Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA)
Mains level: Not Much
The National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA) has directed GST officials across the country to ensure that the tax rate cuts notified on some COVID-19-related essentials are passed on to consumers.
What is National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA)?
- The NAA has been constituted under Section 171 of the Central GST Act, 2017 to ensure that the reduction in the rate of tax or the benefit of the input tax credit is passed on to the recipient by way of commensurate reduction in prices.
- The decision about the formation of the NAA came in the background of a rate reduction of a large number of items by the GST Council in its 22ndmeeting at Guwahati.
- At the meeting, the Council reduced rates of more than 200 items including goods and services.
- This has made a tremendous price reduction effect and the consumers will be benefited only if the traders are making the quick reduction of the prices of respective items.
- There was a concern that traders are reluctant to make price cuts so that they can make a profit.
Answer this PYQ in the comment box:
Q. Consider the following items:
- Cereal grains hulled
- Chicken eggs cooked
- Fish processed and canned
- Newspapers containing advertising material
Which of the above items is/are exempt under GST (Goods and Services Tax)?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1, 2 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
What is profiteering?
- Profiteering means unfair profit realized by traders by manipulating prices, tax rate adjustment etc.
- In the context of the newly launched GST, profiteering means that traders are not reducing the prices of the commodities when the GST Council reduces the tax rates of commodities and services.
- Conventionally, several traders will have a strong tendency to quickly increase the price of a commodity whose tax rate has been increased.
- But on the opposite side, they may delay the price reduction of a commodity whose tax rate has been cut by the government.
- A delayed or postponed price reduction helps business firms to make a higher profits. The losers here are the consumers.
Functioning of NAA
- The Authority’s main function is to ensure that traders are not realizing unfair profit by charging high prices from the consumers in the name of GST.
- Traders may charge high prices from the consumers by naming the GST factor.
- Similarly, they may not make quick and corresponding price reductions when the GST Council makes a tax cut. All these constitute profiteering.
- The responsibility of the NAA is to examine and check such profiteering activities and recommend punitive actions including the cancellation of licenses.
Steps were taken by the NAA to ensure that customers get the full benefit of tax cuts:
- Holding regular meetings with the Zonal Screening Committees and the Chief Commissioners of Central Tax to stress upon consumer awareness programs;
- Launching a helpline to resolve the queries of citizens regarding registration of complaints against profiteering.
- Receiving complaints through email and the NAA portal.
- Working with consumer welfare organizations in order to facilitate outreach activities.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Yellowstone National Park
Mains level: NA
A new assessment of climate change in the Yellowstone National Park shows that it has lost a quarter of its annual snowfall.
Yellowstone National Park
- Yellowstone NP is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho.
- Yellowstone was the first national park in the US and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world.
- The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular.
- While it represents many types of biomes, the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion.
- The area also represents the one point where the three major river basins of the western U.S. converge.
- The rivers of the Snake-Columbia basin, Green-Colorado basin, and Missouri River Basin all begin as snow on the Continental Divide as it weaves across Yellowstone’s peaks and plateaus.
Impact of climate change
- Since 1950, average temperatures in the Greater Yellowstone Area have risen 1.3°C and potentially, more importantly, the region has lost a quarter of its annual snowfall.
- The loss of snow there has repercussions for a vast range of ecosystems and wildlife, as well as cities and farms downstream that rely on rivers that start in these mountains.
- It is home to the southernmost range of grizzly bear populations in North America and some of the longest intact wildlife migrations, including the seasonal traverses of elk, pronghorn, mule deer and bison.
Answer this PYQ in the comment box:
Q.Consider the following pairs:
River Flows into
1. Mekong – Andaman Sea
- Thames – Irish Sea
- Volga – Caspian Sea
- Zambezi – Indian Ocean
Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (CSP 2020)
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 3 only
(c) 3 and 4 only
(d) 1,2 and 4 only
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Blended learning
Mains level: Paper 2- Blended learning and related issues
Blended mode of teaching and its advantages
- A recent circular by the University Grants Commission (UGC) proposes that all higher educational institutions (HEI) teach 40% of any course online and the rest 60% offline termed as blended learning (BL).
- The UGC argues that this “blended mode of teaching” and learning paves the way for:
- 1) Increased student engagement in learning.
- 2) Enhanced student-teacher interactions.
- 3) Improved student learning outcomes.
- 4) More flexible teaching and learning environments, among other things.
- 5) Other key benefits such as the increased opportunity for institutional collaborations at a distance and enhanced self-learning accruing from blended learning (BL).
- 6) BL benefits the teachers as well. It shifts the role of the teacher from being a “knowledge provider to a coach and mentor”.
- 7) The note adds that BL introduces flexibility in assessment and evaluation patterns as well.
Challenges
- All India Survey on Higher Education (2019-20) report shows that 60.56% of the 42,343 colleges in India are located in rural areas and 78.6% are privately managed.
- Only big corporates are better placed to invest in technology and provide such learning.
- Second, according to datareportal statistics, Internet penetration in India is only 45% as of January 2021.
- This policy will only exacerbate the existing geographical and digital divide.
- Third, BL leaves little room for all-round formation of the student that includes the development of their intelligent quotient, emotional quotient, social quotient, physical quotient and spiritual quotient.
- The listening part and subsequent interactions with the teacher may get minimised.
- Also, the concept note assumes that all students have similar learning styles and have a certain amount of digital literacy to cope with the suggested learning strategies of BL.
- This is far from true. Education in India is driven by a teacher-centred approach.
Suggestions
- The government should ensure equity in access to technology and bandwidth for all HEIs across the country free of cost.
- Massive digital training programmes must be arranged for teachers.
- Even the teacher-student ratio needs to be readjusted to implement BL effectively.
- This may require the appointment of a greater number of teachers.
- The design of the curriculum should be decentralised and based on a bottom-up approach.
- More power in such education-related policymaking should be vested with the State governments.
- Switching over from a teacher-centric mode of learning at schools to the BL mode at the tertiary level will be difficult for learners.
- Hence, the government must think of overhauling the curriculum at the school level as well.
- Finally, periodical discussions, feedback mechanisms and support services at all levels would revitalise the implementation of the learning programme of the National Education Policy 2020, BL.
- It will also lead to the actualisation of the three cardinal principles of education policy: access, equity and quality.
Conclusion
Government must take steps to address the concerns with blended learning before implementing it.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GDP Deflator
Mains level: Paper 3- Impact of inflation on various stakeholders
Recently, CPI inflation crossed the RBI’s upper limit of 6%. The article explains the implications of this for various stakeholders.
How inflation benefits government as a borrower
- Rising inflation hurts lenders and benefits borrowers.
- To that extent, the government, one of the biggest borrowers, stands to benefit as high inflation will lower the national debt load in relation to the size of the economy.
- The Union budget 2021-22 assumed a 14.4 per cent growth in nominal GDP, however, actual growth is set to exceed this.
- The GDP deflator, which measures the difference between nominal and real GDP, is a weighted average of WPI and CPI, with a higher weightage to WPI.
- And given that nominal GDP is used as a base for computing the fiscal ratios, all of these will get deflated.
- The value of past debt and debt servicing costs thus gets pared in real terms as inflation rises.
- Viewed from a debt dynamics perspective, as the gap between growth and interest rates rises, the debt/GDP ratio falls.
Impact on other stakeholder
- That inflation reduces purchasing power and hits private consumption is well known.
- Overall food CPI inflation (5 per cent) was lower than non-food inflation (7.1 per cent) in May.
- Lower food inflation, coupled with higher non-food inflation means reduced purchasing power for farmers.
- Inflation trends, specifically input prices (reflected better by WPI), matter for corporate performance as well.
- While producers seem to be bearing a part of the burden of rising input costs for now, these could get passed on in greater measure to consumers once demand recovers.
- Rising inflation reduces returns on fixed income instruments, including bank deposits, which account for over 50 per cent of households’ financial savings.
- This has already induced a shift to riskier asset classes such as equities, which has ramifications for overall financial stability.
Way forward
- The RBI will have to closely monitor inflation trends and calibrate its policy response.
- It has not intervened on high inflation since the onset of the pandemic and, rightly so, in order to support growth.
- But the current spell of inflation is over a high base and a continuation of recent trends will persuade it to turn the focus back on inflation.
- Given the need for monetary policy to stay accommodative, it might be time to consider other supply-side interventions such as cuts in excise rates on petroleum products to soften the inflation blow.
Consider the question “As a one of the largest borrowers, how rising inflation benefits the government? How high inflation affects the other sections of the economy?”
Conclusion
Given the impact rising inflation has for the braoader sections of the economy, it is time for RBI to turn its attention to inflation.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 1, 2 and 3
Mains level: Read the attached story
The Tamil Nadu government has decided to shun the usage of the term ‘Central government’ in its official communications and replace it with ‘Union government’. This is a major step towards regaining the consciousness of our Constitution.
India the union
- Seventy-one years since we adopted the Constitution, it is time we regained the original intent of our founding fathers beautifully etched in the parchment as Article 1: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States”.
- The Constituent Assembly did not use the term ‘Centre’ or ‘Central government’ in all of its 395 Articles in 22 Parts and eight Schedules in the original Constitution.
- What we have are the ‘Union’ and the ‘States’ with the executive powers of the Union wielded by the President acting on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister.
Where is Central Govt defined?
- Even though we have no reference to the ‘Central government’ in the Constitution, the General Clauses Act, 1897 gives a definition for it.
- The ‘Central government’ for all practical purposes is the President after the commencement of the Constitution.
- Therefore, the real question is whether such definition for ‘Central government’ is constitutional as the Constitution itself does not approve of centralising power.
Intent of Constituent Assembly
- On December 13, 1946, Pt Nehru introduced the aims and objects of the Assembly by resolving that India shall be a Union of territories willing to join the “Independent Sovereign Republic”.
- The emphasis was on the consolidation and confluence of various provinces and territories to form a strong united country.
- Many members of the Constituent Assembly were of the opinion that the principles of the British Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) be adopted, which contemplated a Central government with very limited powers whereas the provinces had substantial autonomy.
- The Partition and the violence of 1947 in Kashmir forced the Constituent Assembly to revise its approach and it resolved in favour of a strong Centre.
- The possibility of the secession of States from the Union weighed on the minds of the drafters of the Constitution and ensured that the Indian Union is “indestructible”.
Preventing the secession
- In the Constituent Assembly, B.R Ambedkar, the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, observed that the word ‘Union’ was advisedly used in order to negative the right of secession of States.
- Ambedkar justified the usage of ‘Union of States’ saying that the Drafting Committee wanted to make it clear that though India was to be a federation, it was not the result of an agreement.
- Therefore, no State has the right to secede from it. “The federation is a Union because it is indestructible,” Ambedkar said.
Then criticism of the ‘Union’
- The usage of ‘Union of States’ by Ambedkar was not approved by all and faced criticisms from Maulana Hasrat Mohani.
- He argued that Ambedkar was changing the very nature of the Constitution.
- Mohani made a fiery speech in the Assembly on September 18, 1949 where he contended that the usage of the words ‘Union of States’ would obscure the word ‘Republic’.
- Mohani went to the extent of saying that Ambedkar wanted the ‘Union’ to be “something like the Union proposed by Prince Bismarck in Germany, and after him adopted by Kaiser William and after him by Adolf Hitler”.
Dr. Ambedkar’s clarification
- Ambedkar clarified that the Union is not a league of States, united in a loose relationship; nor are the States the agencies of the Union, deriving powers from it.
- Both the Union and the States are created by the Constitution, both derive their respective authority from the Constitution.
- The one is not subordinate to the other in its own field… the authority of one is coordinate with that of the other.
Features of Indian Union
- The sharing of powers between the Union and the States is not restricted to the executive organ of the government.
- The judiciary is designed in the Constitution to ensure that the Supreme Court, the tallest court in the country, has no superintendence over the High Courts.
- Though the Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction — not only over High Courts but also over other courts and tribunals — they are not declared to be subordinate to it.
- In fact, the High Courts have wider powers to issue prerogative writs despite having the power of superintendence over the district and subordinate courts.
- Parliament and Assemblies identify their boundaries and are circumspect to not cross their boundaries when it comes to the subject matter on which laws are made.
- However, the Union Parliament will prevail if there is a conflict.
Answer this PYQ:
Q.Consider the following statements:
- The Executive Power of the Union of India is vested in the Prime Minister.
- The Prime Minister is the ex-offi cio Chairman of the Civil Services Board.
Which of the given statements is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
A wordplay indeed
- The members of the Constituent Assembly were very cautious of not using the word ‘Centre’ or ‘Central government’ in the Constitution as they intended to keep away the tendency of centralizing of powers in one unit.
- The ‘Union government’ or the ‘Government of India’ has a unifying effect as the message sought to be given is that the government is of all.
- Even though the federal nature of the Constitution is its basic feature and cannot be altered, what remains to be seen is whether the actors wielding power intend to protect the federal feature of our Constitution.
- As Nani Palkhivala famously said, “The only satisfactory and lasting solution of the vexed problem is to be found not in the statute book but in the conscience of men in power”.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Agristack
Mains level: Digitalization of Agriculture
The Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare has entered into an MoU with Microsoft Corporation to start a pilot project in 100 villages to create a ‘Unified Farmer Service Interface’ through its cloud computing services.
AgriStack
- The AgriStack is a collection of technologies and digital databases proposed by the Central Government focusing on India’s farmers and the agricultural sector.
- The central government has claimed that these new databases are being built to primarily tackle issues such as poor access to credit and wastage in the agricultural supply chain.
- Under AgriStack’, the government aims to provide ‘required data sets’ of farmers’ personal information to Microsoft to develop a farmer interface for ‘smart and well-organized agriculture’.
- The digital repository will aid precise targeting of subsidies, services and policies, the officials added.
- Under the programme, each farmer of the country will get what is being called an FID, or a farmers’ ID, linked to land records to uniquely identify them. India has 140 million operational farm-land holdings.
- Alongside, the government is also developing a unified farmer service platform that will help digitise agricultural services delivery by the public and private sectors.
Issues with the move
- Agriculture has become the latest sector getting a boost of ‘techno solutionism’ by the government.
- But it has, since then, also become the latest sector to enter the whole debate about data privacy and surveillance.
- Since the signing of the MoUs, several concerns related to sharing farmers’ data with private companies the major one being Microsoft whose owner Bill Gates is said to be the largest private farmland owner in the US.
- In all the MoUs, there are provisions under which the agriculture ministry will enter into a data sharing agreement with the private companies of the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Patanjali.
- The development has raised serious concerns about information asymmetry, data privacy and consent, profiling of farmers, mismanaged land records and corporatization of agriculture.
- The formation of ‘Agristack’ also implies commercialization of agriculture extension activities as they will shift into a digital and private sphere.
Why such concerns?
- The project was being implemented in the absence of a data protection legislation.
- It might end up being an exercise where private data processing entities may know more about a farmer’s land than the farmer himself.
- Without safeguards, private entities would be able to exploit farmers’ data to whatever extent they wish to.
- This information asymmetry, tilted towards the technology companies, might further exploit farmers, especially small and marginal ones.
What are some major threats?
- One of the biggest worries is the threat of financial exploitation.
- We have already seen how microfinance firms have wreaked financial havoc in rural hinterlands.
- Now, once Fintech companies are able to collect granular data about the farmers’ operations, they may offer them usurious rates of interest precisely when they would be in the direst need for credit.
- With this, the risk of commodifying agriculture and farmer data ran high.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Full Ship Shock Trial (FSST)
Mains level: Not Much
The US Navy Friday carried out a ‘full ship shock trial’ on its newest and most advanced nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to ensure its hardness was capable of withstanding battle conditions.
What is a Full Ship Shock Trial (FSST)?
- During World War II, American warships suffered severe damage from enemy mines and torpedoes that had actually missed their target, but exploded underwater in close proximity.
- The US Navy has since worked to improve the shockproofing of their ship systems to minimize damage from such “near miss” explosions.
- In FSSTs, an underwater explosive charge is set off near an operational ship, and system and component failures are documented.
- The FSST probes whether the components survive shock in their environment on the ship; it probes the possibilities of system failures, and large components that could not be otherwise tested.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: TIWB Programme
Mains level: Not Much
Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) programme has been recently launched.
TIWB Program
- TIWB is a joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
- India was chosen as the Partner Jurisdiction and has provided the Tax Expert for this programme.
- It aims to aid Bhutan in strengthening its tax administration by transferring technical know-how and skills to its tax auditors, and through sharing of best audit practices.
- The focus of the programme will be in the area of International Taxation and Transfer Pricing.
- This programme is another milestone in the continued cooperation between India and Bhutan and India’s continued and active support for South-South cooperation.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Other Service Providers (OSPs), Sectors of economy
Mains level: Not Much
The Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology has further liberalized the guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSPs).
Do you remember quaternary and quinary sectors of Economy from NCERTs?
What are OSPs?
- These entities are business process outsourcing (BPO) organizations giving Voice based services, in India and abroad.
- The term Business Process Outsourcing or BPO as it is popularly known, refers to outsourcing in all fields.
- A BPO service provider usually administers and manages a particular business process for another company.
- BPOs either use new technology or apply an existing technology in a new way to improve a particular business process.
- India is currently the number one destination for business process outsourcing, as most companies in the US and UK outsource IT-related business processes to Indian service providers.
Main features of the liberalized guidelines
- Distinction between Domestic and International OSPs has been removed. A BPO centre with common Telecom resources will now be able to serve customers located worldwide including in India.
- EPABX (Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange) of the OSP can be located anywhere in the world. OSPs apart from utilising EPABX services of the Telecom Service Providers can also locate their EPABX at third Party Data Centres in India.
- With the removal of the distinction between Domestic and International OSP centres, the interconnectivity between all types of OSP centres is now permitted.
- Remote Agents of OSP can now connect directly with the Centralised EPABX/ EPABX of the OSP/ EPABX of the customer using any technology including Broadband over wireline/ wireless.
- No restriction for data interconnectivity between any OSP centres of same company or group company or any unrelated company.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Replacement rate
Mains level: Paper 3- Why declining population is not always a problem
Deflation. A recent (2014) study found substantial deflationary pressures from Japan’s ageing populationThe article argues that a decline in population is not always as worrisome as it is made to be.
Declining fertility rate
- China’s fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman in 2020 is well below replacement level, but so, too, are fertility rates in every rich country.
- In all developed economies, fertility rates fell below replacement in the 1970s or 1980s and have stayed there.
- In India, more prosperous states have fertility rates below replacement level, with only the poorer states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh still well above.
- And while the national rate in 2018 was still 2.2, the Indian National Family Health Survey finds that Indian women would like to have, on average, 1.8 children.
- In all prosperous countries where women are well educated and free to choose whether and when to have children, fertility rates fall significantly below replacement levels.
- If those conditions spread across the world, the global population will eventually decline.
Is the declining population good or bad for the economy
- A pervasive conventional bias assumes that population decline must be a bad thing.
- But while absolute economic growth is bound to fall as populations stabilise and then decline, it is the income per capita that matters for prosperity and economic opportunity.
- It is true that when populations no longer grow, there are fewer workers per retiree, and healthcare costs rise as a percent of GDP.
- But that is offset by the reduced need for infrastructure and housing investment to support a growing population.
- A stable and eventually falling global population would make it easier to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to avoid climate change, and alleviate the pressure that growing populations inevitably place on biodiversity and fragile ecosystems.
- And contracting workforces create stronger incentives for businesses to automate while driving up real wages, which, unlike absolute economic growth, are what really matter to ordinary citizen.
- In a world where technology enables us to automate ever more jobs, the far bigger problem is too many potential workers, not too few.
- Even when the Indian economy grows rapidly, its highly productive “organised sector” of about 80 million workers, fails to create additional jobs.
- Growth in the potential workforce simply swells the huge “informal sector” army of unemployed and underemployed people.
So, when declining populations turns to be a problem?
- Fertility rates far below replacement level create significant challenges, and China may well be heading in that direction.
- At those rates, population decline will be precipitate rather than gradual.
- If Korea’s (fertility rate 1.09) birth rate does not rise, its population could fall from 51 million today to 27 million by 2100, and the ratio of retirees to workers will reach levels that no amount of automation can offset.
Conclusion
The average fertility rates well below replacement level in all developed countries, and, over time, gradually falling populations. The sooner that is true worldwide, the better for everyone.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Poverty line
Mains level: Paper 3- Counting the number of the poor
Counting the number of the poor
- If the state of the Indian economy is to be repaired, we need to meticulously count the number of the poor and to prioritise them.
- The World Bank $2-a-day poverty line might be inadequate but it would be a start and higher than the last line proposed by the C. Rangarajan committee.
- A survey in 2013 had said India stood at 99 among 131 countries, and with a median income of $616 per annum, it was the lowest among BRICS and fell in the lower-middle-income country bracket.
- Since 2013 three important data points have made it clear that the state of India’s poor needs to be acknowledged if India is to be lifted.
- The first being, the fall in the monthly per capita consumption expenditure of 2017-18 for the first time since 1972-73.
- Second is the fall of India in the Global Hunger Index to ‘serious hunger’ category.
- Third, health census data or the recently concluded National Family Health Survey or NFHS-5, which had worrying markers of increased malnutrition, infant mortality and maternal health.
- A fourth statistic, Bangladesh bettering India’s average income statistics, must also be a reason for Indians to introspect.
Increase in number of poor in India
- In 2019, the global Multidimensional Poverty Index reported that India lifted 271 million citizens out of poverty between 2006 and 2016.
- Since then, the International Monetary Fund, Hunger Watch, SWAN and several other surveys show a decided slide.
- In March, the Pew Research Center with the World Bank data estimated that ‘the number of poor in India, on the basis of an income of $2 per day or less in purchasing power parity, has more than doubled to 134 million from 60 million in just a year due to the pandemic-induced recession’.
- In 2020, India contributed 57.3% of the growth of the global poor.
- This has thrown a spanner in the so far uninterrupted battle against poverty since the 1970s.
- Urgent solutions are needed within, and the starting point of that would be only when we know how many are poor.
Debate on the poverty line
- In 2011, the Suresh Tendulkar Committee report at a ‘line’ of ₹816 per capita per month for rural India and ₹1,000 per capita per month for urban India, calculated the poor at 25.7% of the population.
- The anger over the 2011 conclusions, led to the setting up of the C. Rangarajan Committee.
- In 2014, C. Rangarajan Committee estimated that the number of poor were 29.6%, based on persons spending below ₹47 a day in cities and ₹32 in villages.
- The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector in 2004, had concluded that 836 million Indians still remained marginalised.
- The Commission’s conclusion was ignored — that 77% of India was marginalised — emphasising that it was a problem of a much bigger magnitude, than the figure of 25.7% conveyed.
Why counting the poor matters?
1) Helps in forming public opinion
- Knowing the numbers and making them public makes it possible to get public opinion to support massive and urgent cash transfers.
- The world outside India has moved onto propose high fiscal support, as economic rationale and not charity.
- In India too, a dramatic reorientation would get support only once numbers are honestly laid out.
2) It helps in evaluating success of policies
- Recording the data helps to evaluate all policies on the basis of whether they meet the needs of the majority.
- Is a policy such as bank write-offs of loans amounting to ₹1.53-lakh crore last year, which helped corporates overwhelmingly, beneficial to the vast majority?
- This would be possible to transparently evaluate only when the numbers of the poor are known and established.
3) Helps in addressing the concerns of real majority
- If government data were to honestly account for the exact numbers of the poor, it may be more realistic to expect the public debate to be conducted on the concerns of the real majority.
- Such data would also help in creating a climate that demands accountability from public representatives.
4) To gauge the rising inequality
- India has clocked a massive rise in the market capitalisation and the fortunes of the richest Indian corporates, even as millions of Indians have experienced a massive tumble into poverty.
- To say that the stock market and the Indian economy are ‘not related’ is ingenuous.
- Indians must have the right to question whether there is a connection and if the massive rise in riches is not coincidental, but at the back of the misery of millions of the poor.
- If billionaire lists are evaluated in detail and reported upon, the country cannot shy away from counting its poor.
Conclusion
The massive slide into poverty in India that is clear in domestic and international surveys and anecdotal evidence must meet with an institutional response.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Soft-power comparison with China
The article compares India with China in terms of soft-power both countries exert based on the measures produced by Lowy Institute in Australia.
What is soft power?
- Joseph Nye, who gave us the notion of soft power, suggests that it consists of foreign policy, cultural and political influence.
- Foreign policy influence comes from the legitimacy and morality of one’s dealings with other countries.
- Cultural influence is based on others’ respect for one’s culture.
- Political influence is how much others are inspired by one’s political values.
- Soft power is difficult to measure.
The Lowy Institute in Australia has produced various measures which correspond roughly to foreign policy influence, cultural influence and political influence.
1) India’s foreign policy influence
- In diplomatic influence, overall, India ranks sixth and China ranks first among 25 Asian powers.
- On networks, India nearly matches China in the number of regional embassies it has but is considerably behind in the number of embassies worldwide (176 to 126).
- Multilaterally, India matches China in terms of regional memberships, but, crucially, its contributions to the UN capital budget are completely dwarfed by Chinese contributions (11.7 per cent to 0.8 per cent of the total).
- In surveys of foreign policy leadership, ambition, and effectiveness, China ranks first or fourth on four measures while India ranks between fourth and sixth in Asia.
2) Cultural influence
- Lowy’s overall measure of cultural influence ranks India in fourth place and China in second place in Asia.
- Cultural influence is then divided into three elements, of which “cultural projection” and “information flows” are the most important.
- In cultural projection, India scores better on Google searches abroad of its newspapers and its television/radio broadcasts.
- India also exports more of its “cultural services” defined as “services aimed at satisfying cultural interests or needs”.
- China does better on several other indicators.
- For instance, India has only nine brands in the list of the top 500 global brands whereas China lists 73.
- On the number of UNESCO World Heritage sites, India has 37 while China has 53.
- Respect for the Indian passport also lags.
- Chinese citizens can travel visa-free to 74 countries while Indians can only do so to 60.
- In terms of information flows, in 2016–17, India hosted a mere 24,000 Asian students in tertiary education institutions whereas China hosted 2,25,000.
- On total tourist arrivals from all over the world, India received 17 million, while China received 63 million.
3) Political influence
- In 2017 the two were not ranked that far apart in political influence.
- The governance effectiveness index shows India scoring in the top 43 per cent countries worldwide and ranked 12th and China scoring in the top 32 per cent and ranked 10th.
- On “political stability and absence of violence/terrorism”, India ranked 21st, and China ranked 15th.
Consider the question “What do you understand by the term soft-power? How would you assess India’s soft-power potential in terms of various parameters?”
Conclusion
Soft-power theorists suggest that the ability to persuade rests on the power of attraction. We in India may think we are more attractive than China. The numbers show otherwise.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Disaster Management Act
Mains level: Compensation for disaster victims and its limitations
The Supreme Court has reserved its verdict seeking compensation of Rs 4 lakh to the kin of those who have died of Covid-19 or related complications. The Centre has stated that state governments cannot afford to pay this, and had argued in favor of a broader approach including health interventions.
Provisions for Compensation
- Last year, the Centre declared Covid-19 as a notified disaster under the Disaster Management Act.
- Section 12(iii) of the Act says the National Authority shall recommend guidelines for the minimum standards of relief to be provided to persons affected by disaster.
- It includes “ex gratia assistance on account of loss of life as also assistance on account of damage to houses and for restoration of means of livelihood”.
- The Centre revises this amount from time to time.
What is the latest amount?
- On April 8, 2015, the Disaster Management Division of the Home Ministry wrote to all state governments and attached a revised list of “norms of assistance”.
- Under “ex gratia payment to families of deceased persons”, it specified: Rs 4 lakh per deceased person including those involved in relief operations or associated in preparedness activities.
- This is subjected to certification regarding cause of death from appropriate authority.
So, what about compensation for Covid?
- Last year the Home Ministry wrote to state governments that the central government has decided to treat it (Covid-19) as a notified disaster for the purpose of providing assistance under SDRF.
- It attached a partially modified list of items and norms of assistance.
- It did not specify payment of ex gratia to families of deceased.
- Some states have decided to pay, but not for all deaths.
How has the government responded to the petition?
- The Centre has submitted that ex gratia of Rs 4 lakh is beyond the affordability of state governments.
- It argued that if Rs 4 lakh is paid to the kin of each, it “may possibly” consume the entire amount of the State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF).
- This would leave states with insufficient funds for organizing a response to the pandemic, or to take care of other disasters.
- The centre argued that the term ex gratia itself means the amount is not based on legal entitlement.
Way ahead
- A broader approach, which involves health interventions, social protection, and economic recovery for the affected communities would be a more prudent, responsible, and sustainable approach.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Recusal of Judges
Mains level: Judical transparency issues
In the last week, two Supreme Court judges have recused themselves from hearing cases relating to West Bengal.
Can you list down some basic principles of judicial conduct?
Independence, Impartiality, Integrity, Propriety, Competence and diligence and Equality are some of them as listed under the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct.
What is the Recusal of Judges?
- Recusal is the removal of oneself as a judge or policymaker in a particular matter, especially because of a conflict of interest.
- Recusal usually takes place when a judge has a conflict of interest or has a prior association with the parties in the case.
- For example, if the case pertains to a company in which the judge holds stakes, the apprehension would seem reasonable.
- Similarly, if the judge has, in the past, appeared for one of the parties involved in a case, the call for recusal may seem right.
- A recusal inevitably leads to delay. The case goes back to the Chief Justice, who has to constitute a fresh Bench.
Rules on Recusals
- There are no written rules on the recusal of judges from hearing cases listed before them in constitutional courts. It is left to the discretion of a judge.
- The reasons for recusal are not disclosed in an order of the court. Some judges orally convey to the lawyers involved in the case their reasons for recusal, many do not. Some explain the reasons in their order.
- The decision rests on the conscience of the judge. At times, parties involved raise apprehensions about a possible conflict of interest.
Issues with recusal
- Recusal is also regarded as the abdication of duty. Maintaining institutional civilities are distinct from the fiercely independent role of the judge as an adjudicator.
- In his separate opinion in the NJAC judgment in 2015, Justice Kurian Joseph highlighted the need for judges to give reasons for recusal as a measure to build transparency.
- It is the constitutional duty, as reflected in one’s oath, to be transparent and accountable, and hence, a judge is required to indicate reasons for his recusal from a particular case.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Cryptocurrencies
Mains level: Issues with Cryptocurrencies
China’s crackdown against cryptocurrencies, which are those that aren’t sanctioned by a centralized authority and are secured by cryptography, is said to have a lot to do with the crashing of the value of cryptocurrencies.
Background
- The price of the world’s most prominent cryptocurrency Bitcoin has more than halved in the last two months after hitting a peak in mid-April.
- The second-most valuable cryptocurrency, Ether, has seen a similar fall from its peak last month.
What is Cryptocurrency?
- A cryptocurrency is a form of digital asset based on a network that is distributed across a large number of computers.
- This decentralized structure allows them to exist outside the control of governments and central authorities.
- The word “cryptocurrency” is derived from the encryption techniques which are used to secure the network.
- Blockchains, which are organizational methods for ensuring the integrity of transactional data, are an essential component of many cryptocurrencies.
- Many experts believe that blockchain and related technology will disrupt many industries, including finance and law.
- Cryptocurrencies face criticism for a number of reasons, including their use for illegal activities, exchange rate volatility, and vulnerabilities of the infrastructure underlying them. However, they also have been praised for their portability, divisibility, inflation resistance, and transparency.
What has China done?
- In recent weeks, China has reportedly cracked down on crypto mining operations.
- The country has over the years accounted for a large percentage of the total crypto mining activity that takes place.
- In purpose, Bitcoin miners play a similar role to gold miners — they bring new Bitcoins into circulation.
- They get these as a reward for validating transactions, which require the successful computation of a mathematical puzzle.
- And these computations have become ever-increasingly complex, and therefore energy-intensive in recent years. Huge mining operations are now inevitable if one is to mine Bitcoins.
Why is Crypto mining booming in China?
- Access to cheap electricity has made mining lucrative in China.
- According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, China accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total computational power last year.
For an ‘unregulated’ market
- Actually, there is little change in the policy as far as China is concerned. It first imposed restrictions on cryptocurrencies way back in 2013.
- It then barred financial institutions from handling Bitcoin.
- Four years later, it barred what are called initial coin offerings, under which firms raise money by selling their own new cryptocurrencies.
- This is largely an unregulated market.
What does China want?
- An inter-ministerial committee report in India two years ago noted that in 2017, the government of China also banned trading between RMB (China’s currency renminbi) and cryptocurrencies.
- Before the ban, RMB made up 90% of Bitcoin trades worldwide.
- The fact that cryptocurrencies bypass official institutions has been a reason for unease in many governments.
- Not just that. The anonymity that it offers aids in the flourishing of dark trades online.
- While many countries have opted to regulate the world of cryptocurrencies, China has taken the strictest of measures over the years.
- According to observers, the latest set of measures are to strengthen its monetary hold and also project its new official digital currency.
For a digital Yuan
- China launched tests for a digital yuan in March.
- Its aim is to allow Beijing to conduct transactions in its own currency around the world, reducing dependency on the dollar which remains dominant internationally.
Also read:
Legalizing Bitcoin in El Salvador and takeaways for India
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Chicago Convention of 1944
Mains level: NA
A private commercial flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Minsk by a MiG-29 fighter jet of Belarus. The incident received considerable global attention.
How justified was Belarus in taking such a decision?
- The answer lies at the junction of Belarus’s domestic laws as a sovereign country and international laws governing the action that states can legitimately take to deal with threats to security, real or perceived.
- The issue of the use of military aircraft to neutralize potential threats posed by civilian aircraft acquired a different kind of urgency in the aftermath of terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001.
- Generally speaking, international law grants sovereignty to nations over their airspace as it does in territorial waters.
The Chicago Convention of 1944
- The Convention on International Civil Aviation, better known as the Chicago Convention of 1944, to which Belarus is a signatory state, prohibits any unlawful intervention against a civilian aircraft.
- At the same time, it has various provisions under Article 9 which permit a sovereign state the right to impose restrictions.
- This includes enforced landings at a designated airport in its territory, in “exceptional circumstances or during a period of emergency, or in the interest of public safety”.
- Once a flight has landed, Article 16 provides the host country the right to board/search the aircraft.
- This is probably the clause that provided cover for the local authorities to board Mr. Morales’s aircraft in Austria in 2013.
- But the Chicago Convention applies only to civilian aircraft of the contracting parties.
Other such laws
- International law might also have to be examined in light of the International Air Services Transit Agreement (IASTA), also concluded in Chicago in 1944.
- According to this agreement, contracting states grant to one another the freedom of air transit in respect of scheduled international air services, that is, the privilege to fly across territories without landing.
- Belarus is not a signatory of IASTA.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: First-ever genetically modified rubber planted in Assam
Mains level: Hazards of using GMO crops
A Rubber Board research farm on the outskirts of Guwahati now sports the world’s first genetically modified (GM) rubber plant tailored for the climatic conditions in the Northeast.
GM rubber
- The GM rubber has additional copies of the gene MnSOD, or manganese-containing superoxide dismutase, inserted in the plant.
- The plant was developed at the Kerala-based Rubber Research Institute of India (RRII).
- It is expected to tide over the severe cold conditions during winter — a major factor affecting the growth of young rubber plants in the region.
Why need GM rubber?
- Natural rubber is a native of warm humid Amazon forests and is not naturally suited for the colder conditions in the Northeast, which is one of the largest producers of rubber in India.
- Growth of young rubber plants remains suspended during the winter months, which are also characterized by progressive drying of the soil.
- This is the reason for the long immaturity period of this crop in the region.
What does MnSOD gene offer?
- The MnSOD gene has the ability to protect plants from the adverse effects of severe environmental stresses such as cold and drought.
- Laboratory studies conducted at the RRII showed the GM rubber plants overexpressed the MnSOD gene as expected, offering protection to the cells.
- The plant is thus expected to establish well and grow fast in the region.
- There was no risk of genes flowing from the GM rubber into any other native species, a concern often raised by environmental groups against GM plants in general.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Pygmy Hogs
Mains level: NA
Few captive-bred pygmy hogs, the world’s rarest and smallest wild pigs, were released in the Manas National Park of western Assam under the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme (PHCP).
Pygmy Hogs
- The pygmy hog (Porcula salvania) is a native to alluvial grasslands in the foothills of the Himalayas at elevations of up to 300 m (980 ft).
- Today, the only known population lives in Assam, India and possibly southern Bhutan.
- As the population is estimated at less than 250 mature individuals, it is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List.
- It is designated as a Schedule I species in India under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and offences against them invite heavy penalties.
About Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme (PHCP)
- The PHCP is a collaboration among Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust of UK, Assam Forest Department, Wild Pig Specialist Group of IUCN and Union Environment Ministry.
- It is currently being implemented by NGOs Aaranyak and EcoSystems India.
- Six hogs — two males and four females — were captured from the Bansbari range of the Manas National Park in 1996 for starting the breeding programme.
- The reintroduction programme began in 2008 with the Sonai-Rupai Wildlife Sanctuary (35 hogs), Orang National Park (59) and Barnadi Wildlife Sanctuary (22).
Now answer this PYQ in the comment box:
Q.Consider the following :
- Star tortoise
- Monitor lizard
- Pygmy hog
- Spider monkey
Which of the above found in India?
(a) 1, 2 and 3 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Regulation of e-commerce sector
The article highlights the risk of stifling the e-commerce sector due to the government’s propensity for its regulation to protect the local traders.
Efforts to shield local retailers
- India began to open up its economy three decades ago, but efforts to shield local retailers resulted in a retail sector fraught with a thicket of rules.
- With the web’s reach expanding rapidly, online retail is expected to grab a fast-widening slice of a pie placed at above $880 billion last year and projected at $1.3 trillion in 2024.
- Such a huge opportunity has set the stage for a grand e-com confrontation, with our two biggest business houses gearing up to take on a duopoly of US-based Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart.
- The more fiercely e-com is contested, the tighter this sector’s straps seem to get.
What are the new regulations?
- The Centre put out proposals to tighten e-com regulations for consumer protection.
- E-com firms must appoint resident officers to address grievances and monitor rule-compliance, and then be ready to share information sought by authorities within 72 hours.
- For the sake of “free and fair competition”, they must label all wares on their websites by country-of-origin, offer local alternatives, keep search results unbiased, not sell anything to anyone registered as a ‘seller’ with them, not conduct deep-discount flash sales of cherry-picked products.
- Restriction on aiding associated enterprises with any helpful data gleaned by their algorithms.
- As another measure to assure small enterprises an even field, they must also ensure that their logistical systems support all sellers in the same category equally.
- As it happens, this attempt to straitjacket e-com platforms coincides with an antitrust probe of ‘unfair practices’ ascribed to Amazon and Flipkart.
Issues with regulations
- Some of these sound too vague and subjective to adopt.
- Even if clear criteria are specified for their adoption and they actually serve to curtail brand favouritism, they would leave e-com majors with too little autonomy to devise strategies of service differentiation for a competitive edge.
- The perception of e-com majors being bullies, however, does not seem very widely shared among their customers, few of whom complain of either insufficient rivalry or choice deprivation online.
Conclusion
What e-com users are now at risk of suffering, though, is a hobbled industry. If all e-com websites are forced into a statist mould meant for generic market platforms, these companies could lose their ability to set themselves apart, outperform rivals and serve the market’s ultimate cause.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Delimitation of constituencies
Mains level: Jammu and Kashmir after reorganization
The Union government’s invitation to 14 key political leaders from Jammu and Kashmir for a meeting with the PM has led to speculation about the possible scheduling of the Assembly elections. However, the delimitation of constituencies is crucial for kick-starting any political process in J&K.
What is Delimitation and why is it needed?
- Delimitation is the act of redrawing boundaries of an Assembly or Lok Sabha seat to represent changes in population over time.
- This exercise is carried out by a Delimitation Commission, whose orders have the force of law and cannot be questioned before any court.
- The objective is to redraw boundaries (based on the data of the last Census) in a way so that the population of all seats, as far as practicable, be the same throughout the State.
- Aside from changing the limits of a constituency, the process may result in change in the number of seats in a state.
Do not forget to answer this PYQ in the comment box:
Q.With reference to the Delimitation Commission, consider the following statements:
- The orders of the Delimitation Commission cannot be challenged in a Court of Law.
- When the orders of the Delimitation Commission are laid before the Lok Sabha or State Legislative Assembly, they cannot affect any modifications in the orders.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
How often has delimitation been carried out in J&K?
- Delimitation exercises in J&K in the past have been slightly different from those in the rest of the country because of the region’s special status — which was scrapped by the Centre in August 2019.
- Until then, the delimitation of Lok Sabha seats in J&K was governed by the Constitution of India, but the delimitation of the state’s Assembly was governed by the J&K Constitution and J&K Representation of the People Act, 1957.
- Assembly seats in J&K were delimited in 1963, 1973 and 1995.
- The last exercise was conducted by the Justice (retired) K K Gupta Commission when the state was under President’s Rule and was based on the 1981 census, which formed the basis of the state elections in 1996.
- There was no census in the state in 1991 and no Delimitation Commission was set up by the state government after the 2001 census as the J&K Assembly passed a law putting a freeze until 2026.
Why is it in the news again?
- After the abrogation of J&K’s special status in 2019, the delimitation of Lok Sabha and Assembly seats in the newly-created UT would be as per the provisions of the Indian Constitution.
- On March 6, 2020, the government set up the Delimitation Commission, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Ranjana Prakash Desai, which was tasked with winding up delimitation in J&K in a year.
- As per the J&K Reorganization Bill, the number of Assembly seats in J&K would increase from 107 to 114, which is expected to benefit the Jammu region.
What is the status of this 2020 Delimitation?
- Although the Commission was tasked to finish delimitation in a year, on March 4 this year, it was granted a year’s extension.
- This was done at the request of the panel members since it couldn’t make much progress due to the Covid-19-induced shutdown across the country.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now