Internationalisation of Rupee:-
Internationalization of Rupee will facilitate greater degree of integration of Indian economy with rest of the world in terms of foreign trade and international capital flows. Key benefits of internationalization of Rupee include savings on foreign exchange transactions for Indian residents, reduced foreign exchange exposure for Indian corporate, reduction in dependence on foreign exchange reserves for balance of payment stability etc.
One of the important drivers for internationalization of a currency is the country’s share in global merchandise and commercial services trade. India’s percentage share in the global trade is still on the lower side and it limits the pricing ability of domestic businesses in Indian Rupee. Moreover, the share of Indian Rupee in the Global foreign exchange market turnover at present is also very low. Internationalization of Indian currency would also require full capital account convertibility.
As a policy, we have followed a gradual and cautious approach in opening up the capital account. The capital account is being progressively liberalized in accordance with the evolving macro-economic conditions and requirements of the Indian industries, individuals and financial sectors. Government has been taking measures to promote the internationalization of the Indian Rupee. Recently, a framework was put in place for issuance of Rupee denominated bonds overseas by Indian corporate.
Levy of Tax on Digital Services
A Committee constituted by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has recommended for the levy of tax on most digital services. The Committee constituted to examine taxation of E-Commerce, has recommended that Equalization Levy may be imposed at a rate of six to eight per cent, on any consideration of more than one lakh rupees received by a non-resident from a resident of India or from a permanent establishment in India for certain specified digital services, including online advertising, any services for online advertising and digital advertising space.
The Finance Bill, 2016 proposes equalization levy at the rate of 6% of the amount of consideration for specified services received or receivable by a non-resident, from a resident in India who carries out business or profession, or from a non-resident having a permanent establishment in India, where the aggregate amount of consideration received in a year exceeds one lakh rupees. The proposed levy will have no direct impact on consumers as it is applicable only to business to business transaction.
Rs.100-cr. fine proposed for wrong India map
The government has proposed a law where wrong depiction of the map of India could land the violators in jail with a maximum term of seven years and fine up to Rs. 100 crore.
Details:
- The new draft bill, ‘The Geospatial Information Regulation Bill, 2016‘, basically aims to regularize critical information on Maps services that affect “the security, sovereignty and integrity” of the country.
- According to the draft, it will be mandatory to take permission from a government authority before acquiring, disseminating, publishing or distributing any geospatial information of India.
- The draft Bill will ensure that online platforms like Google will have to apply for a licence to run Google Maps or Google Earth in India.
- Also, no person shall depict, disseminate, publish or distribute any wrong or false topographic information of India including international boundaries through internet platforms or online services or in any electronic or physical form.
Analysis :-
The amount sounds alarming, but nevertheless , due to lack of this , there has been a violation of it for quite sometime.Pick a textbook of any other country and India’s map is distorted.Majority of applications too depict distorted map of India including google.To check this it is necessary.One might construe and argue that it may hamper artistic freedom or freedom of expression or take the garb of innocent mistake, but nevertheless, sovereignty of India is India’s business and anyone who wants to draw a map or depict India through map , has to abide by the Indian circulars for that matter.Sovereignty is gained after hundreds of years and loosing hundreds of lives – a fine of 100 crore seems low if one contemplates the cost we paid for it , And no one should take the sovereignty for granted , intentional or otherwise.Of course there is a debate on the amount in newspapers – becasue they have to be extra cautious now.If anyone wants to do business in India , it should do as per the rules of the land – the least of it is not to distort the map of the very country it wants to do business with.After all we don’t want another Radcliffe and with this fine other can stop being one.
Offshore Tax Evasion
(vii) Proactively furthering global efforts to combat tax evasion/black money, inter alia, by joining the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement in respect of Automatic Exchange of Information and having information sharing arrangement with USA under its Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
International cooperation in tackling offshore tax evasion and avoidance is achieved, inter alia, through ‘Exchange of Information’ mechanism provided under tax treaties entered into by India with various countries. Presently, India has tax treaties (bilateral or multilateral) with 137 countries/ offshore jurisdictions.
Tax treaties entered into by India with various countries as stated in para above include treaties with no-tax or low-tax offshore jurisdictions. India and United States of America have committed to tackling offshore tax evasion and avoidance through mutual collaboration, including joint tax audits and tax examination abroad. Besides, India has proactively contributed to furthering the global efforts to combat tax evasion/black money, inter alia, by joining the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement in respect of Common Reporting Standard (CRS) on Automatic Exchange of Information. Over 90 jurisdictions, including several no-tax or low-tax offshore jurisdictions, have expressed their commitment for putting in place the CRS.
Infant feeding
The 4th assessment of WBTi for India, carried out in 2015, mentions lack of monitoring and evaluation of the Infant & Young Child Feeding components in government health and nutrition programme.
Early breastfeeding is monitored through Mother and Child tracking systems and Health Management Information System.
Following efforts are being undertaken to monitor and successfully implement Infant & Young Child feeding practices, apart from mentioned above:
i. National Guidelines on Infant and Young Child Feeding, 2006, have been issued by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, to emphasise appropriate Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) practices. The Ministry of Health & FW has also released guidelines on Enhancing optimal Infant & young child feeding practices in 2013.
ii. Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCH) counsellor is provided at high case load delivery points for counselling and support to lactating mothers on breastfeeding.
iii. Incentive is provided to ASHA under the Home Based New-born Care programme for promotion of IYCF through home visits, upto 42 days after birth. Extended visits for low birth weight babies and babies discharged from Special New-born Care Units (SNCU) upto two years of age are also carried out to ensure IYCF practices as part of package of services.
iv. Counselling and support for IYCF is provided at each contact point such as immunization, weighing etc.
v. IYCF training is provided to frontline workers and Staff Nurses for capacity building.
vi. Infant Milk Substitutes Feeding Bottles, and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 1993, as amended 2003, has been enacted in the country to protect and promote breastfeeding and ensure proper use of infant foods.
vii. Recently, the National Steering Committee on Infant and Young Child Feeding and National Coordination Committee on Infant and Young Child Feeding have been notified to give policy guidelines, coordinate and integrate all activities relating to breastfeeding and IYCF and advise on measures to promote breastfeeding.
viii. The restructured ICDS Mission also aims to increase Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices in the country. Under the Care and Nutrition Counselling component, focus is to provide counselling to women on issues relating to infant feeding practices. Under the Mission, there is also provision of an additional Anganwadi Worker in 200 High Burden Districts of the country for imparting counseling and behavior change communication through community and home visits as well as demonstration of appropriate feeding practices.
ix. Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY), is a centrally sponsored Conditional Maternity Benefit scheme for pregnant and lactating women, aims to improve nutritional and health status of pregnant and lactating women across the country by partly compensating for their wage loss. The scheme encourages women to follow optimal Infant and Young Child Feeding practices including early and exclusive breast feeding for the first six months. The scheme is now operational in 53 selected districts across the country.
x. “World Breastfeeding Week” is celebrated every year from 1-7 August by organizing various activities such as State level Workshop/ Seminar, lecture-cum-practical demonstration, etc. for creating greater awareness. Awareness is also generated through audio-visual medium for promotion of optimal IYCF. IYCF promotion activities are also carried out under the Intensified Diarrhoea Control Fortnight (IDCF) implemented during last week of July and first month of August.
Few Facts :-
- In the last three years, only disease to be eradicated from India was Polio, in 2014. It was noted that there has been recurrence of existing diseases and emergence of new diseases like Drug Resistance Tuberculosis, Leprosy, Influenza A (H1N1), Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) and Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD).
- Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK) is an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Women & Child Development (MWCD). It is a society registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860 and an apex micro-finance organization. The main objective of setting up of RMK was to provide micro-credit to poor women for various livelihood support and income generating activities at concessional terms in a client-friendly procedure to bring about their socio-economic development. In fact, the quasi-formal delivery mechanism, simple procedure, in-built flexibility and concessional rates of interest are some of the hallmarks of the credit packages of the RMK.
Receive Daily Updates
Recent Posts
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.