PSIR 4 IAS

  Japan’s Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI) With COVID-19 and trade tensions between China and the United States threatening supply chains or actually causing bottlenecks, Japan has mooted the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI) as a trilateral approach to trade, with India and Australia as the other two partners. The initiative is at the strategy stage and has some way to go before participants can realise trade benefits. What does supply chain resilience mean? In the context of international trade, supply chain resilience is an approach that helps a country to ensure that it has diversified its supply risk across a clutch of supplying nations instead of being dependent on just one or a few. Unanticipated events — whether natural, such as volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes or even a pandemic; or manmade, such as an armed conflict in a region — that disrupt supplies from a particular country or even intentional halts to trade, could adversely impact economic ac...

  Qn 16. Comment on the decline of political parties and examine whether new social movements shall be an alternate strategy for establishing link between government and society. (2016/II/Q.1b/10m) Political parties are organisations seeking government office. New social movements are group phenomenon articulating specific post-materialist interests. In the modern age, changing roles of political parties and social movements can be linked. A political party  is an organised group with similar political aims and opinions, that seeks to influence public policy, by getting its candidates elected to public office. Decline of political parties  principally stems from the evidence of their decline as agents of representation and as effective links between the government and the people. Reasons  can be— Parties are viewed as political professionals, pursuing power, high office and corruption, and not ‘of the people’ real or perceived oligarchical character (being viewed as ...

  Qn 15. Are the pressure groups in India in a position to fully protect or promote the interests of their members? (2015/II/Q.1c/10m) Pressure groups are a manifestation of group behaviour. In India, as per the context, motive and opportunity, various pressure groups operate. Pressure groups  are forms of organisations, which exert pressure on the political or administrative system of a country to extract benefits out of it and to advance their own interests. These are political actors and sometimes also referred to as civil society organisations, interest groups or catalytic groups. Genesis of pressure groups:  Pressure groups have been in existence in different forms ever since governmental machinery assumed both welfare role and discretionary authority. They took more concrete form in the wake of the industrial revolution and market-oriented economies. In India, pressure groups germinate and function as per their context. Types and operations of pressure groups in Ind...

  Qn 14. Party system in India is neither western nor indigenous. Explain. (2014/II/Q.1a/10m) Party system  refers to the set of all the significant parties in a country, their interactions and the electoral system and voter loyalties that produce it. Party system in India has evolved as a hybrid, with neither purely Indian characteristics, nor western. Party system in India, being neither western nor indigenous,  can be studied by comparing its features: One party dominance : Although Indian polity accommodates a multi-party system, often a single party has dominated. This seems counter to the plural character of India. Also, it is different from the two-party systems of Britain and USA, and the multi-party model in most of western Europe (e.g. in France, Italy etc). In India, the Congress, which was a nationalist movement pre-independence, emerged post-independence as a dominant political party. Morris Jones described the Indian party system as a ‘one party dominance’ s...

“While some measures can be taken, several Chinese investments are quite substantive. It is not possible to fully block them. A worrisome factor is that these Chinese companies have linkages of some sort with the Chinese military,” one government official said on condition of anonymity. In June 2017, China passed a national intelligence law, which gave Beijing powers over Chinese companies’ overseas investments as well — “Military and Security Developments involving the People’s Republic of China 2019”, requires Chinese companies, such as Huawei, ZTE and TikTok to support, provide assistance, and cooperate in China’s national intelligence work, wherever they operate. Moreover, Article 7 of the law states, “Any organisation or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law... The state protects individuals and organisations that support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work.” It has direct security implications for...

Qn 13. Examine the comparative advantage of democracy and autocracy in restraining violence. Do you think that autocratic societies are more prone to political violence? Illustrate your answer with a comparative study of a few societies. (2009/II/Q.4/60m) Democracy is a political system where majority rules. Autocracy is a political system where one person governs. Political violence is violence used to achieve political goals. Democracies and autocracies have variable relations with political violence. Etymologically  – ‘demos’ (Greek) meaning ‘people’ and ‘kratos’ (Greek) meaning ‘power’ or ‘authority’.  Examples  - ancient Greece, USA, India, England, France, Italy, Poland etc. Thus,  Democracy is  a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. Citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives from among themselves to form a governing body (such as a parliament). Politi...

Thinking through the Nepal policy  The Treaty of Sugauli of 1816 sets the Kali river as the boundary between the two countries in the western sector. There was no map attached to the treaty. Nepal is now claiming that the main tributary of the Kalapani river rises east of the Lipu Lekh pass from the Limpiyadhura ridgeline and hence should serve as the border. Even if the lengthiest tributary may be one principle for a riverine boundary, which is itself debatable, it is not the only one. There are many boundaries which do not follow any geographical principle at all but are the result of historical circumstances, mutual agreement and legal recognition. The inconvenient fact is that the Chinese, at least since 1954, have accepted Lipu Lekh Pass as being in Indian territory. In the Nepal-China boundary agreement of 1960, the starting point of the boundary is clearly designated at a point just west of the Tinker Pass. If no agreement has superseded the Sugauli treaty as has been claime...

Qn 12. Is the rise of social movements a sign of opening up of popular space in political process or decline of representational politics? Examine. (2013/II/Q.4a/20m) Society and politics are inseparable. The rise in social movements (or collective behaviour) is considered a sign of changing political processes. Social movements  are a type of group action. Having distinctive organisation and strategies, they carry out, resist, or undo a social change. Traditionally social movements were focused on social advancement such as nationalist movements and labour movements.  Rise of social movements  (or ‘new’ social movements) is changing trends in collective behaviours which concern aspects regarding ‘quality of life’, such as gender-rights, environmental and anti-globalisation movements. It is linked to leftist politics. Liberals prefer to call it ‘ resource mobilisation ’. New social movements ignited in the West since the 1960s. In the East (Third World countries), they st...

  Qn 11. What is the difference between interest groups and pressure groups? (2015/II/Q.1c/10m) Interest groups and pressure groups are both actors of groups politics - they are organised efforts aspiring for a particular cause. Although sometimes considered similar, there are debated and slight differences between the two entities. Interest groups  are organisations seeking to advance a particular interest, concern or cause, while usually not seeking to form a government or part thereof. They rely on a variety of campaigning and lobbying methods to exert influence on government policy. It is often used synonymously with pressure groups, organised groups and catalytic groups. Other scholarly labels include ‘anonymous empire’ (S. E. Finer), ‘invisible government’ (D. D. McKean) and ‘unofficial government’ (T. Sellin and R. D. Lambert). On the other hand,  Pressure groups  are non-profit and (usually) voluntary organisations whose members have a common cause, for which...

  Qn 10. In what respect is the new social movement ‘new’ in nature? Discuss. (2014/II/Q.1b/10m) Social movements are organisational structures with strategies that may empower certain sections of the population to challenge and resist other sections. Such movements have been academically studied since the 19th century. The second half of the 20th century saw a new wave of movements – ‘new’ social movements - with changed dynamics and new causes, as the context evolved. A social movement  is a particular form of collective behaviour or mass action in which the motive to act is rooted largely in the attitudes and aspirations of members, typically acting within a loose organisational framework. Being part of it requires a level of commitment and political activism. Earliest social movements  can be traced back to the 19th century and include: labour movements for improved conditions for the growing working class Nationalist movements for independence, especially from Europe...