GS 2
CATEGORY: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
- UNSC Rejected to label Indians as Terrorists
THE ISSUE IN NEWS
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has rejected all Pakistan’s requests to list four Indians as designated terrorists under its 1267 Committee for Counterterrorism Sanctions.
- The USA, UK, France, Germany and Belgium blocked Pakistan’s requests due to lack of evidence.
- While the USA, UK and France are permanent members of the UNSC, Germany and Belgium are non-permanent members.
- UNSC Resolution 1267 Sanctions Committee: This committee oversees the implementation of sanctions pursuant to UNSC resolutions 1267 (1999) 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015). It was adopted unanimously on 15 October 1999.
- It is one of the most important and active UN subsidiary bodies working on efforts to combat terrorism, particularly in relation to Al Qaeda, Taliban and the Islamic State group. It prepares a consolidated list of people associated with these organizations.
- It discusses UN efforts to limit the movement of terrorists, especially those related to travel bans, the freezing of assets and arms embargoes for terrorism.
Main Points
- In September 2019, Pakistan had alleged that four Indians working in Afghanistan, formed an Afghanistan-based “Indian terror syndicate” that was organising the banned terror groups Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Jamaat-Ul- Ahrar (JuA) to carry out attacks in Pakistan.
- Pakistan and China also moved the joint proposal to declare one of these four, as a sanctioned terrorist with links to TTP and JuA.
- This proposal received a veto from the USA in UNSC.
- Pakistan later claimed it had made a statement at an Open Debate of the Security Council on the Report of the Secretary-General on the Threats to International Peace and Security posed by Terrorism Actions, accusing India of terrorism.
- However, the UNSC President had refused to take cognisance of the statement, as Pakistan is not a member of the UNSC.
- India formally protested against this calling this a false claim. In July 2020, Pakistan moved the 1267 Resolution Sanctions Committee to designate the four Indians as global terrorists.
Reasons for Pakistan’s Actions :
- The tension between India and Pakistan has escalated after the abrogation of special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 in August 2019, which was heavily objected by Pakistan.
- Pakistan released a new political map that included all of Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Sir Creek and Junagadh on the completion of one year of abrogation of Article 370.
- After repeated attempts (in 2009, 2016 and 2017) to list Pakistan-based Jaishe-
- Pakistan also received another extension on the greylist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) until October 2020.
- It also faced setbacks on other fronts like the United States slamming its record on terrorism, including its failure to act against groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
- Pakistan also opposed India’s leadership in dealing with the Covid-19 crisis in the SAARC region which was criticized by India.
- Pakistan’s requests to get Indians listed in the 1267 sanctions are also being seen as attempts to target India ahead of January 2021, when India will join as a non-permanent member for a two year term at the UNSC.
Way Forward
- While India’s role in combating terrorism has been internationally acclaimed, Pakistan is constantly facing rebuke on not doing enough to deal with terrorism on its soil.
- Rejection of Pakistan’s attempts to list Indians as terrorists will only taint Pakistan’s image in the global community.
- In light of recent conflict between India and China and closeness of China with Pakistan, India needs to be concerned for its security. International support is crucial for India amidst rising tension with its neighbourhood.
CATEGORY: GOVERNANCE, E-GOVERNANCE
- Civil Servants: Mission Karmayogi
THE ISSUE IN NEWS
The Union Cabinet has approved ‘Mission Karmayogi’ – the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB).
- It is meant to be a comprehensive post-recruitment reform of the Centre’s human resource development. Similar to pre-recruitment changes in the form of the National Recruitment Agency.
Main Points
Aim & Objective:
- It is aimed at building a future-ready civil service with the right attitude, skills and knowledge, aligned to the vision of New India.
- It aims to prepare Indian civil servants for the future by making them more creative, constructive, imaginative, proactive, innovative, progressive, professional, energetic, transparent, and technology enabled.
- Comprehensive reform of the capacity building apparatus at the individual, institutional and process levels for efficient public service delivery.
Reason for Mission:
- At present bureaucracy is facing challenges like- Rule orientation, political interference, inefficiency with promotions, and generalist and specialist conflict.
- To change the status quo of civil services and bring about the long pending civil services reforms.
- The capacity of Civil Services plays a vital role in rendering a wide variety of services, implementing welfare programs and performing core governance functions.
Features of the scheme:
- Tech-Aided: The capacity building will be delivered through iGOT Karmayogi digital platform, with content drawn from global best practices.
- The platform will act as a launchpad for the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB).
- Coverage: The scheme will cover 46 lakh central government employees, at all levels, and involve an outlay of Rs. 510 crores over a five-year period.
- Shift from Rules to Roles: The programme will support a transition from “rules-based to roles-based” Human Resource Management (HRM) so that work allocations can be done by matching an official’s competencies to the requirements of the post.
- Apart from domain knowledge training, the scheme will focus on “functional and behavioural competencies” as well, and also includes a monitoring framework for performance evaluations.
- Integrated Initiative: Eventually, service matters such as confirmation after probation period, deployment, work assignments and notification of vacancies will all be integrated into the proposed framework.
Governance Structure:
- Human Resource Council: NPCSCB will be governed by the Prime Minister’s Human Resource Council, which will also include state Chief Ministers, Union Cabinet ministers, and experts.
- This council will approve and review civil service capacity building programmes.
- Cabinet Secretary Coordination Unit: There will be a Cabinet Secretary Coordination Unit comprising select secretaries and cadre controlling authorities.
- Capacity Building Commission: Also, there will be a Capacity Building Commission, which will include experts in related fields and global professionals. This commission will prepare and monitor annual capacity building plans and audit human resources available in the government.
- Special Purpose Vehicle: Finally, there will be a wholly-owned Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which will govern the iGOT-Karmayogi platform.
- It will be set up under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013. The SPV will be a “not-for-profit” company and will own and manage the iGOT-Karmayogi platform.
- The SPV will create and operationalize the content, market place and manage key business services of the iGOT-Karmayogi platform, relating to content validation, independent proctored assessments and telemetry data availability.
- The SPV will own all Intellectual Property Rights on behalf of the Government of India.
- Monitoring and Evaluation Framework: An appropriate monitoring and evaluation framework will also be put in place for performance evaluation of all users of the iGOT-Karmayogi platform so as to generate a dashboard view of Key Performance Indicators.
GS1, GS2
CATEGORY: SOCIAL ISSUES, POLITY
- OBCs: Sub-categorisation
THE ISSUE IN NEWS
A commission headed by Justice (Retd.) G Rohini has been examining subcategorisation of Other Backward Classes (OBC) for almost three years now.
- The issue of the sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for reservations is also in the highlights after the Supreme Court (SC) has referred it to a larger Bench.
Main Points
Sub-categorisation of OBCs:
- OBCs are granted 27% reservation in jobs and education under the central government but only a few affluent communities among the over 2,600 included in the Central List of OBCs have secured a major part of
- Sub-categorisation or creating categories within OBCs for reservation would ensure “equitable distribution” of representation among all OBC communities.
- However, sub-categorisation can be used to appease one vote-bank or the other within the category and thus a cause of social justice would end up being politicised.
- The commission requested for an appropriate budget provision for a proposed all-India survey for an estimate of the caste-wise population of OBCs.
- The reason given was the absence of data for the population of various communities to compare with their representation in jobs and admissions as the data of the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) were not considered reliable.
- In August 2018, it was announced that the data of OBCs will also be collected in Census 2021 but there have been no other announcements after that.
Commission:
- It took charge in October 2017 with a tenure of 12 weeks ending in January 2018. In June 2020, the Cabinet approved a six-month extension to the commission up to 31 January 2021.
- Progress: It is ready with the draft report and would have huge political consequences and is likely to face a judicial review as well.
- Budget: Until November 2019, the government has spent over Rs. 1.70 crore on the Commission including salary and other expenses.
- The budget is being drawn from the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) which was given constitutional status by the government in 2018.
Commission’s Terms of References:
- To examine the uneven distribution of reservation benefits among different castes in the central OBC list.
- To work out the mechanism, criteria, norms and parameters in a scientific approach for sub-categorisation within such OBCs.
- To take up the exercise of identifying the respective castes/communities/sub-castes/synonyms for comprehensive data
- To study and recommend correction of any repetitions, ambiguities, inconsistencies and errors of spelling or transcription.
Findings So Far:
- According to the 2018 data analysis of 1.3 lakh central jobs and admissions to central higher education institutions given under OBC quota:
- 95% of these jobs and seats have gone to just 10 OBC communities.
- 97% of all jobs and educational seats have gone to just 25% of all subcastes classified as OBCs.
- 983 OBC communities, 37% of the total, have zero representation in jobs and educational institutions.
- 994 OBC sub-castes have a total representation of only 2.68% in recruitment and admissions.
- According to the 2018-19 annual report of the Department of Personnel and Training, OBC recruitment in central jobs is considerably low.
- For example, there was not a single professor and associate professor appointed under the OBC quota in central universities. Posts reserved for them were being filled by people of general category as OBC candidates were declared ‘None Found Suitable’ (NFS).
GS3
CATEGORY: ECONOMY
- Capping of MEIS Scheme Benefits
THE ISSUE IN NEWS
The government has taken a decision to cap export incentives under Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) at Rs. 2 crore per exporter on outbound shipments made during September-December, 2020.
Main Points
About the Decision:
- The ceiling would be subject to a downward revision to ensure that the total claim doesn’t exceed the allocated Rs. 5,000 crore for the period.
- The new Import Export Code (IEC) obtained on or after 1 September will be ineligible to submit any MEIS claim for exports.
Import Export Code:
- It is issued by the DGFT (Director General of Foreign Trade – Ministry of Commerce and Industry). IEC is a 10-digit code which has a lifetime validity.
- Predominantly importers cannot import goods without the Import Export Code and similarly, the exporter merchant cannot avail benefits from DGFT for the export scheme, etc. without
Reasons for Government Decision:
- MEIS is not World Trade Organisation (WTO) compliant and rolling back of the MEIS scheme will pave the way for a new scheme in place.
- The Indian government has announced a new WTO-compliant scheme called Remission of Duties or Taxes On Export Product (RoDTEP) which will replace MEIS starting 1 January 2021.
Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS):
- The Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) was introduced in the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2015-20 w.e.f. 1 April 2015 with the objective to offset infrastructural inefficiencies and associated costs involved in exporting goods/products which are produced /manufactured in India including products produced/manufactured by MSME Sector.
- Under MEIS, the government provides duty benefits depending on product and country.
- Rewards under the scheme are payable as percentage of realised free-on-board value (of 2%, 3% and 5%) and MEIS duty credit scrip can be transferred or used for payment of a number of duties including the basic customs duty.
Remission of Duties or Taxes On Export Product (RoDTEP):
- The new scheme will be implemented from 1 January 2020 and create a fully automated route for Input Tax Credit (ITC) in the GST to help increase exports in India.
- It will reimburse all the taxes/duties/levies being charged at the Central/State/Local level which are not currently refunded under any of the existing schemes but are incurred at the manufacturing and distribution process.
- The Ministry of Finance has set up a committee under the chairmanship of former commerce and home secretary GK Pillai to finalise the rates under RoDTEP that will allow reimbursement of all embedded taxes including local levies paid on inputs by exporters.
Concerns:
- Lack of data for new scheme to replace MEIS: The RoDTEP committee has started the work, but the industry is facing challenges in providing the data due to frequent local lockdowns, non-availability of transport and nonfunctioning of auditors.
- The Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) is of the view that exports during September-December are based on orders that had been negotiated earlier after factoring in the existing Merchant Export from India Scheme (MEIS)
- These benefits are part of the export competitiveness and therefore the sudden change will affect exporters’ financially as buyers are not going to revise their prices upwards. Federation of Indian Export Organisations
- The Federation of Indian Export Organisations represents the Indian entrepreneurs spirit of enterprise in the global market. It was set up in
- It is an Apex body of the export promotion councils, community boards and development authorities in India.
- It provides the crucial interface between the international trading community of India & the Central and State Governments, financial institutions, ports, railways and all engaged in export trade facilitation.
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