06 Apr 2021: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

A. GS 1 Related

Nothing here for today!!!

B. GS 2 Related

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Putin signs law that could keep him in office till 2036

Context:

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing him to potentially hold onto power until 2036.

Background:

• New constitutional amendments were proposed to Russia’s Constitution.
• A national referendum had asked voters to decide whether to approve 206 constitutional amendments.
• In the referendum, both turnout and popular support for the amendments were higher than when Russians voted to adopt the current Constitution itself in 1993.
• Nearly 78% of voters approved the constitutional amendments during the balloting.

This issue has been covered in the 3^rd July 2020 Comprehensive News Analysis.

Amendments:

• The amendments strengthen presidential and parliamentary powers.
• The amendments would allow Putin to run for two more six-year terms, in 2024 and 2030.
  • The Russian Constitution bars more than two consecutive presidential terms.
  • The new Constitution doesn’t change the two-term limit in theory, but in practice, it resets Mr Putin’s terms so that it will be the first election under the new Constitution for him, to be held in 2024.
• The amendments also place strict limitations on Russians who hold foreign citizenship or residency from serving public office. It blocks any individual who has ever held foreign residency or citizenship from ever running for President.
• The constitutional amendments also emphasised the primacy of Russian law over international norms, outlawed same-sex marriages and mentioned “a belief in God” as a core value.

Details:

• This move formalises constitutional changes endorsed in a vote in 2020.
• Following the vote, Russian lawmakers have methodically modified the national legislation, approving the relevant laws.
• Putin has argued that resetting the term count was necessary to keep his lieutenants focused on their work instead of “darting their eyes in search for successors.”

C. GS 3 Related

Category: ECONOMY

1. Flexible inflation targeting working well, says FinMin

Context:

The Finance Ministry recently announced that the inflation target for the five years between April 2021 and March 2026 will remain unchanged at 4%, with an upper tolerance level of 6% and a lower tolerance level of 2%.

Details:

• Explaining its decision to stick to the same ‘tried and tested’ model, the Finance Ministry said that the flexible inflation targeting monetary policy regime has been successful in leashing the inflation rate within a range along with providing a favourable environment for economic growth.
• The flexible inflation targeting led to a decline in price fluctuations, halved the volatility of core inflation, and moderated the median inflation expectations of urban households over a one-year ahead horizon, it said.
• It was highlighted that the volatility in the interest rate and exchange rate also decreased during 2017-20.

Read more on this issue covered in 4^th April 2021 Comprehensive News Analysis.

D. GS 4 Related

Nothing here for today!!!

Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Free and unhindered justice

Context:

• The article argues for the continuation of the virtual hearing in the Supreme Court.

Background:

Virtual hearing during the pandemic:

• With the pandemic necessitating social distancing and the need to keep access to the judiciary open, the Supreme Court had allowed for virtual hearings.

Location of Supreme Court:

• Geographical access to the Supreme Court has been flagged as a concern even during the constituent assembly debates. However, the Drafting Committee was of the view that the Court must have a specified place of sitting to ensure that the litigants know where to go for an appeal.
• The framers of the Constitution also agreed that the volume of litigation from different parts of the country may require the Supreme Court to increase its reach and hold court elsewhere. Accordingly, in recognition of the same, the Constitution empowered the Chief Justice to hold sittings of the Supreme Court through Circuit Benches in places other than Delhi as well.
• However, despite an increasing caseload and repeated pleas by litigants and governments, successive Chief Justices have refused to invoke this constitutional power.
• More than one Law Commission and Parliamentary Committee have recommended Circuit Benches of the Supreme Court to be set up around the country.

Concerns associated with the Supreme Court assembling exclusively in Delhi:

Limited access to Supreme Court:

• In India, given the unified, single-pyramidal structure of the judicial system, all types of cases can potentially make their way to the Supreme Court, irrespective of the place or forum of the original institution.
• The right to fair and equal access to the Supreme Court for all citizens of India is curtailed by the Supreme Court assembling exclusively in Delhi.
  • Several studies have pointed out the fact that a disproportionately high number of cases filed in the Supreme Court originated in High Courts closer to Delhi pointing out to geographical constraints posed by the location of the Supreme Court.

Cost of access:

• Geographical constraints have also meant that appearing before the Supreme Court has inescapably become the domain of a select few lawyers in and around Delhi.
• Such implied exclusivity consequently translates into steep and often prohibitive monetary costs for litigants.
• The litigants are forced to choose from what the Bar in Delhi offers, both in terms of quality and costs.

Significance of virtual hearing:

• The virtual hearing provision opened new vistas for litigants and lawyers across India to approach, through technology, the country’s highest court with relative ease. Access to the Supreme Court has been made easier with virtual hearings.
• The virtual hearings provision has helped open up avenues for advocates from all over India.
• Litigants now have the option to engage a local lawyer of their own choice and convenience, including the same lawyer who argued their case before the lower court.

Conclusion:

• There have been demands for a return to physical hearings by the Bar in Delhi even as there have been calls for virtual access to the Supreme Court to continue.
• Although virtual hearings may not be the perfect alternative, the imperfections associated with virtual hearings must be preferred over denial of the right to access justice itself. It is very important to acknowledge the significance of fair and equal access to the Supreme Court for all citizens of India.

Category: SOCIAL ISSUES

1. The pillars of an equitable post-COVID India

Context:

• Impact of the pandemic on the existing inequalities in India.

Details:

Economic shock of the pandemic:

• The economic shock due to the pandemic has been much more severe for India for two reasons. First, pre-COVID-19, the economy was already slowing down, compounding existing problems of unemployment, low incomes, rural distress, malnutrition, and widespread inequality. Second, India’s large informal sector is particularly vulnerable.

Impact of the pandemic on economic inequality:

• India has been witnessing growing inequalities and the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated the trend.
• The share of wages declined as compared to that of profits implying the increasing profits being cornered by the investors as compared to wages being earned by the workers.
  • The big companies and a large part of the corporate sector were able to manage the pandemic. The quarterly net profit of the BSE200 companies reached a record high of Rs. 1.67 trillion in the third quarter of FY21 and was up by 57% year-on-year.
  • The informal sector and workers have suffered a lot with the loss of incomes and employment in the last year.
  • Women lost more jobs and many are out of the workforce. Inequalities have increased in the health care and education sectors too.
• The economic recovery has been more k-shaped with rising inequalities.
• Many economic experts and reports have pointed out the uneven impact of the pandemic.
  • International organisations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the International Labour Organization have warned about rising inequalities in several countries including India due to the pandemic.
  • The Pew Research Report shows that India’s middle class may have shrunk by a third, while the number of poor people earning less than Rs. 150 per day more than doubled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Need to address the issue of inequality:

• Reduction in inequalities is important for its own sake and for improving demand which can raise private investment, consumption and exports for higher and sustainable economic growth.
• In the post-COVID-19 world, addressing inequality is important for higher and sustainable economic growth and the well-being of the population.

Way forward:

• The author suggests the following approach for reducing inequalities.

Employment and wages:

• The creation of quality and well-paying employment is central to the inclusive growth approach.
• This would necessitate the need to improve the investment rate in the economy.
• The investment rate declined from 39% in 2011-12 to 31.7% in 2018-19.
• Investment in infrastructure including construction can create employment. The central government’s move to focus on capital expenditure for infrastructure in the recent budget is a step in the right direction.
• The main challenges with respect to employment generation which would have to be addressed include the following:
  • Creating productive jobs for seven to eight million per year
  • Correcting the mismatch between demand and supply of labour – only 2.3% of India’s workforce has formal skill training
  • Structural change challenge – While the service sector continues to expand and contribute an ever-increasing share in the GDP matrix, ideally, manufacturing should be the engine of growth. Labour-intensive exports need to be promoted
  • Need to balance the objective of promoting growth of micro, small & medium enterprises and informal sectors by improving ease of doing business even while upholding the rights of workers
  • Need to be well prepared for automation and technology revolution
  • Need to ensure social security and decent working conditions for all
  • Work towards raising real wages of rural and urban workers and guaranteeing minimum wages

Focussing on human development:

• The state should focus on creating equality of opportunity by improving human development through increased public expenditure on health and education.
• Education and health achievements are essential for reducing inequality of opportunities.
• India should move towards universal health care and spend 2%-3% of GDP on health.
• The main concerns associated with the health and education sector are as follows:
  • Public expenditure on health is only 1.5% of GDP.
  • In education, there are islands of excellence that can compete internationally even as a vast majority of masses of children are churned out with poor learning achievement. The pandemic also brought to light the digital gap in education.

Social security net:

• An important intervention in addressing the inequalities would involve providing a quasi-universal basic income and other safety nets to the most vulnerable sections of the population.
  • This could include providing a minimum income for the poor and the vulnerable based on cash transfers; expanding the number of days provided under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and a national employment guarantee scheme for urban areas.
  • Schemes and interventions in the agri sector aimed at doubling the income of the farmers would play a critical role in reducing inequalities.
• These measures would help provide income support to the needy.

Addressing the financial aspects:

• Enhancing tax and non-tax revenues of the government is needed to spend on the above-discussed priorities.
• The tax/GDP ratio has to be raised, with a wider tax base. Richer sections have to pay more taxes.
• The inequalities between the Centre and States in finances should be reduced. State budgets must be strengthened to improve capital expenditures on physical infrastructure and spending on health, education and social safety nets.

Non-economic factors:

• Unequal distribution of development is rooted in the inequalities of political, social and economic power.
• Apart from economic factors, non-economic factors such as deepening democracy and decentralisation can help in reducing inequalities.

2. ‘India delayed second wave, can contain economic impact’

What’s in News?

While India is in the middle of the second wave of COVID-19 infections, the Finance Ministry stressed that the country had been able to delay the onset of the second wave and was well armed to cope with downside risks to the economy.

• The gap between the first peak to start of the second wave has been 151 days in India, while it was much lower in other countries.
• India is emphasising a five-fold strategy to curb the tide of new cases:
  • Exponential increase in testing
  • Effective isolation and contact tracing of those infected
  • Reinvigoration of public and private healthcare resources
  • Ensuring COVID-appropriate behaviour
  • Targeted approach to vaccination in districts reporting large numbers

3. Persistent mindlessness

• Over 20 paramilitary personnel were killed in an encounter with Maoists in the Tarrem area near Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district.
• The encounter has raised the number of security forces killed in Bastar to more than 175 since the killing of 76 CRPF personnel in the Chintalnar attack in April 2010.
• Naxalism related violence has claimed more than 10,000 lives since 2000 alone, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal.
• The Tarrem attacks indicate that the weakened Maoists remain a strong military threat despite facing losses to its cadre and leadership across central and east India.

Q1. Which of the following ideal/s in the Preamble to the Indian Constitution has/have been 
borrowed from the Russian Constitution?

Q2. Consider the following statements with respect to Bogibeel bridge:

Q3. Consider the following statements with respect to the Central Bureau of Investigation:

Q4. Consider the following statements with respect to Ordinances:

Read the previous CNA here.

CNA 6th April 2021:- Download PDF Here