General Studies Paper – 3

Context: If inflation is not tamed, there is risk to consumption and growth

Introduction

• November’s resurgence in headline retail inflation, while clearly not unexpected after the RBI just last week predicted a likely ‘uptick’, is a stark reminder of the risks volatile food prices pose.

Rise in Consumer price index

• While the National Statistical Office’s provisional reading of headline inflation shows the Consumer Price Index rose by 5.55% year-on-year to a three-month high, from October’s 4.87%, food price gains measured by the Consumer Food Price Index accelerated by a steep 209 basis points to 8.7% last month.

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

• A comprehensive tool for estimating price changes in a basket of goods and services that is representative of consumption expenditure in an economy is the Consumer Price Index.
• One of the most significant economic statistics, it provides an estimate of the cost of living and is typically based on the weighted average of commodity prices.
• The amount of inflation during a given period, or the rise in the prices of a representative basket of consumed goods, is indicated by the percentage change in this index over time.
• Four kinds of CPI are as follows:
• CPI for Industrial Workers (IW).
• CPI for Agricultural Labourer (AL).
• CPI for Rural Labourer (RL).
• CPI (Rural/Urban/Combined).
• The first three are compiled by the Labour Bureau in the Ministry of Labour and Employment. Fourth is compiled by the NSO in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
• Consumer Food Price Inflation is a specific measure of inflation that focuses exclusively on the price changes of food items in a consumer’s basket of goods and services.
• It calculates the rate at which the prices of food products consumed by the average household are increasing over time.
• CFPI is a sub-component of the broader Consumer Price Index (CPI).

What caused the rise?

• Propelling the upsurge in food prices were cereals and vegetables, constituents of the ‘food and beverages’ subgroup, that logged 10.3% and 17.7% inflation, respectively.
• Cereals, that account for almost one-tenth of the CPI and logged double-digit inflation for a 15th straight month, also saw a month-on-month acceleration in inflation with rice, wheat, and the coarse cereal of jowar, a rural hinterland staple, all registering palpable sequential price gains.
• Vegetable prices were back on a boil with the year-on-year inflation rate surging by almost 15 percentage points from October’s 2.8%.
• While price gains in the perishable tomato swung from two straight months of sizeable deflation to a more than 11% year-on-year rate of inflation last month, the extent of increase could be truly gauged from the fact that prices surged a steep 41% from the preceding month’s levels, as per data aggregated on the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s website.
• And the key masala essentials of ginger and garlic registered more than 100% rates of inflation for the seventh and third months, respectively.

The biggest source of concern

• From the TOP or tomato, onion and potato triumvirate of India’s most widely consumed vegetables, onion prices remained the biggest source of concern as year-on-year inflation ballooned to 86%, from October’s 42% pace, and the sequential pace swelled to 48%.
• With reports that inclement weather and depleting groundwater are likely to cause a near 25% shortfall in onion output during the key rabi season, the outlook for prices of the nutrient-dense bulb moderating in the near future appears bleak, the government’s move to impose a ban on its exports notwithstanding.

Other things

• Only potato prices, which continued to remain in deflationary territory, offered some respite. Pulses and sugar are other areas of concern, with the first witnessing more than 20% inflation and the sweetener also experiencing an uptick in the pace of price gains to 6.55%.
• With sugar production also expected to take a hit due to lower rainfall, the number of supply-related challenges policymakers face to rein in price gains is rising.

Conclusion

• With the RBI having opted to refrain from raising rates for now, the onus is squarely on the government to help temper inflation, or risk suffering an erosion in broader consumption and economic growth.

General Studies Paper – 2

Introduction

• Two months after Israel’s bombardment of Gaza residents in retaliation for the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas began, India joined its voice to the global call to stop the bombing, voting in favour of a resolution at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) along with 152 other nations.

Resolution, and India’s shift

• The resolution demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, an observance of international humanitarian law, the unconditional release of all hostages, as well as “ensuring humanitarian access”.
• India’s vote was a shift from its previous vote at the last such UNGA resolution on October 27, when despite the death of 8,000 Gazans, India had decided to abstain from voting for a resolution that called for a ceasefire.
• The government and the MEA explained this to be a matter of principle, as part of India’s “zero-tolerance” approach towards terrorism, as the earlier resolution did not contain an “explicit condemnation” of the October 7 attacks.
• However, while the UNGA resolution passed on December 12 bears no direct mention of the terror attacks, India has voted in favour.

Possible reasons for such shift.

• There could be several reasons:
• Casualty figures have risen relentlessly, with 18,000 dead and the highest such toll of nearly 90 journalists. More than 80% of the entire population is homeless. Even the U.S., Israel’s biggest ally, estimates that nearly half of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions deployed by Israel thus far are “unguided” or indiscriminate missiles.
• Second, Israeli Defence Forces have gone far beyond their original mandate of eliminating Hamas capacity and freeing the hostages to a large-scale flattening of Gaza and forced occupation of more territory. More than 100 Israeli hostages remain in Hamas custody.
• Third, global opinion, including Indian public opinion, has moved decidedly from sympathy with Israel, to horror at the unfolding aftermath, and New Delhi could not have been immune to entreaties by Palestine and the Gulf States to take a relook at its vote, even as India stood isolated in South Asia and the Global South for its previous abstention.

India’s role

• It may be too early to see India’s UNGA vote as a reversal of its earlier position and a reversion to its original position in the conflict, where it has traditionally called for peace.
• Much will depend on the role India chooses for itself in ensuring the ceasefire is affected and holds, given that Israel has already rejected the UNGA resolution.

Conclusion

• Having proven its credentials as a friend to Israel following the terror attacks, as well as the odium of enabling the civilian deaths, the Modi government must be more vocal in helping the Netanyahu government out of the strategic cul de sac it has bombarded its way into, one which could cause regional instability and insecurity for decades.

General Studies Paper – 3

Introduction

• Since 1995, when the first of the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) was organised, it has undergone a remarkable shift in character. From stuffy, closed-door meetings peopled by bureaucrats and technocrats, they have morphed into a carnival.

Growth of Officialdom

• Officialdom has of course grown, with the UN climate secretariat bursting at the seams with reams of subsidiary bodies, ‘working groups’ and intricately convoluted agenda items. But this has been accompanied by the burgeoning of activist groups, indigenous groups, big and small business, consultancies, traders, and a vast media presence.
• It is on the one hand fair to conclude that this is a welcome development and due to the growing awareness of how anthropogenic climate change, amplified by centuries of industrialisation, poses an existential threat to humanity.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

• The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat “dangerous human interference with the climate system”, in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
• It was signed by 154 states at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992.
• Its original secretariat was in Geneva but relocated to Bonn in 1996. It entered into force on 21 March 1994.
• The treaty designed to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.

Faith in the Climate assessment

• Climate denialists, vociferous and significant in power corridors even until a decade ago, are now relegated to the obscurity of the darknet, along with Flat Earthers, and their ranks filled by parvenus and the pivoting merchants of the fossil fuel era who see opportunity in the messianic espousal of renewable energy.
• There is no country today that will not publicly affirm its faith in the scientific assessment — that greenhouse gas emissions must be contained drastically to cap the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C — and yet it has never inspired any sense of urgency to cut fossil fuel use, the dominant source of GHGs.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

• The IPCC prepares comprehensive Assessment Reports about the state of scientific, technical and socio-economic knowledge on climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for reducing the rate at which climate change is taking place.
• It also produces Special Reports on topics agreed to by its member governments, as well as Methodology Reports that provide guidelines for the preparation of greenhouse gas inventories.
• The latest report is the Sixth Assessment Report which consists of three Working Group contributions and a Synthesis Report. The Working Group I contribution was finalized in August 2021, the Working Group II contribution in February 2022, the Working Group III contribution in April 2022 and the Synthesis Report in March 2023.

Acknowledging the fact, Dubai consensus

• That it has taken nearly three decades for COP to acknowledge this fact, as laid out in the Dubai Consensus, suggests that political expediency and strategic second-guessing has unfortunately weaponised even climate science.
• Thus, countries responsible for most of the human-emitted carbon point to record temperatures and their links to rising emissions when arguing for reining in emissions from developing countries. However, they are loathe to accept this link when developing and island nations demand funds as reparations for devastations already wreaked by climate change.

Loss and Damage fund

• The Loss and Damage Fund, which received commitments worth $750 million, and therefore cheered as a COP28-success, has only been approved on the condition that it not be considered as compensation for historical carbon pollution.
• Related to this is the larger concern that COP meetings are deemed as ‘historic’ only when they insert new verb phrases — phase out, phase down, transition — on cutting emissions but are banal when they consider how little money and technology have been channelled for fossil fuel de-addiction.

Conclusion

• It is time that future meetings use the science to promote justice and equity and strengthen faith in what is now one of the few working multilateral processes.

General Studies Paper – 2

Context: Such a judicial reading in a context that defies monism also affects federalism and constitutional democracy.

Introduction

• More than four years after the abrogation of Article 370, the Supreme Court of India, on Monday, unanimously upheld the actions of the Indian government.
• While much of the discourse around the judgment has focused on the question of statehood, it is important to remember that the special status of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was really at the heart of the matter.
• To arrive at its conclusions, the Court employs a historical, textual, and structural interpretation of the Constitution of India, and all three approaches are deeply informed by constitutional monism.

Federalism and constitutional sovereignty

• The monism that is reflected in the judgment imagines the Union Constitution as the sole bearer of internal and external sovereignty. While this may be true, Article 370 laid down an elaborate framework for the distribution of powers and authority between the Union and the State governments.
• By focusing more on the particular concept of sovereignty ‘which requires no subordination to another body’, the Court ends up refusing to recognise the shared sovereignty model of Article 370.
• After all, sovereignty in federal constitutions is not a binary concept restricted to a simple ‘is’ or ‘isn’t’ classification. Rather, it encompasses various dimensions and exists along a spectrum of degrees.

The contingency of the presidential power

• Another site where the Court’s monism operates is in its reading of Clause 3 of Article 370. The Court rejects the argument that Article 370 had gained permanence after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly as this ‘is premised on the understanding that the constitutional body had unbridled power to alter the constitutional integration of the State with the Union’.
• In a constitutional democracy, no body or institution has unbridled powers. Further, Clause 3 of Article 370 is primarily concerned with the relationship of two powers and not just the status or the relationship of the power-bearing entities. The proviso to Clause 3 makes it clear that the presidential power to abrogate Article 370 was contingent on the recommendation of the Constituent Assembly.
• As it is in the nature of the presidential powers under Clause 3 to be contingent on the Constituent Assembly, this limitation does not die with the dissolution of the Assembly.
• The relation of powers here does not mean that the President becomes ‘subordinate’ to the Constituent Assembly but that power as a federal arrangement has been distributed across multiple axes under Article 370.
• Holding that the President has the untrammelled power to abrogate Article 370 and order a total application of the Indian Constitution to the State to the effect that the State’s Constitution becomes inoperative is an ‘unbridled power’ that defies the logic of federalism and constitutional democracy.

State’s views on its future

• The judgment’s monism imagines popular sovereignty as a monolith where since the views of an individual State for the purposes of reorganisation are not binding on Parliament, Parliament, therefore, is well placed to speak for the state.
• Justice Sanjay Kaul holds that ‘views are to be taken from the entire nation via the Parliament, as the issue leading to the reorganisation affects the nation as a whole’.
• There are many sites within the Constitution where a recommendatory power is vested in a body. Merely because that power may not be binding does not mean that the power can be taken over by another body or that power need not be exercised because at its heart lies the question of agency.

Conclusion

• The inevitable conclusion that one arrives at is that the popular sovereignty of a State’s people vis-à-vis the State becomes subordinate to the popular sovereignty of the entire nation vis-à-vis the Union as well as the States.
• This is particularly worrying in the context of J&K where the threshold for reorganising the State was historically much higher compared to the other States

General Studies Paper – 2

Centre’s proactive approach to resolve issues of Sri Lankan repatriates is must.

Introduction

• The Madras High Court has demonstrated how the judiciary can provide succour to a person waiting for over 40 years to get Indian citizenship. In T. Ganesan vs The Government of India & Others, the Madurai Bench of the High Court, in its judgment on November 30, directed the authorities to treat the petitioner and his family as Indian citizens, thus extending to them relief measures that the Tamil Nadu government provides to repatriates from Sri Lanka.

What was the case?

• The 69-year-old petitioner, now a resident of a refugee camp in Karur, reached India in 1990 after having been issued an Indian passport in Kandy in August 1982 on repatriation under two bilateral treaties that concerned hill country Tamils or Indian Origin Tamils (IOT).
• He had approached the court as the authorities treated him only as a Sri Lankan refugee even though he is an Indian citizen.
• The government accepted the genuineness of his passport but doubted his identity because the photograph was the image of a “far younger” person. But the court rejected this position.
• Ganesan is not the only such person. The court has recorded that around 5,130 applicants (IOT category) have sought citizenship.

Important data point

• In official data of March 2023, Tamil Nadu had about 91,000 refugees, with around 58,000 in camps.

Judiciary, rescuing those in camps.

• This is not the first time that the Bench, especially Justice G.R. Swaminathan, has gone to the rescue of those in the camps.
• In the last 15 months, the judge had established that the petitioners concerned were Indian citizens, interpreting provisions of the Citizenship Act, and should be issued passports.

Legal position of the Union government.

• Otherwise, the general legal position of the Union government is that every refugee is an illegal migrant though entitled to benefits. A DMK State government study found that nearly 8,000 refugees are eligible for Indian citizenship as they do not come under exclusions of the law.
• The Union government’s stand has been that despite not being a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol, it adheres to the principle of non-refoulement. The government also favours the voluntary repatriation of refugees to Sri Lanka. This was a reason why the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 did not include Sri Lankan refugees.

Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019

• The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955. The Citizenship Act,1955 provides various ways in which citizenship may be acquired. It provides for citizenship by birth, descent, registration, naturalisation and by incorporation of the territory into India.
• The Bill amends the Act to provide that the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who entered India on or before December 31, 2014, will not be treated as illegal migrants.
• These provisions on citizenship for illegal migrants will not apply to the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Tripura, included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution.

What the Union government should do?

• The Centre should ensure follow-up action on the DMK government’s study. It should first identify those eligible for citizenship under the legal framework and ascertain their consent.
• For those who wish to pursue higher studies or go abroad for a livelihood, permission can be granted if the applicant has no criminal record. The Union government should initiate talks with Sri Lanka on voluntary repatriation and a structured assistance programme worked out.

Conclusion

• A proactive approach should be followed to ensure that those tagged as refugees are able to lead a life of dignity.

General Studies Paper –3

Context: Gene therapy offers new hope for those with sickle cell disease.

Introduction

• Less than a month after the U.K. drug regulator approved Casgevy, the gene therapy to treat people above 12 with sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia, the U.S. FDA has approved two gene therapies — Casgevy and Lyfgenia — to treat sickle cell disease in patients over 12. Its decision on approving Casgevy gene therapy for treating beta thalassemia is expected by March 2024.

Gene therapy

• Gene therapy is a technique that uses a gene(s) to treat, prevent or cure a disease or medical disorder. Often, gene therapy works by adding new copies of a gene that is broken, or by replacing a defective or missing gene in a patient’s cells with a healthy version of that gene.
• Both inherited genetic diseases (e.g., hemophilia and sickle cell disease) and acquired disorders (e.g., leukemia) have been treated with gene therapy.
• It is a direct way to treat genetic conditions as well as other conditions. There are also other related approaches like gene editing. There are many different versions and approaches to gene therapy and gene editing.
• It all rests on understanding how genes work and how changes in genes can affect our health. Researchers all over the world are studying many different facets of gene therapy and gene editing.

Sickle cell disease

• Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder. It is marked by flawed haemoglobin. That’s the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen to the tissues of the body. So, sickle cell disease interferes with the delivery of oxygen to the tissues.
• Red blood cells with normal haemoglobin are smooth, disk-shaped, and flexible, like doughnuts without holes. They can move through the blood vessels easily. Cells with sickle cell haemoglobin are stiff and sticky.
• When they lose their oxygen, they form into the shape of a sickle or crescent, like the letter C. These cells stick together and can’t easily move through the blood vessels. This can block small blood vessels and the movement of healthy, normal oxygen-carrying blood. The blockage can cause pain.
• Normal red blood cells can live up to 120 days. But sickle cells only live for about 10 to 20 days. Also, sickle cells may be destroyed by the spleen because of their shape and stiffness. The spleen helps filter the blood of infections.
• Sickled cells get stuck in this filter and die. With less healthy red blood cells circulating in the body, you can become chronically anaemic. The sickled cells also damage the spleen. This puts you are at greater at risk for infections.
• Beginning of gene therapy using the CRISPR-Cas9 tool
• These landmark decisions mark the beginning of gene therapy using the CRISPR-Cas9 tool to treat diseases that could otherwise be cured only through bone marrow transplantation.
• While Lyfgenia uses a disabled lentivirus as a vector to introduce into the blood stem cells a new gene for haemoglobin that mimics the healthy version, Casgevy uses the gene-editing tool of CRISPR-Cas9 to disable a particular gene (BCL11A) that turns off foetal haemoglobin production in blood stem cells.
• While about 10% of adults continue to produce foetal haemoglobin, in others, the BCL11A gene prevents the production of foetal haemoglobin. By disabling the BCL11A gene, foetal haemoglobin that is produced, which does not have the abnormalities of adult haemoglobin, helps treat patients with sickle-cell disease or beta thalassaemia.
• In clinical trials, 28 of 29 sickle-cell disease patients who received Casgevy gene therapy were relieved of the debilitating effects of the disease for a year; for beta thalassaemia, 39 of 42 patients did not require blood transfusion for one year, and in the remaining three the need for blood transfusion reduced by more than 70%.
• In the case of clinical trials involving Lyfgenia, 30 of 32 sickle cell disease patients did not suffer from severe blocked blood flow caused by sickle cells, while 28 of 32 patients did not experience any blocked blood flow events six to 18 months post-infusion.

Huge potential and huge expenditure

• Since both gene therapies use patients’ own blood cells for gene editing, the number of patients who can potentially be treated will be huge as these treatments do not rely on matching bone marrow donors.
• But in reality, these treatments would be exorbitantly expensive. Also, much like bone marrow transplantation, only certain hospitals will be equipped to extract a patient’s blood stem cells and use the genetic editing tool to the stem cells before reinjecting them, thus limiting the number of beneficiaries.

Way forward

• With clinical trials evaluating the therapies in a very small number of patients and for shorter duration, the compulsion to continuously monitor their safety and efficacy through real world data cannot be overemphasised: the possibility of unintended genetic modifications and their resultant side effects are real when the CRISPR–Cas9 tool is used.

General Studies Paper – 2

Context:

As with elections, SC should have given a deadline for restoration of statehood.

Introduction

• In its conclusion in the judgment that upheld the decision to abrogate the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370, the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court expressly directed that the Election Commission of India (ECI) must conduct elections to the Legislative Assembly of J&K by September 30, 2024.

What is welcoming, and what is the issue?

• It is welcome that the Court has set a deadline to conduct the long-delayed elections in J&K, which has been under spells of Governor’s Rule and President’s Rule since June 20, 2018, and without a Legislative Assembly.
• But it is also incongruous that the judgment does not press the government to restore statehood to the bifurcated Union Territory, a promise that has been conveyed by the Solicitor General but has yet to gain fruition.

Constitution bench

• Constitution bench is the name given to the benches of the Supreme Court of India which consist of at least five judges of the court which sit to decide any case “involving a substantial question of law as to the interpretation” of the Constitution of India or “for the purpose of hearing any reference” made by the President of India under Article 143.
• This provision has been mandated by Article 145 (3) of the Constitution of India.
• Also, matters related to the Amendment of an Act of the Indian Parliament are referred to the Constitution Bench by the Supreme Court under the same act.
• The Chief Justice of India has the power to constitute a Constitution Bench and refer cases to it.

Direct election and statehood.

• The Bench remarks that direct elections cannot be put on hold until statehood is restored but it could have directed the Union government to restore statehood and conduct elections by a specified date, as there remains no reason for the continuance of J&K as a Union Territory.
• Restoration of statehood is an important measure as this guarantees a degree of federal autonomy to the province, that should allow the elected government to be able to better address the concerns of the electorate than depend on the representatives of the Union government.

Conflict prone region and voting behaviour.

• J&K remains among India’s most conflict-prone regions partially due to historical reasons related to integration of the erstwhile princely State into the Indian Union and later due to accumulated grievances over the conduct of democratic processes in the erstwhile State.
• Even when periodic and regular elections were conducted during the height of the militancy, participation was limited in many parts of the Valley, denoting the disenchantment with the political system.
• But things took a change for the better since the early-mid 2000s when electoral participation improved, and J&K’s citizens began to partake in the democratic process to get their concerns addressed before agitations and protests — including by separatists — over security policies and the later steps taken by the government led to the current state of affairs.

Local level elections

• In the last five and a half years, local government elections have been held with varying levels of participation indicating that the mood in the Valley has been against the measures that have been implemented since 2018.
• India’s unique selling proposition as a leader in the Global South remains its robust conduct of formal democratic process and which in itself is important for conflict resolution in places such as Kashmir.

Conclusion

• Without political processes, a contestation of ideas and a sense that elected representatives can address the grievances of citizens, there cannot be any normalcy.

General Studies Paper – 2

Context: Vladimir Putin’s recent interactions with Gulf leaders have brought Russia into the mainstream of West Asian affairs and affirmed that the Sino-Russian alliance will challenge U.S. hegemony.

Introduction

• Russian President Vladimir Putin, largely confined to the Kremlin due to western restrictions, on December 6 dramatically set out on whirlwind tours to Abu Dhabi and Riyadh in one day.
• The next day, he received Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Moscow. And on December 8, Mr. Putin announced that he would be standing for elections in 2024, affirming that he would be leading Russia at least up to 2030 and possibly beyond.

Talks in the Gulf

• A Russian spokesman described the talks in the Gulf capitals as “a concentrated shot”. The agenda was self-evident: continued cooperation among “OPEC +” members on oil policy; exchange of views on the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts; increasing humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians trapped in Gaza; and enhancing bilateral-political-economic ties.
• Cooperation among “OPEC +” countries led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, for instance, has ensured that the agreed production cuts are adhered to and oil prices, much to the U.S.’s chagrin, remain at levels that serve the producers’ interests.
• Despite their long-standing alliance with the U.S., both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have in recent years been asserting “strategic autonomy” and have prioritised expanding ties with China and Russia. The UAE is now Russia’s most important trade partner in the Gulf. Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia have supported the U.S.-sponsored sanctions on Russia or criticised the latter for the Ukraine war.
• In fact, thousands of Russians have set up alternative homes, businesses, and investments in the UAE. Cooperation is thriving between the two countries in the technology sector. As a result, the West has placed the UAE under scrutiny to ensure that restrictions on export of hi-tech products to Russia are complied with.
• Russia has also conveyed it is standing by to support Saudi Arabia’s civilian nuclear programme at the opportune moment.
• Iran and Russia, as targets of increasingly onerous western sanctions, challenge the West’s global strategic leadership and seek the realisation of a multipolar world order. Flowing from this, they have built substantial bilateral relations in the energy and military areas: in March this year, the Russian, Chinese and Iranian navies carried out joint exercises in the Gulf of Oman.
• In November, it was reported that Iran would get Sukhoi Su-35 aircraft from Russia, as also training aircraft and attack helicopters. Iran has boosted Russia’s military prowess in Ukraine with supplies of drones, ammunition and body armour.

Putin’s agenda

• Putin was signalling that Russia was not isolated and that it had some close friends, such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, that, till recently, had been the U.S.’s closest allies in the region. But beyond this, Mr. Putin would have had a more ambitious agenda.
• On the basis of Russia’s close ties with Iran, he would have told the UAE and the Kingdom that the Gaza war will not spread across the region, conveying the assurance that Iran will restrain the Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen in the interests of regional stability.
• Putin would have sought a deeper strategic and political alignment between the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Iran, presenting Russia and China as guarantors of regional peace.
• Putin would have sought the support of his Gulf interlocutors to the consolidation of this regional alignment so that, in the post-Gaza war scenario, they would act unitedly with Russia and China in managing regional political and diplomatic challenges, while excluding the U.S. from this arrangement.
• Above all, Mr. Putin would have assured his Gulf interlocutors that there would be continuity in Russia’s regional approach, by giving them advance notice that he will be seeking re-election in March 2024 and lead Russia at least till the end of this decade.
• Above all, Mr. Putin would have assured his Gulf interlocutors that there would be continuity in Russia’s regional approach, by giving them advance notice that he will be seeking re-election in March 2024 and lead Russia at least till the end of this decade.

Conclusion

• Putin’s recent interactions with Gulf leaders have brought Russia into the mainstream of West Asian affairs and affirmed that the Sino-Russian alliance will challenge U.S. hegemony and seek to redefine the regional political order.

General Studies Paper – 3

Context: With climate change threatening global food productivity, Odisha’s efforts in climate-proofing its agricultural system have resulted in a unique development model.

Introduction

• As the world’s leaders are in a huddle for COP28, or the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (November 30 to December 12, 2023), in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, the worsening impact of the climate crisis paints a grim picture for the planet, peace and prosperity.
• As the world witnesses a worsening global food crisis precipitated by the mounting climate crisis, spiralling conflicts and distressed livelihoods, Odisha’s transformational journey is increasingly being cited as a model and a source of ideas for creating food security that is built around equity and sustainability.
• Odisha’s story has three specific themes in the current scenario: how the State strengthened food security by transforming agriculture through a community-driven approach and built resilience to climate impact.

Agricultural transformation

• In the past two decades, Odisha has moved from importing rice from other States and making ends meet in the pre-2000s to, in 2022, producing 13.606 million tonnes of food grains, its highest production on record.
• There are two notable aspects: a majority of farmers are small/marginal, and productivity has increased despite stable crop area. The average rice yield, which is Odisha’s main crop, has tripled in two decades. In 2000-01, the average yield was 10.41 quintals per hectare, but by 2020-21, it had increased to 27.30 quintals per hectare.
• Kalahandi district was known as the “land of hunger,” but has now been transformed into Odisha’s rice bowl. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik shared this at the United Nations World Food Programme headquarters, where he addressed Odisha’s commitment towards achieving the ‘Zero Hunger’ goal of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2.
• The focus is on small and marginal farmers and increasing their income. This has directly contributed to strengthening their food security and creating resilient livelihoods.
• Implementing flagship schemes such as Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) and disseminating scientific crop management practices through conventional and digital extension have increased non-paddy crop cultivation, while paddy cultivation has decreased. Schemes such as the Odisha Millet Mission have also helped diversify crops and promote climate resilience.

Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA) scheme

• The Odisha government launched the “Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation” (KALIA) scheme to support farmers.
• The program’s objectives are to decrease poverty in the agricultural sector and boost agricultural prosperity by increasing state payments to support farming and related activities.
• The program is thought to be a good substitute for waivers of farm loans.
• As part of the scheme, landless agricultural laborers and cultivators will receive financial assistance totaling approximately Rs. 10,180 crores over three years, until 2020–2021.
• Small and marginal farmers, landless agricultural household, vulnerable agricultural household, landless agricultural laborers and sharecroppers (actual cultivators) are eligible under different components of the scheme.

Resilience and sustainability

• Due to its geographical location and physical conditions, Odisha is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This phenomenon can disrupt current growth strategies and exacerbate poverty, as it may lead to a loss of life, livelihoods, assets, and infrastructure. Odisha has proactively developed a comprehensive Climate Change Action Plan to address these concerns.
• This plan covers various sectors, including agriculture, coastal zone protection, energy, fisheries and animal resources, forests, health, industries, mining, transport, and urban and water resources.
• The approach towards climate resilience is being developed from the bottom up. The Crop Weather Watch Group conducts weekly meetings, sees field visits by officers, and has video conferences to monitor the crop programme.
• This helps the authorities to take necessary measures during adverse weather conditions such as cyclones, floods, and droughts, which are frequent in the State.
• Crop planning is done at the district level by officials of allied departments, considering the agro-climatic zone. Farmers are adopting climate-resilient cultivation practices, that include integrated farming, zero-input-based natural farming, non-paddy crops, better water management, water-saving devices, e-pest surveillance, and large-scale farm mechanisation with women-friendly drudgery-reducing farm implements.
• Training farmers in crop-specific techniques, including integrated nutrient and pest management, has boosted food grains production.

Social protection

• The consistent improvement of the agricultural sector has made Odisha a surplus State for paddy production. It is the fourth most significant contributor to the paddy pool of the Food Corporation of India.
• According to the available statistics for 2020-21, Odisha produces 9% of the total rice in India and accounts for 4.22% of the total food-grain production of the country.
• The partnership between the United Nations World Food Programme and the Government of Odisha has seen innovation for pilots on improving food and nutrition security schemes, such as the application of biometric technology in the Targeted Public Distribution System in remote Rayagada district back in 2007, or rice fortification in Gajapati district, to name a few.
• In the State Ranking Index for the National Food Security Act by the Department of Food and Public Distribution, Government of India, for 2022, Odisha emerged as the top-ranked State in the entire country. The WFP collaborates with the Government of Odisha on its food security, livelihood and climate resilience initiatives.

Conclusion

• Odisha’s transformative journey, from food grains scarcity to the generation of surplus, sustained efforts in climate-proofing its agricultural system, crop diversification, protection of the interest of the smallholders, and food and nutrition security for the vulnerable presents a unique development model for other States in the context of the challenges of global climate change.

General Studies Paper – 3

Context:

India’s growth in 2023-24 is currently projected by the Reserve Bank of India at 7% while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have pegged it at 6.3%. 

Introduction

• With a growth of 7.8% and 7.6% in the first two quarters of 2023-24, respectively, and a broad-based recovery in the second quarter, India is likely to realise the RBI’s currently projected growth of 7% in this fiscal year.
• In the medium term, the IMF has projected an annual growth of 6.3% up to 2028-29. India’s future growth strategy needs to be calibrated in view of the changing global conditions.

Movement towards deglobalisation

• There is a movement towards deglobalisation. Many ongoing geopolitical conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas war have created a climate of sanctions, leading to breaks in supply chains as well as disruptions in international settlements due to non-access to systems such as SWIFT for the sanctioned countries.
• World real GDP growth has also fallen, leading to reduced demand for global exports. Many countries including India want to reduce their dependence on imported petroleum due to supply uncertainties and price volatility.
• In India’s case, exports experienced a sharp acceleration in the share of GDP during 2003-04 to 2008-09. This peaked at 25% in 2013-14. In 2022-23, it was 22.8%, having fallen to a trough of 18.7% in 2019-20 and 2020-21. The erstwhile export-led growth strategy may not be available to India anymore. It must evolve its own future growth strategy.

Investment rate in medium term: Importance of savings

• India will have to rely relatively more on domestic growth drivers. To achieve and sustain a 7% plus real growth in particular, domestic savings will be critical. We estimate the nominal saving rate in 2022-23 to be about 29%.
• One area of concern relates to the recently noted fall in the household sector’s savings in financial assets which declined to 5.1% of GDP in 2022-23 from an average of 7.8% during the pre-COVID-19 period of 2015-16 to 2019-20 — a fall of 2.7% points.
• This fall consisted of 2.2% points of increase in change in gross household financial liabilities and 0.5% points fall in change in gross household financial assets. These changes may be temporary post-COVID-19 responses.
• However, if these trends persist, it will pose a significant risk to India’s growth potential since it is the surplus household sector financial savings that become available to the government and the corporate sector to draw resources from to meet their investment demand in excess of their own savings.
• Savings are converted into gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) by adding net capital inflows and deducting change in stocks, valuables, and discrepancies. The estimated nominal investment rate, that is GFCF relative to GDP was 29.2% in 2022-23.
• However, the deflator of capital goods is lower than that of all goods. The movement of the relative deflator of capital goods is somewhat volatile. Using the five-year average of the relative magnitude of the two deflators, the nominal investment rate of nearly 29% would provide a real investment rate of about 33%.
• This needs to be increased by 2% points to provide investible resources amounting to 35% of GDP, enabling a growth of 7% at an Incremental Capital-Output Ratio (ICOR) of 5, which was its value in 2022-23. If the ICOR is lower, achievable growth would be higher.

Strategizing enhanced employment

• India would find itself in a unique position in the next three decades with a large potentially employable population seeking jobs in the presence of progressively more labour-saving innovations and technologies.
• According to United Nations population projections, the share of India’s working age population is projected to peak at 68.9% in 2030 while its overall dependency ratio would be at its lowest at 31.2%. These patterns call for increased allocation of resources for training and skilling India’s growing working age population.
• Employment growth is critically dependent on GDP growth and the structure of output. The growth rate of the working age population is projected to progressively fall from 1.2% in 2023-24 to 0% in 2048-49.
• In 2022-23, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), the worker population ratio, showing the number of employed persons in the population above 15 years of age, increased to 51.8% from 44.1% in 2017-18, depicting an average increase of 1.5% points per year.
• Going forward, non-agricultural growth will have to be high enough to absorb labour released from agriculture which is estimated at 45.8% in 2022-23 by the PLFS.
• It should also be able to absorb the labour-substituting impact of new technology. Facilitating absorption of productivity-enhancing technologies including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI would add to overall growth.

Environment angle

• India has committed to certain targets to reduce carbon emissions in view of global climate concerns. In the COP26 Summit, in 2021, India had committed to reducing total carbon emissions by one billion tonnes between 2021 to 2030 and achieving the target of net zero emissions by 2070.
• India’s own initiatives include the Green Grids Initiative (GGI) and One Sun One World One Grid (OSOWOG). It is also placing an emphasis on the use of electric vehicles and ethanol-based and hydrogen fuels.
• Climate-promoting technological changes may reduce the potential growth rate. This adverse impact can be minimised by emphasising service sector growth which is relatively climate friendly.

Fiscal responsibility

• To sustain growth close to its potential, it is important to ensure that the combined fiscal deficit and debt to GDP ratios are brought down to 6% and 60%, respectively, so that the burden of interest payments relative to revenue receipts is kept within acceptable limits.
• This would enable achieving a balance or surplus on the revenue account of the central and State governments, which in turn would reduce government dissavings and augment the overall savings rate of the economy.

Way forward

• In the next two years, a growth rate of 6.5% seems feasible. This represents, partially, a recovery from the low growth rate in the COVID-19 period.
• Over the medium term, India’s growth performance will be adversely affected by many factors, both domestic and external.
• Raising the savings and investment rates, improving the skill acquisition of the young entrants to the labour market and adopting a technology mix which is employment friendly are issues on which the country must focus to achieve a growth rate of 7% to 7.5%