News Snippet
News 1: Centre raises credit limit under ECLGS – (Important as Government of India has extended this option to organizations which were facing severe stress on account of COVID-19 pandemic)
News 2: WTO warns ‘darkened’ trade outlook – (It talks about trade curbs can further worsen condition and cooling of demand in shipping rates might increase the recessionary fears
News 3: Oil rises as OPEC+ agrees to deep cuts – (All about OPEC+ supply cuts and its implication on energy prices)
News 4: What is the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code? – (It is crucial as IBC is one of the measures which deals with insolvency resolution or restructuring which has occurred due to NPAs and bad debts)
News 5: Parliament Committees and their role in law-making (It is important as questions from Parliamentary Committee has been asked in UPSC Mains)
News 6: Nobel Prize 2022 for chemistry
Other important news:
- UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC):
News 1: Centre raises credit limit under ECLGS for airlines
Background
The Ministry of Finance has raised the credit limit for airlines under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS), making them eligible for a sum equivalent to 100% of their outstanding debt, up to a maximum of ₹1,500 crore.
This is the second time the government has liberalised the scheme for the aviation sector.
The scheme introduced for medium and small enterprises during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic was extended till March 2023 and its guaranteed cover expanded by ₹50,000 crore to ₹5 lakh crore.
ECLGS (Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme)
- Ministry: Ministry of Finance
- Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) was launched in May 2020 as part of the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan.
- The main objective of the Scheme was to provide an incentive to Member Lending Institutions (MLIs), i.e., Banks, Financial Institutions (FIs) and Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) to increase access to, and enable availability of additional funding facility to MSME borrowers, in view of the economic distress caused by the COVID-19 crisis, by providing them 100 per cent guarantee for any losses suffered by them due to non-repayment of the Guaranteed Emergency Credit Line (GECL) funding by borrowers
- The structure of the scheme allows easy access to credit as the lenders offer pre-approved loans based on borrower’s existing credit outstanding and there is no fresh appraisal undertaken by lenders since additional credit is sanctioned over and above the credit facilities already assessed.
- Further, the interest rate is also capped with a view to lower the cost of credit and loans are sanctioned without any processing charges, pre-payment charges and guarantee fee.
- The overall ceiling initially announced for ECLGS was Rs 3 lakh crore which was subsequently enhanced to Rs 5 lakh crore. However, ECLGS being a demand driven scheme, sanctions/disbursements are made by lending institutions based on assessment of borrower’s requirement and their eligibility.
Reason behind launching ECLGS
ECLGS was formulated as a specific response to the unprecedented situation caused by COVID-19 and the consequent lockdown, which had severely impacted manufacturing and other activities in the MSME sector.
The Scheme aimed at mitigating the economic distress being faced by MSMEs by providing them additional funding of up to Rs. 3 lakh crores in the form of a fully guaranteed emergency credit line
NCGTC
- Ministry: Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance
- Established: 2014 under Companies Act, 1956
- National Credit Guarantee Trustee Company Ltd (NCGTC) is a private limited company incorporated to act as a common trustee company for multiple credit guarantee funds.
- Credit guarantee programmers are designed to share the lending risk of the lenders and in turn, facilitate access to finance for the prospective borrowers.
- The intent of NCGTC is therefore, to manage multiple guarantee schemes as part of a larger financial inclusion programme of the government covering different cross-sections and segments of the economy like students, micro entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs, SMEs, skill and vocational training needs, etc.
News 2: WTO warns ‘darkened’ trade outlook
Background
- The World Trade Organization (WTO) forecast a slowdown of global trade growth next year as sharply higher energy and food prices and rising interest rates curb import demand and warned of a possible contraction if the war in Ukraine worsens.
- The WTO said there was high uncertainty over its forecasts. It provided a band of trade growth expansion of 2% to 4.9% for this year and of -2.8% to 4.6% for 2023.
- Weather events hitting food-producing regions or damaging energy export infrastructure could further hit trade, along with weakness in China, where COVID-19 outbreaks have disrupted production.
Warns against curbs
- “These would only deepen inflationary pressures and reduce living standards and would likely make us more rather than less vulnerable to the crisis we are grappling with.”
- The WTO’s forecast does not cover services, but the WTO said tourist arrivals were likely to fall after tripling in the first seven months of 2022.
- Lower shipping rates, the global body said, might have been greeted before as a sign of supply chains improvements, but was probably more the result of cooling demand.
World Trade Organization
- Established: 1995 after the Uruguay Round of Negotiation
- Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland
- Members: 164 representing 98% of world trade
UPSC 2016 prelims
In the context of which of the following do you sometimes find the terms ‘amber box, blue box and green box’ in the news?
(a) WTO affairs
(b) SAARC affairs
(c) UNFCCC affairs
(d) India –EU negotiations on FTA
Answer – Option a (Official UPSC Answer key)
News 3: Oil rises as OPEC+ agrees to deep cuts
Background
Oil rose about 1% on Wednesday, as OPEC+ members agreed to its deepest cuts to output since the 2020 COVID pandemic, despite a tight market and opposition to cuts from the United States and others.
News 4: What is the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code?
Background
Speaking at the sixth anniversary of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the country could not afford to lose the “sheen” of its insolvency law, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).
Addressing the issue of haircuts — or the debt that banks forgo — she said it was unacceptable that banks should take a hefty haircut on loans that go through the resolution process.
What is the IBC?
In a growing economy, a healthy credit flow and generation of new capital are essential, and when a company or business turns insolvent or “sick”, it begins to default on its loans.
In order for credit to not get stuck in the system or turn into bad loans, it is important that banks or creditors are able to recover as much as possible from the defaulter, as quickly as they can.
In 2016, at a time when India’s Non-Performing Assets and debt defaults were piling up, and older loan recovery mechanisms were performing badly, the IBC was introduced to overhaul the corporate distress resolution regime in India and consolidate previously available laws to create a time-bound mechanism with a creditor-in-control model as opposed to the debtor-in-possession system.
When insolvency is triggered under the IBC, there can be just two outcomes: resolution or liquidation.
What are the challenges for the IBC?
According to its regulator IBBI, the first objective of the IBC is resolution — finding a way to save a business through restructuring, change in ownership, mergers etc.
The second objective is to maximise the value of assets of the corporate debtor.
The third is to promote entrepreneurship, availability of credit, and balancing of interests.
Keeping this order in mind, when one looks at the IBBI data for the 3,400 cases admitted under the IBC in the last six years, more than 50% of the cases ended in liquidation, and only 14% could find a proper resolution.
Furthermore, the IBC was touted as a time-bound mechanism. Timeliness is key here so that the viability of the business or the value of its assets does not deteriorate further.
The IBC was thus initially given a 180-day deadline to complete the resolution process, with a permitted 90-day extension. It was later amended to make the total timeline for completion 330 days — which is almost a year.
However, in FY22, it took 772 days to resolve cases involving companies that owed more than ₹1,000 crore. The average number of days it took to resolve such cases increased rapidly over the past five years.
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance pointed out in 2021, that in the five years of the IBC, creditors on an average had to bear an 80% haircut in more than 70% of the cases.
What are haircuts?
When a bank takes a ‘haircut’, it means it accepts less than what was due in a particular loan account.
For example: If a bank was owed Rs 10,000 by a borrower and it agrees to take back only Rs 8,000, it takes a 20% haircut. Banks do this for accounts where chances of full recovery are bleak. Instead of losing all the money or letting an asset lose value over time, banks sometimes choose to settle for less.
Critics say that with banks agreeing to as much as a 90-95% haircut on a loan amount, India’s bankruptcy laws are proving to be inefficient in terms of loan recovery.
What are experts saying?
In order to address the delays, the Parliamentary Standing Committee suggested that the time taken to admit the insolvency application and transfer control of the company to a resolution process, should not be more than 30 days after filing.
The IBBI has also called for a new yardstick to measure haircuts. It suggested that haircuts not be looked at as the difference between the creditor’s claims and the actual amount realised but as the difference between what the company brings along when it enters IBC and the value realised.
News 5: Parliament Committees and their role in law-making
What are Committees of Parliament, and what do they do?
A Parliamentary Committee is a panel of MPs that is appointed or elected by the House or nominated by the Speaker, and which works under the direction of the Speaker. It presents its report to the House or to the Speaker.
Parliamentary Committees have their origins in the British Parliament.
They draw their authority from Article 105, which deals with the privileges of MPs, and Article 118, which gives Parliament authority to make rules to regulate its procedure and conduct of business.
Legislative business begins when a Bill is introduced in either House of Parliament. But the process of lawmaking is often complex, and Parliament has limited time for detailed discussions.
What are the various Committees of Parliament?
Broadly, Parliamentary Committees can be classified into Financial Committees, Departmentally Related Standing Committees, Other Parliamentary Standing Committees, and Ad hoc Committees.
The Financial Committees include the Estimates Committee, Public Accounts Committee, and the Committee on Public Undertakings. These committees were constituted in 1950.
Seventeen Departmentally Related Standing Committees came into being in 1993, to examine budgetary proposals and crucial government policies. The aim was to increase Parliamentary scrutiny, and to give members more time and a wider role in examining important legislation.
The number of Committees was subsequently increased to 24. Each of these Committees has 31 members — 21 from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha.
Ad hoc Committees are appointed for a specific purpose. They cease to exist after they have completed the task assigned to them and have submitted a report to the House. The principal Ad hoc Committees are the Select and Joint Committees on Bills.
Parliament can also constitute a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) with a special purpose, with members from both Houses, for detailed scrutiny of a subject or Bill.
Also, either of the two Houses can set up a Select Committee with members from that House. JPCs and Select Committees are usually chaired by ruling party MPs and are disbanded after they have submitted their report.
How do discussions/ debates in the Parliamentary Committees differ from those in Parliament?
The time to speak on a Bill is allocated according to the size of the party in the House. MPs often do not get adequate time to put forward their views in Parliament, even if they are experts on the subject.
Committees are small groups with relatively less demands on their time; in these meetings, every MP gets a chance and the time to contribute to the discussion. Parliament has only around 100 sittings a year; Committee meetings are independent of Parliament’s calendar.
Also, because the discussions are confidential and off-camera, party affiliations usually do not come in the way of MPs speaking their minds in ways they are unable to do in Parliament, whose proceedings are telecast live, and members are often constrained to speak to their constituencies.
As a result, many MPs concede that “real discussions” happen inside the Committees — agreeing in principle with the former US President.
Woodrow Wilson who observed that “Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee rooms is Congress at work”.
The Committees work closely with multiple Ministries and facilitate inter-ministerial coordination. Bills that are referred to Committees often return to the House with significant value-addition.
How are the Committees constituted, and how are their chairpersons chosen?
There are 16 Departmentally Related Standing Committees for Lok Sabha and eight for Rajya Sabha; however, every Committee has members from both Houses. Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha panels are headed by members of these respective Houses.
Among the important Lok Sabha panels are: Agriculture; Coal; Defence; External Affairs; Finance; Communications & Information Technology; Labour; Petroleum & Natural Gas; and Railways. The important Rajya Sabha panels include Commerce; Education; Health & Family Welfare; Home Affairs; and Environment.
There are other Standing Committees for each House, such as the Business Advisory Committee and the Privileges Committee. The Presiding Officer of each House nominates members to these panels. A Minister is not eligible for election or nomination to Financial Committees, and certain Departmentally Related Committees.
Presiding Officers use their discretion to refer a matter to a Parliamentary Committee, but this is usually done in consultation with leaders of parties in the House.
The appointment of heads of the Committees is also done in a similar way. By convention, the main Opposition party gets the post of PAC chairman; it is currently with the Congress.
The heads of the panels schedule their meetings. They play a clear role in preparing the agenda and the annual report and can take decisions in the interest of the efficient management of the Committee. The chairperson presides over the meetings and can decide who should be summoned before the panel.
An invitation to appear before a Parliamentary Committee is equivalent to a summons from a court: If one cannot come, he or she has to give reasons, which the panel may or may not accept. However, the chairman should have the support of the majority of the members to summon a witness.
MPs typically have a one-year tenure on Parliamentary Committees. Usually, the composition of a committee remains more or less the same in terms of representation of the various parties.
How important are the recommendations of the Committees?
Reports of Departmentally Related Standing Committees are recommendatory in nature. They are not binding on the government, but they do carry significant weight.
In the past, governments have accepted suggestions given by the Committees and incorporated them into the Bill after it has come back to the House for consideration and passage.
These panels also examine policy issues in their respective Ministries and make suggestions to the government. The government has to report back on whether these recommendations have been accepted.
Based on this, the Committees table Action Taken Reports, detailing the status of the government’s action on each recommendation.
However, suggestions by the Select Committees and JPCs — which have a majority of MPs and heads from the ruling party — are accepted more frequently.
UPSC 2018 Mains
Why do you think the committees are considered to be useful for parliamentary work? Discuss, in this context, the role or the Estimates Committee.
UPSC 2017 Mains
Discuss the role of Public Accounts Committee in establishing accountability of the government to the people.
News 6: Nobel Prize 2022 for chemistry
Background
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022 has gone to Carolyn R Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K Barry Sharpless, the latter winning the second Nobel of his career.
The three have been awarded for their work in ‘click chemistry ‘, in which molecules snap together fast and firmly, without the need for a long, complicated process and too many unwanted byproducts. Their work has applications in the field of medical science, including the treatment of cancer.
What is click chemistry?
Story of Ammonia
A big part of what chemists do is making new molecules, which is as much an art as it is science. The standard approach is to mimic nature.
In the early 20th century, finding nitrogen in a form usable by plants, despite it being the most abundant element in the atmosphere, was one of the discoveries scientists were striving hard to achieve.
German chemist, Fritz Haber cracked the code for ammonia, which combined nitrogen and hydrogen that plants could synthesise for nitrogen, and Carl Bosch figured out a way to produce it in massive amounts.
The Haber-Bosch process is still the dominant way of producing cheap fertilizer and is at the heart of industrialised agriculture. However, this process is extremely energy intensive and polluting and the modern-day challenge is to therefore produce so-called ‘green ammonia’.
This principle extends to most synthetic chemicals — where scientists try to create a natural substance, in a way that is different from the usual method which is often circuitous and creates several unwanted toxic by-products.
Shortly after winning his first Nobel Prize in 2001, Sharpless began discussing ways to synthesise chemicals that were efficient and not wasteful.
To be able to create new pharmaceuticals, Sharpless argued, chemists ought to be moving away from trying to make ‘natural’ molecules and creating new ones in simpler ways that did the job.
As an example, he said, it was hard to coax carbon atoms — the building blocks of organic molecules — from different molecules to link to each other. Instead, why not take smaller molecules, which already have a complete carbon frame and link them using bridges of nitrogen atoms or oxygen atoms?
Sure, it wouldn’t be as elegantly constructed as the natural stuff but would be efficient, greener and useful. This Lego-block like approach to making new molecules is the essence of ‘click chemistry.’ The ‘click’ is from an analogy he drew from seatbelts clicking snugly into buckles
Other important news
UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC)
- Established: 2006
- Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland
- Parent Organization: United Nations General Assembly
- The Human Rights Council is an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and make recommendations on them.
- It has the ability to discuss all thematic human rights issues and situations that require its attention throughout the year.
- It is made up of 47 United Nations Member States which are elected by the UN General Assembly (UNGA).
- Members of the Council serve for a period of three years and are not eligible for immediate re-election after serving two consecutive terms.
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.
On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.