General Studies Paper 3

Introduction

• Energy exists in many forms, like light, sound, heat, etc., power and power transmission also exist in many forms. However, electric power transmission is more complicated because of the multiple phases of electric current, and factors like voltage, impedance, frequency, etc.

Power supply

• Any power supply system has three broad components: generation, transmission, and distribution.
• Electricity is generated at power plants as well as at smaller renewable-energy installations.
• Then it is transmitted using a distributed network of stations, substations, switches, overhead and underground cables, and transformers, among other elements.
• Finally, it is distributed to consumers in a standardised way, befitting the needs of various machines and applications.

Basics of transmitting electricity

• First, in any conductor that transports electric current, the transmission efficiency is higher at lower current and higher voltage.
• This is because the energy loss during transmission increases as the square of the current, whereas the amount of voltage increase corresponds on a 1:1 basis with the amount of current decreased.
• That is, if voltage is increased by five units, the amount of current will drop by five units, but the amount of energy lost will be reduced by 25 units.
• This is the purpose of transformers: they increase the voltage and reduce the current before feeding into transmission lines, and the reverse when receiving current to be supplied to consumers.
• Second, the cables that move the current still have some resistance, which results in some energy loss.
• The amount of loss can be controlled by adjusting the cable’s thickness: the thicker it is, the less energy is lost, but the cost increases. So when the cost of the cable’s material is high, the cables are thinner.
• Third, the longer the distance of transmission, the lower the transmission cost.
• All these factors are further complicated by the use of alternating current (AC).
• AC can be modified more easily in transformers than direct currents (DC) and also has higher transmission efficiency.
• But when the AC frequency is higher, the amount of resistance the current encounters in the material increases.
• Engineers model all these factors for a given network to understand how much electrical energy will be lost between generation and consumption.

Power transmission

• In a three-phase AC circuit, each wire transmits an AC current in a different phase.
• From a power station, the wires are routed to transformers that step-up their voltage.
• Then, they are suspended from transmission towers, which must be stable and properly wired, as they travel long distances.
• Insulators in contact with the wires draw away some current if there is a surge in the line; circuit-breakers ‘break’ the circuit if there is too much.
• The towers are also grounded and equipped with arresters that prevent sudden increases in voltage — such as due to a lightning strike — from affecting the wires.
• Similarly, dampers prevent vibrations in the wires from affecting the towers’ stability. Switches are used to control the availability of current and to move currents between different lines.

Operation of grids

• As mentioned earlier, transmission is situated between production and distribution.
• A national grid includes all three components, and as a result transmission also has to account for the particulars of power production at different types of sources, at various locations, and how and where that power is consumed.
• For example, some sources — like coal-fired or nuclear reactors — can produce energy continuously, whereas renewable energy sources are intermittent.
• So grids also have storage facilities that store electrical energy when there’s a surplus supply and release it in times of deficit.
• Grids also need to respond to failure in different parts of the network and prevent them from carrying over to other parts, adjust voltages in response to demand, control the AC frequency, improve the power factor etc.

Conclusion

• A grid becomes a wide-area synchronous grid if all the generators connected to it are producing an AC current at the same frequency. India’s national grid is also a wide-area synchronous grid. Such grids result in lower power cost but also require measures to prevent cascading power-supply failures.

General Studies Paper 3

Introduction

• Silk, the queen of fibres, is drawn or reeled from cocoons of the silk moth (Bombyx mori). Humans domesticated it more than 5,000 years ago in China, from the wild moth (Bombyx mandarina). India is the world’s second largest producer of raw silk after China.

Silkworms

• Caterpillars, also known as silkworms, of both these species feed exclusively on leaves of mulberry plants (genus Morus).
• The domesticated moth-is much larger than its wild progenitor, and thus extrudes a longer silk fibre to build its larger cocoon, up to 900 metres long.
• But it depends wholly on human care for its survival and reproduction.
• Since having been domesticated, it has lost the ability to fly, and since its need for camouflage no longer exists, it has also lost its caterpillar and adult-stage pigmentation.

Carotenoids and flavonoids

• ‘Wild’ silks – which include the muga, tasar, and eri silks – are obtained from other moth species: namely, Antheraea assama, Antheraea mylitta, and Samia cynthia ricini.
• These moths survive relatively independently of human care, and their caterpillars forage on a wider variety of trees.
• Non-mulberry silks comprise about 30% of-all silk produced in India.
• These silks have shorter, coarser, and harder threads compared to the long, fine, and smooth threads of the mulberry silks.
• The ancestral mulberry moth makes brown-yellow cocoons. In contrast, domesticated silk moth cocoons come in an eye-catching palette of yellow-red, gold, flesh, pink, pale green, deep green or white.
• Human handlers selected the differently coloured cocoons whenever they emerged, possibly in the hope of breeding for coloured silks.
• We know today that the cocoon’s pigments are derived from chemical compounds called carotenoids and flavonoids, which are made by the mulberry leaves.
• Silkworms feed voraciously on the leaves, absorb the chemicals in their midgut, transport them via the hemolymph – arthropods’ analogue of blood – to the silk glands, where they are taken up and bound to the silk protein.
• Mature caterpillars then spin out the silk proteins and associated pigment into a single fibre. The caterpillar wraps the fibre around itself to build the cocoon.

Mutant strains

• The adult moth hatches from the cocoon. In this process, the fibre is broken in many places.
• Superior quality silk however comes from an unbroken fibre, so unhatched cocoons are used for reeling.
• The differently coloured cocoons arise from mutations in genes responsible for the uptake, transport, and modification of carotenoids and flavonoids.
• The mutant strains have become a valuable resource for scientists to study the molecular basis of how, in a relatively short span of 5,000 years, artificial selection generated such spectacular diversity.

The gene called apontic-like

• Domesticated and ancestral mulberry silk moths can be interbred to produce hybrid offspring.
• The hybrid caterpillars, like their wild parent, made the pigment called melanin.
• But when the B. mandarina-derived copy of apontic-like was mutated, the hybrid failed to make melanin.
• Both versions of the apontic-like gene make the same protein. Therefore, the difference between them was attributable to differences in sequences that regulate when and where the gene was turned ‘on’ or ‘off’.

Conclusion

• Silk is an acme of domestication, comparable in its success to basmati rice, alphonso mangoes, and the golden retriever. Today, the tools are at hand for scientists to make and compare genetically identical hybrid silk moths that differ only in which of a gene’s two parental versions is inactivated: domesticated or ancestral.
• This paves the way for scientists to work out – gene by gene – all the key steps that led to silk moth domestication. Hopefully, someday soon, similar techniques will become available for us to analyse domestication in rice, mangoes, and dogs.

General Studies Paper 2

Context:

• Some States ruled by political parties in opposition to the party in power at the Center have approached the Supreme Court (SC) accusing their Governors of using a non­existent discretion to unreasonably delay the passing of crucial Bills into law. The Bills in limbo cover sectors such as public health, higher education, Lokayukta and cooperative societies.

The accusations

• For example, Tamil Nadu has accused its Governor of sitting on the Bills by neither assenting nor returning them.
• Kerala, in its separate petition, said that eight proposed laws passed by its Legislative Assembly were pending with the Governor, not for months, but years.
• Kerala has asked the Supreme Court to form a 7 ­judge Bench to review a 5 judge Bench judgement in the 1962 Purushothaman Nambudiri case which held the view that Article 200 did not provide “for a time limit within which the Governor….. should come to a decision on the Bill referred to him for his assent”. The State said that, at the time, the court did not consider the possibility of Governors holding back Bills for an indefinite time.
• SC had to intervene in April for the Telangana Governor to clear Bills pending since 2022, compelling the advocate appearing for the State to submit that legislatures in Opposition Ruled States were at the mercy of the Governors, who had become a law unto themselves.

The process of granting assent

• Article 200 of the Constitution enables the Governor, when a Bill passed by both Houses of the Legislature, to either declare his assent to the Bill or withhold the assent if it is not a Money Bill, or reserve the law for the consideration of the President.
• Article 163 There shall be a Council of Ministers with the Chief Minister at the head to aid and advise the Governor in the exercise of his functions except in so far as he is by or under the Constitution required to exercise his functions or any of them in his discretion.
• The top court in the Shamsher Singh case verdict has held that as a formal head of the State a “Governor exercises all his powers and functions conferred on him by or under the Constitution on the aid and advice of his Council of Ministers save in spheres where the Governor is required by or under the Constitution to exercise his functions in his discretion.” The assent or return of the Bill does not involve the discretion of individuals occupying the Governor’s post.

By when should Bills be returned?

• The first proviso of Article 200 says it should be “as soon as possible”. The Constitution is silent on what exactly this phrase means. Justice Rohinton F. Nariman, in his 2020 judgement in the Keisham Megha Chandra Singh case, said a ‘reasonable time’ would mean 3 months.

Conclusion

• The States have urged the court to interpret the phrase in the proviso and fix a time limit by which Governors should assent or return a Bill. The 1988 Sarkaria Commission report on Centre-­State relations had suggested consultation with the Governor while drafting the Bill and fixing a deadline for its disposal.

General Studies Paper 3

Context:

• In July this year, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), at the request of the government, invited a comprehensive consultation on the need and possible mechanisms for regulation of ‘OTT services’, which became controversial.

Over The Top (OTT) services:

• It refers to media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms—the types of companies that have traditionally acted as controllers or distributors of such content.

Examples: content providers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+ Hotstar.

• For more than a decade now, telecom companies have seen revenue from traditional streams such as voice calls and SMS come under pressure, as competing OTT services are often free. At the same time, they have had to invest heavily in upgrading their infrastructure to handle increased data traffic, without necessarily seeing an equivalent rise in revenue.
• They also complain that OTT services are not subject to the same level of taxation and licensing fees, leading to an uneven playing field. On the flip side, the use of OTT services has led to a surge in data consumption, which is a growing revenue stream for telecom companies.

Flawed argument that affects net neutrality

• The OTT consultation has renewed the clamour from the telecom companies that OTT platforms/ content providers be asked to share in the costs of bandwidth. They argue that streaming platforms are free riders, benefiting from the infrastructure built and maintained by the telecom companies.
• However, this argument is fundamentally flawed and sets a dangerous precedent that undermines the principle of net neutrality. Telecom companies do not own the Internet; rather, they provide access to it.
• Consumers pay the telcos for access services by purchasing data plans. By offering services that consumers desire, OTT platforms generate demand for Internet access. They also pay for the content delivery networks (CDNs) to create pathways that substantially augment the capacity of the internet to deliver their content.
• Telecom companies capitalise on this demand (and the availability of OTT content) by providing connectivity to the Internet and charging subscribers for it.
• If they fail to cover costs, telecom companies are at liberty to increase their prices, which should go towards maintaining and upgrading their infrastructure. One of the requirements for the operation of a fair market is that the costs and benefits of a transaction are fully accounted for in the exchange price.
• Therefore, any attempt to seek cross subsidise instead of fully accounting for the costs could warrant scrutiny from the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
• In the marketplace for Internet access, the consumers are free to choose the provider that offers them the highest bandwidth, data volume, and reliability at an affordable price. These are distinct markets because services from one are not substitutable for services in the other.
• Therefore, it is logical to maintain a separation of costs between these two markets. The attempt of telcos to double dip by charging both consumers and content providers is not only avaricious but also undermines net neutrality.
• If OTT platforms were to acquiesce to the demands of the telcos, the incurred costs would trickle down to subscribers, either through increased subscription fees or degraded service quality for those platforms unwilling or unable to pay the toll. This outcome can only be detrimental to consumers who have come to rely on OTT services for entertainment, education, and professional pursuits.

Net neutrality principle

• It says that Internet access providers (ISPs) must treat all traffic originating from and terminating to the Internet in the same way. Professor Tim Wu, who coined the term “net neutrality” in a 2003 paper, proposed the purpose of net neutrality is to promote an even playing field on the Internet, ensuring that all data is treated equally without discrimination by ISPs.
• Net neutrality draws from earlier notions and principles concerning common carriage, which posit that service to all customers must be provided on a nondiscriminatory basis.

Basis of TRAI regulation

• Net neutrality formed the basis of TRAI’s regulation on prohibition of discriminatory tariffs for data services brought out in 2016. The regulator’s action forced the withdrawal of Facebook’s Free Basics platform and some other offerings in India.
• In 2017, TRAI released its comprehensive recommendations, which have largely guided the adoption of this principle in India. These steps taken by TRAI were noted elsewhere in the world.
• Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and TRAI adopted a Joint Statement for an Open Internet in 2018. The two organisations agreed through this memorandum of understanding to cooperate in developing technological and policy initiatives for net neutrality. Many other countries have also adopted net neutrality, thereafter.

Conclusion

• It is imperative for all stakeholders, including policymakers, to recognise the long-term ramifications of acquiescing to the shortsighted demands of telecom companies. Upholding the principles of net neutrality is not merely about preserving the ethos of an open Internet but is also intrinsic to fostering a conducive environment for innovation, competition, and consumer welfare, especially countries such as India where the Internet is going to be the carrier of all Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).

General Studies Paper 2

Introduction

• The dengue virus and its equally infamous cousin, the Zika virus, together infect up to around 400 million people every year. The Zika virus and genomic studies of it have opened fascinating windows into our knowledge of the infectious disease and its relevance in the context of emerging outbreaks.

The Zika virus

• The Zika virus is a mosquito-borne flavivirus.
• Most infections in humans are asymptomatic or with mild symptoms, including fever, rash, and joint pain.
• The outbreak was characterised by an alarming increase in the number of microcephaly cases in newborns, prompting the World Health Organisation to declare it a public health emergency of international concern in early 2016.
• From Africa, the Zika virus has spread to Asia, Pacific islands, to the Americas, and beyond. The disease has of late been in the headlines with multiple outbreaks in the last few years in multiple Indian states, including, more recently, Kerala and Karnataka.
• A significant number of insights have come from the Zika virus’s genome.
• Researchers sequenced the complete genome first in 2007. It has more than 10,000 bases of single-stranded RNA.
• The genome is also peculiar: it encodes for a large polyprotein, which is further cleaved into capsid, membrane precursor (prM), envelope, and seven non-structural proteins.
• The diagnosis of a Zika virus infection is mostly through genetic testing.
• An antibody-based test would be complicated because antibodies produced by the infection can cross-react with those of the dengue (DENV), yellow fever, and West Nile viruses.

Epidemiology and surveillance

• The Zika virus has an RNA genome, and thus a very high potential to accumulate mutations. The tools, techniques, and modalities we’ve developed to track the evolution, genetic epidemiology, and molecular underpinnings of transmission and pathogenesis could be extended to Zika virus outbreaks as well.
• Genomic studies have suggested that the Zika virus has two lineages: African and Asian.

Zika and microcephaly

• The small heads of children born to infected mothers has been one of the more alarming complications of a Zika virus infection.
• Earlier, based on studies with mice, researchers had suggested that a mutation in one of the precursor membrane proteins, called prM, of the Zika virus was associated with microcephaly.
• However, while the large outbreak in South America was caused by lineages of the virus with the specific mutation, only a subset of the relevant pregnancies resulted in microcephaly.
• The Zika-microcephaly hypothesis also suffered when researchers recorded microcephaly in Thailand following infections of the Asian lineage of the Zika virus that lacked the mutation.
• Foetal Zika virus infections were associated with heavy viral loads during pregnancy, and the viral load strongly influenced foetal growth.
• Taken together, the findings underscore the importance of the viral load and DENV infections for the occurrence of microcephaly.

Making it attractive

• Zika virus and DENV infections are interesting in their own right.
• In a recent study in Cell that infections of two viruses in primates encourage specific microbes to grow on the skin by suppressing an antimicrobial peptide, RELM, on the skin.
• These microbes produce acetophenones, which are volatile molecules that could provide a chemical cue to mosquitoes, attracting them towards the individual and supporting forward transmission of the viruses.
• The researchers also reported that administering isotretinoin could upregulate RELM and reverse this phenomenon.

Conclusion

• Zika virus and DENV interactions have also been an interesting area of research.
• A significant body of evidence suggests that a Zika virus infection can significantly increase the risk for severe dengue.
• As climate change helps drive the spread of vector borne diseases, and global warming brings environmental conditions that favour them to new places, our genomic technologies and such deep insights into the molecular pathogenesis of these viruses will be an important guiding light.

General Studies Paper 3

Context

• The theme of World Cities Day (October 31) this year was “Financing Sustainable Urban Future for All.” Finances must be channelled in the right direction such that urban futures which are being cut short on account of flawed urbanisation are checked, and, in turn, cities made liveable and safe. It is atrocious that air pollution is taking away over 10% of our life expectancy.

Pollution and India

• A report released by The Energy Policy Institute at Chicago (EPIC) shows that out of the 50 most polluted cities in the world, 39 are in India.
• Pollution directly affects the health of people, and an average Indian loses 5.3 years of his life expectancy due to this; for the residents of Delhi, it is 11.9 years.
• Pollution results in burning eyes, irritation of the nose and throat, coughing, choked breath, and asthma apart from causing cardiovascular diseases.
• Bad air is not limited to the Indo-Gangetic plains anymore where the argument of inversion of temperature and slowing down of wind speeds was considered as a factor for poor air quality.
• The situation is getting to be bad even in India’s coastal cities.

The expansion of ‘grey’ infrastructure

• The overall development strategy of urban development in India — apart from proper execution of enforcement by agencies — needs a paradigm shift.
• The need now is to turn to sustainable and “ecological urbanization”.
• The trajectory of urban development, where the focus is more on real estate development, a widening of roads, allowing large fuel guzzling vehicles on them, in turn squeezing the space meant for pedestrians, and redevelopment are the major reasons for increased pollution in Indian cities.
• Road dust, concrete batching, polluting industrial units and their extension in the cities, and vehicular emissions are key factors too.
• It is estimated that motorised transport alone is the cause for 60% of urban pollution.
• The green lungs of the cities, water bodies, urban forests, and green cover on urban commons, and urban agriculture have all reported shrinkage, even as “grey” infrastructure has seen rapid expansion. Hence, the priorities need to be set right.
• City residents, unfortunately, have hardly any participatory role and are forced to become passive bystanders in the urbanisation process.

Focus on public transport

• There is a compelling need to have an alternative strategy of city building, where the focus is on more public transport.
• There needs to be good public transport, with investment in buses for towns and cities.
• It is estimated that nearly 10 lakh buses would need to be added to the existing bus fleet in cities to meet the demands of urban mobility.
• Strong steps need to be taken to control private motorised vehicular movement in the cities.
• A congestion tax being levied on private car owners driving during peak hours can be thought of.
• Likewise, an odd number-even number plate formula can be another important intervention.
• Delhi has a Graded Response Action Plan, or GRAP (a set of anti-air pollution measures), the moment air quality deteriorates.
• There should be zero acceptance of industrial pollution and real-time monitoring must become a reality.
• There must be street supervision by residents instead of waiting for the statutory bodies to react, which urban local bodies can ensure.
• Urban commons (ponds, water bodies, urban forests, parks, playgrounds) are another major area that should not at all be allowed to be taken over by either public or private bodies for private gains.
• Redevelopment across the country has resulted in pollution. A city’s ecology is one of the first casualties and there is hardly any meaningful afforestation within a city. Planting trees 50 kilometres away from the city does not help in curtailing pollution in the city.

Strengthen governance

• So-called solutions such as smog towers or even watering roads are just cosmetic.
• People’s empowerment through the city’s governance architecture is a firm step forward.
• Pollution guides and standard operating procedures for various line departments and agencies must not only be made readily available to the people but should also become a part of the way of life in the city.
• There must be a strong GRAP-like standard operating procedure. Likewise, the medical fraternity must support the putting out of a public health advisory.

Conclusion

• We cannot afford to let our lives be shortened by reasons such as air pollution. The poor and the marginalised are the least contributors to pollution but are the segment who are most exposed to it and who pay a heavy price. They need a better life.

General Studies Paper 2

Context

• Governors should not give scope for criticism they challenge elected regimes.

About

• That two States have approached the Supreme Court of India against the conduct of their Governors once again flags the problem of political appointees in Raj Bhavan using their authority to delay the implementation of decisions by elected regimes, if not undermine them.

The question

• Tamil Nadu and Kerala have questioned the delay in the granting assent to Bills passed by the legislature.
• Tamil Nadu is also aggrieved that proposals related to grant of remission to some convicts, sanction for prosecution of some former Ministers and appointments to the State Public Service Commissions have not been acted upon.
• Governors need not rubber stamp any decision, but one can question the practice of Governors, especially in States not governed by the ruling party at the Centre, blocking decisions and Bills.
• For instance, some Governors appear to be hostile to the very idea of amendments to university laws if they seek to leave out Chancellors, invariably the Governors themselves, from the process of appointing vice-chancellors, or establishing new universities in which Governors are not chancellors.
• The idea of having Governors as ex-officio vice-chancellor of most universities is only a practice and is actualised through their founding statutes.
• However, Governors seem to be labouring under the misconception that they have a right to be chancellors and tend to delay assent to any Bill that clips or removes their power.
• It is time to have a national prohibition on Governors being burdened with the role of chancellor of any university, as recommended by the Justice M.M. Punchhi Commission on Centre-State relations.

The glitches

• It is unfortunate that absence of a time-frame for giving assent is used by some Governors to stymie laws passed by the legislature.
• One would have thought the Supreme Court’s observations, arising out of the Telangana government’s petition, reminding constitutional authorities that the phrase “as soon as possible” appearing in Article 200 of the Constitution contains significant “constitutional content” would have driven into them a sense of immediacy in considering Bills.
• What the Court meant was that it would be constitutionally impermissible for Governors to indefinitely hold on to Bills without conveying a decision.
• The States, too, ought to be prudent in their decision-making without leaving scope for questions on the merit of their decisions.

Conclusion

• The absence of any laid-down process to seek applications and assess the relative merits of applicants before appointing the chairperson and the members of the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission is a case in point. The larger point that none should forget is that Governors are explicitly restricted in their functioning by the ‘aid and advice’ clause in the Constitution and ought not to misuse the discretionary space available to them.

General Studies Paper 2

Introduction

• The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) are globally recognised as the crown jewels in India’s higher education system. Indeed, they are often the only Indian higher education institutions known internationally at all. They have produced leaders in high tech and related fields in India and abroad. The IITs may be the most difficult higher education institutions to gain entry in the world. Yet, the IIT system is in serious trouble at the same time that some of them are building campuses abroad as part of India’s soft power efforts. It is worth taking a careful look at current realities to understand a looming crisis.

Foreign adventures

• A branch campus of IIT-Madras has just opened in Zanzibar and IIT Delhi will be launching programmes from its Abu Dhabi campus in 2024.
• Some of the screening test centres offered to potential applicants were located not only in Tanzania but also in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and the United Arab Emirates (which has a strong presence of the Indian diaspora).
• Initially the Zanzibar campus is offering only two programmes: a Bachelor’s Degree (BS) in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and M. Tech in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. They are open to students from across the globe.

Overexpansion at home

• The first IIT was established in 1950 at Kharagpur in West Bengal, with four more following in a decade.
• Most of these partnered with top foreign technological universities in the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and Germany to get started, and they quickly achieved both excellence and top reputations.
• They hired Indians trained at the best foreign universities who were eager to contribute to national development.
• After 2015, the government expanded the IIT system, adding seven institutions in the following decade, most located away from major metropolitan centres.
• These new IITs have struggled to meet the high standards of the traditional institutes.

Faculty challenges, future prospects

• At the heart of any academic institution are the professors. Attracting the best and the brightest is increasingly difficult.
• Salaries are dramatically below international standards.
• Foreign trained Indians are generally reluctant to return to uncompetitive salaries, often inferior work environments, and more academic bureaucracy.
• Top Indian talent is increasingly attracted to the burgeoning IT sector, emerging biotech, and related fields — and not to academe — both within India and abroad.
• It would not be an exaggeration to say that the IITs are in crisis.
• Building quality in the new IITs is a significant challenge, and in the long run if this is not done, the prestige of the entire system will suffer.
• Maintaining faculty quality and attracting young professors committed to the IIT idea and to India’s development are both serious tasks.

Way forward

• Expanding the system domestically may not have been a wise idea — and building overseas branch campuses is highly problematical. One might question if overseas expansion is a good idea under any circumstances, but in the context of the domestic challenges facing the system, such expansion seems particularly ill-considered.

General Studies Paper 3

Context

• Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy sparked a debate last week by urging young Indians to work 70 hours per week, citing Japan and Germany as examples of countries that grew because their citizens worked harder and for longer hours to rebuild their nations in the aftermath of the Second World War. He further noted that India’s worker productivity is one of the lowest in the world.

Worker productivity vs  labour productivity

• The only conceptual difference between the two is that the ‘work’ in worker productivity describes mental activities while the ‘work’ in labour productivity is mostly associated with manual activities.
• Productivity of an activity is usually measured as the quantum of output value per unit of labour (time) cost at a micro level. At a macro level, it is measured in terms of the labour-output ratio or change in Net Domestic Product (NDP) per worker in each sector (where working hours are assumed to be 8 hours per day).
• However, in certain types of services, especially ones involving intellectual labour, measuring the value of the output independently is very difficult, so the income of workers is usually taken as proxies to suggest productivity.
• Productivity in a more sophisticated usage is an attribute not of time but of skill.
• Human capital including education, training, nutrition, health etc., enhances the ability of labour to become more productive, or churn out greater quantum of value within the same number of working hours.
• Based on this understanding, the reduction in the number of working hours does not hamper the value of output produced, but in turn enhances the leisure and quality of life of workers in real terms, while the value added to the economy could still be increasing, nominal wages remaining the same.

Link between worker productivity and economic growth

• While an increase in productivity made through any sector is likely to affect the value added and the accumulation or growth in the economy, the relationship between the two could be quite complex.
• If by prosperity we intend to suggest prosperity of the workers, this may or may not be true.
• It is noted that the increase in incomes or the prosperity of the richest people is not quite explained by their productivity.
• On the contrary, this prosperity is either linked to hereditary transfers of wealth upon which the rich are earning yields (he called this patrimonial capitalism) or to the ‘super managerial’ class who seem to be deciding their own exorbitant pay packages, quite arbitrarily, not related in any way to their productivity.

India and worker productivity

• As incomes are seen as a proxy for productivity, there is a fallacious inference about productivity of workers in India being low.
• A U.S based multi-national workforce management firm, has in fact observed that Indians are among the most hard working employees in the world.
• On the other hand, Picodi.com an international ecommerce platform has observed that India ranks one of the lowest in terms of average wages per month globally.
• Informal employment in both the unorganised as well as the organised sectors has been on the rise through the course of economic reforms.
• The dubious claim of increased formalisation has been limited only to bringing activities under the tax net. This has however had no impact on improving labour standards or working conditions.
• Even in the formal manufacturing sector you find an overwhelming presence of Micro-Small-Medium Enterprises (MSME) which are labour intensive.
• Studies have also found that there is a systematic process of cost cutting through wage cutting in these enterprises.

Way forward

• Japan and Germany are neither comparable in terms of the size and quality of labour force nor in terms of the nature of their technological trajectories or their socio-cultural and political structures.
• India presents a unique case and any arbitrary comparison would only lead to dubious analytical inferences and fallacious policy prescripts.
• Enhancing social investments, focusing on exploring domestic consumption potential for increased productivity with a human centric assessment of development achievements is the way to a more sustainable and desirable outcome.

General Studies Paper 2

Context

• There is a great deal of attention paid to the recipient of a organ transplant, and rightly so, but the backbone of live kidney transplantation for transplant surgeons is also to make sure that donors do not face the same problem in the future.

Before the donation

• Before donating the donor is fully evaluated to make sure the person is completely normal. Age-matched kidneys may be ideal but usually 18 to 60 years is accepted. Between 60- 70 years, an exceptional kidney function and health may permit donation. Blood group matching is usually required but O can donate to any group.
• Minor ailments may not be a contraindication for donating. Diabetes or pre diabetes, obesity, hypertension, kidney stones, etc. require special attention. Medical evaluation is always biased in the donor’s favour. Diabetes in the donor is usually an absolute contraindication. Hypertension with easy control with a single tablet is permitted.
• It is also essential that the kidney function on special test is at least 75 ml per minute There should no protein leak. Metabolic workup in persons having small stone is a must. Those with multiple stones should be rejected. Normally the evaluation should favour the donor and the better working kidney should be left behind with the donor.

After the donation

• After the donation the person requires life long follow-up. Immediately after the surgery the kidney function drops by almost half and the single kidney starts working more to compensate for the loss of the other. This is a process of hyperfiltration at the microscopic level and compensatory hypertrophy at the gross level.
• Donors require to periodically monitor blood pressure. Kidney function and protein loss should be checked at least once a year. Almost one third of donors would develop hypertension over several years but this almost the same incidence as in the general population. A small percentage would develop protein leak in the urine.
• It is essential that the donors are instructed properly with regards to diet, exercise and avoidance of drugs toxic to the kidneys. DASH diet (dietary approaches to stop hypertension) would be ideal. Sufficient vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean meat, moderate restriction of salt and sugar, and avoidance of transfats is essential.

Salt and Kidney

• The WHO and other medical associations caution on the importance of salt restriction to 5 gms per day in the general population. The 5 gms includes salt present in natural food, salt added during cooking and hidden salt present in preserved or packed food like bread and noodles. Restriction of salt reduces not only blood pressure but also strokes and kidney failure.

Calculating kidney function

• Creatinine is produced by muscles in the body and excreted by the the kidneys. Since normally only kidneys remove the creatinine ,its measurement in blood reflects kidney function .
• Mathematical formulae adjusting for age, weight and sex are used to calculate kidney function and express as eGFR(Glomerular function rate).
• Protenuria or protein leak is a more sensitive test and 85% of the kidney diseases are detected earlier than creatinine estimation. Protein has a large molecular weight and does not appear in the urine unless the microscopic vessel (glomerulus)in the kidney is damaged or it is secreted by tubules.
• The quantity of protein loss in the urine reflects the kidney damage and is used as a measure to see the response for treatment.
• Proteinurea unlike creatinine is not only a marker of kidney disease but also a cause for progression of kidney disease.
• This understanding has led to the development of several group of drugs which would lower protein loss to reduce damage to the kidneys. They include the anti renin system (ACE and ARB) group of drugs, the SGLT2 inhibitors, anti aldosterone drugs etc.

Conclusion

• A recent study from MIOT international on the salt intake in renal donors has highlighted the importance of monitoring salt intake in kidney donors Chronic Kidney disease(CKD) affects almost 10% of the worlds population. So it is essential to detect CKD early and intervene to halt the disease.  It is hightime we realise the importance of this, and implement salt reduction globally.