IASbaba's Think Learn and Perform 2017, UPSC Mains Answer Writing
SYNOPSIS: IASbaba’s TLP – 2017 : UPSC Mains General Studies Questions [25th Aug, 2017]- Day 35
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1. What are the components of ethical governance? Discuss. Also examine the ways that can ensure strengthening of ethical and moral values in governance.
SYNOPSIS:
Ethical governance according to the United Nations refers to the process and procedures, culture and values that ensure highest standards of behaviour both in policy making and implementation.
COMPONENTS OF ETHICAL GOVERNANCE:
Though there are different yardsticks to ensure ethical governance the components can be summarised chiefly into harmonious integration of the below stated four process
- Accountability & Responsibility: Accountability is an obligation of individual towards his actions , administrators must take responsibility not only of their jobs but the benefits of government programmes reaching people and in case of any failure must be held accountable
- Openness & Transparency: In the era of e-governance the administrators must ensure the maxim of “Minimum government and maximum governance” so that the public is aware of all the benefits of the programs, financial status of them and those in position of implementation must ensure last mile delivery of them the recent examples of PFMS (public finance management system), PM Jan dhan yojana are steps in that direction.
- Decentralisation & devolution: It is a necessary step as decentralisation leads to transfer of power to the lowest tier which will ensure passage of benefits as well as responsibility to the Government closest to the beneficiaries The 73rd and 74th amendment gave power to the panchayats and municipalities and is a chief feature of a true democracy.
- Corruption free public service: This is the most crucial aspect of ensuring benefits to the citizenry and the personal traits of the staff at all echelons like honesty and integrity is brought to the forefront which will create a more egalitarian society.
WAYS TO STRENGTHEN ETHICAL AND MORAL VALUES IN GOVERNANCE:
Though the Government has ensured numerous ways like Central civil service rules 1964, public service delivery bill 2006, RTI 2005 many feel that these are mere paper promises and a lot needs to be done
The Second Administrative reforms commission has suggested the following methods
- Codification of ethics just will ensure the minimum standards that public servants must follow
- Strong vigilance systems to ensure that corruption is eliminated at the root like whistle blowers act etc.
- Digitization and e governance is the way forward to ensure citizen centric governance
- Values such as selflessness, honesty, integrity and objectivity if inculcated at early age through education will lead to Ethical leadership in the future.
- Delegation of work and responsibility in every organisation should be ensured similarly the standard protocols must be codified vide citizen charters.
All these will be ensured only if there is a well-informed citizenry who has ethos towards society so that ethical governance remains at the forefront to ensure a egalitarian society.
BEST ANSWER: YATDAL
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2. Should India abandon its support for Palestine? Don’t you think it would be a pragmatic decision keeping in mind the fact that India’s interests are better served if it does so? Comment.
Introduction:
Recently Narendra Modi became the first Prime Minister of India to visit Israel and it became even more significant because of the timing of visit and calls for India to abandon its support for Palestine from various quarters.
Body:
India-Israel relationship has taken new shape after the new government came to power. The reasons for India to embrace Israel are:
- Strategic reasons: Israel is major exporter of defense equipment’s’ to us. It came to our rescue during Kargil war.
- Agriculture: They are very developed in Agriculture technologies from which we need help.
- Water technology: From water scarce land, they have made water available 24-hours.
- Make-in-India: They will help in being Industrial power.
- UNSC: There support is required for UNSC permanent seat.
- Terrorism: They are also fighting border terrorism like us.
Reasons why we should not abandon Palestine:
- Muslims: India has sizable Muslim population who support Palestine cause.
- Energy Security: Most of Arab nations will turn against us.
- India Expats: Majority of Indians live in Arab countries, it will affect their livelihood.
- Neighbor tensions: Will rise as two of our neighbors are Muslim majority country.
Conclusion:
India should take a balanced approach in this case and try to act as per Art 51 which mentions about International Peace and co-operation. India can take moral high ground and engage in negotiations for finding peaceful solutions. Also act within limitations as to not interfere in sovereign countries domestic matters.
Best Answer: akg.
3. What differences do you observe in the functioning of government and private sectors? What can they learn from each other? Discuss.
Introduction:
The public sector is usually composed of organizations that are owned and operated by the government. This includes federal, provincial, state, or municipal governments The private sector is usually composed of organizations that are privately owned and not part of the government. These usually includes corporations (both profit and non-profit), partnerships, and charities. both sectors are indispensable part of the wellbeing of the economy
Differences:
- While public sector’s basic objective is to serve the citizens of the country (social justice) and the private sector it is earning profit.
- The scale and complexity of the Government organizations is much larger than those in the private sector
- The private sector is driven by market driven competition and those in government sector is by legislation
- Authority and responsibility in the government tends to be asymmetric while authority and responsibility in the private sector are more clearly balanced. Responsibility in the government can be enormous while authority is frequently quite limited.
- The senior/political leadership in Departments and Agencies turns over more frequently and to a larger extent than occurs in the private sector.
- The government is much slower in action than the private sector; there is little sense of urgency or time
- The oversight mechanism for Governmental agencies both internal and external is high like periodic inspections, audits, press, media etc.
What private sector can learn from public sector?
- Proper oversight mechanism- ensuring compliance
- Have standard protocols and fixing responsibility
- Ensure societal well-being and employee satisfaction
- Environmental consciousness
- Strategic innovation than incremental innovation
- Invest more in R&D and encourage talent pool formation
- Ensure service delivery standards and grievance redressal
- Have more transparent corporate governance involving stakeholder participation
What public sector can learn from private sector?
- More risk taking ability
- Be more proactive and encourage competition( no laxity)
- Time bound result oriented management
- Ensure best management practices
- Faster career progression and ensure human capital enrichment
- Ensure measurement of progress for both organization and employees
- Be sensitive to market changes and ability to adapt
- Higher compensation for employees to prevent corruption
Conclusion:
At present, India is adopting the policy of Privatization at a larger scale, through which Private Sector is gaining importance. For the progress and development of the country, both the sectors must go hand in hand as only one sector cannot lead the country in the path of success.
Best answer: Anant
4. The right to privacy has been declared as a fundamental right by a 9 judge bench of Supreme Court. What implications will this judgment have on India’s data security regime? Examine.
Introduction
9 judge bench delivered landmark judgement and unanimously declaring the Right to Privacy is fundamental right under constitution. SC has categorically held that Right to privacy will be protected as intrinsic part of Right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of constitution of India. Judgement represents quantum leap in the evolution of legal jurisprudence pertaining to privacy in India.
Main Body
From relevance and contemporary stand point the fact that privacy is extremely important concern in technology intensive society which aims to become information based society especially at a time when we are pushing for Digital India. Right to privacy is intricately related to data security and it may have several implications on India’s data security regime.
In this part focus on answer should be on following components,
- Aadhaar and data security concerns towards Aadhar, need for robust data protection mechanism.
- Cyber security policy upgradation, filling loopholes in backdrop of increased cyber crime and global ransom ware attacks.
- Need for revamped National encryption policy considering necessary changes suggested to previous draft.
- Need to regulate data and information with multinationals and ecommerce websites.
- Strengthening of Cert-In and data security council,IT Act 2000
- Crucial task ahead for Justice B.N.Srikrishna committee on draft data protection policy guidelines.
Conclusion
The important implication of this judgment is that now government needs to come with Stringent Privacy Law and Data Protection law. Also, Privacy is not absolute, and the State will always have the Primacy to impose Reasonable Restrictions in the Greater interest. Privacy is the essential part of Vibrant Democracy and it needs to be Protected and Conserved and that is responsibility of all stakeholders.
Best Answer: Redeemr911
5. What are gravitational waves? From where do they come from? Explain. In this light, discuss about the LISA mission.
- Gravitational waves:
- Gravitational waves are ‘ripples’ in the fabric of space-time caused by some of the most violent and energetic processes in the Universe. Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1916 in his general theory of relativity.
- Einstein’s mathematics showed that massive accelerating objects (such as neutron stars or black holes orbiting each other) would disrupt space-time in such a way that ‘waves’ of distorted space would radiate from the source (like the movement of waves away from a stone thrown into a pond).
- These ripples would travel at the speed of light through the Universe, carrying with them information about their cataclysmic origins, as well as invaluable clues to the nature of gravity itself.
- The strongest gravitational waves are produced by catastrophic events such as colliding black holes, the collapse of stellar cores (supernovae), coalescing neutron stars or white dwarf stars, the slightly wobbly rotation of neutron stars that are not perfect spheres, and the remnants of gravitational radiation created by the birth of the Universe itself.
- Though gravitational waves were predicted to exist in 1916, actual proof of their existence wouldn’t arrive until 1974, 20 years after Einstein’s death. In that year, two astronomers working at the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico discovered a binary pulsar–two extremely dense and heavy stars in orbit around each other. This was exactly the type of system that, according to general relativity, should radiate gravitational waves. Knowing that this discovery could be used to test Einstein’s audacious prediction, astronomers began measuring how the period of the stars’ orbits changed over time. After eight years of observations, it was determined that the stars were getting closer to each other at precisely the rate predicted by general relativity. This system has now been monitored for over 40 years and the observed changes in the orbit agree so well with general relativity, there is no doubt that it is emitting gravitational waves.
- In September 14, 2015, LIGO, for the first time, physically sensed distortions in spacetime itself caused by passing gravitational waves generated by two colliding black holes nearly 1.3 billion light years away.
- The origins of gravitational waves can be extremely violent, by the time the waves reach the Earth they are millions of times smaller and less disruptive. In fact, by the time gravitational waves from the first detection reached LIGO, the amount of space-time wobbling they generated was thousands of times smaller than the nucleus of an atom.
- LISA Pathfinder mission:
- LISA Pathfinder, formerly Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology-2 (SMART-2), was an ESA spacecraft that was launched on 3 December 2015.The mission tested technologies needed for the Evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (eLISA), an ESA gravitational wave observatory planned to be launched in 2034. In April 2016 ESA announced that LISA Pathfinder demonstrated that eLISA mission is feasible.
- LISA Pathfinder placed two test masses in a nearly perfect gravitational free-fall, and controlled and measured their relative motion with unprecedented accuracy. The laser interferometer measured the relative position and orientation of the masses to an accuracy of less than 0.01 nanometres, a technology estimated to be sensitive enough to detect gravitational waves by the follow-on mission, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA).
- The interferometer was a model of one arm of the final LISA interferometer, but reduced from millions of kilometers long to 40 cm. The reduction did not change the accuracy of the relative position measurement, nor did it affect the various technical disturbances produced by the spacecraft surrounding the experiment, whose measurement was the main goal of LISA Pathfinder. The sensitivity to gravitational waves, however, is proportional to the arm length, and this is reduced several billion-fold compared to the planned LISA experiment.
- LISA Pathfinder was an ESA-led mission. It involved European space companies and research institutes from France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, UK, and the US space agency NASA.
Best Answer: Shiva09.
