21 Nov The Hindu Vocab

Digital nation: On delivery of citizen services

The true measure of digitalisation would be seamless delivery of all citizen services

A ffordable smartphones and Internet access have made India a digital nation with an estimated 750 million connections and a thriving financial technology sector. Citizens inured to queues at dingy utility offices even to pay routine bills find this a major leap, thanks to fintech. Digital platforms providing goods and services, including online education and telemedicine, have grown vigorously during the COVID-19 pandemic, while many professionals have maintained productivity by working from home. Yet, it would be premature to declare digital as a way of life in India, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi put it at the Bengaluru Tech Summit. The true measure of digital nations is the readiness of governments to use technology to create open, participatory public systems that citizens consider trustworthy. What governance must achieve is a reliable system of digital welfare. A beginning has, no doubt, been made through government-to-citizen services using Common Service Centres, advice to agriculturists, digital payments of welfare benefits through bank accounts and, even legal advice online to four lakh people under the Tele-Law scheme. These represent a welcome advance, but if digital methods were applied to other sectors, such as road safety, the results could be dramatic — potentially reducing the accident mortality rate of about 1,50,000 deaths a year.

In the ongoing pandemic, Mr. Modi’s forecast for enhanced adoption of technology in health and education will have resonance, although this was always a priority. In fact, successive governments failed to grasp the promise of achieving universal health coverage (UHC) by 2022, for which the erstwhile Planning Commission presented a road map a decade ago. Now, the nucleus plan is Ayushman Bharat, with a digital health identity for all. With the emphasis on digitalisation, it should be possible to achieve measurable progress early on at least on one UHC component — access to free, essential prescription drugs. A digital health ID would help prescribe and dispense essential medicines free. The Planning Commission estimated that the public procurement cost for this, in 2011, would be 0.1% to 0.5% of GDP. If this is a medium-term goal, the more immediate task of distributing COVID-19 vaccines looms as a test for the government. At a broader level, efficient digital government depends on transforming internal processes, and fixing deadlines for service delivery. The UPA could not see its electronic delivery of services legislation through, and it remains forgotten. If digital has to become a way of life, redefining the labyrinthine functioning of citizen-centric services would be a good place to start, with deadlines for government departments.

1. digitalisation (noun) – digitalisation is the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities. It is the process of moving to a digital business.
2. seamless (adjective) – smooth and continuous.
3. affordable (adjective) – economical, inexpensive, reasonably priced.
4. thriving (adjective) – growing, developing, progressing.संपन्न
5. कतारों---queues
6. inure to (verb) – to accustom to something (undesirable/unpleasant). (“be accustomed to” means “be used to”).
7. dingy (adjective) – dark, dull, badly lit, poorly lit.
8. utility (noun) – an organization supplying the community with electricity, gas, water, or sewerage.उपयोगिता
9. (big/major) leap (noun) – major change, transformation; sudden development, advance, breakthrough.
10. thanks to (phrase) – as a result of, owing to, due to, because of.
11. fintech (noun) – it is the shortened version of the phrase Financial Technology, which is now used to describe businesses that offer financial services using software and modern technology.
12. telemedicine (noun) – a method of medicine that allows health care professionals to evaluate, diagnose and treat patients in remote locations using telecommunications technology.
13. vigorously (adverb) – aggressively, strongly, powerfully, intensely.ज़ोरों के साथ
14. pandemic (noun) – the worldwide spread of a new disease; The illness spreads around the world and typically affects a large number of people across a wide area.
15. productivity (noun) – efficiency, work rate, output, yield.
16. premature (adjective) – untimely, early, too soon/too early.
17. way of life (phrase) – culture, lifestyle.
18. summit (noun) – meeting, conference.
19. readiness (noun) – willingness, inclination to do something.तत्परता
20. open (adjective) – genuine, ingenuous, transparent; non-exclusive, accessible to everyone.
21. participatory (adjective) – involving by participation.भागीदारी
22. Tele-Law scheme (noun) – Tele-Law means the use of communications and information technology for the delivery of legal information and advice. This e-interaction between lawyers and people would be through the video-conferencing infrastructure available at the Common Services Centers (CSCs).
23. भरोसेमंद--trustworthy
24. advance (noun) – breakthrough, development, step forward, quantum leap.
25. potentially (adverb) – likely, may be, possibly, probably.
26. dramatic (adjective) – considerable, substantial, appreciable, significant.
27. mortality (noun) – (in a particular time/for a cause) the rate/number of death.
28. ongoing (adjective) – continuous, continuing, non-stop, unending, unceasing.
29. forecast (noun) – prediction, indication, projection, prognosis, speculation, calculation (of future events or trends).
30. enhanced (adjective) – increased, augmented, intensified.
31. कल्याण--welfare
32. resonance (noun) – reverberation, continuing effect, repercussion, ramification.गूंज
33. in fact (phrase) – actually, in reality.
34. successive (adjective) – consecutive, succeeding.
35. grasp (verb) – understand, comprehend, follow, realize.समझ, मुट्ठी, बोध
36. universal health coverage (UHC) (noun) – it means that all individuals and communities receive the health services they need without suffering financial hardship. (Courtesy: WHO)
37. erstwhile (adjective) – old, previous, former, then.भूतपूर्व
38. The Planning Commission (noun) – The Planning Commission was an institution in the Government of India established in 1950, which formulated India’s Five-Year Plans, among other functions to oversee the country’s economic and social development. The Planning Commission was replaced by NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India) in 2015 to act as a think tank. (think tank is a panel of experts who provide advice and ideas on political, social or economic issues).
39. road map (noun) – plan/strategy to do something successfully.
40. decade (noun) – a period of ten years.
41. nucleus (noun as modifier) – core, centre, central (part), most important (part).
42. Ayushman Bharat (noun) – Ayushman Bharat is National Health Protection Scheme in India, which will cover over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore beneficiaries) providing coverage upto 5 lakh rupees per family per year for secondary and tertiary (highly specialized) care hospitalization.
43. emphasis (noun) – importance, significance; attention, priority, insistence.
44. measurable (adjective) – appreciable, noticeable, significant, reasonable.
45. prescription drug (noun) – prescription drug (also prescription medication or prescription medicine) is a pharmaceutical drug that legally requires a medical prescription to be dispensed (provided).
46. prescribe (verb) – (of a medical practitioner) to order or advise as a medicine or treatment.
47. redefining--पुनर्परिभाषित
48. procurement (noun) – the action of procuring/purchasing something.खरीद
49. Gross domestic product (GDP) (noun) – a measure of economic activity in a country. It is the total value of a country’s annual output of goods and service.
50. vaccine (noun) – a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease.
51. loom (verb) – emerge, appear, become visible, take a threatening shape.
52. see through (phrasal verb) – get/have the measure of, fathom, realize, understand.
53. legislation (noun) – body of laws, rules, regulations, statutes.
54. labyrinthine (adjective) – complicated, intricate, complex, confusing, baffling, perplexing, maze-like.पेचीदा
55. citizen-centric or people-centric (adjective) – relating to someone/something which values people’s need & requirement and make them fell safe & happy.

Editorial-2

Scorched earth politics: On Donald Trump and U.S. democracy

Trump’s effort to sabotage the transition process will harm U.S. recovery prospects

The ferment in U.S. politics appears unabated weeks after one of the most controversial election campaigns, with outgoing President Donald Trump refusing to concede to his victorious rival, Democratic President-elect Joe Biden. The irony is that this outcome, which is inflicting damage on the fabric of U.S. democratic systems, was all but a foregone conclusion, given the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on mail-in voting, and Mr. Trump’s repeated and ominous warnings that he would not accept such votes as legitimate. The tectonic shift toward mail-in voting in the 2020 election presumably stemmed from voters’ desire to abide by social distancing norms through the pandemic, which has had a far worse impact in the U.S. than elsewhere. Yet apparently the same world view that led Mr. Trump and his supporters to deride mask-wearing, social distancing and a ban on large gatherings has led them to dismiss the pandemic as a Democratic conspiracy to “steal the election” from the incumbent, allegedly through massive voting fraud. The truth is that even before this election, the rate of voting fraud was statistically insignificant, according to non-partisan studies. It is therefore unsurprising that despite Mr. Trump and his supporters firing off a string of election-related lawsuits, most legal manoeuvres of this sort have failed, leaving ever fewer avenues for the Trump team to finagle the result from certification.

However, even if all legal challenges foisted by Mr. Trump peter out, the losers of this election may sabotage the transition process to such an extent that it hobbles the Biden administration taking charge on January 20, 2021, an act of calculated vindictiveness aimed at throwing cold water on a democratically elected successor. It appears that the Biden transition team is not taking this possibility lightly, and is expediently seeking a critical sign-off from the head of the General Services Administration, the so-called “ascertainment” that is required, recognising the “apparent successful candidate” in a presidential election as a precursor to disbursing critical funds and infrastructural resources to the next administration. To date, GSA chief Emily Murphy has not officially recognised Mr. Biden’s win, potentially denying his team up to $6.3 million that Congress has appropriated for the transition process. Even if this barrier is somehow transcended, Mr. Biden has a tough road ahead because if Republicans hold the Senate, it is only through tireless cat-and-mouse negotiations with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell that Mr. Biden will be able to get his legislative agenda and Cabinet and other government nominees passed in the Upper House. Mr. Trump is doubtless emboldened by the 10 million-vote increase in his tally over 2016, but his final act of intransigence is scorching the landscape of the incoming administration, and thus harming the recovery prospects of the country he claims to love.