A brief of newspaper articles for the day bearing
relevance to Civil Services preparation
National
[1]. Panel warns against “swiss challenge” route
Swiss Challenge has been dealt in earlier 9 PM daily Brief.
So this news is about ,
A report “Revisiting and Revitalising the PPP model of infrastructure development” by a panel headed by Vijay Kelkar has discourgaed government to adopt “Swiss challenge” route for auctioning infrastructure projects.
Why the committee warned against Swiss Challenge?
They bring information asymmetries in the procurement process and result in lack of transparency and in the fair and equal treatment of potential bidders in the procurement process
Why India is using Swiss Challenge route for infrastructure?
India plans to build 18,637 km expressways in a phased manner by 2022 under an official Master Plan for the National Expressway Network.
Expressways: controlled-access highway, generally six-lane or more, where entrance and exit are controlled by the use of slip roads.
Economic Digest
[1]. Government to introduce startup blueprint this month
Context: A booming startup culture in India, apt time to provide incentives and make easy setting up ventures.
What is expected?
Blueprint of ‘Start Up India’ programme which may include a Startups and Entrepreneurship Law to make it easier for setting up new ventures and closing unviable ones, besides clearing regulatory issues that hamper access to finance.
The government is also seeking to define a new category of business — ‘Innovative Start-ups’ — to distinguish them from micro, small, medium and large enterprises that are built on conventional business models. There will be support structure for such startups.
Why the policy ? What concerns government looks to address?
a) Over 65 per cent of successful start-ups re-locate out of India owing to the difficulty of doing business, usually to Singapore.
b) Secondly, 90 per cent of start-up funding presently comes from foreign VC and PE funds. The reason specific to this point is that the Government wants Indian start up to be unique to the problems of India which can be exported globally in later times. With foreign funding come foreign work culture and solution which might not benefit India in any way.
Current Scenario:
Currently, the government-backed India Aspiration Fund, announced in the Union Budget with a first tranche of Rs.2,000 crore, acts as a fund that allocates money to different domestic venture funds which provides seed funds to innovators and entrepreneurs.
Indian Aspiration Fund: is a fund of funds that would invest in venture capital funds for meeting the equity requirement of MSME start-ups.
Opinions & Editorials
[1]. Revive NATGRID with safegaurds
Context: Government Plans to revive NATGRID
What is NATGRID?
NATGRID (National Intelligence Grid) has an objective to fight terrorism. ‘
NATGRID will become a secure centralised database to stream sensitive information from 21 sets of data sources such as banks, credit cards, visa, immigration and train and air travel details, as well as from various intelligence agencies.
The database would be accessible to authorised persons from 11 agencies on a case-to-case basis, and only for professional investigations into suspected cases of terrorism.
Signficance of NATGRID:
In a data-driven, digitised world, the power of big data and its potential to provide real time tip-offs and predictive intelligence to deal with the terrorist threat can’t be ignored.
Social media and other platforms have become recruitment sites and propaganda machines for terrorist groups, and formal banking channels are used as much as informal ones to transact terror funding. In those same oceans of information are trends and information that could avert terrorist strikes.
A Note of Caution:
When so much sensitive information about individuals is available on a single source, the potential for its misuse would dramatically go up. The poor track record of the Indian security and intelligence agencies on individual privacy and liberty must be kept in mind. Also to be kept in mind is certain cases like Snowden where sensitives surveillance datas of the country gets leaked out.
[2]. Digital India needs reform in satellite communication
Context: Under Digital India to deliver connectivity and broadband to the remote and difficult-to-access parts of the country, such as Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, the Northeast, Chhattisgarh, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, and rural hinterland and Naxalite areas in various states.
Current Situation:
In the case of satellite communications, not only is there a monopoly of Antrix/ISRO, but effectively just like in the field of telecom earlier, the policy-making, licensing and regulatory roles are combined in this entity. There is no competition, underutilised capacity, inefficient operations and exorbitant prices.
So all this is due to inadequate satellite incapacity over the country?
That is not so. Actually, all major international satellite operators have a footprint over India. We have 10 Gbps capacity. This huge capacity is going waste.
An Example:
Australian government, in its National Broadband Network (NBN), uses satellite bandwidth to cover remote and difficult-to-reach locations, which constitute about 3% of their total coverage. At such locations, they deliver 6 Mbps initially, augmenting 12 Mbps subsequently.
So what should India do ?
a)The Department of Space, the policy-making and licensing agency, must be separated from the operator, Antrix, as well as from the research unit ISRO.
b) All regulatory functions should be vested in the available independent techno-economic authority, Trai.
c) A forward-looking satcom policy should be formulated and announced which should lay the essential foundation of fair competition and level-playing field for all players, public (Antrix) as well as private.
d) Permit direct bandwidth negotiations with international operators by the Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL) as well as private operators, without the intervention of Antrix or the Department of Space.
e) Like in Australia, BBNL should set up its own National Satellite Network through its High Throughput Satellite (HTS) which will deliver bandwidth of 4-8 Mbps (per site service) in the first phase, subsequently scalable to over 30-100 Mbps to the gram panchayats in a cost-effective manner. It is estimated that a Ka-band HTS satellite could cater for this pan-India connectivity. Just a small part of the government funding for BharatNet and Digital India would amply take care of the National Satellite Network requirement.
f) Open up Ka-band operations in India and HTS satellites, as well as use of HTS terminals.
g) Lay down clear guidelines for security compliance by foreign satellites.
h) Simplify the current extremely-cumbersome and time-consuming Standing Advisory Committee on Radio Frequency Allocation (SACFA) clearance to enable speedier roll-out to Gram Panchayats.
i) Permit the use of Non Geostationary Orbital (NGSO) satellites.
By: ForumIAS Editorial Team
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