*This post is technical in nature, hence better suited if you have geography as optional.
Stable oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O) of foraminifera from the sediments of the Northern Indian Ocean has been used to decipher past changes in the intensity of the South Asian Monsoon. The interpretation of planktonic foraminifera δ18O is mostly based on a combination of sea surface temperature, monsoon runoff and the global ice-volume effect.
During summer, the eastward flowing summer monsoon current carries the high salinity water from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, whereas the Bay of Bengal receives fresh water both from direct rains and runoff from the Ganga-Brahmaputra rivers.
This low salinity water is transported from the Bay of Bengal to the southeastern Arabian Sea during winter by the winter monsoon current (WMC) driven by the dry northeasterly winds.
The West India Coastal Currents (WICC) carries this low saline water from southeastern Arabian Sea to the northern Arabian Sea (Fig. 1b).
During the winter monsoon, high precipitation occurs over southeastern India (the southern states of Tamil Nadu and southeast coastal Andhra Pradesh), while rainfall at this time is quite low over Kerala compared to the summer monsoon.
Duplessy (1982), analyzing several sediment cores from the Bay of Bengal, showed that the summer monsoon rain was significantly reduced during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).
Oxygen isotopes of LGM planktonic foraminifera were relatively higher, resulting from reduced freshwater discharge from the major monsoon fed Indian rivers.
Likewise, Sarkar et. al. (1990) showed that the winter monsoon rains intensified during LGM by analyzing four different species of planktonic foraminifera from a sediment core from the Eastern Arabian Sea. Kudrass et. al. (2001) showed that the runoff into the Bay of Bengal had steadily increased from 21 ka (LGM) to ~4ka.
Seawater sampling locations in the Eastern Arabian Sea (Deshpande et al., 2013), sub-divided into four regions: I 6oN-12oN, II 12oN-18oN, III 18oN-22oN and IV 4oN-10oN/79oE- 60oE. b Locations of sediment cores. Region IV marked here is smaller because high resolution analyses of sediment cores have not been reported west of this box.
Using a fresh data set (Deshpande et. al., 2013) of seawater δ18O and salinity from the Eastern Arabian Sea (Fig. 1a), it was investigated that the seasonal variation in the salinity-δ18O relation in the Eastern Arabian Sea, dividing the latter into four major regions (Fig. 1a), three of which fall under the influence of the WICC, and one under the influence of the WMC.
The seasonal variation in the salinity-δ18O relation for all four regions shows (except for region II that receives copious summer monsoon runoff from the Western Ghats), the summer monsoon runoff from the subcontinent to the Bay of Bengal, propelled by winter monsoon winds towards the Arabian Sea, appears to be the dominant control on the modern salinity-δ18O relation in the surface regions of the eastern Arabian Sea.
Receive Daily Updates
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.