Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- What explained increased total FDI in Indian?
The article analyses the factors contributing to the claim of 10% rise in total Foreign Direct Investment in 2020-21 and its impact on economy.
Making sense of increased FDI
- Total foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow in 2020-21 is $81.7 billion, up 10% over the previous year, reported a recent Ministry of Commerce and Industry press release.
- The short press release highlighted industry and State-specific foreign investment figures without detailed statistical information.
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) bulletin, which was released a week earlier, has the details.
What explains increased gross inflows
- The gross inflow consists of (i) direct investment to India and (ii) repatriation/disinvestment.
- The disaggregation shows that direct investment to India has declined by 2.4%.
- Hence, an increase of 47% in “repatriation/disinvestment” entirely accounts for the rise in the gross inflows.
- In other words, there is a wide gap between gross FDI inflow and direct investment to India.
- Similarly, measured on a net basis (that is, “direct investment to India” net of “FDI by India” or, outward FDI from India), direct investment to India has barely risen (0.8%) in 2020-21 over the last year.
- What then accounts for the impressive headline number of 10% rise in gross inflow?
- It is almost entirely on account of “Net Portfolio Investment”, shooting up from $1.4 billion in 2019-20 to $36.8 billion in the next year.
- That is a whopping 2,526% rise.
- Further, within the net portfolio investment, foreign institutional investment (FIIs) has boomed by an astounding 6,800% to $38 billion in 2020-21, from a mere half a billion dollars in the previous year.
- This explains the surge in gross FDI inflows which is entirely on account of net foreign portfolio investment.
How FDI is different from FII
- FDI inflow, in theory, is supposed to bring in additional capital to augment potential output (taking managerial control/stake).
- In contrast, foreign portfolio investment, as the name suggests, is short-term investment in domestic capital (equity and debt) markets to realise better financial returns.
- But the conceptual distinctions have blurred in official reporting, showing an outsized role of FDI and its growth in India.
How FPI distorted equity markets?
- The deluge of FII inflow did little to augment the economy’s potential output.
- It added a lot of froth to the stock prices.
- When GDP has contracted by 7.3% in 2020-21 on account of the pandemic and the economic lockdown, the BSE Sensex nearly doubled from about 26,000 points on March 23, 2020 to over 50,000 on March 31, 2021.
- BSE’s price-earnings (P-E) multiple — defined as share price relative to earnings per share — is among the world’s highest, close behind S&P 500 in the U.S.
FDI inflow’s contribution to domestic output
- As Figure below shows, between 2013-14 and 2019-20, the ratio of net FDI to GDP has remained just over 1% (left-hand scale), with no discernible rising trend in it.
- The proportion of net FDI to gross fixed capital formation (fixed investment) is range-bound between 4% and 6%.
- These stagnant trends are evident when the economy’s fixed investment rate — gross fixed capital formation to GDP ratio — has plummeted from 31.3% in 2013-14 to 26.9% in 2019-20 (right-hand scale).
- Thus, FDI inflow’s contribution to domestic output and investment remains modest.
Conclusion
The flood of FIIs has boosted stock prices and financial returns. These inflows did little to augment fixed investment and output growth.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: India's farm sector and its contribution to the GDP
2020-21 saw the Indian economy register its worst-ever contraction since Independence and also the first since 1979-80. There has been recording economic contraction, however, the farm sector actually grew by 3.6%.
Growth in Farm Sector
There are two main reasons why agriculture didn’t suffer the fate of the rest of the economy last year.
(1) Better monsoon and yields
- 2019 and 2020, by contrast, were above-normal monsoon years, with the country receiving an area-weighted rainfall.
- It led to the filling of reservoirs and recharging of groundwater tables and aquifers, unlike after the deficient monsoons of 2014 and 2015 and the near-deficient one of 2018.
- Not surprisingly, 2019-20 and 2020-21 produced back-to-back bumper harvests.
(2) Ease during lockdowns
- The second reason had to do with agriculture being exempted from the nationwide lockdown that followed the first wave of Covid-19.
- Lockdown restrictions only spared PDS ration shops and other stores selling food, groceries, fruits & vegetables, milk, meat and fish, animal fodder, seeds and pesticides.
- But within days, an addendum was issued, extending the lifting of curbs to fertilizer outlets, all field operations by farmers and farmworkers, intra- and inter-state movement of agricultural machinery, sale of produce in wholesale mandis and procurement.
Inherent resilience of India’s farm sector
- Simply put, farmers made sure they did not waste a good monsoon, finding ways to even mobilize harvesting and planting labor during peak lockdown.
- The inherent resilience and adaptability of rural economic actors — meant that the farm sector was relatively insulated from lockdown-imposed supply-side
What were the issues faced?
- The problems agriculture encountered due to the lockdown had more to do with the demand
- The closure of hotels, restaurants, roadside eateries, sweetmeat shops, hostels, and canteens — and no wedding receptions and other public functions — resulted in a collapse of out-of-home consumption.
- This was demand destruction not from rising prices — “movement along the demand curve”.
- Instead, it was from forced consumption reduction, translating into lower demand for farm produce even at the same price — “a leftward shift in the demand curve”.
Various successes
(1) Success of MSP procurement
- MSP procurement was effective largely in crops and regions where the institutions undertaking such operations — be it the Food Corporation of India, NAFED, Cotton Corporation of India or even cooperative dairies.
- These all were active and could stem price declines during the period of demand destruction.
- Such intervention wasn’t possible in non-mainstream produce (vegetables, fruits, poultry, fish, flowers, spices, etc) and regions (maize in Bihar), where the corresponding institutional mechanisms were non-existent.
- The demand situation improved, though, with the gradual lifting of lockdown restrictions and also the recovery in global agri-commodity prices.
(2) MGNREGA
- While agriculture grew amid an unprecedented economic contraction, 2020-21 was also notable for the record person-days of employment generated under MGNREGA.
- This flagship employment scheme was yet another source of liquidity infusion and, again, a pre-existing program that the government could deploy to support rural incomes during a crisis.
- Rural consumption, in turn, provided some cushion to the economy and preventing a bad situation from turning much worse.
Prospects for this Year
The one obvious difference between now and last year is Covid-19 cases. Covid’s impact on agriculture per se would depend on the spread, intensity, and duration of the infection.
- Rural areas were mostly unaffected by the pandemic’s first wave.
- Farm-related activities could, then, go on relatively unhindered, which government policy, whether to do with lockdown or public procurement, also facilitated.
- That situation has changed with the second wave and rising share of rural districts in total cases, even without factoring in the higher probability of underreporting in these places.
What next?
- While fear of the virus may induce precautionary behavior and economic growth, it is unlikely to affect normal agricultural operations.
- And if last years’ experience is any guide, the adaptability of farmers and myriad rural economic agents should not be underestimated.
(1) The first factor to be considered is the monsoon. The good news this time is that there is no El Niño.
- There are increasing chances of a La Niña — El Niño’s counterpart that is associated with above-normal rains and lower temperatures in India — for the autumn and winter months.
- El Nino is the abnormal warming of the tropical central and eastern Pacific Ocean surface waters, resulting in increased evaporation and cloud-formation activity around South America and away from Asia.
(2) Uncertainty is prices
- Global prices — be it of wheat, maize, soybean, palm oil, sugar, skimmed milk powder or cotton — have scaled multi-year highs in the recent period, helping India’s agri-commodity exports.
- But export demand alone cannot sustain prices, especially in a scenario where job and income losses, accelerated post the pandemic that has severely dented domestic purchasing power.
- Diesel prices alone have gone up by over a third in the last year; so have that of most non-urea fertilizers.
Way forward
- The real challenge for Indian agriculture and farmers will be on the demand side.
- That is specifically going to come from declining real incomes and particularly affecting demand for milk, pulses, egg, meat, fruits, vegetables and other protein/micronutrient-rich foods.
- While rising rural wages and overall incomes is what propelled the demand for these foods in the past — in turn, contributing to dietary and cropping diversification — the ongoing slide presents a frightening proposition.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: 5G technology
Mains level: Issues with 5g rollout
A notable actor has filed a lawsuit in the Bombay High Court against the 5G telecom technology up-gradation, trial runs for which have started in India now.
What is 5G technology?
- 5G or fifth generation is the latest upgrade in the long-term evolution (LTE) mobile broadband networks.
- It mainly works in 3 bands, namely low, mid and high-frequency spectrum — all of which have their own uses as well as limitations.
Issues with the rollout
- However, 5G and its rollout in many countries have been hampered due to fears over health concerns even some conspiracy theories as well, which have tried to link it with the coronavirus among other things.
- The recent lawsuit is asking questions around the overall impact of 5G and low intensity radiofrequency (RF) electronic magnetic field (EMF) radiation on human health, and its environmental impact as well.
- These concerns, while not yet proven, have been raised by various scientists before too.
Arguments raised in the lawsuit
- It has stated that the ‘radiation’ it will emit will be “extremely harmful and injurious to the health and safety of the people”.
- While using wireless devices one is in a constant dilemma about “RF radiation from wire-free gadgets and network cell towers”.
- There is sufficient reason to believe that the radiation is extremely harmful and injurious to the health and safety of the people.
- It wants the concerned department to certify that 5G technology is safe for humans and also animals and birds.
Why is 5G essential?
- 5G promises to revolutionize mobile broadband and is a big generational leap over the existing 4G technology.
- This new technology will be capable of not just ensuring fast internet on our phones, but also help power IoT (Internet of Things) networks to run connected cars and homes smarter.
- It will also support the streaming of rich media.
Rollout status in India
- 5G has not yet been rolled out in India though some companies have been given a trial spectrum to test 5G technology in the country.
- Once this is over, it is expected that networks will go live with the 5G bands by the end of this year.
- The 5G rollout is expected to gather pace in the country by 2022.
Fear around the impact of 5G radiation on human health
- The claim is that the more powerful 5G waves will emit more radiation and cause harm to humans as well as other living beings.
- Also, 5G will require more towers in order to ensure better connectivity, and since it will power more than just our smartphones, it will increase human exposure to such radiation in general.
- This is an extension of the idea that cellular towers, which emit low-level RF-EMF radiation, are in general damaging our bodies.
- But radiation from cellphone towers, mobile phones, WiFi routers is typically called non-ionizing radiation like radio waves, microwaves, and optical radiation.
- RF fields have been classified by WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B).
Layman understandings over such radiations
- There’s no doubt that radiation at very high levels, also referred to as ionizing radiation, heats up our tissue and can eventually lead to cancer.
- This applies to medical devices such as a CT-scan machine or X-ray machine, which emit high-level ionizing radiation.
- That’s exactly why doctors don’t recommend that you go get a CT scan for every health issue because it does increase unnecessary exposure to radiation.
- But there are increasing concerns that our smartphones, other WiFi-ready devices such as laptops, and mobile phone towers which also emit low-level RF radiation are damaging our bodies given the constant exposure.
What WHO has to say?
- On its page on 5G, the World Health Organization (WHO) says “no adverse health effect has been causally linked with exposure to wireless technologies.”
- But it also states that “only a few studies have been carried out at the frequencies to be used by 5G.”
- Given the growing concerns, the WHO is conducting “a health risk assessment from exposure to radio frequencies, covering the entire radiofrequency range, including 5G.”
- This study will be published by 2022.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Nitrogen pollution
Mains level: NA
The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the main focus of the eighth triennial conference of the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI) being held virtually this week.
International Nitrogen Initiative
- INI is an international program, set up in 2003 under the sponsorship of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) and from the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP).
- The key aims of the INI are to:
- optimize nitrogen’s beneficial role in sustainable food production, and
- minimize nitrogen’s negative effects on human health and the environment resulting from food and energy production.
Answer this PYQ in the comment box:
Q.Which of the following adds/add nitrogen to the soil?
- Excretion of Urea by animals
- Burning of coal by man
- Death of vegetation
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2, and 3
Why nitrogen?
- Reactive nitrogen compounds like NOx, ammonia and the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide impact air, water and soil quality, health, biodiversity and climate change, among others.
- These compounds are lost from fertilizers, manures, and sewage as well as from fuel burning in transport and industry.
- Assessing and managing them sustainably will be crucial to achieving the 17 UN SDGs targeted for 2030.
Also read:
[Burning Issue] Nitrogen Pollution in India
Back2Basics: Nitrogen Pollution
- While nitrogen is the dominant gas in the atmosphere, it is inert and doesn’t react.
- However, when it is released as part of compounds from agriculture, sewage and biological waste, nitrogen is considered reactive.
- It may be polluting and even exert a potent greenhouse gas effect.
- Nitrous oxide (N2O) is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide but isn’t as prevalent in the atmosphere.
- Other than air pollution, nitrogen is also linked to the loss of biodiversity, the pollution of rivers and seas, ozone depletion, health, economy, and livelihoods.
- Nitrogen pollution is caused, for example, by emissions from chemical fertilizers, livestock manure and burning fossil fuels.
- Gases such as ammonia (NH3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) contribute to poor air quality and can aggravate respiratory and heart conditions, leading to millions of premature deaths across the world.
- Nitrate from chemical fertilizers, manure, and industry pollute the rivers and seas, posing a health risk for humans, fish, coral, and plant life.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Challenges in dealing with child labour
The article highlights the risk posed by pandemic to the gains made by India on reducing the child labour in India.
Child labour in India
- A Government of India survey (NSS Report No. 585, 2017-18) suggests that only 79.6%. of the children in the age group of 14-17 years are attending educational institutions (formal and informal).
- The Census of India 2011 reports 10.1 million working children in the age group of 5-14 years.
- Out of whom 8.1 million are in rural areas mainly engaged as cultivators (26%) and agricultural labourers (32.9%).
- UNESCO estimates based on the 2011 Census record 38.1 million children as “out of school” i.e.18.3% of total children in the age group of 6-13 years.
- A Rapid Survey on Children (2013-14), jointly undertaken by the Ministry of Women and Child Development and UNICEF, found that less than half of children in the age group of 10-14 years have completed primary education.
How policies and initiatives helped reduce child labour in India (2001-11)
- Child labour in India decreased in the decade 2001 to 2011.
- Policy interventions such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) 2005, the Right to Education Act 2009 and the Mid Day Meal Scheme have paved the way for children to be in schools along with guaranteed wage employment (unskilled) for rural families.
- Efforts towards convergence of government schemes is also the focus of the implementation of the National Child Labour Project.
- Ratifying International Labour Organization Conventions Nos. 138 and 182 in 2017, the Indian government further demonstrated its commitment to the elimination of child labour.
- The Ministry of Labour and Employment-operated online portal allows to share information and coordinate on child labour cases at the national, State and local levels for effective enforcement of child labour laws.
Challenges ahead
- The economic contraction and lockdowns have worsened the situation, posing a real risk of backtracking the gains made in eliminating child labour.
- With increased economic insecurity, lack of social protection and reduced household income, children from poor households are being pushed to contribute to the family income.
- With closure of schools and challenges of distance learning, children may drop out leaving little scope for return unless affirmative and immediate actions are taken.
- As many schools and educational institutions are moving to online platforms for continuation of learning, the ‘digital divide’ is a challenge that India has to reconcile within the next several years.
- The NSS Report titled ‘Household Social Consumption on Education in India’ suggests that in 2017-18, only 24% of Indian households had access to an Internet facility.
- The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2020 survey highlights that a third of the total enrolled children received some kind of learning materials from their teachers during the reference period (October 2020) as digital mode of education was opted for.
Way forward
- It is through strategic partnerships and collaborations involving government, employers, trade unions, community-based organisations and child labour families that we could make a difference building back better and sooner.
- We need a strong alliance paving our way towards ending child labour in all its forms by 2025 to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 8.7.
Consider the question “What are the policy measures and programmatic intervention implemented to reduce the child labour in India. How Covid-19 threatens the gains made on reducing the child labour?”
Conclusion
To deal with the child labour challenge, we need the right level of commitment among all the relevant stakeholders and the right mix of policy and programmatic interventions are present.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Diplomatic fallout of the second covid wave
The article highlights the contrast in India’s diplomacy during the first wave of the pandemic and the second wave. It also discusses the challenges ahead for India.
India’s diplomatic structure in two Covid waves
- In the past month, the focus for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and Missions abroad has shifted.
- During the first wave of the pandemic, focus was on coordinating exports of COVID-19 medicines, flights to repatriate Indians abroad through the ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ after the lockdown, and then exporting vaccines worldwide- ‘Vaccine Maitri’.
- After the second wave, Covid Diplomacy 2.0 has a different order of tasks, both in the immediate and the long term.
- The immediate imperative was to deal with oxygen and medicine shortages that claimed the lives of thousands.
- The Ministry of External Affairs has had to deal with internal health concerns while galvanising help from abroad for others.
- Despite difficulties, the Ministry of External Affairs has completed the task of bringing in supplies in a timely manner, and with success.
Dealing with vaccine shortage
- Companies manufacturing AstraZeneca and Sputnik-V are stretched as far as future production is concerned.
- The Chinese vaccines are out of consideration given bilateral tensions.
- So, it is clear that India is looking to the U.S. to make up the shortfall.
- This could be done in the following ways:
- 1) Requesting the U.S. to share a substantial portion of its stockpile of AstraZeneca.
- The U.S. government is holding up its AstraZeneca exports until its own United States Food and Drug Administration approves them.
- 2) Asking the US to release more vaccine ingredients which are restricted for exports.
- 3) To buy more stock outright from the three U.S. manufacturers, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, and to encourage production in India of these vaccines.
- Production of Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccines in India, as had been announced during the Quad summit, will take some time.
- The U.S. companies seem set on getting both an indemnity waiver from India as well as Emergency Use Authorisation prior to supplying them.
- The Government may also need to make a change to its publicly announced policy that States in India will need to negotiate purchases directly, as the U.S. manufacturers want centralised orders, with payments up-front.
2) Patent waiver
- The promise of patent waivers, from India’s joint proposal at the World Trade Organization (WTO) will not reap early benefits.
- Even though it has received support from world leaders such as the U.S., Russia and China.
- Many countries including Japan, Australia, Brazil and EU are still holding out on the idea of freeing up intellectual property rights on vaccines for three years.
- That could ultimately hold up proceedings at the WTO, as it works by consensus.
3) Diplomatic fallout of vaccine collapse
- The Government has defended its decision to export more than 66 million vaccines doses to 95 countries between January and April this year.
- All exports were stopped as soon as cases in India began to soar.
- Both India’s neighbours and partners in Africa as well as global agencies depending on India for vaccines have been left in the lurch by the Government’s failure to balance its vaccine budget.
- For example, once India completed delivery of the first batch, of 550,000 Covishield doses, Bhutan completed the administration of the first dose to 93% of its population in a record 16 days.
- Two months later, Bhutan does not have any vaccines to complete the second dose and has been left requesting other countries for vaccines.
- It is no surprise that each of India’s neighbours has now sought help from China and the U.S. to complete their vaccination drives.
4) Tracing virus pathways
- India, as one of the worst pandemic-hit countries, must be at the forefront of demanding accountability on the origin of the virus.
- The World Health Organisation (WHO) which studied “pathways of emergence” of SARS-CoV2 in Wuhan, listed four possibilities:
- 1) Direct zoonotic transmission.
- 2) An intermediate host.
- 3) Cold chain or transmission through food.
- 4) A laboratory incident.
- China appears adamant on blocking these studies.
- Even the U.S. appears to have dragged its feet on a conclusive finding, possibly because the U.S. National Institutes of Health had funded some of the Wuhan Institute’s research.
Way forward on virus pathways
- India must call for a more definitive answer and also raise its voice for a stronger convention to regulate any research that could lead, by accident or design, to something as the current pandemic.
- It is necessary to revamp the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention to institute an implementation body to assess treaty compliance, and build safer standards for the future.
Consider the question “How different was the impact of two Covid-19 waves on India’s diplomacy? What are the challenges India faces in the near future in dealing with the fallout of the pandemic?”
Conclusion
With its seat at the UN Security Council as non-permanent member and its position on WHO’s Executive Board, India could seek to regain the footing it has lost over the past few months of COVID-19 mismanagement, by taking a lead role in ensuring the world is protected from the next such pandemic.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Litoria mira
Mains level: NA
A species of frog lives in the rainforests of New Guinea that appears to be made from chocolate — just like the magical sweets popular in the wizarding world of J K Rowling’s Harry Potter.
Litoria mira
- The cocoa-colored frogs have turned out to be a new species — and an addition to our knowledge of the animal kingdom.
- It has a well-known relative — the common green tree frog of Australia called Litoria cerulean.
- Litoria Mira can be distinguished from all other Litoria by its unique combination of moderately large size, webbing on hand, relatively short and robust limbs, and a small violet patch of skin on the edge of its eyes.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Various economic indicators mentioned
Mains level: India's economic growth
India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted by 7.3% in 2020-21.
Tap to read more about:
National Income Determination, GDP, GNP, NDP, NNP, Personal Income
GDP contraction
There are two ways to view this contraction:
- One is to look at this as an outlier — after all, India, like most other countries, is facing a once-in-a-century pandemic — and wish it away.
- The other way would be to look at this contraction in the context of what has been happening to the Indian economy since the regime change.
Impact of the new regime
Let’s look at the most important ones.
(1) Gross Domestic Product
- Contrary to perception advanced by the Union government, the GDP growth rate has been a point of growing weakness for the last 5 of these 7 years.
- The GDP growth rate steadily fell from over 8% in FY17 to about 4% in FY20, just before Covid-19 hit the country.
- The economy was already struggling with massive bad loans which were further deteriorated by demonetization and the GST regime.
(2) GDP per capita
- Often, it helps to look at GDP per capita, which is total GDP divided by the total population, to better understand how well-placed an average person is in an economy.
- At a level of Rs 99,700, India’s GDP per capita is now what it used to be in 2016-17 — the year when the slide started.
- As a result, India has been losing out to other countries. A case in point is how even Bangladesh has overtaken India in per-capita-GDP terms.
(3) Unemployment rate
- This is the metric on which India has possibly performed the worst.
- First came the news that India’s unemployment rate, even according to the government’s own surveys, was at a 45-year high in 2017-18 — the year after demonetization and GST.
- Then in 2019 came the news that between 2012 and 2018, the total number of employed people fell by 9 million — the first such instance of total employment declining in independent India’s history.
- As against the norm of an unemployment rate of 2%-3%, India started routinely witnessing unemployment rates close to 6%-7% in the years leading up to Covid-19.
- The pandemic, of course, made matters considerably worse.
- What makes India’s unemployment even more worrisome is the fact that this is happening even when the labor force participation rate — which maps the proportion of people who even look for a job — has been falling.
(4) Inflation rate
- After staying close to the $110-a-barrel mark throughout 2011 to 2014, oil prices (India basket) fell rapidly to just $85 in 2015 and further to below (or around) $50 in 2017 and 2018.
- On the one hand, the sudden and sharp fall in oil prices allowed the government to completely tame the high retail inflation in the country, while on the other, it allowed the government to collect additional taxes on fuel.
- But since the last quarter of 2019, India has been facing persistently high retail inflation.
- Even the demand destruction due to lockdowns induced by Covid-19 in 2020 could not extinguish the inflationary surge.
(5) Fiscal deficit
- The fiscal deficit is essentially a marker of the health of government finances and tracks the amount of money that a government has to borrow from the market to meet its expenses.
- Typically, there are two downsides of excessive borrowing:
- One, government borrowings reduce the investible funds available for the private businesses to borrow (this is called “crowding out the private sector”); this also drives up the price (that is, the interest rate) for such loans.
- Two, additional borrowings increase the overall debt that the government has to repay. Higher debt levels imply a higher proportion of government taxes going to pay back past loans. For the same reason, higher levels of debt also imply a higher level of taxes.
On paper, India’s fiscal deficit levels were just a tad more than the norms set, but, in reality, even before Covid-19, it was an open secret that the fiscal deficit was far more than what the government publicly stated.
(6) Rupee vs dollar
- The exchange rate of the domestic currency with the US dollar is a robust metric to capture the relative strength of the economy.
- A US dollar was worth Rs 59 when the government took charge in 2014.
- Seven years later, it is closer to Rs 73. The relative weakness of the rupee reflects the reduced purchasing power of the Indian currency.
What’s the outlook on growth?
- The biggest engine for growth in India is the expenditure by common people in their private capacity.
- This “demand” for goods accounts for 55% of all GDP.
- The private consumption expenditure has fallen to levels last seen in 2016-17.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Civil services reforms
West Bengal CM has announced that the outgoing Chief Secretary would be appointed Chief Advisor to the Chief Minister.
Story so far
- A senior IAS officer has been the subject of a tussle between the Centre and the state government over the last few days.
- He was due to begin an extension of three months after retiring as Chief Secretary, but the Centre instead asked him to report and join the Government of India.
- He did not do so.
How officers get an extension?
- Rule 16(1) of DCRB (Death-cum-Retirement Benefit) Rules says that “a member of the Service may be given an extension of service for a period not exceeding three months in the public interest, with the prior approval of the Central Government”.
- For an officer posted as Chief Secretary of a state, this extension can be for six months.
Central Deputation
- In normal practice, the Centre asks every year for an “offer list” of officers of the All India Services willing to go on central deputation.
- Rule 6(1) of the IAS Cadre Rules says an officer may with the concurrence of the State Governments concerned and the Central Government, be deputed for service under the Central Government or another State Government…”
- It says “in case of any disagreement, the matter shall be decided by the Central Government and the State Government or State Governments concerned shall give effect to the decision of the Central Government.”
Issues with such deputation
- Because of the Rule, states have to bear the brunt of arbitrary actions taken by the Centre, while the Rule makes it difficult for the Centre to enforce its will on a state that refuses to back down.
What next
- The Centre cannot take action against civil service officials who are posted under the state government unless the latter agrees.
- Rule 7 of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969, states that the authority to institute proceedings and to impose penalty will be the state government.
- For any action to be taken against an officer of the All India Services, the state and the Centre both need to agree.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: One-Child Policy
China will for the first time allow couples to have a third child in a further relaxation of family planning rules five years after a “two-child policy” largely failed to boost birth rates.
Do you think that the One-Child Policy would be effective for population control in India?
What was the One-Child Policy?
- China embarked upon its one-child policy in 1980 when the Communist Party was concerned that the country’s growing population, which at the time was approaching one billion, would impede economic progress.
- The policy was implemented more effectively in urban areas.
- It was enforced through several means, including incentivizing families financially to have one child, making contraceptives widely available, and imposing sanctions against those who violated the policy.
How well did the policy fare?
- Chinese authorities have long hailed the policy as a success, claiming that it helped the country avert severe food and water shortages by preventing up to 40 crore people from being born.
- However, the policy was also a source of discontent, as the state used brutal tactics such as forced abortions and sterilizations.
- It also met criticism and remained controversial for violating human rights, and for being unfair to poorer Chinese since the richer ones could afford to pay economic sanctions if they violated the policy.
- Additionally, China’s rulers have been accused of enforcing reproductive limits as a tool for social control.
- The Uighur Muslim ethnic minority, for example, has been forced to have fewer children to restrict the growth of their population.
Demographic changes due to the policy
- Due to the policy, while the birth rate fell, the sex ratio became skewed towards males.
- This happened because of a traditional preference for male children in the country, due to which abortion of female fetuses rose and so did the number of girls who were placed in orphanages or abandoned.
- Experts have also blamed the policy for making China’s population age faster than other countries, impacting the country’s growth potential.
- It is also suggested that because of the long-lingering impact of the policy, China would be unable to reap the full benefits of its economic growth and will need other ways to support it.
Skeptics of the new move
- Experts say relaxing limits on reproductive rights alone cannot go a long way in averting an unwanted demographic shift.
- The main factors behind fewer children being born, they say, are rising costs of living, education, and supporting aging parents.
- The problem is made worse by the country’s pervasive culture of long working hours.
- There has also been a cultural shift during the decades in which the one-child policy remained in force, with many couples believing that one child is enough, and some expressing no interest in having children.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: AmbiTag
Mains level: NA
IIT Ropar in (Punjab) has developed a first-of-its-kind IoT device – AmbiTag that records real-time ambient temperature during the transportation of perishable products, vaccines, and even body organs and blood.
AmbiTag
- Shaped like a USB device, AmbiTag continuously records the temperature of its immediate surroundings “from -40 to +80 degrees in any time zone for a full 90 days on a single charge.
- Most of the similar devices available in the international market record data only for a duration of 30- 60 days.
- It generates an alert when the temperature goes beyond a pre-set limit. The recorded data can be retrieved by connecting the USB with any computer.
- So far, such devices are being imported by India in a massive quantity from other countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Ireland, and China.
- The device has been developed under Technology Innovation Hub – AWaDH (Agriculture and Water Technology Development Hub) and its Startup ScratchNest.
Its applications
- The device helps know whether that particular item transported from anywhere in the world is still usable or perished because of temperature variation.
- This information is particularly critical for vaccines including the Covid-19 vaccine, organs, and blood transportation.
- Besides perishable items including vegetables, meat, and dairy products it can also monitor the temperature of animal semen during transit.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Israel-Palestine conflict
The article suggest the Indian model for peaceful coexistence as a possible solution to Israel-Palestine conflict.
Brief history of the conflict
- Britain renounced its Mandate over Palestine in 1948.
- This paved the way for the United Nations to divide Palestine between the Jews and Arabs, giving them about 55% and 45% of the land, respectively.
- The Jews, meanwhile, had declared the establishment of the state of Israel for which they had been working for long.
- The Palestinians, who lacked the resources to conceive of a state, failed to form a state of their own in the land allotted to them.
- Instead, a coalition of Arab countries invaded the nascent state of Israel to nip it in the bud.
- Israel defeated the Arab armies.
- Israel also destroyed about 600 Palestinian villages and expelled about 80% of Arabs from its territory.
- In 1967, in the Six-Day War, Israel captured not just more Palestinian land but also Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights.
- During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the Arabs came to realise that Israel is here to stay.
Need for realisation on both the sides
- The Arab states failed to impress the realisation of permanency of Israel upon their Palestinian brethren, a sizeable number of whom remain committed to seeking a solution through counter-violence.
- Vicious cycle of violence is not going to end unless there is realism on both sides.
- The Hamas should know that Israel will not give up on holding on to land it has held for years.
- Israel should understand that total subjugation, expulsion or even decimation of Palestinians will not make it any safer.
- A solution based on the common humanity of all stakeholders, one that is not riven by racial and religious schisms, needs to be explored.
Viability of Indian model
- The Indian model of democracy and secularism, which accommodates religious, ethnic, linguistic and other diversities, could be a viable model for the peaceful coexistence of formerly antagonistic groups.
- India evolved a unique model of accommodating the victors and the vanquished, without ever resorting to the latter’s decimation.
- A modus vivendi has to evolve on the basis of hard realities, the first of which is that neither the Jews nor the Palestinians are going to vanish.
- If the two-state solution is nowhere in the offing, a single state after the Indian model, i.e., a secular, democratic and pluralistic state, may be the only feasible option.
- The Palestinian refugees have a right to return.
- That the altered demographics would impinge on the religio-racial character of Israel is not an argument which behoves a modern democratic state.
- It is true that a nation state belongs to the group which constituted itself into a nation.
- A nation is an imagined community.
- As imagination expands, the foundations of the nation become deeper.
Consider the question “In the absence of two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, what lessons India could offer to the two parties for peaceful coexistence?”
Conclusion
Israel might not offer the right model of conflict resolution for India, but India presents a model of peaceful coexistence for Israel.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: SEATO and SENTO
Mains level: Paper 2- India-Pak relations
The article explains evolution of Pakistan’s approach towards forming alliances and maintaining strategic autonomy against the backdrop of U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
New dynamic Pakistan has to face
- As the US withdraws its troops from Afghanistan, Pakistan is eager to build a relationship with Washington that is not tied to US stakes in Afghanistan.
- Pakistan does not want to be totally alienated from U.S. in the new geopolitical jousting between the US and China.
- How Pakistan copes with the new dynamic between the US and China as well as manages the deepening crisis in Afghanistan would be of great interest to India.
Striking the balance between autonomy and alliance
- Autonomy is about the basic impulse for enhancing the degree of one’s freedom.
- Alliances are about coping with real or perceived threats to one’s security.
- Both are natural trends in international politics.
- Joining an alliance does not mean ceding one’s sovereignty.
- Within every alliance, there is a perennial tension between seeking more commitments from the partner in return for limiting one’s own.
Explaining Pakistan’s approach to alliances
- Pakistan’s insecurities in relation to India meant it was eager for alliances.
- And as the Anglo-Americans scouted for partners in the crusade against global communism, Pakistan signed a bilateral security treaty with the US and joined the South East Asia Treaty Organisation and Central Treaty Organisation in the mid-1950s.
- Rather than target Pakistan’s alliance with a West that was intensely hostile to Beijing in the 1950s, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai saw room to exploit Pakistan’s insecurities on India.
- While Pakistan’s ties with the US went up and down, its relationship with China has seen steady expansion.
- Pakistan’s relations with the US flourished after the Soviet Union sent its troops into Afghanistan at the end of 1979.
- The US and Pakistan reconnected in 2001 as Washington sought physical access and intelligence support to sustain its intervention in Afghanistan following the attacks on September 11.
- Now the US wants Pakistan to persuade the Taliban to accept a peaceful transition to a new political order in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s ability to adapt to shifting geopolitical trends
- Pakistan worries that its leverage in U.S. will diminish once the US turns its back on Afghanistan and towards the Indo-Pacific.
- Pakistan does not want to get in the Indo-Pacific crossfire between the US and China.
- It would also like to dent India’s growing importance in America’s Indo-Pacific strategy.
- India should not underestimate Pakistan’s agency in adapting to the shifting global currents.
- Pakistan has been good at using its great power alliances to its own benefit.
Three problems that complicates Pakistan’s strategic autonomy
- 1) Relative economic decline: Pakistan’s expected aggregate GDP at around $300 billion in 2021 is 10 times smaller than India’s.
- 2) Obsession with Kashmir: Pakistan’s enduring obsessions with separating Kashmir from India, and extending its political sway over Afghanistan; both look elusive despite massive political investments by the Pakistan army.
- Unsurprisingly, there is a recognition that Pakistan needs reorientation — from geopolitics to geoeconomics and permanent war with neighbours to peace of some sorts.
- 3) Using religion as political instrument: Turning Islam into a political instrument and empowering religious extremism seemed clever a few decades ago.
- However, today those forces have acquired a life of their own and severely constrain the capacity of the Pakistani state to build internal coherence and widen international options.
Conclusion
It will be unwise to rule out Pakistan’s positive reinvention; no country has a bigger stake in it than India. For now, though, Pakistan offers a cautionary tale on the dangers of squandering a nation’s strategic advantages — including a critical geopolitical location that it had inherited and the powerful partnerships that came its way.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IT Act 2000
Mains level: Paper 3- Issues involved in traceability of originator of information on social media
The article deals with the issues involved in the traceability requirement of the originator of information on social media platform as per new IT Rules.
Traceability clause and issues involved
- Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 imposes certain obligation on significant social media intermediaries.
- Rule 4(2) puts an obligations to ensure traceability of the originator of information on their platforms.
- Consequently, WhatsApp has filed a petition in the Delhi High Court.
- WhatsApp contends that the mandate for traceability violates the privacy rights of Indian citizens, by rendering WhatsApp unable to provide encrypted services.
Government’s response
- The Government primarily relies on the argument that: privacy is not an absolute right, and that the traceability obligation is proportionate, and sufficiently restricted.
- Notably, the new Rules mandate traceability only in the case of significant social media intermediaries i.e. those that meet a user threshold of 50 lakh users, which WhatsApp does.
- Traceability is also subject to an order being passed by a court or government agency and only in the absence of any alternatives.
- While it is indeed true that privacy is not an absolute right, the Supreme Court of India in the two K.S. Puttaswamy decisions of 2017 and 2018 has laid conditions for restricting this right.
- In Puttaswamy cases, the Supreme Court clarified that any restriction on this right must be necessary, proportionate and include safeguards against abuse.
Issues with traceability
- Not proportionate: A general obligation to enable traceability as a systemic feature across certain types of digital services is neither suitable nor proportionate.
- No safeguard against abuse: The Rules lack effective safeguards in that they fail to provide any system of independent oversight over tracing requests made by the executive.
- This allows government agencies the ability to seek any messaging user’s identity, virtually at will.
- Presumption of criminality: Weakening encryption — which a traceability mandate would do — would compromise the privacy and security of all individuals at all times, despite no illegal activity on their part, and would create a presumption of criminality.
Way forward
- Explore the alternatives: The Government already has numerous alternative means of securing relevant information to investigate online offences including by accessing unencrypted data such as metadata, and other digital trails from intermediaries.
- Already has ability to access encrypted data: The surveillance powers of the Government are in any case vast and overreaching, recognised even by the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee report of 2018.
- Importantly, the Government already has the ability to access encrypted data under the IT Act.
- Notably, Section 69(3) of the Information Technology Act and Rules 17 and 13 of the Information Technology Rules, 2009 require intermediaries to assist with decryption where they have the technical ability to do so, and where law enforcement has no alternatives.
- Judicial scrutiny of Section 79 of IT Act: The ability of the government to issue obligations under the guise of “due diligence” requirements under Section 79 of the IT Act must be subject to judicial scrutiny.
- Legislative changes needed: The long-term solution would be for legislative change along multiple avenues, including in the form of revising and reforming the now antiquated IT Act, 2000.
Consider the question “What are the issues involved in the traceability of the originator of the information on social media platforms as mandated by the new IT Rules 2021? Suggest the way forward.”
Conclusion
While, undoubtedly, there are numerous problems in the digital ecosystem that are often exacerbated or indeed created by the way intermediaries function, ill-considered regulation of the sort represented by the new intermediary rules is not the way forward.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: One nation One standard Mission
Mains level: NA
RDSO (Research Design & Standards Organization) of Indian Railways has become the FIRST Institution to be declared SDO under the “One Nation One Standard ” mission of BIS ( Bureau of Indian Standards).
About RDSO
- Research Designs & Standards Organization (RDSO), Lucknow, \ is the sole R&D Wing of the Ministry of Railways.
- It is one of India’s leading Standard formulating Body undertaking standardization work for the railway sector.
Answer this PYQ in the comment box:
Q.Consider the following statements:
- The Standard Mark of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is mandatory for automotive tyres and tubes.
- AGMARK is a quality Certification Mark issued by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
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
What is One Nation One Standard mission?
- The purpose of setting standards and enforcing them is not to bring back “inspection raj” but to ensure that quality products are made available to consumers.
- The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the only national body that frames standards, has come out with more than 20,000 standards for various products and services so far.
- Besides this, there are about 50-odd agencies that have framed about 400 standards in the country.
- There are multiple standards in the country for a single product/service. The new mission is to converge such standards with the BIS.
Objectives of the mission:
- No one should feel the need to go abroad to get a quality certification.
- Lab testing in India should be of world standards. Modern equipment and the latest technologies would be used there.
Why such a move?
- Having uniform national standards will help in making it mandatory for more products.
- The government proposes to set Indian standards in line with the global benchmarks, just like other countries enforce their standards on imported products.
- The Centre, through this move, wants foreign goods coming into India to comply with Indian standards.
Back2Basics: Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)
- BIS is the National Standards Body of India working under the aegis of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution.
- It is established by the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 1986 which came into effect on 23 December 1986.
- The organization was formerly the Indian Standards Institution (ISI), set up under the Resolution of the Department of Industries and Supplies in September 1946.
- The ISI was registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
- A new Bureau of Indian standard (BIS) Act 2016 has been brought into force with effect from 12 October 2017.
- The Act establishes the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) as the National Standards Body of India.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Suitability of Maldives model of development for the Lakshadweep
The article highlights the issues with development model sought to be pursued in Lakshadweep.
Background of Island Development Authority’
- A specially constituted Island Development Authority (IDA) for the island territories of India, chaired by no less than the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.
- IDA had in 1988, approved a framework for the development of India’s island territories.
- IDA sought an environmentally sound strategy for both island groups hinges on better exploitation of marine resources coupled with much greater care in the use of land resources.
- Deliberations of the IDA wanted that Lakshadweep, with its land ownership constitutionally protected, be opened to international tourism.
Issues with following Maldives model for development of Lakshadweep
- Recently, the Administrator, Lakshadweep, introduced a slew of draft legislation that will have a wide-ranging impact on the islands.
- One such legislation is the Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation 2021 with intentions to develop Lakshadweep like neighbouring Maldives, “a renowned international tourist destination”.
- Rejecting the Maldives model, the plan for Lakshadweep required that the industry had to be people-centric and enrich the fragile coral ecology.
- Today, long lines and refrigeration have aided the expansion of the fishing sector but income disparities have grown.
- Indiscriminate trawling endangers the coral, as experienced in the Maldives and now banned there.
- The Government recognises the need to develop policies for enhancing employment opportunities, environment-friendly management of fisheries, sanitation, waste disposal and widening access to drinking water, with the youth, having acquired a modern education, preferring salaried jobs over pursuing traditional occupations.
Conclusion
What Lakshadweep needs is a clear policy must include conservation and natural resource management arrived at after wide consultation, eminently possible within the existing infrastructure of the Union Territory, and also taking into account climatic compulsions.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Impact of second Covid wave on States' fiscal health
The article gives the overview of the impact of second Covid wave on the fiscal health of the States.
Impact of first Covid wave on fiscal health of states
- The analysis of the fiscal data for all states with the exception of Goa, Manipur, Meghalaya and Sikkim reveal a grim picture.
- The aggregate revenue deficit for 24 state governments soared to Rs 4 trillion as per the revised estimates (RE) for 2020-21, up from a modest budgeted amount of Rs 353 billion.
- And, despite a 16 per cent cut in capital spending, the fiscal deficit of these states deteriorated to Rs 8.7 trillion in 2020-21 (RE), up from the budgeted estimate of Rs 6.0 trillion.
How states had projected ambitious decline in revenue deficit
- The budgets for the ongoing fiscal year, had projected an ambitious, decline in the aggregate revenue deficit to Rs 1.2 trillion, lower than the pre-Covid-19 level of Rs 1.3 trillion in 2019-20.
- This has benefitted from the considerable expansion in their revenue receipts this year, forecasted at 24.7 per cent, compared to a moderate 12.4 per cent increase in their aggregate revenue expenditure.
- This anticipated shrinking of the revenue deficit has allowed states to plan for a substantial expansion in their capital expenditure and net lending pegged at 34.1 per cent.
- This anticipated shrinking also allowed the States to attempt a modest correction in their budgeted fiscal deficit, bringing it down to Rs 7.6 trillion in 2021-22 from Rs 8.7 trillion in 2020-21 (RE).
Fiscal concerns over second Covid wave
- The second wave of Covid-19 infections and its spread to rural areas has fanned fiscal concerns.
- The curtailed consumption of discretionary items and contact-intensive services will dampen the growth of states’ own tax revenues this year.
- Moreover, lower mobility during the regional lockdowns will constrain tax revenues that states earn on fuels.
- The data for the generation of GST e-way bills confirms that the staggered imposition of the localised lockdowns has had an adverse impact on economic activity since April.
- This will result in a sequential slowdown in GST collections that will be reported in the subsequent two months.
- Nevertheless, the GST collections is likely to nearly double to Rs 1.7 trillion in the first quarter of this year, up from Rs 0.9 trillion over the same period last year, boosted by the record-high collections in April,
- That reflected healthy economic activity in March.
The shortfall and way forward
- States’ own tax collections is estimated to trail their budget estimates as they were drawn up before the second wave.
- For this year, state GST collections would be at Rs 6.1 trillion, falling below their projected revenues of Rs 8.7 trillion.
- This indicates a GST compensation requirement of Rs 2.65 trillion — only 38 per cent of which may be met through the expected GST compensation cess collections.
- Following the meeting of the GST Council, the Finance Minister has indicated that a back-to-back loan of Rs 1.58 trillion will be provided to the states.
- If the tranches of this loan start flowing to the states soon, it will alleviate their anticipated revenue crunch over the next two months.
- Already, there has been a sharp rise in the size of the upcoming State Development Loan auction to Rs. 19,550 crore, relative to the modest average size of around Rs. 7,400 crore seen so far in the first eight auctions held in FY2022.
Conclusion
In any case, the capital spending budgeted by certain state governments this year appears to be optimistic. Moreover, localised restrictions imposed during the last two months are expected to have constrained activity.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Blockchain technology
Mains level: Paper 3- Adopting and regulating cryptocurrencies
The article highlights the need for coherent cryptocurrency policy and avoid missing the benefits offered by the technology.
Growing dominance of cryptocurrencies
- Created by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency.
- It is a fully decentralised, peer-to-peer electronic cash system that didn’t need the purview of any third-party financial institution.
- The Bitcoin, which traded at just $ 0.0008 in 2010, commanded a market price of just under $65,000 this April.
- Many newer coins were introduced since Bitcoin’s launch, and their cumulative market value touched $ 2.5 trillion this May.
- Within a span of just over a decade, their value has surpassed the size of economies of most modern nations.
- The “cryptomarket” grew by over 500 per cent, even while the pandemic unleashed global economic carnage not seen since the Great Depression.
- China’s recent crackdown on cryptocurrency had far-reaching consequences.
- An astounding trillion US dollars were wiped out from the global cryptomarket within a span of 24 hours.
- This kind of volatility mentioned above has always been a concern for regulators and investors alike.
India’s approach
- Law enforcement and taxation agencies have called for a ban, expressing concerns over cryptocurrencies being used as instruments for illicit activities, including money laundering and terror funding.
- In 2018, the Reserve Bank barred our financial institutions from supporting crypto transactions — but the Supreme Court overturned it in 2020.
- Yet, Indian banks still block these transactions, and the government has circulated a draft bill outlawing all cryptocurrency activities, which has been under discussion since 2019.
- The Reserve Bank has announced the launch of a private blockchain-supported official digital currency, similar to the digital Yuan.
- India is increasingly mimicking China’s paradoxical attempt to centralise a decentralised ecosystem.
- India is trying to decouple cryptocurrencies from their underlying blockchain technology, and still derive benefit.
- Unfortunately, this is impractical, and shows a lack of understanding of this disruptive innovation.
- The funds that have gone into the Indian blockchain start-ups are less than 0.2 per cent of the amount the sector raised globally.
- The current central government approach makes it near-impossible for entrepreneurs and investors to acquire much economic benefit.
Need for regulation
- Regulation is definitely needed to prevent serious problems, to ensure that cryptocurrencies are not misused, and to protect unsuspecting investors from excessive market volatility and possible scams.
- However, regulation needs to be clear, transparent, coherent and animated by a vision of what it seeks to achieve.
- India has not been able to tick these boxes, and we’re in danger of missing out in the global race altogether.
Way forward
- Any new regulations made in this sector should prevent the misuse of these digital assets without hindering innovation and investments.
- Provisions have to be made to route the value extracted from these networks transparently into our financial system.
- Regulatory uncertainties over India’s position on cryptocurrency highlights the need for clear-headed policy-making.
Consider the question “India was a late adopter in all the previous phases of the digital revolution be it the semiconductors, the internet or smartphones. Do you think the same is happening again in India’s adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology?”
Conclusion
We are currently on the cusp of the next phase, which would be led by technologies like blockchain. We have the potential to channel our human capital, expertise and resources into this revolution, and emerge as one of the winners of this wave. All we need to do is to get our policymaking right.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Onset of Monsoon, ITCZ, etc.
Mains level: Factors that influence the onset of south-west monsoons, Indian Monsoon
- The monsoon’s arrival over Kerala has been delayed to June 3, according to an update by the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
- Private weather forecast agency, Skymet, however, said that the monsoon had arrived.
- This was because two of the three criteria — as defined by the IMD — had been met.
- Currently, IMD’s own data indicated that except for the OLR, the other criteria were met. Thus, there is an element of subjectivity in arrival.
What are those criterias defined by IMD?
- Rain-bearing westerlies being at a minimum depth and speed;
- At least 60% of the available 14 stations in Kerala and coastal Karnataka, reporting rainfall of 2.5 mm or more for two consecutive days after May 10;
- A certain degree of clouding, indicated by a parameter called ‘outgoing long wave radiation’ (OLR), being below 200 W/square meter.
What is meant by ‘Outgoing Long Wave Radiation’ (OLR)?
- Outgoing Long-wave Radiation (OLR) is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths from 3–100 μm emitted from Earth and its atmosphere out to space in the form of thermal radiation.
- It is also referred to as up-welling long-wave radiation and terrestrial long-wave flux, among others.
- The flux of energy transported by outgoing long-wave radiation is measured in W/m.
- In the Earth’s climate system, long-wave radiation involves processes of absorption, scattering, and emissions from atmospheric gases, aerosols, clouds and the surface.
- Over 99% of outgoing long-wave radiation has wavelengths between 4 μm and 100 μm, in the thermal infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Factors responsible for south-west monsoon formation:
- Intense heating of Tibetan plateau during summer months.
- Permanent high pressure cell in the South Indian Ocean (east to north-east of Madagascar in summer).
Factors that influence the onset of south-west monsoons:
- Above points +
- Subtropical Jet Stream (STJ).
- Tropical Easterly Jet (African Easterly Jet).
- Inter Tropical Convergence Zone.
Factors that influence the intensity of south-west monsoons:
- Strengths of Low pressure over Tibet and high pressure over southern Indian Ocean.
- Somali Jet (Findlater Jet).
- Somali Current (Findlater Current).
- Indian Ocean branch of Walker Cell.
- Indian Ocean Dipole.
Factors responsible for north-east monsoon formation:
- Formation and strengthening of high pressure cells over Tibetan plateau and Siberian Plateau in winter.
- Westward migration and subsequent weakening of high pressure cell in the Southern Indian Ocean.
- Migration of ITCZ to the south of India.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Bell of Faith’ scheme
Mains level: Old age security
The ‘Bell of Faith’ scheme will now be implemented for senior citizens staying alone in villages. Scheme to cover 250 houses in city in the first phase.
What is the ‘Bell of Faith’ scheme all about?
- It is a safety project conceived under Kerala’s Community Policing Scheme.
- It will help elderly citizens attract the attention of their neighbours using a loud, remote-controlled alarm in emergencies.
- It has been under implementation in Kerala since 2018.
- A welfare fund of ₹3.5 crore sanctioned by the State government would be used for the initiative that gives preference to those staying alone in their houses.
- In the first phase, around 250 houses selected by the local Janamaithri scheme coordinators will be covered under the scheme
Significance of the Project:
- It sets an example for community participation to ensure the well-being and safety of the elderly.
- It can be of great support for the aged during the COVID-19 pandemic as many live in fear for their health.
- The electronic bells, installed free of cost with wireless control mechanism, will help senior citizens in quickly seeking the support of neighbours during emergencies.
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