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The Union Education Ministry released data from the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), 2020-2021, which showed a 7.5% increase in student enrolments across the country from the 2019-20 figures, with the total enrolments reaching 4.13 crore.
The survey revealed that in 2020-21, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, there was a 7% rise in enrolments in distance education programmes.
The data showed two lakh more Scheduled Caste students, about three lakh more Scheduled Tribe students and six lakh more Other Backward Classes students getting enrolled for higher education in 2020-21 than in the previous year.
There is a notable increase in OBC student enrolment since 2014-15 of around 36 lakh (32%).While the increase was noted in absolute numbers, the proportion of SC students dropped to 14.2% in 2020-21 from 14.7% the previous year and the proportion of OBC students to 35.8% from 37%.
The proportion of Muslim students dropped to 4.6% from 5.5% in 2019-20 with the proportion of “other minority students” dropping to 2% from 2.3%.
The number of students in the Persons with Disabilities category also dropped in 2020-21 to 79,035 from 92,831 the previous year. However, female enrolment had increased to 49% of the total enrolments in 2020-21 compared with 45% the previous year.
Editorial
In NREGA reforms, prioritise the worker and her dues (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Welfare Schemes)
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is no stranger to reform. In fact, the zeal with which reforms are introduced often outpaces the capacity to adapt.
Every time the administrative system gets back on its feet after a reform move, it is hit by another. Poorer States struggle more to adapt when compared to those that are better off because of weaker administrative capacity.
The most recent concern of the central government is over the programme’s “regressive” spending pattern, where poorer States spend less NREGA funds than better-off ones.
As if on cue, a committee to suggest reforms has been constituted instead of listening to the long-standing demands of workers and their collectives.
NREGA is underperforming because its most basic design principles have been forgotten or wilfully ignored. We remind the committee of this simple message.
The first is: address delays in wage payments to restore the faith of workers in the programme. In 2016, the Supreme Court of India directed the government to ensure that wages were paid on time, calling the act of making workers wait for wages for months as equal to “forced labour”.
However, there has not been even a single decisive step taken by the Ministry since then. Instead, the process of wage payments created by the central government has become even more convoluted.
For instance, seven or more functionaries have to sign off before payment due to a worker can be approved (stage one of the wage payment cycle).
This does not even include the series of delays from when the payment is approved till payment is made (stage two of the cycle). In contrast, the processing of loans from private banks is done in fewer steps.
The point is the Ministry of Rural Development must simplify the payment process and has to be transparent about pending wage payments in stage one and two so that bottlenecks can be corrected.
The second is: strengthen implementation capacities where expenditure is low instead of curbing expenditure where employment generation is high. States which are spending more are implementing the programme better because they have better capacities (as several studies including the government’s own Economic Survey concluded in 2016).
Revisit the tax treatment of tobacco products (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Adam Smith, in his famous work The Wealth of Nations, argued that commodities such as sugar, rum and tobacco, though not necessary for life, are widely consumed, and thus good candidates for taxation.
Research in India and around the world supports the use of taxes to regulate tobacco consumption. However, in India, tobacco taxes have not increased significantly since the implementation of the Goods and Services Taxation (GST) over five years ago, making these products increasingly affordable, as recent studies show.
In 2017, the economic burden and health-care expenses due to tobacco use and second-hand smoke exposure amounted to ₹2,340 billion, or 1.4% of GDP while India’s average annual tobacco tax revenue stands at only ₹537.5 billion.
Despite the government’s goal of making India a $5 trillion economy, the increasing affordability of tobacco poses a threat to this vision and could harm GDP growth.
Tobacco use is also the cause for nearly 3,500 deaths in India every day, which impacts human capital and GDP growth in a negative way.
The current GST system for tobacco taxation in India has features that are hindering efforts in regulating consumption. One issue is the overuse of ad valorem taxes, which are not effective in reducing consumption.
Many countries use a specific or mixed tax system for harmful products. The GST system in India relies more on ad valorem taxes than the pre-GST system, which primarily used specific excise taxes.
Many countries with a GST or value-added tax (VAT) also apply an excise tax on tobacco products. In India, the share of central excise duty in total tobacco taxes decreased substantially from pre-GST to post-GST for cigarettes (54% to 8%), bidis (17% to 1%), and smokeless tobacco (59% to 11%).
A large part of the compensation cess as well as the National Calamity Contingent Duty, or NCCD (it is levied as a duty of excise on certain manufactured goods specified under the Seventh Schedule of the Finance Act, 2001) currently applied on tobacco products is specific.
If specific taxes are not revised regularly to adjust for the inflation, they lose their value. Inflation indexing should be made mandatory for any specific tax rates applied on tobacco products.
There is a large discrepancy in taxation between tobacco products. Despite cigarettes accounting for only 15% of tobacco users, they generate 80% or more of tobacco taxes.
Explainer
India’s call to modify the Indus Waters Treaty (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
In a notice to Pakistan on January 25, India said that it has been compelled to call for the ‘modification’ of the 63-year-old Indus Waters Treaty owing to Pakistan’s persistent objections regarding India’s Kishenganga (KHEP) and Ratle hydropower projects in Kashmir.
In 1947, the line of partition, aside from delineating geographical boundaries for India and Pakistan, also cut the Indus river system into two.
Both sides were dependent on water from the Indus river basin to keep their irrigation infrastructure functional and therefore, equitable distribution was needed. In 1951, when both the countries applied to the World Bank for funding their respective irrigation projects on Indus and its tributaries, the World Bank offered to mediate the conflict.
Finally in 1960, an agreement was reached between the two countries, and the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) was signed by former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and then President of Pakistan, Ayub Khan. The former Vice President of the World Bank, W. A. B. Iliff, also signed it.
The Indus river basin has six rivers — Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej — originating from Tibet and flowing through the Himalayan ranges to enter Pakistan, ending in the south of Karachi.
The treaty prescribed how water from the six rivers would be shared between India and Pakistan. It allocated the three western rivers — Indus, Chenab and Jhelum — to Pakistan for unrestricted use, barring certain non-consumptive, agricultural and domestic uses by India.
Similarly, the three Eastern rivers — Ravi, Beas and Sutlej — were allocated to India for unrestricted usage. It also required both the countries to establish a Permanent Indus Commission constituted by permanent commissioners from both sides.
The functions of the commission include serving as a forum for exchange of information on the rivers and as a first stop for the resolution of conflicts.
Annexure D of the IWT allows India to build ‘run of the river’ hydropower projects (projects which do not require live storage of water).
The treaty also allows Pakistan to raise objections over such projects being built, if it does not find them to be compliant with the rules.
Kishenganga, a tributary of the Jhelum river, originates in J&K and joins the river in Pakistan occupied Kashmir. The work for KHEP started in 2007, with a proposal to build a dam on the Kishenganga, diverting its water for a 330 MW hydropower plant in Kashmir’s Bandipora and sending it back.
Command postings for women officers in the Army (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
The Army has stated that the process for selection of women officers to command assignments in the rank of Colonel, a major step towards bringing them at par with their male counterparts, has been conducted.
This flows from the Supreme Court judgment of 2020 upholding an earlier judgment granting permanent commission (PC) as well as command postings to women officers in all arms and services other than combat.
The Army has conducted a Women Officers Special No 3 Selection Board from January 9 to 22 for promotion from the rank of Lieutenant Colonel to Colonel.
A total of 244 women officers are considered for promotion. This is against the 108 vacancies released by the government to promote the affected women officers who are from various Arms and Services which include engineers, signals, Army Air Defence, Intelligence Corps, Army Service Corps, Army Ordnance Corps and electrical and mechanical engineers.
Based on the selection by the board, the first set of such postings will be issued by the end of January 2023. Following judicial intervention, the Army has granted PC to women officers at par with their male counterparts in all Arms and Services other than combat arms which are infantry, mechanised infantry and armoured.
Additionally, Army Chief General Manoj Pande announced that women officers would soon be inducted into the Corps of Artillery as well.
Apart from medical and dental streams, since 2008 the Army had granted PC for women officers in the Education Corps and Judge Advocate General (JAG) branches where they already go to the rank of Colonel.
However, they are largely administrative appointments unlike the regular arms and services where Colonels command officers and men and lead them from the front.
A Commanding Officer (CO) is a very coveted position in the Army and therein lies its significance in it being opened up for women.
In the past, women were recruited in various arms and services only as short service commissions, which meant they would have to leave service after 14 years, much short of the pensionable service of 20 years. In a landmark judgment in the BabitaPuniya case in February 2020, the Supreme Court directed that women officers in the Army be granted PC as well as command postings in all services other than combat.
Text & context
Dementia: the nature of the disease, how it progresses and ways you can help others (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Dementia is a clinical syndrome caused by a range of diseases or injuries to the brain. Worldwide, 47.5 million people have dementia, and up to 135.5 million could by 2050. According to a 2020 report, there are around five million people in India living with dementia.
The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, which is implicated in up to 70% of dementia diagnoses. Early symptoms include absent-mindedness, difficulty recalling names and words, difficulty retaining new information, disorientation in unfamiliar surroundings, and reduced social engagement.
Atypical symptoms include impairment in recognising visually presented objects despite a normal visual field, acuity and colour vision. Some might also experience word-finding difficulties.
As the disease progresses, there is a marked memory loss and loss of other cognitive skills, including reduced vocabulary and less complex speech patterns.
This may be accompanied by mood swings, apathy, a decline in social skills, and the emergence of psychotic phenomena.
Advanced disease is characterised by monosyllabic speech, psychotic symptoms, behavioural disturbance, loss of bladder and bowel control, and reduced mobility.
Doctors diagnose dementia on clinical grounds using neuroimaging and neuropsychological tests. The first step is to obtain a comprehensive medical history of the individual from a reliable informant, that is someone who knows the individual well. Informants themselves can be influenced by their own mental states, so it is useful to speak with more than one informant.
A dementia that progresses slowly, over years, may point to Alzheimer’s dementia. A dementia that progresses rapidly, over months, may point to dementia due to prion disease.
It’s useful to determine when the individual was last well instead of when the symptoms first showed themselves. Informants frequently minimise early symptoms by attributing them to “normal ageing”.
Dementia affects cognition. Therefore, a cognitive assessment is central to evaluating dementia, using certain neuropsychological tests.
News
Subcategorization committee for OBCs gets 14th extension (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Justice G. Rohini-led commission for the sub-categorisation of other backward classes (OBCs) has been given yet another extension in its tenure by the President, according to a Gazette notification issued by the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment last week.
This is the 14th extension in tenure that the commission has been given. The commission, formed in October 2017, was initially given 12 weeks to finish the task of sub-categorising the nearly 3,000 castes within the OBC umbrella and recommend division of the 27% OBC quota among them equitably.
Initially, the government cited more time required by the panel to gather information and data and then it cited the pandemic.
The fresh six-month extension comes weeks after multiple members of the commission in December 2022 that their report was “in the final stages” and that they were prepared to submit it to the government by the end of January 2023.
After the notification of the extension, one commission member told, “Nothing is left for the panel to do. We are now just attaching annexures as required and finalising the compilation of the report.”
Even as the notification issued on January 25 said the commission “shall present its report by 31st July, 2023”, the panel member said they might be finished with it before the fresh deadline.
As part of its work, the commission had identified dominant caste groups among all OBC communities in the Central list, finding that a small group of dominant OBC communities were crowding out a large number of communities from the 27% quota.
‘India has done well in terms of aggregate growth over the last year’ (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
In terms of aggregate growth over the last year, India has done well, especially in the context of the current global situation, where several advanced economies are on the brink of a recession.
There are two reasons for India’s good performance. First, the RBI has done a skilful job in terms of monetary policy, managing interest rates judiciously to dampen inflation, and it has used the foreign exchange reserves strategically — releasing and buying dollars to hold the exchange rate within a reasonable range.
Second, India has conducted its foreign policy with a measure of finesse and this has had a positive fallout on the economy. As the cracks between the West and China grow deeper, global players are now looking at India as a potential investment destination.
However, this relative good performance must not lead to complacency. India’s growth of 8.7% in 2021-22 is good, but India was among the weakest performers in the world in 2020-21 with a growth of minus-6.6%.
So, most of the growth in 2021-22 was the growth of climbing out of the well. The average annual growth from 2020 to 2023 is 2.77%, which is much below India’s performance in the past and below that of many other nations.
India’s economy grew slower than in the previous year for five consecutive years — from 2016 to 2021. I believe growth matters, but I do not agree with economists who push growth to the margins.
The mistake is to treat growth as an end in itself. Its importance is as an instrument to spread well-being in the entire population. Unfortunately, the growth that is occurring in India is disproportionately at the top-end.
The rich are getting richer. We do not have enough data but all signs are that the lower middle classes are facing negative growth even while overall GDP growth is positive.
India’s youth unemployment rate stands at 28.3%, which is almost double that of most east and southeast Asian nations. Clearly, these youngsters without work are not getting a share of the nation’s overall GDP growth.