Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context:

A recent UNICEF report stated that nearly 12 lakh children could die in low-income countries in the next six months due to a decrease in routine health services and an increase in wasting. 

• Nearly three lakh such children would be from India — nearly as much as the countrywide death toll from Covid-19. 
• If this challenge has to be mitigated, India must use the pandemic as an opportunity to come up with long-term multi-stakeholder solutions to the problem of nutrition in the country.

Malnutrition in India

• Malnutrition refers to when a person’s diet does not provide enough nutrients or the right balance of nutrients for optimal health.
• The National Family Health Survey (NFHS 5) indicates that since the onset of the pandemic, acute undernourishment in children below the age of five has worsened, with one in every three children below the age of five suffering from chronic malnourishment. 
• According to the latest data, 37.9 per cent of children under five are stunted, and 20.8 per cent are wasted. It is a form of malnutrition in which children are too thin for their height. 
  • Wasting is defined as low weight-for-height. Stunting is defined as low height-for-age. 
• According to NFHS 4, approximately 9 per cent of children under five years of age in India experience diarrhoeal disease.

Causes

• Inadequate dietary intake is the most direct cause of undernutrition. 
• Poor sanitation: According to the World Health Organisation, 50 per cent of all mal- and under-nutrition can be traced to diarrhoea and intestinal worm infections, which are a direct result of poor water, sanitation and hygiene. Unsanitary living environments lead to chronic gut injury. 
• Poor hygiene and sanitation in developing countries leads to a sub-clinical condition called “environmental enteropathy” in children, which causes nutritional malabsorption and is the source of a variety of problems, including diarrhoea, retarded growth and stunting.
• Childhood diarrhoea is a major public health problem in low- and middle-income countries, leading to high mortality in children under five. 
  • Diarrhoeal diseases, intestinal parasite infections and environmental enteropathy together impact the normal growth and cognitive development of children, leading to anaemia, stunting, and wasting. 

Linkage between WASH and nutrition

• One of the first instances of the link between WASH and nutrition appeared in the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, which urges states to ensure “adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking water” to combat disease and malnutrition. 
• On the one hand, poor WASH facilities exacerbate the effects of malnutrition. But, on the other hand, pre-existing micronutrient deficiencies exacerbate children’s vulnerability to WASH-related infections and diseases. 
• WHO has estimated that access to proper water, hygiene and sanitation can prevent the deaths of at least 8,60,000 children a year caused by undernutrition. 

It’s evident that there is a direct, and irrefutable, correlation between sanitation and nutrition, and the sooner we acknowledge it, the faster we can work towards fixing it.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context:

Shedding its past hesitations, the Government of India has started an open, formal engagement with the Taliban who, by all accounts, will form the next government in Afghanistan.

Background

• Until the recent India-Taliban meeting in Doha, India’s engagement with the Taliban was through secret channels, open but ‘unofficial’.
  • New Delhi sent two retired diplomats to a meeting in Moscow in which the Taliban were present), 
  • It is quiet and unpublicised (an undeclared meeting of Ministry of External Affairs officials with the Taliban in Doha in June this year). 
• Engagement with the Taliban is useful in both securing India’s interests in Afghanistan (to the extent possible) and to potentially moderate Taliban’s internal and external behaviour (again, to the extent possible).

India’s Options in Afghanistan

• Given that a Taliban-led government is a foregone conclusion now, the international community must only accord such recognition as part of a negotiated process, a process aimed at moderating Kabul’s new rulers. 
• UN Security Council Resolution 2593, adopted at a meeting chaired by India, emphasising that Afghan soil should not be used for terror activity is a good beginning internationally. 
• The international community should eventually recognise a Taliban-led government in return for guarantees that the latter will abide by norms governing terrorism, human rights, among others.

Various Aspects of engaging with the Taliban

• Geopolitics and morality: Moral questions governing the behaviour of states cannot be divorced from the geopolitical power and location of those states.
  • While all states use moral arguments in the pursuit of their respective national interests, it is the moral logic used by the powerful states or coalitions that tend to win over the weaker ones, thereby becoming the standards of behaviour. 
  • Arguments stemming from moral universalism should, therefore, be challenged not only because they are patronising, but also because crude national interests often masquerade as moral universalism. 
  • Moral universalism may be desirable and even useful in certain contexts and for certain purposes, but it must be viewed with a critical eye. 
  • At the same time, one must also be careful not to fall victim to extreme arguments from moral relativism. Indeed, a healthy conversation between universalism and relativism could produce politically useful moral arguments.
• Range of Undesirables: The point of diplomacy, after all, is also to engage with the undesirables to try and change their positions. 
  • As a matter of fact, entities, individuals and states do change as a result of sustained negotiations. 
  • Whether or not legitimacy and recognition will temper an outfit with a violent past like the Taliban is indeed a challenging question. But one will have to make a call based on available alternatives and potential outcomes; not based on quixotic notions of moral universalism.
• A difficult art: There is a larger argument for reaching out to undesirable/rogue elements — to build peace and resolve conflicts. 
  • Notwithstanding what they say, democratic governments have routinely negotiated with terrorists, secretly or openly. 
  • Consider examples from the British government’s secret talks with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) while the IRA was still carrying out attacks against the U.K., to the Spanish government’s talks with the Basque Homeland and Freedom even after the latter’s violence killing civilians, to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam-Sri Lankan government negotiations in the 2000s. 
  • Talking to the undesirables is a time-tested phenomenon. More importantly, peace-building is not always a morally black-and-white business. Often enough, the process of conflict resolution can be morally challenging, politically complicated and involves difficult choices.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context:

Chief Justice of India said certain sections of the media communalised everything and this would ultimately result in giving the country a bad name.

• SC is hearing petitions highlighting how some media outlets aired communal content linking the spread of the coronavirus to a Tablighi Jamaat meet held at Nizamuddin in Delhi.

Key points:

• The Chief Justice pointed to the lack of accountability on the part of social media platforms. The court asked the government whether there was any regulatory mechanism in place for the web.
• Government’s response:
  • It drew the court’s attention to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which provide a redressal mechanism and timely resolution of grievances of users of social media and over-the-top platforms. 
  • The government brought video streaming over-the-top (OTT) platforms under the ambit of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
  • It also referred to the Cable Television Networks (Amendment) Rules of 2021.
  • The real challenge is the balance between the freedom of the press and the right of citizens to get unadulterated news.

Communal content in media

• The communalisation of news is partly because of decisions taken in some newsrooms and boardrooms to do so. 
  • But the risk is not merely reputational. The Tablighi Jamaat was demonised, and an attempt was made to manipulate the fears already stoked by a little known virus to deepen communal polarisation. 
  • The prime suspects were TV channels. But the state is part of the problem here, not the solution. 
  • Some sections of the media proudly fashion themselves as spokespersons of the state and allow themselves to be weaponized by it. 
• Contrary to the Centre’s defence of the new IT Rules, which attempts to draw a line between freedom of the press and the rights of the audience “who believe and act upon misleading news”.
  • The freedom of the press is an essential and inextricable part of the people’s right to know.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context:

Globalization and industrialization have uprooted villages, disrupted ancient cultures and forced Tribals to give up their traditional occupations.

Tribal population in India:

• The tribal population in India, although a small minority, represents an enormous diversity of groups. 
• They vary in language and linguistic traits, ecological settings in which they live, physical features, size of the population, the extent of acculturation, dominant modes of making a livelihood, level of development and social stratification.
• They are also spread over the length and breadth of the country though their geographical distribution is far from uniform. 
• The Kaka Kalelkar Commission of 1953 was the first to suggest the recognition of STs as an exclusive group of no certain religion. 
• A majority of the Scheduled Tribe population is concentrated in the eastern, central and western belt covering the nine States of Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. 
• About 12 percent inhabit the North-eastern region, about five percent in the Southern region and about three percent in the Northern States.

Constitutional provisions for tribals:

• The Constitution does not define the criteria for recognition of Scheduled Tribes.
• Article 366 (25) defined scheduled tribes as “such tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this constitution”.
  • Article 342(1): The President may with respect to any State or Union Territory, and where it is a State, after consultation with the Governor, by a public notification, specifies the tribes or tribal communities or part of or groups within tribes or tribal communities as Scheduled Tribe in relation to that State or Union Territory.
• Article 46 of the Constitution provides that the State shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the society and in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation.
• Reservation in educational institutions has been provided in Article 15(4) while reservation in posts and services has been provided in Article 16(4), 16(4A) and 16(4B) of the Constitution.
• Part 10 of the Indian Constitution entails the provisions related to Scheduled and Tribal Areas with Articles 244 – 244 A. The President is empowered to declare an area as Scheduled Area.
• Tribal Areas
• Areas where Schedule Tribes are numerically dominant, two distinct administrative arrangements have been provided for them in the Constitution in the form of the Fifth and Sixth Schedules.
• The Fifth Schedule of the Constitution deals with the administration and control of Scheduled Areas as well as of Scheduled Tribes residing in any State other than the States of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
  • It provides for establishment of a Tribes Advisory Council (TAC) in any State having Scheduled Areas.
  • The States with Fifth Schedule Areas are Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan and Telangana.
• The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution provides for the administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram to safeguard the rights of the tribal population in these states.

• This special provision is provided under Article 244(2) and Article 275(1) of the Constitution.
• The Sixth Schedule provides for autonomy in the administration of these areas through Autonomous District Councils (ADCs).

• Panchayats (Extension of Scheduled Areas) Act of 1995, or PESA, confers upon village gram sabhas the powers of development and dispute resolution (as per traditional customs), as also the ownership and management of natural resources under local Tribal communities.
• PESA is a Central legislation that extends the Provisions of the Panchayats, as given in Part IX of the Constitution to the Fifth Schedule Areas with certain modifications and exemptions. These areas have a preponderance of tribal population. 

• Article 164(1) provides that in the States of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha there shall be a Minister in charge of tribal welfare who may in addition be in charge of the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and backward classes or any other work.
• Articles 330 & 332 of the Constitution reserve seats for STs in Scheduled areas, thus granting them representation to safeguard their rights and interests. This applies both at the national and grassroots level. 
• The 89th Amendment introduced the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes that derives its power from Article 338A, which is handled by panellists from Tribal communities. 
• Article 371A has special provisions with respect to the State of Nagaland.
• Article 371B has special provisions with respect to the State of Assam.
• Article 371C has special provisions with respect to the State of Manipur.
• Article 371F has special provisions with respect to Sikkim.

The marginalization of Tribals:

• It can be traced back to the British Raj, when the state had a free hand in controlling estates and forest resources. 
• In Independent India mass tribal land acquisitions were done in the name of ‘developmental projects’. Many tribes have become migrant wage workers in unorganized-sector units.
• India has not ratified the International Labour Organization’s 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, which recognizes Tribal rights over land and natural resources. 
• Urbanisation: Unbridled interaction between tribes and the general population has resulted in indigenous cultures being suppressed. 
• Yet, a largely protective approach of isolation amounts to the promotion of primitivism and denying tribals the fruits of development.
• Left-Wing Extremism (LWE): Among the 83 LWE-affected districts, 42 districts have Scheduled Areas. There is exploitation and oppression by traders and money lenders, on the one hand, and absence of an effective and sensitive civil administration.

Various commissions’ recommendations:

• The Scheduled Tribes Commission (1961) endorsed Tribal Panchsheel and made recommendations within the framework of Panchsheel like rights over land, forest, rehabilitation, etc.
• The Elwin panel of 1959, United Nations Debar Commission of 1960, Lokur Committee of 1965 and Shilu Ao panel of 1966 focused largely on tribal development, governance mechanisms and welfare systems. 
• The Bhuria Committee Report of 1991 paved the way for PESA’s enactment, which, with its objective of democratic decentralization, further fortified Tribal interests. 
• The Bandhopadhyay and Mungekar Committee was constituted to examine governance issues in Scheduled areas affected by extremism. 
• In 2014, the Xaxa Committee was constituted to look extensively into Tribal livelihood, employment, health, migration and legal matters. 
  • The five critical issues: (1) livelihood and employment, (2) education, (3) health, (4) involuntary displacement and migration, (5) and legal and constitutional matters have been studied by the Xaxa Committee.
  • The Committee recommended five criteria for identification, namely, primitive traits, distinct culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large, and backwardness.
  • It noted that PESA and the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006, even though significant initiatives are slow to absorb evolving circumstances.
    • The Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 recognizes the rights of the forest dwelling tribal communities and other traditional forest dwellers to forest resources, on which these communities were dependent for a variety of needs, including livelihood, habitation and other socio-cultural needs.
  • Subjects such as land acquisition, food security, detention and imprisonment, the status of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) and De-notified Tribes, have also been highlighted.

Supreme Court judgments:

• The Supreme Court in Samatha vs State of Andhra Pradesh (1997) held that the granting of a mining lease in a Scheduled area by a state amounts to a transfer of land to a ‘non-Tribal’ in violation of the Fifth Schedule. 
• The court in Orissa Mining Corporation vs. The Ministry of Environment and Forests held that forest dwellers and STs have a right under the FRA to be consulted before their ancient homelands are converted to commercial lands. 

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context:

Caught on a now-viral video, ordering police to “break the heads” of farmer protesters, a Haryana bureaucrat achieved notoriety last week. 

• His vulgar display of State power needs to be understood in this larger context of culture and norms that govern relationships between the bureaucracy and the public. 
• He is an inevitable consequence of a corrosive culture that distances the State from the public and legitimises demands for public “discipline” to achieve policy goals.

Recent examples of high handedness by officers

• District magistrates have been caught on camera slapping errant citizens, spraying them with sanitisers, and smashing their phones, all in a bid to secure “public cooperation” to comply with lockdown rules.
• The Haryana chief minister (CM)’s insistence on “strictness” to maintain law and order, speaks volumes for how the State has demonised farmer protesters and their right to protest.
• These incidents are merely extreme illustrations of this widely prevalent legalistic culture.

“Deliberative” vs “legalistic” norms: 

• Deliberative norms promote a culture of dialogue and collective problem solving where bureaucracy engages the public. 
  • Citizens are partners, not passive subjects of administration. 
• Legalistic norms privilege compliance, rule-following, and deference to hierarchy. Performance is understood as adherence to procedure. Hierarchy is deployed to exercise power and trust is replaced with a desire for discipline.
  • Legalistic norms shape much of the Indian bureaucracy. Command and control are the means through which accountability is extracted within the bureaucracy. Technology has aided and abetted this culture.

Interaction between the bureaucracy and the public in managing the pandemic 

• A recently conducted survey by the Centre for Policy Research to capture perceptions of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) on public administration during the pandemic illustrates this phenomenon. 
• When asked about imposing lockdown rules and interacting with the public, 45% of responding IAS officers stated that it was through the “fear of law”, rather than willingness and cooperation, that compliance to lockdown rules was ensured. 
  • This, despite widespread acknowledgement of the importance of public communication. Discipline was still valued over possibilities of cooperation. 
• Bureaucrats in poorer states, where capacity is considered weak — Assam, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh — gave greater weightage to the fear of law.
  • They also pointed to an important relationship between State capacity and the fostering of legalistic norms.
  • In states such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Himachal Pradesh, Bureaucrats expressed greater faith in public understanding and cooperation in complying with lockdown rules. 
• Poor public health outcomes: Social norms, values, and practices were expressed as the real barriers to expanded testing. And while officers acknowledged the limitations of State capacity and communication failure, much of the responsibility and, significantly, blame was placed on the public.

Syllabus: General studies paper 1

Context:

The Government of India has decided as a matter of policy not to enumerate caste-wise populations other than SCs and STs in Census 2021.

• The demand for caste census usually comes from among those belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBC) and other deprived sections, while sections from the upper castes oppose the idea.
• Also Backward class Muslims have demanded that all religions in India be counted according to their caste category

Background:

• Every Census in independent India from 1951 to 2011 has published data on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but not on other castes. Before that, every Census until 1931 had data on caste.
• However, in 1941, caste-based data was collected but not published. 
• The Mandal Commission estimated the OBC population at 52%, some other estimates have been based on National Sample Survey data.

Need for a caste census:

• Social and legal necessity: 
  • Broader caste information is a necessity to capture contemporary Indian society and to understand and remedy inequalities.
  • There is a need for understanding of castes from the local, to the regional and to the national scale. 
  • There is a need to understand the nuances that shape caste and simultaneously the ways in which caste shapes everyday life in India.
• Affirmative actions: The Supreme Court has been asking States to produce quantifiable data to justify their levels of caste based reservation.
  • In the absence of such a census, there is no proper estimate for the population of OBCs, various groups within the OBCs, and others. 
  • The constitutional body National Commission for Backward Classes urged the government to collect data on the population of OBCs “as part of Census of India 2021 exercise”
• Dalit Muslims: Pasmanda Muslims have demanded a caste census of Muslim community in India too, to better access developmental funding aimed at minorities for a real targeting of benefits, and a real democratisation among Muslims.
  • Indian Muslims, too, are victims of caste-based stratification, and are divided into three main classes and hundreds of biradaris. 
  • Backward class Muslims can avail themselves of reservations only in the OBC category.

Government’s stand

• The Union of India after Independence decided as a matter of policy not to enumerate caste wise population other than SCs and STs.
• Variable lists of OBCs: There is a Central list of OBCs and State-specific list of OBCs. Some States do not have a list of OBCs; some States have a list of OBCs and a sub-set called Most Backward Classes. 
  • The status of a migrant from one State to another and the status of children of inter-caste marriage, in terms of caste classification, are also vexed questions.

Challenges:

• A large administrative exercise of capturing caste and its complexities is not only difficult but also socially untenable. 
• Political and social repercussions of a caste census: There have been concerns that counting caste may help solidify caste and communal divisions in Indian society. 
• Difficult to measure: Caste may be context-specific, and thus difficult to measure.  The other concern is whether an institution such as caste can even be captured completely by the Census.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2021 analysis shows that the window of opportunity to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius to avoid the worst impacts of climate change is closing.

• We need success stories, peer learning, and technologies that will help us move to a zero-emissions economy by 2050 and halve humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. 
• Israel remains a leader in climate-change technology.

Key points of IPCC report:

• The average global temperature rise in 2021 is projected to be about 1.2 degrees Celsius above that of the pre-industrial period. 
• The average surface temperature of the Earth will cross 1.5 °C over pre-industrial levels in the next 20 years (By 2040) and 2°C by the middle of the century without sharp reduction of emissions.
• It noted that global net-zero by 2050 was the minimum required to keep the temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius.
  • A net zero emission target implies that all human-caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are balanced out by removing GHGs from the atmosphere in a process known as carbon removal.

Recent climate change phenomenons:

• While massive floods in Germany and Western Europe claimed the lives of hundreds, entire villages in India were washed away by monsoon rains. 
• Sardinia, Greece, Turkey, Australia, US and Siberia were hit by widespread fires. 
• In California and Canada, temperatures reached unthinkable records of above 50 degrees Celsius. 

Concerns for India:

• In India, the Himalayan glaciers, the source of major rivers and aquifers supplying water to hundreds of millions of Indians, are disappearing at an alarming rate. 
• Climate change will increase the risks in low-lying coastal zones due to cyclones and coastal and inland flooding, storm surges and sea-level rise, threatening communities along the Indian coastline.
• The increased frequency of extreme events such as floods and droughts will have a severe impact on India’s agriculture and water resources, food security and the prosperity of rural communities. 

Need for climate innovation:

• Economic development has been a policy priority for India in the last decades.
• It lifted millions of people out of poverty while creating larger demands for goods and services, and increasing the demand for energy across all sectors. 
• India has made enormous investments in renewable energy sources, to increase the use of solar, wind, biomass, waste, and hydropower energies. 
• But there are still enormous challenges in meeting Indian demands for energy, food, and water in a sustainable way.

• We must transition to a lifestyle and economy that supports, not disrupts the planet’s climate, nature and environment.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

Context:

Indian women excelled in the most decorated Olympic Games for India so far. There is no reason for it to be otherwise in any other field, especially education, given the right support.

As a nation, we can ill-afford to ignore half the potential workforce if we aspire to be an economic powerhouse.

As a society, women can be the pivot to bring about critical and lasting social transformation. As individuals, they deserve a shot at being the very best they can

Need for Girl Education:

• Healthy, educated girls with equal access to opportunities can grow into strong, smart women who can take on leadership roles in their countries.
• This will help in having a better view of women’s perspective in the government policies.
• The global average for the private rate of return (the increase in an individual’s earnings) with just one extra year of schooling is about 9 per cent, while the social returns of an extra year of school are even higher above 10 per cent at the secondary and higher education levels as per a decennial World Bank review.
• Interestingly, the private returns for women in higher education are much higher than for men 11 to 17 per cent as per different estimates.
• This has clear policy implications. For their own empowerment, as well as for society at large, we must bring more and more women within the ambit of higher education.
• It is estimated that over 2.4 crore girls globally are on the verge of dropping out of schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Pandemic-induced school closures and economic hardships have significantly exacerbated many vectors that influence the problem of women in education.
• In the Indian context before the pandemic, there was a welcome trend in the gradual increase in the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for women in higher education — from 19.8 per cent in 2012-13 to 27.3 per cent in 2019-20.
• That said, a more nuanced picture of the problem of women and higher education.
• As girls progress from primary to secondary to tertiary school levels, their numbers decrease by the year.
• The graph shows this gradual descent and the resulting paucity of women, who are even eligible to go to college.

The reasons for girls dropping out:

The primary ones are obvious: Girls drop out of school because, one, they are engaged in domestic activities (31.9 per cent),

• Two, they have financial constraints (18.4 per cent),
• Three, they are not interested in education (15.3 per cent), and
• Four, they get married (12.4 per cent).

Steps to overcome systemic challenges:

• First, as an immediate step, in every locality, a mohalla school or a community learning programme should be started with appropriate Covid norms if the local disaster management authorities and the state governments permit.
  • Evidence from the Ebola pandemic shows that continued engagement with educational activities reduces drop-outs in a statistically significant way.
  • NITI Aayog, with the help of civil society organisations, had started a community programme led by volunteers called “Saksham Bitiya” in 28 aspirational districts where more than 1.87 lakh girl students were trained in socio-emotional and ethical learning.
• Second, to predict likely drop-outs, a gender atlas comprising indicators that are mapped to key reasons for school drop-outs should be developed.
  • Teachers should also be trained in all the scholarships and schemes available that provide economic support to girls and their families for continuing their education.
• Third, there is a need to revise the National Scheme of Incentive to Girls for Secondary Education in areas or states with high prevalence of drop-outs and early child marriages.
  • The scholarship amount may be increased and tied to the completion of graduation, with yearly scholarships paid to students upon successful completion of each year of their undergraduate degree.
• Fourth, special education zones need to be set up in areas which have been traditionally backward in education.
  • Every panchayat showing a consistent trend in girl child drop-outs should have composite schools till higher secondary (classes I-XII).
  • The National Education Policy 2020 provides for a gender inclusion fund. This fund should be utilised to support STEM education in these schools as well as in all Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas.
  • State governments need to leverage existing schemes to design interventions to promote women in higher education.
  • The recently modified viability gap funding scheme includes provisions for social infrastructure projects, including education.
  • For greenfield projects in higher education, 60 per cent of the funding can be accessed as viability gap funding from the central and state governments.
• Fifth and most importantly, behavioural nudges are going to be key in tackling social prejudices and orthodox cultural norms that prevent girls from achieving their innate potential.
  • Behavioural Insights Units (BIU) may be established across states to tackle social issues with the help of ultra-local NGOs/CSOs to reach the last mile.
  • NITI Aayog has taken a leap forward in this direction by establishing a BIU to tackle nutrition and health challenges in aspirational districts.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context:

Under India’s chairmanship, the 13th BRICS Summit is going to be held in digital format.

About BRICS

• Acronym BRIC was used in 2001 by Goldman Sachs in their Global Economics Paper.
•  BRIC started after the meeting of Russia, India and China in St. Petersburg on the margins of the G8 Outreach Summit in 2006.
• The first BRIC Summit was held in Yekaterinburg, Russia in 2009.
• South Africa entered in 2010 and BRIC became BRICS after that.
• The five BRICS countries are also members of G-20.
• BRICS is chaired by turn, after 2012 India chaired in 2016 and now in 2021.
•  It acts as a bridge between the Global North and Global South.

Immediate Goals of BRICS

• Strengthening multilateralism: Multilateral institutions ranging from the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization and World Health Organization need reforms.
• Combat terrorism: Terrorism is prevailing all across the world affecting Europe, Africa, Asia and other parts of the world. BRICS Counter Terrorism Action Plan contains specific measures to fight radicalisation, terrorist financing and misuse of the Internet by terrorist groups.
• Promoting technological and digital solutions for the Sustainable Development: Digital tools have been used all across the world when it was adversely hit by the pandemic. Country like India has been in the forefront of using new technological tools to improve governance.
• Expanding people-to-people cooperation: Strengthening people-to-people cooperation will have to wait for international travel to revive.

Achievements

• Established the New Development Bank
• Financial stability net in the form of Contingency Reserve Arrangement
• Vaccine Research and Development Virtual Center is upcoming project
•  Implementation of the Energy Research Cooperation Platform initiative
• Launch of the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance.
• Cooperation in science, technology and innovation, humanitarian and cultural exchanges, sports, tourism, agriculture, urban development, environment protection.

Cooperation areas

• Economic and Financial Cooperation: New Development Bank (NDB): It was created at the Fortaleza Summit (2014). Through the activities of this bank, it is expected the mobilization of investment flows in infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS countries as well as in other emerging economies.
  • Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA): It is an important mechanism to the macroeconomic support of BRICS countries. The arrangement aims at shoring up its member countries in the event of crises in their balance of payments.
• Health: BRICS health cooperation started with the First Meeting of Health Ministers of BRICS countries, in 2011. This area of cooperation has resulted in the identification of common problems and cooperation during Covid- 19 Pandemic.
• Science, Technology and Innovation: BRICS STI cooperation is one of the most promising areas of work in the grouping. It started in 2014, with the first ministerial meeting on the subject, which produced concrete results both in terms of know-how exchange and availability of resources to research projects.
• SECURITY: The meetings of National Security Advisors (NSA) and the working groups on security issues are the main spaces of BRICS dialogue on security. In these occasions, the partners exchange their approaches on international security threats and on transnational crimes, such as drug trafficking, cyber-attacks, money laundering, corruption, and terrorism.
• BUSINESS: BRICS Business Council and Business Forum are the main mechanisms for business cooperation inside the grouping. The Business Council was established in 2013, during the Durban Summit, in South Africa, and aims at bringing the business communities from the five countries closer, while sharing know-how and searching for new business opportunities.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context:

The government has announced an ambitious programme of asset monetisation. It hopes to earn ₹6 trillion in revenues over a four-year period. At a time when the government’s finances are in bad shape, that is money the government can certainly use. Getting asset monetisation right is quite a challenge, though.

The creation of the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) is the Government of India’s pioneering initiative to establish a medium-term pipeline along with a roadmap for “monetisation ready” assets.

Meaning of Asset Monetisation:

• In asset monetisation, the government parts with its assets — such as roads, coal mines — for a specified period of time in exchange for a lump-sum payment.
• At the end of the period, the assets return to the government. Unlike in privatisation, no sale of government assets is involved.
• By monetising assets it has already built, the government can earn revenues to build more infrastructures.
• Asset monetisation will happen mainly in three sectors: roads, railways and power.
• Other assets to be monetised include airports, ports, telecom, stadiums and power transmission.

About National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP):

• It is an ambitious 4 year period ₹6 lakh-crore National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) that included unlocking value in brownfield projects by involving private firms across infrastructure sectors from passenger trains and railway stations to airports.
• As per the plan, private firms can invest in projects for a fixed return using the Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvIT) route as well as operate and develop the assets for a certain period before transferring them back to the government agency.
• Union Budget 2021-22 has identified monetisation of operating public infrastructure assets as a key means for sustainable infrastructure financing.
• Land will not be monetised under National Monetisation Plan only brownfield assets to be monetised.
• The government has stressed that these are brownfield assets, which have been “de-risked” from execution risks, and therefore should encourage private investment.
• The funds will then be used to build new infrastructure assets, helping boost economic growth in the country.
• The top five sectors by value under the government’s asset monetization programme are roads (27%), railways (25%), power (15%), oil and gas pipelines (8%) and telecom (6%).
• The plan is in line with Prime Minister’s strategic divestment policy, under which the government will retain presence in only a few identified areas with the rest tapping the private sector.

First, under-utilised assets:

Two important statements have been made about the asset monetisation programme.

One, the focus will be on under-utilised assets.

Two, monetisation will happen through public-private partnerships (PPP) and Investment Trusts.

• Let us examine each of these in turn. Suppose a port or airport or stadium or even an empty piece of land is not being used adequately because it has not been properly developed or marketed well enough.
• A private party may judge that it can put the assets to better use. It will pay the government a price equal to the present value of cash flows at the current level of utilisation.
• By making the necessary investment, the private player can reap the benefits of a higher level of cash flows.
• The difference in cash flows under government and those under private management is a measure of the improvement in efficiency of the assets. This is a win-win situation for the government and the private player.
• The government gets a ‘fair’ value for its assets. The private player gets its return on investment. The economy benefits from an increase in efficiency. Monetising under-utilised assets thus has much to commend it.

Choice between well-utilised and under-utilised assets:

• Matters could be very different in monetisation of an asset that is being properly utilised, say, a highway that has good traffic.
• In this case, the private player has little incentive to invest and improve efficiency. It simply needs to operate the assets as they are.
• The private player may value the cash flows assuming a normal rate of growth of traffic. It will pay the government a price that is the present value of cash flows minus its own return.
• The government earns badly needed revenues but these could be less than what it might earn if it continued to operate the assets itself. There is no improvement in efficiency.
  • Suppose the private player does plan to improve efficiency in a well-utilised asset by making the necessary investment and reducing operating costs.
• The reduction in operating costs need not translate into a higher price for the asset than under government ownership.
• The cost of capital for a private player is higher than for a public authority. A public authority needs less equity capital and can access debt more cheaply than a private player.
• The higher cost of capital for the private player could offset the benefit of any reduction in operating costs.
• As we have seen, the benefits to the economy are likely to be greater where under-utilised assets are monetised.
• However, private players will prefer well-utilised assets to assets that are under-utilised.
  • That is because, in the former, cash flows and returns are more certain. Private incentives in asset monetisation may not accord with the public interest.
• The life of the asset, when it is returned to the government, may not be long. In that event, asset monetisation virtually amounts to sale. Monetisation through the PPP route is thus fraught with problems.

What are the challenges?

• Lack of identifiable revenues streams in various assets,
• Level of capacity utilisation in gas and petroleum pipeline networks,
• Dispute resolution mechanism,
• Regulated tariffs in power sector assets, and
• Low interest among investors in national highways below four lanes.

While the government has tried to address these challenges in the NMP framework, execution of the plan remains key to its success.

Structuring of monetisation transactions is being seen as key.

The slow pace of privatisation in government companies including Air India and BPCL, and less-than-encouraging bids in the recently launched PPP initiative in trains, indicate that attracting private investors interest is not that easy.

Monetisation potential of toll road assets, though being a market-tested asset class with established monetisation models, is limited by the percentage of stretches having four lane and above configuration.

The total length of national highway (NH) stretches with four-lane and above is estimated to be about 23% of the total NH network.The government has tried to address this with a plan to monetise assets that are four-lane and above.

The MNP framework notes that other key impediments to the monetisation process are asset-specific challenges such as presence of an identifiable revenue stream.

This is specifically relevant to the railway sector, which has seen limited PPP success as a mode of project delivery.Konkan Railway, for instance, has multiple stakeholders, including state governments, which own stake in the entity.

Creating an effective monetisation transaction structure could be a bit challenging in this case.

Infrastructure Investment Trusts: 

• The other form of monetisation the government has indicated is creating Infrastructure Investment Trusts to which monetisable assets will be transferred.
• InvITs are mutual fund-like vehicles in which investors can subscribe to units that give dividends. The sponsor of the Trust is required to hold a minimum prescribed proportion of the total units issued.
• InvITs offer a portfolio of assets, so investors get the benefit of diversification.
• Assets can be transferred at the construction stage or after they have started earning revenues.
• In the InvIT route to monetisation, the public authority continues to own the rights to a significant portion of the cash flows and to operate the assets.
• So, the issues that arise with the transfer of assets to a private party — such as incorrect valuation or an increase in price to the consumer — are less of a problem.