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The state governments across the country began shutting down schools and colleges temporarily as a measure to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, since March second week. It’s close to a month and there is no certainty when they will reopen. This is a crucial time for the education sector—board examinations, nursery school admissions, entrance tests of various universities and competitive examinations, among others, are all held during this period.

Impacts on education due to COVID-19 pandemic:

school and university closures will not only have a short-term impact on the continuity of learning for more than 285 million young learners in India but also engender far-reaching economic and societal consequences.

The pandemic has significantly disrupted the higher education sector as well, which is a critical determinant of a country’s economic future.

A large number of Indian students—second only to China—enroll in universities abroad, especially in countries worst affected by the pandemic, the US, UK, Australia and China.

Many such students have now been barred from leaving these countries. If the situation persists, in the long run, a decline in the demand for international higher education is expected.

The bigger concern, however, on everybody’s mind is the effect of the disease on the employment rate. Recent graduates in India are fearing withdrawal of job offers from corporates because of the current situation.

The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s estimates on unemployment shot up from 8.4% in mid-March to 23% in early April and the urban unemployment rate to 30.9%.

Digital Education and its potential:

This is an ideal time to experiment and deploy new tools to make education delivery meaningful to students who can’t go to campuses.

It’s a chance to be more efficient and productive while developing new and improved professional skills/knowledge through online learning and assessment.

The use of technology in education is resulting in different concepts in the system, for instance the move from teacher-centric education to student-centric education.

Virtual classrooms and various online tools today allow us to make the engagement between the teacher and students as close to a real, in classroom type experience, as possible.

These tools can also make the teachers and parent meetings as well as staff/management meetings more time and cost saving while providing the necessary interactivity.

It is also a fact that technology-based education is more transparent and does not make difference in front vs back benchers or girls vs boys.

State governments and private players have regularly been publishing information on various initiatives undertaken by ministries like MHRD, Department of Technical Education, NCERT and others to support and benefit youth/students.

Initiatives under Digital India:

SWAYAM online courses for teachers.

UG/PG MOOCs for non-technology courses.

e-PG Pathshala or e-content containing modules on social science, arts, fine arts, natural and mathematical science.

CEC-UGC YouTube channel.

Vidwan – a database of experts who provide information to peers and prospective collaborators.

NEAT – an initiative by AICTE based on the PPP model to enhance the employability skill among students, in collaboration with Education Technology Companies and National Digital Library (NDL), a repository of learning resources with single window facility.

The DIKSHA platform, with reach across all states in India, can be further strengthened to ensure accessibility of learning to the students.

Many noteworthy initiatives have been taken up like Spoken Tutorial, Free and Open Source Software for Education (FOSSEE), e-Yantra, Google Classroom and so on.

It is fact that the government of India as well state governments, through their various ministries/departments, have created infrastructure to deliver e-education. These include National Knowledge Network (NKN), National Project on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), National Mission on Education Through Information and Communication Technolo

gy (NMEICT), National Academic Depository (NAD), among others.

All these enhance our ability to connect easily with institutions and enhance our access to learning resources. For instance, NKN provides high speed network backbone to educational institutes in India.

For all this to be a reality, a drastic change in thought process is required in the mind- set of policy makers, authorities, students and specially educationists. Faculty selection should gradually be linked to technology friendliness and keenness for technology adoption. Similarly, accreditation parameters, criteria need reconsideration. All these steps will help strengthen the country’s digital learning infrastructure in the long run. Covid-19 has only accelerated adoption of technologies to deliver education.

While the coronavirus pandemic presents business risks in some areas, it also offers opportunities in others, like boost to the Digital Economy. The key is to acknowledge the potential threats while exploring the possibilities.

With businesses closing their doors and governments urging their citizens to stay home, the coronavirus has had a profound global impact.
Across the globe, the reduced in-store activity is driving increased e-commerce activity. For example, consumers in India are turning to online grocery shopping.
According to an assessment by DMEXCO survey in USA, the COVID-19 crisis will accelerate the pace of the digital transformation. Nearly the entire digital sector is currently working from home.
Working from home environment will be accepted more and more by employers and employees in these situations.
Collaboration tools like Skype video conferencing, BlueJeans video, Cisco Webex are being re-invented. More companies will opt for customized version of these tools in the near future.
Expansion of the internet will accelerate. Data protection and security will get more focus henceforth.
However digital economy remains elusive to most part of the third world nations and even within India there remains a huge Digital Divide. Even today smart phones, computers and internet are inaccessible to many around the world. Most of the digital infrastructure is centred around urban areas.

Digital Divide and inequality

Increasing penetration of digital technology by bridging the existing digital divides is associated with greater social progress of a country.

Social capital: Once an individual is connected, Internet connectivity and ICTs can enhance his or her future social and cultural capital.

Economic disparity is created between those who can afford the technology and those who don’t.
A direct correlation between a company’s access to technological advancements and its overall success in bolstering the economy.

Education: The digital divide also impacts children’s ability to learn and grow in low-income school districts. Without Internet access, students are unable to cultivate necessary tech skills in order to understand today’s dynamic economy.

Lack of information: Almost all India’s socio-economic problems had links to the “digital divide”, which had come to stay during the era of digital revolution and then again during the era of internet revolution in India.
Rural India suffered from information poverty. Information is controlled by a few at the top of the pyramid who restrict its percolation down to those at the bottom.
Political empowerment and mobilisation in the age of social media is difficult when there is digital divide.

India's potential

India is an important and lucrative destination for technological companies due to the following reasons:

Burgeoning population: Rising affluence will make India the third-largest consumer market by 2025, making it imperative for companies to adapt their business models for meeting the changing customer needs. Consumption expenditure will increase three times to hit $4 trillion by 2025, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group.
Growing online presence of the population: IAMAI report says that Urban India with an estimated population of 455 million already has 300 million using the internet.
Rural India has only 186 million internet users. The numbers are expected to reach 500 million soon.
Digital India and governance: Indian government’s initiative of Digital India to revolutionize the ICT is a welcome step. The programs of connecting every Gram panchayat with internet under BharatNet and mobile connection will strengthen the competition for tech industries.
Skilled workforce: With young workforce and continuing policy reform, India has not only emerged as the fastest-growing economy, but its stars also shine bright amid the current global gloom. About 400 million strong workforce between the age group of 21-40 is ready to make India the labour capital of world.

Conclusion

India must quickly identify the gaps and potentials and leverage our s

trengths to ensure digital connectivity for all. We can improve the stagnant economy and accelerate the pace of growth by enabling digital revolution in every nook and corner of India, especially in the post-pandemic world.

Descriptive Exam की कैसे करें तैयारी? Banking Exams Special | Smriti Sethi (Cracked SBI & LIC 2019)

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Aarogya Setu is a COVID-19 tracking mobile application developed by the National Informatics Centre that comes under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India. The purpose of this app is to spread the awareness and to connect essential health services to the people of India. It will calculate risk based on the user’s interaction with others, using cutting edge Bluetooth technology, algorithms and artificial intelligence.

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Objectives of Aarogya Setu:

The Aarogya Setu is developed keeping in mind the following objectives:

To spread awareness of the novel Coronavirus outbreak among Indian citizens.

To augment the Government of India’s initiatives, particularly the Department of Health, in proactively reaching out to the users and informing them about the risks, best practices and relevant advisories relating to the containment of COVID-19.

To establish a connection between the government and the people of India for health services, facilities and updates from the health ministry nationally and state-wise.

Key Features:

The application uses Bluetooth and GPS of a smart phone to inform the user if he is in a radius of 6 feet from a COVID-19 infected person.

The application also provides information about the best practices and advisories regarding containment of the virus.

The application is available in 11 languages.

In order to keep the application running, one has to keep their GPS and Bluetooth ON always.

The application asks for name, gender, profession, travel history and profession.

The data extracted are to be shared only to Government of India according to the terms and conditions of the application.

Issues posed:

Legal loopholes:

The app exists in the privacy law vacuum that is India.

With no legislation that spells out in detail how the online privacy of Indians is to be protected, Aarogya Setu users have little choice but to accept the privacy policy provided by the government.

The policy goes into some detail on where and how long the data will be retained, but it leaves the language around who will have access to it vague.

No specification on the issue of how the government will use data if the data gets shared with the government of India.

According to a working paper from the Internet Freedom Foundation, this “suggests interdepartmental exchanges of people’s personal information” and is “more excessive than countries like Singapore and even Israel”.

Additionally, there was also a question of proportionality with the app and whether it will be as effective as envisaged in containing the Covid-19 outbreak.

India’s situation is different from countries like Singapore, where a good number of people have smartphones.

In India compared to its population, smartphone users are very less which means very few people will be able to download the app.

Technical loopholes:

The unique digital identity in Aarogya Setu is a static number, which increases the probability of identity breaches.

The abundance of data collected is also potentially problematic. Aarogya Setu uses both Bluetooth as well as GPS reference points, which could be seen as an overkill.

The forums such as the Internet Freedom Foundation and the Software Freedom Law Center have raised is that the Aarogya Setu app is something of a black box. There is no documentation publicly available on the app.

Way forward:

The app privacy policy needs detailed clarification on data collection, its storage and uses.

The Government of India must specify how it will deal with the app’s data and how long it will retain the server side data.

According to the Supreme Court in the Puttaswamy judgement (2017), the right to privacy is a fundamental right and it is necessary to protect personal data as an essential facet of informational privacy.

A better approach against unique digital identity would be constantly-changing digital identification keys like what Google and Apple deploy in their joint contact tracing technology.

With the launch of this app, the governments se

ek to limit the spread

of the Covid-19 cases in India via technology and AI as well as, help create self-awareness among the citizens with relevant information on the infection.

I will be posting descriptive que in this channel from now onwards also...

01 May 2020: Descriptive Question

Except the Demand & Supply, Examine all other factors that affect the oil prices across the world.

The price of Texas oil futures fell below zero dollars per barrel on Monday. In theory, and for a fleeting moment, an empty barrel of crude oil was worth more than a full one. This was a symbolic milestone, a consequence of a lack of storage and quarter-end fire sales rather than a stable market situation.

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Current scenario:

This unprecedented shift comes as the global oil markets continue to grapple with a pandemic-driven collapse in demand. At the start of 2020, a barrel of WTI cost around $60.

Prices had dropped swiftly because of the coronavirus, landing at around $18 a barrel.

Then on 20th April, they plummeted through the floor.

WTI for May delivery settled at a negative $37.63 — meaning traders are paying $37.63 to get someone to accept a delivery of a barrel of oil.

The plunging price of WTI was driven by a trading contract deadline to oil traders to sell off the current futures contract.

And they needed buyers that are capable of receiving and storing that much oil. And, those buyers are in short supply.

Factors that affect the crude-oil price:

Situation prior to COVID- 19 outbreak:

Even before the COVID-19 outbreak induced lockdowns across the world, crude oil prices had been falling over the past few months.

The reason was too much supply and too little demand.

In early March, Saudi Arabia and Russia disagreed over the production cuts required to keep prices stable.

The OPEC plus, which includes those countries which export Oil, failed to reach an agreement in March, 2020 on production cuts to arrest the falling prices in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

As a result, oil-exporting countries, led by Saudi Arabia, started undercutting each other on price while continuing to produce the same quantities of oil.

This was an unsustainable strategy under normal circumstances but what made it even more calamitous was the growing spread of novel coronavirus disease, which, in turn, was sharply reducing economic activity and the demand for oil.

Post- lockdown:

With each passing day, the developed countries were falling prey to COVID-19 and with each lockdown, there were fewer flights, cars and industries etc. using oil.

This meant that the supply-demand mismatch continued to worsen right through March and April.

Other factors:

Similar to the stock market, which involves trading investments in various companies, people also trade in commodities at financial markets.

People purchase “futures” — a sort of bet on whether a commodity will increase in price at a later date. Once locked into a futures contract, the buyer will get his or her commodity at that price and that date, regardless of whether the market price has changed or not.

Laws aimed at preventing climate change will likely raise the price of energy, too.

Taxes on petroleum products by nations can also affect consumption pattern and consequently, the prices.

The governments continue to find ways for people to switch to power sources like wind and solar energy — and drive more fuel efficient cars — so it’s possible that the demand for oil will go down, simply because we won’t need it as much anymore.

Impact on India:

The Indian crude oil basket does not comprise WTI — it only has Brent and oil from some of the Gulf countries — so there is no direct impact.

But oil is traded globally and weakness in WTI is mirrored in the falling prices of the Indian basket as well.

Way forward for India:

India should look at how it can quickly enhance its strategic reserves to benefit from the falling prices; China, for instance, is doing just that.

India should assure future supplies as this is a good time to enter into long-term contracts.

And finally, India should also judge how the present oil crisis will affect, for better or for worse, its long-term energy strategy.

Conclusion:

New Delhi should keep a firm eye on its long-standing goals of promoting solar and wind energy, shifting more baseload power to natural gas, and shutting its most-polluting coal-fired power plants, but it is unlikely that even the most cost-effective of these will

be able to match oil prices in the short and maybe even medium term.

2nd May- Descriptive Question

Examine whether the Essential Commodities Act is relevant in today’s India.

Introduction:

The Essential Commodities Act (ECA), 1955 provides for the control of production, supply, distribution, trade and commerce i of a whole host of commodities it declares ‘essential’ in order to make them available to consumers at fair prices. The list of items under the Act includes drugs, fertilizers, pulses and edible oils, and petroleum and petroleum products. The Centre under the Act has the power to include new commodities as and when the need arises, and can take them off the list once the situation improves, in view of public interest. Under the Act, the government can also fix the maximum retail price (MRP) of any packaged product that it declares an “essential commodity”.

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Working of ECA:

If the Centre finds that a certain commodity is in short supply and its price is spiking, it can notify stock-holding limits on it for a specified period.

The States act on this notification to specify limits and take steps to ensure that these are adhered to.

Anybody trading or dealing in a commodity, be it wholesalers, retailers or even importers are prevented from stockpiling it beyond a certain quantity.

A State can, however, choose not to impose any restrictions. But once it does, traders have to immediately sell into the market any stocks held beyond the mandated quantity.

Importance of ECA:

The ECA gives consumers protection against irrational spikes in prices of essential commodities.

The Government has invoked the Act umpteen times to ensure adequate supplies.

It cracks down on hoarders and black-marketeers of such commodities.

State agencies conduct raids to get everyone to toe the line and the errant are punished.

Views of the recent Economic Survey:

According to the Economic survey 2019-20, ECA act is outdated and it opined that ECA should be repealed.

In September 2019, the Centre invoked the ECA Act’s provisions to impose stock limits on onions after heavy rains wiped out a quarter of the kharif crop and led to a sustained spike in prices.

Although the restrictions on both retail and wholesale traders were meant to prevent hoarding and enhance supply in the market, the Survey showed that there was actually an increase in price volatility and a widening wedge between wholesale and retail prices.

This is due to the fact that ECA act fails to differentiate between hoarding and Storage.

Thus in the long term, the Act disincentives development of storage infrastructure, thereby leading to increased volatility in prices following production/ consumption shocks — the opposite of what it is intended for.

The report finds that the ECA has been enacted in the year 1955, when the economy was ravaged by famine and food shortages. The government should note that today’s scenario is much more different.

Conclusion:

Without the ECA the common man would be at the mercy of opportunistic traders and shopkeepers. It empowers the government to control prices directly too.

Descriptive question: 04-05-2020

A national policy aimed at reducing distress-induced migration on one hand and address conditions of work, terms of employment and access to basic necessities on the other is the need of the hour. Examine.