1)India moves up in ‘ease of doing business’ ranking :-
- It took four months in 2005 to start a business in India, but it takes only 29 days now
- Last year’s report ranked India at 140, but this year’s report features the recalculated 2015 rankings, in which India comes at 134.
Ease of Doing Business Index
- The ease of doing business index is an index created by the World Bank Group
- A nation’s ranking on the index is based on the average of 10 subindices:-
1.Starting a business – Procedures, time, cost and minimum capital to open a new business
2.Dealing with construction permits – Procedures, time and cost to build a warehouse
3.Getting electricity – procedures, time and cost required for a business to obtain a permanent electricity connection for a newly constructed warehouse
4.Registering property – Procedures, time and cost to register commercial real estate
5.Getting credit – Strength of legal rights index, depth of credit information index
6.Protecting investors – Indices on the extent of disclosure, extent of director liability and ease of shareholder suits
7.Paying taxes – Number of taxes paid, hours per year spent preparing tax returns and total tax payable as share of gross profit
8.Trading across borders – Number of documents, cost and time necessary to export and import
9.Enforcing contracts – Procedures, time and cost to enforce a debt contract
10.Resolving insolvency – The time, cost and recovery rate (%) under bankruptcy proceeding - The Doing Business project also offers information on following datasets:Distance to frontier – Shows the distance of each economy to the “frontier,” which represents the highest performance observed on each of the indicators across all economies included in Doing Business since each indicator was included in Doing Business
Entrepreneurship – Measures entrepreneurial activity. The data is collected directly from 130 company registrars on the number of newly registered firms over the past seven years
Good practices – Provide insights into how governments have improved the regulatory environment in the past in the areas measured by Doing Business
Transparency in business regulation – Data on the accessibility of regulatory information measures how easy it is to access fee schedules for 4 regulatory processes in the largest business city of an economy
Criticism of Ease of Doing Business Index :-
- The Doing Business methodology regarding labor regulations was criticized by the International Trade Union Confederation because it favored flexible employment regulations.In early reports, the easier it was to dismiss a worker for economic reasons in a country, the more its rankings improved.
- In June 2013, an independent panel appointed by the President of the World Bank and headed by Trevor Manuel of South Africa, issued a review expressing concern about the potential for the report and index to be misinterpreted, the narrowness of the indicators and information base, the data collection methodology, and the lack of peer review. It recommended that the report be retained, but that the aggregate rankings be removed and that a peer-review process be implemented (among other things).
ASI – Ancient temples in Mandya district unearthed :-
- Five temple complexes defining Jaina identity at Chikkabetta of Artipura in Mandya district, which is now believed to be the oldest known archaeological find belonging to the Western Ganga dynasty.
Western Ganga dynasty
- Western Ganga was an important ruling dynasty of ancient Karnataka in India which lasted from about 350 to 1000 AD. They are known as ‘Western Gangas’ to distinguish them from the Eastern Gangas who in later centuries ruled over Kalinga (modern Odisha)
- Though territorially a small kingdom, the Western Ganga contribution to polity, culture and literature of the modern south Karnataka region is considered important. The Western Ganga kings showed benevolent tolerance to all faiths but are most famous for their patronage toward Jainism resulting in the construction of monuments in places such as Shravanabelagola and Kambadahalli.
- The kings of this dynasty encouraged the fine arts due to which literature in Kannada and Sanskrit flourished. Chavundaraya’s writing, Chavundaraya Purana of 978 AD, is an important work in Kannada prose. Many classics were written on various subjects ranging from religion to elephant management
- Inscriptions have revealed several important administrative designations such as prime minister (sarvadhikari), treasurer (shribhandari), foreign minister (sandhivirgrahi) and chief minister (mahapradhana). All of these positions came with an additional title of commander (dandanayaka). Other designations were royal steward (manevergade), master of robes (mahapasayita), commander of elephant corps (gajasahani), commander of cavalry (thuragasahani) etc.In the royal house, Niyogis oversaw palace administration, royal clothing and jewellery etc. and the Padiyara were responsible for court ceremonies including door keeping and protocol.
- The praje gavundas mentioned in the Ganga records held responsibilities similar to those of the village elders (gramavriddhas) mentioned by Kautilya.
Sardar Patel:-
- “Sardar of Bardoli” (Bardoli Satyagraha) , a title given to him by Mahatma Gandhi for successfully championing the cause of the peasants in Gujarat against anti-farmers policies of the British Raj
- 31 October, a grateful nation is commemorating Sardar Patel’s 140th birth anniversary as the Rashtriya Ekta Divas (National Unity Day)
- India will forever be indebted to Sardar Patel for his tireless efforts to unite the Nation, merging the British India and 565 Princly state, without a blood shed, save Hyderabad , displayed his diplomatic skills.
- He was a rare combination of idealism and realism, of strength and generosity which made him a leader and a statesman who had no equal.
- Patel is also affectionately remembered as the “Patron saint of India’s civil servants“ for having established the modern unified Indian Administrative Service and other all India services
- Upon his demise, In a departure from the British service rules, member of the I.C.S and the I.A.S assembled in the capital and passed a condolence resolution paying glowing and affectionate tributes to the man who launched the unified All India Services.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.