Brief of newspaper articles for the day bearing
relevance to Civil Services preparation
- GS PAPER 2
- Prices of 42 essential drugs slashed by 15% {Governance}
- NITI Aayog strategy to monitor health {Governance}
- Picking up the pieces from Seoul {Foreign Policy}
- Who wins from Brexit? China {International Relation}
- GS PAPER 3
GS PAPER 2
[1]Prices of 42 essential drugs slashed by 15%
Context
Government has put a cap on the prices of 42 essential drugs which are used to diagnose diseases like tuberculosis, cancer, asthma etc.
The prices of these drugs have been slashed by up to 15%.
Analysis
- The notification for this slash of prices of Schedule-I drugs has been issued by National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) under Drugs (Price Control) Amendment Order, 2016.
- This move will make such drugs more accessible to people who can not afford costly drugs without putting a considerable stress on their pockets.
- If the manufacturer does not follow the new pricing norms, he will have to deposit the overcharged amount along with the interest with NPPA.
Conclusion
The move to cap these drugs is a right step as these drugs are used for treatment of ailments which are very common and high prices of these drugs would have meant that the poor are excluded from using it. For increasing India’s health coverage, these steps are necessary.
[2]NITI Aayog strategy to monitor health
News
- NITI Aayog is working on a strategy to put in place a tracking system for monitoring health parameters of target beneficiaries under the National Nutrition Mission on a real-time basis.
Key Points:-
- There are multiple programmes under various ministries aimed at addressing the multitude of the related issues of gender discrimination, infections, diseases, food fortification, education opportunities, sanitation etc.
- All of these affect stunting and under-nutrition in children below the age of five, including the unborn.
- The government has worked in the past to converge the schemes and now the Prime Minister wants that at the district, block and, if possible, at the village level, the healthcare parameters of target beneficiaries, the mothers and the children, can be monitored on a real-time basis using Aadhaar.
- The target should be to identify individual households or individuals for the purpose of monitoring the outcomes. At present, nutrition data was available on a sample basis rather than by censuses.
[3]Picking up the pieces from Seoul
Issue
- India-China relations with reference to NSG episode.
China was not the only one who said NO
- India should not blame China solely for blocking India’s path to the membership to Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
- If we will keep demonising China, we might end up jeopardising our relationship with China.
The next stop
- A process, albeit an informal one, has been started, that could lead to progress on India’s membership application later this year.
- India must learn the lessons from Seoul episode , and move on from South Korea to Switzerland, the country that assumes the NSG chair this year.
- And India should record the progress that it has made.
- Out of 48 countries, it has convinced 32 countries, so now, it should concentrate its energy and efforts on the rest of the countries.
- This will entail the use of quiet, persuasive diplomacy rather than vigorous handshakes or strong arm-flexing in the arc lights of press conferences.
- India should restrain from blaming China for being the “one country” that derailed India’s bid.
But first, convince the domestic constituency
- Some of the diplomacy must be done internally as well.
- In the past few weeks, many have questioned the government’s desire for membership of the NSG, and asked why it has betrayed such unnecessary haste.
- India has all it needs to conduct nuclear trade with the 2008 waiver already granted by the NSG, says this group, raising other valid questions on the concessions India may need to give to get what they call a “second-class membership”, that of a non-nuclear weapon state.
- What also worries many is that Pakistan, a known proliferator, may simply walk through the membership door opened for India in a “criteria-based” manner.
- It is necessary for the government to address this domestic debate and explain the need for its NSG efforts instead of dismissing the doubts without any consideration as it has done these past weeks.
Road ahead
- India and China must repair the ruptures between them that the past week has caused.
- Relations between India and China have reached new lows in the past two years over several issues, including tensions at the Line of Actual Control and over the South China Sea, but it is an escalating war that hurts the Asian neighbours themselves the most, given the trade ties and the major border they share.
- In the NSG context, India cannot wish away China’s power, nor can China wish away the support and goodwill India enjoys in the group.
[4]Who wins from Brexit? China
Issue
- China will gain politically and economically from Brexit.
Major losers
- London’s finance industry.
- British Prime Minister David Cameron.
- The pound.
- The grand cause of European integration
Nationalism vs Common interests
- EU was formed to enhance the region’s clout in the global economy.
- The varied nations of Europe understood that they would be much stronger if they forged a common market with shared institutions and even a regional currency, the euro, than if they tried to compete as independent units.
- Europe has struggled to fulfil that ideal and has suffered for it.
- Persistent nationalism has repeatedly limited its ability to forge a common front on both trade and geopolitical issues.
How China will gain from Brexit, economically?
- Even a fully united Europe has had a tough time competing and contending with China.
- Now fractured, the EU can’t help but pose less of a counterweight to China’s rise on the world stage.
- As a whole, the EU should in theory wield significant power in pressing Beijing to open its markets and play fair on trade.
- Instead, European nations have routinely squandered that advantage by competing with each other for Chinese investment and favours.
- The opportunities for China to divide and conquer—both to strike better bargains and to undercut complaints about its own market-distorting behaviour—will only increase now that Europe’s second-largest economy has gone its own way.
How China will gain from Brexit, politically?
- Politically, too, Brexit can only widen China’s scope for action.
- As China challenges the West’s cherished institutions and ideals, from navigation rights to human rights, the importance of defending those rules and values is rising steadily
- A united EU could have presented a serious check to Beijing’s growing assertiveness.
- When the US expressed concerns last year about China’s plans to set up a rival to the World Bank, the Europeans stumbled over themselves to sign up, undermining any hope of extracting concessions from China’s leaders.
GS PAPER 3
[1]Regional connectivity: DGCA to ease norms for smaller aircraft
Context
To make the new Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) successful, norms for smaller aircrafts need to be eased so that more and more such aircrafts enter the market and take benefits of the policy.
What is Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS)?
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Analysis
- The Directorate General of Civil Aviation will be framing rules which are less rigorous so as to let attract smaller aircrafts enter the aviation market. 80 seater aircrafts will have less stringent norms and 19 seater aircrafts will have even lesser stringent norms.
- This will be beneficial for the Regional connectivity scheme as there will be less number of passengers and a big aircraft might not be profitable to operate on such routes. For this, smaller aircrafts are feasible but the rules as of now are too stringent for them to enter the aviation industry.
- As of now India has only fifty one 80-seater planes and four 42-seater planes run by various operators. A definite increase in number of such planes is required for the success of RCS.
Conclusion
Experts have welcomed this move to ease norms for smaller aircrafts as these aircrafts are expected to be imminent for the growth of the aviation industry in the near future.
[2]Centre notifies amended RBI Act to usher in MPC
Context
Centre govt. has brought into force the provisions of the amended RBI Act which gives way to the constitution of Monetary policy committee (MPC) and makes it statutory.
Analysis
Along with the amended RBI Act, the method to be followed in selecting the members of MPC, service conditions of the members and factors constituting failure to meet inflation targets under MPC have also been notified by the govt.
What is Monetary Policy Committee?
- The formation of the monetary policy committee was mooted by the Urjit Patel committee.
- The committee suggested that monetary policy be rule-based and not discretion-based. The final decision on monetary policy should not lie with the RBI governor alone but on a group of people.
- Targeting inflation is to be the core objective of the central bank, and it will be answerable to law-makers if it failed to achieve the target.
Composition of MPC
MPC will be a 6 member committee:
- 3 members will be from RBI. These 3 members would include the governor who will also be the ex-officio chairperson of the committee.
- 3 members will be appointed by the central govt. . These members should be experts in the field of finance or banking or economics or monetary policy. They will have a tenure of 4 years and will not be eligible for reappointment.
- The members appointed by the govt. be will be appointed based on the recommendations by the search-cum-selection committee which will be headed by the cabinet secretary.
MPC will meet four times in 1 year and will announce its decisions publicaly after each meeting
[3]The price of basic income
Issue
- Basic Income vs Workfare Programmes
Context
- In Switzerland, a proposal for adults to be paid an unconditional monthly income, whether they worked or not, was up for a vote.
- It was defeated by a big margin – 77 opposed the plan, with only 23 per cent backing it.
- The idea of a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) is going to be tried out on an experimental basis in Finland, the Netherlands, and the Canadian province of Ontario, and rolled out nationally if the experiments prove effective.
Indian connection
- This idea also resonates with a recent policy shift in India towards direct cash transfers, under the acronym JAM (Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar cards, Mobile money platforms), which involves rolling all subsidies into a single lump-sum cash transfer to households.\
What is the rationale behind universal cash transfer?
- Instead of having many different forms of welfare programmes targeted at the poor, and administered through government bureaucracy, just make a simple unconditional regular cash transfer to every adult.There are three features of a universal cash transfer that are worth noting.
- First, it is universal and not targeted at the poor alone, thereby removing the numerous problems associated with means-testing.
- Second, it is a cash transfer, so that there is no need to provide in-kind transfers (for example food stamps) or subsidies for certain goods and services (for example housing support), both of which come with standard inefficiencies associated with interfering with market forces.
- Third, it is unconditional, so that it is not contingent on the recipients conforming to stipulated norms of behaviour, such as looking for jobs or having children enrolled in schools, and the problems of monitoring that this entails.
Support for this idea
- The right likes it as it is non-paternalistic, leaving the decision to the recipient as to how to spend the money. It also trims down the need to have a large bureaucracy, and it is less prone to corruption and exclusion and inclusion errors.
- The left likes it since it is a smart redistribution policy where the redistributed income directly reaches the poorer section, avoiding the leaky bucket problem.
- It also empowers workers in the labour market by separating their subsistence needs from finding jobs that are a good match for them.
If this idea has support across the political spectrum, the natural question to ask is why is it not being adopted extensively?
- The main reason is that a universal cash transfer scheme is expensive.
- A universal cash transfer scheme is not feasible without raising additional taxes.
- But if we opt for a cash transfer scheme to only the poor, taking the poor to be roughly 30 per cent of the population, the savings out of cutting subsidies should be able to fund it.
But then we are back to the problem of targeting
- The BPL (Below Poverty Line) list excludes many poor people, while many of the non-poor bribe their way in.
- The Aadhaar card cannot solve this problem as it does not say whether a person is rich or poor. To assume somehow that in-kind transfers and subsidies are ridden with corruption, while a cash transfer system using mobile banking to a largely poor and uneducated population will be corruption-free involves a leap of faith.
- The other major problem of basic income guarantee is that it may adversely affect work incentives.
- A section of the population is earning an income without having to work is likely to create resentment.
Workfare Programmes
- Workfare programmes are those programmes where you receive welfare only if you work, since only the neediest are willing to do hard manual work.
- The much-maligned MGNREGA appears to look a lot more appealing as compared to Universal Basic Income.
- At least, it does not have problem of targeting.
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