UPSC/STATE PSC
Curated by Experts For Civil Service Aspirants
The Hindu & Indian Express
News 1: Wholesale inflation slowed to an 11-month low at 12.4% in August
Background:
- Inflation based on the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) eased in August to the slowest pace since last September at 12.4%, from 13.9% in July, with food being the sole segment to report faster price gains at 9.93% as it rebounded from July’s three-month low of 9.41%.
Wholesale price Index
- Base year: 2011 – 12
- Wholesale Price Index (WPI) measures the average change in the prices of commodities for bulk sale at the level of early stage of transactions.
- The index basket of the WPI covers commodities falling under the three Major Groups namely Primary Articles, Fuel and Power and Manufactured products.
- WPI basket does not cover services.
News 2: U.S. weighs China sanctions over Taiwan
Background:
- The U.S. is considering options for a sanctions package against China to deter it from invading Taiwan, with the European Union coming under diplomatic pressure from Taipei to do the same, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
- The idea is to take sanctions beyond measures already taken in the West to restrict some trade and investment with China in sensitive technologies like computer chips and telecoms equipment.
One China principle and One China policy:
- The People’s Republic of China follows the One China Principle, which sees Taiwan as an inalienable part of China, with its sole legitimate government in Beijing. The US acknowledges this position but not necessarily its validity.
- The US follows the One China Policy, meaning that The People’s Republic of China was and is the only China, with no recognition for the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) as a separate sovereign entity. The US refuses to give in to the PRC’s demands to recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan.
India – Taiwan:
- India and Taiwan do not have formal diplomatic relations but since 1995, both sides have maintained representative offices in each other’s capitals that function as de facto embassies.
News 3: Set up new regulator for medical devices, says panel
Background:
- The department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health, has expressed, Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) is falling short in effectively regulating the medical devices industry. The organisation in its existing structure and expertise is more pharma centric.
Committee recommendations:
- More certified medical devices testing laboratories,
- Robust IT-enabled feedback- driven post-market surveillance system
- Medical device registry, particularly for implants to ensure traceability of patients to assess performance of implants.
- New legislation should set up a new regulator at different levels for regulating the medical devices industry.
- Adequate common infrastructure including accredited laboratories in various regions of the country for standard testing will significantly encourage local manufacturers to get their products tested for standards and such measures undertaken will also help in reducing the cost of production which ultimately will improve the availability and affordability of medical devices in the market.
- The Ministry needs to work in synergy with State governments and impart the necessary skills to the local medical device officers and also devise a mechanism to regularly designate State Medical personnel as Medical Device/Medical Device Testing Officers so that the mandate of the legislation can be implemented effectively.
- The Ministry should allow the new regulator to involve institutions such as IISC, CSIR, DRDO and network of IITs to test medical devices for safety and efficacy.
- A single-window clearing platform for application of licence for manufacturing, export, import shall integrate all these bodies involved in the regulation of medical devices.
Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO):
- Ministry: Ministry of Health and Family welfare
- Objective: The Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) is the Central Drug Authority for discharging functions assigned to the Central Government under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
- Regulatory control over the import of drugs, approval of new drugs and clinical trials, meetings of Drugs Consultative Committee (DCC) and Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB), approval of certain licenses
News 4: Union govt. push for use of Hindi
Background:
- The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has written to the Ministry of External Affairs to promote the use of Hindi for official work in banks, public sector undertakings, embassies and other government offices located in foreign countries.
Encouragement of Hindi:
- In 2017, MHA accepted most of the recommendations contained in the 2011 report of a parliamentary standing committee on Hindi.
- Some of the recommendations were: option to write exams in Hindi, minimum knowledge of Hindi must for government jobs, 50% government advertisements in Hindi, railway tickets should be bilingual with Hindi being one of the languages and announcement at railway stations in “C” category (non-Hindi speaking) such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and Kerala should be in Hindi.
- In 2017, the Ministry said that the websites of all the Union Ministries and the offices under their control should be bilingual and the Hindi pages should also be compulsorily uploaded while updating the website.
- Hindi Diwas is celebrated on 14th September to commemorate the date 14 September 1949 on which a compromise was reached—during the drafting of the Constitution of India—on the languages that were to have official status in the Republic of India.
News 5: Drop in health Spending
Background:
- Government spending on health as a proportion of the total health expenditure in the country has been rising in recent years, even as the overall expenditure on health has declined, official data released this week show.
- According to the National Health Accounts Estimates 2018-19, government spending as percentage of total health expenditure increased by more than 11 percentage points over the previous five years, from 23.2% in 2013-14 to 34.5% in 2018-19.
Findings of report:
- One of the most important findings of the 2018-19 report is that government spending as proportion of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) went down to 1.28% from 1.35% in the previous year’s(2017-18) report.
- The total health spending — which includes spending by both government and non-government agents — declined from 3.9% of the GDP to 3.2% in the five years up to 2018-19.
Out of pocket expenditure:
- People paying for healthcare expenses out-of-pocket made up for 48.2% of the total health expenses in the year 2018-19, down from 48.8% in the previous year (2017-18).
- The out-of-pocket expense has decreased substantially from the 62.6% recorded in 2014-15.
- In 2017, India was in 66th position out of 189 countries, with $100.05 per capita out-of-pocket spending, according to data from the Global Health Expenditure Database.
- Despite the drop in India, however, out-of-pocket expenditure for the year 2018-19 stood at 2.87 lakh crore, which was equivalent to 1.52% of the GDP for the year.
- This means people spent much more than the government, with all its health schemes and new hospitals, spent on healthcare that year.
Current health expenditure:
- The current health expenditure — not accounting for any expenses that can be utilised over a few years — stood at Rs 5.4 lakh crore, which was 90.6% of the total health expenditure.
- The Centre’s share in the current health expenditure stood at 11.71%, state governments accounted for 19.63%, local bodies 1.01%, and households (including insurance contributions) 60.11% of the current health expenditure. The rest was accounted for by corporates (as insurance contributions), NGOs, and external or donor funding.
News 6: Tale of women workers: Rapid exit from workforce, sliding earnings
Background:
- Oxfam India released the ‘India Discrimination Report’, which is based government data on employment and labour from 2004-05 to 2019-20.
- The figures, according to the report, are based on data from the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
- The report refers to unit level data from the 61st round of National Sample Survey on employment-unemployment (2004-05), the Periodic Labour Force Survey in 2018-19 and 2019-20, and the All-India Debt and Investment Survey by the Centre.
Findings of report:
- The report noted that discrimination against women is so high that there is hardly any difference across religion or caste-based sub-groups, or the rural-urban divide.
- It said all women, regardless of their socioeconomic location, are “highly discriminated”.
- The report noted that while overall discrimination in wages for people from SC, ST and Muslims communities declined in regular/salaried jobs, it increased for women in this period — from 67.2% in 2004-05 to 75.7% in 2019-20.
- Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR), or the proportion of working-age population that engages actively in labour market, either by working or looking for work, for women in India declined from 42.7% in 2004-05 to 25.1% in 2021, “showing withdrawal of women from the workforce despite rapid economic growth during the same period”.
- In 2019-20, 60% of all males aged 15 and above had regular salaried or self-employed jobs; the rate for females was 19%.
News 7: TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India):
- Established: 1997
- Jurisdiction: Ministry of Communication
- The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is a regulatory body set up by the Government of India under section 3 of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997.
- It is the regulator of the telecommunications sector in India.
- Function and Mission:
-
- To regulate telecom services, including fixation/revision of tariffs for telecom services which were earlier vested in the Central Government.
- To create and nurture conditions for growth of telecommunications in the country in a manner and at a pace which will enable India to play a leading role in emerging global information society.
- One of the main objectives of TRAI is to provide a fair and transparent policy environment which promotes a level playing field and facilitates fair competition.
Recent Posts
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.