General Studies Paper 3

Context:

• Recently, the central government has been criticised for taking steps to ‘muzzle the media’, from the raids on the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai following the broadcast of a documentary critical of the prime minister to the recent lodging of cases under UAPA law against newsclick portal.

A warning shot

• If a global giant could be so brazenly smothered by the ‘Mother of Democracy’ strutting around in her G20 baubles, the fate that has befallen tiny newsclick should not surprise too many.
• “Show me the man and i’ll show you the crime,” was the boast attributed to Joseph Stalin’s ruthless secret police chief, i.e., he could fabricate a case against anyone, even the innocent. Taking a leaf from the Bolshevik’s book, Indian government in recent years has conducted raids and/or arrests on journalists/ establishments on the grounds of-
• Money laundering (newsclick, NDTV)
• Income tax evasion (BBC, Dainik Bhaskar)
• National security (mediaone)
• Glorifying terrorism (Fahad Shah)
• Disrupting peace/ public order (Siddique Kappan) etc.

L’affaire NewsClick

• It is a particularly egregious case — the police landing up without a copy of the FIR or a list of the offences committed. Seizing the phones and laptops of the “suspects” against the instructions of the judiciary. A case of economic offence turning into a conspiracy to undermine the republic.
• So many questions can be asked, but just one is enough: exactly whose activity is “unlawful” here, the second estate’s, or the fourth? It reveals a perverse mindset which is so used to unfiltered propaganda that it sees ear to the ground journalism not as a public service, but as an avoidable hindrance. And it ticks all the boxes of media capture — harassment, intimidation, vendetta, vilification.
• “In furtherance of this conspiracy to disrupt the sovereignty of India and to cause disaffection against India, large amount of funds were routed from China in a camouflaged manner and paid news were intentionally peddled criticising domestic policies, development projects of India and promoting, projecting and defending policies and programmes of the Chinese government,” reads the FIR, with scant understanding of what “paid news” is, oblivious of the Reserve Bank of India- mandated 26% limit on foreign funding of digital platforms, and mocking the ₹49 crore that Chinese companies donated after COVID19, including to the PM CARES fund.

Contempt bordering on hatred

• During Emergency, censorship was so stringent that nothing could be published without approval.” The bottomless thirst for approval and approbation — and the limitless allergy for scrutiny and criticism — that the retrofitted witch hunt against NewsClick highlights, offers a useful chance for a hypnotised citizenry to pause and ponder: why is a government, which spends thousands of crores to promote itself through the media, so intent to crush the outliers, bringing disrepute in the eyes of the world?
• And why is a government which periodically issues self attested certificates of India’s growing prowess so uninterested in improving its ranking on the World Press Freedom index, where it now stands below Taliban-run Afghanistan, at 161 out of 180 countries? (In 2014, it was at 140; in 2022, it was at 150.)

Conclusion:

• The government must strike a balance between concerns on national security, money laundering etc on one hand and free speech of the press on the other hand.

General Studies Paper 3

RECENT CONTEXT

• Recently, Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) maintained the status quo on interest rates during its review meeting and retained its stance of withdrawing accommodation.
• The RBI prefers higher rates for longer periods for both domestic and external reasons.

Domestic reasons for upholding higher rates

• Food based inflation: As in the beginning of the second quarter of this fiscal year prices of tomatoes and other food items rised significantly and then it became more concerning with volatile and rising crude oil prices.
• The RBI Governor also noted that the transmission of past rate hikes — 250 basis points since May 2022 — to bank lending and deposit rates remains incomplete.
• These factors have nudged the MPC to hold its stance of “withdrawal of accommodation

External reasons: Hawkish policy of major central banks of other nations

• The continuation of hawkish monetary policies by systemically important central banks, particularly by the US Federal Reserve, and the rise in crude oil prices have been external triggers.
• Global central banks have been on their toes since Covid-19 struck.
• First, they had to ease monetary policy rapidly to fight an economic collapse, and then hike repeatedly to tame inflation.
• For instance, policy rates have risen only 250 basis points in India in the current cycle compared with 525 basis points in the US.
• Central banks in the advanced countries could likely err on the side of caution and keep rates higher for longer given the challenges in inflation control.
• The upshot of this stance is the US 10-year treasury yield soaring to 4.8 per cent, the highest in 16 years.
• This is attracting capital to the US and away from the emerging markets, and strengthening the dollar. The rupee, not surprisingly, has been under the pump.
• To its credit, India’s growth has held strong despite costlier crude oil, weakening rupee and pressure on food inflation from an erratic monsoon. Supply shocks amid healthy growth will keep the RBI cautious.
• It has already raised its inflation forecast for this fiscal to 5.4 per cent from the 5.2 per cent made in June.

India’s policy to maintain growth with targeted inflation

• India’s growth has held strong despite costlier crude oil, weakening rupee and pressure on food inflation from an erratic monsoon.
• Supply shocks amid healthy growth will keep the RBI cautious. It has already raised its inflation forecast for this fiscal to 5.4 per cent from the 5.2 per cent made in June.
• Recently, fresh arrival of vegetables in the market have corrected vegetable prices, and crushed those of tomatoes, causing angst at farms.
• RBI’s inflation for the second quarter at 6.4 per cent implicitly assumes around 5 per cent inflation in September

Challenges ahead in controlling inflation

• The concern over cereals, pulses and spices inflation persists given their double-digit readings.
• To boot, overall kharif sowing is only marginally above last fiscal’s level and lags for pulses and jute.
• With El Niño conditions predicted till year-end, is also alarming.
• The southwest monsoon also influences groundwater and reservoir levels for the rabi or winter crop, which is produced in largely irrigated areas.
• According to the Central Water Commission, as on September 29, live storage at reservoirs was 82 per cent of the previous year’s corresponding levels and 92 per cent of the decadal average.
• New hike in crude oil prices have emerged as another potential risk. India is highly vulnerable here because around 85 per cent of its requirement is imported. Crude prices have been very volatile
• If they rise and sustain at elevated levels, headline inflation can rise via direct and indirect effects of higher production and transportation costs.
• In addition, higher crude prices create upside risks for the current account and fiscal deficit, and a downside risk to growth

Conclusion

• The RBI has retained its GDP growth outlook at 6.5 per cent for this fiscal. Deepening global slowdown curbing exports, lagged impact of the series of domestic rate hikes manifesting and curbing consumption demand, and erratic weather and El Niño curbing agricultural growth.

What’s more, persistent supply shocks, whether from food or fuel, can transmit to other parts of the economy and broadbase inflationary pressures. Ergo, the MPC is unlikely to take the scalpel to rates soon.

General Studies Paper 1

Recent Context

• Every year, on 15 October, The United Nations’ (UN) International Day of Rural Women celebrates and honors the role of rural. It recognizes rural women’s importance in enhancing agricultural and rural development worldwide.
• But it is concerning that that India not only recorded one of the lowest female labour force participation rates (LFPR) in the world, but that it was also lower than other South Asian countries except Afghanistan and Pakistan

Status of women as per, Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data

• PLFS data indicates that for women in the working age group (15-59 years).
• As per data, LFPR is only 35.6 per cent in India with the participation rate being 39.3 per cent and 26.5 per cent, respectively, in rural and urban areas in 2021-22.
• Notably, from 2017 to 2021, women’s LFPR increased relative to men, particularly in rural areas because of the larger engagement of rural women in agriculture and allied activities
• Education and age group-wise classification of LFPR reveals that the recent increase in rural women’s LFPR is entirely explained by the increase in self-employment.
• Nearly three-fourth of rural working women were involved in agriculture and allied activities and more than half worked as unpaid family helpers (in household business without getting any payment) during 2021-22.
• Furthermore, married women were more prone to taking on the role of unpaid family helpers or engaging in domestic chores.

Vulnerabilities of rural women vis-a- vis Urban women

• Rural women working as regular and casual wage workers faced a higher gender wage gap compared to urban women and self-employed women received less than half of men’s earnings
• It indicates a higher gender earning gap as compared to other categories of workers in rural areas. For the self-employed, this gap has further deteriorated from 2017 to 2021.

Non- recognition of care economy and unpaid work of women

• A significant proportion of women are involved in unpaid but essential activities and are not considered within the labour force in India.
• Though this proportion declined from 60 per cent in 2017-18 to 46 per cent in 2021-22 because of the decline in women’s engagement in only domestic chores, in rural areas,
• one third of women remained engaged in unpaid domestic chores in 2021-22.
• The Time Use Survey (2019) reveals that on average, women spend over five hours everyday in unpaid domestic services and more than two hours in unpaid caregiving services in rural areas which is substantially more than men.
• Rural women also spend over seven hours everyday growing crops for the market and household use in 2019.

Vulnerabilities of women in agriculture sector

• Despite their crucial role in agriculture, the agriculture census (2015-16) reported that only 14.7 per cent of the operational landholdings were owned by women, reflecting the gender disparity in ownership of landholdings in agriculture.
• There is also a concentration of operational holdings (57 per cent) by women in the marginal and small holding categories.
• Owning land can enable women to get access to different agricultural schemes, compensation and relief measures in case of crop loss to sustain their livelihood.
• As, Various schemes, such as the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) and Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), are initiated by the Union government under the income support and risk management category
• But, the gender-wise beneficiary data highlights that only 15 per cent women farmers received financial support from PMFBY in 2023 and only 25 per cent women farmers received financial benefit under PM-KISAN.
• Since landowning is the major criterion for getting benefits of these two schemes, many women farmers end up excluded.

Conclusion

• Therefore, The unpaid, unaccounted and underpaid contribution of rural women, not only in agriculture but the overall rural economy, must be counted, along with the inclusion of landless, marginal women farmers in government agricultural schemes to combat gender inequality in rural India.

General Studies Paper 3

Context

• Today, in several parts of the country, ideas are being incubated that are leading to the production of novel public goods for people all over the world.
• Nowhere perhaps are the winds of change so strong as in the banking and financial sector. It has been at the forefront of the transformative journey of the world’s largest democracy.

Susceptibility of India’s banking sector to global challenges

• The past 25 years have seen high growth and stability, notwithstanding several episodes of stress from the dotcom bubble, to the September 11 attacks, the 2008 financial crisis, the European debt crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine War. These emergencies have tested the limits of human knowledge.
• India’s banking and financial sector has not been untouched by these forces.
• Over the last 75 years, banking in India has matured into a vibrant sector. The reforms over the past 30 years have been a critical enabler.
• Consolidation in the public sector banking space, the emergence of private banks, specialised non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and the emerging fintech ecosystem have increased the diversity quotient of the financial sector and made it inclusive.
• Banks have left behind the legacy issues of non-performing assets (NPAs) and weathered most exogenous shocks. Internal accruals have become a source of growth capital. With credit costs bottoming out, it is expected that loan growth will be healthy in the coming years.

Adoption of technology in banking sector and significance

• From following the bricks-and-mortar model, banks in India today are at the cutting edge of technology adoption.
• Universal coverage of banking through Jan Dhan and the widespread use of technology to deliver financial services through digital channels have transformed finance.
• Products like mobile banking applications, retail electronic fund transfers, UPI, Aadhaar e-KYC, Bharat Bill Payment System, scan and pay and digital pre-paid instruments have transformed traditional branch banking.
• The emergence of public financial platforms is going to give further impetus to banking services.
• The Indian banking system is currently moving towards a knowledge-based regime, enabled by AI and cognitive computing across all business functions and processes. The deployment of AI-enabled capabilities can help banks to personalise customer engagement and increase their ability to develop a deeper understanding of customers.

Challenges related to digitalisation of banking sector

• Adoption of technology in banking sector opens up a new set of opportunities and challenges.
• The fast pace of technological change and the structural transformation of the economy create regulatory blind spots and vulnerabilities
• If digitalisation has opened new channels of delivering financial services and creating product differentiation, it has also opened several concerns — from the mushrooming of unregulated digital lending apps to crypto-currencies and cyber-attacks.
• Ease of banking now comes with added responsibility to ensure the availability of critical support infrastructure for a secured payment settlement system, ATMs, internet/ mobile banking, dealing with cyber security risks, and addressing customer grievances all these ensure that banking services continue uninterrupted.

Climate change brings new responsibilities in banking sector

• Climate change has emerged as a major challenge for banks.
• The associated “equal but differentiated responsibility” of every nation has given rise to many initiatives which will drive the decarbonisation efforts.
• This opens up new business opportunities in renewables, city gas distribution, green hydrogen and trade in green goods to meet the challenge of net-zero transition.
• Banks are expected to be major financiers in the fight against climate change. Risk management practices of banks have to account for this new risk, more so when methodological and data challenges are significant.

Need for a skilled human resource to adapt the change

• In addition to technology, the main differentiator for success in the coming years will be the quality of human resources.
• With a dynamic and rapidly changing environment, the skill gap is widening. To address this, banks and financial institutions have to attract, train and retain talent.
• There is a greater need for employees to be flexible, agile, open to new technologies and proactively pick up new skills to remain useful.
• Consequently, upskilling and reskilling of human resources is a sine qua non to face the emerging challenges. This is where capacity building will play a major role in the financial sector.
• Apart from training, the financial services sector has to invest in research and be open to accepting and developing out-of-box ideas for seamless service delivery and hyper-personalisation of products. Banks and financial institutions will have to consider in-house data science labs or sandbox environments to test out innovative ideas.

Conclusion

• Recent policy initiatives of the government such as the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and the creation of NaBFID and NARCL have addressed market failures by creating institutions which provide stability to the banking sector in the long run.
• Therefore, The banking sector is leading the journey towards an Atmanirbhar Bharat, for equitable and sustainable development benefiting all that signifies the judicious blending of innovation and technical excellence for the benefit of humankind

General Studies Paper 2

Introduction:

• The landmark Women’s Reservation Bill — now the Constitution (106th Amendment) Act — that reserves one third of the total seats in the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies for women, contingent on the conduct of delimitation and census, received presidential assent recently.
• As the first law passed in the new Parliament building during a special session, it portends a new chapter in India’s democratic journey. It comes on the 30th anniversary of the constitutional reforms of 1992 (73rd amendment act) that reserved one third of seats in panchayats and municipalities for women.

Lessons from past reforms:

• Parliament, 30 years ago, enacted the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments that sought to make panchayats and municipalities “institutions of self government”.
• It mandated the following:
• a minimum of one third of seats and office of chairpersons in panchayats and municipalities to be reserved for women.
• reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Schedules Tribes (STs) based on their percentage population and enabled States to reserve seats for Backward Classes (OBCs).
• This has created a system with over 3 million elected panchayat representatives, out of which almost half are women. The expansion and diversification of the representative base of Indian democracy is the most successful element of these constitutional reforms.
• While the Union government’s 2009 constitutional amendment to increase women’s reservation in local governments from 33% to 50% failed, many States have enacted laws that reserve 50% seats for women and also instituted reservations of seats for Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
• Hence, presently in panchayats and municipalities, there is, at one level, vertical reservation of seats for SCs, STs, and OBCs and a horizontal category of reservation for women that applies across all categories — general, SC, ST, and OBC.

Intersectional disadvantages:

• Such a mix of vertical and horizontal reservations recognises the aggravated disadvantage people face due to their location in the intersection of their caste and gender identities.
• The present women’s reservation law, as well as its previous avatar passed by the Rajya Sabha in 2008, adopts a similar model of intersectional reservation for women. However, unlike the case of the 73rd and 74th amendments, the present law does not enable reservation for OBC women.

Impact of reservations:

• Beyond representation, has women’s reservation in local governments yielded substantive benefits?
• A 2004 paper by Esther Duflo and Raghabendra Chattopadhyay on panchayats in West Bengal and Rajasthan found that women leaders invest more in public goods and ensure increased women’s participation in panchayat meetings.
• Another study in 2011 across 11 States by Ms. Duflo and others reaffirmed the finding that women-led panchayats made higher investments in public services like drinking water, education, and roads.

Counterview

• However, a 2010 paper by Pranab Bardhan et al found that women’s reservations worsened the targeting of welfare programmes for SC/ST households and provided no improvement for female headed households.
• A 2020 paper by Alexander Lee and Varun Ramachandra examining reservations in Delhi found that constituencies reserved for women are less likely to elect OBC women and more likely to elect upper caste women.

Uncertain future

• Evidently, the impact of women’s reservation is not straightforward. The design of women’s reservations in Parliament and State Assemblies should have ideally been informed by its 30 year experience in panchayats and municipalities. Since the role that women play in local governments is different from their role in Parliament, the impact of reservation may play out differently.
• However, something as vital as a constitutional amendment for women’s reservation should have been introduced after widespread discussion and analysis of its experience, instead of being introduced surreptitiously through a “supplementary list” in a hastily organised Parliament session.

Delimitation and census

• Unlike the 2008 version, the present women’s reservation law has tied its implementation with the conduct of delimitation and census, neither of which have a definite date. The constitutional freeze for delimitation, that has been in place since 1976, will end in 2026.
• If the reallocation of seats between States is purely based on population, the southern States’ share in the Parliament will drastically reduce. So, the next delimitation exercise is likely to open up the fault lines of India’s delicate federal relations.

Conclusion

• Hence, coupling women’s reservations with a politically fraught delimitation exercise makes its implementation contentious. Hopefully, the near unanimity in the passing of the Bill signals that there will be some consensus on implementing women’s reservation in the near future.

General Studies Paper 3

Introduction:

• The ‘climate polycrisis’ — a term made popular by Adam Tooze — refers to the interconnected and compounding crises related to climate change that are affecting the planet not just in a few sectors but across several sectors and domains.
• It encompasses the physical impacts of climate change (rising temperatures, sea level rise, and extreme weather events) and the social, economic, and political challenges that arise from these impacts.

In India

• Here, one can see the interconnections between seemingly different sectors such as energy, infrastructure, health, migration and food production that are being impacted by climate change.
• Recognising the complexity and interconnectedness of the climate polycrisis, it is crucial in developing a holistic approach that takes into account the diverse perspectives and priorities of different stakeholders, while ensuring resilience, equity, and justice.
• We need a deep transformation — one that lays the foundation of a new economy that is sensitive to the planet. Just as digital infrastructure enables new startups and public services, we need to imagine ‘carbon infrastructure’ that creates opportunities for a flourishing future carbon regime that takes the flows of carbon into account in the formulation of policy at every level: household, panchayat, district, State and country.

Measurement as the first step

• The first step is measurement, for whatever cannot be measured cannot be accounted for. We need to measure carbon emissions from that of individual citizens to that of the nation as a whole, including all that is in the flow.
• Once we have a measurement system in place, we can build an accounting system that helps us balance our carbon books. Existing carbon accounting methodologies such as those championed by Karthik Ramanna at Oxford are already capable of tracking carbon balance sheets at the corporate level.

A national carbon accounting (NCA) system

• It is both an evolutionary and a revolutionary generalisation of these ideas. It will bring the entire nation, starting from individuals and households, under one carbon accounting framework.
• Imagine a world in which we file carbon tax returns alongside our income tax returns, or maybe only the carbon tax returns. Take a moment to consider the revolution in public finance that will be triggered when carbon is recognised, captured, valued, accounted for and taxed.

Carbon accounting

• ‘Money accounting’ is an integrated system, all the way from the spending of individuals to the Reserve Bank of India that helps us keep track of the circulation of money within the system. The keeping of accounts makes money visible and makes public finance possible.
• In contrast, the stocks and flows of carbon are not tracked at a granular level anywhere in the world. As a result, there is no possibility for a progressive carbon tax that penalises large buyers of petrol more than the average consumer.
• A progressive carbon tax requires us to keep track of the inflows and outflows of carbon, i.e., national carbon accounting. Carbon accounting is a way for companies to keep track of the carbon they are producing, removing, storing and offsetting. It helps companies keep carbon books alongside their financial books.
• An NCA will bring the concept of carbon books to the nation and will make it mandatory for businesses and individuals to declare/report their carbon inflows and outflows. It will make the circulation of carbon visible, and just as with financial accounting, other goods and services can be ‘financed’ using carbon surpluses, especially if there is convertibility between the carbon accounts and the rupee accounts.

A carbon GDP

• Once we have an NCA, we will be able to set targets, make predictions about future emission reductions and track our progress against those goals. We can speculate about a future national carbon budget that helps us reimagine the entire economy, including new technologies and new forms of collective action. Instead of the single goal of increasing economic GDP in money terms, as we already do, there will be a parallel goal of a carbon GDP which countries will try to reduce.

Way forward

• As a polysolution An NCA will not only help India meet its commitment to becoming net zero by 2070 but also help it and other countries (if adopted globally) create new livelihoods and new forms of organising its economy and society. Everyone understands GDP growth and, more recently, alternative measures such as Gross National Happiness (GNH).
• By making transparent the carbon footprint of human activities, we open up the possibilities of a new form of public discourse and an alignment between development and ecological sustainability. In short, an NCA is a polysolution to the climate polycrisis.

General Studies Paper 1

Introduction

• Circular migration is a repetitive form of migration wherein people move to another place (the destination country) and back (country of origin) according to the availability of employment.

The definition

• This effectively means that instead of migrating permanently or temporarily (moving for a period of time to complete any contract based labour) to another location, people move to different locations for a brief period of time when work is available. It is a phenomenon mostly among low income groups who migrate to avail of seasonally available jobs in another country, city, place etc.
• Circular migration became quite popular in the 60s and 70s with the advent of globalisation and development. Increased access to modern forms of transport and communication, social networks and the growth of multinational corporations have aided the advent of circular migration.

Migration can defined as circular if it meets the following criteria —

• A temporary residence in the destination location
• Possibility of multiple entries into the destination country
• Freedom of movement between the country of origin and the country of destination during the period of residence
• A legal right to stay in the destination country
• Protection of migrants’ rights
• A healthy demand for temporary labour in the destination country.
• One is called a circular migrant if you have completed at least ‘two loops’ between two countries.

As public policy

• With the increasing fluid movement of people, policy around migration is one of the biggest debates in the world. The movement of citizens from the Global South to the West in search of more employment opportunities or a better standard of living creates brain drain for their origin countries and competition for the citizens of the destination countries.
• Similarly, the flow of people moving from rural areas to more urban areas of the same country, results in the breakdown of infrastructure and agrarian stagnation. Therefore, migration of any kind has become a policy hazard.
• However, circular migration is now seen as the best way forward, as needs of development and individual economic advancement can be balanced out. It is seen as a balanced migration method which looks at migration not only from the point of view of the receiving country but also of the sending nation.
• For the country of origin, migration, especially international migration, is beneficial due to the flow of remittances which will boost and aid the domestic economy. The flow of foreign capital (eg, FDI) will enhance the economy, ensuring more infrastructure, more jobs and by association, a better standard of living.
• However, large scale transnational migration will also lead to brain drain, wherein the most talented people of your country will use their intellect and innovation for the advancement of another country.
• From the perspective of the host countries, especially those of the West, a lesser population and a higher access to education has resulted in a large dearth of low income low skill jobs which migrants have been able to fill.
• However, the influx of migrants have caused a wide range of anxieties and cultural conflicts in the host populations with most of them now calling for restrictions and outright ban on migration. Circular migration aims to quell all these fears.
• The negative effects of brain drain will reduce and a sort of brain circulation will be encouraged, wherein the individual can use his talents in both countries and still contribute to remittances.

Circular migration within India

• In India, internal migration, which is migration within a particular country or State, has almost always been circular. With the advent of jobs in the manufacturing, construction and services sector, there has been a huge flow of migrants from rural areas to urban cities.
• Between 2004–2005 and 2011–2012, the construction sector witnessed one of the largest net increases in employment for all workers, specifically for rural males. This has led to rural populations and their economy dwindling and urban spaces, while booming, witnessing infrastructural collapse as they are unable to properly house incoming populations.
• In India, the uneven development post liberalisation, has led to a lot of inter- State migration, with States like West Bengal, Odisha and Bihar having some of the highest rates of outmigration. Initially, while most of the migration was to Delhi, nowadays it has increased to southern States as well.
• Some reports have even stated how women get more autonomy and decision making power in the family due to the absence of men who migrate.

Issues with circular migration within India:

• However, in such migration, especially to southern States where the language barrier is a big obstacle, rural circular migrants are often at the mercy of middlemen or brokers. They are made to work in unhygienic and unsafe conditions with little to no protective equipment.
• Additionally, indigenous wage groups and unions resent these migrants as they are seen as taking away their jobs by agreeing to work for lower wages.
• The study also says that this kind of migration is merely subsistence migration — it’s the bare minimum. The migrants are able to barely provide for themselves and their families, with no scope for further asset creation or savings.

COVID-19 Pandemic:

• There is also a certain precarity associated with these jobs as they are seasonal and often irregular. A lack of jobs in the host States means that they will either have to go back home or look for work in other urban cities.
• This precarity was on clear display during the pandemic in 2020 when migrants en masse started walking back to their hometowns when a lockdown was announced.

It is high time that States start actively formulating policy to understand the extent of circular migration. While some States like Kerala have announced health insurance schemes for migrant workers (Awaz Health scheme), there needs to be more effort to ensure migrants rights. The precarity of workers needs to be addressed and there should be more efforts to integrate them in the destination States.

General Studies Paper 3

Context

• The 2023 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for developing the mRNA vaccine technology that became the foundation for history’s fastest vaccine development programme during the COVID19 pandemic.

mRNA vaccine

• An mRNA vaccine is a type of vaccine that uses a copy of a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA) to produce an immune response. The vaccine delivers molecules of antigen-encoding mRNA into immune cells, which use the designed mRNA as a blueprint to build foreign protein that would normally be produced by a pathogen (such as a virus) or by a cancer cell. These protein molecules stimulate an adaptive immune response that teaches the body to identify and destroy the corresponding pathogen or cancer cells.
• The mRNA is delivered by a co-formulation of the RNA encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles that protect the RNA strands and help their absorption into the cells.

The Nobel prize in Medicine, 2023

• It acknowledges the work that has created benefits “for all mankind”, but if we had to be stricter about holding scientific accomplishments up to this standard, the subset of mRNA vaccines used during the COVID19 pandemic may not meet it. Yet, Dr. Karikó and Dr. Weissman, and others, deserved to win the prize for their scientific accomplishments. Instead, their triumph tells us something important about the world in which science happens and what “for all mankind” should really mean.

At the expense of public funds

• Much of the knowledge that underpins most new drugs and vaccines is unearthed at the expense of governments and public funds. The cost and time estimates of this phase are $1 billion and $2.5 billion and several decades, respectively. Companies subsequently commoditise and commercialise these entities, raking in millions in profits, typically at the expense of the same people whose taxes funded the fundamental research.
• There is something to be said for this model of drug and vaccine development, particularly for the innovation it fosters and the eventual competition that lowers prices, but we cannot deny the ‘double-spend’ it imposes on consumers — including governments — and the profit seeking attitude it engenders among the companies developing and manufacturing the product.
• Once Moderna and Pfizer began producing their mRNA COVID19 vaccines, they were also mired in North American and European countries’ zeal to make sure they had more than enough for themselves before allowing manufacturers to export them to the rest of the world; their use in other countries (including India) was also complicated by protracted negotiations over pricing and liability.

On COVAX

• COVAX is the vaccines pillar of the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator. The ACT Accelerator is a global collaboration to accelerate the development, production, and equitable access to Covid-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines.
• It is co-led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
• COVAX, the programme to ensure poorer countries did not become the victims of their subpar purchasing power and had sufficient stocks of mRNA vaccines, fell far short of its targets. India, Russia, and China exported billions of doses of their vaccines, but their efforts were also beset by concerns that manufacturing capacity had been overestimated — in India’s case —and over quality in Russia’s and China’s.

Corbevax

• A counterexample to the path that Dr. Karikó followed is Corbevax: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, and the Texas Children’s Hospital Centre for Vaccine Development developed this protein subunit vaccine and licensed it to India’s Biological E for manufacturing. They did not patent it. It helped in the development and access of a low cost COVID19 vaccine to people of the world without patent limitation.

Conclusion:

• We cannot blame our scientists for trying to profit from their work; the mRNA vaccine could have benefited everyone during the pandemic, but it did not. So, history should remember what actually happened during the pandemic and what the 2023 Medicine Nobel claims happened differently.

General Studies Paper 2

Context:

• Recently in 2023, six new members were inducted into the BRICS grouping, in South Africa.
• 15th BRICS summit held in Johannesburg, 2023, led to the expansion of BRICS, making it BRICS-Plus. 6 new countries have been added to the grouping, i.e., Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and UAE.

Other outcomes of the 15th BRICS Summit:

• Adoption ofJohannesburg II Declaration on matters of global economic, and political importance.
• The first ever in person engagement with leaders of BRICS with the members of BRICS Women’s Business Alliance.
• BRICS Finance Ministers or central bank Governors to consider the issue of local currencies, payment instruments and platforms etc.

BRICS Expansion

• While many believe that this meeting did not have productive results, we need to look at BRICS from the perspective of how it has evolved rather than the results of one meeting.

Economic significance

• First, it is important to note that BRICS emerged out of an economic compulsion. It does not provide military or security support to various countries, is not involved in the policing of nations, and does not provide peacekeepers.
• The GDP of BRICS is now 36% of the global GDP and the population of its members will be 47% of the world population by 2050. Therefore, it is important to look at the long term opportunities that this group presents.
• More members could be inducted, which means that BRICS could pose a serious challenge to the dominance of the G7 comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S.

Demographic significance

• Second, two members of BRICS are China and India, which together contain one third of the world’s population. The two countries are the fastest growing economies and are expected to be among the top three economies of the world by 2030.
• Both countries understand that globally, bilateral ties have seen a transformation following the formation of economic blocs such as the European Union or ASEAN, as such blocs accelerate trade and investment.
• While India and China have bilateral challenges at the political and diplomatic levels since their standoff at Doklam in 2017, trade between the two countries has continued to grow significantly.

Search for an alternative

• Third, there has been some polarisation between the U.S. and other parts of the world. Many countries have issues with the U.S.’s stance against China: the U.S. seems keen to impose tariffs and create other barriers to restrict China’s expansion in trade and investment. China has made strides in certain areas like communication infrastructure and electric mobility, too, which the U.S. would like to contain.
• This is expected to get worse. Therefore, countries want to be part of a grouping that involves China too. In the BRICS grouping, China is not a dominant player; democratic countries such as India, South Africa and Brazil provide the counterweight.

Refugee issue, trade and investment:

• Similarly, the way refugees are being treated in Europe do not give a positive perspective of a world that is getting increasingly globalised. Countries such as the U.S. have flouted World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and have not penalised for the same. This means that countries have to look for other arrangements.
• As BRICS grows, there will be many trade business and investment protocols created, much like what we see in different free trade arrangements or economic blocs.

Global currency and de-dollarisation:

• Fourth, the U.S. dollar has been the dominant global currency all this time. With digital platforms making inroads into many countries, digital currency is clearly the future. Both India and China have made great progress in this field; they are far ahead of the U.S. and Europe. Both India and China are pushing for more trade, investment, and business in their currencies and together, through BRICS, they can push their own currencies as alternative currencies to the dollar. Freedom from the U.S. dollar is a big reason for convergence of India and China’s interests.

Africa: the continent of the future

• Finally, the continent that promises economic growth this century is Africa. The way France has intervened in Niger or the manner in which migrants have been treated in Europe provide Africans with a negative image about Europe. Visa restrictions have pushed Africans to travel to travel to China and see its development more closely than to Europe or the U.S. This makes them believe in China’s potential.

Conclusion

African countries continue to talk about the freedom they need in choosing partners for investment or trade. India proposed full membership for the African Union at the G20 summit in New Delhi. It is trying to push its own reach within Africa. BRICS will again be out of the news until the next summit. However, each summit generates some spark that provides the building blocks for different networks of people for the future. This is a group for the long run.

General Studies Paper 2

Context

• In introducing the three criminal law Bills in 2023 and, earlier, while setting up the Committee for Reforms in Criminal Law in 2020, a lot was said about the decolonisation that these Bills will bring about. Unfortunately, the Bills do very little to decolonise Indian criminal law. They do, however, indicate the continuation and intensification of colonial style powers.

Colonisation and law:

• Colonisation is, broadly, a process of oppression where the colonised become vehicles for the supreme colonial power to fulfil its desires. Those in power have rights; those without must oblige. The coloniser protects its own interests, not the subjects’, who are not just inferior but also suspicious. This is the foundational essence of colonial laws — to secure and protect the colonial state and not the colonised.
• The purpose of laws such as the Indian Penal Code (IPC, 1860) which the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) seeks to replace, was not just to maintain law and order; it was an opportunity for the colonial state to legitimise, through the law, its status as a potential victim under threat from the people it colonised.

The new bills:

• Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Bill 2023- To replace Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860.
• Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) Bill 2023- To replace the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973.
• Bharatiya Sakshya (BS) Bill 2023 -To replace the Indian Evidence Act (IEA), 1872.

Overbroad and constitutionally suspect

• A ‘decolonised’ or a postcolonial law, then, would necessarily need to reflect the changed relationship between the citizen and the state. An independent people are not to serve but to be served through the state and government they give themselves. This fundamental shift changes the process of lawmaking, and the priorities and purpose of the law.
• The Bills fail these essential requirements both in how they have been brought about and their content. The framework produced by them views citizens with such increased suspicion and mistrust.
• That almost all proposed changes to the BNS (like provisions on organised crime, false information jeopardising sovereignty, acts endangering sovereignty, terrorist acts) are poor is not just the result of poor drafting. It is an outcome of the state casting the net of what constitutes an offence as wide as possible, which in parallel increases the avenues to use police powers.
• Many of the ‘new’ offences are already covered by existing laws (either under special laws like UAPA, AFSPA, NDPS or the general IPC). Adding an additional layer of criminalisation, therefore, does nothing except increase police powers.

An expansion of suppression

• A notable feature of colonisation is suppression in the guise of security by giving the executive unchecked police powers. This particular feature is so deeply entrenched that the Indian state has only increased its police powers post Independence. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) — it repeals the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973 — expands those powers considerably.
• For instance, it allows police custody for periods longer than is allowed under the current CrPC. Some provisions of the BNS, such as terrorist acts, allow the police powers that are significantly broader than even those under harsh laws, such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA. The legislative increase in the use of police or police adjacent powers, including through other laws, is a continuation of colonial powers — not a route for undoing them.
• Enough has been written about the police and prison being relics of colonisation. Yet, the decolonisation that the Bills seek to achieve provides no scope for their reform. Without reorienting the foundational perspective of these institutions, though, calls for decolonisation will remain vacuous.
• Increasing terms of punishments across the board, as the BNS does, while broadening police powers borrows heavily from the logic of colonial criminal law. What this means for India’s severely overcrowded prisons and the implications on policing (how, who and on whom) are either non considerations or overlooked considerations.

In perspective

• The narrative of decolonisation surrounding the Bills must not be seen in isolation from developments in other areas of criminal law that are contemporaneously pushing us back into colonial ways and outcomes of lawmaking.
• For instance, laws such as the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022 which authorises the police to take measurements of convicts, accused and even those taken into custody for preventive detention, further the aim of colonisation — increased surveillance of the populace and increased control by the state.
• Though the idea of decolonisation must be seen in opposition to colonisation, that is not all it is. It is an optimistic endeavour brimming with the promise of a people shaping their own destinies. It gives effect to reordered relationships between the state and citizen. It honours and centres the citizenry. But, hidden behind the rhetoric of decolonisation of the criminal law Bills lie exaggerated anxieties of colonial power.