The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) and the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) are two of the most competitive and widely taken entrance exams in India. While they are designed to ensure that only the best students get admitted to top engineering and medical colleges, there are concerns about their fairness for all students.

Arguments for fairness:

1. Merit-based admission: NEET and JEE exams are designed to test students’ knowledge, skills, and aptitude, which helps ensure that only the most deserving students get admitted to top institutions.
2. Standardized evaluation: The exams are standardized, which means that all students are held to the same benchmark, regardless of their background or socio-economic status.
3. Opportunity for all: Anyone who prepares well can appear for the exams and potentially secure a seat in a top college.

Arguments against fairness:

1. Social and economic biases: Students from underprivileged backgrounds may not have equal access to quality education, coaching, and resources, making it harder for them to prepare for the exams.
2. Pressure and stress: The intense competition and high stakes of these exams can be overwhelming, leading to stress, anxiety, and mental health issues among students.
3. Limited seats: The number of seats available in top colleges is limited, which means that even students who perform well may not get a seat due to lack of availability.
4. Unrealistic expectations: The pressure to perform well in these exams can create unrealistic expectations among students, parents, and society as a whole, leading to burnout and demotivation.
5. Lack of alternatives: The lack of alternative paths for students who don’t perform well in these exams can be demotivating and discouraging.

The procedure for amending the Constitution of India is laid down in Article 368 of the Constitution, which states that any amendment to the Constitution can be initiated by either the Parliament or the State Legislature. The procedure for amendment is as follows:

Parliamentary Initiative

1. A Bill for amendment is introduced in either House of Parliament (Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha).
2. The Bill is referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses, comprising members from both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
3. The Joint Committee reviews the Bill and makes recommendations.
4. The Bill is then considered by both Houses separately.
5. If it is approved by both Houses with or without modifications, it is sent to the President for assent.
6. The President can either assent to the Bill or return it to Parliament for reconsideration.

State Legislature Initiative

1. A Bill for amendment is introduced in either House of the State Legislature (Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council).
2. The Bill is passed by a special majority (two-thirds majority) in both Houses of the State Legislature.
3. The Bill is sent to the Governor of the State for approval.
4. If approved, it is forwarded to the President for assent.
5. The President can either assent to the Bill or return it to the State Legislature for reconsideration.

Ensuring Flexibility:

1. Article 368 allows for amendments through a simple majority in both Houses of Parliament, making it possible to make changes to the Constitution with relative ease.
2. The process allows for multiple routes for initiating amendments, including through State Legislatures, which gives more opportunities for stakeholders to participate in the amendment process.
3. The provision for a Joint Committee of both Houses helps ensure that different perspectives are considered while reviewing an amendment.

According to a recent RBI report, states like Punjab, Rajasthan, Kerala, West Bengal, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, etc. have a high debt burden. The cumulative debt of states has risen from 19.1 percent in 2018-19 to 25.1 percent in 2021-22. While fiscal stability of states is necessary for sound sub-national fiscal health, there are persisting issues regarding it.

They are as follows:

• Declining revenues of states: The share of states’ own revenue has declined from 69 percent in 1955-56 to below 38 percent in 2019-20 due to slow pace of tax revenue growth. Also, there is a loss of autonomy on tax rates under the GST regime. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has further impacted the tax revenues of states.
• High state expenditure: States have limited fiscal capacity and high share of committed expenditure for socio-economic development and populist measures like farm loan waiver, subsidies, etc. Other committed expenditures include interest payments on debt, pensions and administrative expenses.
• Implementation of Centrally Sponsored Schemes: It increases the burden on states to allocate their respective share for these schemes.
• Contingent liabilities: Due to the growing trend of using state PSUs, SPVs and other equivalent instruments for off-budget borrowings, the liabilities of states are increasing over time.
• High DISCOM losses: High debt levels of DISCOMS have been contributing to the debt burden of states.
• Legal loopholes: State governments resort to extra-budgetary borrowings to finance their populist measures and this debt is concealed to circumvent the FRBM target.

Measures that need to be taken for long-term stability of state finances include:

• Improving fiscal discipline through expenditure prioritization, debt consolidation and FRBM compliance. The FRBM also needs to be amended to cover all the liabilities of the government.
• Cap excessive spending and borrowings at sectoral levels to avoid excessive populism, and their negative spill-overs on other areas.
• Rationalization of Centrally Sponsored Schemes to allow more flexibility to states and UT’s in their implementation to meet their domestic needs.
• Raising additional resources at the sub-national and national levels to increase the tax-to-GDP ratio, which is around 17 percent. Also, there is a requirement of addressing issues on GST compensation continuity, and shrinking of net divisible pool.
• There is a need to curb the black economy, as it erodes the fiscal pool of the government and leads to suboptimal spending.

The ability of women to participate in the labour force is the outcome of various economic and social factors including educational attainment, fertility rate and the age of marriage, economic growth/cyclical effects, and urbanization. In the recent years, India has scored significant gains in some of these parameters, including:

• The Indian economy is anticipated to be one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The IMF estimates India’s GDP to grow at around 9 percent in FY22.
• India’s total fertility rate (TFR) has declined from 2.2 in 2015-16 to 2.0 in 2019-21, indicating the average number of children born to a woman in her lifetime has decreased.
• Female literacy rate has been increasing every decade with 8.86% in 1951 to 65.46% in 2011.

However, the country’s Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) remains amongst the lowest in the world. The FLFPR declined steadily from 47.1 percent in 1987-88 to 23 percent in 2017-18, reaching its lowest since Independence. While it rose to 32.5 percent by 2020-21, it is still far below the 77 percent for men. The reasons for the decline are as follows:

• Unpaid work: Indian women were spending about 8X more hours on care work as compared to men, according to data released in 2019.
• Lack of care infrastructure: In India, women’s unpaid work is valued at 3.1 percent of the country’s GDP and yet, public sector expenditure on care infrastructure stands at less than 1 percent of the GDP.
• Reduced opportunities for work: Mechanization of farm and non-farm activities have also reduced opportunities for work. Nearly 12 million Indian women could lose their jobs by 2030 owing to automation, according to a McKinsey report.
• Income effect: With increasing household incomes, especially over the last three decades, the need for a “second income” has reduced. Consequently, families have withdrawn women from labour as a signal of prosperity.
• Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: It had a disproportionate impact on women’s employment compared to that of men. By April 2020, 37.1 percent of adult women in the workforce had lost their jobs, against 27.7 percent of men. The pandemic debilitated women-led enterprises and discouraged unemployed women from seeking work.

Measures to improve FLFPR in India:

• Establishing care facilities for children (e.g., Anganwadi centres) and elderly persons, and upgrading existing ones, with a strong focus on creating rural care infrastructure.
• Recognising ASHAS, ANMs, and AWWs as employees to ensure inclusion of their economic contribution in the calculation of India’s GDP.
• Employers should provide a range of flexible work arrangements including flex-time, reduced working hours, job-sharing etc. to nurture a more inclusive and accommodative culture.
• The government should organise sensitisation and awareness programmes aimed at inculcating gender-equitable attitudes and behaviours, and engaging men and boys on the issue of redistribution of domestic work.
• Establishing gender-based employment targets for urban public works and considering introducing wage subsidies to incentivise hiring women in MSMEs.
• Firms and NGOs should come together to invest in bridging the digital gender divide and offering long-term training to women. .

To chart a gender-sensitive socio-economic development, the government, private sector, media, and the social sector need to work together to improve the working conditions of women, reduce wage gaps, increase opportunities for women across sectors, and bring about behavioural change in society.

The World Bank has defined the absolute poverty line as the percentage of the population of a country living on less than $1.90 a day (PPP) at constant prices at 2011 price levels. It can be measured either in absolute terms or in relative terms. In 1962, the Planning Commission constituted a working group to estimate poverty nationally, and it formulated separate poverty lines for rural and urban areas of Rs 20 and Rs 25 per capita per year, respectively. This early estimate was followed by the following Committees in India:

• VM Dandekar and N Rath: They made the first systematic assessment of poverty in India in 1971, based on National Sample Survey (NSS) data from 1960-61.
  • They suggested minimum calorie consumption norms i.e., 2250 calories per day in both rural and urban areas.
• Alagh Committee (1979): Chaired by YK Alagh, this Committee, set up by the Planning Commission, constructed a poverty line for rural and urban areas on the basis of nutritional requirements.
• Lakdawala Committee (1993): According to the Committee, consumption expenditure should be calculated based on calorie consumption as earlier. Further, state specific poverty lines and should be updated using CPI-IW in urban areas and CPI-AL in rural areas.
• Tendulkar Committee (2009): The Planning Commission appointed Committee, chaired by Suresh Tendulkar, recommended major changes in poverty estimation, such as:
  • Using mixed reference period (MRP)-based estimates, as opposed to earlier uniform reference period (URP).
  • A uniform poverty line basket (PLB) across rural and urban India.
  • A change in the price adjustment procedure.
  • Incorporation of private expenditure on health and education while estimating poverty.
  • Based on these recommendations, poverty line was pegged at Rs 446.68 per capita per month in rural areas and Rs 578.80 per capita per month in urban areas in 2004-05.
• Rangarajan Committee (2012): Constituted by the Planning Commission, the Committee took an estimation based on an independent large survey of households by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Recommendations were based on households’ inability to save, normative as well as behavioural levels, and ICMR norms related to calories, protein, and fat.
  • According to the report of the Committee, the new poverty line was set at Rs. 32 in rural areas and Rs. 47 in urban areas. The earlier poverty line figure was Rs. 27 for rural India and Rs. 33 for urban India.
• Hashim Committee (2012): To capture residential, social, and occupational vulnerabilities, the Committee, in its report, recommended a three-stage identification process to identify the families living below the poverty line in urban areas which include automatic exclusion, automatic inclusion and scoring index of the remaining urban families in this order.

Currently, poverty estimation in India is carried out by NITI Aayog’s task force through the calculation of poverty line based on the data captured by the National Sample Survey Office under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI). Based on this, in 2011-12, the poverty line was defined for rural areas as consumption worth Rs 816 per person a month and for urban areas it was Rs 1,000 per person per month. Thus, the government uses Monthly Per Capita Expenditure (MPCE) as a proxy for income of households to identify the poor.