5 Points on India's CVD Burden

1. CVD Burden in India: In low-income countries, including India, however, CVD is still the top killer, with death three times more frequent than that due to cancer.
2. Poor Quality Healthcare: Higher mortality in poorer countries was likely due to other factors, including ‘lower quality and less health care’. Access to affordable, quality health care is still a dream in many pockets in India.
3. High OoP Expenditure Deters Treatment: A great amount of out-of-pocket expenditure (according to Health Ministry data for 2014-15, nearly 62.6 % of India’s total health expenditure) often frustrates continuation of treatment, or adherence to drug regimens.
4. Prominent Causes of High CVD Mortality: It is significant that the single largest risk factor is a low education level. It is no doubt part of the job description of the National Programme to modify this risk factor. However, governments will have to muscle up to tackle a rather startling finding — ambient air pollution and indoor air pollution have an impact on CVD and mortality. Household air pollution is the third top risk factor in low-income countries, according to the study.
5. Solution: National and State schemes running on mission mode, including the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, CVD and Stroke will have to step up efforts to target people at risk with life-saving interventions. While some States have shown limited successes with government-sponsored health insurance schemes, the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat Yojana will have to take much of the burden of hospitalisation for complications of non-communicable diseases.

5 Reasons Why Ladakh is Happy With UT Status

1. Long Term Demand: Ladakh as a region had been demanding for such a separate administrative setup. Around a year back the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) of both Leh and Kargil had unanimously passed a resolution, demanding "complete autonomy from Kashmir's administrative setup
2. Dominance: Dominance of Kashmir Valley-based political parties in State politics has resulted in discrimination against Ladakh.
3. Discrimination: Leh has always received less funds than required and has not seen development in years. People complained that Kashmir would take 90% of the funds and leave us with just 10%. Now that won’t happen.
4. Special Provisions: The Consitution makes special provisions for the administration of tribal-dominated areas in four States: Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. Locals are confident the Central government will fulfil Ladakh’s dream.
5. Distinct cultural identity: Leh has predominantly been Buddhist population.

5 Challenges in Afghan Peace Process

1. Rise of IS: Despite the Afghan government’s claims of cracking down on militants, threats from the IS and Taliban have only grown both of which have a goal to destabilize the state that and throw the country into further chaos.
2. Failure of USA’s strategy: USA has failed to evolve a cohesive strategy regarding military aid to Pakistan, troop presence in Afghanistan, indiscriminate use of airpower or infrastructure building in the country.
3. Role of Pakistan: Pakistan has direct links with the Taliban and its allies in the Haqqani network and provides safe havens to terrorist groups within it territory. Pakistan would hamper the democratic process in Afghanistan, as it loses strategic depth to India due to that.
4. Legitimacy of the National Unity Government (NUG) seems eroded due to conflict between Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and President Ashraf Ghani, corruption, lack of implementation of Electoral reforms and refusal of Taliban to talk to Afghan government which it thinks as artificial, foreign imposed and not representative of Afghan people.
5. Conflicts between different stakeholders: There seems to be a ‘Great Game’ for influence in Afghanistan. U.S.-Russia tensions are creating space for proxies for both on Afghan soil. China is trying to build a rival military base in Afghanistan. All these factors have contributed to regrouping and strengthening of Taliban which controls more than half of territory in the country.

5 Significance of Afghan Peace Process for India

1. Peace in the region- is needed so that trade and prosperity could be ushered among the countries.
2. Strategic Depth- India has invested heavily in capacity building of the Afghan forces, administration among other domains. If a settlement is achieved, India will have a strategic partner in Afghanistan, which can be used as a tool against Pakistan.
3. Economic Markets- for Indian agricultural products, electrical machinery, rubber products, pharmaceuticals among others. During April-December 2016-17, the bilateral trade was to the tune of $590.1 million with India’s exports to Afghanistan being $377.2 million and imports from Afghanistan worth $212.9 million.
4. Connectivity- to Iran and Central Asia through highways.
5. Spread of terror- If the terror groups operating from and around Afghanistan-Pakistan border are not neutralized now and US withdrawal takes place in haste, it could have dangerous effects for Indian security.

5 Points on India's Stand on Afghan Peace Process

1. Legitimately elected government in Afghanistan should be a part of any peace initiative. In the past, the Afghan government was often sidelined by international interlocutors when they engaged with the Taliban.
2. All initiatives and processes must include all sections of the Afghan society. There is acceptability in India about talking to the Taliban, since they represent a “section of the Afghan society”.
3. The achievement of establishing democratic processes and human rights, including women’s rights, should be respected.
4. Any process should not lead to any ungoverned spaces where terrorists and their proxies can relocate.
5. Also, the Pakistan-based terrorist groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, and Jaish-e-Mohammed must not be allowed to relocate.

5 Solutions for India's RCEP Apprehensions

1. Protect & Promote domestic industry: Given the costs and benefits in RCEP, it is important for India to strike a balance between domestic and external interests to minimise the adverse effects of RCEP on its domestic engineering industry. If domestic industry has to thrive, it needs protection as also the enabling conditions created by factor and product market reforms.
2. Use of skilled labour: India has been insisting on capitalising on its pool of 'skilled' labour force to gain from improved access to employment opportunities in these economies. This has been expected to come about by increasing the ease of movement of professionals through the liberalisation of what is called Mode 4 in services trade.
3. Protect tariff structure: India should continue to maintain its position of proposed dual tariff structure in the RCEP as it will help India to protect its tariff lines which are more vulnerable to cheap Chinese imports. It must emphasise on a special and differential treatment based on stages of economic development.
4. Restrict Rules of Origin (RoO): It can be used as a strong instrument in RCEP to curb the free flow of Chinese goods into the domestic market. India should restrict RoO to high value-addition to prevent the imports of cheap Chinese goods, which may come to India through our existing FTA partners. Strict RoO in RCEP will provide a safety wall to domestic producers against cheap Chinese goods.
5. Placing suitable safeguards: Within the FTA, provision should be made for safeguard measures like antidumping etc which should be invoked if a volume or price trigger for the concerned products is reached.

5 Benefits of India Enterprise Architecture Framework

1. Provide a ONE Government Experience to the citizens and businesses, by offering integrated services through multiple channels, in a contactless, frictionless manner.
2. Enhance the efficiency of delivery of services, by defining and enforcing service levels of a very high order.
3. Improve the effectiveness of implementation of the developmental and welfare schemes through a holistic performance management.
4. Enhance the productivity of employees and agencies through easy access to information.
5. Provide integrated and cross cutting services through seamless interoperability across the Whole-of-Government.

5 Principles of India Enterprise Architecture Framework

1. SDG Linkage: Performance Mangement Systems are aligned to Sustainable Development Goals prioritized by the Government
2. Integrated Services: That cut across agency-silos are identified, designed and delivered to realize the vision of ONE Government.
3. Sharing and Resuability: All coomonly required applications are abstracted to be built once and deployed across the whole of government through reuse and sharing.
4. Data sharing across the government, subject to rights and priviliges, so as to prevent deployment and use of duplicative sets of data by different agencies.
5. Mobile Channels are Mandatory: For delivery of all services, among all delivery channels

10 Points of Shillong Declaration

1. Improve the citizen’s experience with Government services by promoting timely implementation of India Enterprise Architecture (IndEA) and implementing a single sign-on for interoperability and integration among e-Government applications throughout the country
2. Consolidate the plethora of successful State level e-Governance projects and domain-based projects with a focus to replicate them as a common application software with configurable features
3. Ensure improvement in ease of living and ease of doing business by making a big shift in the role of government from Service Provider to Service Enabler, thus moving from development of applications to making available public digital platforms where multiple competitive applications can be developed
4. Take steps to further improve connectivity in North Eastern States by addressing the issues and challenges of telecommunications connectivity at grassroot level and formulate and implement a comprehensive telecom development plan
5. Take steps to enhance the activities of Electronics Sector Skill Council in North Eastern States and explore the possibility for opening an electronics skill center in Shillong
6. Promote use of e-Office and move towards less paper State Secretariats in the North-Eastern States and in the District level offices
7. Improve the quality of delivery of e-Services in the North East to fulfil the vision of improved citizen experience
8. Develop India as a global cloud hub and facilitate development of Government applications and databases on Cloud by default
9. Adopt emerging technologies for finding e-Governance solutions
10. Promote the Digital India Projects with focus on Smart Cities and Smart Villages through Startups and Smart Entrepreneurship

5 Apprehensions of India Regarding RCEP

1. Trade deficit: India’s trade deficits have always widened with nations after signing free-trade-agreements (FTAs) with them. India’s merchandise trade deficit with the RCEP grouping hit $105 billion in FY19 (60% of its total deficit).
2. Threat to domestic market: RCEP members, particularly China, are demanding zero tariffs over 90 per cent tariff lines which is a major concern for India as low cost Chinese manufacturing goods will swamp its domestic market by dumping cheaper goods. A large number of Indian industry including iron and steel, dairy, marine products, electronic products, chemicals and pharmaceuticals and textiles have expressed concerns that proposed tariff elimination under RCEP would render them uncompetitive
3. Low labour productivity: Despite low relative labour cost, labour productivity in India in manufacturing is still one of the lowest in the world, and spatially fragmented labour laws escalate costs of transaction. Under such circumstances, the Indian industry is hardly in a position to compete in a level playing ground in a freetrade region.
4. Strict IPR policy: The “stringent IP provisions” have been stumbling blocks for a while, with India arguing for these to be taken out of the agreement. The provisions, if adopted, would lead to domestic pharma companies not being able to launch or export affordable life-saving drugs across the world. While in the agriculture sector, farmers would lose the right to save or sell seeds or the harvested produce from plant varieties that have been granted intellectual property.
5. Competition from China: It is evident that the size and scale of Chinese manufacturing industry backed with extensive financial and non-financial support provide a clear edge to Chinese manufacturing producers.

5 Benefits of RCEP to India

1. Market Access: Owing to its size, it is expected to provide market access for India’s goods and services exports and encourage greater investments and technology into India.
2. Alternative to APEC: RCEP offers alternative to Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) on economic front in which India has been attempting to join APEC since 1993, but still has not got the membership.
3. FDI gains: The arrangement is expected to harmonise the trade-related rules, investment and competition regimes of India with those of other countries in the group. There would be a boost to inward and outward foreign direct investment, particularly export-oriented FDI.
4. Aligned with India’s initiative: India wants its ‘Make in India’ to become a global success, it must participate positively to become a part of the Asian value and supply chain which either begins or ends in India. It also aligns with Act East Policy which make both economic and strategic sense for India to be the part of the agreement.
5. Growth of supply chains: Signing the RCEP treaty will enable India to enter the global supply chain as it will be helped by frictionless movement between 16 members.

5 Implications of Scrapping of A.370

1. Article 356 under which the President’s Rule can be imposed in any state, will also be applicable to the UT of Jammu and Kashmir.
2. The central quota laws in school-college admissions and state government jobs will apply.
3. People from other states may be able to acquire property and residency rights.
4. RTI would be made applicable.
5. Certain provisions of the J&K Constitution which denied property rights to native women who marry a person from outside the State may stand invalidated.

5 Constitutional Problems in Scrapping Article 370

1. Legality of the Presidential order: Article 370 itself cannot be amended by a Presidential Order. Even though the Order amends Article 367, the content of those amendments, however, do amend Article 370. And as the Supreme Court has held on multiple occasions, you cannot do indirectly what you cannot do directly. Therefore, legality of the order – insofar as it amends Article 370 – is questionable.
2. Misusing the President Rule and Making Governor as a substitute for the elected assembly: The governor is the representative of the Union Government in the State. In effect, the Union Government has consulted itself.
3. Decision of Permanent Character taken by Governor: Also, President’s Rule is temporary and is meant to be a stand-in until the elected government is restored. Consequently, decisions of a permanent character – such as changing the entire status of a state- taken without the elected legislative assembly, but by the Governor, are inherently problematic.
4. Equating state assembly with constituent assembly: The difference is that the one has to exercise its powers as per the constitution, while the other develops the constitution. This distinction that is at the heart of India’s basic structure doctrine that prevents certain constitutional amendments on the ground that Parliament, which exercises representative authority, is limited and cannot create a new constitution and thereby exercise sovereign authority.
5. Going against the Jammu and Kashmir’s Constitutional position: Presidential order has assumed that legislative assembly has power to scrap Article 370. But Article 147 of the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution prohibits such a move. The Article makes it clear that any changes to the Jammu and Kashmir Constitution needs the approval of two-thirds of the members of the legislative assembly.

5 Alternatives to Local Job Reservation

1. Tackle Core Issues of Unemployment by more job creation and industrialisation rather than such moves. Government should provide incentives to industries for more investments and create an enabling environment for it.
2. Government should focus on making the youth of a state employable with proper investments in education, health and skill development.
3. Need to promote labour intensive industries, sunrise sectors (hi-tech companies) to absorb all kinds of job seekers.
4. Promote Self-employment: So that people create opportunities for themselves. E.g.: MUDRA; STAND UP INDIA
5. Promote services sectors such as tourism with high positive spillover on other sectors.

5 Difficulties in Implementing Local Job Reservation

1. May not pass legal scrutiny: Article 16 does not empower the state government to provide for such reservation, rather the Parliament is empowered to do so.
2. Politically Motivated Move: Rather than addressing the core concerns like structural reforms, infrastructure development and so on, states are using reservation as a tool to capture votes in the short term.
3. Dangerous for unity of the country: Such moves could lead to opening of a Pandora’s Box where other states start implementing such policies, which result in fractures in unity of India.
4. Concerns of the industry: Factories may be employing labour migrating in from different states. It may be difficult/expensive to find locals for the jobs and consequently their ease of doing business will be hampered.
5. Polarisation and Communal Strife: Such a move may disturb social harmony as many workers and their families may get uprooted because of disruption of their income source.

5 Reasons Why Local Job Reservation is Demanded

1. Agrarian Distress: Agrarian sector is under tremendous stress across the country, and young people are desperate to move out of the sector.
2. Lack of jobs: There is a serious dearth of jobs (private and government). Mot only are the jobs too few, they are precarious and do not pay well.
3. Displacement of Landowners: Since most of the land requirement is met by acquiring private agricultural lands, the landowners are being displaced and deprived of their occupation and thereby loss of income.
4. Discrimination: Several reports like the State of Working India 2018 released by the Centre for Sustainable Employment of the Azim Premji University have shown that discrimination is one of the reasons for under representations of Dalits and Muslims in the corporate sector.
5. Sentiment against workers migrating from distressed regions and ‘stealing’ limited local opportunities have created pressure upon regional politicians to take some steps.

5 Views on State Funding of Elections

1. Indrajit Gupta Committee (1998) endorsed state funding of elections, seeing “full justification constitutional, legal as well as on ground of  public  interest” in order to establish a fair playing field for parties with less money. The Committee recommended two limitations to state funding. Firstly, that state funds should  be given only to national and state parties allotted a symbol and not to independent candidates. Secondly, that in the short-term state funding should only be given in kind, in the form of certain facilities to the recognised political parties and their candidates. The Committee noted that at the time of the report the economic situation of the country only suited partial and not full state funding of elections.
2. 1999 Law Commission of India report concluded that total state funding of elections is “desirable” so long as political parties are prohibited from taking funds from other sources. The Commission concurred with the Indrajit Gupta Committee that only partial state funding was possible given the economic conditions of the country at that time. Additionally, it strongly recommended that the appropriate regulatory framework be put in place with regard to political parties (provisions ensuring internal  democracy,  internal structures and maintenance of accounts, their auditing and submission to Election Commission) before state funding of elections is attempted.
3. “Ethics in Governance”, a report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2008) also recommended partial state funding of elections for the purpose of reducing “illegitimate and unnecessary funding” of elections expenses.
4. National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution, 2001, did not endorse state funding of elections but concurred with the 1999 Law Commission report that the appropriate framework for regulation of political parties would need to be implemented before state funding is considered.
5. View of Election Commission: The Election Commission has told a parliamentary committee that it does not support state funding of elections but instead seeks radical reforms in the way funds are spent by political parties.

5 Arguments against RTI Amendments

1. Incorrect Rational given: Experts have rejected the justifications of government on the rationalisation of status. The decisions of all authorities including those of the President and prime minister are challenged before high courts and that their status does not prevent or debar such challenges. The genesis of the RTI comes from Supreme Court rulings on how right to information is a precondition for informed voting and therefore, parity between information and election commissioners is not an anomaly.
2. Dilutes the independence of CICs and ICs: As the Central government may determine the term and salaries of CICs and ICs. Uncertain term and salary changeable by executive notification reduces CIC to an obedient subordinate. This also hampers accountability as it calls people’s right to information under question. A situation could arise where different commissioners will have different tenures and salaries. If salaries and tenures are downgraded, eminent people may not apply for the vacant posts.
3. Dilutes the status of CICs: Chief Information Commissioner and Chief Election Commissioner (and the state level officers) were kept at the same footing, as according to the Supreme Court of India RTI and Right to vote are equally important fundamental rights. However, the amendments tend to change this scenario.
4. Encroaches upon the state jurisdiction: As the Central government will prescribe the term, status and salary of State Information Commissioners.
5. Lack of consultation: With the civil society and the state Governments, which amounts to undemocratic imposition. It was not put in the public domain and the amendment did not undergo much scrutiny.

5 Success Stories of NHRC

1. NHRC opened the state to judicial and moral scrutiny: One example is the consistent watch the Commission has kept on incidences of ‘encounter killings’ and deaths in custody. It has issued guidelines wherein every death in police action has to be reported to the NHRC within 48 hours of the incident.
2. Vocal in its opinion against laws such as the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) and Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 (POTA) – which had scope for misuse and possible human rights violations.
3. Expanding Reach: Over the years, as awareness about the NHRC’s existence and work increased, so has its reach among the people. According to the Commission’s estimate, from 169 complaints received in 1993-94, the NHRC went on to receive 68,713 complaints in 2002-2003 to one lakh in 2007-2008 and 1,17,808 in 2015-16.
4. Suo motu cognisance of human rights violations, based on media reports or other sources of information and investigates them. For example, the NHRC issued a notice to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs over the planned deportation of about 40,000 Rohingya immigrants, and asked the ministry to submit a detailed report within four weeks.
5. Enlarging its ambit/mandate: The Commission has also gone beyond the physical violation of human rights to protect the economic, social and cultural rights of people Example - being assigned to look into the extreme poverty, starvation in Kalahandi, Bolangir and Koraput regions of Odisha etc.

5 Problems in NHRC Working

1. Lack of infrastructure: In 2017, NHRC admitted that despite a 1,455 per cent increase in complaints between 1995 and 2015, its staff strength had decreased by 16.94 per cent in the same period. Commission officials have admitted in Supreme Court that with its current staff capacity, it cannot investigate more than 100 cases a year.
2. Conflict of interest: Almost 50 per cent of the NHRC’s staff is on deputation from other services who keeps changing, leaving the commission constantly short-staffed. Also, the officers conducting investigations are usually on deputation from the same forces that have been accused of violations and will have to inevitably go back to them, creating a conflict of interest.
3. Limiting its ambit of work: In terms of action against excess police action, the NHRC has limited itself to custodial death, rape and torture by police and has refrained from venturing into torture cases related to terrorism and insurgency. Civil society groups argue that NHRC has refrained from asserting its independence by not taking up cases with high political stakes.
4. Questions of independence and govt interference: The very nature of formation of the NHRC – by an Act of Parliament and where the chairperson and the members of the Commission are appointed by the President, on the recommendations of a committee that includes the Prime Minister – which has raised doubts in the minds of many about its ability to function independently. Additionally, the recommendations of the NHRC are not binding on the governments.
5. No power of granting punishment to the accused: While in over 90 per cent of cases financial compensation recommended by the NHRC is paid to the victims by the concerned authorities, the Commission has had very little success in getting the guilty punished. The NHRC may, however, move to SC if its recommendations are not accepted. For example: A Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted to investigate some of the serious cases of 2002 Godhra riots of Gujarat. The NHRC has no powers to investigate human rights violations involving the armed forces. NHRC on receiving a complaint or while taking suo motu cognisance of a violation, can only send queries to the Defence Ministry and make recommendations based on it.