1) Nai Talim and Gandhiji:-
News:- President’s address at Gujrat Vidyapith.
- Nai Talim is a spiritual principle which states that knowledge and work are not separate. Mahatma Gandhi promoted an educational curriculum with the same name based on this pedagogical principle.
- It can be translated with the phrase ‘Basic Education for all’.However, the concept has several layers of meaning. It developed out of Gandhi’s experience with the English educational system and with colonialism in general. In that system, he saw that Indian children would be alienated and ‘career-based thinking’ would become dominant. In addition, it embodied a series of negative outcomes: the disdain for manual work, the development of a new elite class, and the increasing problems of industrialization and urbanization.
- The three pillars of Gandhi’s pedagogy were its focus on the lifelong character of education, its social character and its form as a holistic process. For Gandhi, education is ‘the moral development of the person’, a process that is by definition ‘lifelong’.
- The constituents of Nai Talim are the 3-H: heart, hand and head. To put this philosophy into practice, Gandhiji promoted an academic curriculum of ‘basic education for all’. With ashram shalas and buniyadi schools operating in the remote areas, Gujarat is perhaps the only state where Nai Talim exists in an institutional form. Nai Talim infers charitra nirman or character building, whose relevance is increasing by the day. Learning with value-orientation must guide our approach in education.
- The motto of Gujarat Vidyapith is “Sa Vidya Ya Vimuktaye”, or “Education that Liberates”.
2)National Capital Goods Policy (Draft) :-
- A draft base paper on National Policy on Capital Goods was prepared by the Department of Heavy Industry (DHI)- Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Joint Task Force on Capital Goods and Engineering.
- What is Capital Goods:-
- Goods that are used in producing other goods, rather than being bought by consumers.They are used to produce consumable goods.
- “Capital Goods” sector comprises of plant and machinery, equipment / accessories required for manufacture / production, either directly or indirectly, of goods or for rendering services, including those required for replacement, modernization, technological upgradation and expansion.
- The Policy:-
- In a challenging global environment, India has earned the distinction of being one of the fastest growing economies in the world over the last decade. During this period manufacturing sector has exhibited a growth rate of ~7%, and has been a strong contributor to overall GDP growth
- However GDP contribution of manufacturing at ~18% is still low when compared to other developing countries (25-35%). This promises a significant upside for manufacturing in the coming decades, provided the fundamental enablers to create a vibrant manufacturing ecosystem are in place.
- Capital goods sector is extremely crucial for the development of the country’s economy for the following two important reasons:-
- Capital Goods is considered as a strategic sector and development of domestic capabilities is essential from a national self-reliance and security perspective
- Capital Goods sector has multiplier effect and has a bearing on the growth of user industries as it provides critical inputs, i.e., machinery and equipment to the remaining sectors covered under the manufacturing activity
- The capital goods sector contributes 12% to the total manufacturing activity (which is about 15% of the GDP).The sector has grown at the rate of 15% per annum over the last decade.
- Concerns:-
- The capital goods component in industrial production has lagged in recent years due to slow pace of domestic demand leading to growing dependence on imports and following slow growth in the world economy.Further, in the globalized world and as trade barriers in the form of tariffs are reduced, not all capital goods manufacturers have been able to tap the global opportunity.
- Vision and Mission:-
- To increase the share of capital goods contribution from present 12% to 20% of total manufacturing activity by 2025.Become one amongst top 10 capital goods producing nations of the world.
- To determine enablers and set mission for each enabler, complementing vision. For example enablers such as availability of Finance, Raw Material, Innovation and Technology (R&D), Skills Development, Productivity, Quality & Environment Friendly Manufacturing Practices (No Defect, No Effect), Exports (Share in the Global Markets), Domestic Demand, etc.
- Creating an Eco-system for globally competitive Capital Goods Sector
- Creation and Expansion of Market for Capital Goods Sector
- Promotion of Exports
- Human Resource Development development in this sector
- Technology & IPR utilization and realizing the best of technology
- Introduction of Mandatory Standards to safeguard the sector
- Focus on SME Development which can empower and employ many
3)VIP Security:-
- At present there are 257 protectees in the Central List under different categories. There is no fixed number of persons, other than VVIPs, Cabinet and other Ministers, to whom security is provided.
- Types of Security :-
- Security is provided on the basis of threat assessment of individuals and the category of security (Z+, Z, Y & X) is decided on the basis of nature and gravity of the threat. Threat assessment is done by the security agencies to determine the nature and gravity of threat faced by an individual.
- Security arrangements for the Central Protectees was last reviewed in the meeting held on 10.09.2015. At present, there are a total of 257 central protectees under various categories (Z+ = 34, Z=66, Y=109 & X=48).
4)SAADMEx-2015:-
- South Asian Annual Disaster Management Exercise-2015
- The few important objectives of the SAADMEx-2015 are as under:-
- Strengthen the effective utilization and quick deployment of Search and Rescue (SAR) Teams for Disaster Relief and Emergency Response.
- Effective activation of national process for regional response and operationalization of regional mechanism for collective response to disaster in the region.
- Management of mass casualties which, among others, would involve Communication breakdown and engineering difficulties.
- Effective and timely utilization of aid/humanitarian assistance.
- Coordination and information sharing with foreign embassies in disaster affected country.
- Media coordination and control of information flow.
- Special needs of vulnerable population.
- Addressing strategic issues related to existing national and regional procedures and coordination mechanisms for large-scale disaster management
- The Exercise had three components:-
- Table Top Exercise (TTx)
- Field Training Exercise (FTx)
- After Action Review (AAR)
5) IMF names yuan global reserve currency:-
- The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund on Monday decided to include the Chinese currency, the renminbi (yuan), into its basket of currencies that make up the IMF’s Special Drawing Right (SDR). The decision was taken during the IMF’s five-yearly review of the basket of currencies.
- To know all about reserve currency read from the below link :-
- http://upsctree.com/2015/11/10/10-nov-2015/
Questions of the Day
MCQS:-
1)Which among them is not a reserve currency ?
- Euro
- Yuan
- Franc
- Rupee
2)Which is not among them is not 3-H of Nai Talim of Gandhiji :-
- heart
- hand
- head
- human
3)Which among them is not the 3 components of SAADMex-2015:-
- Table Top Exercise (TTx)
- Field Training Exercise (FTx)
- After Action Review (AAR)
- Human Resourcs Executive (HRx)
4)Which among them is not the component of National Capital Goods Policy (Draft) ?
- Creating an Eco-system for globally competitive Capital Goods Sector
- Focus on SME Development
- Introduction of Mandatory Standards
- Creating National Integrated Capital goods market
Questions to be answered in 150-200 words:-
- India has failed to add value based education in to formal education. In light of this , Gandhiji’s Nail Talim way of education seems more relevant now which can not only help a youth be educated but also will make him/her more ethical . Discuss.
- Enhancing the capital goods industry will ultimately result in empowerment of rural poor. Comment.
- The recent launch of gold monetization scheme by Government of India will not be a major success – simply because gold is largely attached to people’s emotion . Critically Analyse.
- About Gold monetization scheme :- http://upsctree.com/2015/11/06/06-nov-2015/
P.S. – The question on gold scheme was asked in an interview.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.
Globally, around 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused, according to the United Nations.
This can pose a significant environmental and health threat.
In the absence of cost-effective, sustainable, disruptive water management solutions, about 70% of sewage is discharged untreated into India’s water bodies.
A staggering 21% of diseases are caused by contaminated water in India, according to the World Bank, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday because of poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, according to Startup India.
As we confront these public health challenges emerging out of environmental concerns, expanding the scope of public health/environmental engineering science becomes pivotal.
For India to achieve its sustainable development goals of clean water and sanitation and to address the growing demands for water consumption and preservation of both surface water bodies and groundwater resources, it is essential to find and implement innovative ways of treating wastewater.
It is in this context why the specialised cadre of public health engineers, also known as sanitation engineers or environmental engineers, is best suited to provide the growing urban and rural water supply and to manage solid waste and wastewater.
Traditionally, engineering and public health have been understood as different fields.
Currently in India, civil engineering incorporates a course or two on environmental engineering for students to learn about wastewater management as a part of their pre-service and in-service training.
Most often, civil engineers do not have adequate skills to address public health problems. And public health professionals do not have adequate engineering skills.
India aims to supply 55 litres of water per person per day by 2024 under its Jal Jeevan Mission to install functional household tap connections.
The goal of reaching every rural household with functional tap water can be achieved in a sustainable and resilient manner only if the cadre of public health engineers is expanded and strengthened.
In India, public health engineering is executed by the Public Works Department or by health officials.
This differs from international trends. To manage a wastewater treatment plant in Europe, for example, a candidate must specialise in wastewater engineering.
Furthermore, public health engineering should be developed as an interdisciplinary field. Engineers can significantly contribute to public health in defining what is possible, identifying limitations, and shaping workable solutions with a problem-solving approach.
Similarly, public health professionals can contribute to engineering through well-researched understanding of health issues, measured risks and how course correction can be initiated.
Once both meet, a public health engineer can identify a health risk, work on developing concrete solutions such as new health and safety practices or specialised equipment, in order to correct the safety concern..
There is no doubt that the majority of diseases are water-related, transmitted through consumption of contaminated water, vectors breeding in stagnated water, or lack of adequate quantity of good quality water for proper personal hygiene.
Diseases cannot be contained unless we provide good quality and adequate quantity of water. Most of the world’s diseases can be prevented by considering this.
Training our young minds towards creating sustainable water management systems would be the first step.
Currently, institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) are considering initiating public health engineering as a separate discipline.
To leverage this opportunity even further, India needs to scale up in the same direction.
Consider this hypothetical situation: Rajalakshmi, from a remote Karnataka village spots a business opportunity.
She knows that flowers, discarded in the thousands by temples can be handcrafted into incense sticks.
She wants to find a market for the product and hopefully, employ some people to help her. Soon enough though, she discovers that starting a business is a herculean task for a person like her.
There is a laborious process of rules and regulations to go through, bribes to pay on the way and no actual means to transport her product to its market.
After making her first batch of agarbathis and taking it to Bengaluru by bus, she decides the venture is not easy and gives up.
On the flipside of this is a young entrepreneur in Bengaluru. Let’s call him Deepak. He wants to start an internet-based business selling sustainably made agarbathis.
He has no trouble getting investors and to mobilise supply chains. His paperwork is over in a matter of days and his business is set up quickly and ready to grow.
Never mind that the business is built on aggregation of small sellers who will not see half the profit .
Is this scenario really all that hypothetical or emblematic of how we think about entrepreneurship in India?
Between our national obsession with unicorns on one side and glorifying the person running a pakora stall for survival as an example of viable entrepreneurship on the other, is the middle ground in entrepreneurship—a space that should have seen millions of thriving small and medium businesses, but remains so sparsely occupied that you could almost miss it.
If we are to achieve meaningful economic growth in our country, we need to incorporate, in our national conversation on entrepreneurship, ways of addressing the missing middle.
Spread out across India’s small towns and cities, this is a class of entrepreneurs that have been hit by a triple wave over the last five years, buffeted first by the inadvertent fallout of demonetization, being unprepared for GST, and then by the endless pain of the covid-19 pandemic.
As we finally appear to be reaching some level of normality, now is the opportune time to identify the kind of industries that make up this layer, the opportunities they should be afforded, and the best ways to scale up their functioning in the shortest time frame.
But, why pay so much attention to these industries when we should be celebrating, as we do, our booming startup space?
It is indeed true that India has the third largest number of unicorns in the world now, adding 42 in 2021 alone. Braving all the disruptions of the pandemic, it was a year in which Indian startups raised $24.1 billion in equity investments, according to a NASSCOM-Zinnov report last year.
However, this is a story of lopsided growth.
The cities of Bengaluru, Delhi/NCR, and Mumbai together claim three-fourths of these startup deals while emerging hubs like Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, and Jaipur account for the rest.
This leap in the startup space has created 6.6 lakh direct jobs and a few million indirect jobs. Is that good enough for a country that sends 12 million fresh graduates to its workforce every year?
It doesn’t even make a dent on arguably our biggest unemployment in recent history—in April 2020 when the country shutdown to battle covid-19.
Technology-intensive start-ups are constrained in their ability to create jobs—and hybrid work models and artificial intelligence (AI) have further accelerated unemployment.
What we need to focus on, therefore, is the labour-intensive micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME). Here, we begin to get to a definitional notion of what we called the mundane middle and the problems it currently faces.
India has an estimated 63 million enterprises. But, out of 100 companies, 95 are micro enterprises—employing less than five people, four are small to medium and barely one is large.
The questions to ask are: why are Indian MSMEs failing to grow from micro to small and medium and then be spurred on to make the leap into large companies?
At the Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME), we have advocated for a National Mission for Mass Entrepreneurship, the need for which is more pronounced now than ever before.
Whenever India has worked to achieve a significant economic milestone in a limited span of time, it has worked best in mission mode. Think of the Green Revolution or Operation Flood.
From across various states, there are enough examples of approaches that work to catalyse mass entrepreneurship.
The introduction of entrepreneurship mindset curriculum (EMC) in schools through alliance mode of working by a number of agencies has shown significant improvement in academic and life outcomes.
Through creative teaching methods, students are encouraged to inculcate 21st century skills like creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and leadership which are not only foundational for entrepreneurship but essential to thrive in our complex world.
Udhyam Learning Foundation has been involved with the Government of Delhi since 2018 to help young people across over 1,000 schools to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.
One pilot programme introduced the concept of ‘seed money’ and saw 41 students turn their ideas into profit-making ventures. Other programmes teach qualities like grit and resourcefulness.
If you think these are isolated examples, consider some larger data trends.
The Observer Research Foundation and The World Economic Forum released the Young India and Work: A Survey of Youth Aspirations in 2018.
When asked which type of work arrangement they prefer, 49% of the youth surveyed said they prefer a job in the public sector.
However, 38% selected self-employment as an entrepreneur as their ideal type of job. The spirit of entrepreneurship is latent and waiting to be unleashed.
The same can be said for building networks of successful women entrepreneurs—so crucial when the participation of women in the Indian economy has declined to an abysmal 20%.
The majority of India’s 63 million firms are informal —fewer than 20% are registered for GST.
Research shows that companies that start out as formal enterprises become two-three times more productive than a similar informal business.
So why do firms prefer to be informal? In most cases, it’s because of the sheer cost and difficulty of complying with the different regulations.
We have academia and non-profits working as ecosystem enablers providing insights and evidence-based models for growth. We have large private corporations and philanthropic and funding agencies ready to invest.
It should be in the scope of a National Mass Entrepreneurship Mission to bring all of them together to work in mission mode so that the gap between thought leadership and action can finally be bridged.