3 September 2020

(Today we Cover-

oneday One-liners + 

the Hindu PIB, INDIAN express Notes + 

Other Sources News of the Day + 

mains & Interview Special Daily Current Affairs Notes)

Oneday One-liners

•    केंद्र सरकार ने ‘समूह ग’ की नौकरियों में 20 नए खेल को शामिल कर उनको स्पोर्ट्स कोटा के तहत नौकरी देने की घोषणा की है।

•    ऑस्ट्रेलिया ने भारत के साथ व्यापारिक रिश्ते को मजबूत बनाने हेतु पूर्व क्रिकेटर मैथ्यू हेडन और भारतीय मूल की लीसा सिंह राजनीतिज्ञ को अपना व्यापार दूत नियुक्त किया है।

•    सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने टेलीकॉम कंपनियों को अपना AGR बकाया चुकाने के लिए दस साल साल का समय दिया है।

•    वित्त मंत्रालय के अनुसार, अगस्त 2020 में जीएसटी का संग्रह 86,449 करोड़ रुपये किया गया है।

•    हाल ही में आंध्रप्रदेश राज्य के कुडप्पा ज़िले में खुदाई के दौरान रेनाटी चोल युग के एक दुर्लभ शिलालेख (Rare Inscription) की प्राप्ति हुई है।

•    हाल ही में जापान ने घोषणा की कि वह भारत को COVID-19 संकट की प्रतिक्रिया के रूप में 3,500 करोड़ रुपये की ऋण सहायता प्रदान करेगी।

•    रक्षा मंत्री राजनाथ सिंह शंघाई कॉरपोरेशन ऑर्गनाइजेशन (SCO) के सदस्य देशों की बैठक में हिस्सा लेने के लिए रूस के लिए रवाना हो गए हैं।

•    हाल ही में नए चुनाव आयुक्त के रूप में राजीव कुमार ने अपना कार्यभार संभाल लिया है।

•    सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने महाकालेश्वर मंदिर की शिवलिंग में पंचामृत चढ़ाने पर रोक लगाई है।

•    विश्व नारियल दिवस 2 सितम्बर को मनाया जाता है।

News from the Hindu PIB & Indian Express

 EX-Indra 2020

• Move comes amid ongoing standoff with China in Ladakh, tensions in Indian Ocean
• Amid high operational alert by the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) due to the ongoing standoff with China in Ladakh,
• India and Russia are scheduled to hold the bilateral naval exercise, Indra 2020, in the Andaman Sea.
• The exercise will be carried out close to the strategic Strait of Malacca.
• Three Russian navy ships will take part in the exercise with an equal number from the Indian Navy, along with some aircraft.
• This is also the first bilateral naval exercise since all such engagements were suspended due to COVID-19.
• The timing of the exercise comes just after India withdrew from the Kavkaz-2020 multinational exercise in Russia scheduled for later this month.

Oruc Reis Vessel

• Oruc Reis is an energy exploration vessel of turkey.
• The vessel has been deployed in seismic research in the East Mediterranean sea.
• The Turkish vessel is accompanied by two Turkish naval ships, this had created standoff between Greece, Egypt and Turkey in Mediterranean Sea.
• Recently Turkey resumed energy exploration in the region after Greece and Egypt signed a controversial maritime delimitation deal.
• The agreement came only a day after Ankara said it would postpone its oil and gas exploration as a goodwill gesture.
• But, after declaring the Greek-Egyptian deal "null and void," Turkey authorized the Oruç Reis to continue its activities in an area within the country's continental shelf.
• Turkey has consistently opposed Greece's efforts to declare an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) based on small islands near Turkish shores, violating the interests of Turkey, the country with the longest coastline in the Mediterranean.

Coal Gasification

• Coal gasification is the process of producing syngas from coal and water, air and/or oxygen, a mixture consisting primarily of

1. Carbon monoxide (CO),
2. Hydrogen (H2),
3. Carbon dioxide (CO2),
4. Natural gas (CH4),
5. Water vapor (H2O)

• Historically, coal was gasified to produce coal gas, also known as "town gas".
• Coal gas is combustible and was used for heating and municipal lighting, before the advent of large-scale production of natural gas from oil wells.
• In current practice, large-scale coal gasification installations are primarily for electricity generation, or for production of chemical feedstock.
• The hydrogen obtained from coal gasification can be used for various purposes such as making ammonia, powering a hydrogen economy, or upgrading fossil fuels.
• Natural gas from coal gasification can be cooled until it liquifies for use as a fuel in the transport sector.
• Union Coal Ministry organized a webinar on Coal Gasification and Liquefaction, in which it has announced the plans for 100 million tons (MT) coal gasification by 2030.
• Significant plans discussed in the webinar are

1. For encouraging use of clean sources of fuel, government has provided for a concession of 20% on revenue share of coal used for gasification.
2. This will boost production of synthetic natural gas, energy fuel, urea for fertilizers and production of other chemicals.
3. For development of Surface Coal Gasification in India, a Steering Committee has been constituted under the chairmanship of Dr. V.K. Saraswat, Member, NITI Aayog comprising of members from the Ministry of Coal.
4. CIL has also planned to set up at least 3 gasification plants (besides Dankuni).

Renati Cholas

• The Telugu Cholas of Renadu are also called as Renati Cholas.
• They ruled over Renadu region, the present day Cuddapah district.
• They were originally independent, later forced to the suzerainty of the Eastern Chalukyas.
• They had the unique honour of using the Telugu language in their inscriptions belonging to the 6th and 8th centuries.
• The inscriptions at Gandikota at Jammulamadugu and Proddatur are proof of this fact.
• The earliest of this family was Nandivarman (500 AD) who claimed descent from the family of Karikala and the Kasyapa gotra.
• Recently a rare inscription dating back to the Renati Chola era has been unearthed in a remote village of Kadapa district.
• The inscription has been found engraved on a dolomite slab and shale.
• The inscription was written in archaic Telugu which was readable in 25 lines.
• It was assigned to the 8th Century A.D., when the region was under the rule of Chola Maharaja of Renadu.

World’s Largest Solar Tree

• CSIR- Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI)  has developed the World’s Largest Solar Tree and installed it at Durgapur, West Bengal.
• The installed capacity of the Solar Tree is above 11.5 kWp.
• There are a total of 35 Solar PV Panels in each tree with a capacity of 330 wp each.
• It has the annual capacity to generate 12,000-14,000 units of Clean and Green Power, West Bengal.
• The inclination of the arms holding the Solar PV Panels are flexible and can be adjusted as per requirement, this feature is not available in Roof-Mounted Solar facilities.
• MSMEs who are interested in the solar tree can align their Business Model with PM KUSUM Scheme for farmers, for developing a Renewable Energy based Energy Grid.

PM-KUSUM

• Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM) is a scheme of Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).
• PM-KUSUMscheme has a target to set up 25,750 megawatts (MW) solar capacity by 2022 to power irrigation pumps.
• The approved scheme comprises of three components:

1. Setting up of 10,000 MW of decentralized ground / stilt-mounted grid-connected solar or other renewable energy based power plants
2. Installation of 17.5 lakh standalone solar agriculture pumps
3. Solarisation of 10 lakh grid-connected solar agriculture pumps

• It comes with central financial support of close to Rs 34,000 crore.

 ‘Project NETRA’

• Project NETRA - Network for space object Tracking and Analysis is an early warning system of ISRO, launched in 2019.
• It aims for early waring in space to detect debris and other hazards to Indian satellites.
• Under the project, the ISRO plans to put up many observational facilities such as

1. Connected radars,
2. Telescopes,
3. Data processing units
4. Control center.

• The project will give India its own capability in Space Situational Awareness (SSA) like the other space powers which is used to ‘predict’ threats from debris to Indian satellites.
• NETRA’s eventual goal is to capture the GEO, or geostationary orbit, scene at 36,000 km where communication satellites operate.
• The effort would make India a part of international efforts towards tracking, warning about and mitigating space debris.

Space Junk

• Space junk is an ever-growing problem with more than 7,500 tonnes of redundant hardware now thought to be circling the Earth.
• Ranging from old rocket bodies and defunct spacecraft through to screws and even flecks of paint, this material poses a collision hazard to operational missions.
• The rising population of space debris increases the potential danger to all space vehicles, but especially to the International Space Station (ISS), space shuttles, satellites and other spacecraft.

 

News from Other Sources

News: Ministry of Tourism has organised a webinar titled Hampi- Inspired by the past; Going into the future under Dekho Apna DeshWebinar series.

• Hampi: It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in east-central Karnataka.
• Origin: Its name is derived from Pampa which is the old name of the Tungabhadra River on whose banks the city is built.
• Significance: It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire in the 14th century.
• Trade: By 1500 CE, Hampi-Vijayanagara was the world’s second-largest medieval era city after Beijing and probably India’s richest at that time, attracting traders from Persia and Portugal.
• Architecture: The buildings predominantly followed South Indian Hindu arts and architecture dating to the Aihole-Pattadakal styles.They also used elements of Indo-Islamic architecture in the Lotus Mahal, the public bath and the elephant stables.
• Important Monuments:
  • Virupaksha temple( It is dedicated to Virupaksha, a form of Lord Shiva)
  • Hemkunta Hill, south of the Virupaksha temple contains early ruins, Jain temples and a monolithic sculpture of Lord Narasimha, a form of Lord Vishnu.
  • Vittal temple built in the 16th Century, is now a World Heritage monument.The columns of the temple are so balanced that they have a musical quality.
• Defeat: The Vijayanagara Empire was defeated by a coalition of Muslim sultanates; its capital was conquered, pillaged and destroyed by sultanate armies in 1565, after which Hampi remained in ruins.

News: Indian Army thwarted an attempt by China to change the status quo near the Line of Actual Control(LAC) by deploying its troops to a previously un-deployed area on the southern bank of the Pangong Tso Lake.

• Pangong Tso Lake: It is an endorheic lake (landlocked) that is partly in India’s Ladakh region and partly in Tibet.The lake is formed from Tethys geosyncline.
• The lake literally translates into a “conclave lake”. Pangong means conclave in Ladakhi and Tso means a lake in Tibetan language.
• The Karakoram Mountain range which crosses Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and India ends at the north bank of Pangong Tso.
• The lake’s water is crystal clear, brackish making it undrinkable.The lake freezes during the winter allowing some vehicular movement on it as well.
• Who controls Pangong Tso? Nearly two-thirds of the lake is controlled by China with just about 45 km under Indian control.The Line of Actual Control(LAC) running north-south cuts the western part of the lake, aligned east-west.
• Importance of the lake: The importance of the lake is due to the fact that it lies in the path of the Chushul approach, one of the main approaches that China can use for an offensive into Indian-held territory.

Additional Facts:

• Endorheic Lake: Itis a collection of water within an endorheic basin or sink, with no evident outlet.The Endorheic lakes are generally saline as a result of being unable to get rid of solutes left in the lake by evaporation.

News: The Special Frontier Force(SFF) unit referred to as Vikas Battalion has been instrumental in occupying some key heights on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China in Ladakh to thwart any occupation by the Chinese troops.

• Special Frontier Force(SFF): It was raised in the immediate aftermath of the 1962 Sino-India war.It was a covert outfit which recruited Tibetans (now it has a mixture of Tibetans and Gorkhas) and initially went by the name of Establishment 22.
• Nodal Ministry: STFfalls under the purview of the Cabinet Secretariat where it is headed by an Inspector General who is an Army officer of the rank of Major General.The units that comprise the SFF are known as Vikas battalions.
• Are SFF units part of the Army? Strictly speaking, the SFF units are not part of the Army but they function under operational control of the Army. The units have their own rank structures which have equivalent status with Army ranks.
• Major Operations by SFF: There are several operations in which SFF units have taken part over the years. They took part in operations in the 1971 war, Operation Blue Star in Golden Temple Amritsar, Kargil conflict and in counter-insurgency operations in the country.

News: In the fight against the spread of Covid 19 pandemic, the Central Railways has designed a health assistant Robot Rakshak.

• Rakshak: It is a medical aid robot that aims to assist the hospital staff in the Covid-19 patient care.
• Features:
  • It is able to measure health parameters such as temperature, pulse, oxygen percentage.
  • It can also provide medicines, food to the patients and make a two-way video communication between the doctor and the patient.
  • It can move in all directions at all levels with a range of remote operations up to 150 meters.

News: Union Coal Ministry has organised a webinar on Coal Gasification and Liquefaction.During the webinar, Union Minister has said that India aims for 100 million tonnes (MT) coal gasification by 2030

• Coal Gasification: It is the process of producing syngas—a mixture consisting primarily of carbon monoxide(CO), hydrogen(H2), carbon dioxide(CO2), natural gas(CH4) and water vapour(H2O)—from coal and water, air and/or oxygen.
• Applications:
  • The syngas can be used in a variety of applications such as in the production of electricity and making chemical products such as fertilisers.
  • The hydrogen obtained from coal gasification can be used for various purposes such as making ammonia, powering a hydrogen economy or upgrading fossil fuels.
  • Methane or natural gas extracted from coal gasification can be converted into LNG for direct use as fuel in the transport sector.
• Concerns: Coal gasification is one of the more water-intensive forms of energy production.There are concerns about water contamination, land subsidence and disposing of waste water safely.

Additional Facts:

• Coal Liquefaction: It is a process in which coal is converted into liquid fuels or petrochemicals.There are several processes used to accomplish this task, the two most common being the “indirect route” and the “direct route”.
• Indirect Route: Itis composed of 2 steps:
  • First, coal is gasified with steam and oxygen to produce a synthesis gas (syngas), which is then cleaned to rid of dust, tar, and acid gases.
  • The second step reacts the synthesis gas with a catalyst in the Fischer-Tropsch process which converts the syngas into a range of hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline, diesel and methanol.
• Direct Route: In this,coal is pulverized and reacted with a catalyst, then hydrogen is added under high pressures and temperatures in the presence of a solvent to produce a raw liquid fuel.This raw fuel requires refining in order to yield acceptable transportation fuels.

News: Government gave its nod to 27 projects today under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan SAMPADA Yojana for development of integrated cold chains and value addition infrastructure in the country.

• Pradhan Mantri Kisan SAMPADA Yojana: It is a Central Sector Scheme aimed at creating modern infrastructure with efficient supply chain management from farm gate to retail outlet.
• Objectives:
  • Creation of modern infrastructure for food processing mega food parks/ clusters and individual units
  • To create effective backward and forward linkages – linking farmers, processors and markets
  • To create robust supply chain infrastructure for perishables
• Implementation: The scheme will be implemented by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries(MoFPI).
• Components: Seven component schemes under PMKSY:
  • Mega Food Parks.
  • Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition Infrastructure.
  • Infrastructure for Agro-Processing Clusters.
  • Creation of Backward and Forward Linkages.
  • Creation/Expansion of Food Processing & Preservation Capacities.
  • Food Safety and Quality Assurance Infrastructure.
  • Human Resources and Institutions.

News: The Supreme Court has said that telecom operators could pay their adjusted gross revenue(AGR) dues to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) over the next 10 years starting April 1,2021

• What is AGR? Adjusted Gross Revenue(AGR) is the annual license fee (LF) and spectrum usage charges (SUC) that telecom operators are charged by the Department of Telecommunications(DoT).
• How is it calculated and what’s the contention? As per DoT, the charges are calculated based on all revenues earned by a telco – including non-telecom related sources such as deposit interests and asset sales.On the other hand, telecoms insist that AGR should comprise only the revenues generated from telecom services.
• What’s the issue now?
  • In 2005, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) challenged the government’s definition for AGR calculation.
  • In 2015, the TDSAT (Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal) stayed the case in favour of telecom companies and held that AGR includes all receipts except capital receipts and revenue from non-core sources such as rent, profit on the sale of fixed assets, dividend, interest and miscellaneous income.
  • However, setting aside TDSAT’s order, the Supreme Court in 2019 upheld the definition of AGR as stipulated by the DoT.

News: Union Power Minister has launched a pan-India Green Term Ahead Market(GTAM) in electricity as a first step towards greening the Indian short term power market.

• GTAM: It is the first Exclusive product for the Renewable energy(RE) sector in the world that aims to benefit buyers of RE through competitive prices and transparent and flexible procurement.Sellers will also be benefitted by getting access to Pan India Market.
• Features:
  • Transactions through GTAM will be bilateral in nature with clear identification of corresponding buyers and sellers.
  • The GTAM contracts will be segregated into Solar RPO( Renewable purchase obligation) & Non-Solar RPO.
  • The market will offer trade in four types of green term-ahead contracts i.e. Green Intra-day contracts, Day-ahead Contingency contracts, Daily Contracts and Weekly contracts.
• Significance:
  • The GTAM platform would lessen the burden on RE-rich States and incentivize them to develop RE capacity beyond their own RPO.
  • GTAM platform will lead to an increase in the number of participants in the renewable energy sector.
  • It would promote Renewable Energy(RE) merchant capacity addition and help in achieving RE capacity addition targets of the country.

Additional Facts:

• Renewable Purchase Obligation(RPO): Itmandates all electricity distribution licensees should purchase or produce a minimum specified quantity of their requirements from Renewable Energy Sources.

News: Indian astronomers have discovered one of the farthest Star galaxies in the universe.

Facts:

• The galaxy is called AUDFs01. It is located 9.3 billion light-years away from Earth.
• It was detected by ‘AstroSat’.

Additional Information:

AstroSat: It is the first dedicated Indian astronomy mission aimed at studying celestial sources in X-ray, optical and UV spectral bands simultaneously. It was launched on a PSLV-XL in 2015

IAS PCS Mains & Interview Special Daily

1.COVID-19’s impact on education

Source- The Hindu

Syllabus- GS 2 – Issues relating to the development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources

Context-Impact of COVID-19 on the education system.

Impact of COVID-19 on private education system

1. No e-learning access– Low-income private and the government educational institutes have completely shut down due to no access to e-learning solutions.
2. Endowment resources –Survival of Private academic institutions for the most part is on the annual income that comes from tuition and the assortment of other fees collected, none of the institutions in this country possesses or gets big corpuses from alumni or industry.

Example- Harvard University, to have an endowment of $40 billion, which can be used as fiving out fellowship to subsidizing tuition fees.

3. Burden on management– Loss of jobs in departments, student’s inability to pay the requisite fee and in many instances, the hostel fee, this entire chain place additional burden on the management.

Challenges arising in dual mode of leaning

The scaling of operations that would include the dual modes of online and offline is going to be expensive due to a dual mode of educational delivery.

1. Increase in efforts and financing of projects – The new social distancing norms would lead to the enforcement of smaller class sizes, thereby increasing the effective teaching load and multiplicity of efforts.

For instance – Online teaching means new hiring in the IT sector and increased costs due to engagements with Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, and other online platforms

2. High cost of digital infrastructure – The online teaching mode brings with it increased costs of IT infrastructure such as network bandwidth, servers, cloud resources and software licensing fees.

Possible key reforms-

1. Soft loans– Centre and State governments can provide soft loans to students to stay with the educational course, especially to vulnerable sections.
2. New Corporate educational model– Educational institutions could come to be treated like any other corporate body, with an allowable small margin of profit.

Way forward-

The corporate model addresses not just financial sustainability but also a professional governance structure that would entail better accountability and holistic education. Acadonomics of the future will not only decide the fate of the academic sector in India but also its quality, ranking, research, innovation potential and its collective impact on our country’s economy.

2.Non-Personal Data committee

Source-The Hindu

Syllabus- GS 2 – Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation

Context – The government committee headed by Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan has suggested that non-personal data generated in India need to be allowed to be harnessed by various domestic companies and entities.

Gopalakrishnan Committee –

1. The Committee was constituted by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) on 13th September, 2019
2. Purpose- Developing a governance framework for non-personal data and ensure wide sharing and availability of data in society.

Non personal data – Set of data which does not contain personally identifiable information. This means that no individual or living person can be identified by looking at such data. The committee has classified non-professional data in to three main categories-

1. Public non- professional data – It involves all the data collected by the government and its agencies during execution of all publicly funded works.
2. Community non-personal data– It involves any data identifiers about a set of people who have either the same geographic location, religion, job, or other common social interests.
3. Private non-personal data– It can be defined as those which are produced by individuals which can be derived from application of proprietary software or knowledge.

Issues involved-

1. Favoring big tech companies– Only big tech companies possess the capital and infrastructure to create such large volumes of data.
2. Data monopoly– Some companies with the largest data pools have ‘outsized, unbeatable techno-economic advantages’ owing to first mover’s advantage, network effects and enormous data volumes which have been collected over years. These act as entry barriers for startups and new companies.

Gopalakrishnan Committee key recommendations-

1. Data availability– Treat data as infrastructure, or ‘commons’, so that data are widely available for all businesses.
2. Community Ownership- Sharing of non-personal data, as it may be useful for Indian entrepreneurs to develop new and innovative services or products to benefit citizens.
3. Reducing dependency– With a robust domestic data/AI industry, dependence on U.S. and Chinese companies will reduce.4
4. Addressing monopoly– Separating the infrastructural elements of digital service provision from the business of digital service delivery.
5. Separate national legislationand a separate authority to oversee non-personal data.

 Different roles in the NPD ecosystem-

1. Data Principal- This is essentially the entity/individual to whom the collected data pertains.
2. Data custodian-The entity that undertakes collection, storage and processing of data, keeping in mind best interest of the data principal.
3. Data trustee- Data trusts are data infrastructures that will enable data sharing, sector-wise, or across sectors, and which can be run by various kinds of third-party bodies.

Way forward-

India is the first country to come up with a comprehensive framework in this area. It will set the stage for building a strong, and competitively diverse, domestic data/AI industry in India.

3.Pandemic and food security

Source: The Indian Express

Syllabus: GS-2- Health

Context: New ideas by working together, learning and contributing together are required to fight

Covid-19 and transform the agri-food system.

Food insecurity in Asia

• The on-going pandemic has led to a slowdown of regional economic growth and threatened Asia’s food security.
• The number of chronically-underfed people projected to rise by almost a third to 330 million by 2030 in southern Asia.
• It is the only sub-region in the world where more than half the children from the poorest fifth of society are underdeveloped which affects their future.

Challenges faced by the continent

• East Asia has the world’s highest absolute costs for a healthy diet that offers balanced nutrition.
• Asia and the Pacific are regions where obesity and being overweight, among children and adults, is growing faster than anywhere else.
• Thus, the two challenges being faced right now: COVID-19 and hunger, a thorn in our side the international community had pledged to eradicate by the end of this decade as per the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2.

Ways to increase resilience across our food systems

• New channels: There is a need to identify new marketing channels (like e-commerce) and increase efficiency to reduce losses.
• Improving quality:Improving the quality of products available and storage facilities, which are critical to flows of healthy foods and income to those who produce them.
• Access to finance and innovations: Inclusive access to finance to strengthen and expand rural supply chains is also crucial. Small land holders need access to financial resources, technology and innovation in order to ensure that the produced food reaches from farm to fork.
• FAO’s initiative: The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations has recently launched a new comprehensive COVID-19 Response and Recovery Programme to provide an active and coordinated global response.
• It is aimed at ensuring access to nutritious food for everyone by mobilising all forms of resources and partnerships at the country, regional and global level.

Benefits from new technology and science

• Inclusive: Innovators from countries like Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific to China, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore etc are proving that everyone can benefit from new technologies and science.
• Some ideas and innovations are as follows:
• Deploying of drones to monitor flood and pest risks.
• Smartphone apps that can identify plant diseases.
• Advanced genetics that build on crop and livestock breeding.
• Precision agriculture and aquaculture systems that conserve natural resources such as water.
• Indoor farming and consumer tools for nutrition monitoring and smart purchasing.

Way forward

• Governments, academia, the private sector, UN agencies, civil society organisations, international financial institutions need to come together and work in unison to provide food to every mouths.
• The FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific, which will be virtually hosted by Bhutan, is the perfect opportunity for the 46 members and other partners to forge ways to accelerate action and influence resources.
• By working together, learning and contributing together, we can overcome both pandemics and transform the agri-food system.

4. To Rebuild and Recover

Source: Indian Express

Syllabus: GS3: Mobilization of Resources, Growth, Development and Employment.

Context: India needs to focus on rebuild and recover to achieve economic growth of 7-8 per cent.

Need to address some traditional sore points:

• Pandemic impact: Indian economy is suffering due to the pandemic with declining growth and limited scope for a fiscal stimulus.
• Demand-supply issue: India’s slowdown is largely a structural demand problem that cannot be addressed through piecemeal aid and transfers.
• Contrast in GDP growth:
  • First phase- when growth was driven by domestic investment and global growth.
  • Second phase- the post-global financial crisis stimulus phase.
  • Third phase- the leveraged consumption phase. The economy is estimated to have lost around Rs 20-28 trillion due to a lockdown, with FY2021 growth likely to be around (-) 11.5 per cent.
• Focus on demand side: Consumption led growth provides limited scope for a sharp recovery over the medium term without exogenous (and often unsustainable) triggers.
• To prioritise long term growth: broaden the consumer base by empowering the low and middle-income consumers rather than pushing consumption itself.
• To protect India’s labour market: If the pandemic results in a prolonged retrenchment of the workforce, it will deepen faultiness in labour market.
• Uncertainty and savings: temporary incomes coupled with income uncertainty will induce precautionary savings without any impact on growth.
• Poor social security: The PLFS 2018-19 report places around 24 per cent of the workforce in the regular wage/salary category. However, around 40 per cent do not have a written contract, paid leaves, or security while 70 per cent do not have any written contract. Since most of the workers are informal employee, consumption-led growth in the aftermath of a crisis become a substantial risk.

Steps that should be taken to reform, recovery and rebuild:

• Increase public borrowing: since revenues have cratered, funding of additional expenditure should be done through higher borrowing. public spending should be directed towards sectors such as roads, railways, infrastructure, healthcare and educational facilities to help rebuild the economy
• Set up a Development Financing Institution, and an asset monetisation programme.
• Increase sustainable investment: debt should be seen in the context of future investments being hampered due to current consumption.
• Streamline processes for quick approvals and ensure timely payments to private operators.
• Fiscal prudence: India’s public debt/GDP will likely reach around 85 per cent and the consolidated gross fiscal deficit to GDP ratio could be around 12.5 per cent this year. These metrics will take quite a few years to revert to pre-COVID levels and rapid consolidation will adversely impact growth.
• Any kind of “stimulus” should be well-targeted and have a large multiplier effect.
• Creating steady and well-paid employment for the bottom and middle segments: to broaden its consumer base beyond the top 10-20 per cent of the population to improve long-term growth prospects.
• Inclusive growth: focus on infrastructure and manufacturing as the PLFS 2018-19 report indicates that around 50 per cent of the rural non-agriculture workforce and 35 per cent of the urban workforce is engaged in the construction and manufacturing sectors.
• Make manufacturing easier: the focus should be on labour reforms, fewer/quicker approvals, reducing the compliance burden, and promoting export-oriented sectors.

India needs to address traditional sore points such as the large infrastructure deficit, the weak financial sector, archaic land and labour laws, and the administrative and judicial hurdles to protect a decade of favourable demographics.