ESSAY

UPSC ESSAY: SCIENCE AND

TECHNOLOGY IS A PANACEA FOR THE
GROWTH AND SECURITY OF THE
NATION
DECEMBER 7, 2013 ABC 46 COMMENTS

Disclaimer: The below points have been reproduced from memory only and may
not be exactly what I wrote in the exam.
Introduction
India was one of the richest nations in the world in the medieval ages i.e. 16th
and 17th centuries. Then Akbar rejected the Guttenberg press. Jahangir rejected
the water lift. Indian mariners took little interest in adopting the compass and
other marine discoveries of the world from the Europeans. The result within
less than a century and a half India became a slave to those very Europeans!
Indias recent Mars mission Mangalyaan was criticised by some. Questions
were raised can a country as poor as India afford to indulge in such scientific
extravaganza? Wouldnt this money be better spent on reducing poverty,
providing drinking water, sanitation etc.? But if history is any lesson, Mangalyaan
was every inch worth it at this cost (Rs. 450 crores), if for nothing else then
simply for keeping India on top of the technologies of the age and developing
scientific temper.
Science is essential for the development of a nation. Its most important
contribution is that it helps in creating the larger social ecosystem required for
growth. It promotes new ideas, removes all feudal institutions, conservatism,
superstitions. It makes society open to change change which is essential for the
development of society. But it also creates many unintended challenges and also
may be inadequate by itself. So it is not a panacea and needs to be managed
well and supported by appropriate policy framework.
In the remaining paragraphs of the essay, we will explore each sector, see how
science is essential for the development of the sector and our security, yet it is
not the panacea and needs to be managed.
AGRICULTURE GROWTH AND FOOD SECURITY AND SCIENCE
Talked about need of science for ensuring food security our population is
growing, but acreage under cultivation is more or less stagnant. So need to
increase productivity which can come only by science.

 Talked about irrigation india is a water scarce nation. so need to encourage

micro irrigation techniques.
Talked about need of science in disaster warning, crop survey, marketing.
Talked about use of biometrics in PDS to reduce leakages.
All this way, science can help us reduce poverty as well, because development
of agriculture has highest impact on poverty.
Talked about challenges created by science. Bt crops and farmer suicides. Bt
makes agriculture riskier, hence higher number of suicides. Suggested we need
to include socio economic considerations as well apart from scientific safety
while giving approvals.
Talked about science alone not enough. we need to better supply chain, invest
more etc. On PDS, biometrics not the only solution, we need social audits,
universalisation etc. In water, need water audits, water user associations etc.
So science is essential but not the panacea. It needs to be managed.
INDUSTRY, SERVICES AND INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT ISSUES AND
SCIENCE
Talked about Industrial revolution, how it is ongoing and still needed.
Talked about how technology has transformed our lives. mobiles, IT etc. How
we need it to improve governance.
Talked about how science can help us discover substitutes for imports, develop
our own resource base.
Gave the limitations of science here, need to focus on inclusive growth else it
wont be sustainable. Talked about tribal displacement here.
Moral of the story, science is absolutely essential, but not the panacea. We
need good policies as well.
ENERGY SECURITY ISSUES AND SCIENCE
Talked about how we import most of our energy. But this is not a sustainable
system for a would be global power.

 So we need shale gas, coal bed methane, nuclear energy etc. on the supply
side and need more efficient vehicles, green buildings, ultra super power plants
on the demand side.
But we also have lot of coal, gas and oil which we need to explore. To do that
we need right policies, land acquisition, environmental clearances, other
approvals etc.
Also need to address the safety concerns of nuclear energy post Fukishama.
Thus needs appropriate framework with science.
CLIMATE CHANGE SECURITY ISSUES AND SCIENCE
Gave some findings of recent IPCC report, global warming. Gave the impact of
climate change on wheat production, Indian monsoons, cyclones.
To mitigate i.e. reduce our emissions, we will need to develop own science and
tech. cant import new technologies from west as they not giving aid any more.
To adapt, again need science. Need drought resistant crop varieties etc.
In research also, we need advanced satellites, supercomputers. So science
needed.
But climate change affects poor most. So need to ensure that these scientific
changes help the poor.
So science is not the panacea, but is essential. Need appropriate policy
framework along with science.
DISASTER PREPAREDNESS SECURITY ISSUES AND SCIENCE
Talked about cyclone Phailin and Uttarakhand floods. Phailin was so severe, yet
life loss was so less why? because of science, we could accurately track phailin
and give meaningful actionable warnings to administration. But in Uttarakhand,
IMDs forecasts are not accurate, vague and not actionable.
But there are so many other aspects of disaster preparation. Administrative
will, planning, vulnerability studies etc. So science again is not the panacea,
though is imp. Need other things also.
BIOMEDICAL SECURITY ISSUES AND SCIENCE

 Talked about recent Novartis, Tykreb and Bayer compulsory license issues. But
said this cannot go on forever, specially if we want more FTAs.
MNCs want profit, but we want public health. This conflict needs to be resolved.
We are a net patent importer. We need to change this by becoming net patent
generator. This can only happen with science.
But then we ll have to ensure our own companies dont become like these
MNCs. Issues such as clinical trials ethics is also there.
So again, boss, science is essential, but not panacea. Needs proper policies.
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL SECURITY ISSUES AND SCIENCE
Wrote how china is developing its weapons ($100 bio defence budget), talked
how naxals, terrorists getting most modern. So we absolutely need modern
weapons, drones etc.
Talked of NSA Prism. Need to safeguard our data.
But science can only give us the weapon. It still needs to be fired. That will
happen only with a political order. So we need political will. We need intelligence
coordination.
So again, without science we cant do anything, but science is not the panacea.
Need political will, policies etc.
CONCLUSION
Repeated, science is essential, but not maai baap.
ESSAY

UPSC ESSAY: IS THE CRITICISM THAT

PPP MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT IS MORE
OF A BANE THAN A BOON IN THE
INDIAN CONTEXT JUSTIFIED?
OCTOBER 7, 2012 ABC 12 COMMENTS

Click Here To Download PDF

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) model of development is no alien concept to

India. In the age of the Chola kings as well the state used to give tax concessions
and land grants to those who got tanks and canals built. Closer to our times, the
construction of Indian railways is a classic example of PPP in operation. Post
Independence, given our explicit preference for the state led development, the
PPP took a back seat for some time. However, after liberalization PPP is back with
a new vigor. Thus in the 10th Five Year Plan nearly 21% of the expenditure on
infrastructure came from the private sector, this climbed to 33% in the 11th Five
Year Plan and in the 12th Plan it is expected to be about 50%.
Clearly our planners think that PPP is the way forward, so we must pause here
and examine the rationale behind preferring it.
The biggest rationale, perhaps, in favor of PPP is that the government simply
doesnt have enough money. After all, still not a generation has passed when one
had to wait for years to get a landline telephone connection. Just imagine, would
we have been able to scale up our education, power, roads, ports and airports to
meet the demands of a rapidly growing economy like ours? Reliance on public
funds alone would have choked off our growth even before it could have taken
off.
Another reason for preferring PPP is that the governments are slow and tend to
work in silos. Thus a project is broken into many parts and every part is handled
by different people / departments. They tend to work in vacuum unmindful of
what is happening to the other part. But a project is a project and needs the
success of all its parts for it to bear fruits. A good example here is the case of
roadways. While road development is a part of the plan expenditure, road
maintenance falls under non-plan expenditure and is often neglected. But what
is a road without maintenance! PPP overcomes this by treating the project as a
single unit. So the operator itself is required to maintain the road in a good
condition.
Finally, PPP is attractive because it is in alignment with the twin pillars of modern
economic logic. These pillars are Everyone should only do what he is good at or in other words everyone should
assume only the risk one specializes in; and
Governments must step in to correct the market failures.
PPP enables separation of jobs. Thus the job of the government is to provide
land, help the project in meeting various regulatory requirements while the job of
the private party is to build and operate. Moreover wherever the social good is
more and private benefit is less (for instance a road connecting a village to the
highway), the government can always correct the likely market failure by its
Viability Gap Funding Scheme.

Despite these, many criticisms are levied against PPP. Perhaps the biggest
among them is that it breeds corruption and rent seeking. If there is any truth in
the CAG reports on coal, 2G, GMR or in the joint parliamentary committee report
on CDSCO then indeed there appears to be a serious flaw in the model. However,
a closer examination tells us that the flaw lies not in the model per se but in the
method of implementation of the model. The alleged corruption happened in coal
and 2G because of opaque processes and in GMR and CDSCO because of the
weakness of the regulator. If we had transparent processes in coal and 2G and
strong regulators in GMR and CDSCO cases then the corruption would never have
happened. Moreover, by no means is corruption limited to PPP only. Should we
also close down MGNREGS and NRHM because there have been reports of
corruption? No, clearly no. We should instead find ways to tackle such corruption.
Another criticism levied against PPP is that often the public purpose in the PPP
is pushed to the background and private operators work simply to maximize their
own profits. A case can be made out of the many super profitable toll roads like
the Jaipur Kishangarh one and the KG gas basin project.
While this is a meritorious criticism, it must be emphasized that it is again
specific to the implementation of the model. If the terms and conditions of the
project clearly link the rewards to the private operator to certain well defined
public good then such a situation will not arise. For instance, while auctioning the
coal fields to power producers, we should award the coal to the party which will
provide electricity at the lowest cost. There will be no contradiction between
transparency and public good then.
Next a case is made out that in PPP mode there is information asymmetry.
Because the operator is closest to the project, he can take the government for a
ride. An example here is the KG basin project where now the wells are full of
water. Coincidently the operator is also demanding that the gas price be raised
from $4.2 per mmBtu to $14 per mmBtu.
The government has appointed the Rangarajan committee for that. And one of
its ToRs is to specifically look into ways to monitor the project more effectively.
Perhaps making the initial terms and conditions of the project clearer and having
more regular and better audits can help here.
Then some argue that the infrastructure projects require high end technology
and have long gestation periods and hence are not suitable for private operators.
While in the 50s and the 60s this argument could have held great merit, today
our companies own some of the most sophisticated technologies and have
finished some massive projects.

Finally before writing PPP off, one should think of what really is the alternative?
Clearly a return to the public funding is ruled off due to the reasons mentioned
earlier. Similarly total reliance on private markets would generate their own
complications as well. There would be massive market failures there would be
no PURA, no electricity in our villages and who will teach our children? A good
example of what can go wrong in private markets is the case of micro finance in
Andhra Pradesh while that of what can be right with PPP is the case of self help
group based finance in Assam. Here the state government assists these SHGs by
providing easy credit from the Rajiv Gandhi Vikas Nidhi.
Thus what we need is transparency in procedures and strong, independent
regulators. The functions of policy planning, implementation and regulation must
be separated. It may also be a good idea to make these regulatory bodies report
directly to the parliament. After all, isnt the parliament the supreme regulatory
body in our country? Then to check the information asymmetry problem, we
need better terms and conditions and audits.
Perhaps then PPP can truly be a boon for India.