Discovery of the phenomena of monsoon
A Greek text, Periplus of the Erythreaeansea, which describes navigation and trading opportunities, talks about seasonal winds bringing navigators to safety. The writer of this text credits Hippalus with the discovery of these winds and its route across the Arabian Sea to India, around 1 Century BCE.
Who coined the word Monsoon?
The word ‘Monsoon’ is derived from Arabic word ‘Mausim’, meaning seasonal winds. The famous Arab scholar, a world-traveller and a prolific writer, Al- Masudi coined the term Monsoon and gave a good account of these periodic winds of the Herkend (Bay of Bengal). Interestingly Al-Masudi also remarks about using these winds as a source of energy.
Photo Courtesy : Indian Metrological Department
Indian Monsoon mechanisms
Monsoon winds are in reality southeast trade winds, which dramatically shifts in summer due to apparent movement of sun towards the northern hemisphere. The dramatic large-scale direction change results in southwest winds and the monsoon. Some of the salient factors that propel the Indian monsoon are listed below.
- Differential heating and cooling of land and water: This creates low pressure on the Indian landmass while seas around experience comparatively high pressure. As we know, winds move from high-pressure areas to low-pressure areas. This initiates the whole process of Indian monsoon
- Shift in position of Inter tropical convergence zone (ITCZ): In summer due to apparent movement of sun, ITCZ which is a equatorial trough, normally positioned about 5 degrees N&S of the equator, shifts towards the north, over the Ganga Plain. This puts in place the monsoon trough that initiates the monsoonal circulation.
- Presence of high pressure region in the east of Madagascar: The intensity and position of this high pressure area plays crucial role in initiating the monsoonal circulation.
- Intense heating of Tibetan plateau during summer: Tibetan plateau gets intensely heated during summer, which results in vertical air currents and formation of a high-pressure region over the plateau at about 9 km above the sea level.
- Movement of Westerly Jet Stream to the north of Himalaya: The sub-tropical Westerly Jet Stream, the high-level intense winds, moves to the north of the Himalaya in the summer, leaves a vacuum for southwesterly winds on the surface to complete the wind circulation.
- Southern Oscillation: Changes in pressure conditions over the Southern Ocean also affect the Indian monsoon. Normally, when the tropical western South Pacific Ocean experiences high-pressure, the Tropical Eastern Indian Ocean experiences low pressure. However, in certain years, there is reversal in pressure conditions and the Eastern Pacific region has lower pressure in comparison to East Indian Ocean. This periodic change in pressure condition is known as Southern Oscillation.
- El-Nino: This is a warm current that flows past Peruvian coast in place of the usual cold Peruvian current. The phenomenon occurs every 2 to 5 years. Hence change in pressure conditions is connected to El-Nino and whole phenomenon of El Niño–Southern Oscillation is referred as ENSO.
Timing of Indian Monsoon – how much punctual is it?
An important feature of Indian monsoon is its timing. It comes without a fail every year and strikes the country on nearly same time i.e. June 1.
The first beneficiaries of Indian Monsoon
Kerala is the privileged state, and it experiences the first showers of the monsoon. Monsoon then divides into two branches namely Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal and approaches the main land mass of India.
Indian Monsoon is not an Indian phenomenon only
Monsoon is not restricted to India only. It affects the weather of the entire Indian sub-continent, and Oceana, which comprise Australia and New Zealand. There is also the North American monsoon, which happens once a year, usually in the middle of summer.
Endnote:
India’s monsoon saga plays out every year. This year, intense summer has been predicted by the India Meteorological Department, and India hopes for a bountiful monsoon.
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.