, the world would need to reframe its engagement with climate change and abandon its myopic preoccupation with greenhouse gas emissions and carbon budgets.
• India’s obsession with 100 GW solar electricity targets may fetch high ratings from the international green energy cheerleaders.
• But that alone will do nothing to fortify ordinary Indians from the impending disasters. Real resilience will result only from improving the health of the lands they live in and depend on.
• Around the world, governments, multinational charities and technology companies are peddling a simplistic story of false solutions that crisis can be averted by changing the fuel that powers our economy. By themselves, renewable energy systems will not make an inherently unsustainable economy sustainable or correct an unjust social system. They may even make it worse.
• During the climate summit in Katowice, Poland, the Environment Minister declared that India was on track to meet its climate goals ahead of the deadline.
• The same government is also changing laws to dilute environmental protection, facilitate corporate land grabs, disempower local communities and criminalise any dissent against its grand schemes.

About the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification

• The Coastal Regulation Zone Notification, which regulates “development” along India’s 7,500-km shoreline, was diluted to allow denser construction closer to the sea.
• The notification cites tourism jobs to justify the construction of temporary facilities within 10 m of the waterline. Mega infrastructure, such as ports and roads, will be permitted anywhere inside the sea, over dunes, through mangroves and tidal marshes if they are declared to be “strategic” projects.
• These are hare-brained policies.
• Even the government acknowledges that sea levels can rise by 3.5 to 34.6 inches by 2100 and inundate India’s coastline. How India handles land use change, not climate change, will decide whether it can improve the lot of millions without warming the world.

Grassroots campaigns

• Across the country, people are rising up to protest against certain kinds of ‘development’.
• Farmers are mobilising against the bullet train, and indigenous people are fighting against the opening up of forests for mines and dams.
• Although these fights may have positive consequences for the climate, they have never been explicitly about reducing the kinds of greenhouse gas emissions associated with ‘development’.
• Rather, they are about how we relate to the lands that sustain us and who gets to define ‘development’.

Conclusion

• Paved surfaces, the hallmark of built-earth economies, disrupt water flows, reduce groundwater recharge and obliterate biodiversity.
• Such economies impoverish local communities and increase their vulnerability to natural shocks.
• For all the rivalry between the political parties contesting the elections, there is a remarkable homogeneity of thought on matters relating to ecology and economy, and lack of thinking about India’s future.
• What is desperately needed at this moment is a manifesto for the protection of the commons and open lands, and for the re-creation of economies that derive value out of healing wounded landscapes and covering open lands with diverse vegetation, water and life.
• For this, we need to defer to the Constitution and ensure that those who are challenging ‘development’ projects like the bullet train can speak without fear.

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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 06 November 2019

::NATIONAL::

PM claims our present is largely influenced by scientists

• Prime Minister NarendraModi has stressed the need for the development of scientific temper among people to expedite development of the country.

• Inaugurating the India International Science Festival in Kolkata this afternoon through video-conferencing Mr.Modi said, the scientific temper reduces superstitions and encourages temperament of reasoning.

• Referring to the recent Chandrayan Mission, the Prime Minister said that the issue raised the curiosity among people on Science. He appealed to the scientific community to take long-term solution approach to make Science for society and Science for people.

• The Prime Minister said that the Government is supporting innovations and inventions for this purpose. He also informed that five thousand Atal Tinkering labs are being set up in various parts of the country to encourage students for hands-on training on Science and Research.

• The West Bengal Governor JagdeepDhankhar and Science and Technology Minister Dr HarshaVardhan and other distinguished guests were present at the inaugural session of the four-day-long festival.

President rejects request demanding disqualification of MLA’s

• In a relief for the AamAadmi Party, President Ram NathKovind has rejected a petition demanding disqualification of 11 party MLAs for allegedly holding office of profit.

• The issue was referred to the EC which gave an opinion in August that holding the office of co-chairperson of a district disaster management authority does not attract disqualification as MLA as there is no remuneration by way of salary, allowances, sitting fee.

• Nor is there any other facility such as staff car, office space, supporting staff, telephone or residence provided.As per law, the President accepts the opinion of the Election Commission in cases of office of profit.

• The Commission held that "item 14 of the Schedule to Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification Act), 1997 provides for exemption for the office of chairman, director or member of a statutory or non-statutory body or committee constituted by Government of NCT, provided that the said chairman, director or member are not entitled to any remuneration.

• The term of the 70-member Delhi Assembly ends on February 22, 2020 and the polls can be announced in the next few weeks.

::ECONOMY::

Govt.to relax quality norms for onion imports

• The government has decided to relax quality norms to facilitate immediate import of onions for curbing rising onion prices. In an inter-ministerial committee meeting, consumer affairs secretary Avinash K Srivastava directed to relax phytosanitary and fumigation norms to speed up onion imports from other producing countries like Egypt, Turkey and Iran.

• The prices of onions, which had touched Rs 80 per kg in August and September, have again shot up to Rs 100 a kg in some places due to a shortage, triggered by unseasonal rainfall leading to crop damage in the main onion growing zones in Maharashtra.

• Traders have been demanding to liberalise these norms for a faster import of onions to India. Onion Exporters’ Association president Ajit Shah said that onion can be imported from Dubai in 10 days provided government relaxes phytosanitary norms.

• "If government insists on importing from original source of the commodity, here Egypt, it will take many weeks to receive shipments. However, importing Egypt origin onion from Dubai is possible in just 10 days," he said.

• In the meeting, it was also decided to send two inter ministerial teams to Karnataka and Rajasthan to take stock of their Onion supplies and encourage the supplies to consuming regions including Delhi-NCR. The committee also directed NAFED to supply the maximum possible quantities to Delhi Government for retailing.

MoRD releases another edition of wasteland atlas

• In an effort to productively use India’s wastelands, the ministry of rural development has come out with the fifth edition of Wasteland Atlas -2019, eight years after the last edition was published in 2011. This is significant as it takes into account 12.08 MHa of unmapped area of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) for the first time.

• As per the Atlas, during this period 1.45 Mha of wastelands are converted into non wastelands categories. “A reduction in wasteland area was observed in the categories of land with dense scrub, waterlogged and marshy land, sandy areas, degraded pastures / grazing land and gullied and / or ravinous land,” it said.

• The department of land resources in collaboration with National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Department of Space has published Wastelands Atlases of India - 2000, 2005, 2010 &2011 editions. The new wastelands mapping exercise, carried out by NRSC using the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite data is the fifth edition of Wastelands Atlas – 2019.

• India with 2.4 per cent of total land area of the world is supporting 18 per cent of the world’s population. The per capita availability of agriculture land in India is 0.12 ha whereas world per capita agriculture land is 0.29 ha.

• According to the ministry, unprecedented pressure on the land beyond its carrying capacity is resulting into degradation of lands in the country. “Therefore, robust geospatial information on wastelands assumes significance and effectively helpful in rolling back the wastelands for productive use through various land development programmes/schemes,” it said.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

China to establish national security mechanism in HongKong

• China will establish a "robust" legal system and enforcement mechanism to safeguard national security in Hong Kong, the ruling Communist Party said on Tuesday, following a meeting last week of its senior leadership.

• China will also "perfect" the system under which the party has full jurisdictional power over Hong Kong according to the Basic Law and constitution, the party said, in a long statement carried by state news agency Xinhua.

• However it gave no details on how the measures will be implemented.

Garbage problem gets high in Yemen,causing cholera

• Mounds of stinking garbage line the streets of Yemen's historic city of Taez, once renowned as one of the most beautiful places in the country, but now torn apart by war.

• The city in the highlands of southwestern Yemen has become a breeding ground for mosquitos as well as deadly outbreaks of diseases like cholera, as decaying refuse leaches into waterways.

• Yemen, long the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, has been mired in conflict since the Iran-aligned Huthi rebels swept into the capital Sanaa in a 2014 offensive, sparking a military intervention by a Saudi-led coalition.

• While Taez is controlled by pro-government forces, it is under siege from the Huthis who control the mountains that surround the city, from where they have launched repeated bombardments.

• While all of Yemen has suffered from the war, Taez is particularly hard-hit. Barely any schools are able to function, fresh water is scarce, and it is difficult to bring in supplies including essentials like food.

::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

ISRO to setup space technology cell in IIT Delhi

• The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi will set up a Space Technology Cell in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the space agency of country at the IIT campus.

• With the move, IIT Delhi have joined the league of other premier institutions where the Space Technology Cells (STCs) have been set up, such as Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (IISc) Bangalore, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIT Guwahati and IIT Roorkee.

• The Space Technology Cells (STCs) here play a major role in taking up space technology research and applications to the newer heights.

• The Space Technology Cell will work for carrying out focused research projects in space technology domain with specific deliverables.

• ISRO also proposed that IIT Delhi as an Institute becomes ISRO’s academic partner in research areas such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), nano-technology, functional textiles, smart manufacturing or any other area of joint interest.

::SPORTS::

ITF decides to shift India-Pak match to neutral venue

• The International Tennis Federation, ITF has decided to shift India's Davis Cup tie against Pakistan from Islamabad to a neutral venue.

• The tie was scheduled to be held in September but was delayed after India expressed concerns about the safety of their players. Due to prevailing diplomatic tensions between the two nations after the revocation of Article 370, India's national tennis federation expressed concern about safety of players.

• The ITF statement said that the Davis Cup Committee has decided that the Group I tie between Pakistan and India on 29-30 November must be played at a neutral venue.

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Dimapur deadlock (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3: Security
Prelims level : Not much
Mains level : Naga peace process

Context

• The ceasefire in Nagaland continues to hold. Centre had set October 31 as the deadline to conclude a peace deal with the NSCN-IM. It has passed and there is no clarity yet on an accord.

The talks

• The talks between the Centre and Naga rebels, primarily the NSCN-IM, have been held for 22 years.
• The Naga civil society has participated in the peace process and prepared the ground for a negotiated settlement to the insurgency.

Reasons for the deadlock

• Reports suggest that the deadlock is over the rebels’ demand for a separate flag and constitution for Nagaland.
• They hint at the concept of “shared sovereignty”. NSCN-IM leadership has talked about it soon after it signed the Indo-Naga Framework Agreement in 2015.
• The details of that agreement have not been revealed, but the leeway for such innovations may have reduced after the Centre’s actions in J&K.
• The government has ended the special status and has its own flag, accorded to J&K.
• Naga rebels have climbed down from their demand for full independence. But they persisted with the demand for Nagalim.
• Nagalim is a territorial entity much larger than the present state of Nagaland and includes Naga inhabited areas that fall in Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. This can trigger unrest in Nagaland’s neighbourhood.
• Non-Naga populations in the region have warned of action if any attempt is made to redraw the existing state boundaries.

Way ahead

• The rebels need to respect the sentiment for peace.
• The Centre must provide the negotiating space for the civil society to satisfy its constituency.
• The rebels will have to re-imagine the idea of a Naga nation and de-link it from the territory.
• The Centre should respect the sentiments of political groups founded on notions of ethnic exclusivity and desist from imposing unitarian notions of nationhood.

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Fusing traditional medicine with the modern (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Health
Prelims level : AYUSH
Mains level : Reforms in AYUSH scheme

Context

• Revival of the Indian systems of medicine, which comprises Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy (AYUSH), served as one of the sub-themes of the cultural nationalistic reassertion in the early 20th century against the imperialistic British reign.

• Little wonder then that there are high hopes that the Narendra Modi government and its seeming nationalistic ardour will spell good times for the perennially neglected alternative medicine sector, especially Ayurveda. Much in line with the expectations,

No of initiatives to promote AYUSH

• To creating AYUSH wings in defence and railway hospitals;
• To giving soft loans and subsidies for the establishment of private AYUSH hospitals and clinics and building institutes of excellence in teaching and research in AYUSH.
• Also, 12,500 dedicated AYUSH health and wellness centres are planned to be set up under the Ayushman Bharat mission.

Two important areas presenting significant policy concerns:

• One persistent tendency in our key strategies to mainstream AYUSH medicine has been to regard that the problem lies simply in there being ‘less’ of AYUSH.
• Integration of AYUSH into the health-care system has been largely conflated with having more number of AYUSH facilities or having them in place where there aren’t any.

A fraught relationship

• AYUSH’s relationship with modern medicine has been fraught with multiple issues — including quackery by AYUSH practitioners;
• Ridicule of AYUSH treatments and procedures by many; and
• Mindless cosmeticisation and export promotion of AYUSH products.
• However, has little by way of a concrete harmonising strategy has been devised to address these concerns.
• These issues are reflective of a sharp status gap between modern medicine and AYUSH that is highly detrimental for the optimal deployment of AYUSH resources.
• Merely expanding AYUSH’s framework will only expand the present list of problems.

Requires improvement

• True integration would require a concerted strategy for facilitating meaningful cross-learning and collaboration between the modern and traditional systems on equal terms. This is the only way to address the subservient status of AYUSH and to foster its legitimate inclusion into mainstream health care.
• The Chinese experience of integrating Traditional Chinese Medicine with Western medicine makes for a good example.
• An Indian parallel could envision the integration of education, research, and practice of both systems at all levels.
• This can include training of AYUSH practitioners in modern medicine through curriculum changes and vice versa.
• However, this would entail substantial groundwork with respect to the prerequisites of such integration: namely, building a strong traditional medicine evidence corpus;
• Delineating the relative strengths, weaknesses, and role of each system; negotiating the philosophical and conceptual divergences between systems.
• To standardising and regulating AYUSH practices and qualifications and addressing the unique issues associated with research into AYUSH techniques.

National Medical Commission Act 2019

• The National Medical Commission Act, 2019 was passed in the face of much opposition from the orthodox medical community, apparently signifying political will.
• While an earlier proposal for a bridge course for AYUSH graduates was shelved, there is no reason why the opposition to integration of traditional and modern systems cannot be nullified, particularly in view of the vast potential of AYUSH to contribute to universal health-care in India.
• It attempts at integration have been foiled by parties from both within and outside the AYUSH sector.
• In keeping with the recommendations of the Chopra Committee (1948), baby steps were taken to integrate the teaching of traditional and modern systems of medicines, proposals that were later scrapped.
• While the AYUSH lobby feared a loss of identity following such integration, the allopathic lobby alleged that standards of medical care would be diluted.
• This kind of isolationist approach goes against the cherished ideal of modern medicine to embrace concepts that are backed by evidence.

Way forward

• In the case of traditional medicine, an isolationist attitude could deter scientific scrutiny and block some potential value addition.
• An integrated framework should create a middle path fusing the two systems, while still permitting some autonomy for each.
• A medium- and long-term plan for seamless integration should be developed expeditiously in view of the massive drive for achieving universal health care already under way in the country.

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Kerala’s modernity and its discontents (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 1: Society
Prelims level : Not much
Mains level : Evolving social conditions in Kerala over the years

Context

• Kerala’s transformative experience in education, health, social security, land reforms and decentralised governance has been widely acknowledged as a ‘model’ for other States.
• This article is an effort to evaluate Kerala’s modernity in the context of the transformation that took place in Kerala society in the early part of the 20th century and the events that unfolded over the last six decades or so.

Process of renaissance

• Kerala’s modernity may be said to epitomise the social actions of a community to fight successfully the caste, class iniquities and capability deprivations of the lower castes.
• The abolition of agrestic slavery and untouchability, the successful fighting for the right to worship in temples meant for the upper castes, the right to wear clothes of one’s choice, the right to walk on roads exclusively meant for the upper castes, and so on were great achievements towards enhancing people’s capabilities and freedom.
• Importantly these happened in a unique geographic environment of rich biodiversity, water bodies, mountain ranges, wetlands, and so on, which are rare natural endowments.
• It is for the Kerala people and its governance system to carry forward the process of expanding freedoms, and development without damage to its unique ecosystems.
• Despite the constraints of a State in India’s quasi-federation, the quality of State and local politics is key to reducing corruption, conserving the environment, improving higher education and health care, and making policy choices that enhance freedom and social equity.
• That Keralites voted a Communist government to power in 1957, which initiated several progressive measures besides delivering an uncorrupt regime in the early years, cannot be forgotten.

Trajectory of development

• This was followed by two events which radically altered the character of Kerala’s polity, society and economy:
• The growing outmigration of Keralites following the Gulf boom which resulted in a steady flow of remittances.
• The introduction of Central government-led economic reforms towards liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation which not only accelerated the foreign remittance inflow, but also promoted the market-mediated growth process.
• These forces triggered an unprecedented increase in per capita consumption (resulting in generation of waste) and unleashed a construction boom that adversely impacted the environment, widened inequalities, and created a service-led growth process.

Where is public action?

• That public reasoning worked well in Kerala cannot be denied. Unseeability, untouchability and agrestic slavery that alienated the Dalits, and several rituals and superstitions among the Namboodiris, came to be accepted as irrational by the public.
• Of late, particularly after the emergence of innumerable political parties with the support of religious and community leaders, Kerala has become a virtual post-truth society.
• The TV debates of many Malayalam channels will bear this out. Civil society is fast slipping away from public rationality and public morality.

Way forward

• The divided communities and multiplicity of political parties have fragmented the society and slackened the expansion of a reasoned public sphere.
• University and the higher education system have become a caricature of what they ought to be.
• Student, teacher and bureaucrats’ politics dissipate the time and energy of universities whose primary purpose is the production and dissemination of knowledge.

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Enhancing insurance coverage for bank deposits (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level : Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation
Mains level : Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation coverage for bank deposits

Context

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s capping of withdrawals from the Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank at ₹1,000, it did not take long for tragic stories to start pouring in.
• The death count had risen to three by the time the HDIL angle was discovered.
• With the Non-Performing Assets (NPA) situation not improving in most banks, the advent of another major crisis brought into focus, once again, the deposit insurance cover provided by the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC), a subsidiary of the RBI.
• The insurance limit of ₹1 lakh, set in 1993, needs to be raised to a higher amount, with some suggestions being made to raise it to ₹15 lakh, which will cover 90% of the accounts completely.

DICGC coverage

• The lack of DICGC coverage for deposits at NBFCs (many of whom the RBI regulates) and primary cooperative societies is one such aspect.
• These entities often serve vulnerable sections and their depositors must not be left in the lurch in case of a crisis.
• Further, customers who want more coverage than the statutory cover on their deposits should be able to purchase this by paying additional premium.
• This option should be extended directly to banks that wish to increase the coverage of deposits to above the statutory requirements.

Freeze in withdrawal

• The current DICGC cover is that the ₹1 lakh insurance amount only needs to be released if a bank goes belly up.
• Without liquidation of the bank, no liability accrues on the insurance company to pay such a claim.
• The flaw in this scheme is obvious today — the ‘freezes’ in withdrawal directed by the RBI essentially cut the depositor’s access to his money.
• This will go a long way in preventing bank runs, which could be triggered when customers get alarmed about the ability of banks to repay their deposits.
• The DICGC charges a flat 0.1% insurance premium on the deposits of banks. However, as suggested by an RBI panel in 2015, premium should be based on differential risk based on the lending practices of the bank, among other things.
• An SBI report states that 93% of the premium collected by the DICGC in 2018-19 came from commercial banks (public sector: 75%, private sector: 18%), but over 94% of the claims settled (ever since the inception of the DICGC) have been those of cooperative banks.
• Poor governance in cooperative banks has been cross-subsidised by the better-performing commercial banks.
• The DICGC must draw inspiration from standard insurance practices and charge higher premiums from banks with a past history of higher claims, so that public sector banks (PSBs) — which have made zero claims so far — need not foot the bill for someone else’s mistake.
• This will also provide a level-playing field for PSBs which are often disadvantaged due to tight government control and inflexibility.

Bringing in private insurers

• Another possibility that needs to be analysed is that of bringing private sector insurers and re-insurers into the deposit insurance segment, which could drive down premium prices.
• In FY19, the DICGC collected ₹12,043 crore as premium and settled ₹37 crore worth claims.
• Clearly, this is a lucrative area for private players who can bring in more accurate risk-based pricing of these policies.
• And since underwriting such policies entails significant risk-bearing on which the country’s economy thrives.
• It needs to be reinsured by credible entities even beyond traditional re-insurers like Lloyd’s of London.

Way forward

• India today has the lowest deposit insurance cover to per capita income ratio, at 0.9 times.
• Denying people the right over their hard-earned money is a colossal hazard for the financial system, which runs on the trust of depositors.
• Already, trust in banks could be waning — in FY18, growth in bank deposits fell to a five-decade low.
• If the government is serious about formal financial inclusion, the stated objective of flagship schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana.

Conclusion

• It must realise that an immediate availability of funds is as important as the insurance coverage of funds to increase the confidence of citizens in the banking system.
• Hence, it must take purposeful strides in expanding and rectifying the deposit insurance scheme as a safety net of the financial system.

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Is public employment moving in the right direction? (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level : Not much
Mains level : Public employment status in India

Context

• Central government employment, and showed how the number of people employed by the Central government stagnated between 2006 and 2014 while the number employed by Central public sector enterprises declined.
• The number of vacancies in public employment increased sharply over this period, amounting to more than one-fifth of the number employed.

Employment pattern

• The evidence from the labour force surveys shows that public employment actually increased in the period between 2011-12 and 2017-18.
• Total public employment went up by nearly 200 lakh workers, which is definitely a significant increase . This was distributed among both rural and urban areas, with the bigger increase in rural areas.
• The bulk of the increase was in regular salaried employment.
• Indeed, casual employment in public works like the MNREGA actually appears to have fallen over this period. \
• Regular public employment is seen across Indian society as something to be desired, for its security and often higher-than-market wages for many functions.

Gendered view

• Most of the increase in regular public employment has been of women, in both rural and urban areas.
• Yet they are the ones who are more likely to be employed in these schemes, and are paid well below minimum wages with very poor working conditions.
• In rural areas, around 45 per cent of regular women workers in public employment are either illiterate or have only basic education, suggesting that they must indeed be scheme workers.

Way forward

• However, even here, a sizeable gap exists, although not as extreme as that for regular public employment.
• This suggests that the increase in public employment over this period need not really reflect a genuine expansion of good quality public services through the expansion of decent work by the government.
• Rather, it points to a continuation and intensification of a terrible failing of official policy in the past two decades: the attempt to provide essential social services on the cheap by exploiting the underpaid labour of women.

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Why civic nationalism must trump rabid ethnic nationalism (Business Standard)

Mains Paper 2: International
Prelims level: Civic nationalism
Mains level: Evolution of Nationalism

Context

•  With minority rights being increasingly under threat in recent period, it is time to reflect on shift from ethnic nationalism to civic nationalism.
•  Neither the colourless vagueness of cosmopolitanism, nor the fierce self-idolatry of nation-worship, is the goal of human history - Rabindranath Tagore.

How has the idea of ‘nationalism’ evolved in the West?

•  Among democratic states one of the earliest cases of making pluralism and liberal constitutional values the basis of nationalism is that of the U.S.
•  After the destruction of the indigenous population, the United States essentially became a nation of immigrants.
•  Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address starts with referring to the -“nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”
•  In a 2009 speech, Barack Obama said - “One of the great strengths of the United States is…we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, (but) a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values”
•  The ideals and values here is presumably that as enshrined in the Constitution.
•  Despite its many historical (and often racially motivated) lapses, this is a major example in history of “constitutional patriotism”.
•  It stands in contrast to patriotism based on “blood and soil” which had popular appeal in Germany.
•  This has been associated with a great deal of persecution, violence and devastation, in history.
•  Worryingly, it is this “ethnic nationalism” that appeals to today’s populists.

The dangers of ethnic nationalism Suppression

•  People’s identities are necessarily multi-layered but ethnic nationalism privileges one of these layers.
•  This is usually based on the narrow particularities of religion, language or culture, which makes it easy to mobilise certain groups.
•  It promotes primitive defensive-aggressive urge to fight against “enemy” groups.
•  The ethnic nationalist leaders too are skilled at encouraging it.
•  In comparison, the liberal or folk-syncretic traditions are sometimes too fragile to resist this attitude.

Anti-globalisation

•  Ethnic-nationalist populists are opposed to globalisation.
•  This is because they are against global rules restraining national sovereignty and they want to “take back control”.
•  But in so doing they over-centralise the powers of the national leader.
•  They, thereby, dissipate the forces of decentralisation and autonomy of local communities within the country.
•  Today’s world economy is one of integrated global value chains and continuous swapping of parts, components, and tasks across borders.
•  Clearly, a retreat from relatively free trade will be extremely harmful for the national interests of most countries.
•  Notably, trade makes for cheaper producer inputs on which India’s production base is heavily dependent.

How does this work in the present scenario?

•  The internal minority groups are often victims of suspicion by the majoritarian ethnic nationalists.
•  They are suspected to be the proverbial fifth column aiding an enemy state.
•  This is mostly the case in India, China, Russia, Indonesia, Poland, Hungary and so on.
•  Even without the enemy state, the inevitable divisions of a heterogeneous society worry the leaders of the homogenising mission.
•  Because, ethnic nationalism is almost always associated with suppressing the “little people” and their localised cultures for the larger cause of national integration. E.g., peasants into Frenchmen, the marginal groups like Dalits and Adivasis in India into the larger Hindu society, Han-Sinification of Tibetans and Uighurs in China, etc.
•  In the name of national integration and fighting enemies both outside and within, the minority rights are undermined.
•  The procedures of democracy (“due process”) are also sidelined.
•  Those who promote ethnic nationalism accuse liberals of appeasing the minorities, and try to suppress dissent as “anti-national”.
•  This remains the case with blacks and Hispanics in the US, immigrants in Europe, Kurds in Turkey, Muslims in India, etc.

What ideals is Civic nationalism based on?

•  Democracy - Civic nationalism emphasises on the procedural aspects of democracy.
•  It stresses on the liberal constitutional values and tries to use the pre-commitment of a foundational document for its cause.
•  Through this, it binds the hands of subsequent generations if they display majoritarian tendencies curbing basic civil rights.
•  E.g. during the Civil Rights movement Martin Luther King was referring to the Constitution
•  He thus appealed to Americans, “to be true to what you said on paper”.
•  Unlike the centralisation tendency exhibited in ethnic-nationalism, civic nationalism emphasises on local autonomy.
•  Civic nationalists accept some restrictions on national sovereignty to agree on multilateral rules on global public goods.
•  This is also the case in global environmental damage or international spread of crime, and restrictions on cross-border tax-dodging.
•  Notably, this ultimately helps the national interest.

Way ahead

•  It is possible and necessary to build healthy alternatives to the kinds of radical ethnic nationalism that is seen around now.
•  This is possible even without giving up on the nationalist cultural pride or the bonding of local communities consistent with larger humanitarian principles.

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Air Independent Propulsion submarines (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3: Defense and Security
Prelims level : Air Independent Propulsion
Mains level : Significance of the Air Independent Propulsion submarines

Context

•  It has been witnessing operation of land-based prototype of DRDO India Air Independent Propulsion system at Naval Materials Research Laboratory in Ambernath.
•  The DRDO on Wednesday tested a land-based prototype of an Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) submarine.
•  The prototype operation at the Naval Materials Research Laboratory in Ambernath, Maharashtra, is considered to give a boost to the DRDO’s plan to build AIP systems for Indian naval submarines.
•  The land-based prototype was engineered to the form-and-fit of a submarine.

Air-independent propulsion

•  Air-independent propulsion (AIP) is any marine propulsion technology that allows a non-nuclear submarine to operate without access to atmospheric oxygen (by surfacing or using a snorkel).
•  AIP can augment or replace the diesel-electric propulsion system of non-nuclear vessels.

What is the Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) technology used in submarines?

•  Submarines are essentially of two types: conventional and nuclear.
•  Conventional submarines use a diesel-electric engine, and must surface daily for oxygen for fuel combustion. If fitted with an Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) system, the sub needs to take in oxygen only once a week.
•  Many naval powers, including India, have acquired nuclear-powered submarines for deep-sea operations, conventional diesel-electric variants are considered useful for coastal defence.
•  The latter are optimised for stealth, and their weapons and sensors provide for effective operations close to the shore.
•  Because diesel-electric submarines require to come to the surface frequently to charge their batteries, their underwater endurance time is less.
•  ‘Air-independent’ propulsion technology helps to make the diesel generator less dependent on surface air.
•  In a fuel cell AIP, an electrolytic fuel cell releases energy by combining hydrogen and oxygen, with only water as the waste product.
•  The cells are highly efficient, and do not have moving parts, thus ensuring that the submarine has a low acoustic signature.
•  Older submarines can be adapted to the AIP system by retrofitting.
•  A fuel cell-based AIP, like the one developed by DRDO, is known to deliver better performance compared to other technologies.
•  According to the Defence Ministry press release, the AIP system enhances the submerged endurance of diesel-electric submarines several times, thus having a multiplier effect on its lethality.

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Let’s clear the air (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: Health
Prelims level : Pollution
Mains level : Impact of air pollution on health

Context

•  Delhi’s Air Quality Index crosses 500, the national capital has officially entered the public health emergency category.
•  Schools have been shut, children are complaining of breathing problems.
•  This forms the basis of the need for amending the 1981 Air Act and making it more compatible with contemporary India.

Impact of air pollution

•  Air pollution in India is not simply an environmental problem, but a major public health concern.
•  It impacts all those breathing in the polluted air — children, the elderly, women and men alike.
•  Recently, the Centre for Science and Environment reported that air pollution kills an average 8.5 out of every 10,000 children in India before they turn five.
•  Similarly, the WHO in 2016 reported that pollution has led to the deaths of over 1 lakh children in India.
•  Overall, several internationally acclaimed studies have affirmed that life expectancy in India has declined anywhere between two to three years.

Statistics of air pollution worldwide comparing with India

•  According to Greenpeace, 22 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities are in India and Delhi has yet again bagged the position of the world’s most polluted capital.
•  These are grim figures, especially when compared to India’s neighbours: Five in China, two in Pakistan and one in Bangladesh.
•  In 2018, India was placed in the bottom five countries on the Environmental Performance Index, ranking 177th out of 180 countries, along with Bangladesh, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nepal.
•  The Indian government needs to identify the tangible benefits that concrete legislation on air pollution has brought across the world. In the United States, the Clean Air Act has proven that public health and economic progress can go together.
•  The aggregate national emissions of the six common pollutants in the USA dropped an average of 73 per cent from 1970 to 2017.
•  Through one piece of legislation, the US has challenged multiple sources of pollution, airborne or motor vehicle-led. Similarly, after declaring a war on pollution, Chinese cities reduced particulate concentration by 32 per cent in 2018.
•  In a country with a human power and technical know-how like India, achieving a better feat is not impossible.

Condition of air quality in Delhi

•  The toxic air and the lax liability system, young children’s health and quality of life are being significantly affected.
•  Currently, breathing in Delhi’s air is similar to smoking 22 cigarettes in a day. One can only imagine the impact on the lungs of our children.
•  There is a deafening silence at the helm of policymaking because it has not become an electoral priority for political leaders.
•  Besides a few underfunded programmes, the government shows no willingness to bring a bill or law compelling central and state governments to ensure that its citizens are breathing clean air.

Steps needed to be taken by the government

•  It is essential to retrace our steps back to the Air Act of 1981 that governs our pollution control system.
•  There is unanimous consensus amongst many court rulings, Parliament Committee reports, media investigations, and several environmentalists that under the 1981 Air Act, the Pollution Control Boards are presently unable to fulfil their mandate as watchdogs against polluting industries.
•  A new bill will plug many loopholes in the 1981 Act and would align the functions and priorities of the Pollution Boards towards reducing the adverse impact of pollution on human health in India.
•  Accountability and deterrence are essential in making sure industries comply with emission standards. While the boards cannot levy penalties, in the new law they should be empowered to encash environmental compensations from polluting industries to make up for the cost of mitigating the damage the violating industry has caused.
•  This possibility of paying compensation would be a strong reinforcement for industries to adopt cleaner technologies and comply with standards.
•  In a federal set-up, the Centre and states must work in synergy to ensure that targets set for the country and states are fulfilled.
•  Therefore, the new law must push Central and state boards to convene joint sittings with a multi-sectoral participation from ministries such as housing, urban development, agriculture and road transport.
•  Air pollution is not, and has never been, a problem with a single solution.
•  It is caused by emissions from vehicles, industries and agriculture, construction dust, and other factors related to household consumption and municipal planning.

Way ahead

•  Therefore, the new law on air pollution must give an additional mandate to either a senior minister, such as the minister of environment, forest and climate or the prime minister’s office needs to be involved directly.
•  Greater public transparency is essential to the success of winning the war on air pollution. There is no better watchdog than active citizens, which is why the pollution targets must be made public every year for their perusal and to be evaluated at the end of the year.
•  To incentivise the industries to better themselves through environmental compensations, the industries and their respective state boards must be ranked in order of their efficiency and programme delivery.

Conclusion

•  Breathing clean air is the fundamental right of every Indian citizen. Human health must become a priority when it comes to legislating on air pollution.
•  As 2019 nears its end, and the season of smog begins, there is an urgent need for India to be a pollution free nation.
•  Pollution control boards must be empowered sufficiently to ensure that pollution does not take more lives or hinders the overall progress of India.

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Region-specific models will help double farm incomes (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level : Zero Budget Natural Farming
Mains level : Agricultural models

Context

•  Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a clarion call on February 28, 2016 for the doubling of farmers’ income. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget on July 5 this year mentioned that Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) can help improve farmers’ income and needs promotion.
•  Modi then requested farmers to reduce consumption of chemical fertilisers in his August 15 speech and also endorsed ZBNF in his address at UNCCD on September 9.

Background

•  Costs of agricultural chemicals have sky-rocketed, but their price realisation has not.
•  This has led to farmers losing control of production, which in turn resulted their net incomes reducing.
•  Farmers are not thriving, but other actors in the agriculture ecosystem are doing fairly well.
•  There is a subtle connection between improving farmers’ incomes and natural farming approaches like ZBNF.
•  They reduce the cost of cultivation, improve ecosystems and empower farmers. India has 15 agro-climatic zones, but agriculture is quite diverse.
•  About 50 per cent of Indian agriculture is rain-fed.

Changing focus

•  The focus on doubling farmers’ incomes reflects a paradigm shift in our thinking, as food production — not incomes — has always been the priority.
•  But the sudden political interest calls for evolving optimal model(s) for a particular region and for particular type of farmers.
•  The model’s components may include crops, livestock, poultry horticulture, agro-forestry, fisheries etc.
•  To plan and invest can deliver the intent, rather than simply stating that agricultural growth rates need to improve.
•  Consumers desire chemical residue-free and healthy food, and farmers enhanced incomes.
•  The welfare of 12 crore farmers, food, nutrition and the ecological security of the nation is at stake.
•  But apparently, the intelligentsia are not getting the message from consumers, farmers and political intent.

Three-pronged approach

• At the heart of the strategy to double farmers’ income lies a three-pronged tatwa (principle):
•  increase the yields to increase income;
•  reduce the cost of production so those savings add to the income; and
•  help farmers receive remunerative prices.

Following tool-kit to help evolve the models

•  Define a region for developing model(s).
•  Develop a region-specific inventory of recommended varieties of field crops, horticulture and forestry, livestock, poultry and fish species.
•  Develop off-farm skills and crafts prevalent in said region for improving off-farm income.
•  Document best-practices if any, where one or more components listed above are integrated and improve upon them.
•  Develop crop planning and demand forecasting systems.
•  Take stock of existing schemes and budgets. Development is delivered through different line departments across the country.
•  The journeys of empowered teams and their work need to be taken to farmers from the very beginning.
•  Create support services and infrastructure required for these interventions, which must be on farmer-centric entrepreneurship mode to retain investments in the local economy.
•  Formalising land leasing will help in access to agricultural credit and insurance.
•  Setting outcome indicators is a must, and monitoring must be continuous to course correct.
•  Involve bankers, as agricultural credit plays an important role.
•  Build sufficient funding and oversight mechanisms.

Way forward

•  Another important task ahead is deciding the extent of agricultural research for developing models and moving agriculture to the concurrent list to give it much-needed direction.
•  Crunching numbers is important to know how near/far we are to the destination, but unless the journey is planned well, we may never reach the goal.

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Pegasus misadventure: On WhatsApp snooping scandal (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Security
Prelims level : Israeli spyware pegasus
Mains level : Spyware threat in social media networks

Context

•  The Government’s reaction to messaging platform WhatsApp’s revelation that Indian journalists and human rights activists were among some 1,400 people globally spied upon using a surveillance technology developed by Israel-based NSO Group is inadequate and, more unfortunately, far from reassuring.
•  Disclosure by Facebook-owned WhatsApp, which is suing the Israeli company in a California federal court for the hack, is a chilling reminder that nothing is private in the digital world, given the right tools.
•  In this case, a malicious code, named Pegasus, exploited a bug in the call function of WhatsApp to make its way into the phones of those select users, where it would potentially have had access to every bit of information.

Reasons why this question is important

•  This was not done with money in mind.
•  As the NSO says on its website, “NSO products are used exclusively by government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fight crime and terror.” The NSO, by its own admission, sells its service only to government agencies.
•  Those targeted include civil rights activists, lawyers, and journalists. Notably, some of them have legally represented activists arrested in the case related to the violence in Bhima Koregaon in 2018.
•  Lawyer Nihalsing Rathod, academic Anand Teltumbde, Dalit activist Vivek Sundara, and human rights lawyer Jagdish Meshram are some of those who have been targeted by Pegasus.

Who would have wanted to snoop on them?

•  It is extremely important for the Government to clear the air on this issue in no uncertain terms especially when WhatsApp had given information to CERT-IN, a government agency, in May, even if without any mention of Pegasus or the extent of breach.
•  It is all right to ask WhatsApp, as the Government has done, as to why the breach happened and what it is doing to safeguard the privacy of its users in India, estimated to be around 400 million.
•  Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and the Ministry of Home Affairs have expressed concern about privacy breaches while at the same time hinting that this issue is being politicised and an attempt is being made to malign the Government.

Conclusion

•  This is hardly a trivial issue, as it concerns the digital well-being of citizens, the very thing this Government says it wants to promote.
•  In a country where data protection and privacy laws are still in a nascent stage, incidents such as this highlight the big dangers to privacy and freedom in an increasingly digital society.
•  It is thus imperative that the Government sends a strong message on privacy, something that the Supreme Court in 2017 declared to be intrinsic to life and liberty and therefore an inherent part of the fundamental rights.
•  The first thing it could do is to answer categorically if any of the governmental agencies used NSO’s services.

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CWMI 2.0 (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: Governance
Prelims level: Composite water management index
Mains level: Objectives and implications of that such index

Context

•  The composite water management index (CWMI) 2.0 was recently released by the NITI Aayog.

About the index

•  The states are ranked across 9 themes and cover 25 states and 2 union territories.
•  [It does not include data from West Bengal, Mizoram, Manipur and Jammu & Kashmir.]
•  This has been done through a first of its kind water data collection exercise.
•  It was done in partnership with the ministry of jal shakti, ministry of rural development and all the states/union territories.

Key objectives

•  The CWMI is an important tool to assess and improve the performance of states and union territories in efficient management of water resources.
•  It is an attempt to create a pan-India set of metrics that measure different dimensions of water management and use across the lifecycle of water.
•  The objective of the index is to involve all key stakeholders to understand how states can better manage water resources.
•  It provides useful information for the states and for the concerned central ministries/departments.
•  This is to enable them to formulate and implement suitable strategies for better management of water resources.

Key highlights

•  CWMI 2.0 ranks various states for the reference year 2017-18 as against the base year 2016-17.
•  Gujarat has retained its first position in the Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) 2.0 Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Goa and Karnataka have topped the CWMI 2.0 for 2017-18 among non-Himalayan states.
•  Among Himalayan states, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Tripura are on top of the index.
•  The report points out that 82% of rural households in India do not have individual piped water supply. 163 million live without access to clean water close to their homes.
•  Around 80% of the states assessed over the last 3 years have improved their water management scores, with an average improvement of 5.2 points.
•  However, 16 out of 27 states still score less than 50 points on the index, out of 100.
•  They account for 48% of the population, 40% of agricultural produce and 35% of economic output of India.

Index implications

•  States are displaying progress in water management, but the overall performance remains below what is required to tackle the challenges.
•  High-performers continue to demonstrate strong water management practices, but low-performers are struggling to cope up.
•  By 2030, India’s water demand will exceed supply by two times, indicating severe water scarcity in the country.
•  In fact, 820 million Indians living in 12 river basins have a per capita water availability close to or lower than 1,000 cubic metres.
•  This is notably the official threshold for water scarcity. The average all-India per capita water availability is expected to be 1,341 cubic metres by 2025.
•  It could touch a low of 1,140 cubic metres by 2050, close to the official water scarcity threshold.

Way forward

•  The states need to build on this momentum, and upgrade their water management practices to show outcomes and not just outputs.
•  Areas like agriculture could have a larger impact on saving water along with focusing on low performing states.
•  Several disparities exist in water management amongst states.
•  Improved knowledge-sharing amongst states can enable them to learn and solidify water management practices across the board.

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 On socio-economic indicators, Muslim youth fare worse than SCs and OBCs (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 1: Society
Prelims level: Socio-economic indicators
Mains level: Highlighting the status of muslim community in socio-economic indicators

Context

•  The 2019 Lok Sabha elections show the political marginalisation of Muslims.
•  There is also the socio-economic marginalisation of the community.
•  Muslims have been losing out to Dalits and Hindu OBCs since the Sachar committee submitted its report in 2005.

Socioeconomic status of Muslims

•  This is based on the NSSO report (PLFS-2018) and the NSS-EUS (2011-12).
•  The proportion of the youth who have completed graduation among Muslims in 2017-18 is 14% as against 18% among the Dalits, 25% among the Hindu OBCs, and 37% among the Hindu upper castes.

Highlights the Gap in education

•  The gap between the SCs and Muslims is 4% in 2017-18. Six years earlier (2011-12), the SC youth were just 1% above Muslims in educational attainment.
•  The gap between the Muslims and Hindu OBCs was 7% in 2011-12 and has gone up to 11% now.
•  The gap between all Hindus and Muslims widened from 9% in 2011-12 to 11% in 2017-18.
•  Muslim youth in the Hindi heartland fare the worst. Their educational attainment is the lowest in Haryana, 3% in 2017-18; in Rajasthan, this figure is 7%; it is 11% in Uttar Pradesh.
•  In all these states, except MP, SCs fare better than Muslims.
•  The educational attainment among the Muslim youth in Bihar is 8%, as against 7% among SCs, in West Bengal it is 8%, as against 9% for SCs, and in Assam, it is 7% as against 8% for SCs.
•  The educational attainment figures for Muslims are better compared to 2011-12. In Gujarat, the gap in educational attainment between the Muslims and SCs is14%. In Maharashtra, the Muslims were 2% better off than SCs in 2011-12, they have now not only lost to SCs but the latter has now overtaken them by 8%.
•  With 36% of graduate Muslim youth, Tamil Nadu tops the educational attainment parameter. In Kerala, this figure is 28%, in Andhra Pradesh, it is 21% and in Karnataka, 18% of the Muslim youth are graduates. While the community is giving a close competition to SCs in Tamil Nadu and AP, it is losing out in Kerala.

Highlights the reasons for better outcomes in South

•  The developments in South India have more to do with the relatively faster mobility of SCs than the marginalisation of Muslims. Muslims enjoy positive discrimination in these states – Dalit and OBC Muslims are given reservations under the OBC quota.
•  Only 39% of the community in the age group of 15-24 are in educational institutions as against 44% for SCs, 51 % for Hindu OBCs and 59% for Hindu upper castes.

Conclusion

•  The marginalisation of Muslims began several years ago, the phenomenon seems to have gathered pace in recent years.
•  Sam Asher et al point out in their recent study, ‘Intergenerational Mobility in India: Estimates from New Methods and Administrative Data’, that Muslims are being left out from educational mobility in India while the SCs are getting integrated into it.

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 On deciphering Greta’s climate message (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Environment
Prelims level: UN General Assembly
Mains level: Environmental awareness on climate change

Context

•  She is being looked at as an emotionally charged icon of environmental struggles, but there is more to Greta Thunberg’s point of view than mere emotion and passionate commitment.
•  If we decipher all the issues raised in her brief presentation at the UN General Assembly, we can notice how it expands the familiar contours of the discussion over climate change.
•  Some of the issues she raised were a regular feature in many debates over natural resources, but there were other, new issues as well.

Interlinking between economic growth and state of environment

•  One well-recognised issue is the direct connection between economic growth and the state of the environment. Devotees of speedy and high economic growth have been indifferent to the limits that nature imposes on the theoretical scope of growth.
•  Nearly half a century has passed since the idea of ‘limits to growth’ was recognised and proposed as a ground for change in development policies. Apparently, political leaders and the civil servants who serve them do not feel constrained by that idea.
•  The younger ones may not be acquainted with the 1972 report wherein the paradox of economic development was examined.
•  Victims of indifference (speech): “All you can talk about is money and fairy tales of economic growth,” Ms. Thunberg told her audience at the UN headquarters in New York.
•  She accused world leaders of ignoring or deliberately looking away from the responsibility they have towards the young today and in the future.
•  Her argument would have pleased Mahatma Gandhi. He too thought that economics concerned solely with wealth undermines ethical responsibilities. It ignores justice as a primary human yearning and, in today’s terminology, a right.

Ms. Thunberg’s presentation

•  This was also the underlying theme of Ms. Thunberg’s presentation to the leaders and representatives of different countries. She presented herself as a victim of their indifference to climate change. “You have stolen my childhood with your empty words,” she said.
•  As an activist-teenager, she had reasons to feel that way. Her campaign on climate change had cost her more than just school attendance.
•  Being young implies being part of a future. Ms. Thunberg was referring to the collective future of those who are young today and also to future generations.
•  These futures are bleak - not in the context in which economic slowdown affect prospects of prosperity and comfort. Ms. Thunberg’s focus was on climate change, a composite idea that imparts bleakness to everybody’s future.
•  She suggested that higher income or status would not help to avoid the consequences of climate change. That is an important point, and not everyone today is convinced about its correctness.
•  Not only the richer nations, but also the richer people in every nation continue to believe that they can buy relief and escape from the consequences of climate change for their progeny.
  Childhoods stymied
•  Parents invest huge amounts of money in their children’s education to make sure that they lead better lives. So do nations. Their leaders talk eloquently about the younger generation taking the nation forward.
•  It is easy to miss her message or misconstrue it because her presentation was strident. While she was so visibly emotional during her brief speech, her message was that we must stop being emotional about our children.
•  Although she was addressing an audience of political leaders, she wanted all of us to recognise and accept the bitter truth that we - and those who represent us -have compromised the future of our children.
•  It is not the distant generations that will face the consequences of climate change. No, the crisis is already upon us. It will unfold in the lives of those who are growing up today.

Way forward

•  The steps currently under consideration for containing the consequences of climate change are far too inadequate to cope with the crisis. And even these modest steps are being taken with great reluctance, which proves Ms. Thunberg’s point was that we are not mentally ready to accept the challenge.
•  It is the adults and older people today who might feel rattled by Ms. Thunberg’s speech. When she spoke in the UN General Assembly, many in the audience could be heard laughing. They saw her more as a spectacle than as a real person. They were accustomed to routine expressions of concern about climate change.
•  Many such leaders are quite pleased with the efforts by the UN and its various bodies to pursue the policies related to sustainable development. They find long, comfortable targets for reduction of carbon emissions quite sufficient and satisfactory.
•  We can hardly imagine that Ms. Thunberg woke them up. If that were possible, we wouldn’t be where we are in our encounter with nature’s fury for which we have coined the euphemism of ‘climate change’.

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