UPSC Exam: Comprehensive News Analysis - January 22

A. GS1 Related
B. GS2 Related
GOVERNANCE
1. Disqualification of MLAs on grounds of Office of Profit
HEALTH ISSUES
1. Primary Healthcare in India
C. GS3 Related
ECONOMY
1. Assessment of Job Growth in India
2. Rooftop Solar Panels in India
3. Credit Scores
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
1. Day Light Saving
D. GS4 Related
E. Prelims Fact
F. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions
G. UPSC Mains Practice Questions 

A. GS1 Related

B. GS2 Related

What is the issue about?

• The AAP MLAs were appointed as Parliamentary Secretaries and a petitioner, in a complaint to the EC and the President in 2015, said being a parliamentary secretary was holding an office of profit and this invited disqualification.
• President Ram Nath Kovind accepted the recommendation of the Election Commission to disqualify 20 MLAs of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the ruling party in the national capital, for holding offices of profit.
• After the President’s decision, the AAP said it would use all legal options available.

What is Parliamentary Secretary?

• A Parliamentary Secretary assists a Minister, and the office usually comes with perks as well as a measure of political influence.
• However, in a notification confirming the appointment of the 20 MLAs, the government had said no remuneration or perks would be given to the Parliamentary Secretaries.

What is an office of profit?

• It is a position in the government which cannot be held by an MLA or an MP. The post can yield salaries, perquisites and other benefits. The origin of this term can be found in the English Act of Settlement, 1701. Under this law, “no person who has an office or place of profit under the King, or receives a pension from the Crown, shall be capable of serving as a member of the House of Commons.” This was instituted so that there wouldn’t be any undue influence from the royal household in administrative affairs.

What do parliamentary secretaries do?

• In the Westminster system, a parliamentary secretary is a Member of Parliament who assists a Minister in their duties. Prime Ministers and Chief Ministers usually appoint parliamentary secretaries from their own parties.

Why should an MLA or an MP not hold an office of profit?

• According to Articles 102(1)(a) and 191(1)(a) of the Constitution, an MP or MLA is barred from holding an office of profit as it can put them in a position to gain a financial benefit. “A person shall be disqualified for being chosen as, and for being, a member of either House of Parliament, (a) if he holds any office of profit under the Government of India or the Government of any State, other than an office declared by Parliament by law not to disqualify its holder,” says the law.
• Under the Representation of People Act too, holding an office of profit is grounds for disqualification.

Do other states in India have MLAs holding offices of profit?

• West Bengal, Karnataka, Telangana, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab, Mizoram and Manipur have had similar incidents. In West Bengal, Telangana and Punjab, the respective High Courts called the appointments “unconstitutional” and struck down the appointments.
• The case regarding appointment of parliamentary secretaries is pending in the Karnataka High Court. In Rajasthan, the State passes a Bill in October 2017 to make the posts constitutional, but the validity of this law has been challenged.
• Odisha too has appointed MLAs as chairpersons of district planning committees by amending an Act. The Supreme Court struck down The Assam Parliamentary Secretaries (Appointment, Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2004 in July 2017 leading to a wave of resignations in Northeastern states.

On what basis did the Election Commission give the recommendation?

• The Election Commission has cited several rulings of the Supreme Court in its recommendation to the President that the 20 legislators be disqualified for holding office of profit.
• The recommendation said the Supreme Court in Maulana Abdul Shakur vs Rikhab Chand (1958) had defined the concept of office of profit under the government. The court said the government’s power to appoint a person to an office, or to keep him in that office, or revoke his appointment at its discretion, and payment from government revenues were important factors in determining if one held an office of profit. Payment from a source other than government revenue was not the decisive factor.
• In Pradyut Bordoloi vs Swapan Roy (2001), the Supreme Court outlined the following questions for the test: whether the government makes the appointment; whether the government has the right to remove or dismiss the holder; whether the government pays the remuneration; what are the functions of the holder; does he perform them for the government; and does the government exercise any control over the performance of those functions?
• Three other rulings were cited to highlight the grounds on which a distinction between the holder of an office of profit and of a post/service under the government could be made.
• In Guru Gobinda Basu vs Sankari Prasad Ghosal (1964), the court said: “But all these factors need not coexist. Mere absence of one of the factors may not negate the overall test. The decisive test for determining whether a person holds any office of profit under the government, the Constitution Bench holds, is the test of appointment; stress on other tests will depend on the facts of each case.”
• The court said the final query was, whether, on account of holding of such office, would the government be in a position to influence him so as to interfere with his independence in functioning as an MLA and/or would his holding of the two offices involve a conflict of interest.
• Citing the judgments, the EC said the AAP MLAs were appointed Parliamentary Secretaries by the Delhi government, which exercised control over them.
• The government had the power to remove them, their work was allocated by Ministers concerned as delegated authority and expenses of their office were paid from government revenues.
• The Commission concluded that there could be no dispute that the office of Parliamentary Secretary was an office under the government.

What is the status of Primary Health Care in India?

• The primary health system is struggling with a below-par national physician-patient ratio (0.76 per 1,000 population, amongst the lowest in the world) due to a paucity of MBBS-trained primary-care physicians and the unwillingness of existing MBBS-trained physicians to serve remote/rural populations.
• Urban-rural disparities in physician availability in the face of an increasing burden of chronic diseases make health care in India both inequitable and expensive.
• Therefore, there is an urgent need for a trained cadre to provide accessible primary-care services that cover minor ailments, health promotion services, risk screening for early disease detection and appropriate referral linkages, and ensure that people receive care at a community level when they need it.

What is the contentious issue with National Medical Commission?

• A contentious element of the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill 2017 has been Section 49, Subsection 4 that proposes a joint sitting of the Commission, the Central Council of Homoeopathy and the Central Council of Indian Medicine.
• This sitting, referred to in Subsection 1, may decide on approving specific bridge course that may be introduced for the practitioners of Homoeopathy and of Indian Systems of Medicine to enable them to prescribe such modern medicines at such level as may be prescribed.
• The debates around this issue have been ranging from writing-off the ability of Ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and homoeopathy (AYUSH) practitioners to cross-practise to highlighting current restrictions on allopathic practitioners from practicing higher levels of caregiving.

Can AYUSH be mainstreamed?

• The issue of AYUSH cross-prescription has been a part of public health and policy discourse for over a decade, with the National Health Policy (NHP) 2017 calling for multi-dimensional mainstreaming of AYUSH physicians.
• There were 7.7 lakh registered AYUSH practitioners in 2016, according to National Health Profile 2017 data. Their current academic training also includes a conventional biomedical syllabus covering anatomy, physiology, pathology and biochemistry.
• Efforts to gather evidence on the capacity of licensed and bridge-trained AYUSH physicians to function as primary-care physicians have been underway in diverse field settings, and the call for a structured, capacity-building mechanism is merely the next logical step.
• The 4th Common Review Mission Report 2010 of the National Health Mission reports the utilisation of AYUSH physicians as medical officers in primary health centres (PHCs) in Assam, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand as a human resource rationalisation strategy.
• In some cases, it was noted that while the supply of AYUSH physicians was high, a lack of appropriate training in allopathic drug dispensation was a deterrent to their utilisation in primary-care settings.
• Similarly, the 2013 Shailaja Chandra report on the status of Indian medicine and folk healing, commissioned by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, noted several instances in States where National Rural Health Mission-recruited AYUSH physicians were the sole care providers in PHCs and called for the appropriate skilling of this cadre to meet the demand for acute and emergency care at the primary level.
• The focus has been on deploying a capacity-building strategy using AYUSH physicians upskilled through a bridge-training programme, and the use of evidence-based protocols, supported by technology, to deliver quality, standardised primary health care to rural populations.
• Protocols cover minor acute ailments such as fever, upper respiratory tract infections, gastrointestinal conditions (diarrhoea, acidity), urological conditions, as well as proactive risk-screening.
• The Maharashtra government has led the way in implementing bridge training for capacity-building of licensed homoeopathy practitioners to cross-prescribe.

What are the measures that can be taken?

• Capacity-building of licensed AYUSH practitioners through bridge training to meet India’s primary care needs is only one of the multi-pronged efforts required to meet the objective of achieving universal health coverage set out in NHP 2017.
• Current capacity-building efforts include other non-MBBS personnel such as nurses, auxiliary nurse midwives and rural medical assistants, thereby creating a cadre of mid-level service providers as anchors for the provision of comprehensive primary-care services at the proposed health and wellness centres.
• Further, the existing practice of using AYUSH physicians as medical officers in guideline-based national health programmes, a location-specific availability of this cadre to ensure uninterrupted care provision in certain resource-limited settings, as well as their current academic training that has primed them for cross-disciplinary learning hold promise.
• These provide a sufficient basis to explore the proposal of bridging their training to enable them to prescribe such modern medicines at such level as may be prescribed.
• Ensuing discussions will be well served to focus on substantive aspects of this solution: design and scope of the programme, implementation, monitoring and audit mechanisms, technology support, and the legal and regulatory framework.
• In the long run, a pluralistic and integrated medical system for India remains a solution worth exploring for both effective primary-care delivery and prevention of chronic and infectious diseases.

Background

National Health Policy 2017

• The National Health Policy, 2017 (NHP, 2017) seeks to reach everyone in a comprehensive integrated way to move towards wellness.  It aims at achieving universal health coverage and delivering quality health care services to all at affordable cost.

Goal

• The policy envisages as its goal the attainment of the highest possible level of health and well-being for all at all ages, through a preventive and promotive health care orientation in all developmental policies, and universal access to good quality health care services without anyone having to face financial hardship as a consequence.
• This would be achieved through increasing access, improving quality and lowering the cost of healthcare delivery.

Objectives

• Improve health status through concerted policy action in all sectors and expand preventive, promotive, curative, palliative and rehabilitative services provided through the public health sector with focus on quality.

Specific Quantitative Goals and Objectives

Life Expectancy and healthy life

1. Increase Life Expectancy at birth from 67.5 to 70 by 2025.
2. Establish regular tracking of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) Index as a measure of burden of disease and its trends by major categories by 2022.
3. Reduction of TFR to 2.1 at national and sub-national level by 2025.

Mortality by Age and/ or cause

1. Reduce Under Five Mortality to 23 by 2025 and MMR from current levels to 100 by 2020.
2. Reduce infant mortality rate to 28 by 2019.
3. Reduce neo-natal mortality to 16 and still birth rate to “single digit” by 2025.

Reduction of disease prevalence/ incidence

1. Achieve global target of 2020 which is also termed as target of 90:90:90, for HIV/AIDS i.e, – 90% of all people living with HIV know their HIV status, – 90% of all people diagnosed with HIV infection receive sustained antiretroviral therapy and 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression.
2. Achieve and maintain elimination status of Leprosy by 2018, Kala-Azar by 2017 and Lymphatic Filariasis in endemic pockets by 2017.
3. To achieve and maintain a cure rate of >85% in new sputum positive patients for TB and reduce incidence of new cases, to reach elimination status by 2025.
4. To reduce the prevalence of blindness to 0.25/ 1000 by 2025 and disease burden by one third from current levels.
5. To reduce premature mortality from cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes or chronic respiratory diseases by 25% by 2025.

Health Systems Performance

Coverage of Health Services

1. Increase utilization of public health facilities by 50% from current levels by 2025.
2. Antenatal care coverage to be sustained above 90% and skilled attendance at birth above 90% by 2025.
3. More than 90% of the newborn are fully immunized by one year of age by 2025.
4. Meet need of family planning above 90% at national and sub national level by 2025.
5. 80% of known hypertensive and diabetic individuals at household level maintain “controlled disease status” by 2025.

Cross Sectoral goals related to health

1. Relative reduction in prevalence of current tobacco use by 15% by 2020 and 30% by 2025.
2. Reduction of 40% in prevalence of stunting of under-five children by 2025.
3. Access to safe water and sanitation to all by 2020 (Swachh Bharat Mission).
4. Reduction of occupational injury by half from current levels of 334 per lakh agricultural workers by 2020.
5. National/ State level tracking of selected health behaviour.

Health Systems Strengthening

Health finance

1. Increase health expenditure by Government as a percentage of GDP from the existing 1.1 5 % to 2.5 % by 2025.
2. Increase State sector health spending to > 8% of their budget by 2020.
3. Decrease in proportion of households facing catastrophic health expenditure from the current levels by 25%, by 2025.

Health Infrastructure and Human Resource

1. Ensure availability of paramedics and doctors as per Indian Public Health Standard (IPHS) norm in high priority districts by 2020.
2. Increase community health volunteers to population ratio as per IPHS norm, in high priority districts by 2025.
3. Establish primary and secondary care facility as per norm s in high priority districts (population as well as time to reach norms) by 2025.

Health Management Information

• • Ensure district – level electronic database of information on health system components by 2020.
  • Strengthen the health surveillance system and establish registries for diseases of public health importance by 2020.
  • Establish federated integrated health information architecture, Health Information Exchanges and National Health Information Network by 2025.

Policy thrust

1. Ensuring Adequate Investment– The policy proposes a potentially achievable target of raising public health expenditure to 2.5% of the GDP in a time bound manner.
2. Preventive and Promotive Health– The policy identifies coordinated action on seven priority areas for improving the environment for health:

1. • 1. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan
     2. Balanced, healthy diets and regular exercises.
     3. Addressing tobacco, alcohol and substance abuse
     4. Yatri Suraksha – preventing deaths due to rail an d road traffic accidents
     5. Nirbhaya Nari – action against gender violence
     6. Reduced stress and improved safety in the workplace
     7. Reducing indoor and outdoor air pollution

3. Organization of Public Health Care Delivery– The policy proposes seven key policy shifts in organizing health care services.

C. GS3 Related

• A recent research report titled “Towards a Payroll Reporting in India” authored by the Group Chief Economic Adviser of the State Bank of India and a professor from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore has caught the media’s and the Prime Minister’s fancy.
• The main objective of the report was to make a case for a better payroll reporting system in India. It also made a claim that 55 lakh new jobs are created every year in India.

How did the report arrive at the 55 lakh new jobs number?

• It used data from the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) which registers employees from the formal sector for provident fund benefits.
• It found that as of November 2017, there were 36.8 lakh new members in the age group of 18-25 years who registered with the EPFO vis-à-vis the previous year.
• It assumed that any 18- to 25-year-old registering with the EPFO implies that he or she found a new job in the organised sector. It then extrapolated this November 2017 data to the full year of FY-2018 and boldly claimed that 55.2 lakh new jobs were created in FY-2018.
• New 18- to 25-year-old EPFO members do not automatically mean net new jobs in the economy; an informal job that turns formal with an EPFO registration does not mean it is a new job.

What is the impact of Demonetization and GST on the jobs in India?

• The Indian economy was subjected to massive external forces of formalisation by the twin forces of demonetisation in FY-2017 and the GST in FY-2018.
• As we know through numerous surveys, demonetisation resulted in thousands of employers retrenching a large part of their informal workforce paid in cash and registering the remaining employees as formal workers with benefits such as provident fund.
• This upheaval will show up as new formal jobs in the EPFO data set but it does not mean net new jobs were created. This was the phenomenon that played out post-demonetisation in FY-2017.

Next came the GST-induced formalisation in FY-2018.

• The GST by design was a policy of formalisation of the Indian economy through a networked system of tax credits which could be claimed only if the business was formally registered under the GST.
• It is likely then that the GST coerced thousands of small and medium businesses in the country to transition at least a part of their workforce from informal to formal employment.
• The costs of formalisation may have resulted in many firms cutting costs or even shutting down. The EPFO methodology does not capture any of these costs of forced formalisation but merely showcases the new formal employees as new jobs.
• In other words, if, say, for every five informal employees, four lost their jobs due to the GST and demonetisation and one became formal, this study will count it as one new job created.
• Instead, the truth would be that four jobs were lost and one job turned formal from informal, not new. Thus, the study conflates what could be formalisation gains with new jobs.
• It is well-known that when an employee loses her job or stops working, her membership from the EPFO database is not removed automatically. So, the EPFO data set may reflect new additions accurately but not deletions, i.e. job losses.
• When we talk of new jobs in the economy, we usually mean net new jobs, not gross jobs.
• So, it is somewhat misleading to claim that the economy has created 55 lakh new jobs when we do not know how many lost their existing jobs.
• If one had to truly separate GST- and demonetisation-induced formalisation effects, then the study should have compared the EPFO numbers of FY-2016 and FY-2015.
• India’s jobs situation is a very grim challenge that must be acknowledged, confronted and for which we must debate solutions.
• All evidence, confirmed by both governmental agencies and analysis by independent organisations like the Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy and well-known labour economists, have clearly demonstrated how growth in new jobs (formal and informal) has slowed down dramatically.

What is the status of Rooftop solar installations in India?

• Against a target of 10,000 MW for March 31, 2018, the achievement as of the last day of 2017 was 923 MW.
• While India’s track record in large-scale solar installations is respectable — the country had 16,070 MW by December-end, 2017 and is set to add another 6,500 MW by March — the rooftop part of the solar story has not been good.

What are the reasons for poor performance of Rooftop Solar installations?

• For individual house owners, rooftop solar is still not an attractive alternative to the subsidised power supplied by the electricity distribution companies (discoms) — such as Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd. in Delhi, MSEDCL in Mumbai and BESCOM in Bengaluru.
• As for others, such as shopping malls and factory buildings, they are the customers that the discoms — which are monopolies in the areas allotted to them — derive their sustenance from.
• So, the discoms find ways of preventing them from putting up rooftop solar plants and generating their own power.
• One of the effective ways has been to refuse to buy surplus power from the rooftop plants. As such, a factory that has roof space for 2 MW but can self-use only 1 MW, will restrict itself to its needs.
• Even the 1 MW may not be viable if any unutilised power or power generated on holidays is not sold. Since the rooftop plant owner cannot find a customer for off-and-on surplus power, he has to sell it only to the discoms — and the discoms are not buying.
• Many states, like Tamil Nadu, disallow ‘net metering’, which measures the power put into the grid by the rooftop plants. Others impose a cap on the capacity allowed for net metering.
• If the cap is, say, 1 MW, and if the shopping mall installs a 1.5 MW solar plant on its roof, only the 1 MW will be connected to a net-meter, which means all additional power would either need to be either self-consumed or unconsumed.
• The most common challenge according to rooftop installers is the restriction of net-metering policies that put an upper ceiling of 1 MW on rooftop solar projects.
• This is restricting the growth of rooftop according to many in the industry.
• The government of India wants the country to have 100,000 MW of solar capacity by March 2022 — 60,000 MW from large plants and 40,000 MW from rooftops.

Can the target be achieved ? What are the measures that can be taken?

• The government wants a new deal for rooftop solar. Last month, it put out a ‘concept note’ in this regard for public comments.
• The essence of the new proposals is to put the discoms in the driver’s seat, giving them incentives for rooftop solar capacity created by them in their operating areas.
• The government-owned SECI , a renewable energy facilitating company, would come out with tenders on behalf of interested discoms; the bidders who quote the least tariff will put up the rooftop plants and sell power to the discom.
• The government would give the discom incentives, worth Rs. 23,450 crore, for rooftop capacities created. This, the Centre hopes, would propel the discoms to create an ‘enabling ecosystem’ for rooftop plants in their areas.

Is the policy on right lines?

• As many experts have pointed out, the idea of giving an incentive for capacity created is anachronistic.
• With an eye on the incentives, discoms would get cheap capacity installed, disregarding quality.
• Second, by offering discoms incentives for capacities ‘added by them, the proposed policy ignores a growing trend — the ‘opex model’. Energy companies put up plants on leased roofs and sell power directly to consumers. There is no provision for a third party developer.
• Third, by selecting the rooftop plants only through competitive bidding, the proposed policy comes with a bias for large size.
• A factory with roof space for 500 kW will be edged out because it cannot quote a price that is competitive with another energy company that might want to build a 5 MW unit.
• The proposed policy also leaves a lot to chance. What if the competitive bidding process does not discover a price attractive enough for the discom to buy? Such a scenario is not unlikely.
• In a tender for solar plants on the roofs of government-owned buildings with a subsidy of Rs. 1.5 crore a MW, the tariffs quoted were Rs. 4.17 a kWhr for plants in Tamil Nadu, Rs. 3.94 in A.P. and Gujarat, and Rs. 3.83 in Karnataka.
• The prices may not be attractive unless the discom passes on the incentives to the plant developer — which is effectively no different from the situation today. Will the discom use the incentives to create “an enabling ecosystem” or pass it on to the bidders to lower the prices?

What is Generation Based Incentive?

• A better approach would be generation-based incentives (GBI), say, ‘50 paise for every kWhr generated, perhaps capped at Rs. 1 lakh for a MW of capacity’.
• A similar scheme served the wind industry well until it was scrapped last year. The GBI could be limited to, say, the first 10 years, by which time the firm would have serviced its debt. A suitably structured GBI would lower the prices for the discoms to be attracted to it.

What are credit scores?

• A credit score determines how creditworthy a person is and helps banks and financial institutions decide on loans. A person with a high credit score enjoys access to credit facilities without hassles.

Who issues credit scores?

• In India, the scores are issued by credit reporting agencies such as CIBIL, Equifax, Experian and the like.
• These agencies are regulated by the RBI and collect data from banks on their loans and come up with credit scores through use of algorithms.
• The data is updated frequently. Credit scores in India range from 300-900.

Are credit reports available at no charge?

• A credit report may be obtained for free once a year from every credit reporting agency.
• More frequent reports cost Rs. 300-Rs. 400 apiece.

Can errors creep in?

• A credit advisory, points out that data in the credit bureau is critical to lending and pricing decisions made by banks and errors in them affect credit scores.

The errors include:

• Reporting error: sometimes, banks report wrong client data to the bureau which can, in turn, lead to errors in the credit report.
• Algorithmic error: the bureau uses a matching algorithm to generate a credit report based on multiple data sets (pertaining to each bank) submitted by banks.
• Often, due to the lack of unique identifiers, the matching logic can go wrong which can lead to errors.
• Identity theft error: this happens when someone impersonates another person (who has a good credit record) to take a loan and then defaults on the loan.

How does a customer ensure data accuracy?

• Suggests customers monitor credit reports at least once in two months and protect them from identity fraud by using good firewall protection on their devices.
• If an error is spotted, a customer should write to the bureau concerned for a resolution on the link provided on the respective bureau website.

• Many parts of North America and Europe follow what is called Daylight Saving Time (DST).
• It’s a practice by which all the clocks in these places are moved forward by an hour during the summer months and brought back during the winter.
• The reason behind this is to take advantage of the longer-lasting sunlight in summer and save energy.

WHAT is India’s stand?

• India spans longitudes of 68° at the western end and 98° at the eastern boundary. Given that there is a difference of one hour for every 15° of longitude, the time difference between the westernmost part of India and the easternmost point is approximately two hours. But India follows a single time zone, since 1906 midway at 82.5°.
• There have been periodical demands from the Northeast region for a separate time zone. In the Northeast, the sun rises as early as four in the morning and in winter it sets by four in the evening.
• By the time, the offices and school open for the day, hours of daylight are wasted. However, the demands have not been met and India sticks to the IST, which is 5 and a half hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

WHY are objections raised against DST?

• Opponents argue that the actual energy saving through DST is debatable. Research proving energy conservation through DST has been limited. DST has mixed effects on health.
• Though it encourages physical activities in the evening hours, it could alter sunlight exposure and reduce sleep hours. It is also found that road and rail accidents are high in the days immediately following the clock change according to studies conducted in North America.

D. GS4 Related

E. Prelims Fact

F. Practice Questions for UPSC Prelims Exam

Question 1. Consider the following statements:

Question 2. Consider the following statements:

Question 3. Consider the following statements:

Question 4. Consider the following statements about Daylight Saving:

Question 5. Consider the following statements about the goals of National Health Policy 2017:

G. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

GS Paper II

Also, check previous Daily News Analysis