Brief of newspaper articles for the day bearing
relevance to Civil Services preparation
- GS PAPER 1
- Discrimination Dialogue – {Casteism}
- GS PAPER 2
- The SC must end partisan federalism – {Federalism}
- Haryana and its educational disqualification – {Panchayati Raj Institutions and Election Processes}
- GS PAPER 3
- Internet power to the people / Adhering to basics and freedom – {Net Neutrality – Science & Technology}
- Time for pharma course correction– {Drug Pricing}
- Government to ease norms for real estate business– {Infrastructure}
- TRAI and Net Neutrality: Courts must weigh public interest that have shaped this order – {Net Neutrality}
- Beyond the figures– {Macroeconomics and Affects}
GS PAPER 1
[1]. Discrimination Dialogue
Context: Suicide of Rohith Vemula, creating a Pandora box of prevalent discrimination in college campuses.
Latest Development: HRD ministry has call for a dialogue with universities on discrimination.
Apprehensions: The author believes the issue will get lost as the any government dialogue seems to be a bureaucratic exercise. The author feels that addressing the issue requires people deeply rooted in social issues with an empathy. The author feels bureaucratic structure is alien to this chara.
Does the problem lies in History?
The issue dates back to Gandhi – Ambedkar ideological differences on Dalits, with former calling for self-purification of Hindu while latter prioritizing self-respect regarding to Dalit politics. . Though well meant by both gentlemen it resulted only in deepening alienation.
Hence, more than marginalization of students, there is a need to overcome the ideological sediments which has made Dalit Politics to portray itself as a separate entity.
Has modernity led to awareness in the society?
Modernity can be given the credit of loosening caste holds, but there seems to deeper caste consciousness in other aspects. According to author, there is a need to do away with the myth the modernity alone will take care of issues of caste equation.
Why has never been there a consensus on caste dialogue?
Firstly, there has ever been a fully acknowledgement of the sheer atrocity that Dalits have faced due to caste system.
Secondly, where people don’t understand caste (kids and liberated students), this is generally leading to mutual suspicion rather than healthy development. For eg. a upper caste doesn’t understand why he is being held responsible for things which we doesn’t we subscribe to.
Also, debate immediately becomes about an abstraction called tradition rather than the processes of power. So the debate is between a defensive Hinduism that sees Dalit assertion with fear and a Dalit assertion that sees Hinduism as a strategy for containment. So long as we have a discourse of tradition that impedes people’s freedom to fashion their own identities and spaces, the question of discrimination cannot be addressed frontally.
Bone of Contention:
Reservation: Ideas of merit are sometimes based on absurd facts to marginalize claims of Dalits. Affirmative action for societal betterment is always seen against merit.
Though, increasing the size of umbrella of reservations by adding communities one after another makes it look like a political equation compulsion rather than arising out of a specific ethical necessity. This has created a credibility gap.
Also, the idea that more education and more opportunity will take care of the problem is a flawed one. There is a need to create genuine structures of opportunity.
Reality of Dalit Experience:
There has been social practice of commonplace micro aggression whether intentional or unintentional behavior which has communicated hostility. There is an objectification of Dalits, which tends to create self-expatiating guilt among them.
The third level is ideological. D.R. Nagaraj once wrote poignantly, “The modern Dalit has to seek his rebirth in a state of fearful loneliness. S/he has nothing to rely upon in his/her immediate Hindu surroundings.” Modern Dalit movements have been about the creation of a cultural space that is their own. In a strange way, reactionary ABVP students understand the stakes in the Dalit movement much more clearly than the liberals: That the emancipation and cultural space for Dalits rest upon an attack on Hinduism.
Detaching Hinduism from the struggles of Dalits?
One counter-response to this is to detach the social question from the question of Hinduism. This is to construct a Hinduism that can slough off its social pathologies. But the ease of the gesture, “Hinduism provides an internal justification for deconstructing caste”, does not match the enormity of the crime.
Conclusion:
Politics will, by its very nature, have an investment in conflict and, to a certain extent, even victimisation. If mobilisation had taken place on quality of education, on building support structures that attend to genuine pedagogical needs, perhaps the challenge would have been mitigated. But the dialogue on discrimination is not just a legal or administrative affair. It will have to create a culture where all can feel free and at home.
GS PAPER 2
[1]. The SC must end partisan federalism.
Context:-
The Supreme Court is currently adjudicating the constitutional validity of the imposition of President’s rule in the State of Arunachal Pradesh on Republic Day, 2016.
Ending Partisan Federalism:-
Unless the Supreme Court completes its unfinished agenda of limiting the scope for partisan federalism through the strong enforcement of neutral constitutional rules on the appointment of Governors and the exercise of their powers, there is little possibility that cooperative federalism can define Centre-State relations in India.
Earlier instances:-
Significantly, the law on the appointment of Governors had changed as the Supreme Court in B.P. Singhal v. Union of India (2010) held that the Governor of a State could only be removed for reasons which included physical or mental disability, corruption, and behaviour unbecoming of a high constitutional office, and not at the pleasure of the Central government.
The government’s removal of Governors was challenged in court by one erstwhile Governor, Aziz Qureshi, but the court has been quiescent on the issue and no orders have been passed.
What happened in Arunachal Pradesh?
The Governor decided to not only advance a session of the Legislative Assembly against the advice of the Council of Ministers in Arunachal Pradesh but also set its agenda: discuss the removal of the Speaker of the House.
Article 174 of the Constitution provides that the Governor may “summon the House of the Legislature of the State to meet at such time and place as he thinks fit”.
However, this power is to be exercised on the advice of the Council of Ministers, unless it is the first time that the Assembly is convened after an election and no government is in place.
This decision was challenged by the Speaker, Nabam Rebia, and stayed by the Gauhati High Court where it was lamented that the Governor of a State, who was expected to discharge his “role with dispassion and within the constitutional framework”, had “facilitated the political battle to move in a certain direction in the tussle for power”, and that this reflected “the non-neutral role of the constitutional head” which was “undermining the democratic process”.
Report for imposing President’s Rule:-
The governor’s report under Article 356 of the Constitution recommending President’s rule has three substantive grounds :
- the inability of the ruling government to hold a Legislative Assembly session within the constitutionally mandated six months
- the government’s lack of support in the House
- and the breakdown of law and order.
Flaws in the grounds:-
All three grounds appear to be misconceived.
Constraining liberty of the house:-
The Governor’s decision to advance the Assembly session precipitated a court order that constrains the liberty of the House to conduct its proceedings.
Absence of floor test to prove majority:-
Second, at least since S.R. Bommai v. Union of India(1994), as confirmed in Rameshwar Prasad v. Union of India (2005), the floor test is the only constitutionally valid manner of determining the whether a government enjoys majority support.
A floor test to determine support for the government can only be conducted in a valid Assembly session which is yet to take place. Hence, no finding of a loss of support based on the subjective assessment of the Governor is constitutionally tenable.
Break down of law and order?
Tthe court has clarified that the breakdown of law and order must not be surmised from stray occurrences in and around the Assembly but be manifest in the inability of the government to maintain civil order, peace and security.
Moving away from partisan federalism and towards cooperative federalism:-
Constitutional rules must offer reasons beyond the immediate result in the case.
To be equally applicable, the court must apply these rules irrespective of the party before it.
In the complex field of Centre-State relations, the Supreme Court has developed neutral constitutional rules that have progressively limited the scope for political partisanship in federal relations.
If the court decisively applies these neutral rules in the pending decision on the appointment of Governors in Qureshi and the proclamation of President’s rule in Arunachal Pradesh, it will significantly advance its unfinished agenda of limiting partisan federalism.
Only when partisan federalism is canned and put away can cooperative federalism truly emerge
[2]. Haryana and its educational disqualification.
Universal Adult Franchise:-
The basis of our democracy is adult franchise with everyone having the right to one vote and no one having the right to more than one vote.
RPA and its reasonable criteria:-
The obverse of this right is that everyone has the right to stand in any election except those who are specifically debarred by The Representation of the People Act, 1951.
That Act seeks to disqualify for various periods those who have been found guilty of criminal offences.
It does not prescribe any educational or other qualification for any member of legislative assembly (MLA), member of Parliament (MP), minister, chief minister/prime minister or even the President.
Unfair criteria:-
It is deeply unfair that two-thirds of those who had been elected to Haryana’s panchayats have found themselves unable to run again, according to the new disqualifications now introduced.
Punisnhing people for the failure of government:-
To punish the unfortunate citizen, who has not been provided the minimum education that the state is obliged to provide, and not the state for this failing, is a travesty of natural justice.
Equally, after years of the Total Sanitation Campaign and, more recently, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the state has failed to ensure that toilets are built in every home. Once again, for its own failure of governance, Haryana has chosen to punish those who have the greatest difficulty and the least incentive to fulfil this absurd condition (that poll contestants have a functional toilet at home), which has nothing to do with the democratic values of electability or the right to run.
The core of the problem lies not in the physical provision of toilets but in motivating those who have such toilets to actually use them.
Depriving the socially backward:-
Those most left behind in the national campaign for education and sanitation are precisely those who belong to the disadvantaged communities of the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and women of all castes and classes. Indeed, the very term “Other Backward Classes” refers to those who are categorised as “socially and educationally backward”.
The Sachar Committee has established beyond an iota of doubt that the Muslim community as a whole has an enormous educational lag to make up.
The fact that those now disqualified are among the “most electable” has been proved by the other fact that in the last elections, some 67% of those whom the people chose to represent them are now barred from even standing for election.
Benefitting women:-
Several studies have shown that Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe women, often less educated than their upper caste sisters, have benefited most from the opportunities for social and political advancement, as well as economic and administrative empowerment, opened by Panchayati Raj.
This is not surprising if one reflects that poor Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe women have to be in the public domain and negotiate their way past dominant and domineering men for sheer livelihood, from which upper-caste and upper-class village women are largely insulated.
Thus, for example, in Karnataka, whereas reservations for Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe women within the Scheduled the share of Scheduled Caste women elected has been 54% and as high as 65% (or double the quota) for Scheduled Tribe women. Many, perhaps most, of these Karnataka women would not have been allowed to even run for the Haryana elections.
Overcoming gender discrimination has been the most beneficial spin-off of constitutional Panchayati Raj. The numbers show an achievement in gender empowerment without precedent in history or parallel in the world.
GS PAPER 3
[1]. Internet power to the people/ Adhering to basics and freedom.
Context:-
The regulations issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) barring differential pricing of data based on content have created a global impact.
Significance:-
It is the most important victory for the people in the tech space in the last 20 years.
India has joined a select few countries that have protected net neutrality and barred zero-rating services.
The regulator’s stance is commendable for two other reasons as well.
- It had to face enormous pressures to tinker with the way the Internet is governed.
- Net neutrality, with its numerous interpretations, is a complex concept.
The latest ruling could no doubt set the tone for regulators across the globe, especially those of countries that have socio-economic features akin to India’s.
The ruling would ensure that generations of Indians are not forced to be satisfied with services that pretend to be the Internet itself, robbing them of the real benefits of the medium.
Ignoring the havenots but for a noble cause:-
The point about providing at least some access to millions of new users for free, who otherwise cannot afford it, must have been difficult for TRAI to ignore.
And that is why it is important to recognise that a ‘no’ to Free Basics does not imply a failure on the part of TRAI to recognise the importance of catering to the Internet have-nots.
In fact, the regulator has noted that it is not against the provision of limited free data that allows a user to explore the Internet. Simply put, it finds this route palatable because the choice is with the user.
Argument for Free basics:-
The poor should not be denied from getting some access to the Internet — even if this was limited, as Something better than nothing.
Reason for failure of Facebook campaign:-
Energy and creativity of Net neutrality Fundamentalists ( supporters):-
They not only ran an innovative and creative campaign, but were also able to bring tech activists on to the streets. They were even surprised by the response of the people.
Facebook Under estimated Indian public:-
Facebook and their ad agencies completely underestimated the Indian public.
Even if all of them do not use the Internet, they understand the difference between having access to the full Internet, with nearly a billion websites, and the so-called Free Basics platform that provides Facebook and a few other sites.
They are sophisticated enough to know that Free Basics would not offer them any of the things they really want to access.
No search, no email, no access to various services; no pictures or video clips for entertainment either. No access to the rich diversity of views and material on the Internet.
Other people who want to have the full Internet could still access it, so why is Facebook’s Free Basics harmful?
TRAI has correctly pointed out that the tariff principle at play is whether we can have differential pricing of data based on the content we see.
If we accept this principle, then it does not prevent telcos from charging various websites and Internet services for accessing their subscribers.
Accepting that one form of price discrimination is okay opens the door to all other forms of discrimination as well.
Nondiscriminatory:-
The most important characteristic of the Internet is whether it is the richest corporation in the world or an individual writing a blog, both are treated identically on the Internet.
Creates gatekeepers:-
If the blogger had to negotiate with the Internet service providers (ISPs) — in today’s world the telcos — to reach the telco subscribers, she would have to negotiate with thousands of such ISPs.
Telcos would then be the gatekeepers of the Internet. Only the biggest corporations could then survive on the Net.
Example:-
This is how the cable TV model works; for their channels to be carried, the TV channels have to negotiate with all the platforms such as Dish TV, Tata Sky, etc.
If we accept that telcos can act as gatekeepers, we would then lose what has given the Internet its unique power, the ability for us not only to be consumers but also creators of content.
How it began? (First war on Net neutrality)
The public debate on net neutrality began during late 2014 when India’s top telecom carrier Bharti Airtel decided to charge users extra for the use of applications with which they can make free calls over the Internet.
The big telco monopolies tried to levy a “tax” on all Internet content providers.
The Internet companies were then the new kids on the block.
They and the Internet user community fought back such attempts. This was the first net neutrality war, and it established the principle of non-discrimination on the Internet between different types of content or sites.
Rise of Internet Monopolies:-
We have the emergence of powerful Internet monopolies that are much bigger than the telcos.
Not surprisingly, these companies now see the virtues of monopoly.
They would like to combine with telcos to create monopolies for their platforms, ensuring that they control the future of the Internet and freeze their competition out.
Requirement of monolpolies:-
Today, we have nearly a billion websites on the Internet and 3.5 billion users. This means that nearly one out of three users is both a content provider as well as content consumer.
The Internet monopolies want that we should be passive consumers of their content, or at best generate captive content only for their platforms. This is why they have joined hands with telcos to offer various forms of zero-rating services.
Zero Rating services:-
The two most common forms of zero rating used by telcos are
- no data charges for a select set of sites, e.g. Facebook’s Free Basics,
- a few content providers such as Netflix not being subjected to data caps by telcos.
The TRAI order bars both these forms.
Prevention or cure?
The other issue that TRAI dealt with is whether regulatory policies should be crafted to prevent harm (ex ante ) or be applied only after harm has been established.
The argument of the telcos has been, “prove there has been harm, otherwise we should be allowed to do as we please”.
TRAI has again correctly pointed out that not crafting the right policies for the Internet would distort the basic character of the Internet itself.
It would then help the well heeled, who would be able to take advantage of a lack of policy.
The TRAI order also points out that without the right policies, each tariff proposal would have to be analysed on a case-by-case basis, imposing high regulatory overheads.
Using monopoly to dominate users:-
The last issue we need to examine is how a powerful monopoly can bend policy by virtue of its control over its users.
Facebook not only launched a media blitz but also ran a completely misleading campaign on Free Basics to its 130 million Indian subscribers.
Through its various pop-ups and user interface, it pressured its users to send TRAI a boilerplate statement of support for Free Basics.
The question is, can a platform monopoly — of the type Facebook, Google are — use this monopoly to run a campaign on a country’s policy?
Facebook is a foreign entity and has argued before Indian courts that it is not accountable to Indian laws. Should such entities have such power over our peoples’ lives?
TRAI had rebuked Facebook on its attempt to convert TRAI’s consultation on differential pricing to a numbers game. TRAI wanted clear answers to the questions they had posed, not boilerplate emails saying how people loved Free Basics.
The bigger question:-
But it still leaves unanswered the question of what are the rights and duties of such platform monopolies towards their users. With Google and Facebook emerging bigger than many nation states, this is the key question for the Internet in the future.
it prohibited telecom providers from charging differential rates for data services.
Exploring alternatives:-
This is also a route that Free Basics could explore in the immediate future in order to stay alive in India.
Without distorting the market:-
The regulator’s problem with a price-based differentiation has more to do with the fact that in a market such as India it would distort consumer choice and have consequences that wouldn’t be understood easily.
The ruling also suggests that while TRAI recognises the need for India to bridge the digital divide, it realises that compromising the basic ideals of the Internet is not the way to do it.
[2]. Time for pharma course correction.
Context: Customs duty exemptions were removed for 76 life-saving drugs will at once make them more expensive and impact patients who are already paying a high price for such medical treatment.
Analysing the impact:-
It is important to keep in mind that a majority of Indians meet health care costs through out-of-pocket expenditure, and any increase is bound to adversely affect them.
Waiver is an interim measure:-
The customs duty waiver is an interim measure, and that the list has to be revised periodically.
Certain drugs now removed from the list are either no longer used by patients or are being manufactured in India at a lower cost than the imported ones, and therefore should be removed from it anyway.
Is it serving the Public interest?
However, it is not clear what “public interest” is served by removing certain essential medicines that are either not manufactured in India or whose demand currently exceeds local manufacturing capacity.
The government has failed to include certain life-saving or essential drugs that have been launched recently and are under patent protection.
This indicates that consultations have not been broad-based; this has to be corrected as the patient’s interest should be the priority.
Doctors decide the medicines:-
Unlike in the case of other commodities where the consumer is the decision-maker, doctors’ prescription preferences, sometimes based on partisan considerations, dictate whether a patient ends up buying imported drugs even when locally manufactured options are available at a lower price. It is for this reason that the withdrawal of 22 per cent customs duty exemption on imported drugs could have an impact on a patient’s budget; imported active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) will also increase the cost of generics made locally.
What are API’s?
Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients are portions of any drug, which are active
Any drug is composed of two components or aspects. The first is the actual API or Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, which is the central ingredient. The second is known as an excipient. This refers to the substance inside the drug or tablet. If it is in syrup form, then the excipient will be the liquid that has been used. Thus, excipients are the inactive or inert substances present inside a drug while the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients is the chemically active substance, which is meant to produce the desired effect in the body.
Chinese dominance:-
Since the late 1990s, India has lost out to China in the API market. Active as well as enabling support from the government in various forms helped the Chinese industry flood the Indian market with cheap APIs.
While the product patent regime that came into full force since 2005 and the flooding of the market with Chinese APIs may appear to be genuine reasons for giving the Indian industry cover to catch up, any protection cannot be long-lasting.
Push for R&D:-
The only way for the Indian drug industry to grow is by investing in research and development and in producing novel drugs that enjoy patent protection.
India is the pharmacy of the South, but that dominance is restricted to generics.
This has to change, and the government has to extend support in larger measure. As is the case in the U.S., many drugs that go on to become commercially profitable have their origins in academic and government institutions.
Unfortunately, the recent decision to cut research funding will not help the industry. The earlier the government realises this and changes its priorities, the better it would be for the country.
[3]. Government to ease norms for real estate business.
Context:-
The government is easing rules for granting construction permits around airports and monuments by developing colour-coded maps in a bid to give fillip to urban growth
Objective:-
Our goal is to give momentum to the urban growth
Current provision:-
Developers have to get permits from Airport Authority of India (AII) in New Delhi to build projects around the country’s airports which consumes a lot of time.
And also at AII, the process of clearing such applications is manual.
Colour coded map:-
AII has come out with colour-coded zonal map.
The airspaces used by jetliners for landings and take offs are highlighted in the map.
No construction will be allowed in such spaces.
Construction would be allowed in those areas that fall out of “colour coded” zones, he said.
Jaipur International Airport is the first one to develop a colour-coded map. All the other civilian airports across India, including 28 defence airports that are being used for civilian purposes, will have their maps ready by December 2016.
Ministry of Civil Aviation has also commissioned “improved version” of online NOCAS (No Objection Certificate Application System) to help applicants calculate permissible heights in airport zones.
Empowering Local bodies:-
Developers don’t have to come all the way to Delhi to get building height clearances among others.
The government will soon empower urban local bodies to follow the colour-coded zonal maps and authorise real estate development accordingly.
Other initiatives:-
Other ministries were also urged to simplify the authorisation of construction permits around airports and other ecologically or culturally sensitive areas.
Similarly, the Ministry of Culture in collaboration with ISRO is developing colour-coded maps for 281 monuments that fall in construction zones.
Ministry of Culture has launched a mobile app that enables online approvals for construction around monuments in just 72 hours.
[4]. TRAI and Net Neutrality: Courts must weigh public interest that have shaped this order.
Power of TRAI:-
The first is the power to ensure compliance with the terms and conditions of the licence and the second is to notify rates at which telecommunication services can be offered.
The first power comes into play as the telecom licences state that telecom users should have unrestricted access to the internet. The second is at the core of the regulation as it prohibits discriminatory pricing of tariffs.
Public resources:-
TRAI’s explanatory memorandum refers to Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting vs Cricket Association of Bengal (1995) to state that airwaves and spectrum are a public resource.
It further links this to the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and expression, stating how network neutrality will maintain the plurality of the internet, necessary for achieving this right.
As licensees of spectrum, a public resource, the ultimate interest should be of the public.
TRAI has clearly indicated that the public interest is served by its network neutrality regulations. It has even taken a lead by completely prohibiting zero-rated services that the FCC( US Regulatory body) permitted on a case-by-case basis
Facebook – example what net neutrality can do:-
the prowess of Facebook itself illustrates why net neutrality is an absolute good. What began as a bit of PHP code to connect Harvard University students could scale up and deploy globally within two years of its launch because the whole internet was its playground.
It did not have to negotiate the distribution bottlenecks of traditional media, where established companies have an edge.
TV channels must charm DTH and cable providers; book publishers must persuade distributors.
An internet start-up only has to convince its users and investors, because the neutral internet renders it as accessible to the world as the giant corporations it competes with.
Closing off news of the world by providing a curated slice of it for free — would constrain access to knowledge and discourage the democratisation of thought, the finest gifts of the internet.
Right step:-
Zero-rated products are actually a form of predatory pricing, and India’s regulator has followed its dharma by banning them from Indian cyberspace.
It has rightly valued public opinion over the pet projects of government and big business.
While Digital India would certainly empower people over the long term, support for start-ups in a broader landscape of technological creativity would create jobs and capabilities immediately.
[5]. Beyond the figures.
Key points:-
The nominal (inclusive of inflation rate) GDP growth rate for FY16 is pegged at a 13-year low of 8.6 per cent. This has at least two implications.
Missing Fiscal Deficit Target:-
The government is likely to miss its fiscal deficit target (3.9 per cent of the GDP).Reduced nominal GDP growth would mean a 4.1 per cent deficit.
Policy mismatch:-
While the government looks at the falling nominal growth (due to negative wholesale inflation) to argue for an expansionary fiscal policy, which, in turn, will lead to still higher fiscal deficits and inflation, the RBI will pull in the opposite direction on the monetary policy front (towards raising interest rates) because it looks at retailinflation (around 5.6 per cent).
Needless to say, this imminent policy mismatch would have to be resolved.
Conclusion:-
On the face of it, India has done well to weather back-to-back droughts as well as the crash in exports without losing its way.
Even by the old GDP methodology, economic growth in Q3 was 5 per cent.
The future will depend on policy action by the government as well as a normal monsoon.
By: ForumIAS Editorial Team
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