Essay Test – E02 – Statistics & Analysis
Top 3 Scores – 114, 105, 99 out of 250
Top 3 Scorers – Chinmoy, Gaurav, Shruti
Average Score – 57
Total number of submissions – 373
Most attempted topic- Digital Economy and India
The 2nd Most attempted topic- Will we be leaving the Earth as a better place than we found it?
The 3rd Most attempted topic- Daughters of India –their struggles, their plights and their achievements.
The least attempted topic- “Ability can take you to the top, character will keep you there”
The topic where we noted minimal digression among students- Digital Economy and India.
The topic where we noted maximum digression among students- Daughters of India –their struggles, their plights and their achievements.
The topic where we noted very good writing style and content – Will we be leaving the earth as a better place than we found it ?
The topic where we noted that everyone had to work on their content (less/more)-Daughters of India –their struggles, their plights and their achievements and “Ability can take you to the top, character will keep you there”
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TOPIC wise strategy will be uploaded in the Student Portal along with reference material and approach.Students will be notified on the same.
Topics of Essay Test – E03
1. Is Globalization digging its own grave in the form of de-Globalization?.
2. Blue Economy and India
3. “Rights without duties” is bad but “Politics without principle” is worse.
4. Challenges to India’s internal security – the emerging and the perpetual.
Total submission till date – 127 (If you have not submitted, please do submit)
Do write on the topic that we provide as that can be more helpful than picking up random topics. Just because one likes a topic that does not mean that UPSC will ask that topic. We manged to predict 6 out 8 essays in Mains 2016. We intend to do the same this year, but writing past UPSC topics or any other topic that you picked from internet is secondary. You efforts should not be fruitless.Our goal is to predict the future with precision not ponder over past and so should you.If you like a particualr topic and want to write, we will certainly review it, but before writing it, send us the topic that you want to write, so that we can guide you accordingly or re-calibrate the topic or theme to suit UPSC needs.
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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.