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:
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- 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
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.