General Studies Paper 2

Context

• The theme of World Mental Health Day (October 10) this year is ‘mental health as a universal human right’. A segment often overlooked when it concerns mental health is the informal worker.

Informal workers’ mental health

• A study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) says that 15% of working age adults, globally, live with a mental disorder. On one hand, decent work influences mental health in a positive way while on the other, unemployment, or unstable or precarious employment, workplace discrimination, or poor and particularly unsafe working environments, can all pose a risk to a worker’s mental health.
• Workers in low paid, unrewarding or insecure jobs, or working in isolation, are more likely to be exposed to psychosocial risks, thus compromising their mental health.

The Indian experience

• India’s informal workforce accounts for more than 90% of the working population. These workers often operate without regulatory protection, work in unsafe working environments, endure long hours, have little access to social or financial protections, suffer high uncertainty and deep precarity, and face discrimination — all of which further undermine mental health and limit access to mental health care.

Gender disparities

• Over 95% of India’s working women engaged in informal, low paying, and precarious employment, often without social protection, in addition to suffering patriarchal structures and practices in their social and familial spaces.

Youth unemployment

• It is one of the highest in India which, along with the stigma around unemployment, significantly impacts their mental health. Moreover, an ILO report highlights how young workers are shifting to more precarious and informal work, accepting less pay and poorer working conditions, out of desperation, and, sometimes, giving up and exiting the labour force altogether.

State of Inequality in India Report 2022

• It observes that the unemployment rate actually increases with educational levels, particularly for educated young women who show an unemployment rate of 42%. With this phase of demographic dividend, where half of India’s population is of working age and projected to remain so for two decades, it is pertinent to think about the quality of employment and long term social security for them.

The elderly

• India will also become an ageing society in 20 years, with no apparent social security road map for this rapidly growing group that is especially vulnerable to poor mental health.
• Census of India 2011 shows that 33 million elderly people are working postretirement in informal work. Another study, by the ILO on elderly employment in India, shows high poverty among them, in terms of economic dependency and access to financial assets.

Impact of COVID-19

• A study by Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) among informal workers in Delhi, mostly migrants, indicates that recovery post COVID19 remains uneven among informal worker cohorts. Many still report food insecurity, skipped meals, or reduced consumption.
• While certain schemes have received a higher allocation this year, others such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) have seen their funding slashed.
• In 2021, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reported that 26% of the people who died by suicide were daily wage earners. Employment guarantee programmes can indeed improve mental health outcomes. Thus, social security can be:
• promotional: aiming to augment income
• preventive: aiming to forestall economic distress
• protective: aiming to ensure relief from external shocks.

Way forward: A relook at the Code on Social Security (CSS) 2020:

• It shows how glaring issues concerning the social security of India’s informal workforce still remain unheeded. While India should universalise social security, the current Code does not state this as a goal.
• Care needs drastic improvement Informal workers, despite their significant contribution to national income, are perennially exposed to various economic, physical, and mental vulnerabilities.
• India’s budgetary allocation for mental health (currently under 1% of the total health budget) has overfocused on the digital mental health programme.
• As the World Mental Health Report 2022 observed, addressing mental health involves strengthening community based care, and people centred, recovery oriented and human rights oriented care.

Conclusion

• There is an urgent need for proactive policies to improve mental health recognition and action. This is critical in upholding the basic human right to good health, including mental health, and in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 3 on ‘good health and wellbeing’ and SDG 8 on ‘decent work for all/economic growth’.

General Studies Paper 3

Context

• A malaria vaccine —R21/MatrixM —developed by the University of Oxford, manufactured by the Pune based Serum Institute of India (SII) and tested in a phase 3 trial at five sites in Africa, was recommended by the WHO on October 2.
• Three countries — Nigeria, Ghana, and Burkina Faso — have already approved the use of the vaccine to immunise children aged less than 36 months.

The threat of Malaria:

• Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other vertebrates. Symptoms usually begin 10 to 15 days after being bitten by an infected Anopheles mosquito.
• Human malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, fatigue, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death.
• While Plasmodium falciparum is responsible for more deaths, Plasmodium vivax is the most widespread of all of the malaria species.
• Malaria is most common in tropical and subtropical regions of the world, including sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America. According to the WHO, in 2021, there were 247 million malaria cases worldwide and 6,19,000 deaths. About 25 million children are born each year in countries with moderate to high malaria transmission.
• India has been able to reduce the prevalence of the disease by 66% between 2018 and 2022.

Efficacy of malaria vaccines:

• The first malaria vaccine was RTS,S/AS01, recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2021 to be rolled out in high transmission African countries, understanding the urgency of malaria control and prevention.
• RTS,S/AS01 was developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation etc. In India, Bharat Biotech has been granted license to manufacture this vaccine. All trials of this vaccine shows efficacy below 60%. Till now, no malaria vaccine has shown the benchmark efficacy of 75% set by WHO.
• The efficacy of R21/ MatrixM is much higher than RTS,S/AS01/ The results indicate that the new vaccine was more efficacious in places where malaria was seasonal than when it was perennial. The authors think that this may partly be due to timing of malaria episodes in countries with seasonal or perennial malaria.
• Since the vaccination is carried out just before the beginning of the malaria season, the protection offered is higher when the disease is seasonal than when malaria occurs throughout the year. The vaccine may help reduce malaria transmission, especially when combined with other strategies such as mosquito nets.
• According to WHO, the cost of the R21/MatrixM manufactured by Serum Institute will be between $2 and $4 per dose. Serum Institute will produce “over 100 million doses a year”. So it will be affordable and accessible to those who need it.

Global initiatives on malaria:

• Global Malaria Program: launched by WHO and guided by the “Global technical strategy for malaria 2016–2030”. The strategy aims to reduce malaria case incidence and mortality rates by at least 75% by 2025 and 90% by 2030, from 2015 level .
• Malaria Elimination Initiative: launched by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• E-2025 initiative: In 2021, WHO launched it to halt the transmission of malaria in 25 identified countries by 2025.

Indian initiatives on malaria:

• National Vector-Borne Disease Control Programme: It is an umbrella programme for prevention and control of vector borne diseases including Malaria, Dengue, Chikungunya etc.
• National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP): undertakes measures like insecticidal residual spray (IRS) or DDT, monitoring and surveillance of cases, treatment of patients etc.
• National Framework for Malaria Elimination 2016-2030: Based on WHO Global Technical Strategy for Malaria 2016–2030 (GTS), it aims to eliminate malaria (zero indigenous cases) in India by 2030, maintain malaria–free status in areas where malaria transmission has been interrupted and prevent re-introduction of malaria.
• Malaria Elimination Research Alliance-India (MERA-India): an ICMR-led research collaboration on malaria control.

Conclusion

• The development and approval of new malaria vaccines will aid in India’s aim to be malaria-free by 2027 and to eliminate the disease by 2030.

General Studies Paper 3

Context:

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

A warning shot

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

L’affaire NewsClick

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

Contempt bordering on hatred

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

Conclusion:

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

General Studies Paper 3

RECENT CONTEXT

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

Domestic reasons for upholding higher rates

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

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

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

India’s policy to maintain growth with targeted inflation

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

Challenges ahead in controlling inflation

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

Conclusion

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

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

General Studies Paper 1

Recent Context

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

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

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

Vulnerabilities of rural women vis-a- vis Urban women

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

Non- recognition of care economy and unpaid work of women

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

Vulnerabilities of women in agriculture sector

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

Conclusion

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

General Studies Paper 3

Context

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

Susceptibility of India’s banking sector to global challenges

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

Adoption of technology in banking sector and significance

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

Challenges related to digitalisation of banking sector

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

Climate change brings new responsibilities in banking sector

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

Need for a skilled human resource to adapt the change

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

Conclusion

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

General Studies Paper 2

Introduction:

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

Lessons from past reforms:

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

Intersectional disadvantages:

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

Impact of reservations:

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

Counterview

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

Uncertain future

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

Delimitation and census

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

Conclusion

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

General Studies Paper 3

Introduction:

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

In India

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

Measurement as the first step

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

A national carbon accounting (NCA) system

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

Carbon accounting

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

A carbon GDP

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

Way forward

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

General Studies Paper 1

Introduction

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

The definition

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

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

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

As public policy

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

Circular migration within India

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

Issues with circular migration within India:

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

COVID-19 Pandemic:

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

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

General Studies Paper 3

Context

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

mRNA vaccine

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

The Nobel prize in Medicine, 2023

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

At the expense of public funds

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

On COVAX

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

Corbevax

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

Conclusion:

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