06 Oct 2020: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

E. Editorials

Category: EDUCATION

1. Re-imagining education in an India at 100

Context:

• In the backdrop of the recently announced National Education Policy (NEP), the article discusses critical design principles for the transformation of the educational sector in India.

Details:

Autonomy:

Aspects of autonomy:

• Greater autonomy for the educational institutes would entail greater leeway for the institutes in terms of regulations imposed by regulators like (UGC and AICTE) in these following four key dimensions:
• Academic
• Organizational
• Financial
• Staffing
• Academic autonomy is intended mainly to decentralize decision making and create an enabling environment to improve the teaching-learning-evaluation process.
• Autonomy would also imply greater learner autonomy as well. There would be autonomy of the learner in creating his/her own curriculum at his/her own pace. This could allow the customization of the learning process as per his/her needs and capabilities. This could play a critical role in improving learning outcomes as well.

Need for greater autonomy:

• Autonomy of higher educational institutions/universities (HEIs) is often acknowledged as a necessity for excellence and improvement.
• The experience of educational institutes from the western world have shown how higher autonomy can help improve the level of education and research. 

Efforts made in this direction:

• Premier institutes like the IITs and IIMs have been granted autonomy in their day to day functioning.
• One of the major provisions of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has been the phasing out of the system of affiliated colleges and the grant of greater autonomy in academic, administrative and financial matters to the top-ranked colleges and universities of the country thereby envisaging a graded autonomy model for the educational institutes.

For more information on this refer to: CNA 20^th Aug 2020

Concerns:

• Despite the best intentions of granting autonomy to the higher educational institutes, these efforts have yielded limited returns due to practical limitations.
• The granting of autonomy to the premier institutes in India like the IIMs and IITs has resulted in no dramatic variation in the nature of autonomy of these institutes.
• There continues to be the role of the government in the appointment and functioning of these institutes. The institutes continue to remain dependant for the capital resources on the government.

Technology driven education:

• Given the ubiquitous nature of technology and the advantages it offers there needs to be a greater emphasis on technology-driven education.
• Technology-enabled education while helping ensure affordable education to a larger number of students spread across a larger area while also helping ensure better learning outcomes.
  • Disruptive innovation like virtual reality will enable technology to give greater access to hitherto exclusive knowledge and fulfil unmet learner needs. For example, a leading global engineering company, ABB, is using virtual reality to simulate a factory experience inside a school. Such technology-led innovation will take learning from cognition to immersion.

Efforts being made in this direction:

• The integration of technology in the teaching-learning process for enhancing teaching-learning outcomes is an important policy prescription of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
• An autonomous body called National Educational Technology Forum (NETF)is proposed to be formed and entrusted with the task of advising institutions on the use of technology, and capacity building.

For more information on the significance and concerns regarding the technology-driven education refer to: CNA 21^st Aug 2020

Trans-disciplinary education:

• Trans-disciplinary learning is the exploration of a relevant concept, issue or problem that integrates the perspectives of multiple disciplines in order to connect new knowledge and deeper understanding to real life experiences.
• Trans-disciplinarily is about creating a coherence of intellectual frameworks beyond the disciplinary perspectives.
• In a world that is going to be more complex and volatile, expertise from multiple disciplines will be required to construct an understanding of the real life problems.
  • The current situation of the pandemic induced crisis is a case in point of the significance of a trans-disciplinary approach. Overcoming the crisis induced by the pandemic would require medical scientists, economists, , health workers and political scientists and more experts to bring their disciplinary depth to the table.

Efforts being made in this direction:

• The new National Education Policy (NEP) roots for multi-disciplinary institutions rather than standalone schools.
  • The NEP 2020 proposes a multi-disciplinary higher education framework with portable credits, and multiple exits with certificates, diplomas and degrees.
  • By 2040, all higher education institutions (HEIs) shall aim to become multidisciplinary institutions, each of which will aim to have 3,000 or more students. By 2030, there shall be at least one large multidisciplinary HEI in, or near, every district.

Value based education:

• Education should not limit itself to knowledge enhancement in the students but must also aim at nurturing minds with values and global mindsets based on three classical values of India: Satyam (authenticity), Nityam (sustainability) and Purnam (wholeness).
• The most valuable outcome of education is the becoming of a competent and compassionate human being.

Category: ECONOMY

1. India needs a rainbow recovery plan

Context:

• The article emphasizes on the need to have a renewed approach to growth and development in the post COVID scenario.

Background:

• There have been calls and arguments being made for a drastic change in approach to human economic growth and development models going forward after the COVID pandemic and the associated lockdown exposed the weaknesses in the current approach.
  • In Europe and the U.S., a ‘green new deal’ (GND) proposed by some from the political mainstream puts the climate and employment crises at the centre of economic recovery.

Details:

• The article warns that by attempting a ‘business as usual’ approach could only result in further deteriorating the situation caused by the pandemic. The article calls to take pathways to a more just and sustainable future by adopting a multihued approach to what it refers to as a Rainbow New Deal (RND).
• This approach would require integration of ecological protection and tackling wealth and social inequality and economic vulnerability of the vulnerable sections.

Ensuring sustainable livelihood opportunities:

• There is the need to generate dignified, sustainable livelihoods for the vast majority of the population and workforce that is today living precarious lives, while also ensuring the ecological preservation.
• The nearly 200 million small farmers, pastoralists, and fishers should be enabled to sustain or switch to organic, ecologically sustainable production, with their own food security as the highest priority, and with local marketing links.
• Schemes like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme could be re-oriented and extended, including for urban livelihoods.

Encouraging sustainable lifestyles:

• There is the need to encourage lifestyles and livelihoods that obtain substantial food, medicines, household items and other needs, from natural ecosystems.
• The policies from the government should encourage sustainable livelihoods. Forest-based livelihoods alone, for instance, can support 100 million people.

Impetus to local industries:

• There is the need to revive and sustain decentralised production of most goods and services, across all villages and towns, with a massive investment in the small and medium sector enterprises. This should also include providing an impetus to India’s incredible diversity of crafts.
• Products like soap, footwear, furniture, clothes, energy, and myriad other items of everyday use can be produced by community-run units across the country. ‘Made in India’ should be ‘Handmade in India’ by local workers. All such production could be run democratically as producer companies or cooperatives.
• This could gainfully employ 200 million people.

Focus on self reliance:

• There is the need for greater emphasis on self-reliance of the various sub-regions of the country.
• During the COVID-19 lockdown, community resilience based on such initiatives was amply demonstrated.
• A ‘network economy’, in which clusters of villages can be self-reliant for most basic needs, and exchange with neighbouring clusters what they cannot produce or grow can help dispel some doubts over the viability of such a self reliance on being able to meet all requirements of the people.

Investments in high impact sectors:

• The RND would entail substantial investments in public health, education, housing, transportation and other basic needs. If these are run in a decentralised way, with appropriate training, they could generate many more millions of jobs.
• All of this would be within ecologically sustainable limits, and specially focused on empowering and benefiting the most marginalised people.

Government aid and support:

• Government-sponsored programmes like Kudumbashree in Kerala and Jharcraft in Jharkhand show how they can be significantly scaled with state support.

Addressing the inequalities:

• There is the need to address the gross inequalities in social and economic domains to make the development process more inclusive as well as sustainable.

F. Tidbits

1. ‘U.S.-made F-16 jets are being used against Armenians’

What’s in News?

Territorial dispute has erupted on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

• The recent flare-up between Armenia and Azerbaijan has taken a dangerous turn because of Turkey’s direct military intervention in support of Azerbaijan, its ethnic Turkic ally.
• Concerns are being raised about Turkey, a vital NATO ally, deploying F-16 jets in support of Armenia’s enemies.
• Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet republics, exchanged rocket fire, with missiles falling on Azerbaijan’s second largest city, Ganja, and on the Armenian-controlled capital of Nagorno-Karabakh.

G. Prelims Facts

1. DRDO successfully tests ASW missile system

What’s in News?

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully test­fired Supersonic Missile Assisted Release of Torpedo (SMART).

This topic has been covered in 5^th October 2020 PIB Summary and Analysis.

2. Indian lab in vaccine test network

What’s in News?

The Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) has been chosen by an international non-profit, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), as one of the global network of laboratories for centralised assessment of COVID-19 vaccines.

• THSTI is an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT).

CEPI network:

• The network has been established to harmonise the vaccine trial process and allow different vaccine candidates to be compared and speed up the selection of the most effective candidate.
• The CEPI network will initially involve six labs, one each in Canada, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and India.
• All the labs would use the same reagents and follow a common set of protocols to measure the immune response of multiple vaccine candidates under development and trial.

Translational lab:

• The Ind-CEPI mission for the establishment of BSL-3 (Bio-safety level 3) facility is a translational laboratory for platform technologies and a bioassay laboratory for development of assays to measure clinical immunogenicity.
• The mandate of the bioassay laboratory at the THSTI is to provide validated assays for vaccine development on a par with global standards.

3. An unconstitutional harvest

• Agriculture falls within the legislative competence of State governments, through Entry 14 of the State List as mentioned in Schedule 7 of the Indian Constitution.
• Entry 33 of the Concurrent List, deals with ‘trade and commerce’ of some products listed in that Entry.
• Minimum Support Price (MSP) has no legislative backing.
• Article 301 Constitution of India assures freedom of trade, commerce and intercourse.

 1. Consider the following statements with respect to Coalition for 
Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI):

2. Consider the following statements with respect to Hepatitis C:

3. Consider the following statements with respect to Supersonic Missile 
Assisted Release of Torpedo (SMART): 

4. Consider the following statements: