Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Gender Gap Report
Mains level: Paper 2- Gender discrimination
The recently released Gener Gap Report paints a grim picture for India. The deal with this issue.
Where India Stands
- The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report 2021 was released last week.
- The report lays bare our silent crisis of gender inequality, aggravated by the covid pandemic.
- India has slipped 28 places to 140th position among 156 countries on the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Index.
- The country is now 37.5% short of an ideal situation of equality, by its index, last year it was a 33.2% deficit on the whole.
- Back in 2006, we were almost 40% short, but even the slight progress made over the past 15 years has been highly uneven.
- Gains were made on the education and political empowerment of women, we slid sharply on health and economic parameters.
Factors to consider
- Though pandemic has been responsible for the decline to a significant extent, many of our deficiencies are pre-covid.
- Some of the drop in India’s international rank over the past two years, for example, has to do with regression in the field of political power.
- The proportion of women ministers more than halved to 9.1% of the total, though our count of female Parliamentarians did not budge from its long stagnancy.
- Our performance over the past decade-and-a-half has been poor on women’s economic opportunities and participation.
- Indian workforce has been turning more predominantly male.
- Senior managerial positions in the corporate sector have not seen sufficient female appointees.
- At the aggregate level, our income disparity is glaring.
- Women earn only a fifth of men, which puts India among the world’s worst 10 on this indicator.
- We fare worse on women’s health and survival, with India beaten to the last rank only by China.
Why proportionally fewer Indian women in jobs?
- One explanation is that sociocultural attitudes go against women going out to work, unless the family lacks sustenance, and deprivation has been in decline for decades.
- Another is that families prefer educated mothers to invest time in teaching their kids.
- Both these motives are said to be influenced by upward income mobility and a quest for better lives.
- Yet, the covid setback to both family incomes and gender progress would suggest the reasons are mostly attitudinal.
Way forward
- If the reasons are attitudinal, tax incentives and other schemes are unlikely to get women taking up more jobs.
- What we need are new forms of social persuasion, which must go with credible assurances of gender equity in every sphere.
Conclusion
A country’s economic progress is inextricably linked to empowered women. So, India needs to act on the silent crisis of India’s gender deficit to move up the economic ladder.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NATO
Mains level: Paper 3- Why India should engage NATO
India has jettisoned many of its foreing policy shibboleths of late, however, avoiding NATO is not one of them. The article suggests engaging NATO to be in sync with the changing geopolitics.
Why India avoided engagement with NATO in the past
- India’s real problem is not with NATO, but with Delhi’s difficulty in thinking strategically about Europe.
- Through the colonial era, Calcutta and Delhi viewed Europe through British eyes.
- After Independence, Delhi tended to see Europe through the Russian lens.
- The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union demanded a fresh approach to Europe.
- But Delhi could not devote the kind of strategic attention that Europe demanded.
- The bureaucratisation of the engagement between Delhi and Brussels and the lack of high-level political interest prevented India from taking full advantage of a re-emerging Europe.
- In the last few years, Delhi has begun to develop an independent European framework, but has some distance to go in consolidating it.
Ending political neglect of Europe
- India has certainly sought to end prolonged political neglect of Europe.
- The deepening maritime partnership with France since 2018 is an example.
- Joining the Franco-German Alliance for Multilateralism in 2019 is another.
- India’s first summit with Nordic nations in 2018 was a recognition that Europe is not a monolith but a continent of sub-regions.
- India’s engagement with Central Europe’s Visegrad Four also highlighted the fact that Europe is not monolith.
Why India should engage NATO
- During the Cold War, India’s refusal was premised on its non-alignment.
- That argument had little justification once the Cold War ended during 1989-91.
- An India-NATO dialogue would simply mean having regular contact with a military alliance, most of whose members are well-established partners of India.
- If Delhi is eager to draw a reluctant Russia into discussions on the Indo-Pacific, it makes little sense in avoiding engagement with NATO.
- If Delhi does military exercises with China and Pakistan — under the rubric of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), why should talking to NATO be anathema?
- To play any role in the Indo-Pacific, Europe and NATO need partners like India, Australia and Japan.
- Delhi, in turn, knows that no single power can produce stability and security in the Indo-Pacific.
- India’s enthusiasm for the Quad is a recognition of the need to build coalitions.
- A sustained dialogue between India and NATO could facilitate productive exchanges in a range of areas, including terrorism, changing geopolitics; the evolving nature of military conflict, the role of emerging military technologies, and new military doctrines.
- More broadly, an institutionalised engagement with NATO should make it easier for Delhi to deal with the military establishments of its 30 member states.
- On a bilateral front, each of the members has much to offer in strengthening India’s national capabilities.
What about Russia
- Russia has not made a secret of its allergy to the Quad and Delhi’s growing closeness with Washington.
- Putting NATO into that mix is unlikely to make much difference.
- Delhi, in turn, can’t be happy with the deepening ties between Moscow and Beijing.
- As mature states, India and Russia know they have to insulate their bilateral relationship from the larger structural trends buffeting the world today.
- Meanwhile, both Russia and China have intensive bilateral engagement with Europe.
Consider the question “India has to end its prolonged political neglect of Europe and engage a major European institution like NATO. In light of this, examine the factors restraining India’s engagement with the Europe.“
Conclusion
India’s continued reluctance to engage a major European institution like NATO will be a stunning case of strategic self-denial and we should avoid it.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Issues with bond market in India and its effect on cost of borrowing of the government
What explains the Indian government borrowing at a higher interest rate than the interest rates for a home loan? The answer lies in the structural shortage in demand for government bonds.
How the government’s cost of borrowing matter
- Interest on government debt is a transfer from taxpayers to savers who own government bonds.
- As the government bondholders are primarily domestic, interest paid by the government is just a transfer from one hand to the other within the economy.
- However, the government’s cost of borrowing does matter.
- The large increase in interest costs limits the government’s ability to spend elsewhere.
- But more importantly, this rate also affects the cost of borrowing for large parts of the economy.
Understanding the term premium and credit spread
- The RBI sets the repo rate, which is the short-term risk-free rate.
- That is, the loan must be repaid in a few days and there is almost no risk of default.
- The rate at which the government borrows is the long-term risk-free rate.
- But the lender wants higher returns given the longer duration of the loan.
- The difference between the repo rate and government’s borrowing cost, say on a 10-year loan, is called the term premium.
- When a private firm takes a 10-year loan, it would have some credit risk too, which means a credit spread is added to the 10-year risk-free rate.
Challenge posed by term premium
- From an average rate of 73 basis points since 2011 (one basis point is one-hundredth of a per cent), and 120 basis points in 2018 and 2019, the 10-year term premium is currently 215 basis points.
- In other words, the interest rate for a 10-year period borrowing is 2.15 per cent higher than the current repo rate.
How this is related to dysfunction in bond market in India
- Financial markets are forward-looking, and as the collective expression of the views of thousands of participants, efficient ones can occasionally “predict” what comes next.
- But the Indian bond market is not one such: The view some hold, that the rise in term premium reflects future rate hikes by the monetary policy committee (MPC), is mistaken.
- The Indian bond market is still too illiquid and not diverse enough to predict future trends.
- Even though some pandemic-driven measures are being withdrawn, the MPC continues to be accommodative, and for several months at least, headline inflation is unlikely to force an abrupt change.
- In any case, the spurt in yields after the budget points to the causality being fiscal instead of inflation-related.
- But even the fiscal rationale seems weak.
- The Centre’s tax collection for FY2020-21 has been substantially ahead of target, and state governments have also borrowed Rs 60,000 crore less than expected.
- Also, the14 states, accounting for three-fourths of all state deficits, have budgeted FY2021-22 deficits at 3.3 per cent, far lower than the 4 per cent average expected earlier.
- Just these factors suggest that total bonds issued by the central and state governments should be lower than what the market had feared before the union budget was presented.
- And yet, government borrowing costs have not returned to pre-budget levels.
- This reflects dysfunction in the market.
- Why else would a government be borrowing at a higher cost than a mortgage on a house?
What is the reason for dysfunction in bond market
- Dysfunction can be traced to residential mortgages being among the most competitive of loan categories.
- On the other hand, there is a structural shortage in demand for government bonds.
- In such a market where there is a structural shortage in demand the marginal buyer holds all the cards, and as any buyer would, demands higher returns.
- Over 15 years, the share of banks in the ownership of outstanding central government bonds has fallen from 53 per cent to 40 per cent now.
- But no alternative buyer of size has emerged to fill the space vacated.
- The RBI sometimes buys bonds to inject money into the economy, but of late this space has been used to buy dollars to save the rupee from appreciation.
Solutions
- The solution to the problem of bond market may lie in getting new types of buyers.
- The RBI opening up direct purchases by retail investors is a step in this direction, though it may not become meaningful for a few years.
- That leaves us with tapping foreign savings.
- The limit on share of government bonds that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) can buy has been raised steadily.
- But without Indian bonds being included in global bond indices, these flows may not be meaningful, and would be volatile, as they have been over the past year.
- To enable inclusion in bond indices, the RBI and the government have earmarked special-category bonds which are fully accessible (FAR) by foreign investors.
- The FTSE putting India on a watch-list for “potential future inclusion” in the Emerging Markets Government Bonds Index is a step forward, and, one hopes, triggers similar actions by other index providers.
Consider the question “How the lack of retailness in the bond market affects the cost of borrowing of the government as well as the private borrowers? Suggest the measures to deal with the issues.”
Conclusion
The issues with bond markets in India highlights the urgency to find new buyers for government bond as it has implications not just for the government’s own fiscal space, but also for the cost of borrowing in the economy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Swiss Challenge, Pre-Packs
Mains level: Debt recovery under IBC
The central government has promulgated an ordinance allowing the use of pre-packs as an insolvency resolution mechanism for MSMEs with defaults up to Rs 1 crore, under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.
Read till the end to know about the ‘Swiss Challenge’.
What are Pre-packs?
- A pre-pack is the resolution of the debt of a distressed company through an agreement between secured creditors and investors instead of a public bidding process.
- This system of insolvency proceedings has become an increasingly popular mechanism for insolvency resolution in the UK and Europe over the past decade.
- Under the pre-pack system, financial creditors will agree to terms with a potential investor and seek approval of the resolution plan from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
- The approval of a minimum of 66 percent of financial creditors that are unrelated to the corporate debtor would be required before a resolution plan is submitted to the NCLT.
- Further NCLTs are also required to either accept or reject any application for a pre-pack insolvency proceeding before considering a petition for a CIRP.
Benefits of pre-packs over the CIRP
- One of the key criticisms of the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) has been the time taken for resolution.
- One of the key reasons behind delays in the CIRPs is prolonged litigations by erstwhile promoters and potential bidders.
- The pre-pack in contrast is limited to a maximum of 120 days with only 90 days available to the stakeholders to bring the resolution plan to the NCLT.
- The existing management retains control in the case of pre-packs while a resolution professional takes control of the debtor as a representative of creditors in the case of CIRP.
- This allows for minimal disruption of operations relative to a CIRP.
What is the key motivation behind the introduction of the pre-pack?
- Pre-packs are largely aimed at providing MSMEs with an opportunity to restructure their liabilities and start with a clean slate.
- It provides adequate protections so that the system is not misused by firms to avoid making payments to creditors.
- Pre-packs help corporate debtors to enter into consensual restructuring with lenders and address the entire liability side of the company.
How are creditors protected?
- The pre-pack also provides adequate protection to ensure the provisions were not misused by errant promoters.
- The pre-pack mechanism allows for a swiss challenge for any resolution plans which proved less than full recovery of dues for operational creditors.
- Under the swiss challenge mechanism, any third party would be permitted to submit a resolution plan for the distressed company and the original applicant would have to either match the improved resolution plan or forego the investment.
- Creditors are also permitted to seek resolution plans from any third party if they are not satisfied with the resolution plan put forth by the promoter.
Back2Basics: Swiss Challenge
- A Swiss Challenge is a method of bidding, often used in public projects, in which an interested party initiates a proposal for a contract or the bid for a project.
- The government then puts the details of the project out in the public and invites proposals from others interested in executing it.
- On the receipt of these bids, the original contractor gets an opportunity to match the best bid.
- In 2009, the Supreme Court approved this method for the award of contracts.
- This method can be applied to projects that are taken up on a PPP basis but can also be used to supplement PPP in sectors that are not covered under the PPP framework.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Appointment and removal of SC Judge
Mains level: CJI Appointment
The President of India, in the exercise of the powers conferred by clause (2) of Article 124 of the Constitution of India, appointed Shri Justice NV Ramana, a Judge of the Supreme Court, to be the CJI.
Chief Justice of India
- The CJI is the chief judge of the Supreme Court of India as well as the highest-ranking officer of the Indian federal judiciary.
Appointment
- The Constitution of India grants power to the President to nominate, and with the advice and consent of the Parliament, appoint a chief justice, who serves until they reach the age of 65 or until removed by impeachment.
- Earlier, it was a convention to appoint seniormost judges.
- However, this has been broken twice. In 1973, Justice A. N. Ray was appointed superseding 3 senior judges.
- Also, in 1977 Justice Mirza Hameedullah Beg was appointed as the chief justice superseding Justice Hans Raj Khanna.
Qualifications
The Indian Constitution says in Article 124 (3) that in order to be appointed as a judge in the Supreme Court of India, the person has to fit in the following criteria:
- He/She is a citizen of India and
- has been for at least five years a Judge of a High Court or of two or more such Courts in succession; or
- has been for at least ten years an advocate of a High Court or of two or more such Courts in succession; or
- is, in the opinion of the President, a distinguished jurist
Functions
- As head of the Supreme Court, the CJI is responsible for the allocation of cases and appointment of constitutional benches which deal with important matters of law.
- In accordance with Article 145 of the Constitution and the Supreme Court Rules of Procedure of 1966, the chief justice allocates all work to the other judges.
On the administrative side, the CJI carries out the following functions:
- maintenance of the roster; appointment of court officials and general and miscellaneous matters relating to the supervision and functioning of the Supreme Court
Try this PYQ:
Q. Who/Which of the following is the custodian of the Constitution of India?
(a) The President of India
(b) The Prime Minister of India
(c) The Lok Sabha Secretariat
(d) The Supreme Court of India
Removal
- Article 124(4) of the Constitution lays down the procedure for removal of a judge of the Supreme Court which is applicable to chief justices as well.
- Once appointed, the chief justice remains in the office until the age of 65 years. He can be removed only through a process of removal by Parliament as follows:
- He/She can be removed by an order of the President passed after an address by each House of Parliament supported by a majority of the total membership of that House and by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of that House present.
- The voting has been presented to the President in the same session for such removal on the ground of proved misbehavior or incapacity.
About Justice Ramana
- Justice Ramana will take over as 48th Chief Justice of India.
- He is a first-generation lawyer, having an agricultural background, and hails from Ponnavaram Village, Krishna District in Andhra Pradesh.
- He is an avid reader and literature enthusiast. He is passionate about Carnatic music.
His legal career
- He was called on to the Bar on 10.02.1983.
- Initially, he was appointed as a Permanent Judge of Andhra Pradesh High Court on 27.06.2000. He also functioned as Acting Chief Justice of his parent High Court from 10.3.2013 to 20.5.2013.
- He practiced in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, Central and Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunals, and the Supreme Court of India.
- He specialized in Constitutional, Civil, Labour, Service, and Election matters. He has also practiced before Inter-State River Tribunals.
- He served as Judge of the Supreme Court of India from 17.02.2014.
- He has also served as the Executive Chairman of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) since 27.11.2019.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Sadabahar mango
Mains level: GMO crops
A farmer from Kota, Rajasthan, has developed a round-the-year dwarf variety of mango called Sadabahar, which is resistant to most major diseases and common mango disorders.
Try this PYQ:
Q.With reference to the Genetically Modified mustard (GM mustard) developed in India, consider the following statements:
- GM mustard has the genes of a soil bacterium that give the plant the property of pest-resistance to a wide variety of pests.
- GM mustard has the genes that allow the plant cross-pollination and hybridization.
- GM mustard has been developed jointly by the IARI and Punjab Agricultural University.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (CSP 2018)
(a) 1 and 3 only
(b) 2 only
(c) 2 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Sadabahar
- The fruit is sweeter in taste, comparable to langra and being a dwarf variety, is suitable for kitchen gardening, high-density plantation, and can be grown in pots for some years too.
- Besides, the flesh of the fruits, which is bourn round the year, is deep orange with a sweet taste, and the pulp has very little fiber content which differentiates it from other varieties.
- The bountiful nutrients packed in mango are immensely good for health.
- This variety has been verified by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), India, an autonomous institution of the Department of Science & Technology.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IHIP
Mains level: Digital health mission
The Union Minister of Health & Family Welfare has launched the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP).
About IHIP
- The new version of IHIP will house the data entry and management for India’s disease surveillance program.
- In addition to tracking 33 diseases now as compared to the earlier 18 diseases, it shall ensure near-real-time data in digital mode, having done away with the paper mode of working.
Various functions
- IHIP will provide a health information system developed for real-time, case-based information, integrated analytics, advanced visualization capability.
- It will provide analyzed reports on mobile or other electronic devices. In addition, outbreak investigation activities can be initiated and monitored electronically.
- It can easily be integrated with another ongoing surveillance program while having the feature of the addition of special surveillance modules.
Unique features
- This is the world’s biggest online disease surveillance platform.
- It is in sync with the National Digital Health Mission and fully compatible with the other digital information systems presently being used in India.
- The refined IHIP with automated -data will help in a big way in real-time data collection, aggregation & further analysis of data that will aid and enable evidence-based policymaking.
- With IHIP, the collection of authentic data will become easy as it comes directly from the village/block level; the last mile from the country.
- With its implementation, we are fast marching towards AtmaNirbhar Bharat in healthcare through the use of technology.
Also read:
[Burning Issue] Rolling-out of National Digital Health Mission
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Global Gender Gap Index
Mains level: Gender disparities in India
India has slipped 28 places to rank 140th among 156 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021, becoming the third-worst performer in South Asia.
For the 12th time, Iceland is the most gender-equal country in the world. The top 10 most gender-equal countries include Finland, Norway, New Zealand, Rwanda, Sweden, Ireland and Switzerland.
Global Gender Gap Index
- The report is annually published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
- It benchmarks countries on their progress towards gender parity in four dimensions: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political Empowerment.
- The report aims to serve “as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men on health, education, economy and politics”.
Highlights of the 2021 report
Indian prospects
According to the report, India has closed 62.5% of its gender gap to date.
- Economic participation: India’s gender gap on this dimension widened by 3% this year, leading to a 32.6% gap closed to date.
- Political empowerment: India regressed 13.5 percentage points, with a significant decline in the number of women ministers.
- Income: Further, the estimated earned income of women in India is only one-fifth of men’s, which puts the country among the bottom 10 globally on this indicator.
- Health: Discrimination against women is also reflected in the health and survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex.
- Violence: Wide gaps in sex ratio at birth are due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. In addition, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime, the report said.
India’s neighbourhood
- In South Asia, only Pakistan and Afghanistan ranked below India.
- Among India’s neighbours, Bangladesh ranked 65, Nepal 106, Pakistan 153, Afghanistan 156, Bhutan 130 and Sri Lanka 116.
- Among regions, South Asia is the second-lowest performer on the index, with 62.3% of its overall gender gap closed.
- Within the region, a wide gulf separates the best-performing country, Bangladesh, which has closed 71.9% of its gender gap so far, from Afghanistan, which has only closed 44.4% of its gap.
- Because of its large population, India’s performance has a substantial impact on the region’s overall performance.
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