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India’s vape ban only deprives smokers of safer options (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Governance
Prelims level: electronic nicotine delivery systems
Mains level: Tobacco related problem and associated issues

Context

• The world has embraced electronic cigarettes, commonly known as vapes, and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) as harm-reduction alternatives to combustible tobacco used in cigarettes.
• Globally, several tobacco control researchers have concluded that e-cigarettes are at least 95% less hazardous than combustible cigarettes.
• Studies by Public Health England show that the risk of passive smoking associated with them is also extremely low, as they do not produce tobacco fumes. But India, it would seem, is just not convinced.

Background

• That is surprising given that the country bears 12% of the global burden of tobacco users, has 40% of its adults exposed to passive smoking, and also has the dubious distinction of showing the lowest quit rate among all countries surveyed in the Global Adult Tobacco Survey 2.
• Despite the figures, our government appears keen to deny the Indian populace access to a tobacco harm-reduction alternative by taking a hard stand against the use of electronic cigarettes.
• It is no wonder that the government’s decision to ban ENDS across the country has sparked a debate.
• However, since there is empirical evidence to suggest that countries, which have regulated ENDS, have witnessed a decline in smoking rates, India needs to take note and reconsider its stance on the matter.
  Regulations for ENDS
• Globally, the most successful regulations for ENDS are those with strong evidentiary underpinning.
• The UK and France, for example, have witnessed a decline in their smoking rates, with the UK marking the lowest at 14.9% in 2017, in comparison to 19.8% in 2011, and a record 1.6 million people in France having moved away from combustible cigarettes over the past two years.
• Sweden has achieved the lowest rates of smoking-caused illnesses in Europe, thanks in part to a low-risk form of smokeless tobacco called snus.
• In Asia, Japan has reduced cigarette sales by a third in just three years through product substitution. This underscores the viability of ENDS as a long-term alternative to smoking.

Why ban when you can regulate?

• Country-wise e-cigarette policies differ and the outcomes of their experience so far could inform a regulatory system in India.
• New Zealand is promoting ENDS by launching a website called Vaping Facts to clarify myths and make the country smoking-free by 2025, Canada, the UAE and Seychelles have reversed their bans to regulate the product and allow access to adult smokers.
• These countries now have regulatory mechanisms to monitor the manufacture, sale, labelling and promotion of ENDS products to enable people to switch and deter unintended consequences.
• Canada has created a separate provision for vaping products under its existing tobacco control regulations.
• Its objective is to ensure that the category of modern products is regulated but these are more accessible than old tobacco products, which are significantly more harmful.

What India needs to?

• With a smoking population estimated at over 100 million, India is not only a lucrative market for e-cigarette players, but also has more to gain from a public health standpoint if ENDS are permitted.
• A large chunk of India’s healthcare expenditure goes into the treatment and management of preventable diseases, including tobacco-related illnesses, and by changing its mindset and accepting the opportunity that electronic cigarettes and similar tools present, India will not only gain economically but also find better solutions to combat the voluntary inhalation of harmful substances.
• India needs to think of vaping as part of a solution and learn from the empirical evidence being provided by various countries.
• In the interest of people’s health, the government must not ignore scientific innovations, which allow us to combat a crisis of addiction that has not been satisfactorily responsive to various measures adopted over the decades.
• India is currently the second-largest tobacco consumer in the world, a position that should encourage us to intervene in ways that are likely to yield results.

Conclusion

• A ban on a widely accepted alternative to smoking regular cigarettes not only prevents consumers from making a less harmful choice, it may also result in an illicit trade turning rampant.
• We need to check the entry of dangerous counterfeits, and deny vulnerable groups access to these products via the black market.
• It is important for the government to examine the data from other countries and formulate a holistic strategy to reduce India’s tobacco disease burden.

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Forging the steel frame (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level: Indian Administrative Service
Mains level: Role of civil services in a democracy

Context

• The 60-year-old Mussoorie Academy deserves some credit for producing officers who have contributed to nation-building.

Background

• The Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration was simply called the Academy of Administration when it was set up in 1959 in Mussoorie.
• It signalled to systematically train members of the higher civil services in order to equip them to be the change agents of a resurgent India.
• The two All-India Services, the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service attracted some of the finest minds from the university system.
• The IAS motto, ‘Yogah Karmasu Kaushalam (proficiency in action is yoga)’, and the Academy song, ‘Hao Dharomete Dheer, Hao Karomete Bir (Be firm in your faith, courageous in action)’, symbolised the nation’s expectation from them.
• The Academy introduced in 1960 a common Foundation Course (FC) in order to “instil a shared understanding of government and build camaraderie among the civil services”.
• It is the professional training institution for the IAS and continues to conduct an FC for various All-India and Central Services.

Changing with times

• In the last six decades, there have been transformational changes in the country.
• The civil servants have also had to constantly upgrade themselves.
• The Academy has been steered in critical junctures by administrators such as A.N. Jha, P.S. Appu, B.N. Yugandhar and N.C. Saxena.
• The content and methodology of training have changed to meet the demands of time.
• The pattern introduced in 1969 — of district training being sandwiched between institutional exposures at the Academy — has remained broadly unaltered.
• On successful completion, IAS trainees are now awarded an M.A. degree in Public Management by the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
• The Academy also conducts mid-career training programmes for officers, in keeping with their varying job requirements from policy implementation towards policy formulation.
• The Academy now houses five national research centres on rural studies, disaster management, gender, public systems management, and leadership development and competency assessment.
• Pursuant to the Kargil Review Committee recommendations, a joint civil-military programme on national security was introduced in 2001.

Challenges remain

• How much of its effort gets reflected in the performance of officers remains a moot question. The correlation between the training imparted in Mussoorie and the quality of public services in the Indian polity should be established.
• There has been no serious attempt to record the experiences of the trainees/officers at the field/secretariat levels and publish them in scholarly journals, enabling others to benefit from such exposures.
• The Academy Journal, The Administrator, does not seem to have any discernible impact on the academic discourse on the various facets of our governance.
• What have been the outputs of the five national centres? How does such research inform the training curriculum?
• The Academy hasn’t yet realised its potential to emerge as the main think tank for civil service reforms.
• The public sometimes resent the bureaucracy, often for valid reasons. Politicians criticise the bureaucracy as blocking the course of development. The reputation of officers is being unduly tarnished. The Academy should help build a national consensus on these contentious issues.
• Civil servants should maintain their integrity and efficiency while serving in a system that deals with power play and corruption.

Conclusion

• In defending and expanding the constitutional values and in adhering to the spirit of various progressive legislation, the IAS and other Services have played a significant role in nation-building.
• If one looks at the trajectory of independent India and compares it with that of our immediate neighbours, our higher bureaucracy appears to be a defining difference.

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Misunderstanding Nehru-Patel: They often disagreed with each other but worked closely, presented a united front (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 1: History
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Describe and comparison the personalities of Nehru and Patel

Context

• The people who rule the country today are teaching us a new history of India.
• They fight about the recent events surrounding our Independence, the integration of the princely states and the roles played by Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

What is the recent debate?

• These people’s version is that whatever the Sardar handled was a great success and whatever was handled by Nehru turned out to be a great blunder.
• Manish Tewari of the Congress tried to assert in the Lok Sabha that it was Nehru who was responsible for the accession to India of the princely states of Junagadh, J&K and Hyderabad.
• The moment Tewari mentioned Hyderabad, the home minister asserted angrily that it was Patel who was responsible for the accession of Hyderabad, not Nehru.

What is the comparison about these leaders?

• Sardar Patel was 14 years older than Nehru and was a leader of the masses in his own right.
• Though Nehru had become the prime minister, the Sardar, as deputy prime minister and the home minister was almost, if not truly, his equal.
• The recent comparison which comes to mind is that of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani during the 1998-2004 period when they were both in government.
• Like Vajpayee and Advani, Nehru and Patel had their differences, sometimes very sharp ones.
• The differences between Vajpayee and Advani were always resolved through discussions and in the case of Nehru and Patel, through the Mahatma’s intervention.
• At times the differences became so sharp that they led to Patel offering his resignation from the government, to be followed by Nehru making a similar offer.
• They also played politics with each other, especially when it came to party affairs or the choice of the first president of India.
• Yet, despite their differences, Patel continued in government until his death and even accepted Nehru as his leader after the death of Gandhi.

What often led to differences between them?

• The Constitution was still a work in progress and so was the system of collective responsibility and the authority of the PM in the cabinet.
• Nehru was obviously keen to establish his position as primus inter pares in the cabinet and wanted his view to prevail.
• This often led to differences between Nehru and Patel as indeed between them and the other ministers. But is this not natural?
• In every cabinet, there are differences among the ministers and between them and the prime minister on issues which are finally resolved and a joint front presented in Parliament and outside.

What is the truth?

• There is enough material on record to support those who are interested in only highlighting the differences between these two great men just as there is enough material to support that they got along very well.
• But both these views represent the two extremes. The truth lies in the middle: Nehru and Patel jointly played a decisive role in the making of Independent India.
• Those who contend otherwise do not understand the working of the cabinet system.
• So whether it was the accession of J&K or Hyderabad to India, there were many rounds of negotiations, harrowing moments and differences of opinion among the decision-makers.
• Both Nehru and Patel played a vital role in the decision-making process. Also, Governor-General Lord Mountbatten played a key role.
• Patel was also party to the idea of plebiscite wherever there was dispute — Junagadh, J&K and Hyderabad.
• This was the clear position of the government of India then. It was Pakistan which was constantly running away from it.
• Patel did not resign from the cabinet when it was decided to refer the J&K issue to the UN or when India accepted a ceasefire.
• He might have had his reservations but went along with the decisions.

What is absolutely clear?

• It is equally clear from contemporary accounts that Patel would not have objected if J&K had acceded to Pakistan but he was absolutely clear that Hyderabad should accede to India.
• All the decisions in those days were taken either in the defence committee of the cabinet headed by Mountbatten or in the cabinet. Patel was a member of both.
• He expressed his views freely, frankly and at times, even bluntly.
• But always went along with the final decision taken, as did Nehru and the others.
• It is easy for us to sit in judgement today after 73 years over the great men who fought for India’s independence and then ruled the country.
• But let us leave history to the historians.

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The Amazon fires, an alarm that lacks proportion (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Environment
Prelims level: IPCC Fifth Assessment Report
Mains level: Environmental impact assessment

Context

• The upsurge of global environmental anxiety over the recent spate of forest fires in the Amazon, apparently marking a renewed push to deforestation, is clearly testimony to the heightened awareness of the danger to human security represented by global warming.
• The provocatively anti-environmental and climate denial views of Brazil’s President, Jair Bolsonaro, and his colleagues, the reining in of environmental controls if not disabling them, the President’s initial air of unconcern, and his absurd counter-allegations regarding the causes, have all contributed to exacerbating this anxiety.
• Predictably, this has drawn the ire of environmentalists, and public and government opinion globally, though the global media has been more circumspect.

The emissions math

• As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes in its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), the cumulative net addition of carbon to the earth system from terrestrial ecosystems since 1750 amounts to 30 Gigatonne (Gt) with an uncertainty of plus or minus 45 Gt.
• In the words of the IPCC in the AR5: “The net balance of all terrestrial ecosystems, those affected by land use change and the others, is thus close to neutral since 1750.”
• Though cumulative emissions from land-use change since 1750 amounted to almost 180 Gt, driven largely by the more than six-fold expansion of cropland, they were compensated by the 160 Gt of absorption by existing vegetation not subject to land use change.
• Fossil fuel use, in contrast, contributed 375 Gt since 1750, that is more than 12 times that of the net cumulative emissions from terrestrial ecosystems.
• This pattern in carbon accounting also extends to annual emissions. On an average, the Global Carbon Project reports, fossil fuel emissions currently pump about 9.9 Gt of carbon annually into the atmosphere, while land-use change accounts for 1.5 Gt. But terrestrial ecosystems absorbed 3.8 Gt. Taking sources and sinks together, they are a net sink.
• For tropical forests alone, following literature cited in the AR5, annual emissions (averaged over 1990 to 2007) due to deforestation and logging amounted to 2.9 Gt of carbon, while this was compensated by carbon absorption due to forest regrowth (1.64 Gt), recovering from deforestation and logging, and carbon absorption by intact forests (1.19 Gt).
• As a result, overall, tropical forests were marginally a source of emissions of about 0.11 Gt of carbon per year. Clearly there is no cause for complacency here, but nor is this yet an emergency.

No magic bullet

• The story with respect to the Amazon River Basin and its tropical forest cover is very similar. By one scientific estimate, the Amazon, in 1980, stored 128 Gt of carbon, with 94 Gt in vegetation and 33 Gt in the reactive component of soil carbon.
• Subsequent evolution of the carbon storage in the Amazon, makes for a complex story. But while preservation of the Amazon as a carbon pool is essential, such preservation clearly is not the magic bullet that would counteract the impact of fossil fuel emissions.
• The bottom line from this evidence is that fossil fuel emissions have a lasting impact of a kind that deforestation and land use change do not.
• The effect of the latter can be partially repaired over time, albeit slowly, as the data on tropical forests demonstrates, while untouched forests and living biomass continue to absorb carbon. Fossil fuel emissions from coal, oil, and gas cannot however be put back in to where they came from.
• Nor can their cumulative emissions be compensated by increased vegetation, since it will amount to increasing the cumulative absorption of terrestrial ecosystems to an improbable level.

Impact on forest ecosystem

• Forest ecosystems, in balance, will suffer from the overall impact of global warming, degrading their extent and quality.
• The year’s tally, till August 25, was 80,626, a 78% increase year-on-year. However, in Peru it is 105% higher, and in Bolivia 107%, both part of the Amazon basin.
• There are forest fires elsewhere, extensive in Africa, particularly in Angola, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (attributed to slash-and-burn agriculture), in Siberia (three million hectares) and in Canada, both attributed to unusually high summer temperatures (this July being the warmest month ever).
• Brazil’s tally this year is nowhere yet near its highs from 2005 and 2010, when it exceeded 120,000 for the comparable period of the year.

Brazil’s efforts

• Brazil has also put in substantial effort over the last decade to slow down deforestation, with some notable success, reducing it by 2013 to 75% of its pre-2005 annual average, success that was hailed globally.
• It is quite likely that Mr. Bolsanaro represents a reaction to the tough measures that accompanied this effort, not only from agribusiness in soy and beef production, as has been plausibly argued, but also a large section of small farmers who found it difficult to shift from slash-and-burn to intensified cultivation.
• Apart from deforestation though, Brazil is by no means a high emissions country, and a model of renewable energy use from hydro power and biofuels.

What then has driven the global outrage against Mr. Bolsanaro?

• On the part of global public opinion, the notion that afforestation constitutes some kind of magic bullet to fight global warming, is a popular one.
• The Amazon was always the poster-child of conservation and biodiversity, and halting deforestation there a global cause célèbre among environmentalists and their movements.
• With global warming, the difficulty in slowing down fossil fuel emissions provides added fuel to such views, even if the evidence militates against them.
• However, the attitude of the governments of developed countries and many international non-governmental organisations that share these views, is clearly driven by other considerations.
• These nations have notably failed to deliver in reducing their fossil fuel emissions.
• As a 2018 report of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has noted, the developed countries (excluding the former Soviet bloc nations whose emissions plummeted along with their economies) have achieved a reduction of only 1.3% over 26 years from 1990.
• The only way to maintain the Paris Agreement’s promise, that they brokered, of restricting global warming to well below 2° C or indeed 1.5°C is by turning the screws on mitigation in the non-industrial sectors.
• These sectors play a major role in the emissions of most developing countries, however low they may be in absolute terms.

Conclusion

• The Amazon and other terrestrial ecosystems offer much needed room to manoeuvre in dealing with global warming.
• But without reducing fossil fuel emissions drastically and the global North paying back its carbon debt by taking the lead, there can be little hope of meeting the climate challenge.

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The case for privatizing public sector banks (Live Mint)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: not much
Mains level: Bank privatization reason

Context

• Former RBI governor D. Subbarao raised the question of whether India needs public sector banks at all in this day and age.

Reasons behind privatization

• The country’s financial sector is now wide enough and deep enough to take care of financial intermediation without state support.
• Even after the bank nationalization of 1969, the state dominance of the sector has kept competition levels low.
• There was unnecessary micro-management by RBI, resulting in poor lending decisions and market distortions.

Problem with interest rate benchmarking

• Right now, banks are largely expected to do as they are told. Last RBI’s directive to commercial banks to link their loan rates with its repo rate or other external benchmarks need not be issued in truly free markets.
• Competition for loan customers would not let a bank keep its lending rates higher. Rivalry for deposits and other funds would mean a bank pays as much as it could afford to.
• To find the best way to gain an edge in a competitive market, banks would turn efficient.
• In India, state lenders are under little pressure to do this. Tough the entry of private banks has upped service standards and induced some changes, the sector is saddled with non-performing loans, inefficiencies and heavy costs.
• High state-controlled rates of interest on small saving schemes attract a big chunk of people’s savings, leaving lenders short of money to lend and paying too much for deposits.

Cause for privatization and challenges

• The sector’s health requires banks to assess and price risks properly. For this, bankers need to act diligently in the interest of profit-seeking shareholders. This would be better enabled by privatization.
• State’s exit could result in foreign equity control of banks and even a loss of sovereignty.
• Since large banks would be “too big to fail”, the government would still need to bail them out in case they approach bankruptcy. This would involve public funds and amount to the socialization of losses.
• Close regulation would still be needed.

Way forward

• With all the challenges above, the state could argue it needs to retain ownership control as well. Immediately, at least the appointment of public sector bank chiefs must be freed of state control.

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Bear hug: On India strengthening relations with Russia (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: International Relations
Prelims level: Look East, Act East’ policy
Mains level: Key agreements behind India and Russia

Context

• Unveiling the Russian edition of India’s ‘Look East, Act East’ policy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged on Thursday to extend a $1 billion Line of Credit to Russia’s Far East region (RFE).
• Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, set up by Russian President Vladimir Putin to attract investment to the farthest outlying East Siberian and Arctic-pole areas of the country.
• Mr. Modi said that the announcement of the LOC, expected to help finance Indian business projects in the region, will be the “take-off point for Act Far East”, and will further strengthen bilateral ties.
• Mr. Modi’s visit saw several initiatives being launched towards increasing the value of economic ties between the two countries, which, at approximately $10 billion in terms of bilateral trade.
• Although lags far behind their strategic partnership and defence relationship. In the past year alone, India has contracted defence deals worth about $14.5 billion from Russia.
• Chief among the 50 agreements signed this week were those on energy exploration and procurement, including a specific MoU on cooperation on LNG supplies to India, and a maritime route from Vladivostok to  Chennai which will be used for energy trade as well.

Key proposals made between two countries

• The two sides also agreed on a five-year ‘roadmap’ for cooperation on prospecting for hydrocarbons and LNG in the Far East and the Arctic, building on a history of Indian investment in oilfields in the region.
• Beyond the bilateral aspect, the PM’s pivot to Russia’s Far East has far-reaching strategic implications. The emphasis on energy from this region is as much a bid to benefit from explorations and trade routes in the Arctic that are becoming accessible due to global warming.
• It is reflective of India’s desire to diversify its energy sources away from an unstable West Asia. The investment in the Far East, which is often neglected given that Russia is seen as a European power in the post-Soviet era, also underlines India’s desire to draw Russia into its strategic forays in the Indo-Pacific.
• The government has said it welcomes cooperation with other countries for investments in RFE, notably Japan, which has in the past few years warmed up to Russia, despite their bitter territorial dispute in the region.
• This interest is seen as India’s attempt to not only keep a traditional friend close, but to ensure some space in the current clinch between Russia and China.
• China’s cross-border investment in RFE accounts for 71% of the total direct foreign investment of $33 billion. Above all, the push to ‘Act Far East’ allows India to demonstrate its commitment to an area of concern for Moscow, thus reassuring its traditional partner that in an increasingly polarised world.

Conclusion

• India’s push to ‘Act Far East’ strengthens relations with traditional ally Russia. India is confident of working with multiple alignments, even if they are at cross purposes with each other.

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Saudis have lost the Yemen war (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: International
Prelims level: Yemen war
Mains level: Impact of Yemen war in middle east region

Context

• Saudi Arabia and the UAE launched the Yemen offensive in March 2015, their common goal was to defeat the Shia Houthi rebels, who had captured the capital Sana’a.
• After over four years, they are not even close to meeting this goal, and there are growing frictions within the anti-Houthi coalition.

Background

• The Yemeni government, which Riyadh is backing, is headquartered in the southern port city of Aden and is practically operating from Saudi Arabia where the Yemeni President is residing.
• Aden was captured by southern separatists, who were part of the Saudi coalition, last month.
• The separatists are backed by the UAE, Saudi Arabia’s partner.
• Late last month, Emirati warplanes carried out airstrikes against Yemeni government troops, backed by Saudi Arabia, which were trying to recapture Aden from the UAE-backed separatists.
• In practical terms, there are three power centres and multiple militias in today’s Yemen:
• The Houthis, who control Sana’a and the northern towns, the southern separatists who are strong in and around Aden, and the internationally recognised government that is run from Saudi Arabia.

How did Saudi Arabia lose the war?

• Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the main architect of the war, may have thought Yemen would be a cakewalk for the Saudi troops.
• The Houthis lacked real battleground experience and are nothing in terms of a conventional military force against the Saudi war machine.
• The Saudis also enjoyed the support of the U.S., and had a coalition of Sunni Muslim countries backing them.
• The plan was to oust the Houthis quickly and restore the Saudi cherry-picked administration of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi in Sana’a.

Support from Iran

• The Houthis, on the other side, got support from Iran.
• They did not just prevent Sana’a from being recaptured, but also started attacking Saudi Arabia with short-range missiles and drones.
• The Saudi plan was to turn the war around using air power. But the problem is that air power alone doesn’t win a war; credible allies are needed on the ground, which Saudi Arabia lacked.
• Its excessive use of air power has turned Yemen into a humanitarian catastrophe: thousands have been killed, hundreds of thousands displaced, and the country pushed to the brink of a famine.
• When it came evident that Saudi Arabia was not winning the war, fissures started emerging within the coalition.
• To stabilise the country, Saudi Arabia has turned to Islah, a political Islamist party in Yemen that has roots in the Muslim Brotherhood.
• The UAE is opposed to it. It began betting directly on the Southern Transitional Council, the separatists based in Aden.
• The UAE’s calculus is that even if the war slips into a stalemate, it could retain its influence in Aden, which is a strategically important port that offers access to the Arabian Sea as well as to the Horn of African coast.

Unclear role

• The U.S. has signalled that it will facilitate talks among the multiple factions in Yemen through Oman, a neutral player.
• But it’s still not clear what Saudi Arabia will do. The Saudis hold the key to peace in Yemen. But they are also a strategically weak point.
• They haven’t got Sana’a. They have almost lost Aden. The government they back is practically a ghost government of militias that are on the loose. Prolonging the war is also not an option.
• Having no credible ally on the ground and no effective strategy to turn around the war, dragging on the conflict would only pull Saudi Arabia further deeper into the morass.
• The sooner the Saudis realise that they have lost the war, the better it will be for everyone, including the devastated Yemeni public.

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Throttled at the grass roots (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level: 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments
Mains level: Various constitutional amendments and their mandate

Context

• Over 25 years after the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments, very little actual progress has been made in this direction.
• Local governments remain hamstrung and ineffective; mere agents to do the bidding of higher-level governments.

Key facts

• About 32 lakh peoples’ representatives are elected every five years to the local bodies.
• Devolution is not mere delegation. It implies that governance functions are assigned by law to local governments, along with adequate transfer of financial grants, taxes, and staff so that they carry out their responsibilities.
• Local governments are to report primarily to their voters, and not so much to higher-level departments.
• The Constitution mandates that panchayats and municipalities shall be elected every five years.
• States are mandated to devolve functions and responsibilities to them through law.
• Given diverse habitation patterns, political and social history, it makes sense to mandate States to assign functions to local governments.
• A study for the 14th FC by the Centre for Policy Research shows that all States have formally devolved powers with respect to five core functions of water supply, sanitation, roads and communication, streetlight provision and the management of community assets to the gram panchayats.

Issues remain – Finance

• The volume of money set apart for them is inadequate to meet their basic requirements.
• Much of the money given is inflexible; even in the case of untied grants mandated by the Union and State Finance Commissions, their use is constrained through the imposition of several conditions.
• There is little investment in enabling and strengthening local governments to raise their own taxes and user charges.

Functionaries

• Local governments do not have the staff to perform even basic tasks.
• As most staff are hired by higher-level departments and placed with local governments on deputation, they do not feel responsible for the latter; they function as part of a vertically integrated departmental system.

Election process

• In violation of the constitutional mandate of five-yearly elections to local governments, States have often postponed them.
• In 2005, when the Gujarat government postponed the Ahmedabad corporation elections, a Supreme Court constitutional bench held that under no circumstances can such postponements be allowed.
• Supreme Court rejected other alibis for election postponements, such as delays in determining the seat reservation matrix, or fresh delimitation of local government boundaries.
• In Tamil Nadu, panchayat elections have not been held for over two years now, resulting in the State losing finance commission grants from the Union government.
• Criminal elements and contractors are attracted to local government elections, tempted by the large sums of money now flowing to them. They win elections through bribing voters and striking deals with different groups
• Higher officers posted at the behest of MLAs extract bribes from local governments for plan clearances, approving estimates and payments.
• There is no evidence to show that corruption has increased due to decentralisation. Decentralised corruption tends to get exposed faster than national or State-level corruption.

Problems with centralisation

• The current Union government has centralised service delivery by using technology, and panchayats are nothing more than front offices for several Union government programs.
• The ‘Smart City’ program does not devolve its funds to the municipalities; States have been forced to constitute ‘special purpose vehicles’ to ring-fence these grants.

Way forward

• Gram sabhas and wards committees in urban areas have to be revitalised.
• Consultations with the grama sabha could be organised through smaller discussions where everybody can really participate.
• Even new systems of Short Message Services or social media groups could be used for facilitating discussions between members of grama sabha.
• Local government organisational structures have to be strengthened. Panchayats are burdened with a huge amount of work that other departments thrust on them, without being compensated for the extra administrative costs.
• Local governments must be enabled to hold State departments accountable and to provide quality, corruption-free service to them, through service-level agreements.
• We cannot have accountable GPs, without local taxation. Local governments are reluctant to collect property taxes and user charges fully. They are happy to implement top-down programs because they know that if they collect taxes, their voters will never forgive them for misusing their funds.

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So close, yet so far: On Chandrayaan 2 lander debacle (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Science and Tech
Prelims level: Chandrayaan 2
Mains level: Highlights of the Chandrayaan 2 mission

Context

• The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) came tantalisingly close to creating history in the early hours of September 7 when the robotic lander Vikram followed the predetermined descent trajectory and came just within 2 km of the lunar surface before contact was lost.
• While it is unfortunate that the lander failed to safely touchdown, it is apt to remember that ISRO was attempting powered landing for the first time.
• To put it in perspective, there have been 38 attempts so far by other countries to land a rover on the moon and have succeeded only a little more than half the time.

Key highlights

• This April, Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander crashed to the lunar surface.
• But early January this year, China’s Chang’e-4 touched down on the lunar far side and deployed the Yutu-2 rover to explore the South Pole-Aitken basin.
• In Vikram, the velocity was successfully reduced from about 6,000 km per hour at the start of the descent at 35 km altitude to a few metres per second before communication snapped. That strongly indicates that powered landing went as per plan till about 2 km altitude from the lunar surface.

Mission objective

• While the powered landing of Vikram and exploration of the moon’s surface for 14 earth days by the Pragyan rover were one of the main objectives of Chandrayaan 2, it is wrong to think that the mission itself has failed.
• On the contrary, 90-95% of the mission objectives have already been “accomplished”.
• The orbiter is safe in the intended orbit around the moon. And with the “precise launch and mission management”, its life span will extend to almost seven years.
• Carrying eight of the 13 payloads, the orbiter will spend the next nearly seven years making high-resolution maps of the lunar surface, mapping the minerals, understanding the moon’s evolution, and most importantly looking for water molecules in the polar regions.
• Some of the impact craters in the South Pole are permanently shadowed from sunlight and could be ideal candidate sites to harbour water.
• Water on the moon would, in principle, be used for life support and manufacturing rocket fuel.

Conclusion

• With the U.S. wanting to send astronauts to the South Pole by 2024, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in particular, will be keen on data from the Chandrayaan 2 orbiter.
• The ISRO’s Moon Impact Probe and NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper on board Chandrayaan 1 had already provided evidence of the presence of water in the thin atmosphere of the moon, on the surface and below.
• A NASA study last year found regions, within 20° of each pole in general and within 10° in particular, showed signs of water.
• The Chandrayaan 2 orbiter will now possibly reconfirm the presence of water on the moon.

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Hygiene ratings for eateries (Live Mint)

Mains Paper 2: Health
Prelims level: Hygiene ratings
Mains level: Key highlights about the Hygiene ratings

Context

• The FSSAI will soon require restaurants and hotels to display hygiene ratings on their doors

Hygiene ratings for eateries

• The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) will soon require restaurants and hotels to display hygiene ratings on their doors, says a news report.
• There will also be food supervisors to check the safety of what is served, for which the regulator intends to train around 170,000 people.
• The FSSAI is in the process of forming guidelines to implement the rating system.

Key benefit

• If implemented diligently, the programme would be in the interest of the customer and could raise the quality of food served.
• Ratings will give restaurant owners an incentive to improve their standards and will likely filter out food joints that pose a health risk.
• That extra costs borne to maintain quality may raise menu prices, too, is another matter. In general, few can object to such an idea.

Way forward

• However, any system that requires an external assessment of quality could be abused.
• As those in the hospitality business would testify, state-directed scrutiny tends to descend all too easily into an “inspector raj", with officials determined to give them a hard time, unless given some reason—pecuniary or otherwise—not to.
• As a way to guard against this, the criteria for hygiene ratings will need to be clear-cut and uniformly applicable, with no scope for subjectivity.
• A lot of well-intended initiatives end up hurting a market simply because their execution is faulty.

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Empowering primary care practitioners (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Education
Prelims level: NMC Act 2019
Mains level: Primary care practitioners

Context

• Hospitals, for the early part of Japan’s history with modern medicine, catered only to an affluent few.
• The government limited the funding of hospitals, restricting them to functions like training of medical students and isolation of infectious cases.
• Reciprocal connections between doctors in private clinics and hospitals were forbidden, thwarting the possibility of the two groups creating a strong nexus; on the other hand, a sturdy lobby of clinic-based PCPs evolved to tip the balance in favour of primary health care.
• The Japanese Social Health Insurance was implemented in 1927, and the Japanese Medical Association (JMA), then dominated by PCPs, was the main player in negotiating the fee schedule.

Healthcare scenario in India

• In India, on the contrary, a hospital-oriented, technocentric model of health care took early roots. Building urban hospitals through public investment enjoyed primacy over strengthening community-based, primary health care.
• Alongside this, a private sector with rampant, unregulated dual-practice system (doctors practising in both public and private sectors simultaneously) flourished.
• This allowed doctors to constitute a powerful group held together by coherent interests.
• This influential doctors’ community, which saw a lucrative future in super-specialty medicine, buttressed the technocentric approach, which also happened to concur with the tastes of the affluent and the middle class.
• This trajectory of events has had an enormous impact on the present-day Indian health care.

Focus on hospitalisation

• While the well-to-do section has always rooted for ‘high-tech’ medical care, this preference has now trickled down to even the subaltern section, which lacks the wherewithal to pay for such interventions.
• Colossal health insurance schemes like Ayushman Bharat that harp on providing insurance to the poor largely for private hospitalisation when the most impoverishing expenses are incurred on basic medical care are at least partly influenced by the passionate popular demand for the so-called high-quality medical care and bespeak the deformity in the health-care system today.
• The way this has affected medical manpower and its dynamics also warrants attention.
• It took 37 years after the landmark Bhore Committee report (1946), which highlighted the need for a ‘social physician’ as a key player in India’s health system, to finally recognise family medicine as a separate speciality and another decade and a half to actuate a postgraduate residency in family medicine.
• The highest professional body representing doctors in this country, the Medical Council of India (MCI), itself came to be dominated by specialists with no representation from primary care.
• There is a proposal to replace the MCI with a National Medical Commission (NMC) but the situation is unlikely to be much different with the new organisation.

Effects of NMC Act 2019

• The current opposition to training mid-level providers under the NMC Act 2019 is another example of how the present power structure is inimical to primary health care.
• Despite the presence of evidence proving that practitioners of modern medicine (say medical assistants) trained through short-term courses, like those of a 2-3 year duration, can greatly help in providing primary health care to the rural population, any such proposal in India gets robustly opposed by the orthodox allopathic community.
• Proposals to train practitioners of indigenous systems of medicine, like Ayurveda, in modern medicine are also met with similar opposition.
• Such medical assistants, and non-allopathic practitioners, have time and again been written-off as ‘half-baked quacks’ who would only endanger the health of the rural masses.
• Such criticism ignores the fact that nations like the U.K. and the U.S. are consistently training paramedics and nurses to become physician assistants or associates through two-year courses in modern medicine.

Examples of U.K., Japan

• Many countries, including the U.K. and Japan, have found a way around this by generously incentivising general practitioners (GPs) in both pecuniary and non-pecuniary terms, and scrupulously designing a system that strongly favours primary health care.
• What this careful nurturing has meant is that while a community of professionals in our part of the world has thwarted positive change, professionals of the same community in these countries have helped defend that very positive change.

Three broad takeaways emerge

• It is imperative to actively begin reclaiming health from the ivory towers called ‘hospitals’.
• This could help in gradually changing the expectations of the layman and reversing the aspirations of medical professionals from being unduly oriented towards high-tech, super-specialty care.
• Given the current trends, however, this looks like a far-fetched possibility.
• We need to find a way to adequately empower and ennoble PCPs and give them a prominent voice in our decision-making processes pertaining to health care.
• This can create a bastion of primary health care professionals who can then fight to keep their enclave unscathed.
• A gate-keeping system is needed, and no one should be allowed to bypass the primary doctor to directly reach the specialist, unless situations such as emergencies so warrant.
• It is only because of such a system that general practitioners and primary health care have been able to thrive in U.K.’s health system.
• In view of the current resurgence of interest in comprehensive primary health care in India, one earnestly hopes that these key lessons will be remembered.

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Teaching in the time of consumerism (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Governance
Prelims level: NCTE
Mains level: Professional training requirement in education sector

Context

• Like many other topics, teaching and those who earn a living by teaching are subjects of a highly polarised debate in our country.
• This low popularity of school teaching can be linked to several changes that social ethos and state policy have gone through over the last three decades or so.
• In a consumption-oriented environment, the kind of idealism school teaching requires is not easy for a young person to cultivate and sustain.
• The working conditions and ethos at their respective schools erode the stamina of the few who start with a sense of dedication.

Weak professional training

• Speaking of training, the vast majority of teachers being hired today have had their professional training in poorly equipped institutions.
• Weak professional preparation is not a recent woe, but it has certainly worsened under the ‘licensing raj’ of the National Council of Teacher Education (NCTE).
• There was a time when teacher training had no licensing authority.
• The NCTE was an advisory body then, with no statutory powers. It acquired legal teeth as a result of the NCTE Act, 1993.
• The new, empowered NCTE came into being two years later.
• The mid-1990s marked a period of tumultuous change in the landscape of public education. The impact of market-friendly policies was spreading across the system, but it was the most palpable in professional education.
• Private enterprise in medical, engineering and management education had already set in. Compared to these areas, teacher training was both cheap and highly profitable.

Require for qualified teacher

• Demand for qualified teachers rode the wave of rapid growth in primary education.
• In response to this demand, teacher-education institutes and correspondence courses mushroomed.
• The NCTE had a difficult mandate to fulfil and had to maintain standards by regulating a bullish market of enrolment providers. Initially, it seemed as if the NCTE’s regulatory role would succeed in imposing quality norms.
• However, before long, the body’s failure to control the flood of commercial private interests started looking inevitable.
• Teacher training was, of course, not the only area of professional education to be corrupted by the new licensing regime.
• The system of education was in general battling hard to find ways to regulate the swelling, strong current of privatisation.

Corruption in teacher training sector

• The teacher-training sector became so afflicted by fraudulent institutions and practices that internal mechanisms of correction proved inadequate.
• Hundreds of cases against bogus institutions reached the Supreme Court, which appointed a commission chaired by late Justice J.S. Verma.

Steps taken to improve education curriculum

• For a few years after 2012, when its report was published, an attempt was made to implement its recommendations, but the momentum slowed down before long.
• Several recommendations required substantial state funding, but the NCTE had already taken the self-financing route. Its institutional capacity to provide academic leadership to teacher training was already limited.
• Its further decline coincided with the rise of technological gimmickry. However, it would be wrong to hold the NCTE alone responsible.
• The wider problems of higher education have also made their contribution to the decline of teacher training.
• This is not hard to explain. Graduates whose college education is of poor quality cannot be expected to overcome their learning backlog at a training institute.
• Faculty shortage exacerbates this deprivation.
• The government recently came up with a policy decision favouring four-year courses that integrate undergraduate learning with pedagogic training.
• This model is not new, and its success depends on investment in institutional infrastructure.
• But with commercialisation fully entrenched in teacher education, one cannot expect generous spending on faculty and infrastructure.

Impact on school education

• Problems of teacher training have had a pervasive impact on school education as a whole. Governments have been aware of this, both at the Centre and in the States.
• One of the steps they have taken to fill the quality gap is to introduce a teacher-eligibility test.
• This has only made a marginal difference, as the proportion of trained teachers who get through the test is low, creating a vast backlog in recruitment.
• On the other hand, para-professionals have been growing in number and influence.
• They are known by various names in different States, but they also exist in vast numbers outside the system — as providers of home tuition and coaching.
• This underbelly of the education system suffers no interference from state norms. In the world of coaching, we see the utopia of free enterprise and the demise of teaching as noble work.
• This marginalisation is reflective of the social change that has taken place in the country and flags the diminishing importance of intellect.
• This is also evident from the news about our greatest historian being insulted by her university. Our collective vulnerability to the power of propaganda and rumour is not new; disrespect for the teacher’s dedication to a life of intellect is.

Conclusion

• No matter what the subject and howsoever limited his or her own knowledge, every teacher tries to nudge his students towards reality and truth.
• Children want their teacher to verify and appreciate their efforts.
• Having faith in his/her teacher is a part of being a child, a blow to which will disturb the foundations of social living.

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NRC needs a reset to prevent another cycle of violence in Assam (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level: Foreigners’ Tribunals
Mains level: Significance of NRC

Context

• The exclusion of over 1.9 million people from the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam is only the beginning of a Kafkaesque nightmare in the border State, especially when neither the Centre nor the State seem to have a clue about what they plan to do with these “stateless citizens”.
• Those excluded have 120 days to prove that they are Indian or, if reports from Assam are to be believed, be lodged in the 11 detention centres that the State government proposes to build in the coming months.

Underlining the situation

• Although senior ministers in the State government like Himanta Biswa Sarma are at pains to underline that no such detainee camps will be set up, televised images of such an exclusive centre being constructed in Goalpara are sinister enough to create panic.
• The 11 exclusive detention centres are ostensibly going to be constructed in addition to the already existing six detention centres.
• These existing centres house about 1,000 “detected foreigners” under the special provision for recognising citizenship of persons covered by the Assam Accord in 6-A of the Citizenship Act, 1955. Additionally, there are over one lakh “detected foreigners” who have not been detained because there simply isn’t enough space in the centres.
• Absurdly enough, the proposed 11 centres are meant to accommodate the additional number.
• Senior ministers, especially Sarma, have simultaneously asserted that Bangladesh should be persuaded to take its citizens back, a statement fraught with uncertainty because of the process involved in convincing the neighbouring country to accept those who have been claiming Indian citizenship.

Role of Foreigners Tribunals

• Neither the prospect of lodging, feeding, clothing and detaining such a large number of people nor pushing them across the border seems to be within the realm of the possible.
• What is likely is that along with the 100 existing Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs) in Assam, an additional 400 such tribunals will be set up till December and the process of hearing appeals by those excluded from the NRC will commence.
• The BJP, in the meantime, is likely to push the Citizenship Amendment Bill to accommodate the majority of Hindus who have been excluded from the NRC.
• This sort of communal segregation has the potential to expose the Assamese-versus-Bangladeshi fault-line which had plunged the State into a violent mass movement fuelled by Assamese sub-nationalism in the 1980s.

Conclusion

• The best course of action is to revamp the NRC exercise so that the process of identification becomes more meaningful and the solutions more realistic and humane.
• The migration issue needs to be addressed on multiple fronts, given its religious and ethnic complexities.
• This would include economic and diplomatic engagement with Bangladesh to reduce the distress on the other side of the border.

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Baseless case against India’s sugar subsidies (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level: Sugar cane subsidies
Mains level: Baseless case against India’s sugar subsidies

Context

• At a time when the sugar sector in India is in deep distress, at the WTO, a few countries have accused it of providing subsidy support to the extent of the entire value of production of sugarcane.

Background

• At the WTO, Australia, Brazil and Guatemala have initiated dispute proceedings against India.
• The crux of their claim is that through its sugar-related policies, India provides domestic subsidies exceeding 10 per cent of the value of production of sugar the ceiling of product-specific support under the WTO’s rules on agriculture.
• After an unsuccessful consultation process to resolve the contested issues, the WTO established a panel on August 15 this year to examine the compatibility of India’s sugar policies with the WTO provisions on agriculture.
• It would take 6-9 months for the WTO panel to give its findings in the dispute.

Support measures

• Besides certain export subsidy measures, the three countries have challenged various domestic support measures of India such as the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP), the State Advised Price (SAP), interest subvention, production subsidy, buffer stock subsidy, minimum domestic sale price of sugar and state-level measures.
• Confining attention to our domestic support, Australia has claimed that on account of just one measure the FRP policy India has provided around ₹74,700-crore subsidies.
• As this accounted for 99 per cent of the value of sugarcane production in 2015-16, India is alleged to have exceeded its permissible limit of 10 per cent.
• If budgetary support from other challenged measures are considered, the support to the sugarcane sector would exceed the total value of production.
• It cannot be denied that sugarcane farmers in India are currently facing severe distress due to massive cane arrears on account of the FRP.
• During 2018-19, arrears at the all-India level were ₹19,129 crore.
• The human cost of these arrears is faced by millions of Indian cane farmers and their families.
• India’s contention is that it provides no market price support to the sugarcane sector on account of the FRP policy.

Divergence between the claims on sugar subsidies by the three complaining countries and India

• The divergence between India and Australia on product specific support is mainly due to two factors:
• The nature of support under the FRP;
• The formula used for calculating the support. Let us examine these in detail.

Outdated methodology

• The view of the three complainant countries is that even if the government does not procure sugarcane, the entire produce is eligible to benefit from the FRP.
• The FRP constitutes a price-support measure.
• Further, the subsidy should be calculated by comparing the current administered price with the so-called External Reference Price (ERP), which is based on the international prices of sugarcane during 1986-88.
• Although the methodology for calculating the subsidy based on the price-based measure has been specified in the WTO rules, it is clearly biased against the subsidy-granting country in at least two ways.
• It seems rather outdated to compare today’s prices (₹2,750/tonne) with that prevailing three decades ago (₹156.16/tonne).
• It relying on the findings of a previous WTO dispute on Korea’s beef imports the complainants used the entire sugar production for calculating the subsidy.
• This, again, is problematic, as the findings of the Korea beef cases is not automatically applicable in other situations of subsidy.
• India’s defence finds support from the US, which argued in the Dispute Settlement Body’s meeting that reports of the WTO panel and the Appellate Body do not carry precedental value.
• This highlights the constraining provisions of the market price support methodology and therefore, the need to reform it.
• In case of an adverse ruling by the panels and the Appellate Body, India would have to modify all the measures which are found to be inconsistent with the WTO rules.
• In absence of present policies, the sugarcane sector, that employs over 50 million farmers, may face an imminent collapse.

Other options

• The relevant question arises whether it is feasible for India to explore other provisions of WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) to notify actual budgetary support due to the FRP/SAP policy, instead of using the market price support methodology.
• Under the AoA, an alternate method is feasible, provided the FRP/SAP is based on a price gap.
• The benefit of this approach is that it will reflect the actual level of support to the sugar sector as opposed to exorbitant claims made by complainant members.
• Further, this approach would provide considerable policy space for the sugar sector without breaching the 10 per cent ceiling.
• The total budgetary domestic support to sugar sector was only 0.98 per cent of the total value of sugar in contrast to alleged support of 99 per cent of value of sugarcane in 2015-16.
• Our policymakers need to think seriously along these lines.

Conclusion

• Australia, Brazil and Guatemala are using the WTO dispute mechanism to penetrate India’s huge domestic market.
• These complainant members have exported more than 70 per cent of their respective sugar production in recent years.
• Combined exports of these three countries comprise about 53 per cent of total global exports of sugar in 2017-18.
• While India would certainly defend itself ably at the WTO, the policymakers should be prepared with a contingency plan in case the country gets an adverse verdict.

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On cardiac care (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Health
Prelims level: Cardiovascular disease
Mains level: Healthcare related issues

Context

• The reinvention of the wheel can be painful. Taking lessons from those who have already run the wheel several revolutions and tweaking (improving) those lessons for domestic conditions might not be a bad idea.
• For India, there is indeed valuable learning from the results of the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (the branch of medical science dealing with the transmission and control of disease) - PURE study published in The Lancet this week.

Key highlights of the study

• Studying the situation in 21 countries across five continents, categorized by income levels, researchers showed that while cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause for death overall, there have been some transitions, particularly in the high-income countries, which have managed to reduce the number of deaths from CVD.
• In low-income countries, including India, however, CVD is still the top killer, with death three times more frequent than that due to cancer.
• What flies in the face of logic is that the risk burden of CVD-linked mortality is inversely proportional — lower risk but higher mortality in low-income countries, and higher risk but lower mortality in high-income countries.
• PURE’s analysis concluded that the higher mortality in poorer countries was likely due to other factors, including ‘lower quality and less health care’. Access to affordable, quality health care is still a dream in many pockets in India.

Steps taken by government

• A great amount of out-of-pocket expenditure (according to Health Ministry data for 2014-15, nearly 62.6 % of India’s total health expenditure) often frustrates continuation of treatment or adherence to drug regimens.
• While some States have shown limited successes with government-sponsored health insurance schemes, the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat Yojana will have to take much of the burden of hospitalization for complications of non-communicable diseases.
• National and State schemes running on mission mode, including the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer - NPPCC, Diabetes, CVD and Stroke will have to step up efforts to target people at risk with life-saving interventions.
• While most of the predominant risk factors for CVD - cardiovascular disease present no startling (surprising) medical revelation, it is significant that the single largest risk factor is a low education level.
• Any plans that target the risk factors and prevent the onset of non-communicable diseases will clearly have to be truly game-changing and incorporate the environmental angle as well.
• However, governments will have to muscle up to tackle a rather startling finding — ambient air pollution and indoor air pollution have an impact on CVD and mortality.

Way forward

• It is no doubt part of the job description of the National Programme to modify this risk factor. Household air pollution is the third top risk factor in low-income countries, according to the study.
• Targeting risk factors is the key to reducing deaths due to cardiovascular diseases. The need of the hour is out-of-the-box solutions combined with inspiration from models of those who seem to have belled this particular cat.

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A weak chase: On controlling hepatitis B (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Health
Prelims level: hepatitis B
Mains level: Uses of hepatitis B vaccine

Context

• On September 3, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Thailand became the first four countries in the World Health Organization’s southeast Asia region to have successfully controlled hepatitis B.
• The virus is said to be controlled when the disease prevalence is reduced to less than 1% among children less than five years of age.

Background

• Despite the introduction of hepatitis B vaccine in the Universal Immunisation Programme in 2002 and scaling-up nationwide in 2011, about one million people in India become chronically infected with the virus every year.
• According to the Health Ministry, as on February 2019, an estimated 40 million people in India were infected.
• Hepatitis B infection at a young age turns chronic, causing over 1,00,000 premature deaths annually from liver cirrhosis or liver cancer.
• A study published in 2013 found lower coverage of hepatitis B vaccine in eight of the 10 districts surveyed. But the coverage has witnessed an increase with the introduction of a pentavalent vaccine on a pilot basis in Kerala and Tamil Nadu in December 2011 and national roll-out in 2014-2015.
• According to the WHO, the coverage of hepatitis B third dose had reached 86% in 2015.
• However, despite the high vaccination coverage, disease prevalence in children aged less than five years has not dropped below 1%. One of the reasons for this is the sub-optimal coverage of birth dose in all infants within 24 hours of birth.

Uses of hepatitis B vaccine

• Hepatitis B birth dose, given in the first 24 hours, helps prevent vertical transmission from the mother to child.
• The compulsion to increase birth dose to cut vertical transmission arises from two important reasons — about 70-90% newborns infected this way become chronic carriers of hepatitis B, and about 20-30% carriers in India are due to vertical transmission.
• But even seven years after the Health Ministry approved the birth dose in 2008, its coverage remained low — 45% in 2015 and 60% in 2016 — according to a 2019 Health Ministry report.
• What is indeed puzzling is that even in the case of institutional delivery, the birth dose vaccine coverage is low — 76.36% in 2017.
• Incidentally, institutional delivery accounts for about 80% of all deliveries in the country.
• The birth dose coverage when delivery takes place outside health-care institutions is not known.
• One of the reasons for the low coverage is the fear of wastage of vaccine when a 10-dose vial is used.

Conclusion

• Unfortunately, health-care workers are very often unaware of the WHO recommendation that allows hepatitis B open-vial policy.
• Opened vials of hepatitis B vaccine can be kept for a maximum duration of 28 days for use in other children if the vaccine meets certain conditions.
• There is also a need to increase public awareness about the merits of the birth dose.

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Listen to the unspoken: On Kashmir lockdown (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level: Article 370
Mains level: Post Article 370 withdrawn situation in Jammu and Kashmir

Context

• Exactly a month ago (5th Aug), Jammu and Kashmir lost its special constitutional status (Art.370), and its status as a State, through a dubious (uncertain) and hurried (hasty) process.
• Ahead of that decision that could rankle (disturb) for years to come, the region, particularly the Kashmir Valley was put under lockdown with all communication cut and movement of people severely restricted.

Highlights about the situations

• One month on, the Valley continues to be under severe restrictions; the death of a teenage protester on Wednesday who was injured earlier may further delay the administration’s plans to withdraw the clampdown.
• Communication networks in the Jammu region of the newly created Union Territory have been substantially restored and the Ladakh UT, carved out of the erstwhile State, has not seen disruptions.
• Prominent newspapers published from Srinagar, discontinued for several days, have resumed publication.
• Mobile phones and the Internet are not back in operation and schools, though reopened, have sparse attendance in Kashmir.

Analyzing the situation

• It took a while before the Kashmiris learned about the lightning changes that had been imposed upon them.
• But a mood of triumphalism is evident across the country, which is resistant to an informed and tempered national discussion on the changed status of J and K.
• Reports of protests and police action from the Valley have largely been dismissed by the Centre. The continuing communication restrictions in Kashmir have only deepened alienation (disaffection).
• The revocation of the special status of J and K has the support of the majority of the political community outside the Valley, although the decision is under judicial review.

Measures taken by the government

• The government and other supporters of the move continue to argue that the people in Kashmir have been freed (liberated) from the political families that held power at their cost, that investments will flow in, jobs will multiply, women will get equal status as men in terms of inheritance and the Scheduled Castes – SC and ST - Scheduled Tribes will benefit from nationally mandated reservation.
• Unfortunately, discussions on these points in the last one month have been going on with little or no representation by the people of Kashmir who are the supposed beneficiaries.
• That they were not taken into confidence before the decision was made was bad enough, but what is worse is the continuing restrictions on free speech.
• The elected Mayor of Srinagar and a doctor who spoke out about the risk to lives due to restrictions were promptly detained.

Conclusion

• The reports that emanate (came) from the Valley in recent days, patchy (unequal) as they continue to be, point towards increasing alienation (disaffection) among the residents.
• Ironically, the most disappointed are those who believed that Kashmir’s future would be secure within India.
• The Centre needs to reassure them that the change of status is not to the detriment (deformation) of the people of Kashmir.

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The automobile sector must change gears towards more sustainable production models (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: Automobile Industry
Mains level: Sustainable development models required in this sector

Context

• Retail sales of automobiles slumped to their lowest in 20 months in August, and the industry is once again looking to the government for some succour.
• The Union government has already announced some measures, such as an accelerated rate of depreciation on vehicles bought in the current fiscal year, replacement of old fleet of cars used by the ministries and departments as also deferment in implementation of the revised registration charges.
• These issues are unlikely to address some of the key factors behind the slump.

Why it required sustainable development models?

• Besides, the incomes squeeze, traffic congestion, cost of operating a vehicle and paucity of parking spaces do not serve the cause of revving up auto sales.
• At a less significant level, ride-hailing services offered by cab aggregators have possibly worked in reducing personal demand, at least in the metros.
• A GST cut here or there at this stage is all very well, but this crisis should also serve as an opportunity for the industry to rejig their business models to be in business in the long run.
• This is not merely about transiting to electric vehicles, but also about realising that private personal vehicles are unlikely to be in as much demand as in recent times.
• This means the auto majors need to alter their business models.
• Compound annual growth rates of passenger vehicles sales of 8 per cent between 2008-09 to 2018-19 cannot be expected to continue; they have already slipped to 6.17 per cent in the last five-year period.

Global scenario

• In this scenario, auto companies could become integrated mobility-services providers, following the example of many global companies such as BMW, Daimler AG Groupe Renault and Groupe PSA (Peugeot Citroen).
• Groupe Renault offers a range of shared and environmentally responsible solutions, going beyond being a vehicle manufacturer.
• It has subsidiaries providing services such as ride-hailing, car-sharing, short-term rental and car-pooling.
• Daimler AG was among the first auto manufacturers to venture into car-sharing in 2009 and had now merged its car-sharing operations with a similar operation of its competitor BMW to form a new joint venture, ShareNow.
• Mahindra and Mahindra’s decision to buy over 55 per cent stake in Meru Cabs, a ride-hailing and radio cab service provider, after investing in car-sharing service provider Zoom, signals a change in business strategy.
• Others like Hyundai Motors are looking at a minority stake in ride-hailing service provider Ola as well as an arrangement to manufacture EVs for the ride-hailing segment.

Way forward

• The economic and ecological limitations of pushing personal vehicles are only too evident.
• Over 80 per cent of India’s transport fuel needs are imported, as a NITI Aayog report observes.
• The transport sector accounts for 18 per cent of commercial energy use — 70 per cent of diesel and 99.6 per cent of petrol consumed (in the latter case, it is passenger vehicles).
• The future lies with sustainable, planet-friendly mobility. Unless the traditional automobile sector can reinvent itself, it runs the risk of being disrupted by new and more innovative rivals.

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Trai’s attempt to review tariffs raises concerns (Mint)

Mains Paper 3: Economy
Prelims level: TRAI
Mains level: TRAI NTO on channel subscription

Context

• Discovery Communications filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court against TRAI’s new consultation paper on tariffs regarding broadcasting and cable services.

Background

• It seeks a stay on the consultation paper saying that it lacks objectivity, transparency and fairness of approach.
• Discovery argues the consultation paper is based on the assumption that television broadcasters are responsible for manipulating and distorting pricing of channels, thereby affecting consumer choice.
• TRAI is attempting to review the six-month-old new tariff order (NTO), which allowed consumers to choose their channel on an à la carte basis with broadcasters having to declare the maximum price of each channel separately.
• Several research studies found that instead of lowering the monthly cable and DTH bills for the consumers as was intended, the new framework led to an increase in monthly charges.
• Several broadcasters raised concerns about the new consultation paper. They say that the Trai’s move favours the distribution platform operators (DPOs) such as cable and DTH services.
• They feel that under the new tariff order the distribution platforms have gained the most as they get a fixed network capacity fee (NCF) of ₹130 for 100 standard definition (SD) channels and ₹20 for the next slab of 25 SD channels.
• The new consultation seeks to review broadcasters’ bouquets to check misuse of flexibility in pricing.
• By regulating the channel pricing, it is not allowing broadcasters to monetize their IPR
• Trai assumes that à la carte is the preferred choice among consumers, although it offers no research by way of evidence.

Broadcasting in India

• Broadcasting in India has always been a standoff between broadcasters and DPOs, and the DPOs have always been winning.
• Trai, as well as the ministry of information and broadcasting, have always seen their role as controlling broadcasters, never the DPOs.
• DPOs have other advantages, too. If you have to be part of the first 100 free-to-air (FTA) channel bouquet of a DPO, you have to pay a carriage fee.
• Also, they are pushing their own bouquets onto the consumers.
• At present no distributor platform has the capability to offer complete à la carte channel choice involving various permutations and combinations for each and every consumer.
• The new tariff order robs a consumer of his chance to discover new content as he was getting many channels for a very low monthly fee
• The new tariff order and the new consultation paper may kill the smaller channels. There is nothing wrong if weaker channels piggyback on stronger ones.

Conclusion

• Consumer should get actual choice and be able to pay only for what he watches.
• The revised tariff order seeks to make amends, but Trai has not acknowledged the mess it created.

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India’s climate score: high on vulnerability, low on resilience (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3: Environment
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Disaster Management

Context

• HSBC’s 2018 assessment of India ranks it as the country most vulnerable to climate change.

Major problems

• Against scientific warnings, carbon emissions continue to rise in China, the U.S., and India.
• Brazil is encouraging unprecedented deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. As forest fires worsen global warming, the hardest hit by the resulting floods, storms, heatwaves, and droughts will be in India.
• Cutting hurdles to investment can boost short-term growth and benefit interest groups. But damaging the environment would be self-defeating as it would impact long-term growth and well-being.

Vulnerability threat to India

• A number of Indian States have experienced extreme heatwaves in the past three years, and Delhi recently recorded a temperature of 48°C, its hottest day in 21 years.
• India’s exposure to climate hazards is heightened by the location of its coastline in the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.
• India also has a high population density located in the danger zone. For instance, Kerala, which experienced intense floods and landslides in 2018 and 2019, is among the States with the highest density.
• Increasing temperatures and changing seasonal rainfall patterns are aggravating droughts and hurting agriculture across the country.
• Extreme storms like the one that hit Odisha this year and the floods that swept Chennai in 2015 are damaging when infrastructure is not resilient.

Importance of resilience

• India must boost its coastal and inland defences.
• It needs to do more to build resilience in the sectors of agriculture, fisheries, manufacturing, energy, transport, health, and education.
• The priority for spending at the national and State levels for disaster management needs to rise.
• Adequate resources must also be allocated for implementing climate action plans that most States have now prepared.
• India must reinforce its infrastructure and adapt its agriculture and industry.
• India should replace urgently its fossil fuels with renewable energy.

Way ahead

• Global leadership must act with greater urgency. Countries should switch rapidly from polluting fossil fuels to cleaner renewable energy.
• There is a need for building much stronger coastal and inland defences against climatic damage.

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