VISION

Friday, September 16, 2022

The HINDU Notes – 16th September 2022

aditya 14:45

📰 Climate action that runs on cooperative federalism

The outcome of the ‘Grand Challenge 1’, a tender for electric buses, is an innovative model for India and the world

•India’s procurement of 5,450 electric buses and subsequent increase in ambition to have 50,000 e-buses on the country’s roads by 2030 represent the immense potential for progress on climate and development goals through close collaboration between the Union and State governments. With the shared aim to rapidly electrify a key pillar of India’s public transportation, recent governance efforts have created a new business model for e-buses. If this sector is further developed, it can reduce air pollution in cities and fuel import bills, improve the balance sheets of State transport companies, and spur domestic manufacturing and job creation.

State of State-owned buses

•There are currently around 1,40,000 registered public buses on India’s roads, with large numbers of them having sputtering engines that spew planet-warming fumes into the atmosphere. At least 40,000 of these buses are at the end of their lifespan and must be taken off the roads immediately.

•However, most buses are owned and operated by State transport undertakings, which are in poor financial health. In part, they incur large losses because they play an important social function by providing subsidised fares to crores of Indians each day. With a few exceptions such as Mumbai’s Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST) of the Brihanmumbai Mahanagarpalika, when State transport undertakings go to the market to buy buses, they face problems of fragmented demand and high prices. Furthermore, there are limitations to nation-wide action on this issue as State governments control issues such as transit, urban governance and pollution control.

A success story

•Until recently, there had never been a unified tender to address some of these challenges. Cooperative federalism can easily become a fraught issue. However, in the case of the Grand Challenge 1, a tender for 5,450 buses (across five major Indian cities — Kolkata, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Surat), the opposite happened. Instead of a race to the bottom, the respective expertise, strengths and needs of Union Ministries and States informed the process and the successful outcomes.

•Convergence Energy Services Limited (CESL), a nodal agency of the Union government, acted as the programme manager in this effort at centralised procurement in concert, with State-led demand and customisation. Coordination between a range of Union government Ministries and State governments standardised demand conditions across these five cities and discovered prices that beat the increasingly outmoded internal combustion engines.

•On a cost-per-kilometre basis, the prices discovered were 40% lower than diesel and 34% less than CNG (without factoring in the subsidy through FAME-II). A note on FAME: the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME-India) Scheme was launched under the National Mission on Electric Mobility in 2011/National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020, and unveiled in 2013. The scheme encourages the progressive induction of reliable, affordable and efficient electric and hybrid vehicles.

•With high fuel prices and energy security challenges in the wake of the war in Ukraine, the switch to electric vehicles appears even more sensible and lucrative.

•This inflection point in unit economics was enabled by three key factors: collaboration, pace and transparency. First, the tender itself was a fully consultative process and varied contributions by participants already influenced the design of future tenders. Second, there was a shared sense of urgency that shaped this collaboration, which leveraged the bureaucracy’s power when working on time-bound and measurable schemes and increased receptivity to creative and new ideas. Finally, transparency was the most resilient quality of a public process. From the outset, there was clarity about the intention to engender trust and build a publicly available process and tender that invited bids from automakers and operators.

•In the wake of the first tender, it was incredibly gratifying to share a feeling of success with five States, five Transport Ministers, five State Secretaries and the heads of a range of State transport undertakings, each of whom had played a part in the process.

•To be clear, excessive centralisation can have limitations and contradict the federal principles enshrined in the Constitution. For instance, India’s States and districts vary vastly in their vulnerability to climate impacts, and decentralised decision-making and locally-led adaptation will help reduce potential damage to lives and livelihoods. Urban local bodies and gram panchayats can be the heart of climate action.

•However, in certain areas where India must move the needle quickly or where States lack size and financial clout, such as the electrification of mass mobility, centralised procurement and programme management can deliver architectural transformations rather than just incremental transitions.

There is much work ahead

•Although a good start has been made, much work remains to be done to enable the electrification of mass mobility in India. The country’s shift to clean public transportation will require a suite of efforts, from ramping up manufacturing capacity to domestic battery production to building out charging infrastructure (ideally plugged in to a grid powered by renewables) to capacity building of State transport undertakings to developing financial instruments and structures.

•Nonetheless, the progress we have made on electric bus tendering is a harbinger of climate action made possible by cooperative federalism. As India now ramps up its demand to deploy 50,000 buses across 40 cities, it will need to continue the spirit of true inter-ministerial and Union-State collaboration to fulfil its ambitious targets for green and inclusive economic development. The combined clout and strength of the federal compact can enable large strides being made towards innovative models that not only improve transit, the quality of life in cities and progress towards national climate goals but also build models for the rest of the world to emulate.

📰 Delay in govt.’s flagship PMAY-G scheme to invite penalty

Centre to fine States that do not meet targets

•Pulling up the States for the delay in completion of the Narendra Modi government’s flagship rural household scheme — Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin) — the Union Ministry of Rural Development has come up with a set of penalties that the State governments will have to bear for any further delay. Opposition-ruled West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, along with BJP-ruled Assam, are the leading four States who are far behind their targets.

•This is the first time, since the scheme started in April 2016 with a target of constructing 2.95 crore houses, that the Union Government has introduced a penalty clause. The initial deadline for the scheme was March 2022, which owing to the COVID-19 pandemic was extended by another two years till March 2024.

•“The order is only to ensure that the States pay more attention to the programme. Because of the pandemic, we have already missed one deadline and now we have only 19 months till March 2024 to complete all the pending houses,” a senior official at the Ministry said.

•Under the scheme, the government has set itself a target of 2.95 crore houses. This number was deduced from the Socio-Economic Caste Survey, 2011. As per the statistics available with the Union Ministry of Rural Development, till August 2022, 2.02 crore houses have been constructed.

•On September 13, the Ministry sent a circular to all States listing out six penalty clauses. If the sanction of the house is delayed for more than one month from the date of issue of the target, the State government will be penalised ₹10 per house for the first month of delay and ₹20 per house for each subsequent month of delay. Similarly, if the first instalment due to the beneficiary is delayed for more than seven days from the date of sanction, then the State governments will have to pay ₹10 per house per week of delay.

📰 Parliamentary business and an essential pit stop

THE HINDU NEWSPAPER IMPORTANT ARTICLES 16.09.2022

the hindu articles

aditya 07:40

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Daily Current Affairs, 15th September 2022

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aditya 19:21

1) National Engineer’s Day 2022 celebrated on 15 September

•In India, Engineer’s Day is celebrated on September 15 every year. The day is celebrated to recognise the contribution of engineers in the development of the nation. This day commemorates the birth anniversary of Sir Moksha Gundam Visvesvaraya, who is considered one of the greatest engineers of India. Joining India, Sri Lanka and Tanzania also celebrate Engineers Day on September 15, 2022, in honour of Sir Moksha Gundam Visvesvaraya.

2) International Day of Democracy 2022 observed on 15 September

•This year, September 15 marks the 15th anniversary of the International Day of Democracy. The day is celebrated annually around the world to strengthen democracies and highlight its values and principles. This year, Democracy Day will focus on the importance of media freedom to democracy, peace, and delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals.

International Day of Democracy 2022: Theme

•A theme is chosen for the International Day of Democracy. This year, the day is focused on the “importance of media freedom to democracy, peace, and delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals”.

3) World Lymphoma Awareness Day observed on 15 September

•World Lymphoma Awareness Day (WLAD) is held on September 15 every year and is a day dedicated to raising awareness of lymphoma, an increasingly common form of cancer. It is a global initiative hosted by the Lymphoma Coalition. The day is dedicated to raising awareness about lymphoma and the particular emotional and psychosocial challenges facing patients and caregivers suffering from different forms of lymphoma.

4) World’s largest museum of Harappan culture is coming up in Rakhigarhi, Haryana

•Harappan Culture in Haryana: The world’s largest museum of Harappan culture is coming up in Rakhigarhi in Haryana to showcase about 5,000-year-old Indus Valley artefacts. The village of Rakhigarhi was part of the Indus Valley Civilisation from 2600-1900 BC. Haryana is slated to host the world’s largest museum dedicated to the Harappan civilization. Rakhigarhi is a hamlet in Haryana’s Hisar district, some 150 kilometres from Delhi. The settlement is also a well-known archaeological site from the time of the Indus Valley civilization.

5) Indore to become the country’s first ‘Smart City’ with ‘Smart Addresses’

•Indore will create history by implementing a fully digital addressing system, making it the first city in India to do so. The smart city advanced significantly when a memorandum of understanding was signed with the firm Pataa Navigations. The Memorandum of Understanding is signed by Rajat Jain, co-founder of Pataa Navigations, and Rishav Gupta (IAS), CEO of Indore Smart City.

6) India Becomes Power Surplus Nation

•The country has become power surplus, we have connected the whole country into one grid, and strengthened the distribution system. These steps have increased the power availability to 22 hours in rural areas and 23.5 hours in urban areas. The next step is to take it to 24X7 guaranteed power supply at affordable price.

7) Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage

•Some 49.6 million people are trapped in modern slavery on any given day. They are either forced to work against their will or are in a marriage that they have been forced into, according to the 2021 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery released September 12, 2022. Forced labour accounted for 27.6 million of those in modern slavery and forced marriage for 22 million. The new estimates showed that forced labour and forced marriage had increased significantly in the last five years.

8) India’s first plastic project listed by EKI Energy Services Ltd

•India’s first plastic project: EKI Energy Services, a developer and seller of Carbon credits, announced that it is the first company to list an Indian plastic project (India’s first plastic project) under a global accreditation standard. With this, the Indore-based carbon credit specialist, EKI Energy Services, who has worked in the field of climate action and offset solutions for the past 14 years across 16 countries, became the first company to ever list a plastic project from the nation with the goal of creating India’s first-ever international plastic credits.

9) India launches ‘Urban Wastewater Scenario in India’ at World Water Congress and Exhibition 2022

•India has launched Joint Whitepaper on ‘Urban Wastewater Scenario in India’, with Denmark at World Water Congress and Exhibition 2022 in Copenhagen. The ‘Urban Wastewater Scenario in India’ was facilitated by Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat along with Danish Environment Minister Lea Wermelin and Development Co-operation Minister Flemming Moller Mortensen.

10) A new book “Rajini’s Mantras” authored by P.C. Balasubramanian

•The entrepreneur¬cum¬author, P.C. Balasubramanian (PC Bala) authored a new book “Rajini’s Mantras: Life lessons from India’s most¬loved Superstar” in English. It was published by Jaico Publishing House (India). PC Bala’s 1st book was Rajini’s Punchtantra and Raja Krishnamoorthy, which became a national bestseller. Grand Brand Rajini and Ram N Ramakrishnan were published on December 2022.

The HINDU Notes – 15th September 2022

the hindu notes

aditya 19:11

📰 Set up new regulator for medical devices, says panel

Current organisation is pharma-centric, ineffective, it says

•The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) is falling short in effectively regulating the medical devices industry, the department-related Parliamen- tary Standing Committee on Health, headed by Rajya Sabha member Ram Gopal Yadav, has said. The organisation in its existing structure and expertise is more pharma-centric, it says.

•Mr. Yadav presented the 138th report on the subject “Medical devices: regulations and control” to the Rajya Sabha earlier this week.

•It has recommended more certified medical devices testing laboratories, robust IT-enabled feedback- driven post-market surveillance system and medical device registry, particularly for implants to ensure traceability of patients to assess performance of implants.

•The committee has observed that the CDSCO was originally set up to regulate pharma, related segments and medical devices. It has recommended that the new legislation should set up a new regulator at different levels for regulating the medical devices industry.

•The country has only 18 certified medical device testing laboratories that have been approved by the CDSCO and that is grossly insufficient keeping in view the size of the country, it said. The committee is of the considered opinion that having adequate common infrastructure including accredited laboratories in various regions of the country for standard testing will significantly encourage local manufacturers to get their products tested for standards and such measures undertaken will also help in reducing the cost of production which ultimately will improve the availability and affordability of medical devices in the market.

•There is a dire need for developing a robust IT-enabled feedback-driven post- market surveillance system for medical devices to evaluate their efficiency.

•“The committee recommends the Ministry to work in synergy with State governments and impart the necessary skills to the local medical device officers and also devise a mechanism to regularly designate State Medical personnel as Medical Device/Medical Device Testing Officers so that the mandate of the legislation can be implemented effectively,” said the report.

•It has recommended that the Ministry should allow the new regulator to involve institutions such as IISC, CSIR, DRDO and network of IITs to test medical devices for safety and efficacy.

•It has highlighted the multiplicity of regulations, and said that a single-window clearing platform for application of licence for manufacturing, export, import shall integrate all these bodies involved in the regulation of medical devices.

•“A single-window clearance for all the departments/Ministries would boost investment and would also reduce the time required for obtaining approvals from different Departments/Ministries,” the report said.

📰 No specific law against hate speech: EC

Poll body says it resorts to provisions under IPC, RP Act to curb such violations

•The Election Commission of India (ECI) in the Supreme Court has said that due to the lack of a specific law against hate speech and rumour mongering during polls, it has to resort to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Representation of the People (RP) Act to ensure that members of political parties do not make statements which can create disharmony in society.

•“In the absence of any specific law governing hate speech and rumour mongering during elections, the Election Commission of India employs various provisions of the IPC and the RP Act, 1951 to ensure that members of political parties do not make statements to the effect of creating disharmony,” the poll body said.

•The ECI said the Law Commission of India, in its 267th Report, had not made any recommendations with regard to a specific query [from the Supreme Court] on whether the ECI ought to be conferred with the power to derecognise a political party for committing the “offence of hate speech”.

No curbing action

•Neither did the Law Commission make any recommendations to Parliament to strengthen the Election Commission to curb the “menace of hate speeches, irrespective of whenever made”.

•The poll body said hate speeches were “often interconnected with appeals to religion, caste, community, etc, during election campaigning.

•It referred to several Supreme Court judgments, among them the Abhiram Singh case, which had held that “any appeal to vote or refrain from voting for a candidate on the grounds of religion, caste, race, community or language by a candidate or his agent to the electors would amount to corrupt practice under the 1951 Act”.

•This judgment had been brought to the notice of political parties in January 2017. The parties were told by the ECI to desist from making hate statements. Hate speech and communal statements by candidates or their agents could be raised in election petitions.

•Though the Model Code of Conduct had no “legal sanctity”, the ECI said it had introduced guidelines in the Code asking parties to desist from making communal statements. In case any complaints were made, the ECI said it took “strict note” of it.

•The ECI was responding to a plea by lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay seeking directions to the Centre to take apposite steps to implement recommendations of the Law Commission Report 267 on hate speech.

•“The injury to the citizens is extremely large because ‘hate speech and rumour-mongering’ has the potential of provoking individuals or society to commit acts of terrorism, genocides, ethnic cleansing, etc. Hate speech is considered outside the realm of protective discourse,” Mr. Upadhyay’s petition said.

📰 India’s growing water crisis, the seen and the unseen

Rural-urban water disputes are very likely to occur as scarcity grows, exacerbated by climate change

•The UNESCO United Nations World Water Development Report of 2022 has encapsulated global concern over the sharp rise in freshwater withdrawal from streams, lakes, aquifers and human-made reservoirs, impending water stress and also water scarcity being experienced in different parts of the world. In 2007, ‘Coping with water scarcity’ was the theme of World Water Day (observed on March 22). The new Water Report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) sounded a note of caution about this silent crisis of a global dimension, with millions of people being deprived of water to live and to sustain their livelihood.

Growing water stress

•Further, the Water Scarcity Clock, an interactive webtool, shows that over two billion people live in countries now experiencing high water stress; the numbers will continue to increase. The Global Drought Risk and Water Stress map (2019) shows that major parts of India, particularly west, central and parts of peninsular India are highly water stressed and experience water scarcity. A NITI Aayog report, ‘Composite Water Management Index’ (2018) has sounded a note of caution about the worst water crisis in the country, with more than 600 million people facing acute water shortages. The typical response of the areas where water shortage or scarcity is high includes transfer of water from the hinterlands/upper catchments or drawing it from stored surface water bodies or aquifers. This triggers sectoral and regional competition; rural-urban transfer of water is one such issue of global concern.

•Increasing trans-boundary transfer of water between rural and urban areas has been noted in many countries since the early 20th century. A review paper published in 2019 reported that, globally, urban water infrastructure imports an estimated 500 billion litres of water per day across a combined distance of 27,000km. At least 12% of large cities in the world rely on inter-basin transfers. A UN report on ‘Transboundary Waters Systems – Status and Trend’ (2016) linked this issue of water transfer with various Sustainable Development Goals proposed to be achieved during 2015 to 2030. The report identified risks associated with water transfer in three categories of biophysical, socio-economic and governance. South Asia, including India, falls in the category of high biophysical and the highest socio-economic risks.

Urban water use

•According to Census 2011, the urban population in India accounted for 34% of total population distributed in 7,935 towns of all classes. It is estimated that the urban population component in India will cross the 40% mark by 2030 and the 50% mark by 2050 (World Urbanization Prospects, 2018). The urban population accounted for 50% of the total world population by the end of the last century. Although the pace of India’s urbanisation is relatively slow, it is now urbanising at a rapid pace — the size of the urban population is substantial. Water use in the urban sector has increased as more and more people shift to urban areas, and per capita use of water in these centres rises, which will continue to grow with improved standards of living.

•Examining the urban water management trajectory, it is evident that in the initial stages when a city is small, it is concerned only with water supply; in a majority of cases, water is sourced locally, with groundwater meeting the bulk of the supply. As the city grows and water management infrastructures develop, dependence shifts to surface water.

•With a further growth of cities, water sources shift further up in the hinterlands, or the allocation of urban water is enhanced at the expense of irrigation water. Almost all cities in India that depend on surface water experience this trend. City water supply is now a subject of inter-basin and inter-State transfers of water.

The case of Ahmedabad

•Ahmedabad is an interesting case in this context. More than 80% of water supply in this city used to be met from groundwater sources till the mid-1980s. The depth to groundwater level reached 67 metres in confined aquifers. The city now depends on the Narmada canal for the bulk of its water supply. The shift is from local groundwater to canal water receiving supply from an inter-State and inter-basin transfer of surface water.

•Dependence on groundwater continues particularly in the peri-urban areas in almost all large cities that have switched to surface water sources. While surface water transfer from rural to urban areas is visible and can be computed, the recharge areas of groundwater aquifers are spread over well beyond the city boundary or its periphery.

•Whatever be the source, surface or groundwater, cities largely depend on rural areas for raw water supply, which has the potential to ignite the rural-urban dispute. Available studies covering Nagpur and Chennai indicate the imminent problem of rural-urban water disputes that the country is going to face in the not-so-distant future as water scarcity grows, which will be further exacerbated by climate change.

•At present, the rural-urban transfer of water is a lose-lose situation in India as water is transported at the expense of rural areas and the agricultural sector; in cities, most of this water is in the form of grey water with little recovery or reuse, eventually contributing to water pollution. Rural and urban areas use water from the same stock, i.e., the water resources of the country. Therefore, it is important to strive for a win-win situation.

•Such a situation is possible through a host of activities in the rural and urban areas, which is primarily a governance challenge. A system perspective and catchment scale-based approach are necessary to link reallocation of water with wider discussions on development, infrastructure investment, fostering an rural-urban partnership and adopting an integrated approach in water management.

•Institutional strengthening can offer entry points and provide opportunities to build flexibility into water resource allocation at a regional level, enabling adjustments in rapidly urbanising regions. In India’s 75th anniversary of Independence, it is time to examine the state of its water resources and ensure that the development process is not in jeopardy.