Dear Friends,
It has been a great journey since we have started.When we launched our PRELIMS and ESSAY programs , we did not have the luxury of time.Yet , our expectations surpassed given the number of registered candidates.
A Big Note Of Thank you to all of you who joined us, supported us, promoted us and believed in us.
We have getting mails and speaking to candidates from different parts of the country, whose feedback helped us to push ourselves beyond the norm.
Particularly the Essays/Editorials/Current Events and recently launched Debates have been of great help , so we are told.
Many candidates wrote to us to guide them on how to write good answer.The debate is launched for this purpose – helping you improve everyday.One particular aspect is, you have to write , no matter what.
We have few candidates in our essay series whose “Never back down ” attitude in fact inspired us.Many won’t write beyond 2 essays out of 4 essays in each test.However we are in awe of few who write all the 4 essays.The level of commitment is just beyond the norm.We also have wonderful writers whose essays are just too good.Hard work is good and Talent is good. But it is a reality that- Hard work beats talent , when talent does not work hard.
Since beginning, our two core principles have been – Aesthetic and Quality.And for this reason , after getting number of feedback we reinvented our site – technically , so that it is easier for you to engage with us.
Though , there are many things that we intend to share with you at this moment, but we will keep it for later.
We are little reticent when it comes to promoting.Our promotion rests on your good will gesture and word of mouth.So your help in this regard will be of great help to us.
The results are out and many have got through, yet many deserving candidates could not make it.The Only thing that matters after every battle is how you fought.Of course, winning has its charms but winning needs constant practice to win – day in and day out.Think of Mandela, who lived in a single cell prison for 27 years, to become the President one day.That is “Never Back Down “. If you refuse to back down , there is no one who can put you down.
There is a saying in Sanskrit- “Gatani Gatpadani, Agat Pada Na drisyate” (The bygone steps are bygone, the upcoming steps are invisible). Thus, we are left with only one thing – To Improvise , To Adept and To Overcome .If you do this, you no need to chase success, it will knock at your door step and will greet you with welcome.
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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.