IASbaba's Daily Current Affairs Analysis

IASbaba’s Daily Current Affairs (Prelims + Mains Focus)- 19th December 2017

(PRELIMS+MAINS FOCUS)

Making right to health a fundamental right

Part of: Mains GS Paper II- Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health

Key pointers:

A right to health under which people are entitled to avail health protection services free of cost should be in place on the lines of the right to education, according to a private member bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha.
An amendment in the Constitution by introducing a new article 21 B for making right to health a fundamental right has been proposed.
The state shall provide a system of health protection to all citizens, including prevention, treatment and control of diseases and access to essential medicines, the bill proposes.
It states that all citizens should also have access to basic health services, emergency medical treatment and mental healthcare.
The bill seeks to secure the above objectives with the state earmarking not less than 8 per cent of the annual financial statement for healthcare.

Central focus:

The government expenditure on health is only 1.4 per cent of the GDP.
The public health infrastructure is inadequate and unequally distributed.
The Draft National Health Policy, 2015, takes note of the fact that over 63 million people are faced with poverty every year due to healthcare costs alone as there is no financial protection for the vast majority of healthcare needs.

Background:

The right to health is also internationally recognised as a fundamental human right.
It is also included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, of which India is a signatory.
Private members bills can be introduced by any member of Parliament but have little possibility of getting the parliamentary nod.

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Mishap Prevention System in Railways

Part of: Mains GS Paper III- Infrastructure

Key pointers:

The Indian Railways has cleared a Rs 12,000-crore proposal to equip electric locomotives with the latest European train protection system.
The system- European Train Control System (ETCS) Level-II will help drivers – or pilots — to prevent rail mishaps.
The ETCS Level-II system will be used on the entire 9,054 km-long Golden Quadrilateral route connecting the four metros to make it a fully accident-free corridor.
Currently, the Railways has a basic automatic train protection system based on the ETCS Level-I specification to provide a back-up to loco pilots on a limited stretch.
Disadvantage of the ETCS Level-I is overcome in ETCS Level-II, which ensures that the status of the signal ahead is continuously available in the loco through a wireless radio medium using a GSM-R (Global System for Mobile Communication-Railways) network.

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Very high Out-of-pocket Expenditure on health impoverishing many

Part of: Mains GS Paper II- Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health

Key pointers:

Out of pocket medical expenses make up about 62% of all healthcare costs in India, as per Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).
This is extremely high and leads to impoverishment of patients.
In comparison, out of pocket hospital expenses in developed countries such as the U.S. and the U.K. is 20% and in BRICS countries about 20-25%.
There is a need to create health insurance products that were simple and intelligible to customers, provided coverage to the aged and infirm and those suffering from chronic ailments, brought down distribution costs, and ensured that there was no profiteering to the detriment of the insured.

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India’s growth rate projections

Part of: Mains GS Paper III- Indian Economy

Key pointers:

The UN, in its latest report, projected India’s growth rate to be 7.2 per cent in 2018 and 7.4 per cent in 2019.
The annual ‘World Economic Situation Prospects’ report, released recentlys, said the GDP growth for India in 2017 is projected to be 6.7 per cent.
India can achieve an eight per cent growth rate for the next two decades .

2017 has been a year of major economic reforms in India:

There has been deregulation and further liberalisation of the policies regarding foreign direct investment.
Demonatisation

The policy reforms are positive, it now needs to be implemented effectively.

Next series of reforms should be:

Promote investment.
Improve the living condition of its population.

Article link: Click here

(MAINS FOCUS)

NATIONAL

TOPIC:

General Studies 2:

Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

General Studies 3:

Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.

Hidden Indian Scientists

Background:
Many of the greatest scientists that independent India has produced are little known in their own homeland.
Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri in cosmology, G.N. Ramachandran in protein crystal structures, and C.K. Majumdar and Dipan Ghosh who extended the quantum Heisenberg spin model. These are household names in the international scientific field, but are little promoted by the Indian scientific establishment, even neglected in graduate teaching.

Issues:

India has numerous well-funded institutions designed to produce high-quality scientific research, but many eminent Indian scientists think the resulting research is mostly mediocre.
Relatively small amount of world-class research produced emerges despite the national scientific establishment.
The resistance to a U.S.-returned scientist at times, ensures that the system remained largely unchanged.
The system is run by scientists-turned-bureaucrats, who have absorbed the culture of government.
Dependent on political patronage for continued funding, these leaders groom loyalists and yes-men rather than cutting-edge researchers (and women are scarce). This has led to an insider culture, reproducing privileges rather than promoting excellence.
India’s scientific institutions are a blind spot in the state’s modernisation project.
Owing to a conscious decision at the time of independence, research institutions, which house a numerically small elite, get most of the funding while universities focus mainly on teaching and get very little.
Research and teaching are segregated, and both suffer as a result.
Experimental science “is very poor in India”. To succeed, experiments require at least two conditions: guarantees of long-term funding and scientists’ collaboration with each other.
Funding varies with the political climate: there will be money to buy equipment but no certainty that resources will flow for all the years needed to ensure significant results.
And collaboration is lacking among scientists.
Bureaucrats no longer active in cutting-edge research regard themselves as capable of judging working scientists, dispensing with principles of peer review.

Conclusion:

With globalisation, it is easier to notice the growing contrast between the fame diaspora scientists achieve in the West, and the challenges their counterparts face in their own countries.
India’s problem is hardly unique. Durable institutions and cultures of innovation are not widespread in the Global South. But India is the most successful of all the nations in the Global South, with a more affluent diaspora than virtually any other country.
There is need of a wider discussion about the career of Indian science, acknowledging internationally celebrated scientific accomplishments, and asking why they were ignored for so long.

Connecting the dots:

Many of the greatest scientists that independent India has produced are little known in their own homeland despite being household names in the international fora. Discuss the reasons behind.
With globalisation, it is easier to notice the growing contrast between the fame diaspora scientists achieve in the West, and the challenges their counterparts face in countries like India. Critically analyze.

NATIONAL

TOPIC:

General Studies 3

Awareness in the fields of IT, computers,
Challenges to internal security through communication networks, basics of cyber security; money-laundering and its prevention.
Linkages of organized crime with terrorism.

General Studies 2

Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
Important aspects of governance

Making India Cyber secure

In news:

India is the fifth most vulnerable country in the world in terms of cybersecurity breaches, according to the Internal Security Threat Report of 2017 by Symantec.
Till June 2017, 27,482 cybersecurity threats had been reported in the country, according to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team’s report.
As this is a 23% increase from 2014 figures, it coincides with rapid growth and innovation in the ICT sector.

Rapid growth and innovation in the ICT sector:

India is one of the key players in the digital and knowledge-based economy, holding more than a 50% share of the world’s outsourcing market.
Pioneering and technology-inspired programmes such as Aadhaar, MyGov, Government e-Market, DigiLocker, Bharat Net, Startup India, Skill India and Smart Cities are propelling India towards technological competence and transformation.
India is already the third largest hub for technology-driven startups in the world.
India’s Information and Communications Technology sector is estimated to reach the $225 billion landmark by 2020.

Innovation in technology, enhanced connectivity, and increasing integration in commerce and governance also makes India vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks.

Ransomware attacks:

These have been the most common in the last few years Definition: Ransomware is a type of software that threatens to publish a person’s data or block it unless a ransom is paid.
Example- Apart from WannaCry and Petya, other Ransomware attacks that made news globally were Locky, Cerber, Bucbi, SharkRaaS, CryptXXX and SamSam.
In India, in May 2017, a data breach at the food delivery App, Zomato, led to personal information of about 17 million users being stolen and put for sale on the Darknet. The company had to negotiate with the hacker in order to get it taken down.
Similarly, hackers stole data from 57 million Uber riders and drivers. Uber paid the hackers $100,000 to keep the data breach a secret.

The attacks aren’t limited to mobile phones and e-Pads. All devices, including televisions that use Android, are also potentially vulnerable.
A number of viruses, malware and cryptoworms are also being developed in the JavaScript, which gives the attackers cross-platform options.

Recognizing the issue:

The government has announced that it will award a grant worth Rs. 5 crore to startups working on innovations in the field of cybersecurity.

The second Global Cybersecurity Index, released by the International Telecommunication Union in July, which measured the commitment of nations to cybersecurity, found that India ranked 23 out of 165 nations.

Way forward:

India needs to quickly frame an appropriate and updated cybersecurity policy, create adequate infrastructure, and foster closer collaboration between all those involved to ensure a safe cyberspace.
There must be enhanced cooperation among nations and a global call to action is required for all United Nations member nations to not attack the core of the Internet even when in a state of war.
More than ever before, there is a need for a Geneva-like Convention to agree on some high-level recommendations among nations to keep the Internet safe, open, universal and interoperable.

Conclusion:

Given the huge number of online users and continued efforts on affordable access, cybersecurity needs to be integrated in every aspect of policy and planning.

Connecting the dots:

India is the fifth most vulnerable country in the world in terms of cybersecurity breaches. In this light discuss the need of integrating cybersecurity in every aspect of policy and planning and of enhancing cooperation among nations.