07 Jul 2020: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

B. GS 2 Related

Category: GOVERNANCE

1. 1.4 lakh families reach MGNREGA’s annual work limit

Context:

• At least 1.4 lakh poor rural households have already completed their quota of 100 days of work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
• Another seven lakh households have completed 80 days.

Issue:

• With the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown resulting in thousands of unemployed migrant workers returning to their villages, many are now dependent on MGNREGA wages.
• Having completed the quota of 100 days of work, in the first three months of the year, they will not be eligible for further benefits under the scheme for the rest of the year.
• With work running out, the families are in a huge crisis.
• While the construction sector, which usually absorbs a large number of workers, has also collapsed, the demand for MGNREGA work has been increasing.

Way forward:

• Activists are urging the government to increase the limit to at least 200 days per household.
• The scheme contains a provision for districts affected by natural disasters to request an expansion of the scheme to allow for 150 days of work per household.
  • Given that COVID-19 was declared a national disaster, activists have demanded that this provision be implemented immediately.
• Activists have argued that the limit should be imposed per adult individual rather than per household.

Read more about MGNREGA.

E. Editorials

Category: ECONOMY

1. Rolling back the induced livelihood shock

Context:

• The article discusses the lockdown-induced livelihood shock and its impact on the poor and vulnerable sections.

Background:

Poverty estimation in India:

• India’s poverty line has been based on unrealistically low thresholds leading to conservative poverty numbers. Irregular updating of official poverty lines and unavailability of data on consumption expenditure from National Sample Surveys in recent years have added to the ambiguity around poverty estimation in India.
• According to the household consumption expenditure reported in the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), 2017-18 and applying State-specific poverty lines (used by the erstwhile Planning Commission in 2011 based on the Tendulkar Committee recommendations, adjusted with current price indices), about 42% or around 56 crore people were ‘officially’ poor before the lockdown was announced.

Concerns:

Livelihood shock:

• The pandemic and the stringently enforced lockdown have had a devastating impact on India’s labour class.
• There have been reports of a massive scale of falling incomes and loss of means of livelihood. The livelihood shock to such a large proportion of the population is unprecedented in the nation’s history.
• There could be severe implications with increasing hunger-related deaths and destitution, leading to social unrest and crime.

Increase in poverty:

• Around 20 crore people were within a narrow band of 20% above the poverty line implying that these people were only a few hundred rupees over the poverty line threshold. A modest dip in earnings — and hence a fall in consumption spending — would push a majority of them into poverty and hunger.
• The lockdown seems to have pushed such vulnerable sections into poverty.
  • The extrapolation of the PLFS data extrapolated for the year 2020 suggests that about an additional 40 crore people were pushed below the poverty line due to the lockdown.
  • Around 12 crores of this lockdown-induced newly poor are in urban areas and another 28 crore people in rural areas.

Poverty deepening:

• Those who were already poor are going to suffer a further worsening in their quality of life, a phenomenon known as poverty deepening.
• Even before the lockdown, around 16% of the population had per capita consumption expenditure of about a third of the poverty line.
• The lockdown would have pushed the already poor to extreme poverty.

Destabilization of the urban economy:

• Massive reverse migration flows out of the urban informal sector will hinder the economic recovery in the post-lockdown scenario.

Inadequate state responses:

• The article notes that the formal responses of the state to address the economic impact of the pandemic have been mostly inadequate and poorly conceived.
  • The second economic stimulus package announces only a token increase of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) wage by Rs. 20 (Rs. 182 to Rs. 202).
  • The demand for work is anticipated to increase by 25% with the reverse migration-fuelled increase in rural labour supply. The additional grant made to the MGNREGS seems insufficient.

For more related information, refer to:

CNA dated July 1, 2020

Policy failure:

• The article argues that the neo-liberal growth that India has experienced since the 1990s has been largely through the exploitation of the labouring class. The economy grew by paying less to workers and allowing surplus to accumulate in the hands of the owners of the means of production, with the expectation that this would be reinvested.
• This model seems to have made the labouring class increasingly vulnerable, weakening their collective bargaining power, pushing them away from their native towns out of desperation, forcing them to accept any wage that is offered to them, making them live in conditions which take away their sense of dignity, and curtailing any social security benefit that could help them survive in times of difficulties.

Way forward:

• The article argues for specific policy measures to reverse the lockdown-created shock and stop it from snowballing into chronic poverty.

Rural specific schemes:

• A revamped, expanded NREGA needs to be made the fulcrum of the government’s rural interventions.
• The revamped scheme would require providing 90 million workers guaranteed employment of 20 days of work/month for at least the next six months. This would entail an additional financial stimulus of Rs. 1.6-lakh crore.

Focussing on equity:

• Recent experience with respect to government schemes shows the inherent challenge of the exclusion of marginalised communities at the lowest strata of the hierarchy.
• Though universalisation of the Public Distribution System may be an ideal objective, there is a need for better equity focus in the implementation of such schemes.
• This would involve identification of the most vulnerable and including them into the programme before expanding it to the relatively better-off.

Stabilising urban economy:

• Given the magnitude of the destabilisation in the urban economy, an urban employment guarantee programme becomes a dire necessity to stabilise the urban economy.
• A ‘direct’ employment programme implemented through municipal corporations could be introduced to guarantee 20 days of work. The wages could be fixed with a 30% premium over prevalent MNREGA benchmark average wage in the State.
• This programme can be used to develop key social infrastructure in urban areas including slum development, drinking water supply, toilet construction, parks and common areas, urban afforestation and social forestry. Such public works programmes can make a major difference in both the condition of public utilities and absorbing the spurt in demand for work in towns and smaller cities.

Reorienting policies:

• There is a need to alter the course of economic progress and reorient development programmes based on equity and sustainable development.

Category: ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

1. Before the next health crisis

Context:

• The article analyzes the inter-relation between health disasters and air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions causing global warming.

Background:

Lockdown effect:

• The lockdown has had a positive impact on air pollution levels and GHG emissions.
  • In Europe, 11,000 air-pollution related deaths were estimated to have been averted since the start of lockdowns.
• However, despite the plunge during the lockdown, atmospheric carbon emissions are a record high because of past accumulation and the respite from the air pollution that blankets Indian cities is only but transitory.

Details:

• The article claims that apart from the current pandemic, there are two impending dangers to people’s health — air pollution and greenhouse gases — and a weak public health system.

Issue of air pollution:

• Globally, some 9 million premature deaths a year are associated with air pollutants, such as fine particulate matter, known as PM 2.5.
• Recent experience seems indicative of the association between pollution levels in cities and COVID-19 infections and death rates, a link observed in New York City and the northern provinces of Italy. Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu, in the top tier of pollution concentration, have also seen high deaths and infections per thousand people.
• 14 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in India.

Issue of GHG emissions:

• GHGs, like carbon dioxide, which contribute to global warming also have a damaging impact on human health.
• There have been studies indicating the link between communicable diseases and global warming.
  • Mosquito-borne diseases in India have been connected to global warming through both increased rainfall and heatwaves. Europe reported its first local transmissions of dengue in 2010.
• Global warming intensifies heat waves and worsens respiratory illnesses.
• India has been ranked as the world’s fifth most vulnerable country to climate change.

Issue of public health system:

• The government spending on health in India is 1.6% of GDP, which is low for a lower middle-income country.
• Given the weak state of affairs of the public health system, India fails the test of readiness for health disasters, according to the 2019 Global Health Security Index.

Way forward:

Emission reduction:

• There is an urgent need to confront air pollution and global warming.
• Big cities like Delhi need to deal with transport which is responsible for two-fifth of the PM 2.5 emissions.
• Reforms should encourage public transportation in place of private vehicles by providing inter-connectivity between the metro and buses. Reforms should also focus on expanding electric vehicles.

Strengthening public health system:

• In managing health risks, emission reduction should be coupled with a stronger public health system.
  • Kerala and Tamil Nadu have recorded lower COVID-19 mortality rates because of the good healthcare systems in place in these states.
• There is a need for higher budgetary allocation to the critical health sector along with a dominant state presence in the sector.
• A preventive health care approach, along with a decentralized approach, should be a policy priority for the administration.

Re-orienting development approaches:

• India should avoid the scramble to return to the traditional ways of boosting short-term growth at the cost of environmental degradation and should capitalise on the increasing interest towards a more sustainable development model. This approach would not only lead to a cleaner world but would also lead to a healthier world.
  • Spending on reducing air pollution and GHGs provides estimated health benefits of 1.4 to 2.5 times more than the cost of the actions.

Q1. Consider the following statements:

Q2. Consider the following statements:

Q3. Consider the following statements with respect to Humayun’s tomb:

Q4. Which of the following is/are Green House Gas/es:

I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

1. Given that the stringently implemented lockdown has led to a livelihood shock and has had a devastating impact on the poor, suggest suitable measures to address this challenge. (10 marks, 150 words)
2. Apart from the current pandemic, there are two impending dangers to people’s health — air pollution and greenhouse gases — and a weak public health system. Comment. (15 marks, 250 words)

Read the previous CNA here.