General Studies Paper 2

Context:

• The recent tabling of Bills on criminal laws has become a causa celebre. In as much as they set overdue reforms into motion, the Bills do well to amend the substantive criminal law as codified in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and Indian Evidence Act (IEA).

Special and Local Laws (SLLs)

• The offences and procedures outlined in the IPC or CrPC represent just one facet of a general criminal law and its vital to recognise that the most critical offences and procedures are encompassed within the Special and Local Laws (SLLs). Keeping SLLs away from the ongoing reform process is a major drawback.
• Cognizable crimes are categorised either under the ‘Indian Penal Code (IPC)’ or under the ‘Special and Local Laws (SLL)’. SLLs identify criminal activities that the state government frames for specific issues.
• SLLs have immense quantitative and qualitative relevance in the Indian criminal justice system. To illustrate, nearly 39.9% of all cognisable offences registered in 2021 were under SLLs.
• As per the Crime in India Statistics of 2021, of the total of nearly 61 lakh cognisable offences registered, 24.3 lakh offences were registered under SLLs alone.
• On the qualitative side, SLLs have given rise to several fundamental and pertinent debates, discourses and discussions regarding the limits on the state’s power of criminalisation especially in the context of violation of individual rights and liberties.

Need for reform in SLLs

• The substantive issues in SLLs are not only abundant but also varied. On the one hand, SLLs such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA) and the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, 1999 (MCOCA) suffer from glaringly deficient, ambiguous and vague definitions of offences and terms such as ‘terrorist act’, ‘unlawful activity’, ‘organised crime’, ‘organised crime syndicate’ etc.
• The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 is increasingly being criticised for its applicability to consensual sexual activities between minors. Concerns have also been raised regarding criminalisation of such conduct through SLLs which would otherwise fall squarely within the domain of civil wrongs or at best, regulatory wrongs.
• Procedurally too, it is through SLLs that universally accepted due process values are increasingly being diluted. Increased powers of search and seizure under Section 43A of the UAPA and the admissibility of confessions recorded by police officers under Section 18 of the MCOCA are prime examples.
• The stringent provisions provided for under Section 43(D)(5) of the UAPA, Section 37 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985 and Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002 make the grant of bail a near impossibility.

An all encompassing legal code

• Between the enactment of the IPC in 1860 and today, there has been a major shift in the canvas of criminal laws.
• The increasing enactments and application of SLLs represents an understanding of criminal laws which is out of sync with the original project of codification. The shift, in this sense, represents a major move from the idea of a complete codification of all criminal laws inspired by Bentham’s idea of a “Pannomion” — an all comprehensive collection of rules codified in a single place.
• The IPC was thus conceived to be more than just a legal digest — it was meant to contain within its pages all criminal laws of the time. At the time of its drafting, it was expected that the IPC would be suitably amended in situations requiring the creation of new offences, clarification of existing offences, and removal of inconsistencies.
• It is true that the IPC today is criticised for the retention of an archaic morality as well as the colonial roots which underpins many of its offences. The challenges to homosexuality under Section 377 in Navtej Johar versus Union of India (2018) and sedition under Section 124A in S.G. Vombatkere versus Union of India (2022) are all symbolic of the need to reform several aspects of our criminal laws.
• Nonetheless,it is hard to argue that as far as the idea of codification is concerned, the penal experiment in the form of IPC and CrPC has been unsuccessful. As successive governments place increasing reliance on the SLLs for a variety of reasons, it becomes imperative that the same should not be allowed to overpower the idea of codification of penal laws as imbibed in the IPC as well as the CrPC.
• All SLLs which criminalise/seek to criminalise a conduct should find a place as separate chapters within the larger structure of the penal code. All SLLs which create a separate procedure for reporting of offences, arrest, investigation, prosecution, trial, evidence and bail must be included either as separate procedures within the CrPC or as exceptions to the general provisions provided therein.

Conclusion

• Non-inclusion of the substantive and procedural aspects of the SLLs in the ongoing reform project is a serious limitation. It is imperative therefore that a second generation of reforms be brought in,in order to address the lacunae.

General Studies Paper 2

Context:

• By consistently championing the issue of having a caste census, various Opposition party leaders of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) have set the agenda on this one issue at least — which they have otherwise failed ever since Narendra Modi emerged on India’s national political scene.

Poverty as agenda

• From demonetisation to the idea of simultaneous elections, it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has established a monopoly over agenda setting in India’s political discourse. In response to the INDIA coalition’s persistent demand for a caste census, Mr. Modi has argued that he only believes in poverty as being the only caste and that serving the poor is his sole priority.
• According to scholars who work on Indian poverty, there are two kinds of poverty, i.e., economic and institutional. Caste plays a pivotal role in the perpetuation of institutional poverty because, historically, it determines occupation and skills.
• In the modern Indian economy, most occupations are network driven in which caste plays decisive roles in driving those networks, which is why a caste census is vital. This is also why Rahul Gandhi’s observation that such a census ‘is like the X-ray of India’ makes some sense. By not recognising that caste has bred poverty, Mr. Modi is turning a blind eye to a deeply painful reality of Indian society.
• It is not just Mr. Modi, but even the trickle down approach of the Nehru- Mahalanobis model of development did not recognise either. Therefore, nonrecognition of the organic relationship of caste and poverty has been a long neglected fact of Indian policy thinking.

Explaining the right’s reluctance

• However, the reason why Hindutva seems reluctant to have a caste census is because it believes it might open a Pandora’s box of claims and counter-claims relating to positions and power — about who got what, when and how. Such a census would serve as the enduring source for divisive politics and trigger a never ending process of social engineering that would upset Hindutva’s apple cart of Hindu majoritarian unity, which it has stitched together after decades of hard work through intense grassroot campaigns.
• Utilising the politics of religious polarisation, Hindutva forces are within striking distance of fulfilling their political dream of Hindu majoritarian unity, which appeared almost Utopian in the mid-1970s.
• On the other hand, secular political groups are also aware of the divisive potential of a caste census. For them, it is the most potent weapon among others to contain the growing electoral influence of Hindu majoritarian forces.
• The prospect for the revival of secular politics owing to a caste census is rather limited. It is a gamble from the point of view of a resurrection of secularism in India. It might contain the pace of Hindutva politics but is not the ultimate outcome that may lead to the establishment of a Hindu majoritarian political culture or a similar variant of state.
• The last time that a caste census was carried out was in 1931, a time when organised right groups were marginal players during India’s freedom movement. After Independence, there was a possibility for a caste census to be resumed in 1951. It is plausible that in the non resumption of caste census in 1951, the right might have played a crucial role.
• It will not be far-fetched to argue that there might be some overlap in the reasons behind why the word “secular” despite some effort was not included in the Indian Constitution, and the reason why a caste census was not resumed in 1951.

Conclusion

• Embedded right groups might have played their part at the time in their concerted resistance to India’s secular project. The present day resistance only echoes the same old reasoning but is much louder in volume, and more organised.

General Studies Paper 1

Context

• Earlier this week, we celebrated World Food Day (October 16), but we rarely look at food as a system. No country can better understand the challenges of a food system than India, which feeds the largest population in the world.

The interconnectedness of nutrition security

• While the primary goal of a food system is to ensure nutrition security for all, it can only be achieved sustainably if the producers producing the food make reasonable economic returns that are resilient over time.
• This resilience, in turn, is intricately linked with the resilience of our natural ecosystem because the largest inputs to agriculture — soil, water and climatic conditions — are all but natural resources.
• Appreciating this interconnectedness of nutrition security with livelihood and environmental security is essential to making our food system truly sustainable.

Nutrition, livelihoods, environment security

• On the nutrition front, India faces a double burden of malnutrition. At one end, despite making great progress over the years, a sizable proportion of Indians exhibit nutrient deficiencies.
• As in the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2019-21, 35% of children are stunted, and 57% of women and 25% of men are anaemic. At the other end, due to imbalanced diets and sedentary lifestyles, 24% of adult women and 23% of adult men are now obese.
• India has been stepping up efforts to reduce malnutrition, which has included even the Prime Minister calling for a mass movement to eradicate it. On the production side, farm incomes are insufficient to meet the ends of marginal and small farmers.
• The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and other forms of casual labour are picking up the slack, indicating a lack of skills or opportunities for income diversification.
• Further, depleting natural resources and changing climate are making India’s food production highly vulnerable. As in the 2023 soil health survey, almost half the cultivable land in India has become deficient in organic carbon, which is an essential indicator of soil health.
• Groundwater, the largest source of irrigation, is rapidly declining. In States such as Punjab, more than 75% of the groundwater assessment locations are overexploited, threatening the resilience of farm incomes.

Way forward: Adopt a three sided approach

• To solve these interconnected challenges, we need a triad approach that engages all three sides of the food system: consumers, producers, and middlemen.
• First, consumer demand needs to be shifted towards healthy and sustainable diets. We need to shift to a food plate that is healthier for people and the planet. The private sector drives the aspirational consumption patterns for India’s billion plus population.
• What corporations have done to mainstream imported oats or quinoa in India, can be done for locally grown millets. Civil society and the health community could partner with social media influencers who can shape healthier and sustainable consumption for millions.
• Alongside, the public sector, through its innumerable touch points such as the Public Distribution System (PDS), midday meals (MDM), railways catering, urban canteens, and public and institutional procurement, can help improve what at least 70% of Indians are consuming.
• Second, to ensure resilient incomes, we must support farmers’ transition towards remunerative and regenerative agricultural practices. The National Mission on Natural Farming is a step in this direction, but the overall funding for sustainable agriculture is less than 1% of the agricultural budget.
• We need to broaden and scale up such initiatives to various agroecological practices such as agroforestry, conservation agriculture, precision farming, and much more.
• Further, agriculture support should move from input subsidies to direct cash support to farmers per hectare of cultivation. It would promote efficient use of inputs, while enabling a level playing field for agroecological practices to thrive.
• Agricultural research and extension services should also earmark a proportion of their respective budgets to focus on sustainable agricultural practices.
• Third, shift farm to fork value chains towards more sustainable and inclusive ones. A critical approach to enhance rural (farm) incomes is to enable more value addition of agricultural produce in rural areas.
• Middlemen, such as corporations supplying raw and processed food to consumers, should prioritise direct procurement from farmers, incentivise procurement of sustainably harvested produce, and implement well established approaches such as fair trade.
• Various young agritech enterprises such as DeHaat and Ninjacart are enabling such farmtobuyer linkages. Moreover, since all farmer families in a farmer producer organisation (FPO) are consumers of other farming goods, enabling trading of produce between FPOs is another way to ensure a greater value share for farmers, as showcased by a few FPOs in Odisha.

Conclusion

Shifting an entire food system, however, is no mean feat. But the scale of the challenge must not deter our ambitions. If we act fast, India has a unique opportunity to showcase to the rest of the world how to get its food system right.

General Studies Paper 3

Context

• The G20 summit that was held in Delhi in 2023 agreed on tripling renewable energy capacity and a voluntary doubling of the rate of energy efficiency improvement by 2030. However, this Delhi Declaration on the climate question did not find consensus on the most contentious issue, which is the root cause of the climate crisis — of the phasing out of fossil fuels.

Energy transition

• Often, those who contribute to climate change are not the ones who are affected by it. Therefore, any mitigation effort must invert this carbon injustice by making the richer countries or richer classes within a country pay for the energy transition. While these two principles are articulated at the international level, how such policies and politics affect the domestic front do not get debated.

Indian position

• India’s stance on the matter has largely been framed through the lens of foreign policy and its approach to common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) in international negotiations, which allows developing countries in the global south to prioritise economic growth and development over climate mitigation.
• Given the country’s historically lower emissions, focusing on economic growth has naturally taken precedence over climate concerns. Such an approach evades concerns of climate justice within India, particularly its effect on inequality across levels class, caste and region.

Inequality matrix

• It is now well documented across the world that climate change and energy transition disproportionately affect the poor. The climate induced problems and droughts have compounded the agrarian crisis and allied economic activities.
• Variations in rainfall, temperature and extreme climate events directly impact agricultural productivity, compounding farmers’ income loss. Rising temperature in the ocean ecosystem has already begun squeezing fish stocks in parts of the country, hurting fishing communities.
• While the relationship between inequality and carbon emissions is complex, it is clear that addressing both environmental and socioeconomic inequalities simultaneously is essential for sustainable and equitable development.
• It is now evident that less equitable societies tend to have higher emission outputs per unit of economic activity. Given its highly unequal economic structure, India is falling in that trap.
• Global experience suggests that societal responses which are necessary to address climate change (such as public action and state capacity), are impeded in more unequal settings. The cost of carbon emissions, in terms of societal impact, becomes significantly higher in such contexts.
• Recognising and mitigating the barriers that these inequality matrices pose to effective climate action is a critical step toward a more sustainable and just future.

Greening development

• If climate change compounds existing inequalities, India’s energy transition policies, though crucial, will affect the livelihoods of the poor and exacerbate existing class, caste, and regional disparities.
• India’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) aim to ensure that 40% of the total installed power generation capacity is clean energy. The country has pledged to achieve netzero emissions by 2070. Such an ambitious target necessitates careful study of its implications.

Transitioning to renewables

• While renewable energy adoption is crucial, this shift should not exacerbate existing disparities. For instance, regions that are heavily reliant on coal production face a unique set of challenges. These regions often struggle with pollution, poverty, and low quality employment.
• It requires a deliberate focus on protecting livelihoods, offering alternative job opportunities, and ensuring that vulnerable communities are not adversely impacted. The emphasis in the Paris Agreement (2015) is: “taking into account the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs per nationally defined development priorities’‘.
• The skill sets required and the jobs generated per unit of output in renewable vastly differ from fossil fuel industries. Many fossil fuel firms are in the public sector and act as a critical avenue for creating job opportunities for Dalits and the lower castes in India.
• A shift to renewable energy can potentially halt this generational mobility achieved by these disadvantaged groups. To ensure an equitable and sustainable transition, strategies must target inequality reduction and green investment simultaneously.

Greening federalism

• Similarly, regions heavily reliant on coal production may lose revenues and livelihoods. This regional divide in economic inequality correlates with the energy source divide in India.
• Coal, the cheapest source of energy, is located in the poorer regions in eastern and central India while renewable energy hubs, powered by wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) technologies, are located in the relatively wealthy southern and western India.
• Despite the pollution it causes, the coal sector, owned by the public sector miners (85%), is the main source of revenue via taxes, royalties, and mining fees and employment for the State governments in Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.
• India’s energy transition strategy must pay attention to these regional inequalities, transfer funds to States dependent on coal, and carve out State Specific programmes for reskilling development and local rehabilitation needs.

A federal deal

• India’s federal governance structure implies that subnational governments play a significant role in addressing climate concerns. However, their priorities can differ significantly from those of the Union government. Examining subnational responses reveals how State entities are vital in tackling the challenge of climate inequality mitigation.
• State governments have been found to implement policies, including those related to climate justice, climate adaptation, and disaster management laid out by the Union government, that are often at odds with the development aspirations of the States.

Conclusion

• We must delve into the intricate interactions between fiscal federalism and climate mitigation to understand how policy alignment and cooperation can be achieved across the levels of government.

General Studies Paper 3

Context:

• A parent working outside the home must have someone to take care of their child. In India, family structures have historically often filled this need, with fathers working outside the home, and mothers providing child care and elder care.

Issues with existing care work model of India

• However, this model is not conducive to India’s growing ambitions. If the country is to grow into a $5 trillion economy, women must be included.
• There are two specific ways to get here: women’s work, often care work, must be appropriately valued, and women must be adequately supported to participate in economic activity outside the home.
• All women work, but not all of them get paid. Economist Claudia Goldin’s 2023 Nobel Prize-winning work demonstrates this across American history.

Time Use Survey (TUS) findings:

• India’s first national TUS released in 2020 by the National Statistical Office (NSO), finds that 81.2% of all women are engaged in unpaid domestic services, compared with 26.1% of men.
• It finds that men spend 42 hours on average on activities within the production boundary, i.e. what is traditionally counted as economic activity, whereas women spend 19 hours.
• However, women spend 10 times more time on household maintenance and care for children, the sick and the elderly — 34.6 hours versus 3.6 hours.
• There are two implications for this: working women face the dreaded “double burden”, where working outside the home and contributing to family income does not come with a commensurate reduction in household responsibilities, and the care work that they do spend time on is not counted in the larger economic estimates, leaving us with exhausted women with lower leisure hours in a week than their male counterparts.

Women’s unpaid work

• It plays a vital role in the economy: it is responsible for 7.5% of GDP, according to an SBI report. In other words, not only do women shoulder the burden of domestic work, but they also boost the GDP in the process. Yet in the official logs, they are not working.
• Governments should change the way they value this labour. India can call for and lead the change in the internationally defined System of National Accounts so that changes can be incorporated into everything from GDP calculations to Census questionnaires.
• When uncounted, women’s work remains invisible, which has implications for labour and employment policies. For example, statistical invisibility pushes household labour “outside the realm of protective labour legislation,” which limits the work day and regulates labour conditions. Women in India work 1.5 hours longer a day than men, mostly unpaid, often in unsanitary conditions.

Another facet

• There is another face to this picture: supporting women working outside the home. In low income families, single income households are often an impossibility — both parents work simply because they have to. This means that the breadwinner -caregiver model begins to break down.
• Low income women are working without support far more often than expected. This again is not reflected in the data because of volatility — women’s work patterns are seasonal, sporadic and irregular and they often contribute to family businesses from within the home.
• A study revealed that approximately 44% of women were part of the labour force when considering a period of four months, but only 2% of women were counted when considering an extended period of four years. Domestic obligations keep them from regular employment — and when they do, it is often with children in tow.
• All subsequent efforts and public funds directed towards education, health and skilling are then built on a weak base. The government already runs the world’s largest public system for child services, the remarkable Anganwadi system, which reaches 80 million children of up to six years of age through 1.4 million centres. These centres function best in a rural setting, where community members participate together. However, since they are only open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., women still need additional care options if they are to work a full eight hour day.
• A fast urbanising India needs different models to support its women. Creches offer one solution: as of 2020, the National Creche Scheme operates nearly 6,500 crèches across the country. Creches help mothers build stable careers, as well as give children — who would otherwise be exposed at work — a safe, nurturing environment.
• The private sector recognises this need, and provides services for high income families: the childcare/preschool ecosystem is an estimated ₹31,256 crore industry, expected to grow at 11.2% CAGR till 2028.
• There is an imperative, therefore, for the public sector to ramp up its already considerable efforts, to counteract the base inequality of income and provide high quality child services to all.

Conclusion

• Today, the women’s labour force participation rate (FLFPR) in India is 32.8% according to government sources and 24% according to the World Bank, compared to China’s 61%, Bangladesh’s 38%, Nepal’s 29% and Pakistan’s 25%. If India wants to raise its FLPR to empower its women, myths around women’s work must be dispelled, and women’s work must both be counted appropriately and supported fairly

Introduction

• Recent advances in Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) have captured the imagination of the public, businesses and governments alike. The Government of India has also, very recently, released a comprehensive report on the opportunities afforded by this current wave of AI.

Types of Artificial Intelligence (AI):

• Artificial intelligence (AI) is the intelligence of machines or software, as opposed to the intelligence of humans or animals. It is also the field of study in computer science that develops and studies intelligent machines. “AI” may also refer to the machines themselves.
• Traditional AI, often called Narrow or Weak AI, focuses on performing a specific task intelligently. These systems have the capability to learn from data and make decisions or predictions based on that data.
• Generative AI, on the other hand, can be thought of as the next generation of artificial intelligence. It’s a form of AI that can create something new.

Implications of Generative AI

• Leaders of the IT industry in India are almost certain that this wave of AI will lead to fundamental changes in the skills landscape, and implicitly, in terms of underlying threats and dangers. Concurrently, there is an exponential explosion of digital uncertainty.
• Cognitive warfare truly ranks alongside other elements of modern warfare such as the domains of maritime, air and space. Cognitive warfare puts a premium on sophisticated techniques that are aimed at destabilising institutions, especially governments, and manipulation, among other aspects, of the news media by powerful non state actors. It entails the art of using technological tools to alter the cognition of human targets, who are often unaware of such attempts.
• The end result could be a loss of trust apart from breaches of confidentiality and loss of governance capabilities. Even more dangerous is that it could alter a population’s behaviour using sophisticated psychological techniques of manipulation.
• Today, with almost a third of companies in the more advanced countries of the world investing more in intangible assets than the physical one, they are putting themselves directly at risk from AI. Another estimate is that with over 50% of the market value of the top 500 companies sitting in intangibles, they too are deeply vulnerable.
• As firms, large and small, spend billions of dollars to migrate to the Cloud, and more and more sensors constantly send out sensitive information, the risks go up in geometrical progression. Digital uncertainty is morphing into radical uncertainty and rather rapidly.
• There is not enough understanding of how the very nature of information is being manipulated and the extent to which AI drives many of these drastic transformations. All this contributes to what can only be referred to as ‘truth decay’.

The emergence of AGI

• If AI is the grave threat that the world is currently contemplating, we are only witnessing the tip of the iceberg. What is simultaneously exhilarating and terrorising is the fact that many advances in AI are now being birthed by the machine itself.
• Sooner rather than later, we will witness the emergence of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) — Artificial Intelligence that is equal and or superior to human intelligence, which will penetrate whole new sectors and replace human judgement, intuition and creativity.
• The impending dawn of AGI is far more disruptive and dangerous than anything else that we have encountered thus far. Social and economic inequalities will rise exponentially. Social anarchy will rule the streets as we see happening in some of the cities closest to the epicentre of technological innovation.
• It has an inherent capacity to flood a country with fake content masquerading as truth, and for imitating known voices with false ones that sound eerily familiar.
• AGI will enable highly autonomous systems that outperform humans in many areas, including economically (valuable) work, education, social welfare and the like.
• It is difficult to comprehend at this point its many manifestations, but job displacements and economic displacements would be initial symptoms of what could become a tsunami of almost all human- related activity.
• It is almost certain to lead to material shifts in the geopolitical balance of power, and in a way never comprehended previously. The spectre of digital colonisation looms large with AGI- based power centres being based in a few specific locations.
• Consequently, AGI-driven disruption could precipitate the dawn of the age of digital colonialism. This would lead to a new form of exploitation, viz., data exploitation. In its most egregious form, it would entail export of raw data and import of value added products that use this data.
• In short, AGI-based concentration of power would have eerie similarities to the old East India Company syndrome. We could possibly be at the cusp of an ‘Oppenheimer Moment’, when the world is at a crossroads in the science of computing, communicating and engineering, and the ethics of a new technology whose power and potential we do not fully comprehend.

The Hamas- Israel conflict

• AI can be exploited and manipulated skilfully in certain situations, as was possibly the case in the current Hamas- Israeli conflict, sometimes referred to as the Yom Kippur War 2023. Israel’s massive intelligence failure is attributed by some experts to an overindulgence of AI by it, which was skillfully exploited by Hamas.
• AI depends essentially on data and algorithms, and Hamas appears to have used subterfuges to conceal its real intentions by distorting the flow of information flowing into Israeli AI systems. Hamas, some experts claim, was thus able to blindside Israeli intelligence and the Israeli High Command.

Conclusion:

• The lesson to be learnt is that an overdependence on AI and a belief in its invincibility could prove to be as catastrophic as ‘locking the gates after the horse has bolted

General Studies Paper 3

Context:

• Many ecologists are incensed that an inordinate number of species have been included in the new schedules of the Wildlife Protection (Amendment) Act, 2022, without an objective or replicable process.

The 2022 amendment to the 1972 Act (WPA):

• Wildlife Protection (Amendment) Act, 2022 made significant changes to India’s 50 year old law on wildlife conservation, including in the number and purposes of schedules. It ‘rationalised’ the earlier 6 schedules under WPA 1972 to 4 schedules under the new law.
• Under the new law, Schedule 1, which confers the highest protection, contains about 600 species of vertebrates and hundreds of invertebrates, while Schedule 2 contains about 2,000 species (with 1,134 species of birds alone).

Issues for conservation

• The first issue with this listing regards conservation itself. The WLPA was originally intended to regulate the use of various species (including hunting), restrict trade, and police the trafficking of species.
• The original Act is written in this form, with research being an exception under the hunting clause. The new Act goes one step further by aligning itself with CITES, and including the CITES appendices as well.
• Nowhere in the Act is there a clear connection between endangerment and conservation. The listing of species has following direct effects.
• One, even if it were to have benefits for conservation, species would have to be prioritised. Listing hundreds of species of mammals and over 1,000 species of birds and innumerable other taxa means that it is unclear where resources should be allocated on the basis of this list. The same level of protection is offered to tigers and jackals, to the great Indian bustard and common barn owls, to the king cobra and rat snakes.
• Two, every action has consequences, and in law, often perverse ones. For example, the Tree Preservation Acts of Kerala and Karnataka proscribe the felling of native trees. Instead of promoting conservation, these Acts disincentivise plantation owners from planting native trees, and promote exotics such as Silver Oak, that they can cut any time they need to.
• In the case of the WLPA, a particularly absurd consequence of listing has been the presence of the spotted deer (chital) in Schedule 1. Common throughout India, these are invasive in the Andaman Islands and have caused untold harm to the vegetation and herpetofauna. But they cannot be legally culled or removed because of the WLPA.

Impact on people

• Various Schedule 1 species pose enormous physical, mental and economic harm to people. Crocodiles in the Andamans, leopards in certain pockets, and elephants everywhere kill people, destroy their livelihoods, and leave lasting psychological impacts. And yet people are told glibly by elite conservationists that they should learn ‘coexistence’.
• The WLPA serves to enforce this viewpoint. The new Act elevates wild pigs and nilgai to Schedule 1, which means that the few States that have now allowed limited culling of problematic animals may not be able to retain that policy. This shows utter disregard for the plight of farmers and marginal cultivators.
• The WLPA also has a restrictive view on hunting and the use of animals, even when it has been done traditionally for hundreds of years. Restrictions on use were imposed because those species had declined in numbers, but by the same logic, regulated use should be considered when animals are abundant, at least to support the livelihoods of local communities. But this is seen as unacceptable by the bureaucracy and abhorrent by many conservationists, with no consideration of science or society.

Issues of wildlife research:

• The third issue is that despite the support of many individuals in the forest bureaucracy, the paperwork involved in getting permits for research is tedious and time consuming. The listing of such a large number of species could have debilitating effects on research.
• Environmental NGOs will have a harder time getting permits for research and conservation, even of common species such as barn owls. It is not clear whether citizen science will be able to proceed.

Larger issues

• Unfortunately, while lamenting the impact of the WLPA on their work, some ecologists have often been insensitive to the larger issues at play. Although there has been considerable criticism of western scientists conducting parachute science in the Global South, many ecologists in India have been guilty of the same, swooping in and out of distant remote field sites, taking knowledge and biological material and leaving no benefits.
• Worse, we have often promoted policies that have negative consequences for the very communities that we exploited. The Act that poses a hindrance to our work is a much graver threat to the lives of the people that it impinges upon.
• In reality, all three issues of conservation, people’s issues, and research – need to be attended to, with different degrees of urgency. Those whose lives are at stake need to be safeguarded first.
• Management actions for species and habitats need to be tailored to ecology, species biology, and context. Often, this calls for research or at least regular monitoring by independent agencies, which is hampered by the scheduling of species.

Conclusion

• Finally, both citizens and ecologists have a right to observe nature and collect data if they so desire, as long as it does not cause undue harm to populations, and follows the basic principles of the ethical treatment of animals.

General Studies Paper 2

Introduction

• Franchising, or a business franchise model, is a contractual business model or relationship whereby an established brand, known as the ‘franchisor,’ allows an independent business owner, or franchisee, to use its branding, business model, and other intellectual property. Centralised procurement is a defining feature of the franchise model which enhances its efficiency and profitability.

Case of healthcare in India:

• In India Many countries and international organisations (including McDonald’s) have shown that a pooled buyer model for drug procurement addresses many issues that are related to price efficiency, stockouts and quality concerns.
• But for reasons that have remained mysterious for decades, the central government chooses to ignore the merits of pooled procurement when it comes to schemes such as the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (PMJAY) and the Employees’ State Insurance Scheme (ESI).
• Corporate hospital chains, on the other hand, are well aware of the benefits of pooled procurement. For years on end, they have conducted direct negotiations with pharmaceutical companies, and availed of significant discounts.
• More hospitals can team up to form buyers’ clubs, benefit from better bargaining power, and then, being not for profit institutions, pass on these cost savings to patients.

The focus in these papers

• A recent paper, “A National Cancer Grid pooled procurement initiative, India”, demonstrates the viability of just such an idea. Group negotiation, uniform contracts, and, finally, purchases by hospitals associated with the National Cancer Grid (NCG) for 40 drugs resulted in savings of ₹13.2 billion. Without pooled procurement, the cost would have been ₹15.6 billion, with savings ranging from between 23% to 99%.
• As the authors say with quiet understatement in the last sentence of their abstract, their study reveals the advantages of group negotiation in pooled procurement for high value medicines. This approach, they conclude, can be applied to other health systems besides cancer.
• The central government is not consistent in how it covers different categories of beneficiaries under the CGHS, ESI and PMJAY. The same procedure, for example, might be available in one scheme, but not the other.

The issue of price:

• It is not that the central government is unaware of the benefits of pooled procurement and price discovery. When the government (through the National Aids Control Organization or NACO) procures male contraceptives, it invites tenders from private manufacturers and then offers to buy from all those who are willing to match the lowest price.
• How does the government ensure that the suppliers are not colluding to keep the price high? HLL Lifecare Ltd., a public sector unit (PSU), with the highest manufacturing capacity in India, provides a benchmark price. All the bidders know that if they are not competitive on price, the government will just procure all its requirements from HLL and they will be left with unused manufacturing capacity — and as a result, face huge fixed costs and overheads.
• The government can follow this model for most of the drugs it procures. It has many pharma PSUs that can provide benchmark prices and also ensure that the government has leverage. Such leverage ensures that the government is not forced to buy from private manufacturers, given that there is competition from PSUs which can make supplies at a competitive price.

The issue of better quality

• Finally, in addition to cost savings, buyers’ clubs can ensure better quality by having the supplies tested independently rather than having to rely on the drug regulator to ensure quality. This is not a new idea; this is standard operating procedure for buyers in many developed nations.

Conclusion:

• Centralised procurement, or pooled procurement, is a simple yet powerful idea that has the power and the potential to reduce costs, ensure better deployment of funds in other areas related to health care, and ensure availability of lifesaving drugs in this country. It is an idea with both theoretical backing, and now empirical validation. It is an idea that India should implement at scale, and as soon as possible.

General Studies Paper 3

Context:

• Risk is a dynamic and ever- ­evolving concept, susceptible to shifts in societal values, technological advancements and scientific discoveries. For instance, before the digital age, sharing one’s personal details openly was relatively risk free. Yet, in the age of cyberattacks and data breaches, the same act is fraught with dangers.

Risks associated with AI:

• Our understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-related risk can drastically change as the technology’s capabilities become clearer. This underscores the importance of identifying the short­ and long term risks.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) is the intelligence of machines or software, as opposed to the intelligence of humans or animals. It is also the field of study in computer science that develops and studies intelligent machines. “AI” may also refer to the machines themselves.
• The immediate risks might be more tangible, such as ensuring that an AI system does not malfunction in its day­to­day tasks. Long­ term risks might grapple with broader existential questions about AI’s role in society and its implications for humanity.
• Addressing both types of risks requires a multifaceted approach, weighing current challenges against potential future ramifications.

Over the long term

• Yuval Noah Harari has expressed concerns about the amalgamation of AI and biotechnology, highlighting the potential to fundamentally alter human existence by manipulating human emotions, thoughts, and desires.
• One should be a bit worried about the intermediate and existential risks of more evolved AI systems of the future — for instance, if essential infrastructure such as water and electricity increasingly rely on AI.
• Any malfunction or manipulation of such AI systems could disrupt these pivotal services, potentially hampering societal functions and public well ­being.
• Similarly, although seemingly improbable, a ‘runaway AI’ could cause more harm — such as the manipulation of crucial systems such as water distribution or the alteration of chemical balances in water supplies, which may cause catastrophic repercussions even if such probabilities appear distant.
• AI sceptics fear these potential existential risks, viewing it as more than just a tool — as a possible catalyst for dire outcomes, possibly leading to extinction.

The evolution to human level

• AI that is capable of outperforming human cognitive tasks will mark a pivotal shift in these risks. Such AIs might undergo rapid self­ improvement, culminating in a super-­intelligence that far outpaces human intellect. The potential of this super­intelligence acting on misaligned, corrupted or malicious goals presents dire scenarios.

Ethics and AI:

• The challenge lies in aligning AI with universally accepted human values. The rapid pace of AI advancement, spurred by market pressures, often eclipses safety considerations, raising concerns about unchecked AI development.
• The lack of a unified global approach to AI regulation can be detrimental to the foundational objective of AI governance — to ensure the long term safety and ethical deployment of AI technologies.
• AI Index from Stanford University reveals that legislative bodies in 127 countries passed 37 laws that included the words “artificial intelligence”.

International collaboration:

• There is also a conspicuous absence of collaboration and cohesive action at the international level, and so long term risks associated with AI cannot be mitigated. If a country such as China does not enact regulations on AI while others do, it would likely gain a competitive edge in terms of AI advancements and deployments. This unregulated progress can lead to the development of AI systems that may be misaligned with global ethical standards, creating a risk of unforeseen and potentially irreversible consequences. This could result in destabilisation and conflict, undermining international peace and security.

The dangers of military AI

• Furthermore, the confluence of technology with warfare amplifies long term risks. The international community has formed treaties such as the Treaty on the Non-­Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to manage such potent technologies, demonstrating that establishing global norms for AI in warfare is a pressing but attainable goal. Treaties such as the Chemical Weapons Convention are further examples of international accord in restricting hazardous technologies.

Conclusion

• Nations must delineate where AI deployment is unacceptable and enforce clear norms for its role in warfare. In this evolving landscape of AI risks, the world must remember that our choices today will shape the world we inherit tomorrow.

General Studies Paper 3

Context:

• The Teesta dam breach in Sikkim in early October and the recent floods and landslides in Himachal Pradesh are a stark reminder of the havoc our development model is wreaking on our environment and ecology especially in the mountains. It is imperative to assess the worthiness of any significant human endeavour in terms of its impact on the environment.

Environment Impact Assessment (EIA)

• The basis of the EIA is one such process defined by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as a tool to identify the environmental, social, and economic impacts of a project before it is implemented. This tool compares various alternatives for the proposed project, predicts and analyses all possible environmental repercussions in various scenarios. The EIA also helps decide appropriate mitigation strategies.
• The EIA process would need comprehensive, reliable data and would deliver results only if it is designed to seek the most appropriate, relevant and reliable information regarding the project. Hence, the baseline data on the basis of which future likely impacts are being predicted are very crucial.

History of EIA in India:

• In 1994, the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) under the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 (EPA), promulgated the first EIA notification making Environmental Clearance (EC) mandatory for setting up some specified new projects and also for expansion or modernisation of some specific activities.
• The EIA 2006 notification lays down the procedure as well as institutional setup to give environmental clearance for the projects that need such clearance as per this notification. Only projects enumerated in the schedule attached to the notification require prior EC. An EIA is not required for many projects. This notification has categorised projects under various heads such as mining, extraction of natural resources and power generation, and physical infrastructure.

The case of the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR)

• Unfortunately, the threshold limits beyond which EIA is warranted for all these projects is the same across the country. Despite all levels of government being acutely aware of the special needs of the IHR ( (it serves as a water tower and the provider of ecosystem services), the region’s vulnerabilities and fragility have not been considered separately. Even the draft 2020 notification which was floated for public discussion does not treat the IHR differently than the rest of the country

Flaws in the graded approach

• The Indian regulatory system uses a graded approach, a differentiated risk management approach depending on whether a project is coming up within a protected forest, a reserved forest, a national park, or a critical tiger habitat.
• The stringency of environmental conditions proposed in the terms of references at the scoping stage of the EIA process is proportionate to the value and sensitivity of the habitat being impacted by the project.
• We have enough systemic understanding that the Himalayas are inherently vulnerable to extreme weather conditions such as heavy rains, flash floods, and landslides and are seismically active. Climate change has added another layer of vulnerability to this ecosystem.
• The increasing frequency with which the Himalayan States are witnessing devastation every year after extreme weather conditions shows that the region is already paying a heavy price for this indifference.
• The needs of these mountains could be addressed at all four stages of the EIA — screening, scoping, public consultation, and appraisal — if the yardstick for projects and activities requiring EC in mountainous regions is made commensurate with the ecological needs of this region.

Regulation and implementation of EIA in India:

• There is no regulator at the national level, as suggested by the Supreme Court of India in 2011 in Lafarge Umiam Mining case, to carry out an independent, objective and transparent appraisal and approval of the projects for ECs and to monitor the implementation of the conditions laid down in the EC.
• The EIA process now reacts to development proposals rather than anticipate them. Due the fact that they are financed by the project proponent, there is a veering in favour of the project.
• The process now does not adequately consider cumulative impacts as far as impacts caused by several projects in the area are concerned but does to some extent cover the project’s subcomponents or ancillary developments.
• In many cases, the EIA is done in a ‘box ticking approach’ manner, as a mere formality that needs to be done for EC before a project can be started.

Conclusion:

• Policymakers would do well to explore other tools such as the strategic environmental assessment which takes into account the cumulative impact of development in an area to address the needs of the IHR as a fundamental policy.