21 Nov 2020: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

B. GS 2 Related

Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Digital health mission ready for nationwide roll-out soon

Context:

The Chairman, National Health Authority and CEO of Ayushman Bharat has announced that the National Digital Health Mission will soon be ready for a nationwide roll-out.

Details:

• The National Digital Health Mission has already been launched in six Union Territories and is set for an all-India launch.
• The mission of the new digital health programme is to provide affordable medical health facilities to the citizens.

Read more about the National Digital Health Mission covered in 16^th August 2020 Comprehensive News Analysis.

E. Editorials

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. India’s no to RCEP could still be a no

Context:

• The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)– a mega trade bloc comprising 15 countries led by China, has come into existence.
• It is expected to represent at least 30% of the global GDP and will emerge as the largest free trade agreement in the world.
• India had ended negotiations on the RCEP in November 2019 over terms that were perceived to be against its interests.

Read more on this topic covered in 4^th November 2019 CNA and 5^th November 2019 CNA.

The objectives:

• The initiative to establish RCEP was taken by the member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2011.
• These countries had adopted a resolution to establish an ASEAN-led process by setting out principles that would allow ASEAN members to engage interested ASEAN FTA partners in establishing a regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement.
• The “Guiding Principles and Objectives” spoke of progressively eliminating tariff and non-tariff barriers on substantially all trade in goods and achieving a high level of tariff liberalization, through building upon the existing liberalization levels between RCEP participating countries and through tariff elimination on a high percentage of both tariff lines and trade value.
• RCEP negotiations were based on a framework for investment to cover the four pillars of promotion, protection, facilitation and liberalization.

A comparison with the TPP:

• The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), would have been the world’s most extensive FTA in terms of market opening had the Trump Administration decided not to abandon it.
• But there have always been doubts whether the TPP was promoting free trade or a highly discriminatory managed trade.
  • This was because the TPP included several regulatory issues including the controversial labour and environmental standards and issues such as anti-corruption.
  • These could raise regulatory barriers and severely impede trade flows.
• In contrast, RCEP includes traditional market access issues, following the template provided by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
• It also includes issues that are currently being discussed by several groups of WTO members to reform the multilateral trading system.
  • These issues are electronic commerce, investment facilitation, etc.
  • These would be the first step towards a multilateral agreement on investment and creating an enabling environment for the participation of small and medium enterprises in global trade.
• While India has been opposed to the inclusion of all these issues in the WTO, the formation of RCEP could provide serious momentum to the discussions in Geneva, especially after the organization convenes under its new Director-General.

Concerns:

• However, several commentators have observed that RCEP is not likely to usher in comprehensive economic integration in East Asia.
• Commitments made by RCEP members for services trade liberalisation look shallow in terms of the coverage of the sectors.
• The movement of natural persons is considerably restricted.
  • RCEP members have allowed relatively limited market access only to individuals in managerial positions or those having high levels of skills.
• The rules on dispute settlement procedures are yet to be written in.
  • It is uncertain whether the controversial investor-state-dispute-settlement (ISDS) mechanism will be included.
• An RCEP member can deny the transfer of information if it is necessary to achieve a legitimate public policy objective, provided that the measure is not applied in a manner which would constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on trade.
• In addition, members are free to adopt a legal framework that ensures the protection of personal information of the users of electronic commerce.

Re-engaging India:

• In the months following India’s disengagement from RCEP negotiations, several members had expressed their strong desire to get India re-engaged.
• The door has been left open to India to join the RCEP Agreement as an original signatory.
  • India would have to write expressing intention to join the organisation to restart negotiations for membership.
• Further, India has been invited to participate in RCEP meetings as an observer and in economic cooperation activities undertaken by RCEP members.

Have the circumstances under which India had distanced itself from the RCEP negotiations become any better for it to join the agreement in the near future?

• During the RCEP negotiations, India had raised a number of concerns, two of which, namely, the levels of market access it was expected to provide, especially the deep cuts in tariffs on imports from China, and provisions relating to the investment chapter, have become even more significant over the past months.
  • Since the border clashes, India has imposed a number of import restrictions on Chinese products.
  • India has also subjected investment flows from its northern neighbour to greater scrutiny.
  • Both these measures would have been pointless if India were a party to the RCEP.
• India’s initiative for its economic turnaround, the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, is primarily focused on strengthening domestic value chains, while RCEP, like any other FTA, is solely focused on promoting regional value chains.

The circumstances under which New Delhi had distanced itself from the RCEP negotiations have hardly improved. Therefore, the answer seems to be unambiguously in the negative.

Category: ECONOMY

1. The ‘Time Use Survey’ as an opportunity lost

Context:

The all India Time Use Survey, 2019 has been published by the Government of India.

Details:

• It is a survey by the National Statistical Office and has covered the entire country for the first time.
• The Time Use Survey, or TUS, provides a framework for measuring time dispositions by the population on different activities.
• The data collection was done for one day in a 24-hour time diary. The International Classification of Activities for Time-Use Statistics of the United Nations Statistics Division was used for the classification of activities.

Importance:

• The primary objective of TUS is to measure the participation of men and women in paid and unpaid activities.
  • TUS is an important source of information on the time spent in unpaid care-giving activities, volunteer work, unpaid domestic service-producing activities of the household members.
  • It also provides information on time spent on learning, socializing, leisure activities, self-care activities, etc., by the household members.
• The TUS, which collects comprehensive information on all human activities, provides improved estimates of the workforce as well as sheds light on important characteristics of the workforce. The TUS can thus provide critical information to add the richness of the EUS.
• The Expert Committee on the 62nd Round of the NSSO on EUS, therefore, recommended that a national TUS should follow an EUS.

Key developments:

• Two recent developments which have pushed up the demand for TUS globally are:
  • The commitment to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by 2030.
  • The path-breaking Resolution of the 19th International Conference on Labour Statistics, on “Statistics of Work, Employment and Labour Underutilization — International Labour Organization 2013”.
• TUS data are also required for understanding and monitoring major socioeconomic concerns of countries. Somehow, both these developments have not been incorporated in this first time use survey.
• Time-use data are needed for implementing not only the SDG 5.4 on unpaid work, but also for implementing the SDG-1 to the SDG-10.
• However, the Indian TUS data are not adequate for SDG 5.4 – which is considered to be the most important SDG for measuring and valuing unpaid domestic services and unpaid care by women and men, and reducing unpaid work through public services and infrastructure.
  • Unpaid work is usually valued using the input method, i.e. valuing the labour input in unpaid work using suitable prices.
  • This valuation is not adequate, because it values only the labour input and leaves out the capital and technology used.
  • Unfortunately, information required for satellite accounts of unpaid work is not collected by this TUS in the background questionnaire. (These accounts would be comparable with the national income accounts, and measure the correct contribution of unpaid work to the GDP).

Defining work:

• The ILO’s Resolution presents a new definition of work, new forms of work and a new labour force status classification.
• It defines “work” as “any activity performed by persons of any sex and age to produce goods or provide services for use by others or own use”.
  • Unpaid domestic services and unpaid care are now formally recognised as “work” for the first time.
• Work is divided into five categories:
  1. Employment (production of goods and services for pay, profit or barter)
  2. Own use production of goods and services by households.
  3. Unpaid trainee work
  4. Volunteer work
  5. Other work (compulsory work performed without pay to produce goods/services for others).
• Clearly, the Resolution cannot be implemented without time use data.
• But the issue is that the recently concluded TUS in India does not even have employment as one of its objectives.

Breaks in Indian surveys:

• Experts have always argued that Indian Employment/Unemployment Surveys (EUS) tend to under-report informal workers, due to the nature of informal employment.
• Being frequently intermittent, scattered, temporary, short-term or unstable, informal employment is frequently not reported accurately by the EUS.
• Women frequently view work as a part of household work and under-report it.
• Also, the EUS is not equipped to collect data on multiple jobs performed by people, the time spent on work (i.e. intensity of work), the scattered nature of work, subsistence work, and work performed under simultaneous activities.
• A TUS collects data only for one or two days per person in a week, while according to the ILO, “a person is a worker if she/he has spent at least one hour on work in the reference week”. Thus, the TUS cannot provide information on the workforce/employment status of persons.
• It is necessary, therefore, to draw the TUS sample (which is always smaller) from the same sampling framework that is used by the labour force survey (EUS), with some common units.
• While TUS can complement the labour force survey (LFS) information, independent TUS cannot provide estimates of the workforce/labour force.

Q1. Consider the following statements with respect to Doklam:

Q2. Consider the following statements with respect to the Arria Formula meeting:

Q3. Consider the following statements with respect to Inner Line Permit (ILP):

Q4. Unnat Bharat Abhiyaan is an initiative of which of the following ministries?

I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

1. Discuss the components and significance of National Digital Health Mission. How would it address the current requirements and gaps in the health system in the country? (15 Marks, 250 Words) (GS 2 Governance).
2. Have the circumstances under which India had distanced itself from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations become any better for it to join the agreement in the near future? Critically comment. (15 Marks, 250 Words) (GS 2 International Relations).

Read the previous CNA here.