1)Good Governance
|
Good Governance |
Accountable |
| Transparent | |
| Rule of law | |
| Responsive | |
| Citizen-First | |
| Democracy without politics and citizenship without rights are the twin pillars of ‘good governance’. | |
| Good governance is putting people at the centre of the development process | |
| Empowerment, and citizen participation |
December 25- Good Governance Day
2)Kilkari:-
A major IT initiative, Kilkari is an audio-based mobile service that delivers weekly audio messages to families about pregnancy, child birth and child care. Each pregnant woman and infant’s mother, registered in Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS), a web- enabled name-based system to monitor and ensure delivery of full spectrum of services to all pregnant women and children, would receive weekly voice messages relevant to the stage of pregnancy or age of the infant.
The 72 messages would reach the targeted beneficiaries from the 4th month of pregnancy until the child is one year old. On an average, the duration of each message is two minutes. Such messages will empower and educate women and parents to help create a better environment in maternal and child health. This service will be provided free to the beneficiaries.
3) Mobile Academy:-
It has been developed through which about 9000,000 ASHAs will be trained using mobile services. This will aid in enhancing their inter-personal skills.
The above two applications were launched by Health Ministry
4)Parliament of Afghanistan:-
India constructed the Afghanistan Parliament and Indian PM inaugurated it.
Note- Though it is a single line news , can be used as fodder for International Relations.
5)Indo-Pak Relation :-
Background :-PM’s visit to Pak
Related article – http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-on-narendra-modis-surprise-visit-to-lahore-a-bold-laudable-initiative/article8029381.ece
In-depth Analysis :- Click Here
6)Textile Industry vs Environment:-
Background :-
The textile industry has flagged concerns about an Environment Ministry move to mandate virtually all textile firms to reduce their effluent discharge to zero. The argument is that such a stipulation goes beyond what the developed world follows and would make Indian firms even more uncompetitive at a time when export orders are shrinking
Textile as Industry :-
- The textile industry is India’s largest employer after agriculture, accounting for 14 per cent of India’s exports, but has recently lost ground to Bangladesh and Vietnam in the global market as the preferred supplier for readymade garments.
Norm announced by Environment Ministry :-
- Textile units having waste water discharge greater than 25 kilo litres a day shall establish Zero Liquid Discharge — effluent treatment plant
- It also requires all textile units set up in clusters such as Tirupur in Tamil Nadu to set up common effluent treatment plants to ensure zero liquid discharge, irrespective of their waste water quantity.
- While mooting an increase in the threshold of 25 kilo litres a day to 100 kilo litres a day, industry members have pointed out that smaller textile units wouldn’t be able to afford the costly equipment for treating effluents with a zero liquid discharge approach.
- Technologies for such treatment plants is steam and electricity-intensive, leading to higher green house gas emissions as India largely relies on coal for power
- The definition of zero effluent discharge should include re-use, recycling and alternative deployment of treated effluents, FICCI has suggested. The ministry has proposed a very stringent norm that allows very limited ground water extraction by units and wants the entire water recovered from the effluent treatment plants to be re-deployed in the production process.
Analysis:-
- This is another fit case of man vs environment debate. Man uses environment to sustain life and extracts employment through utilization of its resources.However mismanagement of finite resources and effluent discharge has been a cause of concern for environment.
- In the same vein , cost of technology is high, hence as much one wishes to employ the technology , one could not to be able to do it due to economic constraints.
- Way forward would be , a real time ground analysis of the cost/benefit of the technology , purchasing power of different segments of textile sector and checking for alternatives.If no cost efficient alternative is available and majority of the textile industry lack the purchasing power for the technology, government intervention is a must. In fact , much of the corporate social responsibility from bigger corporates in this sector can be diverted for this purpose, so that the small industries can be environmental friendly without jeopardizing their financial ability.
7)Olive Ridleys:-
Background :- Recently they have been cited at east Godavari.
- The Olive ridley turtles are the smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles found in the world, inhabiting warm waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans
- These turtles, along with their cousin the Kemps ridley turtle, are best known for their unique mass nesting called Arribada, where thousands of females come together on the same beach to lay eggs.(Arribada – arrival by sea)
- The the species is recognized as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red list.
- The coast of Odisha in India is the largest mass nesting site for the Olive-ridley, followed by the coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica.
- Though international trade in these turtles and their products is banned under CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), they are still extensively poached for their meat, shell and leather, and their eggs, though illegal to harvest, have a significantly large market around the coastal regions. However, the most severe threat they face is the accidental killing of adult turtles through entanglement in trawl nets and gill nets due to uncontrolled fishing during their mating season around nesting beaches.
- To reduce accidental killing in India, the Orissa government has made it mandatory for trawls to use Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs), a net specially designed with an exit cover which allows the turtles to escape while retaining the catch. However, this has been strongly opposed by the fishing communities as they believe TEDs result in loss of considerable amount of the catch along with the turtle.
9)Few Facts:-
- A cable bridge named is ‘Atal Setu‘. It is constructed on river Ravi .Fourth of its kind in the country.
- Seychelles government has provided India a plot of land in its Assumption Island to build its first naval base in the Indian Ocean region. This is a joint project between India and Seychelles
Questions of the day
1.What is good governance ? Though it became a new word for policy makers recently , if one looks at India’s past, fundamentals of good governance can be found in Ashoka’s policies. What are the key component of Ashoka’s policy and how can it help us in this age to deliver good governance?
Read this article to gain some insights :- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/edit-page/Rediscovering-Emperor-Ashoka/articleshow/6714387.cms
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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.