What is NATO’s stand on Ukraine’s entry? (GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
Why in news?
- Recently, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit was held in Vilnius, Lithuania, at a time when it’s deeply involved in the Russia-Ukraine war.
Details:
- Turkey, the second largest military force of NATO after the U.S., lifted its opposition to the accession of Sweden to the alliance.
- The summit also approved new spending goals for member countries and offered to provide long-term support to Ukraine.
- Yet, the one issue that overshadowed the Vilnius summit was Ukraine’s promised membership in the alliance on which there was no clarity or time frame.
What did Ukraine achieve from the summit?
- In the Bucharest summit of 2008, NATO had offered eventual membership to Ukraine and Georgia, two Black Sea basin countries that share land borders with Russia.
- But in 2008 when the membership was offered, several countries, including France and Germany, were opposed to Ukraine joining the alliance out of fears that such a move would poke the Russian bear.
- But now, in the midst of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, more member countries agree to the idea of Ukraine joining NATO, which is a marked change.
Military supplies:
- Ukraine would continue its cooperation with NATO through the Ukraine-NATO Council.
- The Group of Seven (G-7) advanced industrialised economies have pledged to support Ukraine’s defence base, which has been battered by the war, by providing military training and institutional support for attaining NATO membership.
- Ahead of the summit, France agreed to send its SCALP long-range missiles to Ukraine; Germany announced a new military aid package and other NATO members would be providing combat aircraft training.
- Ukraine may not have got a time frame on membership, but it has got assurances on military supplies from NATO members.
Why is Ukraine still not a part of NATO?
- Admitting Ukraine now “would have meant NATO is at war with Russia”. The reason is NATO's “collective security” formula, rooted in its Article 5.
- The Article states that, “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them... will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking... such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force...”
- As collective security is at the heart of NATO, if Ukraine is admitted now, the Ukraine war by default becomes NATO’s war, in other words, the third World War.
- NATO, and particularly the U.S., does not want to take that risk. The position they have taken is to keep arming Ukraine, which suffered huge losses in the past 16 months of the war, and letting them continue to fight the Russians inside Ukrainian territories.
- NATO wants to defeat or weaken Russia in Ukraine without directly committing itself to the war.
How NATO has expanded over the years?
- When the alliance was formed in 1949, it had 12 members from Europe and North America. Since then 19 more countries have joined the alliance through nine rounds of expansions. In the Soviet Union’s dying years, the U.S. and the U.K. had promised Russia that the alliance would not expand east (towards Russia’s borders) “by an inch”.
- But in 1999, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, all former Soviet allies, joined NATO.
- In 2004, seven more East European countries joined the alliance, including the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all sharing borders with Russia.
- NATO expanded further in 2009, 2017, 2020 and 2023, taking in countries including Croatia, Montenegro and Finland. Sweden is set to be its 32nd member.
What is Russia’s response?
- In 2008, when Ukraine and Georgia were offered membership in the Bucharest summit, Vladimir Putin was there as an invitee. He called it a “direct threat” to Russia..
- The Russian state has taken a consistent position over the years that NATO expansions pose a security threat. Four months after the Bucharest summit, Russia sent troops to Georgia to support two breakaway regions — South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
- Six years later, when a pro-Russian elected government of Ukraine was toppled by West-backed protesters, Russia moved swiftly to annex Crimea, the peninsula which hosted Russia’s Black Sea fleet from the time of Catherine the Great.
- Russia also supported the Russian-speaking rebels in Ukraine’s Donbas region, which escalated into a full-scale war in 2022.
- NATO wants to take Ukraine into the alliance, but won’t do so now. The flip side is that the Russians might continue fighting the war to prevent Ukraine being accessed into NATO, as Ukraine’s NATO membership remains a red line for Russia.
Unethical to continue using polio-causing oral vaccines
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Context:
- Developing countries using oral polio vaccine reported many vaccine-derived or vaccine-associated polio cases annually.
Background:
- In 1988, the World Health Assembly declared WHO’s commitment to global eradication of polio by 2000. But in 1993, the goal was to eradicate only wild poliovirus globally by 2000.
- That meant eradicating vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) and vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis (VAPP) was no longer the objective.
- Meanwhile, the developed countries switched to inactivated polio vaccine thus eradicating polio decades ago.
Vaccine dilemma:
- Though the last case of type 2 wild poliovirus was reported in October 1999 from India (and declared eradicated globally in 2015), more than 90% of vaccine-derived poliovirus outbreaks are due to type 2 virus present in oral polio vaccines.
- Also, 40% of VAPP are caused by type 2 oral polio vaccine. Similarly, the last case of type 3 wild poliovirus was reported in November 2012 (and declared eradicated in 2019). But many cases of VAPP from type 3 virus occur in countries using the vaccine.
- The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) has never reported VAPP cases throughout the 34 years of polio eradication efforts.
VAPP-compatible cases in India:
- Indian government does not count VAPP as polio as such cases are sporadic and pose little or no threat to others.
- This is concerning as the number of VAPP-compatible cases showed an increasing trend in India from 1998 to 2013, so much so that they outnumbered the polio cases caused by wild poliovirus since 2004.
- According to a 2015 Perspective piece in Indian Pediatrics, VAPP cases occur at a frequency of two-four cases per million birth cohort per year in countries that use oral polio vaccine. Based on this incidence rate, an estimated 50-100 children might suffer from VAPP every year in India.
Switching from trivalent to bivalent OPV vaccine:
- With type 2 wild poliovirus being eradicated and all type 2 polio cases being vaccine-derived, there was a global switch from trivalent (containing all three variants) to bivalent (type 1 and type 3) oral polio vaccine in 2016 to prevent any more type 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus.
- Yet, the number of vaccine-derived type 2 poliovirus outbreaks have only increased sharply after the global switch to bivalent oral polio vaccine.
- From only two countries reporting outbreaks that caused 96 VDPV type 2 cases in 2017, the number of outbreaks increased to five in 2018.
- The number of VDPV type 2 cases increased further to 251 from 15 countries in 2019. In 2020, the VDPV type 2 cases peaked at 1,081 from 26 countries, many of which were previously polio-free. In 2021, 682 such cases were reported and 675 cases in 2022.
Type 2 novel OPV:
- A type 2 novel oral polio vaccine that is genetically modified such that is to less likely to revert to neurovirulence unlike the Sabin vaccine and therefore cause less type 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus cases was authorised by WHO under Emergency Use Listing in November 2020 and first used in the field in March 2021.
- But as of May 2023, the novel vaccine, which is to be used only in type 2 VDPV outbreak situations, has already caused three type 2 VDPV cases.
- However, this vaccine does not address VAPP cases arising from continued use of oral polio vaccine.
Way Forward:
- For achieving zero incidence of polio by 2000, the GPEI should have transitioned to the IPV in low- and middle-income countries and phased out the oral polio vaccine, since it causes vaccine-associated paralytic polio.
- Since the future polio-eradicated world can use only the IPV, transition to IPV is the sensible way forward.
Will 28% GST on online gaming affect its growth?
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Why in news?
- At the recently concluded 50th GST Council meeting, it was decided that online gaming would be taxed at 28% on the full-face value of the placed bets.
How will the taxation work?
- Gaming platforms charge an entry fee from the user to allow them to participate in a particular game. Say, the amount is ₹100. The platform operator deducts a certain amount of this entry fee to run the game and the overall platform, known as the gross gaming revenue (GGR). The rest is transferred to the prize pool.
- For example, let’s suppose the GGR at ₹20. Till now, GGR was liable to be taxed at 18%, this implied the operator would have to pay ₹3.6 as taxes. However, the latest provision means that tax will be levied on the entry bet at 28%, taking the taxation amount to ₹28.
- This will translate to lesser money to charge the necessary platform fee from, and also, lowered available resources for the prize pool. A further disincentive is the existing 30% taxation that is levied on the user on their final winnings.
What are the other concerns?
- It will not only make the online gaming industry unviable but also boost black-market operators at the expense of legitimate tax-paying players, further undermining the industry’s image and capacity to survive.
- The move also raises concerns about its growth trajectory. For perspective, a combined report by consulting firm Deloitte and the Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports had noted that the industry grew 31% to ₹6,800 crore in FY2022. It is estimated to touch ₹25,240 crore by FY2027.
- With respect to its contribution to the Indian economy, it noted that the industry attracted ₹15,000 crore in foreign direct investments (FDI) till FY2022 and is expected to invite ₹25,000 crore in FDI by FY2027.
- The steep rise in GST will discourage both domestic and foreign investors from considering the domestic ecosystem as a viable investment destination.
Games of skill versus games of chance again:
- The government has stated that it would be making suitable amendments to include online gaming and horse racing in Schedule-III of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act (2017), deeming them as taxable actionable claims. This will bunch online gaming together with gambling.
- For perspective, the legislation deals with “activities or transactions which shall be treated neither as a supply of goods nor a supply of services”. It excludes lottery, gambling and betting.
- The debate about game of skills versus chance deals with an evaluation of the attributes of the game in question. One of the key attributes of a skill-based game is the reliance on psychological or physical abilities than luck for a favourable outcome.
- While an element of chance is involved in games of skill, each player’s unique set of skills determine their success rate. This is unlike a game of chance where the outcome is totally dependent on luck. The user cannot influence the outcome.
Current status:
- At present, such classification of games rely on state legislation and court judgments, lacking quantifiable methods for evaluation.
- The industry at large maintains that online gaming is different from gambling, pointing to the various Supreme Court and High Court judgments that have “reaffirmed the states of online skill-based games as legitimate business activity protected as fundamental right under the Constitution.”
