Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Providing alternative investment destination to China and policy changes in India
The article examines whether India has been proving a favourable alternative to China or not.
Is India becoming alternate supply source and investment destination?
- Despite media reports and strong messaging from Washington, fewer U.S. companies than predicted might quit China.
- Companies focused on the Chinese domestic market rather than as a base for exports will likely remain, at least for now.
- Those that do leave may not choose India as a relocation destination.
- Many U.S. companies with experience working with China are not convinced that India has China’s established industrial base and expertise.
- They also see other Asian countries as more competitive.
India’s strengths
- Democracy: India’s identity as a democratic “un-China” is one of its strongest selling points.
- Strong IPR: There is no threat of stealing of intellectual property rights.
- No coercive tactics: Foreign companies in India are not subject to coercive tactics as in China.
- Institutions: India’s open and vibrant press, an independent judiciary, and other advantages of democratic governance also provide a contrast to China.
- Domestic market:India’s well-off domestic market also attracts foreign investors.
Why China is a favoured destination
- China offers many advantages, such as a manufacturing infrastructure and skill level that allows innovations to move quickly from prototype to product.
- China’s specialised industrial zones are massive, collocating companies, factories, logistics, and even research and universities.
Way forward
1) Focus on the States
- India can start by focusing development in those Indian States that have already demonstrated the ability to produce and export in key sectors.
- Foreign capital could also greatly increase infrastructure funds beyond government spending alone.
- India might also usefully build up new industrial centres with an eye to geography. [for instance-linking the southeast of the country to supply chains in Southeast Asia]
2) Focus on the policy framework
- India should take two great steps-
- 1) Reduce the number of investments needing approval by the Centre.
- 2)To increase intra-Ministry coordination on foreign direct investment policies.
- The same coordination could be extended to the appointment of a high-level official or body in the Prime Minister’s Office.
- This will ensure that all proposed economic policy changes are consistent with the goal of attracting foreign investment.
Conclusion
A policy framework that is transparent, predictable, and provides increased consultations with existing and potential foreign company stakeholders before introducing new Indian economic policies, will play a crucial role in determining India’s foreign investment outlook.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Various indicators in Ease of Doing Business index
Mains level: Paper 3- Ease of doing business Index and issues with it
India’s ranking in the World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business’ index has improved spectacularly. However, the World Bank recently halted its publication and announced decision to review and assess data changes for last five years.
Background
- Citing irregularities of data for a few countries, the World Bank halted its annual publication ‘Doing Business’ report.
- It will conduct a systematic review and assessment of data changes that occurred subsequent to the institutional data review process for the last five Doing Business reports.
Why India should be concerned
- Through improved ranking India sought to attract investments to achieve the targets set for ‘Make in India’.
- India’s success in boosting its ease of doing business ranking is spectacular, to 63rd rank in 2019, up from the 142nd position in 2014.
- Policymakers celebrated it to signal India’s commitment to “minimum government and maximum governance”.
- The World Bank decision to audit the ‘Doing Business’ report for the last five years may soon cause discomfort by shining a spotlight on the sharp rise in India’s ranking.
- Study at the Center for Global Development found that the improvement in India’s ranking was almost entirely due to methodological changes.
- During the same period, however, Chile’s global rank went down sharply, from 34th position in 2014 to 67th in 2017.
- The contrasting experience of Chile and India casts doubts on not just the country-level data but also the changes in underlying methodologies.
Does ease of doing business have predictive power?
- While India’s rank drastically improved, it has meant nothing on the ground.
- The share of the manufacturing sector has stagnated at around 16-17% of GDP, and 3.5 million jobs were lost between 2011-12 and 2017-18.
- Annual GDP growth rate in manufacturing fell from 13.1% in 2015-16 to zero in 2019-20, as per the National Accounts Statistics.
- India’s import dependence on China has shot up.
- In case of Russia, ease of doing business rank jumped from 120 in 2012 to 20, but without becoming a magnet for investment inflows.
- China, on the contrary, attracted one of the highest capital inflows but its ease of doing business ranking was low and hovered between 78 and 96 for the years between 2006 and 2017.
Other flaws in the Index
- The Indicators used for the index are de jure (as per the statute), not de facto (in reality).
- The data for computing the index are obtained from larger enterprises in two cities, Mumbai and Delhi, by lawyers, accountants and brokers — not from entrepreneurs.
- The World Bank’s own internal watchdog, the Independent Evaluation Group, in its 2013 report, has widely questioned the reliability and objectivity of the index.
- The World Bank conducts a global enterprise survey collecting information from companies.
- There is no correlation between the rankings obtained from ease of doing business and the enterprise surveys.
Lack of theoretical basis: Major flaw
- There is little in any major strand of economic thought which suggests that minimally regulated markets for labour and capital produce superior outcomes in terms of output and employment.
- Economic history shows rich variations in performance across countries and policy regimes, defying simplistic generalisations.
- Such simplistic basis is used under a seemingly scientific garb of the quantitative index to the disadvantage of workers.
- To meet the ease of doing business targets, safety standards of factories are compromised.
- For instance, in 2016, the Maharashtra government abolished the annual mandatory inspection of steam boilers under the Boilers Act of 1923 and the Indian Boilers Regulation 1950.
- However, no factory has complied with self-certification or submitted the third party certification.
Consider the question “Examine the issues with the World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business Index’? What are its implications for India?”
Conclusion
It is time the World Bank rethinks its institutional investment in producing the ‘Doing Business’ report. India should do some soul searching as to why the much trumpeted rise in global ranking has failed miserably on the ground.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Rights of PWDs
The United Nations has released it’s first-ever guidelines on access to social justice for people with disabilities to make it easier for them to access justice systems around the world.
Note: These guidelines can be used in mains answer while substantiating their rights.
Defining a person with a disability
- The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted in 2007 as the first major instrument of human rights in the 21st century.
- It defines persons with disabilities as those “who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”.
Highlights of the Guidelines
The guidelines outline a set of 10 principles and detail the steps for implementation. The 10 principles are:
- Principle 1: All persons with disabilities have the legal capacity and, therefore, no one shall be denied access to justice on the basis of disability.
- Principle 2: Facilities and services must be universally accessible to ensure equal access to justice without discrimination of persons with disabilities.
- Principle 3: PWDS including children with disabilities, have the right to appropriate procedural accommodations.
- Principle 4: PWDS have the right to access legal notices and information in a timely and accessible manner on an equal basis with others.
- Principle 5: PWDS are entitled to all substantive and procedural safeguards recognized in international law on an equal basis with others, and States must provide the necessary accommodations to guarantee due process.
- Principle 6: PWDS have the right to free or affordable legal assistance.
- Principle 7: PWDS have the right to participate in the administration of justice on an equal basis with others.
- Principle 8: PWDS have the rights to report complaints and initiate legal proceedings concerning human rights violations and crimes, have their complaints investigated and be afforded effective remedies.
- Principle 9: Effective and robust monitoring mechanisms play a critical role in supporting access to justice for persons with disabilities.
- Principle 10: All those working in the justice system must be provided with awareness-raising and training programmes addressing the rights of persons with disabilities, in particular in the context of access to justice.
Significance for India
- As per statistics maintained by the UN, in India 2.4 per cent of males are disabled and two per cent of females from all age groups are disabled.
- Disabilities include psychological impairment, intellectual impairment, speaking, multiple impairments, hearing, seeing among others.
- In comparison, the disability prevalence in the US is 12.9 per cent among females and 12.7 per cent among males.
- Disability prevalence in the UK is at 22.7 per cent among females and 18.7 per cent among males.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Common Electoral Roll
Mains level: One Nation One Election Idea
The Prime Minister’s Office earlier this month held a meeting with representatives of the Election Commission and the Law Ministry to discuss the possibility of having a common electoral roll for elections to the panchayat, municipality, state assembly and the Lok Sabha.
Try this question:
Q.Discuss how a common electoral roll and simultaneous elections are ways to save the enormous amount of effort and expenditure on Elections in India.
Electoral Rolls in India
- In many states, the voters’ list for the panchayat and municipality elections is different from the one used for Parliament and Assembly elections.
- The distinction stems from the fact that the supervision and conduct of elections in our country are entrusted with two constitutional authorities — the Election Commission (EC) of India and the State ECs.
- Set up in 1950, the EC is charged with the responsibility of conducting polls to the offices of the President and Vice-President of India, and to Parliament, the state assemblies and the legislative councils.
- The SECs, on the other hand, supervise municipal and panchayat elections. They are free to prepare their own electoral rolls for local body elections, and this exercise does not have to be coordinated with the EC.
So do all states have a separate voters list for their local body elections?
- Each SEC is governed by a separate state Act. Some state laws allow the SEC to borrow and use the EC’s voter’s rolls in toto for the local body elections.
- In others, the state commission uses the EC’s voters list as the basis for the preparation and revision of rolls for municipality and panchayat elections.
- Currently, all states, except UP, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Assam, MP, Kerala, Odisha, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and the UT of Jammu and Kashmir, adopt EC’s rolls for local body polls.
Why need a common electoral roll?
- First, the common electoral roll is among the promises made by the govt. in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections last year.
- It ties in with the party’s commitment to hold elections simultaneously to the Lok Sabha, state assemblies and local bodies, which is also mentioned in the manifesto.
- The incumbent government has pitched a common electoral roll and simultaneous elections as a way to save an enormous amount of effort and expenditure.
- It has argued that the preparation of a separate voters list causes duplication of essentially the same task between two different agencies, thereby duplicating the effort and the expenditure.
- The pitch for a single voters list is not new. The Law Commission recommended it in its 255th report in 2015. The EC too adopted a similar stance in 1999 and 2004.
How it can be implemented?
- In the meeting called by the PMO, two options were discussed.
- First, a constitutional amendment to Articles 243K and 243ZA that gives the power of superintendence, direction and control of preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of local body elections to the SECs.
- The amendment would make it mandatory to have a single electoral roll for all elections in the country.
- Second, to persuade the state governments to tweak their respective laws and adopt the Election Commission’s (EC) voters list for municipal and panchayat polls.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Art. 370
Mains level: Administrative changes in J and K
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has notified new rules for administration in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir that specify the functions of the Lieutenant Governor (LG) and the Council of Ministers.
New Rules for J&K
- The new rules have been defined under Section 55 of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, 2019.
What are they?
(1)Executive functions of the L-G
- According to the rules the “police, public order, All India Services and anti-corruption” will fall under the executive functions of the L-G.
- Chief Minister or the Council of Ministers will have no say in their functioning.
(2)Minority Community interests
- The proposals or matters which affect or are likely to affect peace and tranquillity or the interest of any minority community, the SCs, the STs and the Backward Classes shall essentially be submitted to the LG through the Chief Secretary, under intimation to the CM, before issuing any orders.
(3)Service Matters
- The Council of Ministers, led by the CM, will decide service matters of non-All India Services officers, proposal to impose a new tax, land revenue, sale grant or lease of government property, reconstituting departments or offices and draft legislation.
(4)Difference of Opinion
- In case of difference of opinion between the L-G and a Minister when no agreement could be reached even after a month, the “decision of the Lieutenant Governor shall be deemed to have been accepted by the Council of Ministers”.
(5)Relation with the Centre
- According to the rules, “any matter which is likely to bring the Government of the UT into controversy with the Central Government or with any State Government” shall be brought to the notice of the L-G and the CM by the Secretary concerned through the Chief Secretary.
- All communications received from the Centre, including those from the PM and other Ministers, shall be submitted by the Secretary to the Chief Secretary, the Minister in charge, the CM and the L-G for information after their receipt.
(6)Various departments
- Under the rules, there will be 39 departments in the UT, such as school education, agriculture, higher education, horticulture, election, general administration, home, mining, power, Public Works Department, tribal affairs and transport.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Noor Inayat Khan
Mains level: Not Much
World War II spy Noor Inayat Khan is now the first woman of Indian origin to be commemorated by the distinct blue London plaque.
Try this PYQ:
Q.A recent movie titled “The Man Who Knew Infinity” is based on the biography of-
(a) S. Ramanujan
(b) S. Chandrasekhar
(c) S. N. Bose
(d) C. V. Raman
Noor Inayat Khan
- A descendant of Tipu Sultan, Noor Inayat Khan became a secret agent during the Second World War.
- She was the first woman radio operator to be infiltrated into occupied France in 1943 and worked under the code name ‘Madeleine’.
- Renowned for her service in the Special Operations Executive, an independent British secret service set up by Winston Churchill in 1940.
- Noor was Britain’s first Indian Muslim war heroine in Europe and the first female radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France.
- She was killed at the Dachau concentration camp in 1944 and was posthumously awarded the George Cross in 1949.
What are Blue Plaques?
- The idea of placing commemorative plaques on historically significant buildings was first mooted in 1863.
- The idea was to honour important people and organisations that have lived or worked in London buildings.
- Currently, the blue plaque scheme is being run by the charity organisation, English Heritage that takes care of historic sites and buildings in England.
- While Khan is the first woman of Indian origin to be honoured with a blue plaque, it has been erected on houses and venues associated with several Indian men including Mahatma Gandhi, Raja Ram Mohun Roy, B R Ambedkar, Sardar Patel and Swami Vivekananda among others.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GI Indications in news
Mains level: NA
The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a crippling blow to the Channapatna Toys industry.
Must read:
GI Tags in news for 2020 Prelims
All time GI tags in news
Channapatna Toys
- Channapatna toys are a particular form of wooden toys (and dolls) that are manufactured in the town of Channapatna in the Ramanagara district of Karnataka.
- This traditional craft is protected as a geographical indication (GI) under the World Trade Organization, administered by the state govt.
- As a result of the popularity of these toys, Channapatna is known as Gombegala Ooru (toy-town) of Karnataka.
- Traditionally, the work involved lacquering the wood of the Wrightia tinctoria tree, colloquially called Aale mara (ivory-wood).
- Their manufacture goes back at least 200 years according to most accounts and it has been traced to the era of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan in the 18th century.
- The toys are laced with vegetable dyes and colours devoid of chemicals and hence they are safe for children.
Back2Basics: Geographical Indications in India
- A Geographical Indication is used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin.
- Such a name conveys an assurance of quality and distinctiveness which is essentially attributable to its origin in that defined geographical locality.
- This tag is valid for a period of 10 years following which it can be renewed.
- Recently the Union Minister of Commerce and Industry has launched the logo and tagline for the Geographical Indications (GI) of India.
- The first product to get a GI tag in India was the Darjeeling tea in 2004.
- The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 (GI Act) is a sui generis Act for the protection of GI in India.
- India, as a member of the WTO enacted the Act to comply with the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
- GI protection is granted through the TRIPS Agreement.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now