20 June 2024

MAINS DAILY QUESTIONS & MODEL ANSWERS

Q1. Explain how disasters and pandemics significantly affect the life of disadvantaged groups, particularly children.

GS I – Indian Society

Introduction:

• Children suffer unimaginably from disasters and pandemics; their social, emotional, and intellectual suffering is so severe that some experts and advocates fear the effects could be comparable to those of a hurricane or other natural disaster.
• School closures, social distancing, and confinement increase the risk of poor nutrition among children, their exposure to domestic violence, their anxiety and stress, and their lack of access to essential family and care services. They also negatively impact the health, social, and material well-being of children worldwide, with the poorest children—including homeless and detained children—being the most affected.

Effects of Pandemics and Disasters on Children:

Absence of education:

• Children are more vulnerable to exploitation, particularly in light of the fact that school closures have denied many of them access to both education and a primary source of housing and food.
• Due to the epidemic, more children are being forced to live on the streets in some nations in an effort to get food and money, which increases their risk of exploitation and infection.

The difficulties presented by digital learning:

• The education loss brought on by school closures is lessened by widespread digitalization, but children from the poorest families are less likely to live in conducive home learning environments with internet access.
• Increased unsupervised internet use has also heightened concerns about cyberbullying and sexual exploitation.

Trafficking in children:

• According to information gathered by Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s nonprofit organisation Bachan Bachao Andolan (BBA), 9,000 children were saved from being trafficked for labour between April 2020 and June 2021 while the Covid-19 pandemic swept the nation.
• Uttar Pradesh had the most children saved (3,183), then Telangana (2,805), Andhra Pradesh (593), Rajasthan (430), and Gujarat (333).

Kidnapping of children:

• In addition to the trafficking of women, kidnappers also compel a large number of their captives into forced labour in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors.
• Children who are orphans are more susceptible to human trafficking, forced labour, forced begging, and other forms of exploitation. In these kinds of households, older children are more likely to drop out of school in order to provide for their younger siblings.

Adolescent Matrimony:

• According to a recent UNICEF analysis, one in three child brides worldwide are residents of India.
• Additionally, it has cautioned India against the rise in child marriages caused by COVID-19’s enemies.

Child labour:

• India already has one of the worst child labour problems in the world, and now the coronavirus pandemic is pushing youngsters out of school and into factories and farms.
• Children are considered a temporary solution to replace workers who were forced to leave their occupations when migrant labourers fled the city for their rural homes during the lockdown.

Children and the loss of parents:

• The social, emotional, and cognitive development of children can be severely harmed by parental loss.
• It has a negative impact on kids’ mental health, causing anxiety, sadness, and sleep disorders. It also frequently makes a family’s financial situation worse, which makes kids perform poorly academically and lead to school dropouts.
• India is alarmed by the recent estimates of COVID-19-associated orphanhood published in the Lancet, which place the total number of orphaned children at over 19 lakh.

Misuse of substances:

• Children who drop out of school are more likely to take drugs, and teenagers who experience parent loss are more likely to engage in risky sexual activity.

Sexual mistreatment:

• According to activists, the pandemic is also causing other complex scenarios. Since last year, the pandemic has harmed children in the weaker segments of society in a number of ways, such as incidences of child sexual assault in slums where the children were left defenceless.

The next steps:

• To shield kids from the different kinds of vulnerabilities that arise from the pandemic and disaster, a comprehensive child protection strategy, set of rules, and action plan needs to be created.
• Effective implementation of this calls for cooperation with a number of agencies, volunteers, and civil society organisations.
• The best interests of all students must be taken into consideration when creating a uniform and transparent policy on learning and education throughout the pandemic, which must be adhered to by government, nonprofit, and private schools and systems equally and without bias.
• Effective implementation of the Village Child Protection Committee Programme under the Integrated Child Protection Scheme necessitates collaboration between civil society organisations and educators.
• In addition to monitoring and stopping infractions such as child abuse, child marriage, child trafficking, and child labour, this committee shall guarantee service accessibility and raise awareness of children’s rights.
• Using its database of Covid-19 deceased people, which includes addresses and contact information, governments could aggressively reach out to those who are in need. The Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR), Government of Delhi, has adopted this strategy.
• Children of migrant labourers and all frontline workers, including sanitation workers, ASHA workers, and other vital workers, must have special protection for child care.
• Children in child care facilities and juvenile homes must have access to regular health screenings and counselling services; a monitoring system and periodic audits must be implemented to track the welfare of these children.
• This is a step in the right direction: the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) is offering Tele-Counselling to children through SAMVEDNA (Sensitising Action on Mental Health Vulnerability through Emotional Development and Necessary Acceptance), with the goal of providing psychological and emotional support to children affected during the Covid-19 Pandemic.
• As a result, orphans who have lost both of their parents or who have been abandoned or surrendered as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic cannot be neglected and left to face an uncertain future; instead, they must be cared for by the authorities entrusted with responsibilities under the JJ Act. This is because Article 39 of the Constitution forbids the abuse of children under the age of fourteen.

Q2. Discuss how the use of technology in elections has increased its credibility and what steps should be taken to guarantee that everyone has an equal opportunity to participate in the Indian democratic process.

GS II – Election related issues

Introduction:

• More accurate and effective voting procedures strengthen democratic institutions. Free and fair elections translate voters’ preferences into a political mandate that serves as the foundation for policymaking in electoral democracies.
• The magnitude of the 2014 general election in India, which had an unprecedented 67 percent voter turnout from almost 900 million registered voters across 542 parliamentary seats, is proof to how EVM technology reduces electoral fraud and streamlines the electoral process.

Indian elections are disrupted by technology:

• Use of EVMs: Using EVMs represented a paradigm shift for all parties involved, including political parties, candidates, and voters. It went beyond just replacing heavy ballot boxes and paper ballots.
• Booth capturing in the conventional meaning of the word became less fashionable with the arrival of EVMs.
• Local political muscle could not ensure that votes cast in favour of a specific candidate would be converted from physical booth capture.
• Election day used to be a nightmare election cycle that involved cleaning ballot boxes all day long and then counting results for several days.
• VVPAT: To inspire confidence among the stakeholders, a new technological tool known as the Voter-verified Paper Audit Trail machine has been implemented.
• After pushing the EVM button to cast his vote, the voter can see the symbol of the candidate of his choice on the screen of the VVPAT machine.
• e-EPIC: Users, particularly those who have just registered to vote, can now download their e-EPIC cards online.
• To further guarantee that no one is prevented from exercising their right to vote, additional forms of identification are permitted on election day.
• Software for deduplication: Throughout the constituencies, deduplication has also been used to clear the electoral roll.
• In the past, electoral malpractices were caused by using the same name many times.
• The voter’s picture on the electoral roll has also been cropped thanks to the use of appropriate software.
• This guarantees that voting via fraud will not be permitted on election day.
• Connecting Aadhar to EPIC: Integrating the electoral roll with the Aadhar database would reinforce the roll’s integrity and, consequently, the election process’s integrity.
• Election personnel: The National Informatics Center’s software is used to completely randomise the polling personnel database, ensuring that the identification of the polling station where any polling staff members are assigned is concealed.
• This hides any form of coercion or intimidation of the poll workers.
• A polling party’s staff is mixed up so that no official works in the same department, area, or class as another.
• This level of sophistication is only achievable with the right technology.
• Users of the Cvigil app can use it to directly post complaints. They can take and upload photos and videos. The app is available to the public.

Fairness in the political process through level playing fields:

• Larger parties have easier access to technology solutions including web channels, podcasts, and party websites, while independent candidates and smaller parties are at a disadvantage against the larger parties.
• The electoral commission has the authority to establish directives in this respect.
• provide smaller political parties with adequate funding so they can use technology.
• Bridging the digital divide between urban and rural masses, and equal access to all information regarding their political representatives.
• Assistive technologies to include those with special needs to be able to contest and vote in elections.
• Increasing participating of people through digital means, digital voting can lead to making every voice included in the democracy.
• A healthy democracy must have free and fair elections. However, this is easier said than done, especially in a large and diverse country like India, where there are enormous logistical challenges in terms of manpower and material requirements. Free and fair elections also need to provide equal opportunities for all participants. The electoral process as a whole needs to capture the true sentiment of the electorate, which is made possible by modern technology that must be accessible to all before it can be considered truly fair.