Current Affairs for UPSC IAS Exam – 6 July 2021

Contents

1. NIPUN Bharat deadline extended
2. Draft anti-trafficking bill
3. Govt. says no anti-dumping duty on certain copper items

NIPUN Bharat deadline extended

Context:

The Centre’s new mission to ensure that every Class 3 child has foundational literacy and numeracy within five years could be rolled out in 2021.

Relevance:

GS-II: Social Justice (Issues related to Education, Welfare Schemes, Government Policies and Initiatives, Issues arising out of the design and implementation of schemes)

Dimensions of the Article:

1. About NIPUN Bharat Mission
2. Why was the NIPUN Bharat Scheme needed?
3. Samagra Shiksha Scheme

About NIPUN Bharat Mission

• National Initiative for Proficiency in reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat) is a scheme to ensure that every child achieves desired learning competencies in reading, writing, and numeracy by end of Grade 3, by the year 2026-27 – to provide an enabling environment in a bid to ensure universal acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy.
• The NIPUN Bharat Mission is a part of school education programme, Samagra Shiksha.
• NIPUN Bharat initiative will be implemented by school education department of Union government and to implement it, a five-tier implementation mechanism will be set up at national, state, district, block, and school levels across all states and Union territories.
• No additional funding is being allocated for the mission. Instead, money is being allocated from the Samagra Shiksha scheme, which saw a 20% drop in its budget in 2021.
• So far, the goal has simply been to enrol children in school, and then to ensure that they finish Class 10. This mission specifies stage-wise learning goals to ensure that students are acquiring the necessary building blocks.
• The NIPUN Bharat strategy includes changes in curriculum and teaching methods to include more activity, art and story-telling, creation of print-rich materials and resources, teacher training, and stress-free assessment methods in order to reach these goals.
• NIPUN Bharat also emphasises the importance of using a child’s mother tongue in teaching, a principle of the National Education Policy 2020, which received some criticism.

Recent Developments

• Although the National Education Policy had included a 2025 deadline to achieve the goal, the Centre has pushed back the target date to 2026-27, given that COVID-19 has already disrupted two academic years.
• A National Achievement Survey of Class 3 students to be conducted this November will set a baseline to track future progress.

Why was the NIPUN Bharat Scheme needed?

• Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) found that less than 30% of Class 3 students could read at Class 2 level or do double digit subtraction in 2018.
• ASER report in 2020 found that only 25% of school-going children in four to eight age group do not have age-appropriate cognitive and numeracy skills. Thus, there is a huge learning deficit at very early stage.

Samagra Shiksha Scheme

• Samagra Shiksha is an integrated scheme for school education extending from pre-school to class XII to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels of school education.
• The Scheme is being implemented as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme and the fund sharing pattern for the scheme between Centre and States is at present in the ratio of 90:10 for the North-Eastern States and the Himalayan States and 60:40 for all other States and Union Territories with Legislatures and 100% centrally sponsored for Union Territories without Legislature.
• It subsumes the three Schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).
• The vision of the Scheme is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education from pre-school to senior secondary stage in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for Education.
• The main emphasis of the Scheme is on improving the quality of school education by focussing on the two T’s – Teacher and Technology.

The major objectives of the Scheme are

• Provision of quality education and enhancing learning outcomes of students;
• Bridging Social and Gender Gaps in School Education;
• Ensuring equity and inclusion at all levels of school education;
• Ensuring minimum standards in schooling provisions;
• Promoting Vocationalisation of education;
• Support States in implementation of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009; and
• Strengthening and up-gradation of SCERTs/State Institutes of Education and DIET as a nodal agencies for teacher training.

-Source: The Hindu

Draft anti-trafficking bill

Context:

The Ministry of Women and Child Welfare invited suggestions and comments for its Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021.

Relevance:

GS-II: Polity and Governance (Government Policies and Initiatives, Issues arising out of the design and implementation of schemes)

Dimensions of the Article:

1. Constitutional & legislative provisions related to Trafficking in India
2. Prevalence of Human Trafficking problem in India
3. About Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021
4. International Conventions, Protocols and Campaigns

Click Here to read more about Constitutional & legislative provisions related to Trafficking in India and Prevalence of Human Trafficking problem in India

About Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021

Provisions of the law

• Defines ‘Exploitation’ as: The exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation including pornography, any act of physical exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or forced removal of organs, illegal clinical drug trials or illegal bio-medical research.
• Offenders will also include defence personnel and government servants, doctors and paramedical staff or anyone in a position of authority.
• A minimum of seven years which can go up to an imprisonment of 10 years and a fine of Rs 5 lakh in most cases of child trafficking.
• Property bought via such income as well as used for trafficking can now be forfeited with provisions set in place, similar to that of the money laundering Act.
• The National Investigation Agency (NIA) shall act as the national investigating and coordinating agency responsible for prevention and combating of trafficking in persons.
• Once the law is enacted, the Centre will notify and establish a National Anti-Human Trafficking Committee, for ensuring overall effective implementation of the provisions of this law.

Where would the law apply?

• The Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021 extends to all citizens inside as well as outside India. It also applies to:
• Persons on any ship or aircraft registered in India,
• A foreign national or a stateless person who has his or her residence in India.
• The law will apply to every offence of trafficking in persons with cross-border implications.
• It extends beyond the protection of women and children as victims to now include transgenders as well as any person who may be a victim of trafficking.

International Conventions, Protocols and Campaigns

• Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children in 2000 as a part of the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime.
• The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) offers practical help to states with drafting laws, creating comprehensive national anti-trafficking strategies, and assisting with resources to implement the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime. The Blue Heart Campaign is an international anti-trafficking program started by the UNODC.
• Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air supplements the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime and is aimed at the protection of rights of migrants and the reduction of the power and influence of organized criminal groups that abuse migrants.
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) is a non-binding declaration that establishes the right of every human to live with dignity and prohibits slavery.

-Source: The Hindu

Govt. says no anti-dumping duty on certain copper items

Context:

Going against a recent Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) recommendation, the government has decided not to impose Anti-Dumping Duty (ADD) on imports of certain copper products, from China, Thailand, Korea and three other countries.

Relevance:

GS-III: Indian Economy (International Trade, Mobilization of Resources, Growth and Development of Indian Economy)

Dimensions of the Article:

1. What is Dumping?
2. What is Anti-Dumping Duty?
3. Role of the WTO in Regulating Anti-Dumping Measures
4. Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR)

What is Dumping?

• Dumping is a term used in the context of international trade. It’s when a country or company exports a product at a price that is lower in the foreign importing market than the price in the exporter’s domestic market.
• Because dumping typically involves substantial export volumes of a product, it often endangers the financial viability of the product’s manufacturer or producer in the importing nation.

What is Anti-Dumping Duty?

• Anti-dumping duty is a tariff imposed on imports manufactured in foreign countries that are priced below the fair market value of similar goods in the domestic market.
• The government imposes anti-dumping duty on foreign imports when it believes that the goods are being “dumped” – through the low pricing – in the domestic market.
• Anti-dumping duty is imposed to protect local businesses and markets from unfair competition by foreign imports.
• Imposition of Anti-dumping duty is a measure to rectify the situation arising out of the dumping of goods and its trade distortive effect. In the long-term, anti-dumping duties can reduce the international competition of domestic companies producing similar goods.
• It is a protectionist tariff that a domestic government imposes on foreign imports that it believes are priced below fair market value.
• The use of anti-dumping measures as an instrument of fair competition is permitted by the World Trade Organisation.

Role of the WTO in Regulating Anti-Dumping Measures

• The World Trade Organization (WTO) plays a critical role in the regulation of anti-dumping measures. As an international organization, the WTO does not regulate firms accused of engaging in dumping activities, but it possesses the power to regulate how governments react to dumping activities in their territories.
• Some government sometimes react harshly to foreign companies engaging in dumping activities by introducing punitive anti-dumping duties on foreign imports, and the WTO may come in to determine if the actions are genuine, or if they go against the WTO free-market principle.
• According to the WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement, dumping is legal unless it threatens to cause material injury in the importing country domestic market. Also, the organization prohibits dumping when the action causes material retardation in the domestic market.
• Where dumping occurs, the WTO allows the government of the affected country to take legal action against the dumping country as long as there is evidence of genuine material injury to industries in the domestic market. The government must show that dumping took place, the extent of the dumping in terms of costs, and the injury or threat to cause injury to the domestic market.

Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR)

• Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) is an apex national authority responsible for administering all the trade remedial measures which include:
  • Anti-Dumping Duties
  • Countervailing Duties and
  • Other Safeguard Measures.
• Established in 1998 as the Directorate General of Anti-Dumping & Allied Duties, it was renamed in 2018 as the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR).
• The Directorate General of Anti-dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD), Directorate General of Safeguards (DGS) and Safeguards (QR) functions of DGFT were merged into one single entity, DGTR, making it an integrated single umbrella National Authority.
• DGTR works alongside the Department of Commerce under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• The Department of Revenue considers the recommendations of DGTR for imposing Anti-Dumping, Countervailing and Safeguard Duties.
• Trade defence support would be provided by the DGTR to our domestic industries and the exporters in dealing with the trade remedy investigations instituted by other countries against them.

-Source: The Hindu