EDITORIALS & ARTICLES
6th May 2021
J&K Panel to review allegations of illegal mining
Recently, the J&K administration has constituted a four-member committee to look into allegations of illegal mining of minor minerals in and around River Tawi.
J&K Panel on Illegal Mining
- The committee will be headed by Director Geology and Mining O P Bhagat.
- It will have in depth examination of alleged illegal mining activities/operations of stone crusher units in and around River Tawi in violation of High Court directions.
- The terms of the committee include:
- Examining the issue of stone crusher units in Tawi River since 2018;
- Measures to curb illegal mining in river Tawi in compliance of high court orders; and
- Examine allegations made and representations received about high handedness of the department.
Tawi River
- It is a river that flows through the city of Jammu.
- It is a major left bank tributary of the river Chenab.
- The river crosses into Pakistan's Punjab and joins Chenab River.
- It originates from the lap of Kailash Kund glacier and adjoining area southwest of Bhadarwah in Doda district.
- The catchment area of the river up to Indian border (Jammu) is 2168 km² and falls in the districts of Jammu, Udhampur and a small part of Doda.
- It is a belief of the Hindus of Jammu city that the river was brought to Jammu by 'Raja Pehar Devta' to cure his father and was given the throne of Jammu City and was declared as 'Raja'.
Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) for Casirivimab and Imdevimab
Recently, the Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation has provided an emergency use authorisation (EUA) for casirivimab and imdevimab for the treatment of mild to moderate Covid-19 in India.
Key Highlights
- The approval is based on data filed for the EUA in the US and scientific opinion of Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) in European Union.
- The EUA will now enable Roche to import globally manufactured product batches to India that will be marketed as well as distributed in India through a strategic partnership with Cipla Ltd.
- The antibody cocktail is to be administered to adults and paediatric patients (12 years or older, weighing at least 40 kg), who are confirmed to be infected with the novel coronavirus.
- The treatment will be complementary to the ongoing vaccination drive and support the fight against the pandemic in India.
Casirivimab and Imdevimab
- Casirivimab and Imdevimab are human immunoglobulin G-1 (IgG1) monoclonal antibodies produced by recombinant DNA technology.
- The antibody cocktail (Casirivimab and Imdevimab) is seen useful for high-risk patientsbefore their condition worsens.
- Casirivimab and imdevimab significantly shortened the duration of symptoms by four days during the clinical trials.
- Monoclonal antibodies are laboratory-made proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off harmful pathogens such as viruses.
- Casirivimab and imdevimab are monoclonal antibodies that are specifically directed against the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2.
- They are designed to block the virus’ attachment and entry into human cells.
- It should be refrigerated unopened vials at 2°C to 8°C (36°F to 46°F) in the individual original carton to protect from light.
Central Drugs Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO)
- It is the Central Drug Authority for discharging functions assigned to the Central Government under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
- It has six zonal offices, four sub-zonal offices, 13 port offices and seven laboratories under its control.
- The major functions of CDSCO are:
- Regulatory control over the import of drugs;
- Approval of new drugs and clinical trials;
- Meetings of Drugs Consultative Committee (DCC) and Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB); and
- Approval of certain licenses as Central License Approving Authority
Model Insurance Village
Recently, the Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has come out with the concept of model insurance villages.
Need for Model Insurance Village
- India is predominantly rural with more than 65% of the population residing in rural areas.
- Most rural people are hardly aware of insurance as a concept nor have they experienced the benefits of insurance.
- In rural areas, agriculture and allied activities are the main occupations and the prime source of livelihood.
- The target segment of rural insurance consists largely of low-income households or individuals who have little savings and limited financial capacity.
Model Insurance Village
- The concept is to offer comprehensive insurance protection to all the major insurable risks that villagers are exposed to.
- The idea behind the model village concept is to make available covers at affordable or subsidised cost.
- The concept may be implemented in a minimum of 500 villages in different districtsof the country in the first year and increased to 1,000 villages in the subsequent two years.
- The choice of villages is to be made carefully, considering the various relevant aspects and parameters in order to implement the concept successfully for a period of three to five years.
- The efforts in selected villages need to be continued for a minimum of 3 to 5 years so as to make insurance benefits visible to the community.
Significance of Model Insurance Village
- It aims to demonstrate the concept and efficacy of insurance as risk management tooland to make farmers and rural population aware of benefits of insurance.
- The special focused efforts need to be made to cover the entire population in the village and their property.
- The coverage will include farms/crops, farm machineries, vehicles, different village level services, manufacturing enterprises and other specific insurance needs of the particular village through targeted efforts.
- The model villages are expected to tackle losses due to natural calamities like floods and earthquakes as there is no catastrophe insurance in the country now.
Challenges in spreading insurance to rural areas
- Lack of awareness about the concept of insurance and its benefits among the rural population;
- Limited choice of insurance products with various flexible features;
- Absence of people-friendly and transparent claim settlement mechanisms;
- Weak network of insurance companies and intermediary presence in rural areas;
- Low/slow pace of modern technology adoption in the rural insurance segment;
- Underdeveloped market with constraints in offering affordable covers and proper servicing; and
- Lack of industry-wide well-coordinated efforts to serve the rural insurance segment
How challenges can be addressed?
- Awareness and publicity: The draft proposal says a focused publicity campaign needs to be carried out for a reasonable period of time showcasing the benefits of insurance, rural insurance products and its features, among other things.
- The campaign in vernacular should be done through print, electronic, social media and through other traditional and innovative ways of reaching out to people.
- Insurance product innovation and other enabling steps: The innovative, affordable, technology-based insurance products provide a flexible choice of risk protection offering adequate risk coverage in rural and semi-urban areas.
2021 Index of Economic Freedom
Recently, the Heritage Foundation has released the 2021 Index of Economic Freedom.
Index of Economic Freedom
- It is an annual guide published to measure the progress made in advancing economic freedom which it claims brings greater prosperity.
- The index ranks 12 indicators from property rights to financial freedom under four categories i.e. rule of law, size of government, regulatory efficiency and open markets.
- It believes that the ideals of economic freedom are strongly associated with healthier societies, cleaner environments, greater per capita wealth, human development, democracy, and poverty elimination.
- The 2021 edition measures economic freedom only in independent countries where governments exercise sovereign control of economic policies.
- It relies primarily on the World Trade Organization’s annual World Tariff Profiles for trade-weighted average tariff rates in order to reflect the most authoritative and consistent tariff information.
Key Highlights of 2021 Index of Economic Freedom
- 184 countries were covered in the study this time and the period of study is July 2019 to June 2020.
- The Heritage Foundation decided to exclude Hong Kong from its rankings for the first time ever.
- Hong Kong had topped the list for 25 out of the previous 26 years prior to the current year.
- Singapore topped the global ranking for the second year in a row in the latest Economic Freedom Index.
- Singapore increased its overall score by 0.3 points to 89.7 primarily due to an improvement in the score for government spending.
- The global top five are New Zealand in second place with 83.9 points, Australia in third (82.4 points), Switzerland in fourth with 81.9 points and Ireland (81.4 points).
- The ranking of major economies is that the United Kingdom is 7th (78.4 points), United States is ranked 20th with a score of 74.8 points, Japan 23rd (74.1 points), Germany is 29th (72.5 points) and China is number 107 scoring 58.4 points.
- The Asia-Pacific nations generally scored lower than the world average in seven of 12 indicators such as property rights, judicial effectiveness, government integrity, monetary freedom, trade freedom, investment freedom and financial freedom.
India and 2021 Index of Economic Freedom
- India came in around the middle of the pack among Asia-Pacific countries ranking 26th out of 40 countries, scoring 56.5 points.
- Globally, the Foundation rates India's economy as the 121st freest.
‘State of Working India 2021: One Year of Covid-19’ Report
Recently, the Azim Premji University has released on report titled ‘State of Working India 2021: One Year of Covid-19’.
- Employment in Informal Sector: There was a large increase in informal employment due to coronavirus.
- The report highlighted that salaried employees fell back on self-employment and daily wage work.
- The report shows that nearly half of formal salaried workers moved to informal work, either as self-employed (30%), casual wage (10%) or informal salaried (9%) workers.
- Impact on different economic sectors: Agriculture and trade emerged as the fallback sectors, while education, health and professional services sectors saw the highest outflow.
- The report stated that around 18 per cent of education sector workers have now moved to agriculture.
- The agriculture sector absorbed 10-20 per cent of workers from other sectors.
- Around 20-35 per cent of workers from other sectors are now in trade.
- Implication of Caste and Religion: The general category workers and Hindus were more likely moved into self-employment, while the marginalised caste workers and Muslims fell back upon daily wage work.
- Impact on workers: The self-employed and informal workers faced the highest loss of earnings.
- The casual and daily wage worker saw a dip of 13 per cent in salary from a year-ago, while self-employed saw 18 per cent dip, temporary salaried saw 17 per cent dip, and permanent salaried a 5 per cent dip.
- Impact on gender employability: It highlights how women lost more employment than men during the pandemic last year.
- It discovered that there was no recovery of employment for 7% men whereas in women the rate was 46.6%.
- It found that while “men (were) more likely to move into informal employment, women (were) more likely to move out of the workforce.
- Implication on poverty: The damage to the economy due to the pandemic was enormous and the poor were hit the hardest.
- The report revealed that 230 million additional individuals fell below the national minimum wage poverty line.
Challenges posed by Pandemic
- Borrowings and debt trap: The poorest 25% of households borrowed 3.8 times their median income, as against 1.4 times for the top 25%.
- The report said, nearly 230 million additional individuals fell below the national minimum wage poverty line.
- Inadequate policy response: The study looked at the reach of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana via public distribution system (PDS) in Karnataka and Rajasthan to evaluate the policy response to the crisis.
- It noted that around 30% of PDS priority ration cardholders did not get the promised additional rations in these two states.
- Abdication of responsibility by the Centre: The Centre has abdicated all responsibility saying health is a state subject.
- The Central government invoked the Disaster Management Act and it took decisions through committees on issues in which states had greater experience and better infrastructure.
What is State of Working India 2021 report?
- The report by the Azim Premji University reveals that workers came back to more precarious and informal forms of employment after the 2020 lockdown.
Recommendations provided by the report
- Making up for the first wave and meeting the challenge of the second wave: The fiscal support is urgently needed now for two reasons such as compensating for the losses sustained during the first year of the pandemic and offering a safety net for the months (or years) to come.
- Strengthening PDS: The extension of free rations under the PDS beyond June 2021 until the pandemic is brought under control.
- Strengthening MGNREGA: The expansion of MGNREGA entitlement to 150 days and revising programme wages upwards to state minimum wages.
- Introducing Urban Employment Guarantee (UEG): It is a national level, demand-driven, public works programme which provides a statutory right to employment at specified wage rates for a given number of days.
- Introduction of National Employment Policy: It will need to bring together various supply and demand side dimensions of the labour market and speak coherently to existing trade and industrial policy regimes.
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