National Science Day is celebrated every year on February 28. The theme for National Science Day 2017 is ‘Science and Technology for Specially-Abled Persons’ to improve the lives of the differently-abled better with the use of science and technology.
What is National Science Day?
The first National Science Day was celebrated on February 28, 1987 in honor of C V Raman, who discovered the Raman Effect — for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930. It was the first time that an Indian won the prize, even the first Asian. The phenomenon which deals with how photons, or quantum measures of light, scatter when they are excited to a higher level— and its derivations and modifications are used to analyze solids, liquids, and gasses as well as their components.
Together in 1986, National Council of Science Museums (NCSM) and National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC) asked the government of India to designate February 28 as National Science Day.
What is the theme this year?
‘Science and Technology for Specially-Abled Persons’ is the theme this year, in order to encourage innovation, awareness and reach of accessibility solutions worldwide to over one billion differently-abled people in the world. As per records, 50 per cent of India’s 100 million differently-abled persons are under the age of 30 and there is a huge need for assistive technology products. The government plans to bring together government, corporates, educators, NGOs and to understand the needs of differently-abled people and provide information on available solutions that can provide inclusive growth to all differently-abled people.
Who is C V Raman?
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was born in Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu in the year 1888 and he went on to join the Indian Civil Service at a very young age even though his interests laid in science, in the field of sound and light. He researched in those areas at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science and his work was published in popular journals. In 1917, he was offered professorship of physics at Calcutta University and he was back to his first love – science. Raman then began a systematic study of scattering of light by different substances that eventually led to the discovery of what came to be called the Raman Effect.
What is the Raman Effect?
The Raman Effect observes changes in wavelength after the scattering of light, which passes through a medium. When a light beam travels through a medium, the beam is deflected by the molecules. He discovered that a small part of the emerging light beam after deflection by the molecules had a different wavelength from the original beam. Therefore, the wavelength of light after passing through a medium and being deflected by the molecules had a different wavelength. This change in wavelength of the light beam is known as the Raman Effect and is an important part of spectroscopy.
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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.