Indo-Sychelles relations:-
- EX LAMITYE:-Indo Seychelles Joint Military Exercise started commenced recently
- India and Seychelles share historical socio-cultural ties and people to people contact due to Seychelles’ strategic location connecting eastern African and south Asian sea lanes of trade and communication. This 116 island nation is located 1350 to 1800 kilometers from the East African coast, and the pluralistic society of Seychelles encompasses people of French, British, Indian, Iranian and Chinese descent. Over 10 percent of its 90,000 population is of Indian origin. India established diplomatic ties with Seychelles soon after its independence in 1976.
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Why Seychelles is Important for India?
Seychelles’ strategic importance traces back to the Napoleonic era when Britain gained control over this island which straddled the trade route to the East Indies. Given its proximity to the oil sea lanes and oil producing nations, US wanted to build a base at Aldabra Island in the Seychelles, but had to shift it to Diego Garcia due to political constraints.
India is trying to influence Indian Ocean Region by extending economic, military and diplomatic cooperation and through strategic partnership. From 2005, India has embarked upon a policy to engage four western Indian Ocean island nations and Seychelles forms a crucial part of it.
Apart from its strategic location on international sea lanes of communication as discussed earlier, Seychelles is a leader among SIDS group (Small Island Developing States) which has multifold areas of convergence with India. It is a leader in advancing the concept of ‘blue economy’, which covers a huge panoply of aspects like environment, hydrocarbons, marine economy, renewable energy and exploration of continental shelf and as Modi said, ‘this Ocean Economy is indispensable to meeting our future challenges.’
This island nation also forms the entry gate to eastern Africa with which India has had historical socio-commercial links and now forms a huge market for Indian firms.
Swachh Sarvekshan Survey
Background:- Swacch Sarvekshan Survey was conducted by the Quality Council of India.The survey was commissioned in 73 cities as part of ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’
Objectives of the survey:-
The objectives of the survey is do a healthy field-level analysis there by providing the necessary insights to the cities on what they need to do and where do they lack as long as sanitation is concerned.
Components of the Survey:-
- Open defecation and Integrated solid waste management.
- Efforts for education and behavioural change.
- Methods for sweeping and door-to-door collection and transportation.
- Processing and disposal of solid waste.
- Provision of public and community toilet seats.
- Construction of household individual toilets.
Highlights of the survey:-
- Mysore was voted India’s cleanest city. Followed by Chandigarh, Tiruchirapalli ,New Delhi Municipal Council , Vishakapatnam, Surat , Rajkot ,Gangtok,Pimpri Chindwada and Mumbai
Swachh Bharat Mission:
It was officially launched on Gandhi Jayanti ( 2 October 2014 ). The mission seeks to achieve clean India and aims to provide access to toilets to all households in the country.
Objectives of the mission:-
- Eliminate open defecation.
- Conversion of insanitary toilets to pour flush toilets.
- Eradication of manual scavenging.
- 100% collection and scientific processing/disposal reuse/recycle of Municipal Solid Waste.
- To bring about a behavioral change in people regarding healthy sanitation practices.
- Generate awareness among the citizens about sanitation and its linkages with public health.
- Strengthening of urban local bodies to design, execute and operate systems.
- To create enabling environment for private sector participation in Capital Expenditure and Operation & Maintenance (O&M) costs.
Components of the Mission:-
- Construction of individual sanitary latrines for households below the poverty line with subsidy (80%) where demand exists.
- Conversion of dry latrines into low-cost sanitary latrines.
- Construction of exclusive village sanitary complexes for women providing facilities for hand pumping, bathing, sanitation and washing on a selective basis where there is not adequate land or space within houses and where village panchayats are willing to maintain the facilities.
- Setting up of sanitary marts.
- Total sanitation of villages through the construction of drains, soakage pits, solid and liquid waste disposal.
- Intensive campaign for awareness generation and health education to create a felt need for personal, household and environmental sanitation facilities.
National Capital Goods Policy:-
- A 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
- To increase production of capital goods from Rs. 2.30 lakh crore in 2014-15 to Rs. 7.50 lakh crore in 2025 and raise direct and indirect employment from the current 8.4 million to 30 million.
Securing India’s energy interests in West Asia
Energy security, of course, is a key ingredient of India’s interest in West Asia. It is dependent on imports for 80% of its oil needs, of which roughly 55% is sourced from the Persian Gulf region. The ratio could decline slowly as India diversifies with an increased focus on African producers. But the rate at which India’s energy demand is growing—it is currently the world’s fourth biggest oil consumer with import dependence projected to increase to 90% by 2031—offsets this in absolute terms.
The current glut in the oil market and plunge in prices means it is, for the time being, a buyer’s market. That gives India an opportunity to dictate terms as it shops around. Indian refiners have already begun to take advantage of the price drop to switch long-term contracts with West Asian suppliers for African oil spot purchases. And some of the former like Saudi Arabia—looking to enhance its share of the growing Indian energy market as it drives a supplier price war to shake loose more marginal producers—have responded. For instance, Riyadh has reportedly been in talks to ship crude to India on its own tankers, saving on shipping costs and passing on the benefits to Indian refiners.
India must drive home its advantage. This goes beyond a buyer-seller paradigm. By some estimates, India’s own reserves remain 60-70% under-explored. Various competing demands on the public exchequer mean that the required investment to make headway here cannot—and should not—come entirely from the government. West Asian oil companies have typically steered away from upstream investments globally, but this is by no means uniform. Abu Dhabi, for one, has entered into a strategic partnership in energy with New Delhi, including upstream and downstream investments. Qatar is pivoting towards investing internationally as well.
Given the relationship New Delhi has forged with countries in the region over the past few years—India entered into an extraordinary defence agreement with Qatar in 2008, committing to protect its assets and interests from external threats, has a security understanding and growing economic ties with Saudi Arabia and strong links with Bahrain—they could be viable sources of investment in India’s energy sector. But for this, New Delhi’s oil and gas exploration policy is important. Its shift towards a revenue-sharing model from a production-sharing one—the latter has admittedly had its share of problems—could disincentivize private investment if not calibrated carefully.
India’s increasingly multidimensional relations with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states buttress these energy security efforts. The Indian diaspora in the Arab states is seven million strong—a valuable connection and responsible for some $40 billion in remittances annually. And the possibilities for investment go beyond the energy sector. The UAE has agreed to invest $75 billion in Indian infrastructure, Bahrain is looking to invest in financial services and high value-added manufacturing among other areas, and countries like Kuwait have sovereign funds ripe for targeting.
Security and geopolitical considerations are, naturally, threaded through these economic engagements. Since Atal Bihari Vajpayee revitalized ties with GCC states, India has shown an admirable pragmatism, juggling its relationships with competing power centres like Riyadh and Tehran—even in light of the witches’ cauldron of proxy struggles and sectarian conflicts that is currently West Asia. This is the hallmark of mature diplomacy. The pay-off has been visible, from Saudi Arabia extraditing terror suspects to India to Qatari aid when Indian nationals have been endangered by the Islamic State and in Afghanistan.
Factor in India’s potential role as a maritime net security provider for the Gulf states, reliant as they are on energy shipping through the Indian Ocean Region. According to the Indian Navy’s Maritime Security Strategy released last year, the Persian Gulf is a primary area of interest. The possibilities for cooperation are significant.
In the period to 2040, India will overtake China as the largest source of rising demand for oil. The time to begin securing its interests in West Asia is now when it holds the advantage.
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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.