SECURE SYNOPSIS: 22 JUNE 2019
NOTE: Please remember that following ‘answers’ are NOT ‘model answers’. They are NOT synopsis too if we go by definition of the term. What we are providing is content that both meets demand of the question and at the same time gives you extra points in the form of background information.
Topic: Urbanisation, their problems and their remedies.
Introduction:
The Global Metro Monitor 2018 reports that 36% of employment growth and 67% of GDP growth were contributed by the 300 largest global metros, with those in emerging economies outperforming those in advanced economies.
Body:
Relevance of metropolitan cities:
- Metropolitan areas concentrate and accelerate wealth as these are agglomerations of scale that concentrate higher-level economic functions.
- Nine Indian metros feature in the top 150 ranks of the economic performance index.
- By 2030, India will have 71 metropolitan cities, of which seven would have a population of more than 10 million.
- Clearly metropolises are going to be a key feature of India’s urbanisation and will play a crucial role in fuelling growth.
Metropolis in Indian Context:
- Article 243P(c) of the Constitution defines ‘metropolitan areas’ as those having “population of ten lakhs [a million] or more, comprised in one or more districts and consisting of two or more municipalities/panchayats/ other contiguous areas, specified by the governor through public notification to be a metropolitan area”.
- It recognises metropolitan areas as multi-municipal and multi-district entities.
- It mandates the formation of a Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC) for preparing draft development plans, considering common interests between local authorities, objectives and priorities set by Central and State governments, and investments likely to be made in the area by various agencies.
- To ensure the democratic character of the MPC, it is mandated that at least two-thirds of the members of the committee must be elected by and from among the elected members of the municipalities and chairpersons of the panchayats in the metropolitan area, proportionate to the ratio of their respective populations.
- The size and manner of filling such seats are left to the State’s discretion.
Key concerns with Metropolises:
- India is yet to begin the discourse on a governance framework for the future of its metropolises.
- It is yet to recognise that disaster management, mobility, housing, climate change, etc. transcend municipal boundaries and require regional-level solutions.
- The World Bank notes that despite the emergence of smaller towns, the underlying character of India’s urbanisation is “metropolitan”, with towns emerging within the proximity of existing cities.
- Janaagraha’s Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS) 2018 found that only nine out of 18 cities mandated to form MPCs have constituted them.
- Where constituted, their functionality is questionable, with the limited role of local elected representatives raising further questions on democratic decentralisation.
- Thus, the provision for an MPC has not introduced robust governance of metropolises, as the metropolises continue to be a collection of parastatals and local bodies in an entirely fragmented architecture.
The City Deals’ model of UK:
- The U.K. has rolled out ‘City Deals’, an agreement between the Union government and a city economic region, modelled on a ‘competition policy style’ approach.
- The city economic region is represented by a ‘combined authority’.
- This is a statutory body set up through national legislation that enables a group of two or more councils to collaborate decisions, and which is steered by a directly elected Mayor.
- This is to further democratise and incentivise local authorities to collaborate and reduce fragmented governance, drive economic prosperity, job growth, etc.
- ‘City Deals’ move from budget silos and promote ‘economic growth budget’ across regions.
Way forward:
- It is time India envisions the opportunities and challenges from a ‘city’ level to ‘city-region’ level.
- The Central government must create a platform to build consensus among State governments.
- Perhaps, the Greater Bengaluru Governance Bill, 2018, drafted by the Expert Committee for Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Restructuring, could offer direction.
- It proposes for a Greater Bengaluru Authority headed by a directly elected Mayor, responsible for the overall planning of Greater Bengaluru with powers for inter-agency coordination and administration of major infrastructural projects across the urban local bodies within the area. However, this Bill is yet to see the light of day.
Extra Information:
Global Best Practices: The U.K. has established nine such combined authorities. Australia adopted a regional governance model along these lines in 2016 and has signed four City Deals till date. Meanwhile, China is envisioning 19 seamlessly connected super city clusters.
Topic: Population and associated issues
Introduction:
World Population Prospects 2019 has been released by the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. The key message from the UN’s World Population Prospects 2019 report is that national leaders must redouble their efforts to raise education, health and living standards for people everywhere.
Body:
Population explosion is the sudden increase in the numbers of individuals in a community. Lately we have been facing population explosion in many countries of the world. In the past 200-300 years, the world’s population has increased tremendously. It is predicted that human population will increase by 1 billion in the next decade. Population explosion results mainly due to difference between birth rates and death rates.
Key findings for India:
- India will overtake China as the most populous country by around 2027.
- India is also expected to add 273 million people by 2050 and will remain the most populated until the end of the century.
- India leads the set of nine countries that will make up for more than half the projected growth of the global population by 2050.
- Top five: India is expected to remain the world’s most populous country with nearly 1.5 billion inhabitants, followed by China at 1.1 billion, Nigeria with 733 million, the United States with 434 million, and Pakistan with an estimated population of 403 million.
Measures taken in India to curb Population Explosion:
Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-1979): In the fifth five year plan, ‘maternal and child health and nutrition services’ were included as a part of the population control program.
National Population Policy 1976 and 1977: In 1976, the government of India came up with its first National Population policy. The policy came up with a number of measures to arrest the population growth. Some of the measures are:
- Increasing the minimum legal age of marriage for girls and boys to 18 and 21 respectively.
- Monetary incentives for birth control.
- Improving the literacy levels of females both through the formal and non-formal channels.
- Popularise family welfare programmes by using all forms of media.
- Inculcating population education into the formal education system
National Population Policy, 2000 (NPP-2000): In February 2000, the government of India came up with the second National Policy on Population. For the first time since independence, this document comprehensively addressed the problem of population growth in integration with issues such as child survival, maternal health, women empowerment and contraception. The immediate objective of the policy is to offer service delivery in integrated approach to improve reproductive health and child care. The mid-term objective of the policy was to maintain a total fertility rate (TFR) as 2.1 children per women as it was considered as the replacement level. The long term objective of the policy is to achieve population stabilization by the year 2045.
Challenges posed by Population Explosion:
- TFR varies significantly across the socio-economic groups, it is concentrated among economically weaker section of the society which has implications on our SDGs, poverty, hunger, malnutrition, health, education etc.
- Jobs are not created at the rate it should be and growth is uneven.
- We have short window of opportunity, it is important to nurture and exploit this population growth to the best economic advantages is a challenge.
- Challenge is how we raise India’s economic status from being low middle country to atleast high middle income.
- Share of older people is rising rapidly, growth for older people is 70% from now to 2050 but total population is growing only by 56%.
- The aspiration of the women and families have changed with time, they now want fewer children but lack access to family planning. This is evident from one report which says that there is 13% unwanted fertility in India.
- Real challenge is quality of life, 21% of 60 plus population is suffering from chronic morbidities.
- Unequal rate of population growth among states.
Way Forward:
- It is very necessary to create growth momentum, investment should be adequately made in key infrastructure areas, social infrastructure and that to particularly education, water, and health.
- Family planning is a preventive measure in bringing down maternal and child mortality rate.
- China and Japan have controlled their population by various measures, the same can be adopted by us according to our suitability.
- Proper healthcare facilities to women, education to girl child.
- It is imperative that policy-makers deal with the situation on multiple fronts.
- Universal education, value-added skills accretion and massive growth in employment in the formal sectors should be the key focus areas.
- Making agriculture remunerative and keeping food prices stable are crucial to ensure nutrition for all.
Conclusion:
India is set to become the most populous nation. Analysts believe that India’s growing population can be a double-edged sword and the country needs to put in place the right policies to maximize the potential of its people by enhancing the state of education, health and infrastructure, so that India figures at better in various human development rankings.
Topic: E-Governance (applications, models, successes, limitations, potential)
Introduction:
E-Governance is basically associated with carrying out the functions and achieving the results of governance through the utilization of what has today come to be known as Information and Communications Technology. It is basically the application of ICT to the processes of Government functioning in order to bring about ‘Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent’ (SMART) governance.
Body:
Evolution of E-Governance in India:
The Indian experience demonstrates that the onset of e-Governance proceeded through the following phases:
- Computerisation: In the first phase, with the availability of personal computers, a large number of Government offices got equipped with computers. The use of computers began with word processing, quickly followed by data processing.
- Networking: In this phase, some units of a few government organizations got connected through a hub leading to sharing of information and flow of data between different government entities.
- On-line presence: With increasing internet connectivity, a need was felt for maintaining a presence on the web. This resulted in maintenance of websites by government departments and other entities. Generally, these web-pages/web-sites contained information about the organizational structure, contact details, reports and publications, objectives and vision statements of the respective government entities.
- On-line interactivity: A natural consequence of on-line presence was opening up of communication channels between government entities and the citizens, civil society organizations etc. The main aim at this stage was to minimize the scope of personal interface with government entities by providing downloadable Forms, Instructions, Acts, and Rules etc. In some cases, this has already led to on-line submission of Forms. Most citizen-government transactions have the potential of being put on e-Governance mode.
Types of Interactions in e-Governance in India:
E-Governance facilitates interaction between different stake holders in governance. These interactions may be described as follows:
- G2G (Government to Government): In this case, ICT is used not only to restructure the governmental processes involved in the functioning of government entities but also to increase the flow of information and services within and between different entities. E.g.: Khajane Project in Karnataka: It is a comprehensive online treasury computerization project of the Government of Karnataka. The project has resulted in the computerization of the entire treasury related activities of the State Government; SmartGov (Andhra Pradesh)
- G2C (Government to Citizens): In this case, an interface is created between the government and citizens which enables the citizens to benefit from efficient delivery of a large range of public services. E.g.: Computerisation of Land Records (Department of Land Resources, Government of India); Bhoomi Project in Karnataka; Revenue Administration through Computerized Energy (RACE) Billing Project, Bihar; Admission to Professional Colleges – Common Entrance Test (CET)
- G2B (Government to Business): Here, e-Governance tools are used to aid the business community – providers of goods and services – to seamlessly interact with the government. The objective is to cut red tape, save time, reduce operational costs and to create a more transparent business environment when dealing with the government. E.g.: e-Procurement Project in Andhra Pradesh; MCA 21 – The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has implemented the MCA 21 Mission Mode Project under the NeGP
- G2E (Government to Employees): Government is by far the biggest employer and like any organisation, it has to interact with its employees on a regular basis. Use of ICT tools helps in increasing the satisfaction levels of employees. E.g.: Biometric attendance project.
Conclusion:
Thus, e-Governance has led to better access to information and quality services for citizens; Simplicity, efficiency and accountability in the government and expanded reach of governance. In the light of wide range of e-Governance initiatives that have been carried out in India with varying degrees of success as well as the diversity of conditions in the country, the report recognizes that e-Governance projects have to be designed for specific contexts and environments.
Topic: Citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures.
Introduction:
A Citizens’ Charter represents the commitment of the Organisation towards standard, quality and time frame of service delivery, grievance redress mechanism, transparency and accountability. The concept of Citizens Charter enshrines the trust between the service provider and its users.
Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances in Government of India (DARPG) initiated the task of coordinating, formulating and operationalising Citizen’s Charters.
Body:
Components of Citizen’s Charter:
- Vision and Mission Statement;
- Details of Business transacted by the Organisation;
- Details of clients;
- Details of services provided to each client group;
- Details of grievance redress mechanism and how to access it;
- Expectations from the clients
- Additional commitments such as compensation in the event of failure of service delivery.
Citizen’s charter can enhance quality of service delivery:
- One size does not fit all: formulation of CC should be a decentralized activity with the head office providing only broad guidelines.
- Wide consultation process: CC should be formulated after extensive consultations within the organization followed by a meaningful dialogue with civil society.
- Firm commitments to be made: CC must be precise and make firm commitments of service delivery standards to the citizens/consumers in quantifiable terms wherever possible.
- Redressal mechanism in case of default: clearly lay down the relief which the organization is bound to provide if it has defaulted on the promised standards of delivery.
- Periodic evaluation of CC: preferably through an external agency.
- Hold officers accountable for results: fix specific responsibility in cases where there is a default in adhering to the CC.
- Include Civil Society in the process: to assist in improvement in the contents of the Charter, its adherence as well as educating the citizens about the importance of this vital mechanism.
Conclusion:
A Citizens’ Charter cannot be an end in itself, it is rather a means to an end – a tool to ensure that the citizen is always at the heart of any service delivery mechanism. Drawing from best practice models such as the Sevottam Model (a Service Delivery Excellence Model) can help CC in becoming more citizen centric.
Topic:E-Governance (applications, models, successes, limitations, potential)
2nd ARC Report – E-Governance, Citizen’s Charter.
Introduction:
E-Governance is basically associated with carrying out the functions and achieving the results of governance through the utilization of what has today come to be known as Information and Communications Technology (ICT). It is basically the application of ICT to the processes of Government functioning in order to bring about ‘Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent’ (SMART) governance.
Body:
E-governance promotion is based on two important planks:
(a) To reduce red-tape, delay and inconveniences through technology interventions including the use of modern tools, techniques and instruments of e-governance.
(b) Promote knowledge sharing to realise continuous improvement in the quality of governance
Recommendations of 2nd ARC on e-Governance:
Building a Congenial Environment: Building a congenial environment is a sine qua non for successful implementation of e-Governance initiatives. This should be achieved by:
- Creating and displaying a will to change within the government
- Providing political support at the highest level
- Incentivising e-Governance and overcoming the resistance to change within government
- Creating awareness in the public with a view to generating a demand for change.
Identification of e-Governance Projects and Prioritisation: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has defined four stages of e-government Projects, each one more demanding than the next. These are:
- Information: Putting information on web-sites
- Interaction: Allowing citizens to enquire about services, procedures etc. and filling up forms and submitting them online
- Transaction: Allowing payments online
- Transformation: A mix of all the above and allowing the citizen to participate in governance through ICT.
Business Process Re-engineering (BPR): The basic idea behind such re-engineering is to avail of the opportunity provided by ICT in transforming governmental processes and not just in modifying them.
- For every function a government organisation performs and every service or information it is required to provide, there should be a step-by-step analysis of each process to ensure its rationality and simplicity.
- Such analysis should incorporate the viewpoints of all stakeholders, while maintaining the citizen-centricity of the exercise.
- After identifying steps which are redundant or which require simplification, and which are adaptable to e-Governance, the provisions of the law, rules, regulations, instructions, codes, manuals etc. which form their basis should also be identified.
- Following this exercise, governmental forms, processes and structures should be re-designed to make them adaptable to e-Governance, backed by procedural, institutional and legal changes.
Capacity Building and Creating Awareness: The success of an e-Governance project would depend on building human capacities in terms of necessary knowledge and skills to conceptualize, initiate, implement and sustain e-Governance initiatives across government as also on the ultimate use by citizens of the facilities created.
- Capacity building efforts must attend to both the organizational capacity building as also the professional and skills upgradation of individuals associated with the implementation of e-Governance projects.
- Each government organization must conduct a capacity assessment which should form the basis for training their personnel.
- A network of training institutions needs to be created in the States with the Administrative Training Institutes at the apex.
- State Governments should operationalise the Capacity Building Roadmap (CBRMs), under the overall guidance and support of the DIT, Government of India.
- Lessons learnt from previous successful e-Governance initiatives should be incorporated in training programmes.
Developing Technological Solutions: There is a need to:
- Develop a national e-Governance ‘enterprise architecture’ framework as has been done in some countries.
- Promote the use of ‘enterprise architecture’ in the successful implementation of e-Governance initiatives; this would require building capacity of top level managers in all government organizations.
Implementation: E-Governance projects could be of a wide variety based on their objectives, technological requirements, dependence on databases, requirement of institutional support etc
- All organizations should carry out a periodic independent evaluation of the information available on their websites from the citizens’ perspective and then re-design their websites.
- Each organization should prepare a time-bound plan for providing of transactional information through their websites.
- Complex e-Governance projects should be planned and implemented like any major project having several parts / components for which Project Management capability should be developed in-house
Public-Private Partnership (PPP): Financial and managerial resources are critically required for successful implementation and more so, the sustainability of e-Governance initiatives. While the normal preference for any reform initiative is through exclusive use of inhouse resources, the merits of inducting the private sector resources into the e-Governance sector have now been appreciated and accepted by policy-makers in Government.
- Several components of e-Governance projects lend themselves to the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode. In all such cases (PPP) should be the preferred mode.
- The private partner should be selected through a transparent process.
- The roles and responsibilities of government as well as the private partner should be clearly laid down in the initial stage itself, leaving no room for any ambiguity.
Protecting Critical Information Infrastructure Assets
- There is need to develop a critical information infrastructure assets protection strategy.
- This should be supplemented with improved analysis and warning capabilities as well as improved information sharing on threats and vulnerabilities.
Conclusion:
The above principles and recommendations were given by 2nd ARC in the realm of e-Governance. The NeGP and many other projects are based on the above. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, former President of India, has visualized e-Governance in the Indian context to mean: “A transparent, smart e-Governance with seamless access, secure and authentic flow of information crossing the interdepartmental barrier and providing a fair and unbiased service to the citizen.”
Topic: India and its neighborhood- relations.
Introduction:
In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 193 member countries, including India, got committed to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that require efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change while ensuring that no one was left behind. There are 17 Sustainable Development Goals, associated 169 targets and 304 indicators.
Body:
State of Affairs in South Asia:
- South Asia covers only about 3.5% of the world’s land surface area but hosts a fourth (25%) of its population, making it a region of significant importance for international development.
- In spite of the geographic proximity countries in this region enjoy and their common socio-cultural bonds, this is one of the world’s least integrated regions.
- Intra-regional trade is a meagre 5% of the total trade these countries do globally, while intra-regional investment is less than 1% of the region’s overall global investment.
- South Asia’s average GDP per capita is only about 9.64% of the global average. Accounting for more than 30% of the world’s poor, the region faces myriad economic and environmental challenges.
South Asian countries and SDG performance:
- Both performance and progress towards these goals appears to have little to do with levels of per capita income or degree of development.
- For Instance, in India, which is not only the largest and most diversified economy in the region but also prides itself on rapid income growth rates and hopes to emerge as a potential leader of the world economy, performs very poorly even in relation to other South Asian countries.
- Bhutan and Nepal both landlocked countries at lower levels of development show better ranks and significantly higher scores.
Reasons for poor performance of South Asia in SDGs:
- It could be that at least some of the answer lies in the goal for which all countries show “insufficient data” to allow for assessment: that of reducing inequalities.
- The absence of statistical indicators cannot blind us to the severely constraining role played by inequalities of income, power, access to services and citizen’s entitlements, which then play out in affecting the other goals in each country.
- This in turn highlights the significance of political processes and the orientation of governments: those governments that have been more explicitly concerned with reducing inequalities in practice (rather than simply paying lip-service to such a goal) have been more effective in ensuring better performance to several other goals and targets.
- Despite the relatively low Gini coefficients of consumption inequality in South Asian countries, the region is actually one of the most unequal in the world, because of a complex and intersectional system of hierarchy and discrimination in which caste, ethnic and gender distinctions all play roles.
- Of these, caste differences (which interestingly exist across the region, and across different religions as well) may be the most significant in terms of how they influence opportunities for employment and income, affect access to housing, basic social services of health and education, and amenities like clean water and energy, as well as political voice.
- In other words, reduction of inequalities is not just a separate goal; it is a crucial underlying factor that affects the ability of a country to move towards in progress in achieving sustainable development in general.
Way Forward:
- A regional strategic approach to tackle common development challenges can bring enormous benefits to South Asia.
- SDGs related to energy, biodiversity, infrastructure, climate resilience and capacity development are transnational, and here policy harmonisation can play a pivotal role in reducing duplication and increasing efficiency.
- For instance, India has formulated some pragmatic plans and initiatives to improve food and nutrition security from which many of the neighbouring countries can benefit.
- To address institutional and infrastructural deficits, South Asian countries need deeper regional cooperation.
- On financing the SDGs in South Asia, countries can work towards increasing the flow of intra-regional FDI. The private sector too can play a vital role in resource mobilisation.
- A stable and effective balance of power has to be achieved across our eastern shores in South and South-East Asia to meet challenges posed by all types of social, economic and political issues.
- A convergence towards achieving a common socio-economic agenda gives hope that no one in South Asia will be left behind in the journey towards eradicating poverty and enduring dignity to all.
Conclusion:
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the platform for regional economic cooperation in this region, has become moribund and remains unsuccessful in promoting regional economic cooperation. If the countries of South Asia, the fastest growing region of the world, can come to a common understanding on regional integration and cooperation in achieving the SDGs, it can unleash a powerful synergistic force that can finally make South Asia converge.
Topic: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment.
Inclusive growth and issues arising from it.
Introduction:
The President of India spoke of India becoming a “Five Trillion Dollar” economy, last month. It was reiterated by the Prime Minister and was even discussed in the NITI Aayog Governing Council meet. India is, currently, a $2.8 trillion economy; to reach the $5 trillion mark by 2024, the economy would require nominal growth in dollar terms of over 12% a year. To reach $ 5 Trillion, we need to shift our perspective from policy to projects.
Body:
Measures needed: The Government and the Private sector must work together to bring about the following measures in different sectors:
Agricultural sector:
- Encouraging public and private investments to develop infrastructure like cold chains;
- Special attention for north-eastern, eastern and rain-fed states for augmenting scope of access to institutional credit;
- Rationalisation and targeting of input subsidies towards small and marginal farmers.
- Reform in land leasing laws to promote land consolidation and contract farming.
- Accelerating the pace of public investment in agriculture and ensure greater efficiency in capital use.
Manufacturing Sector:
- A three-pillar strategy to achieve required expansion of output — focus on existing high impact and emerging sectors as well as MSMEs.
- In the defence sector, there is a need to identify key components and systems and encourage global leaders to set up manufacturing base in India by offering limited period incentives.
- Ensure incentives result in technology/process transfer.
- Where applicable, leverage Government purchases (Offset Policy), particularly for technology transfer; and ensure high-quality anchor investors capable of spurring growth of associated suppliers (including MSMEs) and offer limited period incentives to anchors, if required.
- To boost electronics manufacturing, the government should consider offering additional fiscal incentives such as a limited-period tax holiday to players investing more than an identified threshold of investment.
- Similarly for the auto and auto-components sector, encouragement of global leaders for the identified components to set up manufacturing bases, and incentivising players willing to invest more than a threshold in identified areas.
- Measures to boost manufacturing in other areas including aeronautical, space, garments, organic/ayurvedic products besides emerging areas such as biotechnology, electric mobility, unmanned aerial vehicles, medical devices, robotics and chemicals.
- For micro, small and medium enterprises, there is a need to improve access to funding by way of development of SME credit risk databases, SME credit rating, and creation of community-based funds.
Services sector:
- There is a need for focus on champion services sectors like IT, tourism, medical value travel and legal would be required to achieve the expansion of the services sector output and concerted efforts need to be made to increase exports.
- Improving rail connectivity and seamless connectivity to major attractions.
- Facilitating visa regime for medical travel.
- Allowing expatriate professional to perform surgeries in identified hospitals
- E-commerce policy and regulatory framework for logistics segment.
- To promote growth of accounting and financial services, there is a need to pitch for promoting FDI in domestic accounting and auditing sector, transparent regulatory framework, and easing restriction on client base in the accounting and auditing sector.
- To push audio visual services, measures like exploring introduction of insurance in the film industry, promoting private investments in film schools, exploring franchise business models to exploit film franchise, and promoting gaming industry value chains.
- The scope for expansion into advisory, arbitration and mediation services is large and unexplored.
- A clear roadmap for domestic reforms in the sector, liberalisation and promotion of arbitration and mediation services must be developed
- For the education sector, allowing foreign universities to set up campuses in India, easy visa regime for students and education service providers, removing regulatory bottlenecks, providing recognition of online degrees and setting up appropriate evaluation techniques for online courses
Other measures:
- Select sectoral initiatives can be converted into 100 projects.
- Each to be led by a competent leader with proven skills.
- They must report to the PM.
- The regular bureaucracy would facilitate the job of the project leader, who will be free to choose her team.
- States need to recognise their core competence and aim to increase their economy by 2-2.5 times, which is roughly the size of the current deficit.
The long term impact of unsustainable and non-inclusive growth on Indian society:
- An economy, whatever its size, cannot be meaningfully evaluated independently of the extent of presence in it of natural capital.
- Till now, by referring to the imperative for growth, to eradicate poverty, any effort to conserve nature has not just been ignored but treated with derision, by both right and left.
- Two-thirds of the world’s most polluted cities are in India, when we accept less than a fifth of its population.
- Air pollution shortens lives and lowers productivity, reducing the capacity to earn a living when alive.
- The poor are the most affected as they cannot afford to live in gated communities that somehow manage to commandeer scarce natural resources. Some part of environmental depletion in India is due to the pursuit of unbridled growth.
- Gender inequality manifested as women having less opportunity in life is not going to go away with a re-distribution of income along class lines or across social groupings.
Way forward:
- India needs to carry out the crucial internal reforms that will allow it to be a productive international player and to take on the leadership roles that so many people across the world hope that it will.
- Any improvement in the life of the majority would require a re-alignment of the growth process so that it is less damaging.
- This would very likely require that we have slower growth but the process can be configured to channel more of it towards poorer groups.
- India could and should aspire to double-digit growth. Without sustained growth at that all levels it has little hope of employing the roughly one million young people who join its workforce every month.
- And unless it takes advantage of its current, favourable demographics it is never likely to emerge as an upper-middle-income economy with a prosperous and thriving middle class.
Topic: Ethics and Human Interface: Essence, determinants and consequences of Ethics in human actions;
8) Explain how ethics contributes to social and human well-being. (250 words)
Introduction:
Ethics can be described as those beliefs or standards that incline one to act or choose in one way rather than another. Role of ethics exists visibly in every aspect of life ranging from personal, political, national, social and so on.
Body:
Ethics and social and human well-being:
- Acts and choices that one bases on ethical values serve social and human well being.
- Human well-being talks about different aspects of one’s lives such as happiness, health, freedom, autonomy etc.
- Ethical choices promote social and human well-being by being impartial, i.e., no one person’s well-being is regarded as more worthy than any other’s.
- This can be in the case of business – not keeping profit as the sole objective, technology-making use of innovations and advancements that are constructive and non-threatening to humanity etc.
- Instead of being hedonist and materialistic, we care about the consequences of our actions on the lives of others.
- By living a virtuous life, not only does a person live a morally satisfactory life but also ensures that other people are not adversely impacted by his/her actions.
Conclusion:
Therefore, ethics have an instrumental role in the social and human well-being by contributing to social harmony. The preamble of our constitution talks about justice, liberty, equality and fraternity is based on ethical and welfare principle. Society should focus on solidarity, equity, cooperation where sense of justice, responsibility and fundamental duties should be followed & inculcated by every individual, making the society “egalitarian”.
