Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NMP
Mains level: Paper 3- Issues with National Monetisation Policy
Context
Recently, FM announced the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) to lease a slew of “brownfield” (already developed) but underutilised public sector assets to the private sector with the objective of raising Rs 6 lakh crore.
About the NMP
- The assets identified for lease include roads, railways, ports, power, mining, aviation, oil and gas pipelines, warehouses, hotels and even two sports stadia.
- The idea is to create “structured public-private partnerships” to unlock value from public sector assets and to recycle the revenues so raised into new infrastructure.
- But the move raises several concerns.
3 concerns with NMP
1) Government is preferring financial value of assets over public welfare
- The design of the NMP is out of sync with existential challenges — global warming, pandemics, geopolitical chaos and fundamentalism.
- The assets are valued on the basis of conventional financial metrics (enterprise value, book value, net present value, the costs of comparable assets).
- The model seemingly absolves the government from the responsibility to unlock the intrinsic “social” (to include “smart” and “clean” ) value of these assets.
2) It will lead to concentration of capital
- NMP is designed to attract deep-pocketed financial institutions (PE firms) and industrial conglomerates.
- This is because the valuations are so high that few other entities will have the resources or the risk carrying capacity to respond.
- The result will be a deepening of the concentration of capital and existing inequalities.
- There will be economic and social implications.
3) Addressing the system problem
- The government should have asked itself a fundamental question before placing a substantial share of public assets on the block:
- Why have these assets been so poorly managed?
- Was it because of bad leadership, inadequate talent within the PSEs, and/or systemic and structural shortcomings?
- If the reason for low productivity was poor leadership or lack of talent, the transfer of these assets to a different, private sector-led organisational and investment structure would make sense.
- Structural issues: But if the reason had to do with structural impediments, then such a change may not be warranted, at least not in the first instance.
- The example, gas pipelines GAIL are hugely underutilized, but this is not because of the “inefficiency” of GAIL, the PSE operator.
- It is because of structural factors such as the shortage of domestic gas supplies; the regressive taxation system; the relatively uncompetitive price of gas and the perennial tussle between the Centre and state governments over land access.
- A similar point can be made about most of the other assets identified for monetisation.
- Their low productivity is because their PSE operators have faced a combination of systemic hurdles related to weak dispute resolution mechanisms; regulatory miasma; lack of transparency in governance; pricing distortions and intrusive bureaucratic intervention.
- Way forward: So, until and unless these systemic problems are addressed, the private sector will find it difficult to harness the full value of these assets and the transfer of operatorship to them will offer at best a partial palliative.
Conclusion
Private-public investment structures make sense, but they must be modeled to also generate social value. In today’s world, there are no shortcuts to sustainable development.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Environmental enteropathy
Mains level: Paper 2- Addressing the nutrition problem through WASH
Context
A recent UNICEF report stated that nearly 12 lakh children could die in low-income countries in the next six months due to a decrease in routine health services and an increase in wasting. Nearly three lakh such children would be from India.
Problem of nutrition in India and factors responsible for it
- The National Family Health Survey (NFHS 5) indicates that since the onset of the pandemic, acute undernourishment in children below the age of five has worsened.
- According to the latest data, 37.9 per cent of children under five are stunted, and 20.8 per cent are wasted — a form of malnutrition in which children are too thin for their height.
- Comparison with other countries: This is much higher than in other developing countries where, on average, 25 per cent of children suffer from stunting and 8.9 per cent are wasted.
- Factors: Inadequate dietary intake is the most direct cause of undernutrition.
- Several other factors also affect nutritional outcomes, such as contaminated drinking water, poor sanitation, and unhygienic living conditions.
- According to the World Health Organisation, 50 per cent of all mal- and under-nutrition can be traced to diarrhoea and intestinal worm infections.
- Nutrition and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are intricately linked, and changes in one tend, directly or indirectly, to affect the other.
- Poor hygiene and sanitation in developing countries lead to a sub-clinical condition called “environmental enteropathy” in children.
- Environmental enteropathy is a disorder of the intestine which prevents the proper absorption of nutrients, rendering them effectively useless.
- Childhood diarrhoea is a major public health problem in low- and middle-income countries, leading to high mortality in children under five.
- According to NFHS 4, approximately 9 percent of children under five years of age in India experience diarrhoeal disease.
Way forward
- Investment in WASH: The link between WASH and nutrition suggests that greater attention to, and investments in, WASH are a sure-shot way of bolstering the country’s nutritional status.
- Addressing nutrition sanitation problems together: Both WASH and nutrition must be addressed together through a lens of holistic, sustainable community engagement to enable long-term impact.
- One of the first instances of the link between WASH and nutrition appeared in the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, which urges states to ensure “adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking water” to combat disease and malnutrition.
- Safe drinking water, proper sanitation, and hygiene can significantly reduce diarrhoeal and nutritional deaths.
- Multistructural approach: What we require is a coordinated, multisectoral approach among the health, water, sanitation, and hygiene bodies, not to mention strong community engagement.
- WHO has estimated that access to proper water, hygiene, and sanitation can prevent the deaths of at least 8,60,000 children a year caused by undernutrition.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, all sides are working towards a common goal: A safe and healthy population and the hope that the 75th year of Independence becomes a watershed moment in India’s journey.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: BRICS summits headed by India
Mains level: Paper 2- BRICS and challenges
Context
The 13th BRICS summit is set to be held on September 9 in digital format under India’s chairmanship
Challenges and opportunities for BRICS
- The importance of BRICS is self-evident: it represents 42% of the world’s population, 30% of the land area, 24% of global GDP and 16% of international trade.
- Weathering geopolitical challenges: Member states have been carrying BRICS forward in an era of complex geopolitics.
- They have bravely continued holding dozens of meetings and summits, even as India-China relations were strained after Galwan valley incident.
- Internal challenges: There is also the reality of the strained relations of China and Russia with the West, and of serious internal challenges preoccupying both Brazil and South Africa.
- On the other hand, a potential bond emerged due to the battle against COVID-19.
- Challenges to trade ties: BRICS has been busy deepening trade and investment ties among its member states.
- The difficulty stems from China’s centrality and dominance of intra-BRICS trade flows.
- How to create a better internal balance remains a challenge, reinforced by the urgent need for diversification and strengthening of regional value chains.
- China’s aggression: Beijing’s aggressive policy, especially against India, puts BRICS solidarity under exceptional strain.
- Lack of support: BRICS countries have not done enough to assist the Global South to win their optimal support for their agenda.
Does BRICS truly matter?
- The grouping has gone through a reasonably productive journey.
- Acts as a bridge: It strove to serve as a bridge between the Global North and Global South.
- It developed a common perspective on a wide range of global and regional issues.
- It established the New Development Bank; created a financial stability net in the form of Contingency Reserve Arrangement; and is on the verge of setting up a Vaccine Research and Development Virtual Center.
Immediate goals: 4 priorities
- As the current chair, India has outlined four priorities.
- Reforms of multilateral institutions: The first is to pursue reform of multilateral institutions ranging from the United Nations, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to the World Trade Organization and now even the World Health Organization.
- Reform needs global consensus which is hardly feasible in the current climate of strategic contestation between the U.S. and China and the devastation caused by COVID-19.
- Nevertheless, Indian officials rightly remind us that BRICS emerged from the desire to challenge dominance (by the U.S.) in the early years of the century, and it remains committed to the goal of counter-dominance (by China) now.
- Combating terrorism: Tragic developments concerning Afghanistan have helped to focus attention sharply on this overarching theme, stressing the need to bridge the gap between rhetoric and action.
- China, for example, feels little hesitation in supporting clear-cut denunciations of terrorist groups and supports Pakistan, which is host to several international terrorist groups.
- BRICS is attempting to pragmatically shape its counter-terrorism strategy by crafting the BRICS Counter Terrorism Action Plan.
- Counter Terrorism Action Plan contains specific measures to fight radicalisation, terrorist financing and misuse of the Internet by terrorist groups.
- Technology and digital solution: Promoting technological and digital solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals and expanding people-to-people cooperation are the other two BRICS priorities.
Conclusion
It is necessary for leaders, officials and academics of this grouping to undertake serious soul-searching and find a way out of the present predicament.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Account Aggregators
Mains level: Read the attached story
Eight of India’s major banks — State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, IDFC First Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank, IndusInd Bank and Federal Bank has joined the Account Aggregator (AA) network that will enable customers to easily access and share their financial data.
What is an Account Aggregators (AA)?
- According to the RBI, an AA is a non-banking financial company engaged in the business of providing, under a contract, the service of retrieving or collecting financial information pertaining to its customer.
- It is also engaged in consolidating, organizing, and presenting such information to the customer or any other financial information user as may be specified by the bank.
- The AA framework was created through an inter-regulatory decision by RBI and other regulators.
- These regulators include SEBI, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, and Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) through an initiative of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC).
- The license for AAs is issued by the RBI, and the financial sector will have many AAs.
- The framework allows customers to avail themselves of various financial services from a host of providers on a single portal based on a consent method, under which the consumers can choose what financial data to share and with which entity.
What does an AA do?
- Reduce bank traffic: It reduces the need for individuals to wait in long bank queues, use Internet banking portals, share their passwords, or seek out physical notarization to access and share their financial documents.
- Data security: An AA is a financial utility for the secure flow of data controlled by the individual.
- Data flow: AA is an exciting addition to India’s digital infrastructure as it will allow banks to access consented data flows and verified data.
- Reduced cost: This will help banks reduce transaction costs, which will enable us to offer lower ticket size loans and more tailored products and services to our customers.
- Transaction security: It will also help us reduce fraud and comply with upcoming privacy laws.
How does it work?
- It has a three-tier structure:
- Account Aggregator
- FIP (Financial Information Provider) and
- FIU (Financial Information User)
- A FIP is the data fiduciary, which holds customers’ data. It can be a bank, NBFC, mutual fund, insurance repository, or pension fund repository.
- An FIU consumes the data from a FIP to provide various services to the consumer.
- An FIU is a lending bank that wants access to the borrower’s data to determine if the borrower qualifies for a loan.
- Banks play a dual role – as a FIP and as an FIU.
- An AA should not support transactions by customers but should ensure appropriate mechanisms for proper customer identification.
- An AA should share information only with the customer to whom it relates or any other financial information user as authorized by the customer
What purpose does it serve?
- AA creates secure, digital access to personal data at a time when Covid-19 has led to restrictions on physical interaction.
- It reduces the fraud associated with physical data by introducing secure digital signatures and end-to-end encryption for data sharing.
- These capabilities in turn open up many possibilities.
- For instance, whereas physical collateral is usually required for an MSME loan, with secure data sharing via AA, ‘information collateral’ (or data on future MSME income) can be used to access a small formal loan.
- HDFC Bank and Axis Bank have been using AA for auto loans, Lending Kart for MSME loans, and IndusInd Bank for personal finance management.
What data can be shared?
- An Account Aggregator allows a customer to transfer his financial information pertaining to various accounts such as banks deposits, equity, mutual fund, and pension funds to any entity requiring access to such information.
- There are 19 categories of information that fall under ‘financial information, besides various other categories relating to banking and investments.
- For sharing of such information, the FIU is required to initiate a request for consent by way of any platform/app run by the AA.
- Such a request is received by the individual customer through the AA, and the information is shared by the AA, after consent is obtained.
- The AA framework is an excellent initiative that will compile all the digital footprints of the customer in one place and make it easy for lenders like us to access it.
- It will enable us to provide very quick turnarounds to our customers.
Can an AA see or store data?
- Data transmitted through the AA is encrypted. AAs are not allowed to store, process and sell the customer’s data.
- No financial information accessed by the AA from a FIP should reside with the AA.
- It should not use the services of a third-party service provider for undertaking the business of account aggregation.
- User authentication credentials of customers relating to accounts with various FIPs shall not be accessed by the AA.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: RELOS
Mains level: Various logistics agreement mentioned
India is all set to conclude the bilateral logistics agreement with Russia soon while the agreement with the U.K. is in the final stages of conclusion.
What is Logistics Agreement?
- The agreements are administrative arrangements facilitating access to military facilities for exchange of fuel and provisions on mutual agreement simplifying logistical support and increasing operational turnaround of the military when operating away from India.
- India has signed several logistics agreements with all Quad countries, France, Singapore and South Korea beginning with the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) with the U.S. in 2016.
Reciprocal Exchange of Logistics Agreement (RELOS)
- RELOS gives India access to Russian facilities in the Arctic region which is seeing increased global activity as new shipping routes open up and India’s own investments in the Russian Far East.
- In addition, it comes at a time when both nations are looking at significantly scaling up the already broad military-to-military cooperation.
The RELOS is likely to be signed in a month or two while the one with the U.K. is in the final stages and should see a conclusion soon.
Foundational agreements with the US
- India has now signed all four foundational agreements with the US, LEMOA in 2016, Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) in 2018 and Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-Spatial Cooperation (BECA)in 2020.
- While the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) was signed a long time ago, an extension to it, the Industrial Security Annex (ISA), was signed in 2019.
- India now has access to encrypted communication systems from the U.S. under COMCASA and to geospatial information through BECA which cumulatively have been beneficial.
- The agreements with the US and those with Australia and Japan have been especially beneficial as they also operate several common military platforms along with India’s increasing share of U.S. origin platforms.
Back2Basics:
BECA
- BECA will help India get real-time access to American geospatial intelligence that will enhance the accuracy of automated systems and weapons like missiles and armed drones.
- Through the sharing of information on maps and satellite images, it will help India access topographical and aeronautical data, and advanced products that will aid in navigation and targeting.
LEMOA
- LEMOA was the first of the three pacts to be signed in August 2016.
- LEMOA allows the militaries of the US and India to replenish from each other’s bases, and access supplies, spare parts and services from each other’s land facilities, air bases, and ports, which can then be reimbursed.
- LEMOA is extremely useful for India-US Navy-to-Navy cooperation since the two countries are cooperating closely in the Indo-Pacific.
COMCASA
- COMCASA was signed in September 2018, after the first 2+2 dialogue during Mrs. Swarajs’ term as EAM.
- The pact allows the US to provide India with its encrypted communications equipment and systems so that Indian and US military commanders, and the aircraft and ships of the two countries, can communicate through secure networks during times of both peace and war.
- The signing of COMCASA paved the way for the transfer of communication security equipment from the US to India to facilitate “interoperability” between their forces.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Wood wide web
Mains level: Not Much
Plants appear to be simple enough in their organization. Whether small shrubs or tall trees, all they seem to be made up of is leaves, flowers, fruits, stems, and roots. But simple they are not. Being rooted in one spot has required very special personality traits.
Wood Wide Web
- Trees in the forest share resources by using an underground network.
- A scientist from the University of British Columbia, Dr. Suzanne Simard, revealed this network and called it the wood wide web.
- In the wood wide web, mycorrhizal fungi colonize the plant roots, and their tiny fungal filaments, or mycelia, connect hairy root tips of different trees together.
- Mycorrhizal fungi refer to the role they play in the plant’s root system—as symbionts.
- These root-associated fungi are harmless to plants. Instead, they form harmonious symbiotic relationships with plants.
An ancient association
- The association between plants and fungi is ancient.
- Fossils of plants from about 400 million years ago show the first evidence of roots, and these roots are fungus associations – rhizoids – suggesting that roots co-evolved with fungi.
- One good example is species of Penicillium, the fungus from which Alexander Fleming isolated the antibiotic penicillin.
- Fungus–root associations, called mycorrhizae, appear at first glance to be simple mutualisms that are beneficial to both.
- The root-invading fungus gains nutrients made by the plant, and the plants get difficult-to-find minerals like phosphorus from the microbe. But the association is deeper.
How does it work?
- The wood wide web works by offering a win-win situation for all parties: mycorrhizal fungi and trees.
- The fungal filaments transport nitrogen, phosphorous, water, and other hard-to-capture nutrients from the soil to the trees, in exchange for carbon-rich sugars made by the plants.
- The fungi also help deliver substances from one tree to its neighboring trees.
- By using the network, mature trees feed their seedlings with nutrients to boost their survival.
- When a plant is sick or dying, it can allocate its nutrients to the other plants nearby through the wood wide web.
Benefits offered
- Bacteria that associate with roots are called rhizobacteria, and a very wide range of these species are plant growth promoters.
- Like the fungi, mutualism operates in these relationships too. In exchange for sugars, these bacteria offer plants a wide range of benefits.
- They may help plants ward off pathogens that cause diseases of the root. They may even trigger systemic resistance to a pathogen throughout the plant.
Back2Basics: Symbiotic Relationship
Parasitism
- It is a type of interaction between two species that results in damage and harm to one member and benefit to another member.
- Ex. As in the case of the tick-host relationship, the tick gains benefit by sucking blood while the host is harmed as it loses blood.
Commensalism
- In this type of relationship one species benefits without affecting the other.
- Barnacles growing on the back of the whale, orchids growing as an epiphyte on some mango branch, cattle egret and grazing cattle in close association, Sea anemone, and the Clown Fish are some of the classic examples of Commensalism.
Amensalism
- In this relationship, one species is harmed while the other is neither harmed nor benefitted and remains unaffected.
- When an organism excretes the chemicals as a part of the normal metabolism of its own, but which may severely impact other nearby species, this kind of relationship is seen.
Mutualism
- In this type of relationship both the partners benefit from one another. When similar interaction occurs within a species, it is known as cooperation.
- Lichens a mutual relationship between algae and fungus. In this mutual cooperation, fungus gives protection and raw material for the preparation of the food while Green Algae synthesizes the food for both.
Saprophytism
- In this kind of biotic interaction, certain organisms live on dead and decaying organic matter.
- Dung Beetles, Vultures, Fungi, Bacteria, Protozoa are the example of Saprophytism.
Predation
- In this type of biological interaction, a predator feeds upon its prey and in this type of relationship, one species is benefitted while the other is harmed.
Competition
- In this type of interaction both the species compete with each other for the resources like food, shelter, mating, and both the species get harmed out of the process of competition.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Vishwa Bharati University
Mains level: Not Much
The Calcutta High Court has directed that there can be no protest by the students within 50 meters of academic buildings at Visva-Bharati University.
Visva-Bharati
- Visva-Bharati is a central research university and an Institution of National Importance located in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, India.
- It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it Visva-Bharati, which means the communion of the world with India.
- Until independence, it was a college.
- Soon after independence, the institution was given the status of a central university in 1951 by an act of the Parliament.
Its history
- The origins of the institution date back to 1863 when Debendranath Tagore was given a tract of land by the zamindar of Raipur, zamindar of Kirnahar.
- He set up an ashram at the spot that has now come to be called chatim tala at the heart of the town.
- The ashram was initially called Brahmacharya Ashram, which was later renamed Brahmacharya Vidyalaya.
- It was established with a view to encouraging people from all walks of life to come to the spot and meditate.
- In 1901 his youngest son Rabindranath Tagore established a co-educational school inside the premises of the ashram.
- From 1901 onwards, Tagore used the ashram to organize the Hindu Mela, which soon became a center of nationalist activity.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NMP
Mains level: Paper 3- Need for export facilitation
Context
First-quarter growth in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) stands at 20.1 %. This however still means that GDP in the first quarter was 9.2 % below its level two years ago.
Export: Challenges
- The key driver of growth in the coming quarters will be exports riding on the rapidity of recovery in major markets.
- There are two serious worries here.
- 1) Bullwhip element: This could cause an immediate ramp-up in demand for steel and other such upstream elements in global supply chains, with a corresponding damp down in the months to come.
- In this connection, although the rates under the scheme for remission of duties and taxes on exported products (RODTEP) were finally notified in mid-August.
- Steel, pharma and chemicals get no rebate at all, although many products using these inputs do.
- The scheme looks like a subsidy to selected sectors disguised as duty rollback, which can get India into trouble at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
- These excluded products need the rebate if they are to survive in a fiercely price-competitive global market in the months to come.
- 2) Container shortage: A crippling shortage of sea-borne containers has afflicted key large-volume products in the Indian export basket (tea, basmati rice, furniture, garments).
- Sea-freight subsidy: At a time when container rates have shot up, there is surely a case for a sea-freight subsidy (for a limited period).
- Even more urgently, the estimated 25,000-30,000 containers locked up at different ports owing to customs disputes need to be unloaded into warehouses and these containers freed.
Can National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) spur growth?
- Even if the expected ₹88,000 crore of revenue under NMP is realized during the current year, it is intended to feed only a small part of the infrastructure expenditure budgeted for the year.
- It is the latter that will have to drive growth. Monetization is merely a funding source.
- The scheme offers a participation incentive to states with a 33% matching transfer from the Centre for revenues that states realize under the scheme.
- This matching transfer could well have the perverse consequence of states under-achieving the potential value realizable.
- Volume II of the NMP document refers to the Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Expenditure announced in October 2020.
- It offered states an interest-free loan with bullet repayment after 50 years to complete stalled capital projects, or settle the outstanding bills of contractors.
- The NMP demands clear and well-thought-through processes, with sufficient transparency and safeguards in the form of regulatory structures.
Conclusion
For now, the need of the hour is export facilitation.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Implications of Afghanistan exit for the US
Context
The debate has abruptly shifted to the future of the United States after its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Background of the US presence in Afghanistan
- The terrorist attacks of 9/11, which was a game-changing global experience, led the U.S. to enter Afghanistan.
- The terrorist attacks transformed the geopolitics of the world.
- The most powerful country in the world, which had the capacity to destroy the world many times over, became powerless before a few terrorists.
- Once the responsibility of the attack was traced to Osama bin Laden and the terrorists in Afghanistan, it was imperative for the U.S. to retaliate by overthrowing the Taliban regime.
How US presence in Afghanistan benefited the region
- After accomplishing its mission the US was not able to withdraw because the Afghanistan government was unable to withstand the onslaught of the Taliban and other terrorist groups.
- Even neighbouring countries, including India, were strongly in favour of continuing the American presence.
- The US presence helped to provide a certain stability for Afghanistan.
- The result of their presence was the prevalence of relative peace in the region except that Pakistan fattened the Taliban with American largesse.
- The U.S. presence in Afghanistan had succeeded in containing the dangers of terrorism for two decades.
Way forward for the US and the rest of the world
- The US is still the most powerful economic and military power around which the whole constellation of the world rotates.
- Democratic world leadership: The world has a stake in ensuring that a democratic nation leads the world rather than an expansionist dictatorship which has no public opinion to restrain it.
- Maintain the US leadership: The free world has a responsibility to maintain the American leadership of the world till a wiser and more benign alternative is found.
Conclusion
Much has been written about a post-American world for some years now. But it looks that the demise of America, as Mark Twain said about the reports of his own death, is greatly exaggerated.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Common Prosperity Drive in China
Mains level: Comparison of Chinese and Indian economic policy
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for China to achieve “common prosperity”, seeking to narrow a yawning wealth gap that threatens the country’s economic ascent and the legitimacy of Communist Party rule.
What is ‘Common Prosperity’?
- “Common prosperity” was first mentioned in the 1950s by Mao Zedong, founding leader of what was then an impoverished country.
- The idea was repeated in the 1980s by Deng Xiaoping, who modernized an economy devastated by the Cultural Revolution.
- Deng said that allowing some people and regions to get rich first would speed up economic growth and help achieve the ultimate goal of common prosperity.
- Common prosperity is not egalitarianism. It does not mean “killing the rich to help the poor”.
Components of the drive
- The push for common prosperity has encompassed a wide range of policies, that includes curbing tax evasion and limits on the hours that tech sector employees can work to bans on for-profit tutoring in core school subjects, and strict limits on the time minors can spend playing video games.
Why in news now?
- China became an economic powerhouse under a hybrid policy of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, but it also deepened inequality, especially between urban and rural areas, a divide that threatens social stability.
- This year, Xi has signaled a heightened commitment to delivering common prosperity, emphasizing it is not just an economic objective but core to the party’s governing foundation.
- A pilot program in Zhejiang province, one of China’s wealthiest, is designed to narrow the income gap there by 2025.
How will it be achieved?
- Chinese leaders have pledged to use taxation and other income redistribution levers to expand the proportion of middle-income citizens, boost incomes of the poor, “rationally adjust excessive incomes”, and ban illegal incomes.
- Beijing has explicitly encouraged high-income firms and individuals to contribute more to society via the so-called “third distribution”, which refers to charity and donations.
- Several tech industry heavyweights have announced major charitable donations and support for disaster relief efforts.
- Other measures would include improving public services and the social safety net.
What will be the economic impact?
- Chinese leaders are likely to tread cautiously so as not to derail a private sector that has been a vital engine of growth and jobs.
- This goal may speed China’s economic rebalancing towards consumption-driven growth to reduce reliance on exports and investment, but policies could prove damaging to growth driven by the private sector.
- Increasing incomes and improved public services, especially in rural areas, would be positive for consumption, and a better social safety net would lower precautionary savings.
- The effort supports Xi’s “dual circulation” strategy for economic development, under which China aims to spur domestic demand, innovation, and self-reliance, propelled by tensions with the United States.
Try answering this PYQ from CSP 2020:
Q.One common agreement between Gandhism and Marxism is :
(a) The final goal of a stateless society
(b) Class struggle
(c) Abolition of private property
(d) Economic determinism
Post your answers here.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Vanniyar Movement
Mains level: Reservation issues
The government in Tamil Nadu has announced the construction of a memorial in Villupuram to people killed in police firing and clashes in 1987, during a movement demanding reservation for the Vanniyar community.
Vanniyar Movement
- Vanniyar are one of the largest and most consolidated backward communities in the state.
- They had raised massive protests in the mid-1980s demanding 20% reservation in the state, and 2% in central services.
- Their movement was backed by the Justice Party as well as the Self-Respect Movement.
- The agitation began in 1986 with activists sending hundreds of letters and telegrams to then Chief Minister M G Ramachandran seeking an audience.
- As there was no response from MGR and the then Rajiv Gandhi government, agitators started demonstrations in community strongholds, then went on to blockading rail and road traffic.
The 1987 deaths
- The Vanniyars declared an agitation from September 17 to 23, 1987, which turned violent.
- At least 21 protesters were killed, mostly in police firing, and also in clashes with members of Scheduled Caste communities.
- While this shook the state establishment, there was no immediate solution.
Reservation granted
- After 1989, the OBC quota was split into two: Backward Castes and Most Backward Castes.
- Vanniyars were categorized among the MBCs with 107 other communities, with 20% reservation.
- Three decades later,10.5% reservation was granted for Vanniyars within the 20% MBC quota.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Glue Grant Scheme
Mains level: Not Much
Forty Central universities will kick off the implementation of innovative measures such as the academic credit bank and the glue grant meant to encourage multidisciplinary in UG courses.
Glue Grant Scheme
- Under the glue grant, announced in this year’s budget, institutions in the same city would be encouraged to share resources, equipment and even allow their students to take classes from each other.
- This is the first step for multidisciplinary.
- We intend to start this from the second semester of the current academic year.
- Ultimately, faculty will be able to design joint courses.
- This also meant that institutions need not duplicate work by developing the same capacities, but would be able to build on each other’s expertise.
Credit bank
- The first step would be the academic credit bank, which would have to be adopted separately by the academic council of each university to kick off implementation.
- To start with, the system would allow students to attain qualifications by amassing credits rather than specific durations on campus.
- A certain number of credits would add up to a certificate, then a diploma and then a degree, allowing for multiple entries and exit points.
- Students can earn up to 40% of their credits in online Swayam classes, rather than in the physical classroom. In the future, these credits will hold validity across different institutions.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Dinosaur species mentioned
Mains level: Not Much
In a major discovery, footprints of three species of dinosaurs have been found in the Thar desert in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer district.
Details of the footprints
- The footprints, made in the sediment or silt of the seashore, later become permanently stone-like.
- They belong to three species of dinosaurs — Eubrontes cf. giganteus, Eubrontes glenrosensis and Grallator tenuis.
- While the giganteus and glenrosensis species have 35 cm footprints, the footprint of the third species was found to be 5.5 cm.
- The dinosaur species are considered to be of the theropod type, with the distinguishing features of hollow bones and feet with three digits.
- All three species, belonging to the early Jurassic period, were carnivorous.
- Eubrontes could have been 12 to 15 metres long and weighed between 500 kg and 700 kg, while the height of the Grallator is estimated to have been two metres, as much as a human, with a length of up to three metres.
Key findings
- The discovery of dinosaur footprints prove the presence of the giant reptiles in the western part of the State, which formed the seashore to the Tethys Ocean during the Mesozoic era.
- Careful geological observations enabled the scientists to interpret ancient environments in which the rocks of the footprints, which were once soft sediments, were deposited.
- Geochemical analyses and calculation of weathering indices showed that the hinterland climate was seasonal to semi-arid during the deposition of the footprints.
- Fieldwork in the Kutch and Jaisalmer basins has suggested that after the main transgression during the early Jurassic period, the sea level changed several times.
- Spatial and temporal distribution of sediments and traces of fossils and post-depositional structures provided an indication to this phenomenon.
Significance
- These trace fossils are significant to ascertain how life started and evolved after the mass extinction of species, including dinosaurs, at the end of the cretaceous period around 65 million years ago.
- This research also illustrates the evidence of a fluvial freshwater palaeo-environment and tropical palaeo-climate, indicating the presence of a tropical forest and a huge network of rivers.
No matter what, try this PYQ:
Q.The term “sixth mass extinction/sixth extinction” is often mentioned in the news in the context of the discussion of (CSP 2018):
(a) Widespread monoculture Practices agriculture and large-scale commercial farming with indiscriminate use of chemicals in many parts of the world that may result in the loss of good native ecosystems.
(b) Fears of a possible collision of a meteorite with the Earth in the near future in the manner it happened 65million years ago that caused the mass extinction of many species including those of dinosaurs.
(c) Large scale cultivation of genetically modified crops in many parts of the world and promoting their cultivation in other Parts of the world which may cause the disappearance of good native crop plants and the loss of food biodiversity.
(d) Mankind’s over-exploitation/misuse of natural resources, fragmentation/loss, natural habitats, destruction of ecosystems, pollution, and global climate change.
Post your answers here.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GVA and GDP
Mains level: Paper 3- How to sustain economic recovery
Context
The April-June quarter GDP numbers indicated at 20.1 per cent growth.
Making sense of the numbers
- The higher GDP growth was driven by high indirect tax collections, largely GST.
- The more representative measure of economic activity, gross value added (GVA), grew by 18.8 per cent.
- GDP is derived by adding indirect tax collections, net of subsidy payouts, to GVA.
- These numbers are over a base quarter that had contracted sharply due to the lockdowns during the first Covid wave last year.
- The revival of manufacturing GVA was the most robust, with mining and electricity growth somewhat moderate.
- The overall and sector-specific activity levels need to be evaluated vis-à-vis the corresponding thresholds of (the pre-pandemic) first quarter of 2019-20.
- Agriculture grew at 4.5 per cent, with cereals, pulses and oilseeds output at all-time highs.
- As could be expected, the services sector remained vulnerable, with activity even softer than expected.
- Steel and cement output growth — proxies for construction activity — were also quite robust in the quarter.
- Demand and expenditure: Private consumption was up 19.3 per cent while investment was at 55.3 per cent.
- Government consumption was lower by 4.8 per cent.
- Export: Net exports are typically in deficit, but the gap was much lower in the first quarter.
How to sustain recovery: way forward
- Looking beyond the first quarter, the set of high-frequency economic signals suggest a strong recovery in July and August.
- But, how can this recovery over the rest of the year and beyond be sustained, and even accelerated?
- Sustaining 3 growth drivers: The three distinct potential growth drivers — consumption, investment and exports — will need to be effectively sustained by policy initiatives over the next couple of years.
- Government spending: Centre’s revenues and expenditures during April-July this year suggest that it has significant room to increase spending.
- National Monetisation Plan will open up further fiscal space to increase spending, in particular, on capex.
- Credit support to stressed segment: mid-and small-sized enterprises will take some time to restore their pre-pandemic operational levels.
- An increase in the flow of credit, from banks, NBFCs and markets, particularly to these stressed segments, is a priority, as a supplement to state spending.
- Opportunity for exports: Global inventories are low and depending on the progression of the pandemic relaxations across geographies, are likely to provide opportunities for Indian exports to fill some of these gaps.
- Reforms: Multiple reform initiatives, tax and other incentives are in the process of implementation.
- These need to be accelerated in coordination with states to enable an environment of steady, high growth in the medium term.
Challenges
- Global central banks’ are signalling the imminent normalisation of ultra-loose monetary policy.
- The resulting increase in financial sector volatility will have spillover effects on emerging markets, including India.
- To keep the process smooth, it is crucial to raise India’s potential growth so that the economic recovery does not rapidly close the output gap, thereby preventing a surge in inflationary pressures.
Conclusion
There is a limited window of opportunity for India to leverage the current ongoing realignment of global supply chains and progressively onboard both manufacturing and services entities.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Main Central Thrust
Mains level: Paper 3- Rethinking the hydroelectric projects in Himalayas
Context
The affidavit filed recently by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) in an ongoing matter in the Supreme Court of India has recommended the construction of seven partially constructed hydroelectric projects in the Uttarakhand Himalaya.
Background
- After the Kedarnath tragedy of 2013, an expert body (EB-I) was constituted to investigate whether the hydro-power projects in the State of Uttarakhand was linked to the disaster.
- In its findings, EB-I said there was a “direct and indirect impact” of these dams in aggravating the disaster.
- The Ministry formed another expert body (EB-II; B.P. Das committee) whose mandate has been to pave the way for all projects through some design change modifications
- This affidavit, dated August 17, reveals that the government is inclined towards construction of 26 other projects, as in the recommendation of the expert body (EB-II; B.P. Das committee).
- Ministry’s own observations and admissions given in its earlier affidavit dated May 5, 2014 admitted that hydroelectric projects did aggravate the 2013 flood.
Concerns
- Sustainability: The sustainability of the dams in the long term is highly questionable as hydropower solely relies on the excess availability of water.
- Temperatures across the region are projected to rise by about 1°C to 2°C on average by 2050.
- Retreating glaciers and the alternating phases of floods and drought will impact the seasonal flows of rivers.
- Sediment hotspots: The most crucial aspect is the existence of sediment hotspot paraglacial zones, which at the time of a cloud burst, contribute huge amounts of debris and silt in the river.
- The flash floods in these Himalayan valleys do not carry water alone; they also carry a massive quantity of debris.
- This was pointed out by EB-II alongside its recommendation not build any projects beyond 2,000 metres or north of the MCT, or the Main Central Thrust (it is a major geological fault).
- Externalities: Though hydropower is renewable source, there are contentious externalities associated with the construction of dams such as social displacement, ecological impacts, environmental and technological risks.
- Climate change: these projects exacerbate ecological vulnerability, in a region that is already in a precarious state.
- The intense anthropogenic activities associated with the proliferation of hydroelectric projects in these precarious regions accelerate the intensity of flash floods, avalanches, and landslides.
- Failure of mountain slopes: The construction and maintenance of an extensive network of underground tunnels carrying water to the powerhouses contribute to the failure of mountain slopes.
- Aggravating the disaster: The Rishi Ganga tragedy and the disasters of 2012 (flashfloods), 2013 are examples of how hydroelectric projects which come in the way of high-velocity flows aggravate a disaster and should be treated as a warning against such projects.
Conclusion
Considering the environmental and cultural significance of these areas, it is imperative that the Government refrains from the construction of hydroelectric projects and declares the upper reaches of all the headstreams of the Ganga as eco-sensitive zones. It must allow the river to flow unfettered and free.
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Back2Basics: Main Central Thrust (MCT)
- The Main Central Thrust is a major geological fault where the Indian Plate has pushed under the Eurasian Plate along the Himalaya.
- The fault slopes down to the north and is exposed on the surface in a NW-SE direction (strike).
- It is a thrust fault that continues along 2200 km of the Himalaya mountain belt
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: SEZ Act
Mains level: Paper 3- Learning from the success of IT industry in India
Context
Last Independence Day, the PM announced that 15,000 of our current 69,000+ employer compliances and 6000+ filings have been identified for removal.
Why India is a development economics outlier?
- Software industry despite being low-income country: Few models predict a $2,500 per-capita income country with five million people writing software and internet data costs per GB at 3 percent of US levels.
- Digital identity: In India there are1.2 billion people empowered with paperless digital identity verification.
- Digital economy: India also witnesses 3.5 billion real-time monthly digital payments.
- Attraction for Investment: $10 billion in private equity raised in July, and a $3 trillion public market capitalization.
- Harvard’s Ricardo Hausman believes, the only sustained predictor of sustained economic success is economic complexity and suggests that India’s prosperity is less than our economic complexity would predict.
India’s software industry
- Our software industry is an oasis of high productivity — 0.8 per cent of India’s workers generate 8 percent of GDP.
- The mandatory global digital literacy program and digital investment super-cycle sparked by Covid will double our software employment in five years.
- Our software industry’s talent, alumni, and global engagement — 50,000 tech startups that have raised over $90 billion since 2014 from 500+ institutional investors.
- India’s software services industry and tech startups are each estimated to be worth about $400 billion today which is expected to grow to $1 trillion by 2025.
Why did India’s manufacturing sector fail to perform while its software industry flourished?
- One of the reasons is the different regulatory thought worlds of the Software Technology Parks India rules of 1991 (STPI) and the Special Economic Zones Act of 2005 (SEZ).
- STPI’s genius was simplicity. It allowed rebadging existing assets, embraced trust over suspicion, and adopted self-reporting that was largely paperless, presence less, and cashless.
- SEZs largely replicated the regulatory cholesterol and distrust that has made India unfavorable for employment-intensive industries.
Way forward
- Productivity: Raising per-capita needs high productivity manufacturing and domestic services firms that disrupt our low-level equilibrium of labor handicapped without capital and capital handicapped without labor.
- Opportunities for India: Until recently, China’s tech industry seemed unstoppable — half of their 160 unicorns operate in AI, big data, and robotics. But this is changing.
- Over 50 recent regulatory actions against China’s tech industry have already cost investors over $1 trillion.
- This offers an opportunity for India due to its attractiveness to factories, multinationals, startups, venture capital, and pension funds.
- Replicate regulatory trust and simplicity offered to the technology industry to other sectors: India’s global soft power by reaching revenue and valuation possibilities that felt unimaginable — have come before physical infrastructure, farm employment reduction, and higher women’s labor force participation.
- Massifying our prosperity needs massive formal, non-farm job creation.
- Creating the productive firms that will offer these jobs to our young needs replicating the regulatory trust and simplicity that our technology industry enjoys in the rest of our economy.
Conclusion
Imagine India@100 if we cut regulatory cholesterol today and spent the next 25 years unleashing the entrepreneurial energies of 1.3 billion Indians — 65 percent of whom are below 35 years old.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Speaker and Dy Speaker
Mains level: Appointment of Constitutional posts
With the Delhi High Court asking the Central government to explain its stand on a petition that claimed to keep the post of Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha vacant is a violation of Article 93 of the Constitution, the issue is once again in the spotlight.
Article 93: The Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of the People The House of the People shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the House to be respectively Speaker and Deputy Speaker thereof and, so often as the office of Speaker or Deputy Speaker becomes vacant, the House shall choose another member to be Speaker or Deputy Speaker, as the case may be …
Speaker and Dy Speaker of the Lok Sabha
[A] Speaker
- The Speaker of the Lok Sabha is the presiding officer and the highest authority of the Lok Sabha (House of the People), the lower house of the Parliament.
- Newly elected Members of Parliament from the Lok Sabha elect the Speaker among themselves.
- The Speaker should be someone who understands Lok Sabha functions and it should be someone accepted among the ruling and opposition parties.
- MPs propose a name to the Pro tem speaker. These names are notified to the President of India. The President through their aide Secretary-General notifies the election date.
- If only one name is proposed, the Speaker is elected without any formal vote. However, if more than one nomination is received, a division (vote) is called.
- MPs vote for their candidate on such date notified by President. The successful candidate is elected as Speaker of the Lok Sabha until the next general election
Power and Functions
On the order of precedence, the Speaker of Lok Sabha ranks sixth, along with the Chief Justice of India.
- Conduct of Business: The Speaker of the Lok Sabha conducts the business in house. They maintain discipline and decorum in the house and can punish a member for unruly behavior by suspending them. Further, all comments and speeches made by members of the House are addressed to the Speaker.
- Decisions on Money Bill: He/she decides whether a bill is a money bill or not.
- Various motions: They also permit the moving of various kinds of motions and resolutions such as a motion of no confidence, the motion of adjournment, motion of censure and calling attention notice as per the rules.
- Decision of agenda: The Speaker decides on the agenda to be taken up for discussion during the meeting. The date of election of the Speaker is fixed by the President.
- Joint sitting: The Speaker also presides over the joint sitting of both houses of the Parliament of India. The Speaker also has a casting vote in the event of a tie.
[B] Deputy Speaker
- The Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha is not subordinate to the speaker of Lok Sabha; is responsible for the Lok Sabha and is the second-highest-ranking legislative officer of the Lok Sabha.
- He/ She acts as the presiding officer in case of leave of absence caused by death or illness of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.
- It is by convention that the position of Deputy Speaker is offered to the opposition party in India.
Try answering this PYQ:
Regarding the office of the Lok Sabha Speaker, consider the following statements:
- He/she holds the office during the pleasure of the President.
- He/she need not be a member of the house at the time of his/her election but has to become a member of the house within six months from the date of his/her election.
- if he/she intends to resign, the letter of his/her resignation has to be addressed to the Deputy speaker.
Which of the statement(s) given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 and 2
(b) Only 3
(c) 1, 2 and 3
(d) None of these
Post your answers here.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Durand Line
Mains level: Afghan refugee crisis
With the Taliban’s seize of Kabul, a huge exodus of Afghan refugees and asylum seekers is outpouring into Pakistan along the Durand Line.
Durand Line
- The Durand Line is a legacy of the 19th century Great Game between the Russian and British empires in which Afghanistan was used as a buffer by the British against feared Russian expansionism to its east.
- The agreement demarcating what became known as the Durand Line was signed on November 12, 1893, between the British civil servant Henry Mortimer Durand and Amir Abdur Rahman, then the Afghan ruler.
- Abdur Rahman became king in 1880, two years after the end of the Second Afghan War in which the British took control of several areas that were part of the Afghan kingdom.
- He was essentially a British puppet.
- His agreement with Durand demarcated the limits of his and British India’s “spheres of influence” on the Afghan “frontier” with India.
- The line stretches from the border with China to Afghanistan’s border with Iran.
An illogical separation
- In reality, the line cut through Pashtun tribal areas, leaving villages, families, and land divided between the two “spheres of influence”.
- It has been described as a “line of hatred”, arbitrary, illogical, cruel, and trickery on the Pashtuns.
- Some historians believe it was a ploy to divide the Pashtuns so that the British could keep control over them easily.
- It also put on the British side the strategic Khyber Pass.
Cross-border tensions at Durand Line
- With independence in 1947, Pakistan inherited the Durand Line, and with it also the Pashtun rejection of the line, and Afghanistan’s refusal to recognize it.
- Afghanistan was the only country to vote against Pakistan joining the United Nations in 1947.
- ‘Pashtunistan’ — an independent country of the Pashtuns — was a demand made by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan at the time of Partition, although he later resigned himself to the reality of Partition.
- The proximity of the ‘Frontier Gandhi’ to India was a point of tension between the two countries almost immediately.
- The fear of Indian support to Pashtun nationalism haunts Pakistan to date and is embedded in its Afghan policy.
Pakistani support against the Pashtuns
- Pakistan’s creation and support for the Taliban are seen by some as a move to obliterate ethnic Pashtun nationalism with an Islamic identity.
- But it did not work out the way Pakistan had planned.
- When the Taliban seized power in Kabul the first time, they rejected the Durand Line.
- They also strengthened Pashtun identity with an Islamic radicalism to produce the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, whose terrorist attacks since 2007 left the country shaken.
Try answering this PYQ:
Consider the following pairs
Towns sometimes mentioned Country in news
- Aleppo — Syria
- Kirkuk — Yemen
- Mosul — Palestine
- Mazar-i-sharif — Afghanistan
Which of the pairs given above are correctly matched?
(a) 1 and 2
(b) 1 and 4
(c) 2 and 3
(d) 3 and 4
Post your answers here.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Provident Fund
Mains level: Need for taxing PF
Following its Budget announcement in February, the Finance Ministry has now notified the rules for taxing interest income on contributions made to the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) beyond Rs 2.5 lakh (for private-sector employees) and Rs 5 lakh (for government sector employees).
What is Provident Fund?
- Provident Fund is a government-managed retirement savings scheme for employees, who can contribute a part of their savings towards their pension fund, every month.
- These monthly savings get accumulated every month and can be accessed as a lump sum amount at the time of retirement, or end of employment.
- Since the provident fund money consists of a large chunk of savings, it can be used to grow your retirement corpus easily.
Types of provident funds
There are mainly three different types of PFs, which are as follows:
- General provident fund: It is a type of PF which is maintained by governmental bodies, including local authorities, the Railways, and other such bodies. Thus, these types of PFs are mainly defined by government bodies.
- Recognized provident fund: It is the one that applies to all privately-owned organizations that contain more than 20 employees. Moreover, holding a rightful claim to the PF associated with your organization, you will be given a UAN or Universal Account Number. This enables you to transfer your PF funds from one employer to another whenever you move from one occupation to another.
- Public provident fund: It is defined by the voluntary nature of investment on the part of the employee. The PPF is also associated with a minimum deposit of Rs. 50 and a maximum amount of Rs. 1.5 lakhs. The PPF has a lock-in period of 15 years.
What is the tax on EPF contributions?
- In February, the Budget proposed that tax exemption will not be available on interest income on PF contributions exceeding Rs 2.5 lakh in a year.
- Although this has been a concern for salaried individuals contributing to EPF, it will impact only those who contribute more than Rs 2.5 lakh in a year.
- It will not affect their existing corpus or the aggregate annual interest on that.
- In March, the government proposed to double the cap on contribution from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh for tax-exempt interest income where there is no contribution by the employer.
- With this, the government provided relief for contributions made to the General Provident Fund that is available only to government employees and there is no contribution by the employer.
Why tax the PF?
- There have been instances where some employees are contributing huge amounts to these funds and are getting the benefit of tax exemption at all stages — contribution, interest accumulation, and withdrawal.
- With an aim to exclude high net-worth individuals (HNIs) from the benefit of high tax-free interest income on their large contributions, the government has proposed to impose a threshold limit for tax exemption.
- This will be applicable for all contributions beginning April 1, 2021.
How will it get taxed?
- For an individual in the higher tax bracket of 30%, the interest income on contribution above Rs 2.5 lakh would get taxed at the same marginal tax rate.
- What this means is that if an individual contributes Rs 3 lakh every year to the provident fund (including the voluntary PF contribution) then the interest on his contribution above Rs 2.5 lakh —that is, Rs 50,000 — will be taxed.
- So, the interest income of Rs 4,250 (8.5% on Rs 50,000) will be taxed at the marginal rate. If the individual falls in the 30% tax bracket, he/ she will have to pay a tax of Rs 1,325.
- For an individual contributing Rs 12 lakh in a year, the tax will be applicable on interest income on Rs 9.5 lakh (Rs 12 lakh minus Rs 2.5 lakh). In this case, the tax liability would amount to Rs 25,200.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Blue Stragglers
Mains level: Not Much
Carrying out the first-ever comprehensive analysis of blue stragglers, Indian researchers found that half of the blue stragglers in their sample are formed through mass transfer from a close binary companion star.
What are Blue Stragglers?
- A blue straggler is a main-sequence star in an open or globular cluster that is more luminous and bluer than stars at the main sequence turnoff point for the cluster.
- The most likely explanation is that blue stragglers are the result of stars that come too close to another star or similar mass object and collide.
- The newly-formed star has thus a higher mass and occupies a position on the HR diagram which would be populated by genuinely young stars.
- One-third of them are likely formed through collisions of 2 stars, and the remaining are formed through interactions of more than 2 stars.
How are they formed?
- A bunch of stars born at the same time from the same cloud form a star cluster.
- As time passes, each star evolves differently depending on its mass.
- The most massive and bright stars evolve and move off the main sequence creating a bend in their track, known as the turnoff.
- Stars above this bend or brighter and hotter stars are not expected in a cluster, as they leave the main sequence to become red giants.
- But in 1953, Allan Sandage found that some stars seem to be hotter than the turnoff of the parent cluster.
Behind the nomenclature
- Initially, these blue stars still straggling above the turnoff were not part of these clusters.
- However, later studies confirmed that these stars are indeed cluster members, and they were termed “Blue Stragglers”.
- The only probable way these stars can still be present in these clusters is if they have somehow acquired extra mass along the way while on the main sequence.
- Confirming the mechanisms of the mass gain required a study using a large sample of blue-straggler stars and estimates of the mass they have gained.
What have Indian researchers found?
- Research showed that these stars are primarily present in the older and massive star clusters. And due to their large mass, they are segregated towards the centre of the clusters.
- The researchers compared the mass of the blue stragglers to the mass of the turnoff stars (which are the most massive ‘normal’ stars in the cluster) and predicted the formation mechanisms.
- The study will help improve understanding of these stellar systems to uncover exciting results in studies of large stellar populations, including galaxies.
- Following these findings, the researchers are conducting detailed analyses of individual blue stragglers in the catalog to obtain their stellar properties.
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