The “String of Pearls” theory is a geopolitical concept that refers to China’s alleged strategy of developing a network of maritime facilities and military presence across the Indian Ocean region, which could potentially encircle and challenge India’s strategic influence in the region. Let’s critically examine the security and strategic implications of this theory for India:

1. Potential Encirclement of India:
   • The String of Pearls theory suggests that China is building a series of ports, military bases, and infrastructure projects across the Indian Ocean, from the Chinese mainland to the African coast.
   • This could be perceived as an attempt by China to encircle India and limit its regional influence and access to maritime trade routes.
2. Increased Chinese Naval Presence:
   • The development of these maritime facilities could enable China to enhance its naval and military presence in the Indian Ocean, potentially challenging India’s traditionally dominant position in the region.
   • This could lead to increased geopolitical tensions and security dilemmas, as India might feel compelled to counter China’s growing influence and capabilities in its traditional sphere of influence.
3. Access to Strategic Chokepoints:
   • Several of the proposed String of Pearls locations, such as the Strait of Malacca and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, are considered strategic chokepoints for global maritime trade.
   • China’s presence and potential control over these chokepoints could give it leverage and the ability to disrupt or control the flow of energy resources, goods, and maritime traffic, which could have significant implications for India’s economic and energy security.
4. Increased Competition for Resources and Influence:
   • The String of Pearls theory suggests that China’s efforts are aimed at securing access to natural resources, trade routes, and strategic locations in the Indian Ocean region.
   • This could lead to increased competition between India and China for influence, resources, and control over these critical maritime domains, potentially heightening regional tensions and the risk of conflict.
5. Challenges to India’s Regional Dominance:
   • Historically, India has enjoyed a dominant position in the Indian Ocean region, with its navy and strategic influence playing a crucial role in maintaining regional stability and protecting its interests.
   • The perceived Chinese encirclement through the String of Pearls could challenge India’s regional dominance and force it to reconsider its strategic priorities and military posture in the region.

It’s important to note that the validity and extent of the String of Pearls theory are debated, as China’s true strategic intentions in the region are not entirely clear. However, the perceived threat posed by this theory has certainly shaped India’s security and strategic thinking, leading to increased military modernization, regional diplomacy, and the strengthening of maritime partnerships to counter China’s growing influence in the Indian Ocean region.

That’s an interesting finding from the scientific study about unmarried and independent women living longer than married women. There could be several potential factors contributing to this difference in life expectancy:

1. Reduced Stress and Burnout:
   • Married women may experience higher levels of stress and burnout from the demands of balancing domestic responsibilities, childcare, and potentially career obligations.
   • Independent, unmarried women may have more autonomy, flexibility, and control over their lives, which can lead to lower stress levels and better overall well-being.
2. Financial Independence and Security:
   • Financial independence and control over resources can provide unmarried women with a greater sense of security and stability, which may positively impact their physical and mental health.
   • Married women may be more vulnerable to financial insecurity, especially in cases where they are economically dependent on their spouses.
3. Access to Healthcare and Preventive Measures:
   • Unmarried women may be more proactive in seeking and accessing healthcare services, including regular check-ups, screenings, and preventive care.
   • Married women may sometimes prioritize their family’s healthcare needs over their own, leading to delayed or neglected personal healthcare.
4. Lifestyle Factors and Behaviors:
   • Independent, unmarried women may have more time and opportunity to engage in healthy lifestyle practices, such as regular exercise, balanced nutrition, and better sleep habits.
   • Married women may face more challenges in maintaining these healthy behaviors due to the demands of family life and caregiving responsibilities.
5. Social Support Networks:
   • Unmarried women may have stronger and more extensive social support networks, which can provide emotional, practical, and even financial assistance, positively impacting their overall well-being.
   • Married women may sometimes become socially isolated, especially if they relocate to their spouse’s community or take on primary caregiving roles within the family.

It’s important to note that these factors are not absolute, and individual experiences can vary greatly. Additionally, other contextual and socioeconomic factors, such as cultural norms, access to resources, and personal circumstances, can also play a significant role in shaping the life expectancy and well-being of both married and unmarried women.

Burke’s theory of the sublime, as outlined in his influential work “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful” (1757), played a crucial role in shaping the Romantic aesthetic philosophy. The sublime, as conceived by Burke, was a distinct aesthetic category that evoked feelings of awe, terror, and astonishment in the face of the grandeur and power of nature.

In the context of Romantic aesthetics, Burke’s theory of the sublime was highly significant for several reasons:

1. Emphasis on emotion and subjective experience:
   • The Romantic movement placed great importance on the expression and cultivation of emotions, moving away from the rationalist and objectivist tendencies of the Enlightenment.
   • Burke’s notion of the sublime, which centered on the subjective emotional responses of the individual, aligned with the Romantic focus on personal, intuitive, and imaginative engagement with the natural world.
2. Valorization of the natural world:
   • The Romantic poets and artists were deeply inspired by the power and beauty of nature, often depicting landscapes and natural phenomena as sources of sublime experiences.
   • Burke’s theory provided a theoretical framework for understanding the Romantic reverence for the natural world and its ability to evoke profound emotional responses.
3. Challenging classical aesthetics:
   • The Romantic aesthetic departed from the classical ideals of balance, harmony, and proportion that had long dominated Western art and literature.
   • Burke’s theory of the sublime, with its emphasis on the transcendent, the limitless, and the awe-inspiring, challenged the traditional notions of beauty and aesthetic judgment.
4. Exploration of the irrational and the mysterious:
   • The Romantic period was marked by a growing interest in the irrational, the mysterious, and the supernatural, which were often associated with the sublime.
   • Burke’s theory of the sublime, with its emphasis on the incomprehensible and the overwhelming, resonated with the Romantic fascination with the unknown and the inexplicable.
5. Influence on subsequent aesthetic theories:
   • Burke’s theory of the sublime had a lasting impact on subsequent aesthetic theories, including the development of the concept of the “Romantic sublime” by later thinkers and artists.
   • The Romantic sublime became a central theme in the works of Romantic poets, such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as in the writings of aesthetic philosophers like Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Schiller.

Edmund Burke’s theory of the sublime was a pivotal contribution to the broader Romantic aesthetic philosophy. By emphasizing the subjective emotional responses to the grandeur and power of nature, Burke’s theory provided a powerful conceptual framework that resonated with the Romantic values and artistic sensibilities. The significance of the sublime in Romantic aesthetics lies in its ability to capture the profound, the transcendent, and the awe-inspiring aspects of the human experience, which were so central to the Romantic worldview.

According to the World Health Organisation, Universal health coverage means that all people have access to the health services they need, when and where they need them, without financial hardship. In the spirit of the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration, it includes the full range of essential health services, from health promotion to prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care. The public health system in India has been the primary provider of healthcare, especially in terms of reach and access to the poorest of the poor. However, the public health system has been mired with structural and systemic issues jeopardizing the goal of universal health coverage.

Public Health System In India Is Riddled By Several Challenges

According to Amartya Sen, the key to UHC is a frontline role of public health institutions. Unless public health institutions are robust enough, UHC is an unrealisable goal. Sen believes that the reach, affordability and prioritisation of people’s health care rather than profits are key ingredients that make public health institutions central to the goal of UHC. Healthcare should be the primary responsibility of the state. They ensure accessibility and equity in access to health care. However public health institutions in India suffer from various issues like:

1. Meagre budgetary allocation at 1.4% of GDP, against the proposed 2.5% in National Health Policy 2017 keeps them underfunded. Without adequate financial resources, public health institutions remain underfunded and underequipped, without adequate medical provisioning. It also disincentivizes talented healthcare professionals to choose public institutions over private. The lower pay to doctors also promotes a parallel private practice which compromises on the quality of care poor people get in the public health institutions.
2. Inadequacy of resources impedes efficiency of care provided to people. For example in India government hospital bed to patient ratio is 1: 1844, while the doctor to patient ratio is 1:11,082 patients, much below the globally mandated standards. This crisis has been most visible during the Covid crisis, revealing the poor state of affairs.
3. Public health institutions also suffer from the crisis of neglect and quality in public health systems: for example 2017 Gorakhpur hospital deaths due to medical negligence. A World Bank study pins this to the phenomena of “Know-do” gap. The gap between the knowledge of doctors and their response in a real situation. Due to a general sense of apathy, doctors do not even follow through basic procedures they have learnt in medical school.
4. Further, there exists an urban bias in the public health system: for example, 80% of all tertiary healthcare institutions are concentrated in Tier I cities. Quality healthcare, especially at tertiary level therefore becomes a far fetched dream. Barriers to mobility and affordability become stronger. We, therefore, see the phenomena of what health activists like Dinesh Thakur call “cancer refugees”. Cancer patients living in slums and streets of metropolitan cities like Delhi while seeking care in hospitals of these cities.

Private Sector Has A Unique Role In Bridging The Gap

1. Creating health infrastructure: creating new medical institutes with state of the art technology as well as providing cost-effective health care in Tier II, Tier III cities and villages.
2. Bridging the Skill gap: through skill development of medical professionals, whether it is through medical institutions or on the job training.
3. Developing the technological interface of health: the private sector has a key role in developing low-cost diagnostics, improving access through drone delivery of blood etc.
4. Developing the PPP model of healthcare for enhanced healthcare access. Niti Aayog’s proposal to link private medical institutes to district medical colleges for optimum resources utilisation is a proposal worth a mention.

Key Challenges With The Private Sector

1. Unfair profiteering, for example, an independent study of Ayushman Bharat -Jan Arogya Yojana shows disproportionately higher treatments of expensive procedures under the scheme.
2. Frauds and scams by quacks, and unlicensed professionals for example unnecessary procedures like C-sections, a higher number of hysterectomies even done for benign cases.
3. Challenges of affordability and equity as private sector institutions are run by private motives. The barrier of cost is the highest one.
4. Quality and standardisation due to the lack of uniform regulatory standards across the country as health remains a state subject under the seventh schedule.

Way Forward

Therefore, private sector participation in itself is no panacea for achieving the golden goal of UHC. It can be achieved by harmonising various other alternatives like:

1. Increased budgetary allocation to 2.5% as envisaged by National Health Policy 2017.
2. Focus on preventive health care especially to combat the burden of NCDs: example through schemes like Fit India, promoting lifestyle changes.
3. Instituting Public Health and Management Cadre in states for a professional and motivated cadre of healthcare professionals.
4. Effective operationalisation of the National Digital Health Mission that would create a holistic and interoperable digital architecture for healthcare. This should make health care provisioning qualitatively better and seamless.
5. Introduce Public health act in states that also provide statutory recognition to Public Health Agencies in states.
6. Empowering the troika of grassroots health workers (ASHA, Anganwadi and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives) through training and capacity building.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed, UHC is no longer a desired goal, rather a necessity. In line with Article 47, it is the constitutional duty of the State to improve public healthcare. According to Dr Indu Bhushan, better insurance coverage, focus on underserved areas and digitisation can augment this pursuit. The force of multiple stakeholders, communities and global health architecture should be harnessed to secure Universal health coverage in India.

Secularism is the principle of the separation of the state and government institutions from religious institutions and religious dignitaries. For India, secularism has different meanings as explained by the Supreme Court in Indra V. Rajnarayan judgement. For India, secularism means that the state shall have no religion of its own and all persons of the country shall be equally entitled to the freedom of their conscience and have the right freely to profess, practice and propagate any religion.

Secularism And Constitution Of India

Word “secular” for India is mentioned in the preamble of the constitution of India. The Secularism as contemplated by the Constitution of India in its various provisions has the following distinguishing features.

1. The state will not identify itself with nor be controlled by any religion.
2. While the state guarantees to everyone the right to profess whatever religion one chooses to follow, it will not accord any preferential treatment to any of them.
3. No discrimination will be shown by the state against any person on account of his religion or faith.
4. The right of every citizen, subject to any general condition, to enter any offices under the state and religious tolerance form the heart and soul of secularism as envisaged by the constitution.
5. It secures the conditions of creating a fraternity of the Indian people which assures both the dignity of the individual and the unity of the nation.

Is Secularism A Weak Ideology?

1. India is home to all major religions of the world. Despite being a majority Hindu population, founding fathers of independent India chose secularism as the core ideology of the Republic of India.
2. Partition of the country in 1947 left many deep wounds on Indian society. India continues to bleed every day by sectarian, religious and inter-caste violence.
3. Individuals at different rungs of Indian society might not share the same secular and pluralist optimism. The debate over equality in society is crucial in interpreting Indian secularism.
4. Despite all the issues, India successfully spent 73 years as a Sovereign, Secular and Democratic country, and remains as the largest secular democracy in the world.
5. Most of the countries in the MENA (the Middle East and North Africa) region, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, are non-secular countries. A comparative analysis of these countries with secular countries proves that on most of the socio-economic indicators non-secular countries are not performing well. They are characterised by civil unrest, violation of human rights and enmity towards other religions.
6. Considering all the above observations it can be said that Secularism is rather a strong ideology for all-round development of all the members of the society.

Factors That Influence The Future Of Secularism In India

Political Factors

1. Party-political secularism is a nefarious doctrine practised by all political parties, including by so-called ‘secular forces’. This secularism has dispelled all values from the core idea and replaced them with opportunism.
2. Opportunistic alliance with religious communities, particularly for the sake of immediate electoral benefit, is its unspoken slogan. It has even been complicit in igniting communal violence and divisive politics.
3. B.R. Ambedkar observed that when two roughly equal communities view each other as enemies, they get trapped in a majority-minority syndrome, a vicious cycle of spiralling political conflict and social alienation.

Social Factors

1. Social alienation of Muslims, Christians and Dalits is deepening the cracks in the secular fabric of India. It is further engraved by lack of modern education.
2. Discrimination while making acquaintance, making social relations, choosing colonies based on the religion practised by the local people are also social reasons which are destroying the secular nature of India.
3. Refusing Muslims to give homes on rent, or declining Dalits from entering the temple, or killing daughters for marrying out of caste or religious boundaries are the examples of how the future of secularism is being shaped in present India.

Ideological Factors

1. The rise in the religious radicalisation of Muslim youth is a grave threat to secularism in India. These youth are ideologically motivated by the perception of religious supremacy of their own.
2. Right-wing or left-wing extremist ideologies are leading to increased communalisation of Indian society. Those who associate themselves openly express their anti-Hindu, anti-Muslim or anti-Christian beliefs.

Economic Factors

1. India is home to more than 1.3billion people. Such a huge population is putting pressure on available resources. Scarcity of limited resources leads to claims over it by various sections and deprivation of certain sections of the society based on irrational parameters such as religion and caste, etc.
2. A major portion of the population in India belongs to the working-age group. Directing the energies of these youth and providing them employment is a humongous task. Failing in which leads to conflict and crisis in society, and in a diverse society like India, communalism is the most easily available option to divert the energies of the youth.
3. Role of electronic media is also very important in building the secular fabric of India but nowadays for TRP and commercial gains they are preferring propaganda over neutrality.

Suggestions

1. Respect for religion must be accompanied by critique. Therefore all the factors influencing the secularism of India must be redirected towards constructive criticism and promoting religious harmony.
2. Our state must respectfully leave religion alone but also intervene whenever religious groups promote communal disharmony and discrimination on grounds of religion or are unable to protect their own members from the oppressions they perpetuate as we witnessed in Judgement of Sabrimala and Law on Triple Talaq.
3. We have to constantly decide when to engage or disengage, help or hinder religion depending entirely on which of these enhances our constitutional commitment to freedom, equality and fraternity.
4. Secularism cannot be sustained by governments alone but requires collective commitment from an impartial judiciary, a scrupulous media, civil society activists, and an alert citizenry.

Secularism is the soul of India’s Constitution. Today the letter of this Constitution still remains unaltered, but its soul is mangled and choked. B.R. Ambedkar claimed that when communities view each other as a menace, they tend to close ranks. Due to this all dissent within the community is muzzled and much needed internal reforms are stalled. Peaceful and democratic secularism will help to carry out a much-needed internal critique and reform of our own respective religions, to enable their compatibility with constitutional values of equality, liberty and justice.