26 Jun 2020: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

B. GS 2 Related

Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Panchayats to get ₹10 lakh cr. till 2026

Context:

For forming up its recommendations for the years 2020-21 to 2025-26, the Finance Commission held a meeting with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) headed by the Union Minister of Rural Development, Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare & Panchayati Raj.

Details:

• The Panchayati Raj Ministry has pitched for a fivefold increase in Finance Commission funding for rural local bodies.
• The Ministry asked for ₹10 lakh crore to be allocated for the 2020-21 to 2025-26 period, in comparison to the ₹2 lakh crore allocated under the 14th Finance Commission.
  • It noted that allocations had tripled between the 13th and 14th Commissions as well.
• An impact evaluation study showed a 78% utilisation rate for FC grants between 2015 and 2019.
• Road construction and maintenance, as well as drinking water supply have been the major projects carried out by panchayats using FC grants.
• The 2.63 lakh panchayats across the country have 29 functions under their ambit, according to the 11th Schedule of the Constitution.

Importance of Panchayats during the ongoing pandemic:

• Panchayats have also gained importance as crucial nodal points in times of crisis.
• Going forward, the Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyan will depend on panchayats to generate employment for newly returned migrant workers.
• The Ministry admitted that a major challenge during the pandemic and lockdown was that most panchayats could not provide cooked food at short notice. It has proposed that community kitchens be set up in each panchayat to be operated by local self-help groups.

E. Editorials

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Why China is being aggressive along the LAC

Context:

• The ongoing tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) pose the biggest national security challenge to New Delhi in at least 20 years.
• The clashes in Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh have claimed 20 Indian lives, the first incident of fatalities on the India-China border in 45 years.
• China has revived its claim on the entire Galwan Valley and has asked India to pull back from the areas.
• Satellite images in the public domain suggest that China has set up defence positions in the valley as well as the disputed ‘Fingers’ of Pangong Tso.
• Both sides are engaged in a face-off at Hot Springs.
• Despite multiple rounds of military-level talks, tensions are unlikely to ease given the complexity of the ground situation.

This topic has been covered in 14^th June 2020 Comprehensive News Analysis. Click here to read.

What led to the current situation?

• India has been very careful not to upset China’s domestic and geopolitical sensitivities.
• Barring occasional joint statements issued with leaders from the U.S. and Asia-Pacific countries, reasserting India’s commitment to “freedom of navigation” (a veiled criticism of China’s claims over the South China Sea), India has stayed away from criticising China on controversial topics, whether its “de-radicalisation” camps in Xinjiang, crackdown on protests in Hong Kong, or disputes with Taiwan.
• Yet China chose to increase tensions along the LAC.

Change in the status of J&K:

• One popular argument is that China’s move is driven by local factors such as India’s infrastructure upgrade and its decision to change the status of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
• For some square kilometres of land, this argument goes, China has lost India strategically, to the West.

China’s departure from “peaceful rise policy”:

• Currently, China is an ambitious rising power which wants to reorient the global order.
• There is a clear shift in Chinese foreign policy post the COVID-19 outbreak.
• This is seen in China’s rising tensions with the U.S., its threats against Taiwan, repeated naval incidents in the South China Sea, and a new security law for Hong Kong.
• The tensions along the LAC are part of this shift.

Read more about China’s major policy decisions post COVID-19.

Salami slice strategy:

• With the global economy in the doldrums, globalisation in an irrecoverable crisis accentuated by the COVID-19 outbreak, and the U.S. under an isolationist President taking the most aggressive position towards China, Beijing believes the global order is at a breaking point.
• It is fighting back through what game theorists call “salami tactics” — where a dominant power attempts to establish its hegemony piece by piece.
• India is one slice in this salami slice strategy.

Perception of decline:

• China doesn’t see India as a swing state any more.
• It sees India as an ally-in-progress of the U.S. Its actions are a result of what it perceives as a strategic loss that has already happened.
• If India is what many in the West call the “counterweight to China’s rise”, Beijing’s definite message is that it is not deterred by the counterweight.
• This is a message not just to India, but to a host of China’s rivals that are teaming up and eager to recruit India to the club.

India’s traditional clout in its neighbourhood was slipping:

• For India, tensions with Pakistan have been high keeping the troops occupied in the border areas.
• Nepal raised boundary issues with India.
• Sri Lanka is diversifying its foreign policy and China is making deep inroads into that region.
• Bangladesh was deeply miffed with the Citizenship Amendment Act.
• Even in Afghanistan, where Pakistan, China, Russia and the U.S. are involved in the transition process, India is out.
• More important, Balakot airstrike is considered strategically disastrous.
• A confluence of all these factors, which point to a decline in the country’s smart power, allowed China to make aggressive moves on the LAC.

Conclusion:

• When most of the world’s big powers are grappling with the pandemic, revisionist powers such as China have more room for geopolitical manoeuvring.
  • Europe has been devastated by the virus.
  • The U.S. is battling, in an election year, the COVID-19 outbreak as well as the deepest economic meltdown since the Great Depression.
  • The Indian economy was in trouble even before COVID-19 struck the country, slowing down its rise. Social upheaval over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, and the National Register of Citizens had weakened the Indian polity.
• Within this broader framework there could be a host of factors — local, regional and global — that influenced China’s moves.
• A deep embrace of a declining U.S. is not a solution as many argue; rather, it is seen as a part of the problem.
• What India needs is a national security strategy that’s decoupled from the compulsions of domestic politics and anchored in neighbourhood realism.
• India should stand up to China’s bullying on the border with a long-term focus on enhancing capacities and winning back its friendly neighbours.

Category: HEALTH

1. Drug abuse amidst pandemic

Issue:

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the strained health systems and social safety nets stretched to the limit. More people are using drugs, and more illicit drugs are available than ever.

Concerns:

• In the global recession that followed the 2008 financial crisis, while governments reduced budgets to deal with drug-related problems, drug users sought out cheaper synthetic substances and patterns of use shifted towards injecting drugs.
• The economic downturn caused by the global pandemic may drive more people to substance abuse.
• It may leave them vulnerable to involvement in drug trafficking and related crime.
• All over the world, the risks and consequences of drug use are worsened by poverty, limited opportunities for education and jobs, stigma and social exclusion, which in turn helps to deepen inequalities, moving us further away from achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• While more people use drugs in developed countries than in developing countries, and wealthier segments of society have a higher prevalence of drug use, people who are socially and economically disadvantaged are more likely to develop drug use disorders.
  • Only one out of eight people who need drug-related treatment receive it, according to the World Drug Report 2020.
  • Some 35.6 million people suffer from drug use disorders globally.
• Illicit drugs are more diverse, more potent and more available.
• 80% of the world’s population, mostly living in low- and middle-income countries, are deprived of access to controlled drugs for pain relief and other essential medical uses.

Affected segments:

• Around 269 million people used drugs in 2018, up 30% from 2009, with adolescents and young adults accounting for the largest share of users.
• Vulnerable and marginalised groups, youth, women and the poor have been harmed the most.
• One out of three drug users is a woman but women represent only one out of five people in treatment.
• People in prison settings, minorities, immigrants and displaced people also face barriers to treatment due to discrimination and stigma.

Way forward:

• Governments have repeatedly pledged to work together to address the challenges posed by the world’s drug problem, in the SDGs.
• Most recently in 2019, Ministerial Declaration was adopted by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
  • But data indicate that support has actually fallen over time, imperilling government commitment as well as regional and global coordination.
  • Development assistance dedicated to drug control fell by some 90% between 2000-2017.
• Funding to address drugs may be provided under other budget lines.
  • But there is little evidence of international donor attention to this priority.
  • Assistance for alternative development – that is, creating viable, licit forms of income to enable poor farmers to stop growing illicit opium poppy or coca — also remains very low.
• Leaving no one behind requires greater investment in evidence-based prevention, as well as treatment and other services for drug use disorders, HIV, hepatitis C and other infections.
• There is a need for international cooperation to increase access to controlled drugs for medical purposes.
• There is also a need for preventing diversion and drug abuse.
• Law enforcement action must be strengthened to dismantle the transnational organised crime networks.

Conclusion:

• Facing the gravest socio-economic crisis in generations, governments cannot afford to ignore the dangers illicit drugs pose to public health and safety.
• There is a need for drug strategies addressing the country-level, as well as regional challenges.

Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Senseless deaths

Context:

• The death of a father-son duo allegedly in police custody in Tamil Nadu’s Tuticorin district has caused a furore in the state.

Details:

• The father-son duo was allegedly thrashed by the police while in custody, leading to their deaths.
• In a swift response, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, which took suo motu cognisance of their deaths, has decided to monitor the progress of the statutory magisterial probe.

Concerns:

• Custodial deaths are often the result of the pervasive use of torture in India’s police stations for extracting admissions of crime.
• It is not uncommon, regrettably, for the police to use their power and authority to settle personal scores.
• If the recent deaths are ultimately established as custodial murder as a result of torture or assault by the police, it would only mean that the problem is much deeper than the mere lack of professionalism in investigative methods.
• It would indicate a different pathology among police officials that makes them inflict violence and harm against the weak.
• Since the early days of the current lockdown, there have been innumerable reports, often backed by video footage, of the police and officials attacking citizens in the name of enforcing restrictions, and awarding personalised punishment on violators, and sometimes kicking and overturning carts containing items for sale.
• The mere suspension of police personnel involved is an inadequate response to an incredibly wrongful abuse of authority by the law enforcement machinery. The police should register a case of murder and the matter taken over by an independent agency for a fair investigation.

The issue of Custodial Deaths has been covered in 7^th February 2020 Comprehensive News Analysis. Click here to read.

Q1. Consider the following statements:

Q2. Consider the following statements with respect to IN-SPACe:

Q3. Consider the following statements:

Q4. Consider the following statements with respect to Financial Action Task 
Force (FATF):

I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

1. The recent incident of custodial deaths highlights the need to protect the rights of prisoners and calls for strict measures to prevent torture of prisoners at the hand of the police. Discuss. (15 Marks, 250 Words).
2. Examine the dangers posed by illicit drugs to public health and safety. Also, discuss the economic and social consequences of drug abuse. (15 Marks, 250 Words).

Read the previous CNA here.