9 PM Daily Brief – November 5, 2020

Good evening dear reader.

Here is our 9pm current affairs brief for you today

GS 2

Power of ECI

Freedom of media

Weakened fiscal capacity of States

GS 3

India’s income crisis

9 PM for Preliminary examination

FACTLY

Power of ECI

Source: The Hindu

Gs2: Powers, Functions and Responsibilities of various Constitutional Bodies.

Context: Power of Election commission of India to enforce poll norms and clean campaigns.

Background of the issue

• Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister, Kamal Nath, while campaigning for a by-election to the Madhya Pradesh Assembly recently used the derogatory word “item” for a BJP woman candidate.
• Following this, the ECI revoked the star campaigner status for Kamal Nath.
• The Supreme Court has recently stayed the order issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) revoking Kamal Nath’s status as the star campaigner of the Congress party.

What is star campaigner status?

• It is a privilege given to few candidates. The expenditure incurred on the campaign by those from the list of star campaigners is not included in the expenditure of the candidate concerned.
• It ensures that some leaders can charter helicopters and travel extensively to cover more territory and constituencies without breaching any individual candidate’s spending limit.

Why the court stayed ECI’s order?

• Section 77 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which relates to a candidate’s election expenditure, empowers the political party to decide itself who its “leaders” are and list of ‘star campaigners’ to the election authorities.
• It is against the right to campaign without incurring electoral expenditure on the candidates’ account.
• Stating that the EC has no power to withdraw the status of star campaigner submitted by political parties the Supreme court stayed the Election Commission’s order.

What were the arguments made by ECI?

• The ECI has cited the clause in the MCC (non statutory) that bars candidates from resorting to “criticism of all aspects of the private life, not connected with the public activities” of other leaders and party workers.
• Also, the ECI has made reference to the Supreme Court’s observation that when laws are absent, the ECI can invoke its residuary power to meet an infinite variety of situations that cannot be foreseen by lawmakers.

What is the way forward?

• The ECI needs to be empowered to revoke the status of a campaigner, if there is an apparent breach of campaign norms or the Model Code of Conduct.
• ECI’s power to enforce poll norms and clean campaigns should not be

Freedom of Media

Source: Indian Express

Gs2: Role of Civil Services in a Democracy.

Context: The arrest of television anchor and editor-in-chief of Republic Television Arnab Goswami for alleged abetment to suicide.

Why the arrest is seen as political vendetta?

• First, the editor-in-chief of Republic Television, Arnab Goswami was very critical of the Maharashtra state government on several issues
  • On the migrant crisis.
  • He alleged a communal angle in the lynching of three men in Palghar district.
  • He accused the Mumbai police commissioner and the Maharashtra chief minister of collusion in an alleged cover-up of the Sushant Singh Rajput suicide case.
• Second, recently Republic TV was accused of a TRP scam and a case was booked with the FIRs naming several in Republic’s newsroom.
• Third, Goswami has been arrested in a case in which the Maharashtra police had filed a closure report last year citing lack of evidence.

All these incidents reinforce the suspicion that the police are working with partisanship.

How it affects democracy?

• Attack on media persons for political vendetta reduces the spaces for dissent and freedom of speech. For example, journalists being booked under draconian laws of sedition or UAPA in some states.
• It will only lead to the polarisation of the public space and further reduces the scope for independent journalism.

Media ensures dissemination of truth, holds the powerful to account, speaks for the weak and those without a voice. Its sanctity must be protected for the democracy to thrive. 

Weakened fiscal capacity of States

Source-The Hindu

Syllabus-  GS 2- Functions and responsibilities of the Union and the States, issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure, devolution of powers and finances up to local levels and challenges therein.

Context- With various measures the Centre government has reduced of the fiscal resource capacity of the States.

What are the reasons of weakened fiscal capacity of States?

1. Impact of Implementation of GST on States– Since implementation, the Goods and Services Tax appears to have reduced the resource-generating capacity of States and has contributed to worsening inter-State inequality
2. Centre undermines fiscal capacity of States-
3. Cutbacks in devolution – Centre has systematically cut the share of States in taxes raised by the Union government.

• Between 2014-15 and 2019-20, the States got ₹7,97,549 crore less than what was projected by the Finance Commission.

1. Shrinking of divisible pool- Centre has reduced the pool of funds to be shared with the States by shifting from taxes to cesses and surcharges.

• The Constitution allows the Centre to levy cess and surcharge which the Centre need not share with state governments.
• When taxes are replaced with cesses and surcharges, consumer pays the same price. But the Union government keeps more of that revenue and reduces the size of the divisible pool. As a result, the States lose out on their share.

1. GST shortfall–

• The GST Compensation Act, 2017guaranteed States that they would be compensated for any loss of revenue in the first five years of GST implementation, until 2022, using a cess levied on sin and luxury goods.
• However, the economic slowdown has pushed both GST and cess collections down over the last year, resulting in a 40% gap last year between the compensation paid and cess collected.

3. Central grants are also likely to drop significantly this year.

• For instance,₹31,570 crore was allocated as annual grants to Karnataka. Actual grants may be down to ₹17,372 crore.

What are the Impacts of colossal borrowing on States?

• Repayment burden will overwhelm State budgets for several years.
• Budget issue – After paying loans and interest, salaries and pensions, and establishment expenses, nothing left for development and welfare.
• The fall in funds for development and welfare programmes will adversely impact-
• The livelihoods of crores of Indians.
• The economic growth potential cannot be fully realized.
• Adverse consequences will be felt in per capita income, human resource development and poverty

Way forward-

• The systematic weakening of States serves neither federalism nor national interest. Therefore, The Centre must take several steps to ensure an adequate flow of resources to states.
• Centre must immediately clear all its pending dues to state governments.

India’s income crisis

Source: The Hindu

Syllabus: GS-3- Economy

Context: India has an incomes crisis: incomes of people in the lower half of the pyramid are too low.

What are the solutions to this income crisis?

• The solutions economists propose are:
  • Free up markets: Markets should be freed up for agricultural products so that farmers can get higher prices; and freed up for labour to attract investments as without adequate incomes, people cannot be a good market for businesses.
  • Improve productivity: Improvement of ‘productivity’ is key to economic progress.
    • Productivity is a ratio of an input in the denominator and an output in the numerator. The larger the output that is produced with a unit of input, the higher the productivity of the system.
  • Apply technology
    • These fundamentals of economics must be re-examined when applied to human work.

Read also :- Current affairs

• Strategies for improving labour productivity:
  • Labour productivity as a universal measure of the productivity of an economy: The number of people in the system (the country/ the economy) is the denominator, and the gross domestic product the people produce is the numerator.
    • They can take the organisationally more difficult route of increasing the total output of the factory while maintaining the number of workers. This may require adding more machines and technology to increase the capacity of workers to increase total output.
    • Employers can enhance their workers’ skills and create a culture of improvement in the factory, where workers and managers cooperate to improve the capability of their system, and squeeze more output from limited capital resources.
    • This is the strategy of ‘total quality management’, with which Japanese companies reduced their costs and improved the quality of their products.
    • Japanese invested in their workers; and the workers were the companies’ ‘appreciating assets’ as they grew their capabilities as well as contributed to the improvement of the total productivity of their enterprises.
  • The lazy management strategy for improving productivity is to reduce the denominator, i.e. the number of workers. Hire them when times are good, and fire them when the company cannot compete any more.
  • Governments of countries cannot apply the ‘hire and fire’ strategy to improve a nation’s productivity that companies can.

What are the steps to be taken?

• Workers provide the economy with the products and services it needs. In return, society and the economy must create conditions whereby workers are treated with dignity and can earn adequate incomes.
• The government must regulate contracts between those who engage people to do work for their enterprises, even in the gig economy.
• An authority on industrial policy and international trade, advocates reforms that will induce firms to employ more numbers of less skilled workers is required.
• The government should push innovation in more socially beneficial directions to increase rather than replace less skilled workers.

Way forward

• The power balance must shift. Small enterprises and workers must combine into larger associations, in new forms, using technology, to tilt reforms towards their needs and their rights.

9 PM for Preliminary examination

Click on “Factly articles for November 5, 2020”

https://factly.forumias.com/factly-articles-for-november-5-2020/