08 Mar 2022: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

D. GS 4 Related

Nothing here for today!!!

E. Editorials

Category: SOCIETY

1. Working women too, with a dream of good childcare

Syllabus: Role of Women

Prelims: ICDS, PMMVY, NFSA

Mains: Women’s informal work is central to the feminization of poverty.

Context:

The article discusses the challenges faced by the informal women workers in India and measures to address those challenges.

International Women’s Day:

• International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8, all over the world. The day commemorates the achievements of women and their existence in general. 
• The theme for International Women’s Day 2022 is ‘gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow’.
• The United Nations looks forward to highlighting the contribution of women and girls around the world who are volunteering in promoting their communities or working on climate change adaptation, mitigation, and in general working in building a more sustainable future for everyone.

Gender Equality and Informal Female Workforce:

• India still has a long way to go to bring gender quality for India’s female informal workforce. A study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) 2018 concluded that in India, more than 95 percent of India’s working women are informal workers who work in labour-intensive, low-paying, highly precarious jobs/conditions, and with no social protection.
• According to a bulletin published by the World Health Organization (WHO), “women’s informal work is central to the feminization of poverty”. 
  • However, we do not know much about the impacts of informal work on maternal, neonatal, and child health with the lack of childcare solutions being a serious concern.

Benefits provided to the female workforce:

• India is very forward than other developed countries in terms of maternal health benefits and India’s statutory maternity leave stands at rank three among the global rankings. Following are the benefits provided:
  • Paid maternity leave of 26 weeks.
  • An option to work from home after 26 weeks of maternity leave on mutual agreement with the employer.
  • Mandatory creche facility for any establishment employing 50 or more than 50 women employees.

Challenges:

• The above-mentioned benefits are mostly availed by the formal female workforce that constitutes less than 5 percent of the total female workforce. 
• According to a study by ILO in 2016 lack of adequate childcare services leads to:
  • Women leaving the workforce
  • Earnings coming to an end
  • Discriminatory employment practices
  • Significant economic and health risks
• These challenges have not been addressed adequately in India and it affects the informal women workers to a great extent.

Measures to overcome the challenges:

Following measures can be taken to enable women to get involved in more productive paid work and improve their maternal and childcare health:

Expansion of ICDS:

• The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) is a government organization in India that serves food, pre-school, primary education and healthcare, health check-up, immunization, and referral facilities for children under the age of 6 as well as their mothers. 
• The plan was established in 1975, withdrawn in 1978 by the Morarji Desai govt, and then restarted by the Tenth Five-Year Plan. The scheme is also applicable for lactating women and pregnant women.
• Following are the primary objectives of the Anganwadi centres under the ICDS:
  • To provide maternal and child nutritional security,
  • To provide a clean and safe environment,
  • To provide early childhood education hence, enabling the women to re-join the work after childbirth.
• There are certain limitations also that are discussed below:
  • It does not accommodate children below the age of three.
  • It functions only for a few hours a day which makes it difficult for working women to pick up children during working hours.
• Measures to address these issues:
  • Early intake of children: If children under the age of 3 will also be catered by the Aanganwadi centres, then it will provide the following benefits:
    • Enable women to give time to paid work, and
    • Will serve the objective of the New Education Policy of providing quality early childhood education to the children in the 0-6 age groups.
    • Adress the issue of time constraints for working women.
• However, expansion of these services will require the expansion of care worker infrastructure particularly the Anganwadi workers and helpers who are already underpaid and overworked.

Revitalize the Creche Scheme:

• There are certain provisions for working women under the National Creche Scheme but it does not get adequate government funding. There is a need for an inclusive approach to overcome the implementation gaps and to diversify the worksite and working hours. Following measures will help in addressing the issues:
• Public Creches:
  • Public creches can be operated near the worksites such as markets, industrial areas, etc. This will enable timely breastfeeding, and handling any kind of emergency.
  • The Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) has tested this model in some cities.
• The funds collected from the construction cess can be used for running the creches at construction sites.

Some other measures:

Benefits under PMMVY:

• No maternal benefits were provided to the informal women workers until the introduction of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) that mandate a cash transfer of Rs. 6,000 to pregnant and lactating mothers.
• However, the notified scheme for this purpose namely the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana has certain limits such as:
  • Benefits will be provided only for the first birth, and 
  • The amount has been reduced to Rs. 5,000.
• States such as Tamil Nadu (Dr. Muthulakshmi Maternity Benefit Scheme), Rajasthan (Indira Gandhi Maternity Nutrition Scheme), Odisha (Mamta Scheme), Gujarat (Kasturba Poshan Sahay Yojana), and Chhattisgarh (Kaushalya Maternity Scheme) focus on reducing the gaps and providing additional benefits. 
• Tamil Nadu offers Rs. 18,000 in cash and kind for two live births.
• The cash transfer under PMMVY is not sufficient in terms of both the NFSA benchmark and nutritional needs and wage compensation.
• Universal and unconditional maternity entitlements of at least six months of the minimum wages for pregnant women and lactating mothers must be implemented.

Compensation:

• The compensation is lower than the minimum wages and it is not sufficient to postpone the mother’s return to work for the first six months. 
• The amount is also not equal to the NFSA inflation-adjusted benchmark.

Way Forward:

• Lack of access to affordable and quality child healthcare services and maternity benefits put a great burden on the informal women workforce that increases the gender and class inequalities. 
• Appropriate measures should be taken and the idea of affordable and quality child care infrastructure as an employment linked benefit and as a public good should be considered.

2. Reaping the potential of the female workforce

Syllabus: Role of Women

Prelims: Demographic dividend, Female Labour Force Participation Rate

Mains: Employment opportunities and challenges for women in India, Women in Gig Economy.

Context:

A lot of new employment opportunities have emerged for women in the gig, platform, and care economy. The article will discuss the different aspects of employment opportunities for women in India.

Background:

• Digital and smartphone technologies and the increased need for personal care for the sick, elderly, and children have created a lot of employment opportunities, especially for women.
• The gig economy provides flexibility and freelancing jobs.
• Health and personal care workers have always been an integral part of the economy and proved to be the real front-line workers during the pandemic. Women constitute a large segment of the personal and healthcare workforce.
• The need for personal and health care has been increased by the Covid-19 pandemic, hence, creating employment opportunities.
• There is a need for concentrated efforts and targeted strategies to enable women to avail these new opportunities provided by the labour market.
• Access to education, skill development, and, digital technology will help the economy in realizing the true potential of the female workforce.

The demographic dividend of India:

• The female labour force participation rate (FLFP) of India is the lowest among the BRICS countries and is also lower in comparison to some neighbouring countries in South Asia such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
• The FLFP declined from 32 percent working or looking for a job in 2005 to 21 percent in 2019. It is necessary to increase the FLFP not only to achieve economic growth but also to promote inclusive growth and achieve sustainable development goals.
• India has the youngest population in the world with a median age of approximately 29 in the year 2020. Women and girls constitute the major part of the demographic dividend. But, sometimes due to certain economic and social factors, they become unable to stay employed or take up employment opportunities. This has been a major challenge for the labour market and the Indian economy.
• China, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, etc. are some of the countries that represent a very good example of how the demographic dividend can be used to achieve faster economic growth.

Sectors with Potential:

Healthcare and Education Sectors:

• An estimate of the United Nations shows that women contribute to a major part of the healthcare workers and more than 80 percent of the nurses and midwives belong to the female workforce.
• Similarly, women also constitute a majority of the workforce in the education sector in India, especially in the primary education sector and early childhood care.
• Investment in better health and personal care facilities will not only improve the well being of the Indian people but also result in more employment opportunities for women. An ILO report suggests that investment in the care economy has the potential to generate a total of 69 million jobs by 2030 in India.

The gig economy:

• The gig economy is based on flexible, temporary, or freelance jobs, often involving connecting with clients or customers through an online platform. 
• The gig economy can benefit workers, businesses, and consumers by making work more adaptable to the needs of the demand for flexible lifestyles.
• India has emerged as the largest country for gig and platform workers. According to the survey of ILO (2021), job flexibility, and work-from-home jobs are very important for women and they appreciate the income-generating potential of the gig economy.

Digital Platforms:

• Digital platforms enable men or women to work from anywhere in the world, although, there is a limitation of access to the smartphones and internet in remote work. According to the data, it is evident that women have lower access to the internet and smartphones than men. 
• According to the GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Report, only 25% of women owned smartphones as compared to 41% of men in India in 2020.
• If this gap is reduced, then this move will boost the employment opportunities for women in the digital platforms as well as in the gig economy.

Measures to be taken:

Education:

• Higher education is very important to improve the employability of women. Motivation through incentives such as scholarships, transport & hostel facilities, etc. should be provided to the women and their families so that they can take up higher education.

Skill Development:

• Both physical assets such as credit facilities, funds, etc, and employable skills are important to avail the employment opportunities in the new emerging sectors. 
• Skill training of women in job roles aligned to the gig, platform, and care sectors as well as other emerging sectors such as those covered under the Production-Linked Incentive Scheme needs to be encouraged.
• Online skill training should also be provided to those women who have constraints in physical mobility such as social norms, domestic responsibilities, concerns over safety, etc.
• Appropriate training programs should be there so that women can take up new opportunities.

Wholistic approach:

• A holistic approach is required to reap the benefits of the FLFP. Constant dialogue and engagement with the States on action strategies will be required. Inter-ministerial coordination is required. 
• Governments, skill training partners, private firms, corporates, and industry associations as well as civil society organizations all need to come together to create enabling measures for women.

Policies:

• Policies that enable the expansion of care services along with the gig and platform sector should be implemented. 
• These policies will help in strengthening the aggregate demand while simultaneously improving long-term economic growth, gender equality, and societal well-being.

3. Is a more humane society possible?

Syllabus: Salient features of Indian Society

Mains: Theories of social change and the adaptive capabilities.

Background:

• If we look at the different theories of social change, then there are two paradigms that dominate social science. First, the Marxian theory of surplus is generated by unequal positions in the societal process. The second is the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel.
• Both of these processes namely the generation of surplus and evolution are autonomous, inevitable, and continual.

Generation of Surplus:

• The theory of surplus-value initially conceptualized as the surplus earned by the capitalists from wage labour is now generalized to the entire scope of social change such as land-use changes, technology, economics, politics, geopolitics, weaponization of trade, derivatives, etc. 
• The uses of the surplus determine the social change.

Theory of Evolution:

• The notion of evolution came into social sciences from the theories of biological evolution. With the advent of the Darwinian Theory of biological evolution, society and culture began to be regarded as undergoing the same changes and demonstrating the same trends. 
• Evolutionary theories are based on the assumption that societies gradually change from simple beginnings into even more complex forms. Talcott Parsons’s action theory stressed the importance of cultural patterns in controlling the stability of a society. 
• A process of differentiation takes place when society becomes more and more complex. 
• Different institutions such as schools, factories may take over some of the functions of a family. 
• One of the most important limitations is with regard to the conceptualization of ‘functional imperatives’ in the evolutionary process. There are different ways of coping with the functional problems of an organism.

Prescient thinking:

• In the early 20th century, another theory of social change emerged from the University of Chicago. 
• The conceptualization of the “self” as “I”, the subject, and as “me”, an object to the subject, was ‘prescient thinking’ in 1934.
• The mind evolves through conversation between the “I” and the “me” and social change takes place through the evolution of that conversation.
• A combination of genetic factors and life experience results in unique brain anatomy for each individual. Conflicting/competing signals from the region of the brain – memory, instinct, technical knowledge, tradition, emotion, and even mere absent-mindedness result in action which cannot be predicted. 
• It is not possible to predict which signal or combination of signals from the mind will win and set the course for societal change.
• Besides bringing in the factor of unpredictability, Mead made one more basic contribution to our understanding of social evolution. According to him, the organism not only interacts with other organisms but also with the objects around the world.

Conclusion:

• We read two dominant theories of social change, one is the surplus notion and the other is evolutionary theory. It is up to humankind how it uses the surplus generated by the capitalists and how it deals with the experiences of the past embedded in brain anatomies.
• If we put these theories to the correct uses, then a more humane civilization will be possible.

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Oil, nickel soar on fears of supply chaos

Syllabus: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests 

Mains: Impact of Ukraine-Russia war on the Indian Economy.

Context:

• The prices of commodities increased because industrial traders and buyers are facing challenges in sourcing the raw materials due to disrupted supply chains amidst Russia-Ukraine War.

High Prices of Nickel, Oil, and Gold:

• Nickel rocketed 76%, palladium reached a record level and gold broke through $2,000 an ounce on safe-haven appeal, while oil and wheat jumped to 14-year highs.

Causes of rising in prices:

• Russia has been condemned across the world for its attack on Ukraine and many sanctions have also been imposed on Russia that isolates the country to a degree that it has never experienced before.
• Disruptions in the commodity market are not only the result of tough sanctions on Russia but also the blocked supply chains across the region.
• The hindrances in sourcing the raw materials have raised serious concern among the countries still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Oil prices increased after the U.S and European allies said that they will consider banning the imports of Russian oil.
• Gold prices hiked because of the panic created among investors to take cover in gold.

Outcomes:

• Many analysts are predicting that oil prices will range between $180 to $185 this year and will lead to oil-led recessions across the world.
• The analysts are projecting the growth rate to be lower for 2022 because of the war and its outcomes.
• Prices of industrial metals will see a major hike because of the absence of supplies from Russia as it is the third-largest producer of industrial metals.

Way Forward:

• The central banks have to take appropriate measures to tackle the challenges created by the war.

Q1. Consider the following statements with regards to the PM Shram Yogi Maan-Dhan 
Yojana:

Q2. Consider the following statements with regards to ‘Equalisation Levy’:

Q3. Consider the following statements with regards to the Rajya Sabha elections:

Q4. A situation of slow economic growth and relatively high unemployment is 
best defined as

Q5. With reference to the book "Desher Katha” written by Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar 
during the freedom struggle, consider the following statements:

I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

1. Examine the challenges and opportunities surrounding the participation of women in our workforce. (250 words; 15 marks) [GS I (Social Issues)]
2. What is ‘Sealed Cover’ Jurisprudence? Examine its rationale and the criticism against this judicial practice. (250 words; 15 marks) [GS II (Polity)]

Read the previous CNA here.