Dear All,
As you know, we run extensive and exhaustive program for ESSAY every year, it is only natural that we provide the review of this year’s paper too.
Section – A
3)Destiny of a nation is shaped in its classrooms.
Review– This is an interesting essay and probably also the most attempted one. UPSC has asked question on education before and it asked this year too.
We have wrote about it many times and informed our students too – that All the wars that we know are fought in Universities first and then in battlegrounds after. For example- Hitler fought the world wars based upon a theory by a professor of geography.
Freidrich Ratzel, was an eminent geographer from Germany who gave a concept of “Lebensraum” – which essentially means the “state is an organic entity” and as any organic entity it has to evolve and it has to grow or else it will succumb to stagnation and will perish eventually. This concept was furthered by another geographer named Herbert Spencer who gave the concept of “ Social Darwinism“, which had significant influence on Hitler who wanted to expand German territory.
Similarly the fight of Adam Smith’s capitalism and Marx’s communism also started in universities only and propounded by professors, which dominated the “cold war” era.
In sum, universities are the corner stone of everything we do. And classrooms are indeed the fertile ground for innovation too. And that is why , education shapes not only an individual’s life but a nation’s life too.
This is aptly reflected when we embedded the concept of Scientific Temper in our constitution too. Classrooms shape individual’s ethos and in turn the individual’s contribution determines the nation’s destiny. Be it Bhaba or Kalam, without them , India could not have a been a major nuclear power.
It is in the classrooms that the ideas are shaped and the miseries of mankind are solved through innovation. Thus the push for Atal Tinkering Labs in schools.
You can also include examples such as Taxila University, rise of Chandra Gupta and Chanakya who shaped India in ancient times. You can also discuss how the educational background of Jawaharlal Nehru guided India through its turbulent times of partition and reflected in our policies.
Thus they say, you are what you read, what you observe and what you learn from your classrooms. The most genius ideas came from schools and universities.
You can also write about Gandhiji’s view on education and his idea of Nayi-Talim and Rabindranath Tagore’s view on education.
The relevance of the essay is that – A nation will lack moral power if we don’t teach value based education to our children in their schools. Corruption by educated individual is due to the fact that there is no value based education and Gandhiji’s ultimate aim of education was to create a man of character thus you have to give emphasis on this aspect of the essay as well. (Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil)
Also, the classroom is not only about the the students it is also about the teachers too, thus you can cite some great teachers, for example – Socrates taught Pluto, who taught Aristotle, who taught Alexander and who ultimately shaped the Greek nation’s destiny in his times. Thus we not only need good and quality education but also great teachers in it. Then discuss the dismal status of education and especially lack of quality teachers in India. Without a great teacher, there is a very rarely a great student.(Link it with the recent test where only 17% candidates have passed the Bihar Teacher Eligibility Test (BTET)Link-Click Here.
Teaching has become the last resort for individuals due to lack of proper incentive and thus the great talents are usually don’t enter the profession of teaching and this is hampering India and its destiny. You can’t build a great nation without great teachers and great universities. In fact, if you look at the biggest MNCS around the world today (HP, GOOGLE, MICROSOFT, FACEBOOK or any other), they have their origins in the schools/universities. America is at the top end of innovation and this is due to its great teachers, universities and students, who made America what it is today. What would be America without the Havards, Standfords or MITs ?
As always this review is indicative only and not exhaustive.
Hope is helps.
P.S- The Essay Test Series for 2018 is already launched and registration can be done here- Click Here
Thank You
UPSCTREE
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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.