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Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena approved the draft Master Plan for Delhi-2041 (MPD). Mr. Saxena, who is also the chairperson of the DDA, said the thrust of the plan is on inclusive development, environmental sustainability, green economy, transit-oriented development hubs, land pooling and housing for all.
The draft MPD-2041 also proposes to promote the city’s night-time economy, heritage, industrial activity and rejuvenate the Yamuna river through a Comprehensive River Development Plan.
The draft Master Plan will now be forwarded to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for final approval and notification.
The Master Plan, prepared by the DDA, is a statutory document that facilitates the Capital’s development by assessing the present condition and guiding how to achieve the desired development.
The draft MPD-2041 is a strategic and enabling framework to guide future growth of the city, built upon the lessons learnt from the implementation of the previous plans.
The DDA said it would pursue three goals stated in the Master Plan over the next 18 years. The first goal is to become an environmentally sustainable city that is resilient to the impact of climate change.
The second is to become a future-ready city offering good quality, affordable and safe living environments to its citizens. The third goal is to emerge as “a dynamic place for economic, creative and cultural development”.
The vision document also includes “the development of affordable rental housing complexes with service apartments, condominiums, hostels etc.” the agency said in its statement.
The Master Plan also proposes the preparation of a comprehensive mobility plan (CMP) to integrate land use and transportation, transit-oriented development, and strategic mobility corridors for intra-city and inter-city movement while promoting the use of e-vehicles and e-charging infrastructure.
Earlier in the day, AAP MLA and DDA member Somnath Bharti wrote to Mr. Saxena seeking the postponement of the meeting. The MLA said that the DDA had not given sufficient time to residents to review and suggest changes to the draft MPD-2041. Mr. Bharti accused the DDA of being solely responsible for unauthorised construction and giving builder mafia a free hand.
A thumbs down for the ‘Adopt a Heritage’ scheme (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Welfare Schemes)
Private firms, companies, and public sector units can enter into agreements with the Union Ministry of Culture to adopt and maintain State-owned archaeological sites or monuments.
Businesses that enter such agreements are going to be known as Monument Mitras. The central government is eager that this scheme, which began in February, leads to the adoption of 500 protected sites by August 15, and the adoption of another 500 sites shortly thereafter.
This number represents a tenfold increase in the number of sites being brought under the ambit of the controversial ‘Adopt a Heritage’ scheme of 2017.
Unless the ‘revamped’ scheme is suspended, the nation’s precious pluralistic heritage stands at the threshold of obliteration.
Under the purportedly overhauled ‘Adopt a Heritage’ scheme, businesses may use their Corporate Social Responsibility funds at select sites to construct and maintain ticket offices, restaurants, museums, interpretation centres, toilets, and walkways.
They may dramatically illuminate monuments, set up guided tours, hold cultural programmes, and fix equipment for light and sound shows.
Some of these activities appear to be progressive measures aimed at improving visitor services and amenities. However, scrutiny establishes perils.
To begin, just as permitting a watch company without expertise in bridge engineering to maintain a colonial-era bridge in Morbi, Gujarat, possibly contributed to heart-wrenching tragedy, so too giving businesses, rather than trained professionals, a chance to build museums and interpretation centres and develop their content threatens India’s understanding of its own past.
The current plan also sidelines the mandate of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and abandons The Sarnath Initiative, guidelines devised by the ASI, the Getty Trust, U.S., the British Museum, and National Culture Fund to safe keep excavated objects and present them to visitors in an engaging manner.
India’s democracy, diminished and declining (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The captivating Republic Day parade in January this year showcased the nation’s soft and hard power, sending out a message to the world of India’s arrival on the global scene. President DroupadiMurmu’s customary address to the Houses of Parliament during the Budget session, again in January, unfolded the government’s ambitious agenda and a shared national aspiration to join the ranks of the developed nations in the near future.
But the truth about India’s declining democracy has taken the sheen away from an otherwise impressive story of the nation’s significant accomplishments.
Recurring reports about constitutional transgressions interrogate the depth and the quality of our democratic engagement. In recent days, the expunging of parliamentary statements of Opposition leaders, which is questionable, the disruption of the Prime Minister’s speech in the Rajya Sabha, the disproportionate penalty of suspension imposed on an Opposition MP for recording the proceedings of the House, and exceptions apart, the nauseating puerilities of the people’s representatives, have denuded Parliament of its institutional sanctity.
The suicide of an 18-year-old Dalit student in one of the country’s premier educational institutions because of ‘unbearable distress’ (allegedly on account of caste discrimination) and a 16-year-old Dalit student being beaten up by his principal as the boy is said to have drank water from the principal’s water bottle, are painful reminders of the persistence of historical and social inequities.
The conviction and the sentencing by a court in Uttar Pradesh of a sitting Member of the Legislative Assembly (Opposition party) for a two-year jail term in a 15-year-old case for blocking a road is perverse, considering the disproportionality of the sentence and its resultant consequence of depriving an elected member of his seat in the State Assembly.
The oppressive reality of prosecutorial processes is writ large. As the wheels of justice grind on, careers are destroyed, reputations ruined and souls scarred in an unending saga of irremediable humiliation.
Opinion
International courts and climate change (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, International Institutions)
A group of 16 countries has launched a gallant effort to fight the problem of climate change — an existential threat to human civilisation — at the United Nations (UN). Led by Vanuatu — an island country in the South Pacific Ocean — the group seeks an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the issue of climate change.
The ICJ has two types of jurisdictions: contentious and advisory. While contentious jurisdiction refers to resolving legal disputes between consenting states, under advisory jurisdiction, the UN General Assembly (UNGA), the Security Council (SC) and other specialised bodies of the organisation can request the ICJ for an opinion on a legal question.
Unlike decisions given under the contentious jurisdiction, the ICJ’s advisory opinions are non-binding. Yet, they carry normative weight and clarify international law on a relevant issue.
The ICJ’s advisory opinion on climate change will also be handy in climate-related litigation at the national level.
Notwithstanding the presence of several international legal instruments on climate change such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, the international community has fallen short of delivering concrete solutions to the problem of climate change.
The recently concluded 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP-27) where countries failed to narrow their differences on critical issues such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions perfectly exemplifies the failure of the international community to get its act together on the issue of climate change.
Small Island Developing (SID) states such as Vanuatu are most vulnerable to rising temperatures and sea levels. Accordingly, in September 2021, Vanuatu launched an initiative, through the UNGA, to seek an advisory opinion from the ICJ to “clarify the legal obligations of all countries to prevent and redress the adverse effects of climate change”. Since then, the initiative has gathered momentum with more than 100 countries backing the idea.
Explainer
On regulating the online sale of drugs in India (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
In early February, the Ministry of Health pulled up at least twenty companies including Tata-1mg, Flipkart, Apollo, PharmEasy, Amazon and Reliance Netmeds, by issuing them a showcause notice, for selling medicines online.
This happened after the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), a powerful lobby of over 12 lakh pharmacists, threatened to launch a country-wide agitation if the government didn’t act.
Health Minister Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya in close door meetings with senior officials of the Ministry has made clear the pitfalls of selling medicines virtually. The Minister went so far as to say that e-pharmacies should be closed down.
The Ministry of Health has adopted a ‘blow hot blow cold’ approach towards online pharmacies. The acute need for door step delivery of drugs was felt during COVID-19.
The year of 2020 marked a watershed moment for the growth of e-pharmacies as the Ministry of Home Affairs issued orders for them to continue to operate. It saw nearly 8.8 million households using home delivery services during lockdown.
A senior official from the Health Ministry told The Hindu, “Banning e-pharmacies would be like throwing the baby out with the bath water. The demand for online delivery of drugs is burgeoning.
There is a possibility that some of these businesses will go underground if banned, because people are not going to stop ordering medicines online anytime soon.”
One can’t wish away the sale of drugs online by threatening to ban businesses, instead of regulating the sector, the official added.
The draft e-pharmacy rules, which were originally intended to whip e-pharmacy businesses into shape were floated by the Ministry of Health in 2018.
The rules were finalised, public comments were taken into consideration and they were almost on the brink of being notified. But the proposal was abruptly shoved into cold storage, after being referred to a Group of Ministers including Amit Shah (home) and Rajnath Singh (defence) as the matter was considered ‘sensitive,’. It ran the risk of irking a substantial vote bank of offline pharmacists.
RBI’s new pilot project on coin vending machines (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had stated during the last Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) address that the apex banking regulator, in collaboration with banks, would be launching a pilot project to assess the functioning of a QR-code based coin vending machine.
In simple words, the vending machines would dispense coins with the requisite amount being debited from the customer’s account using United Payments Interface (UPI) instead of physical tendering of banknotes.
Customers would be endowed the option of withdrawing coins in required quantities and denominations. The central idea here is to ease the accessibility to coins.
On the supply side of things, T. Rabi Shankar, Deputy Governor at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had stated that the situation with respect to coins was “peculiar” with the supply being “very high”.
It is taking up a lot of storage space and it is not getting properly distributed. At the same time, there is demand in pockets.
The proposed mechanism for coin dispensation would be a departure from the conventional machines which relied on banknotes for facilitating coin exchanges.
Further, the proposed machine would eliminate the need for physical tendering of banknotes and their authentication. It was observed that the currency being fed into the machines (for coin exchange) were often found to be fake and could not be checked right at that point of time.
Thus, the mandate to eliminate the physical tendering of banknotes. The pilot is initially planned to be rolled out at 19 locations in 12 cities across the country.
With particular focus on ease and accessibility, the machines are intended to be installed at public places such as railway stations, shopping mall and marketplaces.
Text &Context
India should stick to the middle path in the new world disorder (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
Since the end of the Second World War, the global order has seen two major transitions. After the War, a bipolar world, led by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, emerged.
Following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, unipolarity replaced bipolarity, with the U.S. being its centre. There have been discussions for the past several years whether American unipolarity has passed.
Now, there are more signs, from China’s rapid rise to Russia’s aggressive foreign policy, to suggest that the global order is undergoing another (third) transition.
While many governments, including India, Russia and China, welcome multipolarity, the U.S. remains the world’s most powerful military power.
But the U.S.’s ability to shape geopolitical outcomes is clearly in decline, as was seen in its withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of war or the Russian invasion of Ukraine, challenging the post-Cold War security equilibrium in Europe.
These changes actually leave the world in a flux. There’s a lack of clarity on which direction the world is headed, which makes policymaking harder for middle powers like India.
When India became independent, the Cold War was still in its early stages. For a newly free country with enormous challenges in an ideologically and geopolitically divided world, managing its foreign policy itself was a daunting task.
But a long view of India’s foreign policy trajectory would tell us that India, which adopted non-alignment as a foreign policy doctrine, did well in managing most of its challenges.
The conventional wisdom about India in the Cold War period was that it was too idealistic. But that is a simplistic way of reading India’s foreign policy choices. India has actually been flexible in readapting itself to the changes in the global and regional equations.
If in the 1950s, Jawaharlal Nehru had opposed Zhou Enlai’s proposal for a permanent Afro-Asian Secretariat saying it would create yet another bloc, the same Nehru would support turning non-alignment into a movement in the 1960s, after CENTO (Central Treaty Organization) and SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) were formed.
News
India, Australia to sign agreement on mutual recognition of qualifications (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
Australian Education Minister Jason Clare arrived in Delhi on Tuesday, leading a delegation of Australian higher education leaders to promote collaborations between the two countries.
The Australian Minister is on an official visit to India from February 28 to March 3, during which he will attend a student exchange programme and a series of meetings along with Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to provide momentum to bilateral relations in the domain of education.
The two Ministers will also sign the Mechanism for the Mutual Recognition of Qualifications which locks in the rules for mutual recognition to access education in both countries.
This will be the broadest and most favourable recognition agreement India has signed with another country and will enhance student mobility between both countries.
He also said that India’s National Education Policy, which has set a target of raising enrolment in higher education and vocational education to 50% by 2035, provided a “genuine opportunity for Australian education providers to do more to collaborate with India”.
His trip comes ahead of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to India in early March. It is also reliably learnt that during Mr. Albanese’s visit, Australia’s Deakin University will announce an independent foreign campus in Gujarat’s GIFT City, becoming the first international university to set up an offshore campus here.
Portal opened for complaints against decisions of social media platforms (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Tuesday launched the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) portal under the IT Rules, 2021, allowing people dissatisfied with resolution of complaints to social media companies on content takedown requests, to be heard by one of the three committees constituted by the government.
This marks a shift in how social media content is moderated in India. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 were amended last year to require social media companies to “respect all the rights accorded to the citizens under the Constitution, including in the articles 14, 19 and 21,” signalling that social media platforms may now have to allow speech that is not allowed on their platforms, but are otherwise legal to express in public.
Three committees were formed in January to receive complaints to put these amendments into action. The website of the GACs is now accepting appeals from the public.
The IT Rules already require platforms to have a process for accepting complaints against content and appeals against takedowns from users; companies’ decisions in response to these appeals, though, will now ultimately be subject to the GACs’ orders. India is not the only country moving away from treating platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as mere private “intermediaries”.
ISRO successful in key test for India’s third moon mission (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Space)
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully conducted the flight acceptance hot test of the CE-20 cryogenic engine that will power the Cryogenic Upper Stage of the LVM3 launch vehicle for the Chandrayaan-3 mission.
The space agency said the test was conducted on Friday (February 24) at the ISRO Propulsion Complex, Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu.
The hot test was carried out for a planned duration of 25 seconds at the High Altitude Test Facility. All the propulsion parameters during the test were found satisfactory and closely matched with predictions.
The cryogenic engine will be further integrated with the propellant tanks, stage structures and associated fluid lines to realise the fully integrated flight cryogenic stage,” the ISRO said.
This flight acceptance hot test of the CE-20 cryogenic engine comes a day after the Chandrayaan-3 lander successfully completed the crucial EMI-EMC (Electromagnetic Interference/ Electromagnetic Compatibility) test at the U.R. Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru.
The Chandrayaan-3 interplanetary mission has three major modules — propulsion, lander and rover modules. The mission’s complexity calls for establishing radio-frequency (RF) communication links between the modules.
Chandrayaan-3 is India’s third moon mission and is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface.
The mission is slated to be launched later this year by Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (LMV3) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.
Proton beam therapy out of reach for many with cancer (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Cancer patients in India face twin challenges when it comes to accessing proton beam therapy (PBT): not enough facilities offering the treatment and cost running into many lakhs of rupees.
The PBT is considered a viable alternative to radiation for treating solid tumours, especially head and neck cancers.
The privately-run Apollo Hospital said on Tuesday that it has treated up to 900 patients in its Chennai-based Proton Cancer Centre, and 47% of those cases are brain tumours.
Patients with cancers of the prostate, ovaries, breast, lungs, bones and soft tissues have also seen promising results in terms of recovery through the therapy, said Sapna Nangia, radiation oncologist at Apollo Proton Cancer Centre.
Unlike radiation which uses X-rays, the PBT uses protons to tackle cancer. While radiation can prove toxic to the whole body, protons can destroy cancer cells precisely by targeting tumours, thus saving adjoining organs.
Apollo Hospital is the only centre in the whole of South and West Asia offering the PBT. With the Indian government shelving a project to install a PBT unit in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (Jhajjar), there is a huge unmet need for access to the treatment.
Another project that is yet to see the light of day is the proposed PBT unit at the National Hadron Beam facility of Tata Memorial Hospital in Navi Mumbai.
The foundation stone for the project was laid by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2014.
According to another estimate drawn by Tata Memorial Hospital, approximately 40,000 children in India are diagnosed with cancer every year and up to 1,400 of them would potentially benefit from the PBT.
Currently there are 42 PBT machine installations in the U.S., followed by Europe (35), Japan (26), China (seven), Taiwan (three) and South Korea (two), while India has only one.