March 2020
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Women empowerment issues – Jobs,Reservation and education

Skill her, skill India

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Schemes for women empowerment.

Mains level: Paper 2- Various measures and schemes by the government for women empowerment.

Context

On March 8, we honour and celebrate women on the occasion of the International Women’s Day. Women in our country are making strides in social, financial and political fields.

Women breaking the barriers

  • Women working for the development of the country: Be it the 1857 mutiny for India’s freedom or the struggle for Independence, our women have always made India proud.
    • Even today, women are performing their duties with full devotion for the development of the country and upliftment of society.
    • They are working efficiently in various fields, such as academics, literature, music and dance, sports, media, business, information technology, science and technology, politics and social development.
  • Breaking barriers in various fields: Indian women from metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai are breaking barriers in fields ranging from politics to the corporate sector.
  • Giving society a new direction: Women are giving society a new direction through their leadership and critical participation in panchayat elections.
    • Increasing awareness and clear intentions are the reason behind women strengthening economic, social and cultural establishments.
    • This is very important for a democratic system.

Female participation in the corporate sector

  • IT sector participation: There is a constant evolution of female participation in the corporate sector. Female participation is constantly increasing in the Information Technology sector.
  • Presence in other areas: Along with the IT sector, the presence of women is also increasing in the banking and finance sector.
    • Last year, the Indian Space Research Organisation decided to hand over the command of Chandrayaan-2 to two women, and these women also played a key role in the mission.

Government schemes for women empowerment

  • Our government is running many schemes for women’s empowerment such as the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, Mahila E-haat Scheme, Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, Sakhi Yojana, Ladli Yojana, Digital Laado and the Swachh Bharat Mission.
  • Government is also working extensively on women’s nutrition.
  • Multiple ministries working on the same: The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Women and Child Empowerment, and Human Resource Development are working closely in this regard.
  • Identification of skill set: We know that every person has a unique skill-set. What is needed is a mechanism to ensure that that skill-set is identified and honed in the best possible way.
    • The government need to ensure that all women in our country from different occupations are trained in their respective skill-sets and are employable.
  • Government need to put to best use their skill-set to become self-employed entrepreneurs and progress.
  • Around 68.12 lakh women in India have been trained under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikaas Yojana 2.0.
  • Under the Jan Shikshan Sansthan Scheme, around 08 lakh women have been trained in the 2018-2020 period, while 38.72 lakh women have been trained in Industrial Training Institutes (ITI).
    • At present, there are 18 National Skill Training Institutes across the country to train women. Special batches are being conducted to provide basic, theoretical and advanced training to women.
  • Making progress in non-traditional skills: It is a matter of joy and pride that while women in India are studying electronics, fashion design, technology and business management, there are also those who hone their new-age skills in artificial intelligence, data analytics, 3D printing, etc.
    • Along with traditional skills like beauty, wellness and healthcare, women are also progressing quickly in non-traditional skills such as electronics and hardware.

The role of various missions in strengthening women’s skill

  • The National Rural Livelihood Mission has strengthened women’s skills and prepared them for employment.
  • Training for self-employed tailors, beauty therapists, customer care executives, hairstylists, yoga trainers, etc. are being carried out in the Prime Minister Skill Centres.
  • Women playing a significant role in various missions: Very soon, one will get to see women playing significant roles in central government schemes such as the Ayushman Bharat Yojana, Swachh Bharat Mission and Smart City Mission.
    • By joining these missions, women will make a huge contribution in giving a new shape to society.
    • In fact, in the creation of a New India, women’s education and skill development are going to be critical.
  • In the last few years, the central government has rolled out various schemes that have emboldened the women of our country and taken them on the path of self-reliance and security.

Conclusion

The efforts of our government have created a milieu of trust in the women of our country. They are confident that the country’s government machinery is standing by them by creating an atmosphere of respect and development for women. In the past few years, our government has made massive advancements in providing education and honing skill-sets. We pledge to make sure that these efforts reach each and every Indian woman.

 

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Higher Education – RUSA, NIRF, HEFA, etc.

A disconnected pedagogy

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Not much.

Mains level: Paper 2- Aligning national curriculum with the needs of the market and society.

Context

The gap between jobs, needs and knowledge, and the absence of role models, could be turning India’s demographic dividend into a nightmare.

National curriculum and problems with it

  • What is in our national curriculum? It is a fixed set of topics prescribed in all subjects — from physics to geography, and engineering to planning.
    • And it is taught in English at our elite MHRD institutions.
  • Designed by professionals: It has not been designed by politicians but by our elite professors and bureaucrats: It is what they believe the nation really needs to know.
  • Issue of imposition: It is imposed on ordinary students and parents through competitive exams and on colleges and universities through various central regulatory agencies, most egregiously, through the UGC-NET, an objective-type multiple-choice (!) exam that decides who is fit to be a college teacher.

Issues with the engineering curriculum

  • Doesn’t address the regional needs: We already know that the national engineering curriculum fails miserably in meeting regional needs.
    • No regional variation accounted for: Engineering for Himachal Pradesh needs to be different from that in Maharashtra or Kerala.
  • Not in sync with the demands of the industry: It must address the needs of core industries, local enterprises, the provisioning of basic amenities such as water and energy.
    • None of this is in our national curricula or practised at the IITs.
    • Moreover, there is no mechanism for engineering colleges to work with their communities.

Issue with the social science curriculum

  • No interdisciplinary courses: Let us look at the UGC-NET curricula, which is largely what is taught in our elite institutions.
    • At the BA level, it is divided into several disciplines — for instance, political science, sociology and economics.
    • This is unfortunate since much of life in India is interdisciplinary.
    • As a result, many activities such as preparing the balance sheet for a farmer, or analysing public transport needs, and development concerns such as drinking water or even city governance, are given a miss.
  • Example of economics curriculum: The UGC-NET curricula in economics has 10 units, the very last unit is Indian Economics. Unit 8 is on Growth and Development Economics, where the student must know Keynes, Marx, Kaldor, and others.
    • There are various mathematical models, for example, the IS-LM macroeconomic model, whose validity in the Indian scenario is questionable.
    • Absence of important sectors: The study of sectors such as small enterprises or basic economic services such as transportation is absent. The District Economic Survey, an important document prepared regularly by every state for each district, is not even mentioned.

Sociology curriculum and issues involved

  • Absence of certain important items: There is no preamble nor a list of textbooks or case studies.
    • Under “Social Institutions”, we have a list of timeless words such as culture, marriage, family and kinship.
    • Peasant occurs two times, but there is no farmer. Here is a sample question: “Who uses the phrase ‘fetishism of commodities’ while analysing social conditions?” followed by four names.
  • No mention of important data: There is also no mention of important data sets such as the census or developmental programmes including MGNREGA in either curriculum.

Conclusion

  • National curricula divorced from the community: The training at our elite institutions, and consequently, in the national curricula, is not to empower ordinary students to probe their lived reality. Or to contribute professionally and constructively to the development problems around us. Rather, it is to perpetuate a peculiar intellectualism which is divorced from the community in which these institutions are embedded.
  • Need to rethink the one-nation-one curriculum: One-nation-one-curriculum certainly has some advantages in enabling mobility of some jobs, especially in the national bureaucracy and a multinational economy.
    • Cost to the developmental needs: But one-nation-one-curriculum comes at the cost of the developmental needs of the states and the emergence of good jobs there.
  • Turning demographic dividend into a nightmare: The above-stated asymmetry is behind the aspirational dysfunction in higher education. It is this disconnect between jobs, needs and knowledge and the absence of role models, which is slowly turning our demographic dividend into a nightmare on the streets.

 

 

 

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Modern Indian History-Events and Personalities

Biju Patnaik: The flying ace who helped Indian and foreign freedom movements 

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Biju Patnaik

Mains level: Not Much

 

 

Recently, 104th birth anniversary of former Odisha chief minister Biju Patnaik was celebrated. He was a decorated freedom fighter. PM tweeted an Intelligence Bureau document from 1945 to show how Patnaik bravely lent his flying skills to rescue freedom fighters like Ram Manohar Lohia.

Biju Pattnaik

  • Bijayananda Patnaik (1916-1997), popularly known as Biju Patnaik, was an Indian politician, aviator and businessman. As politician, he served twice as the Chief Minister of the State of Odisha.
  • It is well known that Biju Patnaik actively helped freedom fighters in the 1940s.
  • His daring was evident as he actively joined the Quit India movement in 1942 and collaborated with the underground leaders like Jayaprakash Narayan, Aruna Asif Ali and Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, even while in the British service.
  • Patnaik was imprisoned by the British Government for three years later.

Role in foreign freedom struggles

  • As an officer in the Royal Indian Air Force in the early 1940s, Patnaik flew innumerable sorties to rescue British families fleeing the Japanese advance on Rangoon, the capital of Burma.
  • He also dropped arms and supplies to Chinese troops fighting the Japanese and later to the Soviet army struggling against Hitler’s onslaught near Stalingrad.
  • On the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, Patnaik was honoured by the Russians for his help,” the obit noted.
  • Interestingly, Nehru entrusted Patnaik with rescuing Indonesian resistance fighters who were fighting their Dutch colonisers.
  • Accompanied by wife Gyanwati, “the lanky pilot flew an old Dakota aircraft to Singapore en route to Jakarta where the rebels were entrenched” in 1948.
  • Dodging the Dutch guns, he entered Indonesian airspace and landed on an improvised airstrip near Jakarta.
  • Using left-over fuel from abandoned Japanese military dumps, Patnaik took off with prominent rebels, including Sultan Shariyar and Achmad Sukarno, for a secret meeting with Nehru at New Delhi.

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Blockchain Technology: Prospects and Challenges

Supreme Court ruling on Virtual Currency

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Virtual Currency, Cryptocurrency

Mains level: Issues with Blockchain Technology

The Supreme Court in a significant move has set aside a ban by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on banks and financial institutions from dealing with virtual currency holders and exchanges.

Why did the Supreme Court ban virtual currencies?

  • In a circular in 2018, the RBI had banned banks from dealing with virtual currency exchanges and individual holders on the grounds that these currencies had no underlying fiat.
  • RBI held that it was necessary for the larger public interest to stop banks from providing any services related to these.

Why was the ban unjustified?

  • The court held that the ban did not pass the “proportionality” test.
  • The test of proportionality of any action by the government, the court held, must pass the test of Article 19(1) (g) which states that all citizens of the country will have the right to practise any profession, or carry on any occupation or trade and business.

What are virtual currencies?

  • There is no globally accepted definition of what exactly is virtual currency.
  • Some agencies have called it a method of exchange of value; others have labelled it a goods item, product or commodity.
  • In its judgment the apex Court observed- Every court which attempted to fix the identity of virtual currencies, merely acted as the 4 blind men in the Anekantavada philosophy of Jainism, who attempt to describe an elephant but end up describing only one physical feature of the elephant.

Similarities with Bitcoin

  • Satoshi Nakamoto widely regarded as the founder of the modern virtual currency bitcoin and the underlying technology called blockchain defined bitcoins as “a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party”.
  • This essentially meant there would be no central regulator for virtual currencies as they would be placed in a globally visible ledger, accessible to all the users of the technology.
  • All users of such virtual currencies would be able to see and keep track of the transactions taking place.

Are they different from cryptocurrencies?

  • Virtual currency is the larger umbrella term for all forms of non-fiat currency being traded online. Virtual currencies are mostly created, distributed and accepted in local virtual networks.
  • Cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, have an extra layer of security, in the form of encryption algorithms.
  • Cryptographic methods are used to make the currency as well as the network on which they are being traded, secure.
  • Most cryptocurrencies now operate on the blockchain or distributed ledger technology, which allows everyone on the network to keep track of the transactions occurring globally.

Are cryptocurrencies dangerous?

  • The jury is out on that. Organisations across the globe have called for caution while dealing with virtual currencies.
  • A blanket ban of any sort could push the entire system underground, which in turn would mean no regulation.
  • In June 2013, the RBI had for the first time warned users, holders and traders of virtual currencies about the potential financial, operational, legal and customer protection and security-related risks that they were exposing themselves to.
  • The following year, the FATF came out with a report that highlighted both legitimate uses and potential risks associated with virtual currencies.
  • In a different report, it again said the use of such virtual currencies was growing among terror financing groups.

Why did the RBI ban virtual currencies?

  • Owing to the lack of any underlying fiat, episodes of excessive volatility in their value, and their anonymous nature which goes against global money-laundering rules, the RBI initially flagged its concerns on trade and use of the currency.
  • Risks and concerns about data security and consumer protection on the one hand, and far-reaching potential impact on the effectiveness of monetary policy itself on the other hand, also had the RBI worried about virtual currencies.
  • In its arguments, RBI said it did not want these virtual currencies spreading like a contagion, and had, therefore, in the larger public interest, asked banks not to deal with people or exchanges dealing in these non-fiat currencies.
  • The RBI perceived significant spurt in the valuation of many virtual currencies and rapid growth in initial coin offerings as a risk.

Proponent’s stance

  • They said the RBI action was outside its purview as the non-fiat currency was not a currency as such.
  • They also argued that the action was too harsh and there had been no studies conducted either by the RBI or by the central government.
  • Arguing that the ban was solely on “moral grounds”, the petitioners said the RBI should have adopted a wait-and-watch approach, as taken by other regulators such as SEBI.

Faring the Proportionality test

  • In its judgment, the Supreme Court held that the RBI directive came up short on the five-prong test to check proportionality.

It includes:

  • the direct and immediate impact upon fundamental rights
  • the larger public interest sought to be ensured; a necessity to restrict citizens’ freedom
  • inherent pernicious nature of the act prohibited or its capacity or tendency to be harmful to the general public
  • the possibility of achieving the same object by imposing a less drastic restraint

Way Forward

  • The Supreme Court’s judgment could lead to the RBI rethinking its policies surrounding virtual currencies.
  • It is expected that the RBI will reconsider its approach to cryptocurrency and come up with a new, calibrated framework or regulation that deals with the reality of these technological advancements.
  • The decision will help those investors who had used legitimate money through banking channels.

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Innovations in Sciences, IT, Computers, Robotics and Nanotechnology

Media Access Control (MAC) Binding

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Media Access Control (MAC) Binding

Mains level: Internet shutdown as an infringement of FR

After seven months, the use of social media was allowed in Jammu and Kashmir with an order laying down the latest rules for the use of the Internet in the UT.  Among various conditions, the order says Internet connectivity will be made available “with mac-binding”.

What is Mac-binding?

  • Every device has a Media Access Control (MAC) address, a hardware identification number that is unique to it. While accessing the Internet, every device is assigned an IP address.
  • Mac-binding essentially means binding together the MAC and IP addresses, so that all requests from that IP address are served only by the computer having that particular MAC address.
  • In effect, it means that if the IP address or the MAC address changes, the device can no longer access the Internet.
  • Also, monitoring authorities can trace the specific system from which a particular online activity was carried out.

Permitted connections

  • The Internet can be accessed on all postpaid devices, and those using Local Area Networks (LAN).
  • While the postpaid SIM card holders shall continue to be provided access to the Internet, these services shall not be made available on prepaid SIM cards unless verified as per the norms applicable for postpaid connections.
  • Apart from this, special access terminals provided by the government will continue to run.
  • It is further directed that the access/communication facilities provided by the government, viz. e-terminals/Internet kiosks apart from special arrangements for tourists, students, traders etc shall continue.

Only 2G permitted

  • Internet speed in J&K is still restricted to 2G.
  • This means very slow services — pictures will take a long time to be sent or downloaded, videos will be nearly impossible to share, and there will be a long loading time for most websites.
  • It also means that although in theory, the “whitelist system” — where people could only access some websites pre-approved by the government — has been removed, some sites designed for a 4G Internet experience will hardly work.

Have curbs been lifted?

  • Not exactly. The latest order is to remain in force till March 17 unless modified earlier.
  • The government has been relaxing Internet and phone usage in the UTs in phases.

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Innovations in Biotechnology and Medical Sciences

Unguarded X hypothesis

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Unguarded X hypothesis, Chromosomes

Mains level: NA

Men outnumbered women by 37 million in the 2011 Census of India, but among those over the age of 60, there were more than 1 million more women than men. In general, men live shorter lives than women worldwide. This is due to the chromosomal differences between the two, points’ new study.

What are Chromosomes?

  • The human body is made up of cells, and in the centre of each cell is the nucleus. Chromosomes, which are located inside the nucleus, are structures that hold the genes.
  • It is the genes that determine the various traits of an individual including eye colour, blood type — and sex.
  • The human cell has 23 pairs of chromosomes. One pair is of the sex chromosomes, named X and Y, which determine whether an individual is male or female.
  • A female has two X chromosomes (XX) while a male has one X and one Y (XY).

Unguarded X hypothesis

  • This hypothesis suggests that the Y chromosome in XY is less able to to protect an individual from harmful genes expressed on the X chromosome.
  • In a male, as the Y chromosome is smaller than the X chromosome, it is unable to “hide” an X chromosome that carries harmful mutations, which may later expose the individual to health threats.
  • On the other hand, the hypothesis goes, there is no such problem in a pair of X chromosomes (XX) in a female.
  • If one of the X chromosomes has genes that have suffered mutations, then the other X chromosome, which is healthy, can stand in for the first, so that the harmful genes are not expressed.
  • This maximizes the length of life, according to the hypothesis. And this is what the UNSW researchers set out to examine.

Testing the hypothesis

  • In a statement issued by UNSW, PhD student and study first author Zoe Xirocostas said the
  • Unguarded X hypothesis appears to stack up, after examining the lifespan data available on a wide range of animal species.
  • Researchers studied lifespan data in not just primates but mammals and birds, but also reptiles, fish, amphibians, arachnids, cockroaches, grasshoppers, beetles, butterflies and moths among others.
  • It was found that across that broad range of species, the heterogametic sex (XY in humans) does tend to die earlier than the homogametic sex (XX in humans).

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Economic Indicators and Various Reports On It- GDP, FD, EODB, WIR etc

Way out lies within

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Not much.

Mains level: Paper 3-Focus on demand side of the Indian economy instead of focusing all attention on supply-constraints.

Context

Domestic demand must play a greater role in India’s growth story.

Recovery in the Indian economy

  • Sub-5 per cent growth rate: India’s fourth-quarter GDP growth (the calendar year 2019) printed another sub-5 per cent growth rate.
  • Favourable base effect: It would have been lower had it not been for the large downward revisions to previous years’ GDP that statistically boosted the last quarter’s growth rate because of favourable base effects.
  • The decline in GDP stabilised: Policymakers and the market heaved a sigh of relief that the relentless decline over the last three years at least seems to have stabilised around 4-5 per cent.
  • Why some countries prefer sequential growth rate: Because year-over growth rates are so strongly affected by what happened a year ago, most economies (including China) instead publish and conduct policy discussions based on sequential quarterly growth.
    • Better sense of momentum: Sequential growth rates provide a much better sense of the momentum and turning points in activity, which are critical to deciding whether, how much, and when the economy needs policy support.
  • The magnitude of recovery: The growth momentum rose, albeit modestly, from 3.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2019 to 4.1 per cent.
    • Non-farm and non-governmental GDP recovery: More importantly, non-farm and non-government GDP (the closest approximation to non-farm private-sector GDP) bounced much more sharply from 1.6 per cent (and no this is not a misprint) to 4.4 per cent in the fourth quarter.

What is the dominant narrative of the slide in growth?

  • The deceleration in sequential terms: With the revised data, we now know that annual growth over the last four years has slowed from 8.3 per cent to 7 per cent to 6.1 per cent to 4-5 per cent.
    • The decline in non-farm private GDP: In sequential terms, the deceleration was far more dramatic, especially in non-farm private GDP, which after hitting a run rate of 13 per cent in the first quarter of 2016 fell to 1.6 per cent by the third quarter of 2019.
    • The dominant narrative of the cause of slide: The dominant narrative is that India’s woes are just an unfortunate and unintended consequence of demonetisation, the shift to a national GST, and the credit squeeze caused by the bad debt in banks and non-banks.
    • The dominant narrative on recovery: With a bit more fiscal support, some monetary easing, and extended regulatory forbearance to help banks work out their bad debts, these headwinds will fade and India will likely be back to its winning ways.

Why real cause of the slowdown lays somewhere else?

Following factors suggest that answer lies somewhere else.

  • Disruptive but not the drivers of the slowdown: While it is undeniable that facts stated in the dominant narrative had been disruptive, they couldn’t be the drivers of the decline.
    • Slide in growth started even before demonetisation: India’s growth had been sliding since the second quarter of 2016; nearly 6 months before demonetisation and a year before the GST was introduced.
    • By the third quarter of 2016, non-farm private sector growth had already slid to 3.5 per cent.
    • Bad debt problem predates slowdown: Although bad debt hit the headlines in 2016, the overleverage had already begun to tighten bank lending since 2014.
  • Fall in corporate investment- inexplicable cause: More inexplicable is the argument that falling corporate investment is the main culprit for the slowdown.
    • It is true that corporate investment is no longer running at the heady 17 per cent of GDP of the pre-global financial crisis (GFC) days but at a much more sombre 11-12 per cent.
    • However, this outsized adjustment had already taken place by 2010 and since then, corporate investment has flatlined at current levels.

The answer lies in globalisation

It is obvious once one eschews India’s exceptionalism and accepts that it is just another emerging market economy that grew on the coattails of globalisation with the minimal reforms. Globalisation has largely determined India’s fate.

  • Growth in corporate investment and exports: Contrary to a widely held misperception, India is and has been for a long time far more open to the global economy than believed.
    • Rise in corporate investment from 5 to 17%: The limited liberalisation of 1991-92, coupled with the corporate restructuring in the late 1990s, spurred corporate investment to rise from 5-6 per cent of GDP in the early 2000s to 17 per cent of GDP by 2008.
    • Increase in exports: Almost all of this expansion in investment was geared to produce for exports, which grew at an astonishing pace of 18 per cent per year-over-year in this period as global trade expanded at breakneck speed with the entry of China into the WTO in 2001.
    • 12% of GDP to 26% of GDP: Exports as a share of GDP more than doubled from 12 per cent in the early 2000s to over 26 per cent by 2008.
    • Slow growth in private consumption: In contrast, private domestic consumption, which is considered to be India’s great strength, grew only at 6 per cent annually, less than the growth rate of the economy, such that its share in GDP fell from 63 per cent to 56 per cent.
    • The engine of the Indian economy- Export: Since 2012, global trade has floundered and with that so has India’s economy.
    • Indeed, the entire rise and fall of investment, including the quarter-to-quarter twists and turns in it, can be almost fully explained by changes in exports.
    • The Indian economy has long been flying on one engine – exports — and that is now spluttering.

What are the prospects of taking the economy back to its high growth path

  • Unlikely: So will the nascent recovery strengthen and take the economy back to its high growth path? Unlikely on current policies.
  • COVID-19 factor: In the near term, as in now widely feared, the COVID-19 outbreak could turn into a pandemic, sharply reducing global demand and trade.
    • With that, even expectations of a modest 2019-20 recovery to 5.25 per cent growth are under threat.
  • Backlash against globalisation: Over the longer term, it is unlikely that global trade will return to its pre-Global financial crisis growth rates not only because supply chains have stopped expanding in the absence of any material technology breakthrough, but there is also a growing political backlash against globalisation in the developed market that has led to increased trade barriers.

Way forward

  • Search for new sources of growth: India too, like other emerging market economies, needs to face up to the reality that it can no longer depend on global trade to be the only growth driver. Instead, it needs to search and find new sources of growth and that starts with recognising and accepting reality.
  • Let domestic demand play a greater role in the economy: Policymakers need to stop thinking about India as a perennially supply-constrained economy focusing almost all policies and reforms to easing these constraints. Instead, it is time to let domestic demand play a greater role in India’s growth story.
  • Policy changes: The above factors mean that India Inc. needs to shift from producing what foreigners want to produce what residents can afford, it also means that policymakers have to reverse policies that have so far forced households to keep increasing savings (for retirement income, children’s education, healthcare, and housing) through a web of financial repression, regulatory distortions, and public spending choices.
    • It means redesigning India’s infrastructure to look more inward and less outward.
    • Reduce out of pocket expenses: Increasing public provisioning of healthcare and education, reforming insurance regulations to reduce out-of-pocket expenses and eliminating financial repression to raise returns on retirement savings.
    • Merely tinkering with macroeconomic policies will not be enough.

 

 

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