DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS IAS | UPSC Prelims and Mains Exam – 3rd October 2024

 Syllabus

• Mains – GS 3

Context: In a recent policy brief on measuring the care economy, Shamika Ravi, member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, noted that prioritising the care economy can lead to a long-term balancing of growth and development of Indian society.

Background: –

• A monetised economy is an economy where goods and services are sold using money as a medium of exchange. It is characterised by paid labour, formal markets, and economic activities which are quantified and measured. In contrast, the care economy is marked by unpaid care work, double burden of labour, and time poverty.

Key takeaways

• Defining care economy: Care refers to all activities and relations needed for the existence and well-being of societies. It includes both paid as well as unpaid care work, which are overlapping in nature.
• Unpaid care work is often direct, personal, and relational, and is provided without any monetary compensation. Examples include taking care of children, cooking for the family.
• Paid care work is performed in exchange for some remuneration or profit. It includes a wide range of personal service workers such as domestic workers, nurses, teachers, etc.
• The care economy is marked by low wages and informalities. Even when the care economy exists in formal markets, the remuneration is often low and the work is underestimated. For instance, ASHA workers are some of the least paid in the world. Another characteristic of the care economy is that women are disproportionately represented here.
• Double burden of work: The double burden of work can be defined as the unpaid work done at home along with any form of paid work. According to the Time Use Survey of 2019 data, women in the working age group spend approximately seven hours daily on unpaid household work alone. This large share of unpaid care work prevents women from entering the labour market.
• Moreover, the underpayment and undervaluation of care work contributes to its invisibility in economic metrics, resulting in market failure. This market failure leads to increasing time poverty for women along with care and motherhood penalties, which ultimately reduce female labour force participation.
• The contribution of care work to India’s GDP has been estimated to be around 15-17%. This figure underscores the economic value that unpaid and underpaid care work provides, although it is often overlooked in traditional economic measures. Hence, it can be argued that there needs to be a policy revision to better account for the intersection of care and monetary economies.
• The 5R framework provided by the International Labour Organisation has often been suggested as a key to understanding and improving the efficiency, sustainability, and fairness of care work.
• The 5R framework includes – recognising the social and economic value of paid and unpaid care work; rewarding, remunerating, and representing care work and care workers with professionalised work and equal pay for work of equal value; reducing the burden of unpaid care work on women; redistributing care work within households among all workers and eliminating the sexual division of labour; and reclaiming the public nature of care services.

Policy revision

• Social care infrastructure: Investment in public care services like childcare will create job opportunities for women. This will further formalise traditionally unpaid work and provide women with paid employment. Childcare and eldercare services can relieve women from their unpaid responsibilities, enabling them to rejoin the workforce or pursue education or skill development.
• Women’s labour market access and opportunities: Introducing minimum wage for care workers and ensuring inclusion in formal labour frameworks can play a crucial role. This will also create an environment where care work is recognised as skilled labour, giving workers more bargaining power. Further, the provision of pensions, health insurance, and maternity benefits to informal caregivers (eg. domestic workers) would bring them into the formal sector.
• Recognising and representing unpaid work in macroeconomic policies: By using data (eg: from Indias time use survey), the value of unpaid care work can be estimated and these estimates can be incorporated into macroeconomic measures. This would help redefine the perception of care work from a domestic responsibility to a productive economic activity.  Moreover, policymakers may use this data to design gender-sensitive policies aimed at reducing women’s unpaid work burden.
• Challenging social and cultural norms: There is a need to destigmatise unpaid work and alter gender stereotypes. Public campaigns, educational programmes, and media can play a role in promoting men’s active participation in caregiving. Government policies can encourage paternity leave and parental leave policies.
• Policy revisions around care work are interdependent. While building care infrastructure can create job opportunities for women, it is important to ensure that these jobs do not remain underpaid and undervalued. The role of the State is pivotal in making care work inclusive and fair.

Additional Information

• Global North is facing a “crisis of care”. As women from dominant communities enter the workforce, a “care gap” is emerging. This gap is often filled by migrant women or women from marginalised communities, resulting in the formation of a “global care chain”.
• The “global care chain” refers to a series of responsibilities passed from one woman to another across borders and socio-economic strata. As a result, women at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder are the most vulnerable and remain at the bottom of the chain.

Source: Indian Express

 Syllabus

• Prelims & Mains – ECONOMY

Context: The Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) for 2022-23, released on Monday, showed that the total number of employees in manufacturing industries increased by 7.5 per cent to 1.84 crore in 2022-23 from 1.72 crore in 2021-22.

Background: –

• The ASI data is the principal source of industrial statistics and data for organised manufacturing.

About Annual Survey of Industries (ASI)

• The Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) is a comprehensive and detailed survey conducted annually to gather statistical information on the industrial sector in India.
• Conducted by: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
• Scope and Coverage:
  • Coverage: The ASI covers all factories registered under the Factories Act, 1948, which employ 10 or more workers with power or 20 or more workers without power. The definition is slightly tweaked for states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Goa, wherein data is collected for factories employing 20 or more workers with power and factories having 40 or more workers without power.
  • The survey also covers registered bidi and cigar manufacturing establishments.
  • Exclusions: Defense establishments, oil storage and distribution depots, restaurants, hotels, cafes, computer services, and certain other establishments are excluded.
• The ASI collects data on various parameters, including:
  • Output and Input: Measures the total output and input of the industrial units.
  • Gross Value Added (GVA): Indicates the contribution of the industrial sector to the economy.
  • Employment: Data on the number of persons engaged in the industrial sector.
  • Capital Formation: Information on investments in the industrial sector.
  • Wages and Emoluments: Details on the wages and salaries paid to employees

Key takeaways from ASI for 2022-23:

• Total number of employees in manufacturing industries increased by 7.5 per cent to 1.84 crore in 2022-23 from 1.72 crore in 2021-22. This is the highest rate of increase in employment in manufacturing industries in the last 12 years.
• The highest employment was recorded in factories producing food products, followed by textiles, basic metals, wearing apparel, and motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers, the latest ASI data showed.
• According to the survey, the total number of factories increased from 2.49 lakh in 2021-22 to 2.53 lakh in 2022-23, which was the first year marking the full recovery phase after the Covid-19 pandemic.
• In terms of GVA, Maharashtra ranked first in 2022-23 followed by Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. These top five states together contributed more than 54 per cent of the total manufacturing GVA of the country in 2022-23.
• In terms of employment also, the top five states were Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka in ASI 2022-23, contributing about 55 per cent of total manufacturing employment in 2022-23.

Source: Indian Express

 Syllabus

• Prelims & Mains – GEOGRAPHY

Context: The delayed onset of the La Niña and the late retreat of the monsoon have eroded the optimism that Delhi’s residents could experience better air this winter compared to previous years.

Background:

• A large part of north India will face significant pollution-related challenges in the early winter months, with the possibility of some relief in December and January depending on how quickly La Niña conditions strengthen.

About La Niña

• La Niña is a climate pattern that describes the cooling of surface ocean waters along the tropical west coast of South America. It is the counterpart to El Niño, which is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the equatorial region of the Pacific Ocean. Together, La Niña and El Niño are the “cold” and “warm” phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle.

Key Characteristics

• Sea Surface Temperatures: La Niña is marked by cooler-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean.
• Trade Winds: During La Niña, trade winds are stronger than usual, pushing warm water towards Asia and allowing cold water to rise to the surface near the coast of South America.
• Atmospheric Pressure: It is characterized by lower-than-normal air pressure over the western Pacific, which contributes to increased rainfall in that region.
• Causes: La Niña is caused by a build-up of cooler-than-normal waters in the tropical Pacific. Strong eastward-moving trade winds and ocean currents bring this cold water to the surface, a process known as upwelling.

La Niña affects weather patterns worldwide:

• Asia and Australia: Typically experience increased rainfall and cooler temperatures, which can lead to flooding.
• North America: The southern United States tends to be drier and warmer, while the northern United States and Canada can experience colder and wetter conditions.
• South America: Coastal regions near Ecuador and Peru often see cooler sea surface temperatures and reduced rainfall.

Role of La Niña in shaping air quality in winter (North India particularly Delhi).

• The delayed onset of La Niña is a matter of concern. La Niña brings stronger winds and more dynamic atmospheric circulation, which helps disperse pollutants in northern India.
• La Nina could also bring a longer and more severe winter in North India.

Source: Indian Express

 Syllabus

• Mains – GS 2 & GS 4

Context: Switzerland police arrested at least four persons recently for their involvement in the death of a 64-year-old American woman by a ‘suicide pod’ on September 23. The woman, whose identity has not been disclosed, reportedly suffered from an autoimmune condition for years.

Background: –

• This incident has turned the spotlight on the contentious Sarco pod.

Key takeaways

• Both euthanasia and assisted dying are ways in which a person may intentionally choose to end their life.
• Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a person’s life to relieve them from suffering or terminal illness. Euthanasia relies on the presence of a physician. Euthanasia may be of two kinds — voluntary, where the patient gives their explicit consent, and involuntary, when they are unable to do so, possibly because they are in a coma.
• Euthanasia can also be classified based on the method:
  • Active Euthanasia: Involves directly administering substances (e.g., lethal injection) to cause death.
  • Passive Euthanasia: Involves withdrawing medical treatments or life-support that sustains life, allowing death to occur naturally.
• Assisted Suicide: The process where a person provides another individual, typically a patient, with the means to end their own life (e.g., supplying lethal drugs), but the person takes the final action themselves.
• Assisted Dying: This term is often used to refer to the practice of providing terminally ill, mentally competent adults with the means to end their own lives. It is typically done through the prescription of life-ending medication.
• Key Difference from Assisted Suicide: The term assisted dying is usually reserved for cases where the person is already nearing death due to terminal illness. It is focused on hastening an inevitable death rather than providing a means for anyone wishing to die.
• Active euthanasia is banned in Switzerland. However, assisted dying and assisted suicide are legal with conditions attached. The country’s laws on assisted dying and assisted suicide have made it a preferred destination for “death tourism,” wherein people come there to end their lives.

About Sarco pod

• Named after sarcophagus, the stone coffin used to bury ancient royalty, the Sarco is a coffin-sized, air-tight machine designed by Exit International.
• First made in 2019, the Sarco pod consists of a 3D-printed detachable capsule placed on a stand with a canister of liquid nitrogen. A person lying inside it could press a button to initiate the dying process, flooding the air inside it with nitrogen gas.

Additional Information:

• The Supreme Court had in 2018 legalised passive euthanasia, contingent upon the person having a “living will”, or a written document that specifies the actions to be taken if the person is unable to make their own medical decisions in the future.
• The Supreme Court had allowed passive euthanasia while recognising the living wills of terminally-ill patients who could go into a permanent vegetative state and issued guidelines regulating the procedure.
• The Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium allow both euthanasia and assisted suicide for anyone who faces “unbearable suffering” that has no chance of improvement.

Source: Indian Express

 Syllabus

• Prelims & Mains – POLITY

Context: Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk was detained on the Delhi border as he led a group of protesters to petition the Central government for the inclusion of Ladakh in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution among other demands for autonomy to the region

Background: –

• Similar demands have been raised in Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur.

What is Asymmetrical Federalism?

• Asymmetrical federalism refers to a system where certain States or areas have more autonomy and special provisions than others.
• The Indian Constitution provides different levels of autonomy to some States/regions, unlike a symmetrical federation (e.g., the U.S. or Australia), where all States have equal powers.
• Examples in India:Areas/states under Fifth and Sixth Schedules.

History of the Fifth and Sixth Schedules

• Pre-British Era: Tribal populations had control over their lands and were mostly autonomous under earlier Muslim rulers.
• British Era: British policies affected tribal rights, especially through restrictive forest laws, leading to discontent and various tribal rebellions. Eg: Kol rebellion (1831-32), Santhal revolt (1885), Munda Rebellion (1899-1900) and Bastar rebellion (1911).
• Post-Rebellion Policies: After tribal revolts, the British adopted an isolationist policy, creating ‘excluded’ and ‘partially excluded’ areas in the Government of India Act, 1935.
• The Fifth and Sixth Schedules have been modelled on the basis of these provisions which allowed ‘partially excluded’ and ‘excluded’ areas under the Government of India Act, 1935.

Fifth Schedule:

• The Fifth Schedule is applicable to what are officially called ‘scheduled areas’ that are declared by the President.
• The guiding norms for declaring an area as a ‘scheduled area’ include preponderance of tribal populations, compactness of area, a viable administrative unit like a district or block, and economic backwardness.
• At present 10 States have such ‘scheduled areas.’
• Tribes Advisory Councils (TAC): Set up to advise on the welfare of Scheduled Tribes (ST).
• The Governor, subject to the approval of the Central government, shall make regulations for the allotment and transfer of lands among the members of the STs.
• The Governor shall also regulate the businesses of money-lenders in ‘scheduled areas.’ The Governor may direct that a particular act of Parliament or State legislature shall not apply or apply with modifications to such ‘scheduled areas.’

Sixth Schedule:

• Applicable to: Tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Tripura. There are 10 such ‘tribal areas’ at present in these four States. Autonomous District Councils (ADC) are formed in these ‘tribal areas.’
• The ADC shall have powers to make laws with respect to the use and management of land, regulate shifting cultivation, inheritance of property, marriage and divorce, social customs etc. These laws take effect after being approved by the Governor. For all such matters, the laws by the State legislature will not be applicable in these ‘tribal areas’ unless extended by the ADC.
• The ADCs are empowered to establish and manage primary schools, dispensaries, roads and waterways in the districts. They can assess and collect land revenue and impose taxes on profession, trade etc. They can grant licences or leases for the extraction of minerals.
• These areas have more executive, legislative, judicial, and financial powers than Fifth Schedule areas.

Special Provisions for Northeastern States

• Apart from the Fifth and Sixth Schedules, there are special provisions applicable to many of the northeastern States under Part XXI of the Constitution.
• These are contained in Articles 371A (Nagaland), 371B (Assam), 371C (Manipur), 371F (Sikkim), 371G (Mizoram) and 371H (Arunachal Pradesh).

Are Further Reforms Needed?

• Autonomy on Paper vs. Practice: The regulations made by the Governor in ‘scheduled areas’ are subject to approval by the Central government. Similarly, the laws made by ADCs in ‘tribal areas’ are subject to the approval of the Governor of the State. When different parties are in power at the Centre, State as well as ADC, political differences affect the autonomy of these areas.
• Unnotified Areas: Many tribal areas across India are not notified as scheduled areas , denying them constitutional protections.
• 125th Constitutional Amendment bill: Pending in Rajya Sabha, it aims to grant more powers to Autonomous District Councils (ADCs).
• Growing Demand for Inclusion: Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur Hill Areas, and Ladakh have expressed interest in being included under the Sixth Schedule.
• Forest Rights Act, 2006: The recognition of tribal forest rights should be ensured across the country, including Fifth and Sixth Schedule areas.

Source: The Hindu

Q1.) Which of the following statements regarding asymmetrical federalism in India is/are correct?

1. The Indian Constitution provides for asymmetrical federalism, where all States enjoy the same level of autonomy.
2. The Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution is applicable to certain ‘scheduled areas’ primarily inhabited by Scheduled Tribes.
3. The Sixth Schedule provides greater autonomy to the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Tripura through the establishment of Autonomous District Councils (ADCs).

Select the correct answer using the codes given below:

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 and 3 only

(c) 1 and 3 only

(d) 1, 2, and 3

Q2.) Consider the following statements regarding euthanasia:

1. In India, passive euthanasia is legal but only if the patient has a living will specifying their medical decisions for the future.
2. Assisted suicide is illegal in all countries.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Q3.) Consider the following statements regarding La Niña:

1. La Niña is associated with stronger-than-usual trade winds, which push warm water towards Asia and cause upwelling of cold water near South America.
2. La Niña generally leads to increased rainfall and cooler temperatures in the southern United States and drier conditions in northern Canada.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Comment the answers to the above questions in the comment section below!!

ANSWERS FOR ’  3rd October 2024 – Daily Practice MCQs’ will be updated along with tomorrow’s Daily Current Affairs

Q.1) –  b

Q.2) – d

Q.3) – a