Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Skinks
Mains level: NA
Celebrating skinks, Zoological Survey of India has listed 62 species.
Try this PYQ:
Q.With reference to India’s Biodiversity, Ceylon frogmouth, Coppersmith barbet, Gray-chinned minivet and White-throated redstart are-
(a) Birds
(b) Primates
(c) Reptiles
(d) Amphibians
What are Skinks?
- Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae, a family in the infraorder Scincomorpha.
- With long bodies, relatively small or no legs, no pronounced neck and glossy scales, skinks are common reptiles around homes.
- Although they are common reptiles and have a prominent role in maintaining ecosystems, not much is known about their breeding habits, and ecology because identification of the species can be confusing.
Certain notions about them
- Skinks are highly alert, agile and fast-moving and actively forage for a variety of insects and small invertebrates.
- The reduced limbs of certain skink species or the complete lack of them make their slithering movements resemble those of snakes, leading people to have the incorrect notion that they are venomous.
- This results in several of these harmless creatures being killed.
ZSI study on Skinks
- A recent publication by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) reveals that India is home to 62 species of skinks and says about 57% of all the skinks found in India (33 species) are endemic.
- Sepsophis (with one species)and Barkudia (with two species) are limbless skinks found in the hills and coastal plains of the eastern coast.
- Barkudia insularisis believed to be found only in the Barkud Island in Chilka lake in Odisha. Barkudia melanosticta is endemic to Visakhapatnam.
- Sepsophis punctatus is endemic to the northern part of Eastern Ghats.
- Five species of Kaestlea (blue-tailed ground skinks) are endemic to the Western Ghats and four species of Ristella (Cat skinks) also endemic to the southern part of Western Ghats.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: APMC Act
Mains level: Paper 3- Need for agri reforms
The recently passed agri bills seek to expand the choices and opportunities available with the farmers and will help in increasing their income.
Diversified product segment
- The Minimum Support Price (MSP) evolved as a mechanism to guard farmers against supply and demand shocks in the cereals segment.
- Now, however, farmers and agricultural producers have diversified their product segments, cereals no longer dominate production.
- In the last decade itself, India has witnessed tremendous change in the GVA composition of the agri-sector.
- The share of crops has decreased from 65.4% in 2011-12 to 55.3% in 2018-19, projected to further fall to 45.6% in 2024-25.
- In the same period, value add of livestock and fishing & aquaculture is steadily increasing, as are the total value outputs of sub-segments like horticulture, milk and meat.
- With differentiated production strategies that are less reliant on cereals and more on other segments, farmers are accruing better incomes.
- By diversifying their produce, they are moving away from one-crop risks.
Government schemes and policies
- Keeping farmers dependent on subsidies and restricted by APMCs, and acts like the Essential Commodities Act wasn’t in the nation’s long-term interests.
- Recognising this, the government has been making sequential changes in the system.
- It started with the introduction of the National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) to facilitate online trading of agri-produce.
- Then PM-KISAN was introduced to provide minimum income support to nine crore marginal farmers, at Rs 6,000 annually.
- The KISAN credit card with an allotment of a total of Rs 2 lakh crore credit to maintain larger workforces and implements during harvest season is helping farmers plan and organise their harvests better.
- The Rs 1 lakh crore Agri Infrastructure Fund as part of Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan will help by the creation of agri-infrastructure.
Need for structural changes
- The government recently passed three agri-bills, these are:-
- 1) The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce Bill.
- 2) Farmers Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill.
- 3) Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill.
- They enable farmers the freedom to diversify their crops and produce, which reduces mono-crop dependence and increases income avenues.
- They can also now sell their produce anywhere, to the highest bidder across the country.
- The farmers are no longer are they required to go to the mandis where they are subject to middlemen and layers of bureaucracy.
- Contract farming enable farmers them to boost the value-add of their products via contracts and assured procurement by the food processing industries.
- Retaining the MSP system means the government is underwriting the whole network for certain crops to ensure farmers receive assured income for those crops.
Focusing on the export market
- The passage of agri bills gives India the long-awaited opportunity to orient its agriculture sector towards export markets.
- By catering to just the Indian economy, the exposure is hardly $3 trillion ; instead, export-orientation caters to an $82 trillion global economy —a 27x expansion.
- India’s agri exports in 2018 were at $38.5 billion.
- India can comfortably triple this by providing infrastructure for grading, sorting, and supply chain distribution.
Conclusion
The farm Bills are liberating farmers at a pivotal juncture, the nation and farmers have a generational opportunity here to break out of a 70-year sectoral stagnation and aim bigger.
Source:-
https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/agri-reforms-farm-bills-latest-step-in-sequential-freeing-up-of-farm-sector/2107611/
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The article analyses some trends in India’s population growth as found in the Sample Registration System Statistical Report (2018).
Context
- There have been some encouraging trends in India’s population in the Sample Registration System (SRS) Statistical Report (2018) and global population projections made by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), US.
Declining TFR
- SRS report estimated the Total Fertility Rate (TFR), the number of children a mother would have at the current pattern of fertility during her lifetime, as 2.2 in the year 2018.
- It is estimated that replacement TFR of 2.1 would soon be, if not already, reached for India as a whole.
- As fertility declines, so does the population growth rate.
- This report estimated the natural annual population growth rate to be 1.38 per cent in 2018.
- A comparison of 2011 and 2018 SRS statistical reports shows that TFR declined from 2.4 to 2.2 during this period.
- Fertility declined in all major states.
- In 2011, 10 states had a fertility rate below the replacement rate. This increased to 14 states.
- The annual natural population growth rate also declined from 1.47 to 1.38 per cent during this period.
So, when will India’s population stabilise
- Duet to population momentum effect, a result of more people entering the reproductive age group of 15-49 years due to the past high-level of fertility, population stabilisation will take some time.
- The UN Population Division has estimated that India’s population would possibly peak at 161 crore around 2061.
- Recently, IHME estimated that it will peak at 160 crore in 2048.
- Some of this momentum effect can be mitigated if young people delay childbearing and space their children.
Factors affecting fertility rates
- Fertility largely depends upon social setting and programme strength.
- Programme strength is indicated by the unmet need for contraception, which has several components.
- The National Family Health Survey (2015-16) provides us estimates for the unmet need at 12.9 per cent and contraceptive prevalence of 53.5 per cent for India.
- Female education is a key indicator for social setting, higher the female education level, lower the fertility.
- As the literacy of women in the reproductive age group is improving rapidly, we can be sanguine about continued fertility reduction.
Declining sex ratio at birth: Cause for concerrn
- The SRS reports show that sex ratio at birth in India, measured as the number of females per 1,000 males, declined marginally from 906 in 2011 to 899 in 2018.
- Biologically normal sex ratio at birth is 950 females to 1,000 males.
- The UNFPA State of World Population 2020 estimated the sex ratio at birth in India as 910, lower than all the countries in the world except China.
- This is a cause for concern for following 2 reasons:
- 1) This adverse ratio results in a gross imbalance in the number of men and women.
- 2) Impact on marriage systems as well as other harms to women.
- Increasing female education and economic prosperity help to improve the ratio.
- It is hoped that a balanced sex ratio at birth could be realised over time, although this does not seem to be happening during the period 2011-18.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there is an urgent need to reach young people both for reproductive health education and services as well as to cultivate gender equity norms. This could reduce the effect of population momentum and accelerate progress towards reaching a more normal sex-ratio at birth. India’s population future depends on it.
Back2Basics: Total Fertility Rate and Replacement rate
- Total fertility rate (TFR) in simple terms refers to total number of children born or likely to be born to a woman in her life time if she were subject to the prevailing rate of age-specific fertility in the population.
- TFR of about 2.1 children per woman is called Replacement-level fertility (UN, Population Division).
- This value represents the average number of children a woman would need to have to reproduce herself by bearing a daughter who survives to childbearing age.
- If replacement level fertility is sustained over a sufficiently long period, each generation will exactly replace itself without any need for the country to balance the population by international migration.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Various UN bodies
Mains level: Paper 2- Opportunity for India to push for institutional changes at the UN
The article analyses the changing geopolitical context against the background of the pandemic. China has been facing some challenges at the UN of late. Multilateralism faces an unprecedented crisis. This context provides an opportunity for India to push for reforms in international institutions.
China facing difficulty in elections to UN bodies
- Recently, India besting China in the elections for a seat on the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
- Soon after the CSW vote, it lost another election, this time to tiny Samoa for a seat on the UN Statistical Commission.
- And a couple of days ago, it just about managed to get elected to the UN High Rights Council, coming fourth out of five contestants for four vacancies.
- Earlier, China’s candidate had lost to a Singaporean in the race for DG World Intellectual Property Organization.
China’s strengths
- Taking advantage of its position as a member of the P-5 and as a huge aid giver, China made itself invincible in UN elections.
- It won among others, the top positions at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
Historical background on China’s rise at the UN
- World War II saw strong U.S.-China collaboration against the Japanese, including U.S. operations conducted from India.
- Their bilateral ties saw the U.S. include the Chinese in a group of the most important countries for ensuring world peace post- World War II, along with the U.S., the USSR and the U.K.
- This enlarged into the P-5, with France being added by the UK at the San Francisco conference held in 1945 where the UN charter was finalised.
- The pure multilateralism of the League of Nations was thus infused with a multipolarity, with the U.S. as the sheet anchor.
Challenges to multilateralism and the need for reform in the international institutions
- Multilateralism is under stress due to COVID-19 pandemic and a certain disenchantment with globalisation.
- At the root is the rise of China and its challenge to U.S. global hegemony.
- But in the current scenario multilateralism backed by strong multipolarity in the need of the hour.
- This demands institutional reform in the UN Security Council (UNSC) and at the Bretton Woods Institutions.
- In this context, it is good that recently India, Germany, Japan and Brazil (G-4) have sought to refocus the UN on UNSC reform.
- As proponents of reform, they must remain focused and determined even if these changes do not happen easily or come soon.
- This is also the way forward for India which is not yet in the front row.
Way forward
- Earlier in the year, India was elected as a non-permanent member of the UNSC for a two-year term.
- India will also host the BRICS Summit next year and G-20 Summit in 2022.
- These are openings for India in collaborating the world in critical areas that require global cooperation especially climate change, pandemics and counter-terrorism.
- India also needs to invest in the UN with increased financial contributions in line with its share of the world economy and by placing its people in key multilateral positions.
Consider the question “The UN, which came into existence in different time fails to take into account the realities of the changing world. In light of this, examine the basis of India’s claim to a permanent seat at the UN. What are the challenges to India’s claim.”
Conclusion
Against the backdrop of pandemic and subsequent pushback against China at the UN, it is also an opportune moment for India and a Reformed Multilateralism.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GHI
Mains level: Various facets of hunger and malnutrition in India
India has the highest prevalence of wasted children under five years in the world, which reflects acute undernutrition, according to the Global Hunger Index 2020.
Note the parameters over which the GHI is based and their weightage composition.
Global Hunger Index (GHI)
- The GHI has been brought out almost every year by Welthungerhilfe lately in partnerships with Concern Worldwide since 2000; this year’s report is the 14th one.
- The reason for mapping hunger is to ensure that the world achieves “Zero Hunger by 2030” — one of the SDGs laid out by the UN.
- A low score gets a country a higher ranking and implies better performance.
- It is for this reason that GHI scores are not calculated for certain high-income countries.
- Each country’s data are standardised on a 100-point scale and a final score is calculated after giving 33.33% weight each to components 1 and 4, and giving 16.66% weight each to components 2 and 3.
For each country in the list, the GHI looks at four indicators:
- Undernourishment (which reflects inadequate food availability): calculated by the share of the population that is undernourished (that is, whose caloric intake is insufficient)
- Child Wasting (which reflects acute undernutrition): calculated by the share of children under the age of five who are wasted (that is, those who have low weight for their height)
- Child Stunting (which reflects chronic undernutrition): calculated by the share of children under the age of five who are stunted (that is, those who have low height for their age)
- Child Mortality (which reflects both inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environment): calculated by the mortality rate of children under the age of five.
India’s performance this year
- In the 2020 Global Hunger Index, India ranks 94th out of the 107 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2020 GHI scores.
- With a score of 27.2, India has a level of hunger that is serious.
- The situation has worsened in the 2015-19 period, when the prevalence of child wasting was 17.3%, in comparison to 2010-14, when it was 15.1%.
- India fares worst in child wasting (low weight for height, reflecting acute undernutrition) and child stunting (low height for age, reflecting chronic undernutrition), which together make up a third of the total score.
Useful comparative data
- Overall, India ranks 94 out of 107 countries in the Index, lower than neighbours such as Bangladesh (75) and Pakistan (88).
- In the region of the south, east and south-eastern Asia, the only countries which fare worse than India are Timor-Leste, Afghanistan and North Korea.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: OST, INF Treaty, New START policy
Mains level: US-Russia power tussle
Russian President Mr Putin has proposed a one-year extension without conditions of the last major nuclear arms reduction accord, the New START Treaty between Russia and the U.S.
The New START, INF and the Open Skies …. Be clear about the differences of these treaties. For example- to check if their inception was during cold war era etc.
New START Treaty
- The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) pact limits the number of deployed nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers and is due to expire in 2021 unless renewed.
- The treaty limits the US and Russia to a maximum of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers, well below Cold War caps.
- It was signed in 2010 by former US President Barack Obama and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
- It is one of the key controls on superpower deployment of nuclear weapons.
- If it falls, it will be the second nuclear weapons treaty to collapse under the leadership of US President Donald Trump.
- In February, US withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), accusing Moscow of violating the agreement.
Also read:
https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/us-confirms-pull-out-from-inf-treaty/
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO)
Mains level: Not Much
Russian Navy along with CSTO members has begun military exercises in the central waters of the Caspian Sea north of the Azerbaijani capital Baku.
Try this MCQ:
Q.The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) sometimes seen in news is an alliance led by:
(a) Russia (b) USA (c) India (d) European Union
Collective Security Treaty Organization
- CSTO is an intergovernmental military alliance that was signed on 15 May 1992.
- In 1992, six post-Soviet states belonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States—Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—signed the Collective Security Treaty
- This is also referred to as the “Tashkent Pact” or “Tashkent Treaty”.
- Three other post-Soviet states—Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Georgia—signed the next year and the treaty took effect in 1994.
- Five years later, six of the nine—all but Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan—agreed to renew the treaty for five more years, and in 2002 those six agreed to create the CSTO as a military alliance.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: ‘Five Eyes’ group of nations, End-to-end encryptions
Mains level: Not Much
India joins the UK in drive known as ‘Five Eyes’ group of nations, as a seventh member against encrypted social media messages.
Map the countries in ‘Five Eyes’ group of nations.
‘Five Eyes’ group of nations
- The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
- The origins of the Five Eyes alliance can be traced back to the Atlantic Charter, which was issued in August 1941 to lay out the Allied goals for the post-war world.
- These countries are parties to the multilateral UK-USA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence.
- India is among seven countries to back a UK-led campaign against end-to-end encryption of messages by social media giants such as Facebook, which they say hinder law enforcement by blocking all access to them.
A formal expansion
- The UK and India joined this group to ensure they do not blind themselves to illegal activity on their platforms, including child abuse images.
- This marks an expansion of the so-called “Five Eyes” group of nations, a global alliance on intelligence issues, to include India and Japan.
For a common cause
- All members claim that end-to-end encryption policies such as those employed by the social media giant erode the public’s safety online.
- They have made it clear that when end-to-end encryption is applied with no access to content, it severely undermines the ability of companies to take action against illegal activity on their own platforms.
- It also prevents law enforcement investigating and prosecuting the most serious crimes being committed on these services such as online child sexual abuse, grooming and terrorist content.
Back2Basics: End-to-end encryption
- End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a system of communication where only communicating users can read the messages.
- It is regarded as the most secure way to communicate privately and securely online.
- By encrypting messages at both ends of a conversation, end-to-end encryption prevents anyone in the middle from reading private communications.
- In principle, it prevents potential eavesdroppers – including telecom providers, Internet providers, and even the provider of the communication service – from being able to access the cryptographic keys needed to decrypt the conversation.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Chapter Proceedings
Mains level: Law and order maintenance
The Mumbai police last week began “chapter proceedings” against the Editor-in-Chief of a news channel.
Can you relate the philosophy behind chapter proceedings and preventive detention?
What exactly are “chapter proceedings”?
- Chapter proceedings are preventive actions taken by the police if they fear that a particular person is likely to create trouble and disrupt the peace in society.
- These proceedings are unlike punitive action taken in case of an FIR with an intention to punish.
- Here, the police can issue notices under sections of the Code of Criminal Procedure to ensure that the person is aware that creating nuisance could result in action against him.
What are the sections using which these notices are served?
- Generally, a notice is issued to a person under section 111 of the CrPC whereby he is asked to present himself before the Executive Magistrate – an ACP-rank officer in a Commissionerate of a Dy. the collector in rural areas – who has issued the notice.
- The person has to explain why he should not be made to sign a bond of good behaviour.
- If the Executive Magistrate is not satisfied with the answer, the person is asked to sign a bond of good behaviour and produce sureties vouching for his/her good behaviour.
- A fine amount is also decided – in accordance with the crime and the person’s financial capability – which the person would have to pay if he violates the conditions set in the bond.
Legal immunities against such proceedings
- On receiving the notice under section 111, a person can appeal the notice before the courts.
- In fact, in the past, courts have come down strongly against chapter proceedings in some cases.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: National Authority of Ship Recycling (NASR)
Mains level: Not Much
The Central government has notified the Director-General of Shipping as the national authority for recycling of ships under the Recycling of Ships Act, 2019.
The ‘Hong Kong Convention’ is the odd man out here. Read more about the convention at:
[pib] Hong Kong International Convention for Safe Recycling of Ships 2009
About NASR
- The national authority of ship recycling will be set up in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
- The location of the office will benefit the ship recycling yard owners situated in Alang, Gujarat which is home to the largest ship recycling industry in the world.
- DG Shipping is authorized to administer, supervise and monitor all activities relating to ship recycling in the country.
- DG Shipping will oversee the sustainable development of the ship recycling industry, monitoring the compliance to environment-friendly norms and safety and health measures for the stakeholders.
- DG Shipping will be the final authority for the various approvals required by the ship-recycling yard owners and state governments.
Recycling of Ships Act, 2019
- Under the Ship Recycling Act, 2019, India has acceded to the ‘Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships’.
- This was adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
- DG Shipping is a representative of India in the IMO and all the conventions of IMO are being enforced by DG Shipping.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Criteria for MSMEs
Mains level: Paper 3- Formalisation of MSMEs
The lack of formalisation has several implications for MSMEs. Registering them could help them in various ways. The article deals with the issue of formalisation.
Please read the link shared below for issues related to MSME
The missing large in MSMEs
Steps taken by Government to Formalize MSME
- UAM: In 2015, the government notified the Udyog Aadhaar Memorandum (UAM), an online filing system for MSMEs.
- As of January, 86 lakh MSMEs had registered on the UAM portal.
- In 2016, the government notified rules under which MSMEs had to furnish information relating to their enterprises, online, in an MSME databank.
- As of January, only 1.6 lakh units registered on it.
- A new process of classification and registration for small businesses took off on July 1 called as “Udyam”.
- As of October 1, the MSME ministry has confirmed that only 7 lakh registrations have taken place using the new system.Nudge by the government
- In an attempt to nudge more enterprises to become lifetime Udyam, the government has integrated the system with the Trade Receivables Electronic Discounting System (TReDS) and the Government e-Marketplace (GeM).
- In its updated Priority Sector Lending (PSL) guidelines, the RBI has established that for the purposes of PSL, MSMEs will be identified as per the gazette notification laying down the new process of classification and registration.
Addressing the concerns
- While the Udyam initiative holds more promise, it is important to assess if this will be detrimental to accessing formal finance.
- To this end, the government and RBI should consider whether the registration requirement can be exempted for units with investment and turnover that falls in the lower end of the criteria.
- In 2018, the International Finance Corporation estimated that the overall supply of finance from formal sources met only one-third of the credit demand of the MSME sector.
- Enabling strategies such as PSL could provide a fillip to priority sectors including MSMEs which require increased formal financing.
Conclusion
The costs of formalisation and compliance are high and onerous in many states in India. In such an ecosystem, there are perverse incentives to remaining small and informal. Governments’ efforts towards formalisation should be directed towards addressing these issues.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Need for multilateralism
Multilateralism faces several challenges at the time when it is needed the most. The article highlights the need for more of it in the face of global challenges.
Lack of international collaboration to deal with Covid
- As COVID-19 recognises no boundaries, one would have expected that countries with technological and financial capabilities, would agree to pool their resources together to work on an effective and affordable anti-virus vaccine.
- Instead, there are several parallel national efforts underway even as the World Health Organization (WHO) has put together a Covax alliance for the same purpose.
- Active collaboration would have enhanced our collective ability to overcome what has become a public health-cum-economic crisis.
- But we live in an era when nationalist urges, fuelled by a political opportunism, diminish the appeal of international cooperation.
- The post-pandemic world will have the awful dilemma of global integration without solidarity.
Trends in the global order that suggests the need for multilateralims
1) Global food crisis
- The World Food Program has been awarded this year’s Noble Peace Prize.
- The award is sending a message to the world — that we need multilateralism as an expression of international solidarity.
- According to the WFP, 132 million more people could become malnourished as a consequence of the pandemic.
- To the 690 million people who go to bed each night on an empty stomach, perhaps another 100 million or more will be added.
- The Nobel Prize to the WFP will hopefully nudge our collective conscience to come together and relieve this looming humanitarian crisis.
2) Despite issues, U.N. is still important
- The United Nations is at the centre of multilateral institutions and processes and kept alive the notion of international solidarity and cooperation.
- But it suffers from several disabilities due to the fault of its most powerful member countries.
- They have deprived the UN of resources.
- They have resisted efforts to institute long-overdue reforms.
- Its structure no longer reflects the changes in power equations that have taken place and country such as India continues to be denied permanent membership of the Security Council.
- And yet, the UN is now an essential part of the fabric of international relations for two reasons:
- 1) The salience of global issues has expanded.
- 2) The need for multilateral approaches in finding solutions has greatly increased.
3) Multilateral institutions have become platform for contestation
- In the network of multilateral institutions, several belong to the UN system, others are inter-governmental, still others may be non-governmental of a hybrid character.
- This network performs two important tasks:
- 1) Enable governance in areas which require coordination among nation-states.
- 2) Set norms to regulate the behaviour of states so as to avoid conflict and to ensure both equitable burden-sharing and, equally, a fair distribution of benefits.
- While there are multilateral institutions they have become platforms for contestations among their member states.
- There is recognition of the need to cooperate but this is seen as a compulsion rather than desirable.
4) Globalisation driven by technology will remain here
- Globalisation may have stalled, but as we become increasingly digitised, there will be more, not less, globalisation.
- The pandemic has triggered galloping globalisation in the digital economy.
- Globalisation is driven by technology and as long as the technology remains the key driver of economic growth, there is no escape from globalisation.
- In the contemporary world, the line separating the domestic from the external has become increasingly blurred.
- In tackling domestic challenges deeper external engagement is often indispensable. This is certainly true of climate change.
- The pandemic originated in a third country but soon raged across national borders.
- If there had been a robust and truly global early warning system, perhaps it could have been contained.
5) Interconnectedness of challenges
- We must also take into account the inter-connectedness among various challenges, for example, food, energy and water security are inter-linked with strong feedback loops.
- Enhancing food security may lead to diminished water and energy security.
- It may also have collateral impact on health security.
- It is in recognition of these inter-connections that the international community agreed on a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- The SDGs are cross-domain but also cross-national in character, and hence demand greater multilateral cooperation in order to succeed.
6) Need for more democratic world
- The lack of cooperation from even a single state may frustrate success in tackling a global challenge.
- A fresh pandemic may erupt in any remote corner of the world and spread throughout the globe.
- Prevention cannot be achieved through coercion, only through cooperation. It is only multilateralism that makes this possible.
Conclusion
It is a paradox that precisely at a time when the salience of cross-national and global challenges has significantly increased, nation-states are less willing to cooperate and collaborate in tackling them. So, there is a need for more of multilateralism to deal with the issues of global level.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GDP, GNP, GVA etc.
Mains level: India's GDP related issues
In IMF’s latest Economic Outlook, Bangladesh has overtaken India in GDP per capita. This has caught everyone’s attention.
Do you know?
- In the 2019 edition of Transparency International’s rankings, Bangladesh ranks a low 146 out of 198 countries (India is at 80th rank; a lower rank is worse off).
- In the latest gender parity rankings, out of 154 countries mapped for it, Bangladesh is in the top 50 while India languishes at 112.
Bangladesh surpasses India
- Typically, countries are compared on the basis of GDP growth rate, or on absolute GDP.
- For the most part since Independence, on both these counts, India’s economy has been better than Bangladesh’s.
- This can be seen from Charts 1 and 2 that map GDP growth rates and absolute GDP — India’s economy has mostly been over 10 times the size of Bangladesh, and grown faster every year.
- However, per capita income also involves another variable — the overall population — and is arrived at by dividing the total GDP by the total population.
What made India lag behind?
There are three reasons why India’s per capita income has fallen below Bangladesh this year:
- The first thing to note is that Bangladesh’s economy has been clocking rapid GDP growth rates since 2004.
- Secondly, over the same 15-year period, India’s population grew faster (around 21%) than Bangladesh’s population (just under 18%).
- Lastly, the most immediate factor was the relative impact of Covid-19 on the two economies in 2020. While India’s GDP is set to reduce by 10%, Bangladesh’s is expected to grow by almost 4%.
How has Bangladesh managed to grow so fast and so robustly?
- Freshly start: In the initial years of its independence with Pakistan, Bangladesh struggled to grow fast. However, moving away from Pakistan also gave the country a chance to start afresh on its economic and political identity.
- Diverse labour participation: As such, its labour laws were not as stringent and its economy increasingly involved women in its labour force. This can be seen in higher female participation in the labour force.
- Textile boom: A key driver of growth was the garment industry where women workers gave Bangladesh the edge to corner the global export markets from which China retreated.
- Less dependence on Agriculture: It also helps that the structure of Bangladesh’s economy is such that its GDP is led by the industrial sector, followed by the services sector. Both of these sectors create a lot of jobs and are more remunerative than agriculture.
- Better social capital: Bangladesh improved a lot on several social and political metrics such as health, sanitation, financial inclusion, and women’s political representation.
Retaining the lead
- The IMF’s projections show that India is likely to grow faster next year and in all likelihood again surge ahead.
- But, given Bangladesh’s lower population growth and faster economic growth, India and Bangladesh are likely to be neck and neck for the foreseeable future in terms of per capita income.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Climate change induced disasters
The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) recently published its report titled “The Human Cost of Disasters”.
The report holds much significance for prelims as well as mains. Just for the sake of information, we must be aware of the report.
Highlights of the report
- 7,348 major disaster events had occurred between 2000 and 2019, claiming 1.23 lives, affecting 4.2 billion people and costing the global economy some $2.97 trillion.
- Of this, China (577 events) and the US (467 events) reported the highest number of disaster events followed by India (321 events).
- Climate change is to be blamed for the doubling of natural disasters in the past 20 years says the report.
- There had also been an increase in geophysical events like earthquakes and tsunamis that are not related to climate but are particularly deadly.
Back2Basics: UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction
- The UNDRR was established in 1999 as a dedicated secretariat to facilitate the implementation of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR).
- It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
- It is mandated to serve as the focal point in the UN system for the coordination of disaster reduction and to ensure synergies among the disaster reduction activities.
- It has a vision to substantially reduce disaster risk and losses for a sustainable future with the mandate to act as the custodian of the Sendai Framework to which India is a signatory.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NGTA, Forex Reserve
Mains level: Not Much
In a bid to improve its functioning, the RBI has decided to move to the Next Generation Treasury Application (NGTA) for managing the country’s foreign exchange and gold reserves.
Aspirants must make a note here:
1.Authority managing FOREX in India
2.Components of FOREX
3.IMF’s SDRs
4.Emergency use of FOREX
What is NGTA?
- The NGTA, according to the RBI, would be a web-based application providing scalability, manoeuvrability and flexibility to introduce new products and securities, besides supporting multi-currency transactions and settlements.
- It would be supporting various transactions in asset classes like Fixed Income (FI), Forex (FX), Money Market (MM) and Gold.
- It would be used for managing the foreign exchange reserves in a more efficient way, mitigate risk, achieve operational efficiencies, dealing in various asset classes and reporting.
Objectives of NGTA
The objectives of the proposed system include:
- dealing in various asset classes (like Fixed Income Securities, Forex, Money Market, Gold);
- portfolio management; workflow management; reserve management;
- integration with various third-party and in-house systems; and dashboards, reports, widgets.
Features of NGTA
- The NGTA shall automatically fetch all the relevant details of a security/contract from a trading platform.
- It shall support all internationally accepted conventions pertaining today count, interest computation, holiday logic, shut period-dividend, ex-dividend, cash flows, and odd coupon.
- With respect to transactions in gold, the NGTA shall support purchase, sale, deposit (including rollover and premature withdrawal).
- On maturity of a gold deposit, there can be exact, under or over delivery.
Back2Basics: Forex Reserves
- Reserve Bank of India Act and the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 set the legal provisions for governing the foreign exchange reserves.
- RBI accumulates foreign currency reserves by purchasing from authorized dealers in open market operations.
- The Forex reserves of India consist of below four categories:
- Foreign Currency Assets
- Gold
- Special Drawing Rights (SDRs)
- Reserve Tranche Position
- The IMF says official Forex reserves are held in support of a range of objectives like supporting and maintaining confidence in the policies for monetary and exchange rate management including the capacity to intervene in support of the national or union currency.
- It will also limit external vulnerability by maintaining foreign currency liquidity to absorb shocks during times of crisis or when access to borrowing is curtailed.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Taiwan strait
Mains level: Not Much
A U.S. warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait in what the American military described as a “routine” passage on but enraging China, which claims sovereignty over the island and surrounding seas.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Which one of the following can one come across if one travels through the Strait of Malacca?
(a) Bali
(b) Brunei
(c) Java
(d) Singapore
Taiwan Strait
- The Taiwan Strait, also known as the Formosa Strait, is a 180 km wide strait separating Taiwan and mainland China.
- The strait is currently part of the South China Sea and connects to the East China Sea to the north. The narrowest part is 130 km wide.
- The entire strait is on Asia’s continental shelf.
- Historically both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan espoused a One-China Policy that considered the strait part of the exclusive economic zone of a single “China”.
Tap to read more about One China Policy at:
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: KAPILA program
Mains level: IPR protection measures
Union Education Ministry has launched ‘KAPILA’ Kalam Program for IP Literacy and Awareness Education campaign to bring awareness towards the patenting of inventions.
Remember one thing, ‘KAPILA’ Program is related to IP awareness. It sounds much like an animal husbandry related initiative.
‘KAPILA’ Program
- KAPILA is an acronym for Kalam Program for IP (Intellectual Property) Literacy and Awareness.
- Under this campaign, students pursuing education in higher educational institutions will get information about the correct system of the application process for patenting their invention and they will be aware of their rights.
- The program will facilitate the colleges and institutions to encourage more and more students to file patents.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: PMP and PLI Scheme
Mains level: Paper 3- Issues with Phased Manufacturing Policy
The Production Linked Incentive Scheme, though ambitious in its goal suffers from several fundamental issues. The article discuses such issues.
Background of the Phased Manufacturing Policy
- The Phased Manufacturing Programme (PMP) incentivised the manufacture of low value accessories initially, and then moved on to the manufacture of higher value components.
- This was done by increasing the basic customs duty on the imports of these accessories or components.
- The PMP was implemented with an aim to improve value addition in the country.
- Recently, 16 firms in the mobile manufacturing sector were approved for the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme to transform India into a major mobile manufacturing hub.
- The PLI comes on the back of a phased manufacturing programme (PMP) that began in 2016-17.
Issues to consider
1) More imports and less value addition in India
- Firms such as Apple, Xiaomi, Oppo, and OnePlus have invested in India, but mostly through their contract manufacturers.
- As a result, production increased from $13.4 billion in 2016-17 to $31.7 billion in 2019-20.
- But factory-level production data from the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) shows that more than 85% of the inputs were imported.
- UN data for India, China, Vietnam, Korea and Singapore (2017-2019), show that except for India, all countries exported more mobile phone parts than imports.
- More export than import by these countries indicate the presence of facilities that add value to these parts before exporting them.
- India, on the other hand, imported more than it exported.
- Therefore, while the PMP policy increased the value of domestic production, improvement in local value addition remains low.
- The new PLI policy offers an incentive subject to thresholds of incremental investment and sales of manufactured goods.
- Thus, focus remains on increasing value of domestic production, and not local value addition.
2) Shift from China unlikely
- India produced around 29 crore units of mobile phones for the year 2018-19; 94% of these were sold in the domestic market.
- This implies that much of the incremental production and sales under the PLI policy will have to be for the export market.
- Recently, a study by Ernst & Young showed that if the cost of production of a mobile phone is say 100 (without subsidies), then the effective cost (with subsidies and other benefits) of manufacturing mobile phone in China is 79.55, Vietnam, 89.05, and India (including PLI), 92.51.
- So, it may be premature to expect a major chunk of mobile manufacturing to shift from China to India.
3) PLI doesn’t strengthen the current export competitiveness
- India’s mobile phone exports grew from $1.6 billion in 2018-19 to $3.8 billion in 2019-20, but per unit value declined from $91.1 to $87, respectively.
- This shows that our export competitiveness seems to be in mobiles with lower selling price.
- However, for foreign firms chosen under the PLI policy, the incentive will be at and above ₹15,000 ($204.65).
- So, it is clear that the PLI policy does not strengthen our current export competitiveness in mobile phones.
4) Absence of domestic firms
- Domestic firms have been nearly wiped out from the Indian market.
- So, their ability to take advantage of the PLI policy and grab a sizeable domestic market share seems difficult.
- Domestic firms may have the route of exporting cheaper mobile phones to other low-income countries.
- However, their performance in the last couple of years has not been promising.
5) Importance of supply chain colocation
- The six component firms that have been given approval under the ‘specified electronic components segment’do not complete the mobile manufacturing ecosystem.
- For example, when Samsung set up shop in Vietnam, it relied heavily on its Korean suppliers which co-located with it to produce intermediate inputs, so much so that 63 among Samsung’s 67 suppliers then were foreign.
- Though Samsung is invested hugely in India, it has not colocated its supply chain in the country.
- So, the foreign firms chosen under the PLI policy should be encouraged to colocate their supply ecosystems in the country.
6) Complaint at WTO against PMP
- In September 2019, Chinese Taipei contested the raise in tariffs under the PMP.
- If the PMP is found to be World Trade Organization (WTO) non-compliant, then we may be flooded with imports of mobile phones.
- This might make the local assembly of mobile phones unattractive.
- This will affect the operations of the mobile investments done under the PMP.
Conclusion
The PMP policy, since 2016-17 has barely been helpful in raising domestic value addition in the industry even though value of production expanded considerably.
B2BASICS
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Debt-GDP ratio
Mains level: Not Much
India’s public debt ratio, which remarkably remained stable at about 70% of the GDP since 1991, is projected to jump by 17 percentage points to almost 90% a/c to IMF.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Consider the following statements:
- Most of India’s external debt is owed by governmental entities.
- All of India’s external debt is denominated in US dollars.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
Why such a spike?
- The increase in public spending, in response to COVID-19, and the fall in tax revenue and economic activity, will make public debt jump by 17 percentage points to almost 90% of GDP.
What is Debt-to-GDP Ratio?
- The Debt-to-GDP ratio is the ratio between a country’s government debt and its gross domestic product (GDP).
- It measures the financial leverage of an economy.
- A country able to continue paying interest on its debt-without refinancing, and without hampering economic growth, is generally considered to be stable.
- A country with a high debt-to-GDP ratio typically has trouble paying off external debts (also called “public debts”), which are any balances owed to outside lenders.
- In such scenarios, creditors are apt to seek higher interest rates when lending. Extravagantly high debt-to-GDP ratios may deter creditors from lending money altogether.
- A low debt-to-GDP ratio indicates an economy that produces and sells goods and services sufficient to pay back debts without incurring further debt.
- Geopolitical and economic considerations – including interest rates, war, recessions, and other variables – influence the borrowing practices of a nation and the choice to incur further debt.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: FAO
Mains level: India and FAO
On the occasion of 75th Anniversary of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on 16th October 2020, PM has released a commemorative coin of Rs 75.
Try this MCQ:
Q.The FAO accords the status of ‘Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS)’ to traditional agricultural systems. What is the overall goal of this initiative?
- To provide modern technology, training in modern farming methods and financial support to local communities of identified GIAHS so as to greatly enhance their agricultural productivity.
- To identify and safeguard eco-friendly traditional farm practices and their associated landscapes, agricultural biodiversity and knowledge systems of the local communities.
- To provide Geographical Indication status to all the varieties of agricultural produce in such identified GIAHS Select the correct answer using the code given below:
(a) 1 and 3 only
(b) 2 only
(c) 2 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
About FAO
- It is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger and improve nutrition and food security.
- It was founded in October 1945 and is headquartered in Rome.
- It maintains regional and field offices around the world, operating in over 130 countries.
- It also conducts research, provides technical assistance to projects, operates educational and training programs, and collects data on agricultural output, production, and development.
- Composed of 197 member states, the FAO is governed by a biennial conference representing each member country and the European Union, which elects a 49-member executive council.
- The Director-General serves as the chief administrative officer.
India and FAO
- India has had a historic association with FAO.
- Indian Civil Service Officer Dr Binay Ranjan Sen was the Director-General of FAO during 1956-1967.
- The World Food Programme, which has won the Nobel Peace Prize 2020, was established during his time.
- India’s proposals for the International Year of Pulses in 2016 and the International Year of Millets 2023 have also been endorsed by FAO.
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