Dear Aspirants,
Hope your PRELIMS exam went well. Don’t worry on that front as worry has never resulted in success.What matters is your determination to pin down your mistakes and work on it – that is what really matters.
In light of the PRELIMS we have stopped publishing the Daily Current Affairs since July.However the daily current affairs will be started from Aug 15 on-wards. Also we will cover the important daily current affairs for the month of July and August. So no need to worry on that front as the daily current events will be taken care completely.
Here is a schedule of events that we will be doing starting tomorrow :-
- Publishing MAY magazine and starting the Current Affairs.
- Starting Debate Corner– we have given very good topics on this front and will give our answers to the questions as well, however going forward we will reorient the topic as per the syllabus.Don’t be surprised if the debate questions sounds like MAINS question.
- We have started reviewing the ESSAYS that were sent to us before PRELIMS.You will get the review soon.Those who joined our program recently would have already got the student id and log in details.If Anybody still wants to join the program – we do have the bandwidth to accommodate few more candidates.
- PRELIMS 2017 program will be launched and we will give some sample questions from our PRELIMS 2016 tests for you to judge the quality of questions and decide accordingly.We are not going to claim how many questions came from our tests because , you already know if we do more than 2000 questions , you are bound to cover more than 80% of the questions.Also this year we will give a special focus on the particular time frame as mentioned in our analysis of the Prelims exam.
- We also gave nearly 450 current affairs material tailor-made for the PRELIMS, we will do the same for this year with more focus and adequate segregation of the topics.This will be available in your student portal since beginning of SEPTEMBER.We will also highlight the most important once.
- If you read our PRELIMS key it was completely based on reason rather than reference , although we supplemented the conflicting questions with reference material.We will guide you similarly for PRELIMS 2017 and how to answer and take risk for the questions that you are completely unaware or don’t know the answer.UPSC provides ample chance to apply logic and we will help you on the same which can give you an added advantage over others.
- ECONOMIC SURVEY from mains perspective will be ready soon and will be available for all.
Also, you will have the details of program with you soon .Most of the aspirants who joined us had prior experience of clearing PRELIMS and MAINS, and we are glad that more than 90% of them are serious candidates .So , we are hoping to see some good results this year, of course it is your had work rather than ours , we are just means to and end , not an end itself.
This PRELIMS was not about your intelligence or knowledge , it is majorly dependent on your luck too.For eg- if on that particular day if you had read certain newspaper you would have known the answer to the banana question of butterfly question or artificial inland port question.So don’t be harsh on yourself if you have not done well in the exam.Of course, Luck can be changed with hard-work as we suggested in the analysis (day-in day-out work).
We are forever in debt for your valuable feedback and suggestions and the same will be implemented soon.
Feel free to write to us in case you have any feedback/suggestions.
Thank You
UPSCTREE Team
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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.