Centre sends BS-V auto emission norms for a ‘six’
The Centre has notified the Bharat Stage (BS)-VI emission standards for two-wheelers and four-wheelers from April 2020 across the country.
With this, the government has decided to skip the BS-V emission standards and move directly to BS-VI from the BS-IV norms currently being followed in various cities.
Automobile makers have urged the government to make available the testing BS-VI compliant fuel a year sooner across the country.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, through a notification dated September 16, has given the Union Petroleum Ministry four years to make BS-VI fuels available to auto companies.
Oil companies will be investing more than Rs.60,000 crore towards BS-VI fuels. BS-VI is the Indian equivalent of the Euro-VI norms. At present, BS-IV norms are being followed in over 30 cities while the rest of the country followBS-III norms.
India’s external debt rises to $486 billion
India’s external debt at the end of March 2016 stood at $485.6 billion, up 2.2 per cent from over its level at over end-March 2015, largely driven by the increase in long-term external debt, particularly NRI deposits.
In contrast, short-term external debt declined by 2.5 per cent from $84.7 billion at end-March 2015 to $83.4 billion at end-March 2016.
Of total external debt, the government’s share stood at 18.9 per cent or $93.4 billion at end-March 2016 compared to 18.8 per cent ($89.7 billion) at March 2015. “India’s external debt has remained within manageable limits in 2015-16 as indicated by the increase in foreign exchange reserves to debt ratio to 74.2 per cent, the external debt-GDP ratio of 23.7 per cent and fall in short term debt to 17.2 per cent.
Finance Ministry moves to fill SAARC Development Fund posts
The Union Finance Ministry has posted a call for applications for economy, infrastructure and social development posts in the “umbrella financial mechanism” for the region’s projects and programmes, the SAARC Development Fund.
The openings include the jobs of the Directors of the Fund’s three funding windows: Social, Economic and Infrastructure.
Thimphu Secretariat
The Ministry posted the openings on its website. They will be located in the Fund’s Secretariat in Thimphu, Bhutan.
The Fund’s Economic and Infrastructure windows are in the process of being operationalised. Bankable projects for lending in the region are under evaluation.
The Economic Window is expected to extend funding to non-infrastructural projects related to areas such as trade and industrial development and agriculture. It is also to be utilised for identifying, studying, developing and sponsoring commercially viable programmes and projects of regional priority.
Under the Social window, the Fund is already implementing ten regional projects. The focus of most of these projects is on poverty alleviation, education; health; human resources development; support to the disadvantaged; funding needs of communities, mirco-enterprises and rural infrastructure development.
The social projects are being implemented by a total of 62 agencies covering all the eight Member States.
The Infrastructure Window will finance projects in areas such as energy, power, transportation, telecommunications, environment, tourism and other infrastructure sectors.
Climate, energy
Among the projects in the pipeline is a four-year (2013 – 2017) programme for the implementation of climate and energy use component of HCFC Phase-out Management Plan (HPMP) in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
The programme is expected to result in GHG emission mitigation of around 5.5 million tons of CO2-eq annually and 5700 million KWh of energy savings during 2012-2015.
Current account moves into surplus, raises export concerns
India’s current account moved in to surplus in the April-June quarter of the current fiscal year, after a gap of 9 years. Slow growth in imports, reflecting the persisting weakness in the investment sentiment, tipped the account. The current account was in surplus last in the January-March quarter in the year 2007.
A surplus is expected to bolster the rupee, which could render India’s already subdued exports less competitive.
RBI intervention
If a surplus were reported, the RBI could be expected to intervene in the foreign exchange markets to prevent the rupee from strengthening too much.
Exports to the U.S., India’s largest export destination, fell 1.1 per cent in April-July 2016 against the corresponding quarter in the previous year. In the same period, imports from China, the largest exporter to India, fell 7.4 per cent.
$2-bn surplus
Following a moderate current account deficit of $.4 billion, or (-) 0.1 per cent of GDP, in the January-March quarter, the expected current account came in at a surplus of $2 billion or 0.4 per cent of GDP in April-June quarter.
A current account in deficit reflects that the imports of goods, services and investment incomes into the economy outstripped the value of its exports.
Emerging signs of mass extinction?
Large-sized marine animals, more than the smaller ones, face a greater threat of extinction, says a study published in Science.
The authors base the analysis on comparisons with fossil records and similar situations that were encountered during the five massive extinction events that have taken place in the last 55 million years.
The end-Permian event that happened 252 million years ago when reef-building animals were exterminated and the end-Cretaceous one (66 million years ago) when non-avian dinosaurs were eliminated are the two biggest extinction events.
The authors record that during previous mass extinctions, body size was either inversely associated with extinction probability or not at all.
On the other hand, the present day extinction threat, they say, is biased against larger animals. This is a crucial difference because of the importance of large animals’ role in the ecosystem.
Larger animals, especially predators, are crucial in stabilising the ecosystem. .Large animals such as whales move nutrients within the oceans by feeding in one place and defecating elsewhere.
Also, large animals are often also top predators that regulate the abundances of other species. The predatory giant sea snail, triton, is a good example of how removing an animal from the top of the ecosystem can destabilise it.
When triton is removed from ecosystems, this can lead to population increase of its prey, the crown of thorns starfish. The starfish, in turn, eats corals, and so corals can suffer when triton is removed.
In the geological record, all of the major mass extinction events are associated with evidence for large and rapid environmental change. Therefore, each mass extinction appears to have been caused by a single, large, triggering event. It is still possible that different species died out for different proximal reasons, but the overall driver appears to be singular for most, if not all, of these events.
The dominant threat identified by the authors in this case are human fishing and hunting, rather than climate change itself.
Political malady and legal remedy – Anti-Defection & Arunachal
Those looking for loopholes are always one step ahead of those seeking to plug them. For decades, since the ‘aaya ram, gaya ram’ days of Indian politics, Parliament and courts have been coming down on mass defection and frequent change of party loyalties.
But no piece of legislation is a deterrent when politicians, for what are usually self-serving reasons, decide to switch parties.
After the Supreme Court restored the Congress government in Arunachal Pradesh in July, most of the party’s MLAs returned under the leadership of a new Chief Minister, Pema Khandu.
But, in a couple of months, they have again deserted the Congress to join the People’s Party of Arunachal, a constituent of the North-East Democratic Alliance, a front led by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
In effect what the MLAs have done is get over the legal hurdles to defection. Once the Supreme Court restored the Congress government of Nabam Tuki, those who had deserted the party returned on condition that Mr. Khandu, and not Mr. Tuki, be the Chief Minister. This must have seemed the easiest way to stay in power for those who had allied with the earlier government of Congress rebels led by Kalikho Pul. Now, in a replay of the mass defection, the Congress rebels have taken care to play by the book. There is no unseating of the government, no withdrawal of support by the ruling party’s MLAs. Instead, the change is neat and clean, from a Congress government to a pro-BJP PPA government. The Governor had no role; and a legal challenge to the realignment is made that much more difficult.
Several legislative efforts have been made to curb defections. The 52nd Constitution Amendment provided for disqualification of defectors other than in the case of a split in the party, involving a group of not less than one-third of its members.
A later amendment disallowed splits, and provided only for merger in cases where at least two-thirds of the members of one party merged with another party.
This too did not prove to be a deterrent, as has been evident in Arunachal Pradesh. True, defections engineered through unscrupulous means undermine democratic institutions and subvert the people’s mandate.
But, so far, the cure for this malady in the form of legislation does not seem to have had any effect. When defection is made more difficult, the means adopted become even more inventive. Ideally, the matter of dealing with defection should be left in the hands of the voters. Legal remedies to what is essentially a political issue will never work.
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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.