On Substance across the Arabian Sea (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: International Relations
Prelims level: India- Saudi Arabia
Mains level: Substance across the Arabian Sea

Context

•  Even by its volatile standards, our Southwest Asian sub-region has lately been unusually turbulent, as reflected in issues ranging from India-Pakistan tensions to the approaching denouements of crises in Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan.
•  The oil market, too, has been inclement. Against this disorderly context, it is no small wonder that India-Saudi Arabia relations have not only remained steady, but kept their positive trajectory.
•  Acknowledging core interests: Politically, New Delhi and Riyadh acknowledged each other’s core interests and accommodated them.
  Saudi Arabia’s position
•  Thus, Saudi Arabia showed an “understanding” of recent Indian actions in Jammu and Kashmir and India “strongly condemned” the various attacks on Saudi civilian facilities. Their bilateral defence, security and anti-terror cooperation has intensified and the first naval exercise is to be held soon.
•  The Riyadh Summit acquired added importance as it coincidentally preceded two domestic developments in India with considerable traction in the Islamic world: the conversion of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories that happened on Thursday and the Supreme Court verdict on the Ayodhya dispute.
•  Despite vigorous efforts, the bilateral commercial and economic ties have still remained range-bound. Trade has drifted downwards largely due to lower crude prices.

Highlights of the bilateral trade between the countries

•  According to the latest Indian data, the bilateral trade in the first nine months of 2019 stood at $22,416 million, having fallen by 9.2% over the corresponding figure in 2018.
•  It was 5:1 in kingdom’s favour and was dominated by the traditional commodities, revealing the need for greater Indian export promotion efforts.
•  The Saudi investment in India, too, remains far below potential. The kingdom’s cumulative investments in India are only $229 million, or 0.05% of the total inbound FDI.
•  Though the kingdom’s Indian community has come down marginally to 2.6 million, they, nevertheless, are still the largest foreign community and their annual homeward remittances remain steady at $11 billion.

New bilateral council

•  Setting up of a bilateral Strategic Partnership Council (SPC) to be co-chaired by the Indian Prime Minister and the Saudi Crown Prince is a defining development.
•  Given the centralised nature of executive at both ends, it would, hopefully, expedite the decision-making process. The SPC would be a permanent bilateral platform with two verticals jointly serviced by the two Foreign and Trade & Industry Ministries.
•  Among the potential areas for next stage of bilateral cooperation could be greater bilateral synergy in Indian infrastructure, agriculture, start-ups, skilling and IT.

Way forward

•  There is growing room for optimism, however. The kingdom’s Vision 2030, a strategic document, lists eight major partner countries including India, the world’s third largest oil importer.
•  Saudi Aramco is to be one of the two strategic partners in the proposed $44 billion, 1.2 mbpd PSU refinery at Raigarh on India’s west coast. It is also to acquire a fifth of the Reliance refinery at Jamnagar and to participate in India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves.
•  If realised, these investments could total nearly $30 billion, catapulting the kingdom to fourth position among countries investing in India.
•  Earlier, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had committed to investing $100 billion in India. As the 12 bilateral documents signed in Riyadh Summit show, India and Saudi Arabia have already commenced leveraging opportunities across a vast eco-space, from energy to agriculture and from fintech to skilling.

Conclusion

•  Shifting some labour-intensive establishments from Saudi Arabia to India would serve the respective national priorities by reducing the kingdom’s expatriate population and boosting ‘Make in India’.

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Along came spyware (Mint)

Mains Paper 3 : Security
Prelims level : Spyware
Mains level : Cyber security

Context

• WhatsApp has revealed that Indian journalists and human rights activists have been under the surveillance of Israeli spyware Pegasus.

Disclosure

• This disclosure was made after the messaging platform filed a lawsuit in a US federal court on Tuesday against NSO.
• The bug’s maker that has allegedly been helping governments around the world hack smartphones and place their on-screen activity under watch.
• Pegasus can reportedly gain access to mobile devices simply by making missed calls via WhatsApp to identified targets.
• Reports say that—by WhatApp’s count—over 20 Indians were under the scanner for about a fortnight in May.

Background

• This is not the first time NSO has been sued.
• Victims of hacking had taken it to Israeli courts on earlier occasions.
• The spyware doesn’t just intercept network communication, it is said to have the ability to steal your data, track your location, and much more.

Surveillance program

• It’s scandalous that any country’s official spies should use Pegasus, if indeed it turns out they have, but perhaps nobody should be too shocked by the legality of it, or lack thereof.
• Intelligence agencies make it their business to use whatever means they can to zoom into the lives of people who arouse suspicion.
• It plied with spy movies and the like, the public often sees this as heroic.

Way ahead

• The real worry here would be if the list of targets the names remain unknown were to reveal a pattern that suggests a state paranoid about dissent.
• Till then, we all need to wonder how safe our devices are. And take precautionary measures.
• Today, it’s spy agencies. Tomorrow, it could be cyber criminals.

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About time India got a seat at the high table (Mint)

Mains Paper 2 : International Relations
Prelims level : UNSC
Mains level : India’s permanent representation requires at UNSC

Context

• Prime Minister called upon all like-minded nations to push for an overhaul of the United Nations (UN) structure.

Requires reform

• The UN is being used by some members as a tool rather than an institution to resolve global conflicts.
• It is formed in 1945 after World War II with that war’s victors, the US, Russia, UK, France and China, as permanent members of its Security Council, and for decades afterwards, the Big Five did exercise disproportionate clout in world affairs by virtue of their nuclear arsenals. Today, this is no longer so.
• If contemporary geopolitical realities are to be taken into account, then the Council needs to induct other countries as veto holders as well.
• The UN’s apex decision-making unit has remained stuck in time.
• Structural deficiencies have rendered the UN largely ineffective on matters of war and peace.
• If reforms are not undertaken soon enough, it risks turning into a relic of the 20th century.

Signs of losing authority

• The UN’s lost authority was the US’s 2003 offensive against Iraq, as part of its War on Terror in response to the 9/11 attacks.
• This campaign did not have any UN sanction, nor was it sought, unlike America’s previous strikes against Baghdad, the 1990-91 effort to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
• Unilateral military actions by major world powers seem to have gained a measure of legitimacy, and the very idea of the Council working out solutions to international problems has turned anachronistic.
• This may suit some countries that are used to having their way, such as the US, but open disregard for multilateral deliberations has reduced the UN to a talk shop. This is disconcerting.
• American century gives way to an Asian one, it’s all the more crucial that the UN regains the stature needed to act as a force for peace.

Require inclusion of India at UNSC

• India has a strong case for permanent membership of the Council, although China has been thwarting its entry.
• India is a rapidly emerging economy, provides large numbers of soldiers to the UN for peace-keeping missions, and is armed with nuclear weapons, for which it has a clear no-first-use policy stated upfront.
• The country accounts for almost one-fifth of all humanity.

Way forward

• UN reforms would mean seats at the high table for other worthy candidates, too.
• Realpolitik may determine the eventual outcome of a structural rehaul, and India could arguably do with a better record on conflict resolution, but a country of our strength and diversity simply cannot be left out of the power matrix for much longer.
• As the UN turns 75 next year, it’s high time it makes space for India at the high table.

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In a plastic world (Mint)

Mains Paper 2 : Governance
Prelims level : Single-Use Plastics
Mains level : Strong regulations require behind banning Single-Use Plastics

Context

• Prime Minister Narendra made an announcement that India would eliminate single-use plastics by 2022.
• In another statement on October 2, PM announced that single-use plastics (SUPs) will be phased out by 2022.

About Single-Use Plastics

• SUPs refer to plastics that are used just once – in disposable packaging and also in items such as plates, cutlery, straws, etc.
• A FICCI study estimates that 43% of India’s plastics are used in packaging and much of it is single-use plastic.
• We also have completely unnecessary single-use plastic entering our homes in the form of covers for invitation cards, magazines, bread wrappers, and advertisements.

Further challenge

• Single-use plastic is part of a massive challenge of management of all kinds of plastic waste.
• SUP’s large and growing volume adds enormously to the total plastic waste. \
• The growing volume is mostly because of rising e-commerce in India with people buying from companies like Amazon and Flipkart that use single-use plastic for disposable packaging.

Invention of plastic

• Plastic was invented by John W Hyatt in 1869. It has been an integral part of our lives and contributed much to the convenience of modern living.
• Its significance comes from the flexibility, durability, and lightness of this material.
• Plastics are used not only in airplanes, computers, cars, trucks and other vehicles, but also in our everyday-use items such as refrigerators, air-conditioners, furniture, and casings for electric wires, etc.,

Key problems with plastic

• Plastic does not decompose naturally and sticks around in the environment for thousands of years.
• Safe disposal of plastic waste is a huge challenge worldwide.
• A Texas-sized great garbage patch of floating plastics swirling in the Pacific first attracted attention in the 1960s.
• A similar or even greater quantity of sunken plastic, especially discarded fishing gear, called ghost nets, blankets our ocean floors.
• Both floating and sunken plastics kill riverine and marine life.
• A study by FICCI points out that fast-growing consumption has brought us to a point where consumption has clearly outstripped India’s current capacity to recycle plastics.

Plastic carry-bags

• They pose a special problem. Although they are strong, lightweight and useful — and can be saved, cleaned and reused many times — this is mostly not done because they are available very cheap and are not valued. They become single-use plastics.
• A compulsory charge by retail stores on carry-bags has proven most effective in reducing their use without a ban.
• In Ireland, a minor charge added to every bill saw a 95% reduction in demand for such carry-bags, as most shoppers began bringing in their own reusable grocery bags.
• Discarded plastic bags are blown by the wind into drains and flood urban areas. They are used as waste-bin liners to dispose of daily food scraps and find their way into the stomachs of roaming livestock because the animals ingest them to get at the food inside.
• All plastic waste is eventually carried by rain, streams and rivers into the oceans.

Regulations

• Close to 20 states in India have imposed a partial or total ban on single-use plastics at one time or another.
• Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh opted for complete bans, while others including Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha have tried partial bans.
• The bans have not been successful because of poor state capacity to enforce.
• In India, the Plastics Waste Management Rules 2016 included a clause in Rule 15 which called for explicit pricing of carry-bags. This required vendors to register and pay an annual fee to the urban local bodies. Lobbying by the producers of plastics ensured that this clause was removed by an amendment in 2018.
• The Plastic Waste Management Rules of 2016 require creators of such packaging waste to take it back at their cost or pay cities for its management under Extended Manufacturer Responsibility. But there is little compliance.

Strong issues for a ban

• In India, plastic producers have been advocating thicker and thicker micron sizes for carry-bags.
• When there is a ban on carry-bags, it leads to the use of non-woven polypropylene (PP) bags. They feel like cloth and are now even being printed to look like cloth: These are more dangerous for the environment as their fine fibers rub off and enter global waters as microplastics.

Way ahead

• Build awareness of the damage caused by SUPs and develop consumer consciousness to minimise their use.
• SUPs can potentially be converted by thermo-mechanical recycling into plastic granules for blending into other plastic products, usually irrigation piping for agriculture.
• The collection of post-consumer waste and recycling poses a major challenge. The multi-layer flexible packaging, which is used for chips and other snacks, cannot be made into granules because it contains layers of plastic with different melting points.
• India recycles much more than the industrialised countries through an informal network of waste collectors and segregators.
• Recycled plastic can be used to strengthen roads.
• Use of plastics more than doubles or triples road life — it has been approved by the Indian Road Congress and mandated by NHAI for up to 50 km around every city with a population of over 5,00,000.
• Replace the use of thermocol with totally biodegradable pith from the shola/sola plant.

Conclusion

• We need many more such innovative ideas and a fundamental change in mindsets to minimise the use of single-use plastic.

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The killing al-Baghdadi does not reduce the threat from the Islamic State (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2 : International
Prelims level : ISIS
Mains level : Falling of ISIS

Context

• On October 26, the top leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr-al-Baghdadi blew himself in a dead-end tunnel.
• As a “leader on the run” for more than five years, Baghdadi was more of a symbol for a Caliphate. His killing will only be a short-term setback for the network.

About ISIS

• Within 18 months of the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq in 2011, the al Qaeda in Iraq captured large territories across Iraq and Syria and morphed itself into ISIS.
• In 2014, the group declared a Caliphate and anointed a “descendant” of the Prophet, Abu Bakr Baghdadi as the Caliph.
• Using propaganda on social media, the Caliphate attracted thousands of foreign fighters, including over 5,000 from the West.
• Riding high on extremists and terrorists from across the globe, ISIS announced “decentralised” wilayas and asked their supporters to join them if they could not travel to the Caliphate.
• This modus operandi paid rich dividends and has continued to keep the network going despite their losses.
• The US-led coalition launched Operation Inherent Resolve in 2014 and cleared the last pocket of the Caliphate in Baghouz, Syria in March.

Temporary setback

• The ISIS core had been preparing for this eventuality even while fighting to save the Caliphate. Soon enough, the ISIS core will anoint a new Caliph, to whom all the wilayas and extremists and supporters will readily offer allegiance to.
• The ISIS network will also make serious efforts to mount “signature” attacks on chosen targets to prove its resilience, while local networks may mount lone-wolf attacks.
• The ISIS-claimed attacks in Sri Lanka. It released the second video of Baghdadi. He hailed the revenge for Baghouz by “brothers in Sri Lanka”. The rare video of Baghdadi was released to assure the cadres that it could hit their enemies anywhere at will.

Huge cadres

• Over 25-30,000 ISIS cadres have survived and many foreign fighters have escaped the Iraq-Syria theatre.
• Thousands of fighters and family members are being held in the Kurdish areas of Syria.
• ISIS sleeper cells across Syria and Iraq have mounted hundreds of attacks this year.
• The decentralised wilayas in West Africa, the Philippines, Egypt, Yemen, Afghanistan, Indonesia, and Libya have become more active and are showcasing successes on social media daily.
• The open propaganda forums have been replaced by “invitation only” links on social media, making detection much harder.

Complicated situation in Syria

• The situation in Syria has become far more complicated as the US is only “guarding” oil fields from ISIS and chasing its counter-terror targets in Syria.
• The weakening of the Syrian Democratic Force’s position vis a vis Turkey and the Assad regime will deplete its resources and hinder the capability to defeat ISIS.
• Sectarian fault lines and public protests in Iraq and Lebanon, US/Saudi-Iran tensions, the region offers a fresh opportunity for recruitment to both the ISIS and al Qaeda networks.

Networks in South Asia

• ISIS has attracted foreign fighters from South Asia, mainly Pakistanis, Afghans, Maldivians, and Bangladeshis.
• The Easter attacks showed the potential of violence even by a small group of committed cadres with support of the ISIS network.
• In Bangladesh three years ago, ISIS did create an effective but small network, with the active support of western nationals of Bangladeshi origin. Bangladesh remains vulnerable.

Challenges for India

• Less than 100-200 Indians are believed to have traveled to Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan to join ISIS. This creates the potential for more recruitment as well as aiding attacks on Indian soil or interests.
• A few weeks ago, ISIS propaganda has called for jihad pegged on sentiments around Kashmir and has specifically called for attacks on Indian interests in the Arabian Peninsula.
• The fresh round of radicalisation and recruitment that ISIS will embark on under its new leader, will pose further threats to India as well as to South Asia.

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Task in the Valley (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2 : Polity
Prelims level : Block Development Council
Mains level : Challenges ahead for formation of new Union Territories

Context

• As the decision to divide Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories takes effect, much remains to be done.

Tasks pending

• The work of dividing the manpower and material resources of the state is far from over.
• There is no papering over the stark ground reality that the government is yet to allow the people of the Valley to speak out, and be heard, on decisions that affect them the most.
• The government functionaries have described and defended the August 5 decisions as necessitated by the need to “develop” a state that had ostensibly lagged behind the rest of the country on economic and social fronts due to its special status.
• The government’s plans to bring Jammu and Kashmir up to speed are not yet known.
• But clearly, any efforts in this direction would, crucially, need the participation of the people for whom this development is meant.
• The government needs to free the political leaders and workers who have been detained, and allow people to freely express their views in the Valley.

Role of Block Development Council election

• The Block Development Council election has shown that wiping the slate clean and creating a new leadership is difficult, if not impossible, in situations as fraught as those that exist in the Valley.
• The BDC is elected indirectly, that is, elected panchs and sarpanchs of a particular block of villages vote to elect one among them as the head of that block council.
• In Jammu and Kashmir panchayat polls, many of these representatives of the people at the bottom-most tier of electoral democracy continue to seek refuge in a hotel in uptown Srinagar, away from their villages.
• The persistence of fear has only underlined the questions of legitimacy about an electoral exercise at the end of which many seats of panch and sapanch in the Valley lay vacant, and most of those elected were elected unopposed.

Challenges ahead

• It remains to be seen whether and how the conversion of a state into two Union Territories resolves the 70-year-long troubled relationship between Kashmir and the rest of India, and between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.
• The killing of five migrant workers in Kulgam on the heels of several other deadly attacks on non-residents, shows that peace may remain elusive even after the momentous changes bring the state directly under the control of the Union Home Ministry.

Conclusion

• It is easy to lose sight of this in the din and rhetoric on Kashmir, but the first step towards resolving a problem is to acknowledge it.
• Political alienation that has spread and deepened over generations is a large part of the crisis in Kashmir.
• Unless it is addressed politically, it will persist and continue to impose a heavy toll in the Valley, and the country.

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Current Affairs MCQ for UPSC Exams - 31 October 2019

Q1. Consider the following statements regarding the current taxation scenario in the country :

1) In the biggest reduction in 28 years, the government cut corporate tax rates by almost 10 percentage points as it looks to pull the economy out of a six-year low growth of 5 per cent recorded during the first quarter of the current fiscal.
2) The government plans to gradually increase its spending in social security by increasing tax burden on lower income earners.
3) The share of direct taxes to India's total tax revenues peaked at 61 per cent in 2009-10 and has since stabilised at around 55 per cent last year.

Which of the above statements stands true ?

a) 1 & 2 only
b) 2 & 3 only
c) 1 & 3 only
d) all of the above

Q2. There are no iron and steel industries in UP, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana. Which of the following are the main factors which influences the location of industries in India ?

1) Access to raw materials
2) Political stability
3) Power
4) Soil profile
5) Capital and labour

a) 1,2 & 3 only
b) 3,4 & 5 only
c) 1,3 & 5 only
d) 2,4 & 5only

Q3. Which of the following statements with respect to a latest study describing climate change and sea level rise stands true ?

1) By 2050, without dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, at least 300 million people across the world, that is more than three times the currently accepted number of 80 million, will be at risk of annual coastal flooding.
2) The largest concentration of at risk population is six Asian countries—China, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand—where approximately 237 million live in coastal areas.
3) The IPCC special report on oceans and the cryosphere concluded that extreme sea-level events, such as surges from tropical cyclones, that are currently historically rare will become common by 2100 under all emissions scenarios due to increasing global mean sea level rise.

a) 1 & 2 only
b) 2 & 3 only
c) 1 & 3 only
d) all of the above

Q4. PFRDA in its endeavour to promote and develop NPS has taken several initiatives towards increasing the pension coverage in the country, the latest addition being the inclusion of Overseas citizen of India (OCI’s) into the NPS.Which of the following statements regarding the same stands true ?

1) OCI may subscribe to NPS provided such person is eligible to invest as per the provisions of the PFRDA Act and the accumulated saving will be repatriable, subject to Foreign Exchange Management Act guidelines.
2) Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) will now be eligible to apply for the National Pension System at par with Non Resident Indians (NRIs).
3) Now, any Indian citizen, resident or non-resident and OCIs are eligible to join NPS till the age of 60 years.

a) 1 & 2 only
b) 2 & 3 only
c) 1 & 3 only
d) all of the above

Q5. The World Cities Day (WCD) is being celebrated to promote the international community’s interest in global urbanization. It also intends to address the challenges of urbanization and to contribute to sustainable urban development around the world.

Which of the following global organisations organises the programme?

a) WTO
b) United Nations
c) IPCC
d) International Monetary Fund

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Deep traps: On borewell deaths (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2 : Governance
Prelims level : Borewell deaths
Mains level : Mechanism towards avoiding Borewell deaths

Context

• The intensive operation in Tamil Nadu to rescue a child who slipped into an abandoned borewell in Manapparai, Tiruchi district, ended in spectacular failure.

Key issues

• There is no breakthrough method has emerged, whether in terms of technology or protocols, when it comes to rescuing small children who have fallen into deep holes that are less than a foot wide.
• The disaster that befell the Tamil Nadu farmer’s family last week is no different from the one that took the life of another two-year-old in Punjab’s Sangrur district earlier this year.
• The agency deployed its teams no less than 37 times until 2018, mostly in Maharashtra, but also in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Karnataka.
• More such disasters are bound to occur, since there are many disused and uncovered well holes scattered in farms in several States.
• No time can be lost in implementing the safety rules relating to wells issued in the past, to save children at risk.

Existing laws

• Tamil Nadu issued, under its Panchayats Act, the Regulation of Sinking of Wells and Safety Measures Rules 2015, incorporating measures ordered by the Supreme Court in 2010.
• Among the many steps prescribed for orderly well-digging, there is a provision requiring the holder of a permit or well to fill up an abandoned hole up to the ground level using clay, sand or boulders (the court also mentions pebbles and drill cuttings).

Way ahead

• To meaningful implementation of this provision, the onus should rest with the local body, and not the owner of the borewell who is often a farmer of poor means.
• Under a normative system, closing an abandoned well would no longer be seen as a wasteful expenditure by farmers, since they would not be charged for it, and panchayat personnel would execute the closure rather than merely certify that action has been taken.
• Besides avoiding the ghastly human toll, time-bound capping of open wells will eliminate the intensive, high-cost rescues that the NDRF has to attempt;
• Deep borewell accidents have also occurred in cities that rely heavily on groundwater, and as the Supreme Court pointed out, it should be the task of the municipal and public health authorities to eliminate the lurking danger.
• In the court’s view, the District Collector bears responsibility for enforcement.

Conclusion

• Now that another life has been lost to neglect, it is time the State governments took safety seriously, came up with a census of well structures in need of attention, and capped the problem forever.

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Ways to Multilateralism (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2 : International Relations
Prelims level : Multilateralism
Mains level : Steps to revive multilateralism

Context

• The network of multilateral institutions that oversees everything from states’ progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to the daily distribution of humanitarian aid is under threat.
• The current crisis of multilateralism can be seen in multiple forms: fewer multilateral treaties are being signed and ratified; some of the existing treaties are poorly implemented, and states increasingly reject the oversight of treaty obligations; increasingly cutting the financial support to many institutions etc.

Reasons

• Failure to break the ice is leading to ineffectiveness of the institution. Consensus has become hard to reach within the existing multilateral structures. This has led to the stalemate in institutions like WTO. Last successful trade talk was Uruguay round.
• Rise of Protectionist Measures in the form of anti-immigration and anti-globalization policies is also one of the factors. Trade war between US and China, termination of GSP by USA are few examples in this regard.
• Failure to bring suitable reforms reflecting the emerging world order has brought rigidness and inflexibility in institutions like UN, IMF/World Bank. This has affected the credibility of these institutions in modern times.
• Aggressive expansionist policies followed by different countries is severely undermining the global norms and rules.
• For example, China refused to accept the verdict of ICJ on South China Sea thereby undermining the UNCLOS and Permanent Court Of Arbitration. Similarly, annexation of Crimea by Russia undermined the credibility of UN.
• Super nationality Vs. Nationalism debate is gaining traction. This can be seen in the case of BREXIT.
• Increased Geopolitical Competition has led to the emergence of mega blocs such as RCEP, BRICS, SCO etc.
• Trust deficit among stakeholders is affecting working of multilateral treaties and institutions.
• The collapse of INF treaty or the exit of USA and Israel from UNESCO highlight this fact.

Way Forward

• Countries that believe in multilateralism should find ways to support their key programmes that protect rights and justice. For example, When the US cut off funding to the UNFPA and UNRWA, European and other governments including India stepped in to provide vital financial support.
• While acknowledging multilateralism’s current structural weaknesses, leaders should work towards bringing suitable reform reflecting the new geopolitical order.
• The leaders of international organisations should stand up to those countries which try to defy the mandate of organisation.
• There is need to ensure that citizens understand and appreciate the fact that giving away power to multilateral agencies enhances their own power.

Conclusion

• The world is becoming multipolar. But multipolarity will not, in itself, guarantee peace or solve global problems. We need a strong multilateral frameworks which is inclusive and representative of the current global realities.
• For this, the larger ideological battle for a rules-based international system must be fought using a strong dose of global civics as an antidote to neo-nationalism.

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Cut in the corporate tax rates (Mint)

Mains Paper 3 : Economy
Prelims level : Corporate income tax
Mains level : Reasons behind corporate income tax cut

Context

• The changes in corporate income tax (CIT) constitute an important milestone in India’s recent legacy of tax reforms, aimed at lowering tax rates and broadening tax bases. In 2015-16, the then Finance Minister announced that the basic CIT rate would be reduced to 25 per cent but action on this was slow. The latest reforms go beyond this by lowering the basic rate to 22 % for domestic companies and 15 % for new manufacturing companies. The cess and surcharges will however continue.
• The effective tax rate linked to the basic tax rate of 22 % is 25.17 %. While availing this lower rate, the companies will have to forego the benefits of any tax exemptions and deductions.
• Also under the new corporate tax policy, new companies that set up manufacturing facilities in India starting in October and commencing production before the end of March, 2023 will be taxed at an effective rate of 17%.

Need for the Cut

• The corporate tax cut is part of a series of steps taken by the government to tackle the slowdown in economic growth, which has dropped for five consecutive quarters to 5% in the June quarter.
• Investor sentiment had taken a hit by the additional taxes that were announced by the government during the budget in July and began pulling money out of the country.
• Moreover, corporate taxes in India were significantly higher than East Asian economies, which acted as a barrier in attracting investors in the country.

Impact of the Cut

• Tax cuts, by putting more money in the hands of private sector, can offer people more incentive to produce and contribute to the economy. Thus, the present tax cut can help widen the economy.
• Investments crucially depend on the consumption levels in an economy. If there is high consumer demand, firms would eagerly invest. However, if the consumption level is depressed because incomes are low across the board and companies have high unsold inventories, the impact on fresh investments would be muted.
• The corporate tax rate is also a major determinant of how investors allocate capital across various economies. Hence, the present cut can help in increasing India’s global competitiveness.
• In the medium to long term, the tax cut is expected to boost investments and increase the productive capacity of the economy. As regardless of a slump in demand in the short term, investment decisions are taken after considering long term demand projections.
• The tax cut, however, is expected to cause a yearly revenue loss of ₹1.45 lakh crore to the
  government which is struggling to meet its fiscal deficit target. This has the potential to further depress
  the economy as the government could use the same money to create new productive assets.

Conclusion

• Nevertheless, if the cuts manage to sufficiently revive the economy, the present tax cut can help boost tax collections and compensate for the loss of revenue. Further, a considerable portion of the tax foregone will come back to the government via the dividends that public sector firms may announce as they too would pay lower taxes.
• Also, the spike in stock markets and the overall business sentiment would likely mean that the government will earn more from disinvestment. However, the government will also need to simultaneously enact along with these tax cuts other structural reforms that reduce entry barriers in the economy and make the marketplace more competitive.

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Blue economy that sustains life, rather than a brown one (Mint)

Mains Paper 3 : Environment
Prelims level : Blue Economy
Mains level : Benefits of Blue Economy

Context

• The Blue economy refers to sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and ocean ecosystem health.
• The main assets include fisheries, the coastline itself, mangroves, carbon absorption, seagrass beds and corals reefs with associated benefits of coastal and marine tourism, carbon sequestration.
• On the other hand, Brown economy relies heavily on fossil fuels and does not consider the negative side effects that economic production and consumption have on the environment.

Benefits of Blue Economy

• Food Security through fisheries sector including aquaculture and aquatic plants.
• Nutritional security by fulfilling minimum amount of protein intake in daily food basket.
• Coastal Tourism presents huge potential for job creation and economic growth.
• Surging of Seaborne Trade as Sea is a cost-effective and carbon-friendly mode of transportation for global trade.
• Alternative Sources of Clean, Affordable and Renewable Energy in the form of wave energy, solar energy, tidal energy, hydroelectric energy.
• Managing Coastal Urbanisation as in the blue economy framework, coastal cities are viewed as a source of economic dynamism, agglomeration of blue activities, social empowerment and pollutionfree built-in environment.
• Improving Ocean Health as blue economy approach would contribute to the process of restoring the ocean health and its precious resources.
• Ocean technologies such as deep-sea mining, freshwater production from sea etc. may get more attention in coastal economies pursing blue economy.
• Hence, it is clear that, blue economy breaks the mould of brown development model where oceans are perceived as a means of free resource extraction and waste dumping.

Conclusion

• At the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012, blue economy was viewed as ocean economy that aims at the “improvement of human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. Therefore, the scope of blue economy is much wider and inclusive.
• Countries all over the world are mainstreaming policies related to blue economy. In November 2018, first ever-Sustainable Blue Conference was held at Nairobi.
• The island-nation of Seychelles has launched the world's first blue bond to raise the capital.
• It is time that other continents including Asia take up the challenge and tap the vast ocean of resources.

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Upholding the ideals of fairness and rectitude (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2 : Polity
Prelims level : Section 24(2)
Mains level : Judiciary: Consequences behind Section 24(2)

Context

• On October 23 by a five-judge, constitution bench of the Supreme Court of India in Indore Development Authority v. Manohar Lal. Here, in holding that an application seeking the recusal of Justice Arun Mishra, the presiding judge on the bench, was liable to be rejected, the court brushed aside with alarming alacrity the most rudimentary standards of natural justice.

Facts of the case

• The facts leading up to the constitution of the five-judge bench speak for themselves. The issues involved in the case spring out of a reading of Section 24(2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (LARR).
• This law, which replaced the colonial-era Land Acquisition Act of 1894, places a number of checks on the government’s power to expropriate property. Significantly, besides promising a more equitable compensation, the LARR mandates a social and environmental impact assessment before the state acquires any land.
• It also establishes a structure that ensures the rehabilitation and resettlement of those people whose lives are likely to be most affected by the taking of their properties.
• The objective is to ensure that the state’s supposedly sovereign power to acquire land is not used in a manner inimical to the people whose lands are taken.

Consequences behind Section 24(2)

• Section 24(2) is one among many provisions which gives meaning to the LARR’s larger goals.
• It states that in all cases where an award has been made under the 1894 law five years or more prior to the commencement of the LARR (that is before the year 2009), wherever physical possession has not been taken or where compensation has not been paid, those earlier proceedings will lapse, and the land will vest once again with the original landowner.
• In January 2014, in interpreting this clause, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, in Pune Municipal Corporation v. Harakchand Solanki, adopted a liberal construal. It held that the word “paid” used in Section 24(2) did not envisage cases where the government had merely deposited amounts into its own treasuries.
• Even if the landowners had refused compensation, the court held, the government ought to have at the least deposited the money into court.
• This reading of Section 24(2) was not only correct as a matter of textual interpretation but was also in consonance with the larger goals of the new legislation.
  It is also about propriety
• This might not appear to be an exceptional conclusion; some might even see this as a plausible interpretation of Section 24(2). But the problem here does not merely concern the enunciation of the law, but speaks rather to something deeper, to the principles of propriety that are integral to the court’s functioning.
• On that, there are at least two troublesome factors worth bearing in mind.
• One, that the creation of the three-judge bench which heard the questions raised in Shailendra was itself a product of a reference made by a panel of two judges presided over by Justice Mishra.
• Two, that the majority’s judgment in Shailendra, which was authored by Justice Mishra, did not merely disagree with the finding in Pune Municipal Corporation but also went on to hold that the earlier ruling was delivered per incuriam, or, in other words, that the verdict was characterised by a lack of proper regard for the law.

Primary justifications

• A recusal, would give room to an “unscrupulous litigant to have a Judge of their choice”. That recusals should not be used as a means to allow a party to choose its own bench is axiomatic.
• All that the applicants had done here was to highlight that Justice Mishra’s predisposition was so strong that he had not only made his mind up earlier, but that he had chosen to impinge on commonly accepted rules of precedent that required benches of coordinate strength to follow earlier rulings.
• Justice Mishra asserts that “affronts, jibes, and consciously planned snubs” ought not to deter the bench from discharging its “onerous responsibility”. To this, one can only say that it ill-behoves the Supreme Court to make ad hominem claims on what really are unnamed groups.
• Justice Mishra cites a host of cases in which judges who were originally part of a referring bench were later called upon to participate in the larger bench’s hearing.
• However, had a judge formed so conclusive an opinion as Justice Mishra had on Section 24(2), and, most certainly, in none of these cases had a judge disregarded the doctrine of stare decisis — the basic legal principle of determining the outcome of a dispute according to precedent — to unsettle an established interpretation of the law.

Way forward

• Justice Mishra makes an appeal to his own conscience, which, he says, compels him to hear the case. We need not doubt this claim. But the broader concern remains, because the bright-line rules on recusal require an altogether different analysis.
• They demand that a judge appeals not to his own moral sense but to consider what a reasonable person might make of his decision to hear a case.
• Eventually, the constitution bench might well deliver a faultless verdict, but to any such ruling this question will stay rooted like a limpet on a rock: is justice seen to be done?

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Creating a fair digital payments market (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3 : Economy
Prelims level : UPI
Mains level : Digital payment infrastructure

Context

• Since early last year, WhatsApp has busily piloted its payment system in India.
• WhatsApp Pay relies on the Indian government’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system to facilitate inter-bank transactions.
• Regulatory approval that would allow its nation-wide introduction is stuck on one point: the Indian government has asked WhatsApp to localise all data processing related to payment transactions in India and not on

Facebook’s servers in the U.S.

• This is well in line with the government’s existing technology vision for the digital economy, which hinges on data localisation as the magic bullet to solve multiple problems ranging from prevention of personal data misuse to promotion of local enterprises.
• Unfortunately, it misses a number of other issues and hidden costs of this current deal and raises broader issues on big tech’s foray into financial services, especially payments.

The case of WhatsApp Pay

• In the case of WhatsApp Pay, its parent company, Facebook, has come under scrutiny for harmful content, lack of privacy, and data misuse in recent years.
• The large amounts of social media data that Facebook sits on, its habit of using private user data to promote business, and its reluctance to adhere to policy have led to radical suggestions of breaking up big tech.
• Facebook, in response, has rolled out a new plan to reinvent its business, which is to build a new privacy-focused platform that integrates WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.
• This will provide end-to-end encryption for consumers and business services along with direct payment options.

WhatsApp parent authority

• The only hitch in this new business plan is that Facebook is relatively new to the digital payments market and cannot gain a foothold in the U.S., where PayPal has the largest consumer base.
• This is where it becomes important to make WhatsApp Pay successful in India. India is WhatsApp’s largest market in the world with over 250 million monthly users.
• Once WhatsApp Pay catches on in India, Facebook intends to introduce it in other developing countries.
• Thus, the decision to allow WhatsApp Pay in India can catapult Facebook into the big league in the global digital payments market where companies like Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat are making waves.

Digital payment scenario in India

• India’s digital vision talks about data sovereignty and giving domestic firms an advantage.
• The digital payments market, with 800 million mobile users in the country of which more than 430 million have Internet access, is estimated to grow to over $1 trillion by 2025.
• If India is serious about giving local firms an advantage, it should leverage this immense opportunity.
• With the right policy incentives, local firms could capture large shares of the digital payments market to become e-commerce players on a global scale, as China’s experience shows.
• In China, domestic enterprises were strategically enabled to use the local market to emerge as global champions.
• Today, WeChat combines the functional features of several online platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp, PayPal and Uber Eats. Over 300 million users worldwide use WeChat payments for everything, right from ordering food to paying hospital bills, a model that all firms want to emulate.

Advantages of WhatsApp pay

• WhatsApp Pay a plum role in the digital payments market achieves the opposite because if the deal goes ahead, it will automatically give WhatsApp Pay a large advantage over all other Indian firms that are currently operating without the advantage of relying on a large social media and messaging base as WhatsApp does.
• This creates a ‘winner-takes-most’ dynamic that competition authorities worldwide are becoming wary of: simply because WhatsApp already has the economies of scale and network externalities.
• It will manage to integrate it into an entirely new sector, with undue advantages that it should normally not benefit from.
• To top it all, Facebook will also receive a cut in all WhatsApp Pay transactions conducted in India.
• Similar concerns with market power can exist with allowing other large firms like Google Pay and Amazon Pay, but these will need to be assessed individually while making decisions for the national digital payments market.
• What matters most is that without a level playing field, even the most well-meaning policy incentives will not safeguard the expansion of local firms in the digital payments arena, thus severely limiting the capacity of local firms to benefit from the potential of India’s own digital payments market.

Fallouts for privacy

• The largest fallouts of granting market approval to a global player will be in the area of privacy. In the particular instance of WhatsApp Pay, the deal will give Facebook access to data on how people across countries are spending their money.
• Even if WhatsApp agrees to set up data localisation in India, the localisation requirement of the government is limited to payments data only.
• As a result, Facebook will still have access to metadata on all payment transactions, which can be matched with the data that the company already has access to on Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp for the same users.
• With all of that, Facebook will be able to match user profiles on its social media websites with the user profiles that are authenticated by the UPI system in India.
• This would not only make Facebook the second biggest identification issuer in India after the Indian government, it would also make Facebook the best repository of data covering all areas of life social and financial on all Indian users.
• This kind of data pooling would never be allowed in the U.S. where financial privacy laws protect against such an outcome, so why should this be allowed in India?
• Similar risks exist in the case of Google Pay or Amazon Pay, where payments data can be matched with other existing repositories with outcomes that are not desirable and may/may not be as drastic as in the case of WhatsApp Pay.

Way forward

• In the specific case of the digital payments market, we need the elaboration of clear guidelines that enable the development of a digital payments market, going beyond requirements for storing and processing payments.
• Data localisation is costly, and consumers not only need protection that these compliance costs will not be passed on to them by businesses, but they also need clarity on how their data will be stored, for how long, and what uses will be prohibited.
• Local firms will need much more space and support in the digital payments market to be able to create new jobs, new prospects and digital dividends.
• These are crucial to guarantee the rights of all Indians as we move from a cash-based to a cashless economy.

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WASH for healthcare (Mint)

Mains Paper 2 : Health
Prelims level : WASH scheme
Mains level : Describe the significance of the WASH scheme

Context

• Whatever their differences, and wherever they’re located, adequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) amenities, including waste management and environmental cleaning services, are critical to their safe functioning.
• When a healthcare facility lacks adequate WASH services, infection prevention and control are severely compromised.
• This has the potential to make patients and health workers sick from avoidable infections. As a result (and in addition), efforts to improve maternal, neonatal and child health are undermined.
• Lack of WASH facilities also results in unnecessary use of antibiotics, thereby spreading antimicrobial resistance.

Highlights of the WHO data

• As a joint report published earlier this year by the World Health Organization and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) outlines, WASH services in many facilities across the world are missing or substandard.
• According to data from 2016, an estimated 896 million people globally had no water service at their healthcare facility.
• More than 1.5 billion had no sanitation service.
• One in every six healthcare facilities was estimated to have no hygiene service (meaning it lacked hand hygiene facilities at points of care, as well as soap and water at toilets), while data on waste management and environmental cleaning was inadequate across the board.

Enhancing primary healthcare

• In WHO’s South-East Asia region, efforts to tackle the problem and achieve related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets are being vigorously pursued.
• As outlined at a WHO-supported meeting in New Delhi in March, improving WASH services in healthcare facilities is crucial to accelerating progress towards each of the region’s ‘flagship priorities’, especially the achievement of universal health coverage.
• Notably, improving WASH services was deemed essential to enhancing the quality of primary healthcare services, increasing equity and bridging the rural-urban divide.
• A World Health Assembly Resolution passed in May is hoping to catalyse domestic and external investments to help reach the global targets.
• These include ensuring at least 60% of all healthcare facilities have basic WASH services by 2022; at least 80% have the same by 2025; and 100% of all facilities provide basic WASH services by 2030.

WHO and UNICEF recommended practical steps

• The health authorities should conduct in-depth assessments and establish national standards and accountability mechanisms.
• Across the region, and the world, a lack of quality baseline data limits authorities’ understanding of the problem.
• As this is done, and national road-maps to improve WASH services are developed, health authorities should create clear and measurable benchmarks that can be used to improve and maintain infrastructure and ensure that facilities are ‘fit to serve’.

Educating the health workers

• The health authorities should increase engagement and work to instil a culture of cleanliness and safety in all healthcare facilities.
• Alongside information campaigns that target facility administrators, all workers in the health system from doctors and nurses to midwives and cleaners should be made aware of, and made to practise, current WASH and infection prevention and control procedures (IPC).
• To help do this, modules on WASH services and IPC should be included in pre-service training and as part of ongoing professional development.

Promote demand for WASH services

• In addition, authorities should work more closely with communities, especially in rural areas, to promote demand for WASH services.
• The authorities should ensure that collection of data on key WASH indicators becomes routine.
• Doing so will help accelerate progress by promoting continued action and accountability.
• It will also help spur innovation by documenting the links between policies and outcomes.
• To make that happen, WHO is working with member states as well as key partners to develop a data dashboard that brings together and tracks indicators on health facilities, including WASH services, with a focus on the primary care level.

Conclusion

• As member states strive to achieve the ‘flagship priorities’ and work towards the SDG targets, that outcome is crucial.
• Indeed, whatever the healthcare facility, whoever the provider, and wherever it is located, securing safe health services is an objective member states must boldly pursue.

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The sword against pen (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2 : International
Prelims level : Reporters Without Borders
Mains level : Situation of media worldwide

Context

• Journalists are facing heightened threats around the globe, according to the 2019 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), covering 180 countries and territories.
• It notes that the number of countries regarded as safe for journalists is on the decline; this should be a wake-up call.
• Hatred of journalists has degenerated into violence in many places, and India is no exception.

Key highlights of the report

• In 2018, at least six Indian journalists were killed in the line of their work, the report said.
• India’s rank fell by two places to 140 from 138 in 2016 it was 133 and in 2017 it was 136. In 2014 India’s ranking was 140, but this year’s setback is qualitatively different.
• The report notes that organised campaigns by supporters of Hindutva “to purge all manifestations of ‘anti-national’ thought from the national debate” is putting journalists in danger.
• Women journalists are particularly at the receiving end, and covering sensitive but important topics of public interest such as separatism in Jammu and Kashmir and Maoist insurgency has become more difficult.
• Authorities use anachronistic sedition laws against journalists, who also face the wrath of militants and criminal gangs.

Situation in India

• Hostility towards the media is a defining feature of hyper-nationalist politics in many countries.
• In India, the Centre and several State governments have not merely shown extreme intolerance towards objective and critical reporting but also taken unprecedented measures to restrict journalism.
• The Finance Minister’s recent order barring credentialed reporters from the Ministry’s premises is a case in point but this is not an isolated measure.
• There is a systematic attempt to limit the scope of journalism in India through physical restrictions, denial of information and hostile rhetoric against journalists by senior government functionaries.
• The Narendra Modi government is unlikely to take the RSF report seriously.
• While expression of concern by foreign countries or global bodies regarding human rights, religious violence or media freedom is routinely dismissed as external interference in India’s sovereignty, the government knows all too well that in a globalised world these perceptions matter.

Conclusion

• If India is concerned about its reputation in terms of business and investment, it should be equally or even more concerned about its standing as a democratic, pluralist country with a free and dynamic press.
• That is not so much for the inflow of investment or luring global corporations, which may care little about a destination-country’s democratic credentials but for India’s well-being.

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High levies set to strangle telecom sector (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3 : Economy
Prelims level : Telecom sector
Mains level : Liberalisation in telecom sector

Context

• The recent Supreme Court judgment on upholding the definition of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) to include all revenues earned by the licensed Telecom Service Providers (TSPs), and just those of core services, appears to be the death knell for TSPs.

Liberalisation in telecom sector

• Telecom has been one of the brightest spots in India’s liberalisation journey, with the country being the second-largest in mobile subscribers and even mobile broadband subscriber base, next only to China and beating the US.
• Telecom and broadband Internet have string multiplier effects on the economy, leading to large-scale digitisation of consumer-facing services — including digital finance and commerce platforms — thus augmenting transparency, reducing information asymmetry, and most importantly, allowing for nurturing of the digital start-ups and innovation ecosystems in the country.

Regulatory fee

• The annual LF of 8 per cent which includes a 5 per cent Universal Service Levy (USL) is high compared to the international average.
• The USL since its implementation in 1999 has contributed more than ₹1,00,000 crore to the exchequer, of which there remains an unspent balance of about ₹50,000 crore in the book of accounts.
• Our rural penetration has improved, thanks partially due to the state-owned BSNL as well as efforts of the private operators.
• It is time the government looks at reducing the USL, thereby providing some relief to the TSPs.

Operator services

• The on-going price war between new entrants and the incumbents, which is also a cause of worry for the industry.
• TRAI has not intervened in tariff until now, the DoT seems to be mulling over fixing a floor price for telecom services.
• This shifts the burden to the weary consumers. In a sector with about four operators, the TSPs should be wise enough to adjust their pricing and revenue-earning strategies, so that they don’t incur loss.
• The list of burning issues is the Interconnect Usage Charge, especially the Mobile Termination Charge (
• MTC) which is to be paid by the originating carrier to the terminating carrier for voice calls.
• While TRAI has re-initiated the consultation process on its plan to reduce the MTC from the current level of 6 paise per minute, the ecosystem in the country will not permit MTC reduction to zero any time soon.
• Unless the penetration of mobile broadband nears 100 per cent (from the current level of about 30 per cent), reduction of costs for mobile termination cannot be brought down.
• Even if it is a pure packet-switched call, the marginal cost of terminating it cannot be ignored due to the associated spectrum and infrastructure cost.

Planned merger

• The decision taken to merge BSNL and MTNL has been a right one, considering the loss incurred due to MTNL’s diseconomies of scale.
• With the merger and the financial support given by the government, the new BSNL-MTNL entity should be mandated to compete effectively against the private operators, fulfilling their national goal of connecting rural and semi-urban areas of the country.
• Procurement policies of the entity should be made less stringent, so that it can deploy infrastructure especially 4G mobile broadband network quickly to overcome the lost time.
• Effective utilisation of the large assets of the combined entity across the country should commence so that it can become EBITDA-positive soon.

Conclusion

• With the merged BSNL-MTNL entity providing effective competition to private operators, the telecom market will soon become vibrant.
• But unless the underlying telecom and broadband services improve both in price and quality, a Digital India is a pipe dream.

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The new gold standard in development economics? (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3 : Economy
Prelims level : Randomised control trials
Mains level : Pros and cons of Randomised control trials

Context

• Development economics has changed a lot during the last two decades or so, mostly due to the extensive use of ‘randomised control trials’ (RCT).
• ‘Randomistas’ are proponents of RCTs to assess long-run economic productivity and living standards in poor countries.

An evolution

• The concept of RCT is quite old; instances of RCTs can be traced back in the 16th century.
• The statistical foundation of RCT was developed by British statistician Sir Ronald Fisher, about 100 years ago, mostly in the context of design of experiments.
• ‘Control’ and ‘randomisation’ together constitute an RCT. In 1995, statisticians Marvin Zelen and Lee-Jen Wei illustrated a clinical trial to evaluate the hypothesis that the antiretroviral therapy AZT reduces the risk of maternal-to-infant HIV transmission.
• A standard randomisation scheme was used resulting in 238 pregnant women receiving AZT and 238 receiving standard therapy (placebo).
• It is observed that 60 newborns were HIV-positive in the placebo-group and 20 newborns were HIV-positive in the AZT-group. Thus, the failure rate of the placebo was 60/238, whereas that of AZT was only 20/238, indicating that AZT was much more effective than the placebo.
• Drawing such an inference, despite heterogeneity among the patients, was possible only due to randomisation.
• Randomisation makes different treatment groups comparable and also helps to estimate the error associated in the inference.

Marking a change

• Social scientists slowly found RCT to be interesting, doable, and effective. But, in the process, the nature of social science slowly converted from ‘non-experimental’ to ‘experimental’.
• Numerous interesting applications of RCTs took place in social policy-making during the 1960-90s, and the ‘randomistas’ took control of development economics since the mid-1990s.
• About 1,000 RCTs were conducted by Prof. Kremer, Prof. Banerjee and Prof. Duflo and their colleagues in 83 countries such as India, Kenya and Indonesia.
• These were to study various dimensions of poverty, including microfinance, access to credit, behaviour, health care, immunisation programmes, and gender inequality.
• While Prof. Banerjee thinks RCTs “are the simplest and best way of assessing the impact of a program”, Prof. Duflo refers to RCTs as the “tool of choice”.

Critics of RCTs in economic experiments

• Critics of RCTs in economic experiments think that in order to conduct RCTs, the broader problem is being sliced into smaller ones, and any dilution of the scientific method leaves the conclusions questionable.
• Economists such as Martin Ravallion, Dani Rodrik, William Easterly, and Angus Deaton are very critical of using RCTs in economic experiments.
• Randomisation in clinical trials has an additional impetus — it ensures that allocation to any particular treatment remains unknown to both patient and doctor. Such kind of ‘blinding’ is central to the philosophy of clinical trials and it helps to reduce certain kinds of bias in the trial.
• It is believed that the ‘outcome’ or the ‘treatment-response’ might be influenced if the patient and/or the physician are aware of the treatment given to the patient.
• Such kind of ‘blinding’ is almost impossible to implement in economic experiments as participants would definitely know if they get any financial aid or training.
• Thus, randomisation must have a much less impact there. Often, economists miss such an important point.

Way forward

• Unless randomisation is done, most of the standard statistical analyses and inference procedures become meaningless.
• Thus, “RCT or no RCT” may not be just a policy decision to economics; it is the question of shifting the paradigm.
• The “tool” comes with lot of implicit baggage. With randomisation dominating development economics, implicitly, economic experiments are becoming more and more statistical.
• This is one philosophical aspect which economists need to settle.

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Thinking Beyond the Self and the Other (Live Mint)

Context

• According to Galtung, violence is of three kind; direct, structural and cultural.
• Gandhi's nonviolence responds to the contemporary problem of violence at this three-level - direct, structural and cultural.

A. Gandhi's Response to Direct Violence

• The underlying principal of Gandhi's non-violence is advaita. Thus, Gandhi does not see any separation between the self and other.
• He noted in Hind swaraj that 'sacrifice of self is infinitely superior to sacrifice of others'. In Gandhi's paradigm, both self and the others are tied to a relationship of responsibility.
• Gandhi also argues why violence as a contemporary means to settle issues should be avoided. First, he observes that violence does not accept the 'essential dignity' and worth of the individual. Second, violence recognizes no boundaries and finally become self-justificatory in itself. The reason is that violence claims to possess the truth about right and wrong and on this basis, it also decides who should be punished and who spared. Third, when violence becomes habitual and institutionalized, it becomes a general means/method to settle the issue of any kind of conflicts in society.
• It must be recalled, for Gandhi, non-violence is not confined only to a personal virtue or individual behaviour. He considered non- violence as 'law of our being' that must be applied in all social relation: familial, political, economic, and educational. To contemporary violence inflicted society, his message is very clear - apply nonviolence in all possible fields of human relation.

B. Gandhi's Response to structural Violence

• The problem of violence may be viewed in term of concentration of power, large scale
  industrialization, and exploitation of one group by another. These have been termed as structural violence.
• Here, Gandhi's idea of aparigraha (non-possession) and its institutionalized form 'trusteeship', as well as the need for self-control, are useful today. Gandhi held the view that the modern crisis can be overcome only by making our institution more in the line of law of non –violence.
• He advocated the decentralized mode of polity (Panchayati Raj) and economy (Gram swaraj) to minimize the structural violence in the society. For such social and political task, Gandhi invites people to take up moral leadership at different levels.
• In response to the contemporary problem of social –political injustice or the economic inequality, Gandhi proposes a nonviolent mode of protest what he termed as satyagraha.
• To modern society where ethnic or political conflict has become common, his satyagrah offers a method of nonviolent, creative conflict transformation that results in reconciliation and removal of bitterness between or among the conflicting parties.
• On the issue of state and individual, which is a central challenge to modern polity, Gandhi regarded individual as the centre of authority and value. According to him, the State and Government derive their existence and power from the individuals. Thus, when the state begins to exploit the people and impede their progress, it is the holy duty of the people to withdraw their cooperation from the state and reform the state by moral force.

C. Gandhi's Response to Cultural Violence

• Multi –dimensionality of violence signify psychological, linguistic and socio- political and economic violence indirectly inflicted on a particular community in the society which is not overt but hidden in the very structure and mechanism of the society.
• Such violence often gets vent when cultural, political or religious war (as in the case of terrorism) takes places.
• Our normal worldview is violent in nature and we are socialised and educated in such a way that we never grasp how violently we relate to ourselves, to others, and to nature.
• Gandhi challenges such violent normal view and its normative design and emphasises on nonviolent world view. He argues that we need to analyze our existing worldview portrayed as normal which is in fact, violent from within.
• To develop a nonviolent worldview, he emphasizes on a new kind of socialization through Swadeshi and a new type of education through Nai Talim in the society.
• The violence against nature, known as the environmental crisis, is serious contemporary challenges before us. Rather than looking the nature separate from the human being, Gandhi submitted that we should feel a more living bond between ourselves and the rest of the animate world.

Conclusion

• Gandhi's idea of non –violence attempts to eradicate the root cause of the present ecological crisis by proposing the idea similar to a notion recently termed as 'human ecology’ which is concerned with the ecological implications of all what human beings do.

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Making palm oil a ‘sustainable’ crop (the Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: Palm oil
Mains level : Making palm oil a ‘sustainable’ crop

Context

• The Malaysian Prime Minister’s allusive remarks on Kashmir have added a new controversy to the already turbulent world of palm oil.

Largest producers scenario

• Indonesia and Malaysia, the two largest producers, are already facing allegations of destruction of the world’s most bio-diverse forests to grow oil palm.
• Other charges relating to the activities subsequent to deforestation and destruction of wild habitat, such as land clearing for plantations, release of mill effluents, burning and haze have been triggering debate about the environmental and social impacts of palm plantation.
• India being the largest consumer of palm oil has a considerable stake in securing sustainable supply and it is high time such issues are addressed.
• Palm oil comes from the fruit of oil palm trees and can be obtained either from the fleshy fruit or from its kernel.
• Oil palm trees are native of Africa and were brought to Indonesia and Malaysia as ornamental plants.
• Palm oil is an incredibly efficient crop, producing more oil per land area than any other equivalent vegetable oil crop.

Importance of cropping Palm oil

• It is an important crop for many countries where millions of farmers depend on producing palm oil for their livelihood.
• The fact that palm oil is also the common ingredient in packaged food, shampoo, toothpaste and cosmetics, makes the impact of the biofuel far bigger.
• The world export of palm oil in 2018 was $30.35 billion. Indonesia and Malaysia are the major exporters with exports of $26.2 billion and $14.9 billion, respectively.
• As much as 86 per cent of the world’s requirement of palm oil is fulfilled by these two countries. The major importers are India, China, Pakistan and the Netherlands ( it is used as a biofuel the Netherlands).

How can we make palm oil plantation sustainable with minimum harm to the environment?

• This calls for devising a sustainable framework across the palm value chain. It means having a set of environmental and social criteria at each stage of the value chain which must be complied with in order to produce sustainable palm oil.
• The palm oils thus produced would be certified ‘sustainable palm oil’.
• The certification norms would ensure adequate protection of the environment and the local communities.
• RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) is one such global effort that represents third-party standard for the more sustainable production of palm oil.

The Indian scene

• The production of palm oil in India started in 1991 with five thousand tonnes which increased to two lakh tonnes in 2018.
• The current consumption of palm oil is more than 9.3 million tonnes, which is expected to double by 2030. Since the domestic production is limited, large scale imports are inevitable.
• About 90 per cent of the palm oil is used as cooking oil and the rest in personal care and cosmetics.
• The major cooking oil users are the government (for public distribution), hotels and restaurants, middle-class consumers (use branded blends) and lower middle-class consumers (use ‘loose’ or unbranded palm oil).
• As palm oil producers, Indonesia and Malaysia have come up with their own version of RSPO, tweaked to their national requirements, to be a part of this sustainable initiative.

What India needs to take on that mantle as the user industry?

• Imports: A customs duty benefit can be apportioned for sustainable palm oil. Since there is a high dependence on palm oil, the import requirements could be strengthened over five to eight years with further consignment-based restriction for non-sustainable palm oil.
• Development of infrastructure: A phased application of these measures may start from one end of the value chain. However, before directly jumping into implementation, a year or so could be devoted to modifying ‘sustainability criteria’ and building support infrastructure responsible for its implementation.
• Producers: Once infrastructure is ready, all farm-holders could be brought into the loop of producing sustainable palm oil aided by the government. Big corporates who are already contributing to sustainable palm oil could adopt small/large farm-holdings and develop them under their CSR initiatives.
• Millers and refiners: Since the produced palm oil will call for a premium in the market, a discount/subsidy could be given to them for purchasing sustainable palm oil from the producers.

Way ahead

• The percentage of sustainable palm oil that they purchase could be mandatorily increased over time till the input to the mills and refineries is 100 per cent sustainable.
• The government will also need to ensure that palm oil being distributed through the public distribution system is sustainable without passing on the cost to beneficiaries.
• However, one of the challenges would be converting ‘loose’ or unbranded palm oil to sustainable palm oil. This category will be the last in the segment to be converted to sustainable palm oil and will be market driven.

Conclusion

• With high import dependence, bringing the domestic production chain to manufacture sustainable palm oil will be possible only if the compliance cost outweighs the cost of imports.
• It is clear that a timeline for implementation of a sustainability framework for palm oil must be drawn. A campaign for making consumers aware of the need to consume ‘sustainable’ palm oil would be a must for making the initiative successful.

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Pills within reach (Live Mint)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: Palm oil
Mains level : Making palm oil a ‘sustainable’ crop

Context

• India’s government is reportedly planning to allow local retail outlets to sell common drugs.
• As per the proposal, the Centre would let regular shops retail over-the-counter medicines such as paracetamol, a popularly used pill for which people currently need to visit a pharmacy.
• Crucially, these drugs would contain key information on side effects and the appropriate dosage in local languages.

Availability of these medicines

• The wide availability of these medicines would offer relief to people living in far-flung areas where pharmacies are few and far between.
• In India, self-medication is highly prevalent, particularly in the rural areas. This is due to several reasons. There aren’t just enough qualified doctors in the country.
• The situation is grimmer in the rural hinterland. Reports suggest that about two-thirds of all doctors in India cater to urban areas.
• Moreover, going to a doctor proves to be time-consuming and expensive for rural folks.
• If non-prescription drugs can be bought at a local corner shop, it could help lower treatment costs for millions of people who have no chemist closeby.

Way ahead

• The proposal, though, alarms observers who insist on strict regulation of who is allowed to dispense medicines.
• The popping of pills without any medical authorization or knowledge could pose an immediate health risk.
• Easy availability could also result in an overuse of some over-the-counter drugs, compromising people’s health over a longer span of time.
• This has already happened in the case of antibiotics, whose rampant overuse has turned several strains of disease-causing bacteria resistant to these drugs.

Conclusion

• Yet, given the ground conditions in India, the benefits could outweigh those worries.

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