13 Nov 2020: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

B. GS 2 Related

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. China begins work on rail line up to Arunachal border

Context:

China has begun work on a strategically significant railway line (its second major rail link to Tibet) that will link Sichuan province with Nyingchi, which lies near the border with India’s Arunachal Pradesh.

Details:

• According to Chinese experts, the project is significant because:
  • Like the Qinghai-Tibet railway line (in 2006 connected Lhasa to the hinterland), this will be the second such route linking the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) to the hinterland.
  • It will run up to Nyingchi near the border with India, which it will link to both Lhasa and Chengdu – the provincial capital of Sichuan.
  • The entire line will run from Chengdu to Lhasa, connecting the two capitals of TAR and Sichuan.
  • This includes a 525 metre-long bridge across the Yarlung Zangbo river, as the Brahmaputra is called in Tibet, which has been built at a height of 3,350 metres.
  • It would cut the journey from 48 hours to 13 hours.
  • It is believed that the railway can act as a fast track for the delivery of strategic materials if a scenario of a crisis happens at the border.
• The President of China has called it a major step in safeguarding national unity and a significant move in promoting the economic and social development of the western region.

E. Editorials

Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Can the right to work be made real in India?

Background:

• Given the large population in India, providing for adequate employment for all has always been a challenge in the Indian scenario. The pandemic and the subsequent lockdown have further deteriorated the employment situation in India. The unemployment rate has been soaring.

Right to Work:

• The right to work is the concept that people have a human right to work, or engage in productive employment, and may not be prevented from doing so.

Broader understanding of the right to work:

• Often ‘right to work’ is interpreted as the right to employment guarantee. This, however, is a narrow interpretation of the right to work. Ensuring the right to work in the broader sense entails creating employment opportunities which can ensure gainful employment and a dignified living for the worker. This dignity is supposed to come from work conditions, such as being paid a fair wage and having regulated work hours which constitute the equally important right ‘in work’ principle. Apart from mere employment guarantee, such work should be fulfilling, work should be creative.
• From a philosophical perspective, the demand for the right to work should also involve aspects such as the right to leisure given that work is but just a part of life. The right to work is often criticized by some as being too narrow an interpretation of the right to a life with dignity. If a person is guaranteed a good eight hours of work, then automatically he/she is guaranteed right to leisure to enjoy one’s life.

Legal status of the right to work:

International status:

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the right to work in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. They recognise the right to work in an employment of one’s choice and the State’s responsibility to safeguard this right.
• India has acceded to both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Status in India:

Constitutional status:

• The Indian Constitution does not explicitly recognise the ‘right to work’ as a fundamental right. It is placed in Part IV (Directive Principles of State Policy) of the Constitution under Article 41, which hence makes it unenforceable in the court of law.
  • Article 41 of the Constitution provides that “the State shall within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other cases of undeserved want.”

Judicial interpretation:

• Despite the absence of an express wording of the ‘right to work’ in Part III (Fundamental Rights) of the Constitution, it became a ‘fundamental right’ through a judicial interpretation. The wider interpretation of Article 21 made by the Hon’ble Supreme Court through its judgement in Olga Tellis & Ors. v Bombay Municipal Corporation & Ors.- ‘right to work’ was recognised as a fundamental right inherent in the ‘right to life’.

MGNREGA:

• The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), aims to guarantee the ‘right to work’ in a limited fashion. It aims to enhance livelihood security in rural areas by providing at least 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. Notably, under MGNREGA, a person can hold the state accountable for not fulfilling the right by demanding an unemployment allowance.
• However, it has to be noted that MGNREGA only ensures the right to work as a statutory right, which can be amended or withdrawn as per the government’s whims and fancies.

Arguments in favour of Right to Work:

To meet basic needs:

• The ‘right to work’ is an essential element of life to be able to live. To enable the fulfilment of the basic need for food, water, clothing and shelter and also something more than just the basic requirements of life, one must work to earn.

Creation of public infrastructure:

• The right to work can help fill the gap created by the profound lack of public goods and assets, in India.
• The state’s responsibility to provide basic public goods can be combined with an employment creation programme just like MGNREGA does in rural areas.
  • Three States — Odisha, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh — have launched an urban employment guarantee programme in the wake of COVID-19, focussing on the creation of public infrastructure.

For more information on MGNREGA and the recently launched Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan, refer to:

CNA dated July 1, 2020: Utilise MGNREGA to the fullest capacity

Countering side effects of a market economy:

• Most countries have embraced the market economy where demand and supply are the major factors influencing economic decisions. In such a scenario even labour is subject to the laws of the market.
• In a capitalist economy where welfare and employment are not a guaranteed by-product of private economic activity, the state has an inherent responsibility to ensure the right to work for all.

Inequitable growth:

• Though the liberalization of the Indian economy has helped India record impressive growth numbers, the growth has been largely inequitable.
• Only economic growth with adequate employment opportunities for all can ensure equitable growth. Only this can result in economic development which is a more comprehensive measure of progress than mere economic growth.
• Also, this makes economic sense because only equitable growth can ensure adequate disposable income in the hands of the larger population which in turn will drive demand in the economy and economic growth. This can lead to a more sustainable economic growth model.

Profit motive:

• Profit considerations alone may require the industries to go in for the adoption of capital-intensive methods of production. However, this approach may not be suitable for a country like India which is essentially a labour surplus economy. Increasing automation in a country like India is likely to lead to jobless growth.

Weak bargaining power of labour:

• India being a labour surplus economy, in the capital-labour bargaining process, labour is structurally weak in India. This necessitates State’s regulation and the need for the State to provide support to labour. This necessitates the state’s active role in ensuring the right ‘in work’ to ensure the right ‘to work’.
  • The recent amalgamation of 44 labour laws into four labour codes has been criticized by labour organisations as a dilution of workers’ rights. This dilution of rights ‘in work’, would have an impact on the right ‘to work’. In this sense, the dilution of worker rights in India is a cause of concern.
• An employment guarantee programme from the government can help significantly reduce the surplus labour, particularly in the casual market and could automatically create favourable conditions for better treatment of workers.
• An effective employment guarantee programme can be an excellent solution to the structural weakness of labour.

Economic scenario in India:

• India has been seeing a declining jobs-to-GDP ratio, and mostly jobless growth.
• The path of economic development has not only failed to create adequate new employment opportunities, but has also led to displacement and dispossession of people from their means of livelihood. This necessitates the need to envision the right to work in a creative way and make it legally enforceable.
• Current circumstances necessitate the need for greater focus on the principle of the right to work.

Way forward:

• Some of the possible policy approaches to the right to work would involve the following measures:

Urban employment programme:

• Together with MGNREGA, an Urban Employment Guarantee scheme can help ensure the right to work.

For more information on the topic of urban employment programme, refer to:

CNA dated Sep 15, 2020: Urban employment as the focal point

• One approach is Decentralised Urban Employment and Training, or DUET. For DUET, urban local bodies can issue job vouchers to certified public institutions such as schools and universities for pre-approved tasks. These institutions can only use the vouchers to hire labour for pre-defined tasks.

Government jobs:

• There are a considerable number of vacant posts in government jobs. These are posts that are sanctioned but not yet filled. This needs to be filled in a time-bound manner.
• Also, there has been a massive decline in government sector job growth from 1.3 million per annum from 2005 to 2012 to only 0.4 million per annum from 2012 to 2018. The government should consider increasing the availability of government jobs. The focus will have to be the health and education sectors apart from the police and the judiciary which too have few government staff. These are sectors where the new government can expand government jobs. Many of these are essential services — teachers, nurses, ASHA workers, Anganwadi workers, doctors, etc. So, not only will it create employment, but it will also hopefully fill the void in essential public services.

Increasing public expenditure:

• India should consider increasing its public expenditure on public goods.
• The labour-intensive universal basic healthcare system of Thailand is a model that could be adopted in the Indian scenario as it would solve two problems at the same time: it builds social infrastructure, and creates jobs.

Encouraging private sector and self-employment:

• Given the constraints in state capacity, it may not be feasible to adopt an approach where the state is the major employer. Apart from government employment opportunities, there should also be room for private job opportunities.
  • Only about 7% of the total employment is created in the government, including the public sector undertakings (NSS, 2017-18). Of the total 465 million jobs in India, only 34 million are created in the government sector. Hence, private sector employment through appropriate government policy is crucial.
• This could involve incentivizing domestic investments through supportive measures and the provision of adequate infrastructure.
• The state could also encourage entrepreneurship and self-employment by providing quality skill training and appropriate credit support.

Safeguarding right ‘in work’:

• Apart from generating enough employment opportunities, the state is also supposed to safeguard people’s employment through appropriate interventions and supportive measures.
• The existing labour codes are applicable only to a minuscule proportion of the labour force. For the rest, there is very little legal protection, very poor awareness of the protections that exist, and weak implementation. The state should take appropriate measures to overcome these shortcomings.

Employing suitable growth strategies:

• Each economy is unique given the underlying factors at play and any economic policy should consider this uniqueness. This necessitates a comprehensive deliberation of the growth strategy to be employed in India.
  • Given the labour surplus status of India, labour-intensive sectors should be adequately supported along with the capital intensive sectors. This requires some political will and provisioning of adequate fiscal resources.
  • The state should focus on generating enough non-agricultural employment opportunities to absorb the labour exiting the agricultural sector.
  • As per the 2015-16 NSS survey, more than 99% of Indian enterprises are micro-enterprises (based on both investment and employment criteria). With appropriate support, these enterprises can grow into small and then medium enterprises.

For related information, refer to:

CNA dated Nov 5, 2020: Fixing the rules of the economy

Q1. Consider the following statements with respect to the Index of Industrial 
Production (IIP):

Q2. Consider the following statements with respect to submarine ‘Vagir’:

Q3. “Nyingchi”, recently in news, is located in?

Q4. Consider the following statements with respect to “Swarna Jayanti Fellowships”:

I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

1. Providing adequate and quality employment to all is a sine qua non for sustainable economic growth and economic development. Comment. (10 marks, 150 words)(GS Paper 3/Economy)
2. Discuss the significance of the ‘Right to work’ principle in the Indian scenario and analyze the challenges in implementing such a scheme. (15 marks, 250 words)(GS Paper 2/Polity and Governance)

Read the previous CNA here.