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.

General Studies Paper 2

Introduction:

• India is moving towards a future where the elderly will make up a significant proportion of society, primarily due to advances in health care and increased life expectancy. In 2011, about 9% of India’s population were over the age of 60. This is expected to increase to 12.5% by 2030.
• The elderly represent a storehouse of wisdom, and respect for their rights and freedoms benefits society. On International Day of Older Persons (October 1), we must resolve to invest in the health of our elderly population, and pay attention to their unique needs. This is especially true in the case of tuberculosis (TB), which affects over 25 lakh Indians every year, and kills at least 1,000 every day.

Tuberculosis (TB)

• It is an infectious disease usually caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs (pulmonary TB), but it can also affect other parts of the body (extra-pulmonary TB).
• Most infections show no symptoms, in which case it is known as latent tuberculosis. Around 10% of latent infections progress to active disease which, if left untreated, kill about half of those affected.
• Typical symptoms of active TB are chronic cough with blood-containing mucus, fever, night sweats, and weight loss.

• India’s National TB Prevalence Survey, 2021, revealed that the prevalence of TB in people over the age of 55 was 588 (per one lakh population), much higher than the overall national prevalence of 316. These findings were the starting point for a first of its kind rapid assessment report on TB among the elderly, which we published earlier this year in collaboration with the National TB Elimination Programme (NTBEP) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), highlighting TB’s impact on the elderly and the need for age specific TB guidelines.

How TB impacts the elderly

• Symptoms of TB including cough, fatigue and weight loss are mistaken as signs of other diseases or dismissed as signs of old age. The risk of having a TB diagnosis delayed or missed altogether is higher for the elderly compared to other adults.
• Once diagnosed, management of TB among the elderly is often complicated by multiple comorbidities, particularly diabetes.
• Challenges in accessing health services: in rural and hilly areas, they struggle to travel to health facilities by themselves.
• Their access to reliable information on health is also limited — social networks inevitably shrink for the elderly.
• Older persons also experience infrastructure related challenges such as lack of adequate seating and lack of disable-friendly public infrastructure.
• Crucially, they may not have access to high quality nutritious food, which is critical for recovery.
• Most people over the age of 60 are no longer working; they are living off savings or they are completely dependent on families. There are some social welfare schemes for the elderly but these are limited in scope and difficult to access.
• Absence of social and emotional support systems: Many older people refer to their fragile mental health, accentuated by the loss of purpose and connection, loneliness from losing spouses or family, and the anxiety of not being ‘useful’.
• Ageism has been recognised by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a cause of poor health and social isolation.

Way forward: Building age responsive care

• We design and deliver TB care that is elder-friendly in following ways:
• We must move away from disease specific, vertical care programmes to holistic care models that reduce the need for the elderly to interact with multiple providers and facilities.
• Build capacity among health professionals at all levels for an improved clinical understanding of TB in the elderly and better management of multiple morbidities.
• Case finding among the elderly can be improved through (a) effective sputum collection, (b) transportation systems (c ) access to mobile diagnostic vans (d) active case finding at geriatric OPDs, residential homes for the elderly and other institutional settings.
• Technical and operational protocols that provide clear guidance on diagnosing and treating TB in the elderly —sample extraction protocols, comprehensive assessment of comorbidities and drug dosage adjustments etc.
• To address socioeconomic needs, we must have support protocols, with inputs from elderly people with TB. Examples include (a) an elder focused community care model with linkages to local caregivers; (b) doorstep delivery of medicines; (c ) age responsive peer support and counseling for older people and their families; (d) special help desks for the elderly at facilities; (e) support with documentation to access social support schemes.
• At a macro level, we must ensure rigorous gender and age disaggregated collection and analysis of data, to identify TB trends across age groups, and to make sure that the elderly are included as a separate age category in all TB reports.
• An important step towards building elderly friendly systems is strengthening collaboration within the health system.

• Finally, we need a stronger research agenda focused on TB in the elderly, (a) to better understand State Specific trends in case finding and outcomes among elderly people with TB; (b) substance use; (c ) drug resistance and comorbidity patterns across geographies; (d) uptake of TB preventive therapy in the elderly; (e) and intersectionality with other aspects of equity such as gender, disability, class, and caste.

General Studies Paper 2

Introduction

• On the final declaration of the G-20 Summit, India missed a great opportunity to protect worker rights and advance the welfare of workers during the G-20 summit, despite the G-20’s Labour 20 (L20), a coalition of G20 leaders concerned about workers, holding two meetings in India.

An exploitative labour system

• The Indian government should have taken the opportunity to address the serious issues facing workers in India, such as forced labour, modern-day slavery, and the kafala system in the Arab Gulf where some nine million Indians are working under exploitative working conditions.
• The Arab Gulf countries follow an exploitative labour system called the kafala system, which ties migrant workers to their employers.
• This system makes it difficult for migrant workers to leave their jobs or change employers, and it increases the risk of forced labour and modern-day slavery.
• Portable insurance schemes are important, but they are not enough.
• Workers also need job creation, decent working conditions, equal pay, gender equality, the elimination of forced labour and child labour, an end to modern-day slavery, and the protection of their rights and the welfare of their families.
• It would have been a relief for the Indian working class, especially in the Arab Gulf, had these issues been prioritised and debated at the G-20.

The scenario of migrant workers in India

• India is the world’s largest migrant-sending country, with an estimated 13 million workers abroad. Of these, an estimated nine million are working in exploitative conditions in the Arab Gulf.
• But the exploitation of Indian workers is not limited to the Arab Gulf.
• In India itself, workers in a number of industries, including textiles, brick kilns, shrimp farming, copper manufacturing, stone cutting, and plantations, face forced labour and modern-day slavery.
• Many would be surprised with the term forced labour and modern-day slavery. According to the International Labour Organization, forced or compulsory labour is “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily”.
• It must be noted that India has signed and ratified the ILO’s Forced Labour Convention known as C29.
• In other words, forced labour is different from substandard or exploitative working conditions.
• Various indicators can be used to ascertain when a situation amounts to forced labour, such as restrictions on workers’ freedom of movement, withholding of wages or identity documents, physical or sexual violence, threats and intimidation or fraudulent debt from which workers cannot escape.

The underlying issues

• Workers who are paid less or unpaid for overtime, under the threat of being fired if they ask for it, are victims of forced labour.
• Workers who are forced to work until they have paid off a loan they took from the company are also victims of forced labour.
• Companies that withhold workers’ identity documents, such as Aadhaar cards or ration cards, and deny them access to the documents when required until the work is done are also engaging in forced labour.
• Issuing threats of sexual, physical, or mental abuse in order to get the work done is also forced labour.
• In addition, we should not forget that the move by the Union government to consolidate the labour laws into four labour codes is drawing protests from trade unions, civil societies, and workers, who allege that it will have a negative impact on decent working conditions.

Conclusion

• Addressing forced labour and modern day slavery is important for India because the exploitation of workers would increase inequality, unstable social justice and threaten democracy.

General Studies Paper 3

Context

• A total of 10 tigers (six cubs and four adults) have died in the Nilgiris since the middle of August. The inability of the state forest department to trace the whereabouts of the two mother tigresses has raised concerns among conservationists about the welfare of the animals.

The instances

• The first reported tiger deaths occurred on August 16 in the buffer zone of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) in Siriyur.
• After conducting a postmortem on the remains, forest department officials said that they suspect that the cubs, believed to be only two weeks old, could have died due to starvation or umbilical infection.
• The second death was suspected by the officials due to injuries after fighting with another animal. Another suspected incident of the tigers, a sub-adult, was found with injury marks, indicating that it too died due to a fight with another animal.
• After an investigation, a man was arrested for poisoning the carcass of the cow in retaliation for the tiger hunting the animal.

The concern

• In February this year, the forest department arrested four poachers from Rajasthan who had allegedly poached a tiger in the areas surrounding a few kilometres away from where the two tigers were found dead.
• In addition, the inability of the forest department to track down the two mothers of the six tiger cubs that died in Siriyur and Kadanad has raised concerns over their well-being.
• Camera traps and tiger trackers continue to look for the animals, but with little luck.
• One of the theories put forward by senior forest department officials is that the high density of tigers in the Mudumalai-Bandipur-Nagarhole complex of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve is pushing populations into the surrounding habitats in the Mukurthi National Park, Nilgiris and Gudalur forest divisions.
• This leads to increased competition between animals and more fighting, resulting in more deaths.
• Conservationists worry that this increase in population could lead to more negative human-animal interactions in the near future.
• They emphasise the need to regenerate degraded habitats that can be re-colonised by the tigers’ prey such as Sambar, spotted deer and the Indian gaur.

The response

• To allay fears that poachers could be targeting tigers, the forest department plans to set up anti-poaching camps in six forest ranges surrounding the Mukurthi National Park.
• There are also plans to begin annual monitoring of tiger populations in the Nilgiris Forest Division, with the population size, range of each individual animal and other parameters to be recorded for better management.
• They have also increased perambulation of areas surrounding key tiger habitats in Mukurthi and Mudumalai.

Conclusion

• The process of tiger conservation should be more dynamic and compatible with the future possibilities of climatic changes as well.

General Studies Paper 3

Context

• In its latest report released this March, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) delivers a stark warning: climate change heightens the global risk of infectious diseases.

Climate change, more infections

• Habitat loss forces disease-carrying animals to encroach upon human territory, increasing the risk of human-animal interaction and the transfer of pathogens from wildlife to humans.
• Viruses which do not harm animals can be fatal for humans.
• Nipah virus, which has been causing outbreaks in Kerala for many years now, is a good example.
• Over half of all-known infectious diseases threatening humans worsen with changing climate patterns.
• Diseases often find new transmission routes, including environmental sources, medical tourism, and contaminated food and water from once-reliable sources.
• This dynamic introduces invasive species and extends the range of existing life forms.
• Both these trigger upheavals in ecosystems that are complex and confound ecologists and epidemiologists to predict outbreaks.
• Human-induced climate change is unleashing an unprecedented health vulnerability crisis.
• India, in particular, has felt the ominous impact, with early summers and erratic monsoons causing water scarcity across the Gangetic plains and Kerala.
• These climatic shifts are manifesting in severe health crises, including a dengue epidemic in Dhaka (Bangladesh) and Kolkata and the Nipah outbreak in Kerala.

Surveillance and reporting

• Changed disease scenarios require a revision of strategies to detect and deal with them.
• The Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) was rolled out in a few States in 2007.
• From reporting 553 outbreaks in 2008, it last reported 1,714 in 2017.
• It was phased out in favour of a new, a web-enabled, near-real-time electronic information system called Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP).
• The current design of surveillance is not adequate for the emerging disease scenario.
• Mitigating the spread of climate change-induced diseases requires safeguarding ecosystems, curbing greenhouse gas emissions, and implementing active pathogen surveillance.
• A unified approach, termed One Health which integrates monitoring human, animal, plant, and environmental health, recognises this interconnectedness.
• This approach is pivotal in preventing outbreaks, especially those that originate from animals.
• It encompasses zoonotic diseases, neglected tropical diseases, vector-borne diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and environmental contamination.
• India must launch One Health and infectious disease control programmes by building greater synergies between the Centre and States and their varied specialised agencies.
• Animal husbandry, forest and wildlife, municipal corporations, and public health departments need to converge and set up robust surveillance systems.
• More importantly, they will need to build trust and confidence, share data, and devise logical lines of responsibility and work with a coordinating agency.
• So far, the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister has been taking this lead but with new World Bank and other large funding in place, this will need greater coordination and management.

‘Disease x’ and beyond

• Globally, there is an obsession with the enigmatic “disease X,” but it is the familiar annual cycles of known agents such as influenza, measles, Japanese encephalitis, dengue, diarrhoea among others that will continue to test the public health system.
• Climate change is not limited to infectious diseases. It also exacerbates injuries and deaths from extreme weather events, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and mental health issues.

Conclusion

• The re-emergence of Nipah in Kerala is a wake-up call, that mere biomedical response to diseases is inadequate. In the face of a changing climate and the growing threat of infectious diseases, protecting ecosystems, fostering collaboration, and embracing the One Health paradigm are our best defences.

General Studies Paper 3

Introduction

• The problem with the fertilisation of land is as old as agriculture itself. When early humans first began to engage in settled agriculture, they quickly realised that while crops require nutrients for their growth, repeated cycles of cultivation and harvest depleted these nutrients, reducing yield over time.

The change in practices

• This observation led to practices to restore essential nutrients in the soil necessary for plant and crop growth.
• Indigenous communities around the world developed methods of fertilisation, for example, using fish remnants and bird droppings (guano) as fertilisers.
• This changed in the 19th century, which saw significant advancements in chemistry, leading to the creation of synthetic fertilisers as well as the identification of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
• The Green Revolution of the mid-20th century accelerated the adoption of high-yield crop varieties and intensive use of these fertilisers, and today these substances are crucial to sustain global food production.

The issues with Phosphorus

• Phosphorus is scarce and exists only in limited quantities, in certain geological formations.
• Not only are we running out of it, it also pollutes the environment.
• It doesn’t exist as a gas, which means it can only move from land to water, where it leads to algal blooms and eutrophication.

Geopolitics and phosphorus

• The history of phosphorus spans its discovery in guano to current global supply chains.
• The world’s largest reserves are in Morocco and the Western Sahara region.
• But here, phosphorus coexists with cadmium, a heavy metal that can accumulate in animal and human kidneys when ingested.
• Removing cadmium is also an expensive process.
• As a result, cadmium-laden fertilisers are often applied to the soil, absorbed by crops, and consumed, bioaccumulating in our bodies.
• Studies have found that this accelerates heart disease.
• Only six countries have substantial cadmium-free phosphorous reserves.
• Of them, China restricted exports in 2020 and many EU countries no longer buy from Russia. So the market for safe phosphorus has suddenly exploded.
• This is one reason why Sri Lanka banned the import of synthetic fertilisers and went organic in 2021, later experiencing a sudden drop in crop yield that precipitated a political crisis.
• Today, India is the world’s largest importer of phosphorus, most of it from the cadmium-laden deposits of West Africa.
• Not all crops absorb cadmium at the same rate, but paddy, a staple crop in India, is particularly susceptible; Indian farmers also apply a lot of fertilisers to paddy.
• Other grains, such as wheat, barley, and maize also absorb cadmium, just less.

The phosphorus disposal problem

• First, only about a fifth of the phosphorus mined is actually consumed through food. Much of it is lost directly to water bodies as agricultural run-off, due to the excessive application of fertilisers.
• Second, most of the phosphorus that people consume ends up in the sewage. Most sewage in India is still not treated or treated only up to the secondary level.
• So even if the organic matter is digested, the effluent discharged from STPs still contains nitrates and phosphates.
• Of these, nitrates can be digested by denitrifying bacteria and released safely as nitrogen gas into the atmosphere, while phosphorus remains trapped in the sediments and water column.
• It is then absorbed by the algal blooms that grow in response to the high nutrient supply, and when they decompose, the bacteria that feed on them consume the dissolved oxygen.
• The result: water bodies become oxygen-starved, leading to fish deaths. The algal blooms are also toxic, causing respiratory issues, nausea, and other ailments to people exposed to them.

Finding phosphorus elsewhere

• Since much of the phosphorus is not actually taken up by crops, one way to ameliorate the phosphorus paucity is to reduce the use of chemical fertilisers through precision agriculture.
• Low-input agro-ecological approaches are increasingly proving to be a viable alternative.
• But there is increasing interest in closing the phosphorous loop by mining urban sewage to produce high quality phosphorus.
• Interest in ‘circular water economies’ has in fact prompted the European Union – which has almost no phosphorus reserves of its own – to rethink the urban water cycle.
• First, source separating toilets – almost two thirds of the phosphorus we consume leaves in our urine and the rest in faeces.
• Urine also contains large amounts of nitrogen and potassium. If we can collect this safe and concentrated waste stream, we could generate a local fertiliser source.
• Second, recycling wastewater and sludge – Sewage recycling already occurs in some form in India today.

Way forward

• The best way is to create a circular water economy. If the technology is cheap enough, can we give a concession to set up STPs with phosphorus mining plants and allow them to sell the fertiliser.
• And such changes, India can become less dependent on uncertain geopolitical crises; farmers can procure fertilisers at affordable rates; water bodies will have some hope of becoming swimmable and public health can gain from the consumption of food grown in cadmium-free soils.

General Studies Paper 2

Context

• The Parliament Standing Committee on Education tabled a report during the special session of Parliament on the “Implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 in Higher Education.”

About

• The panel met representatives of various State governments, Union Ministries, higher education institutions and other stakeholders to prepare the report.
• The report noted that of the 1,043 universities functioning in the country, 70% are under the State Act and that 94% of students are in State or private institutions with just 6% of students in Central higher educational institutions, stressing the importance of States in providing higher education.

The issues

• The 31-member panel tried to discuss issues such as the rigid separation of disciplines, limited access to higher education in socio-economically disadvantaged areas, lack of higher education institutes (HEIs) that teach in local languages, the limited number of faculty, lack of institutional autonomy, lesser emphasis on research, ineffective regulatory system and low standards of undergraduate education.
• The panel said that by 2030, every district in the country should have at least one multidisciplinary HEI and that the Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education, including vocational education, should be increased from 26.3% in 2018 to 50% by 2035.

The recommendations

• The panel asked the Union Government and the State Governments to take actions such as earmarking suitable funds for the education of Socially and Economically Disadvantaged Groups (SEDGs), setting clear targets for higher Gross Enrolment Ratio for SEDGs, enhancing gender balance in admissions to HEIs, providing more financial assistance and scholarships to SEDGs in both public and private HEIs, making admission processes and curriculum more inclusive, increasing employability potential of higher education programmes and for developing more degree courses taught in regional languages and bilingually.
• The panel also recommended specific infrastructural steps to help physically challenged students and a strict enforcement of all no-discrimination and anti-harassment rules.
• The Committee appreciated the manner in which the NEP was implemented in Jammu and Kashmir.
• It said that the Union Territory was among the first in the country to implement NEP from the academic session 2022 in all its higher educational institutions.
• The panel said it witnessed a paradigm shift in the methods of teaching, leading to lifelong learning opportunities to students.

The funding

• The Committee suggested improving the effectiveness and impact of the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) in funding HEIs.
• It asked the HEFA to diversify its funding sources beyond government allocations and explore partnerships with private sector organisations, philanthropic foundations, and international financial institutions.
• It recommended reviewing and adjusting the interest rates on loans provided by HEFA “to make them more competitive and affordable” for HEIs.

The multiple entry multiple exit programme

• The panel said that Indian institutions were likely to face several issues in implementing the multiple entry and multiple exit (MEME) system.
• The panel said while the MEME looked like a flexible system, which was being operated by Western educational institutions effectively, it might not work well in the country.
• If institutions allow MEME, it would be very difficult for the institutions to predict how many students would exit and how many would join midway.
• Since institutions would not know the in- and out-traffic, it will certainly disturb the pupil-teacher ratio,” the report noted.

Conclusion

• The report looked at the salient features of the NEP’s implementation in the higher education sector and the progress made so far.

General Studies Paper 3

Context

• India is to host the first-ever global summit on Artificial Intelligence (AI) this October. Additionally, as the Chair of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), India will also be hosting the GPAI global summit in December. These events suggest the strategic importance of AI, as it is projected to add $500 billion to India’s economy by 2025, accounting for 10% of the country’s target GDP.

The issue

• One area where India can assume leadership is how regulators address children and adolescents who are a critical (yet less understood) demographic in this context.
• The nature of digital services means that many cutting-edge AI deployments are not designed specifically for children but are nevertheless accessed by them.

The governance challenge

• Regulation will have to align incentives to reduce issues of addiction, mental health, and overall safety.
• In absence of that, data hungry AI-based digital services can readily deploy opaque algorithms and dark patterns to exploit impressionable young people.
• Among other things this can lead to tech-based distortions of ideal physical appearance(s) which can trigger body image issues.
• Other malicious threats emerging from AI include misinformation, radicalisation, cyberbullying, sexual grooming, and doxxing.
• The next generation of digital nagriks must also grapple with the indirect effects of their families’ online activities.
• While moving into adolescence we must equip young people with tools to manage the unintended consequences.
• For instance, AI-powered deep fake capabilities can be misused to target young people wherein bad actors create morphed sexually explicit depictions and distribute them online.
• Beyond this, India is a melting pot of intersectional identities across gender, caste, tribal identity, religion, and linguistic heritage.
• Internationally, AI is known to transpose real world biases and inequities into the digital world.
• Such issues of bias and discrimination can impact children and adolescents who belong to marginalised communities.
• AI regulation must improve upon India’s approach to children under India’s newly minted data protection law.
• The data protection framework’s current approach to children is misaligned with India’s digital realities.
• It transfers an inordinate burden on parents to protect their children’s interests and does not facilitate safe platform operations and/or platform design.
• Confusingly, it inverts the well-known dynamic where a significant percentage of parents rely on the assistance of their children to navigate otherwise inaccessible user interface and user experience (UI/UX) interfaces online.
• It also bans tracking of children’s data by default, which can potentially cut them away from the benefits of personalisation that we experience online.

Shifting the emphasis

• International best practices can assist Indian regulation to identify standards and principles that facilitate safer AI deployments.
• UNICEF’s guidance for policymakers on AI and children identifies nine requirements for child-centred AI which draws on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (India is a signatory).
• The guidance aims to create an enabling environment which promotes children’s well-being, inclusion, fairness, non-discrimination, safety, transparency, explainability and accountability.
• Another key feature of successful regulation will be the ability to adapt to the varying developmental stages of children from different age groups.
• California’s Age Appropriate Design Code Act serves as an interesting template.
• The Californian code pushes for transparency to ensure that digital services configure default privacy settings; assess whether algorithms, data collection, or targeted advertising systems harm children; and use clear, age-appropriate language for user-facing information.
• Indian authorities should encourage research which collects evidence on the benefits and risks of AI for India’s children and adolescents.
• This should serve as a baseline to work towards an Indian Age Appropriate Design Code for AI.
• Lastly, better institutions will help shift regulation away from top-down safety protocols which place undue burdens on parents.

Conclusion

• As we move towards a new law to regulate harms on the Internet, and look to establish our thought leadership on global AI regulation, the interests of our young citizens must be front and centre.