Brief of newspaper articles for the day bearing
relevance to Civil Services preparation
National
[1]. Have no fear, we are there, SC tells Arundhati
Context:-
The Supreme Court on Friday sought a response from the Bombay High Court and the Maharashtra government.
For what?
Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy argued that criminal contempt proceedings initiated against her for publishing an article on the jailed Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba amounted to choking dissent and produced an “intense chilling effect” on the fundamental right of free expression.
International
[1]. India, France can gain by sharing strategies against terrorism
Context:-
India and France are carrying out Shakti 2016 in Rajasthan which focuses on counter-terror and counter-insurgency operations.
Countering terror- overcoming differences:-
There are differences between the French and Indian experience of handling terror, but both sides will benefit by exchanging ideas and strategies for a larger goal.
Terror threats to France are from Syria, Iraq and other such unstable spots faraway from French borders. But the terror faced by India is of cross-border nature, from Pakistan.
That is why international collaboration is needed so that financial channels and political supporters of state- sponsored terrorism can be dealt with by using the United Nations
Anti terror Resolution:-
Collaboration with France on counter-terror will also help to bring in anti-terror resolutions at the United Nations and on other multilateral platforms in near future.
Armed counter-measures were not sufficient to deal with terror sponsors and terrorists as the global war on terror demanded a multi-layered strategy.
Greater French support for India’s decades-old anti-terror struggle would help India attain both regional as well as global targets in the fight against terrorism.
[2]. Barzani calls for Kurdish independence
Context:-
The President of Iraqi Kurdistan has called on global leaders to acknowledge that the Sykes-Picot pact that led to the boundaries of the modern West Asia has failed, and urged them to broker a new deal paving the way for a Kurdish state.
What is Sykes-Picot agreement?
The Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 1916, was a secret agreement that was concluded by two British and French diplomats, Sir Mark Sykes and Georges Picot. The Sykes-Picot Agreement involved itself with the partition of the Ottoman Empire once World War One had ended.
For more:- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25299553
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/britain-and-france-conclude-sykes-picot-agreement
IS Influence:-
The political map of northern Iraq has changed drastically in the 18 months since Islamic State overran Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul.
Kurdish forces are now in full control of Kirkuk and Sinjar and have claimed control of thousands more miles of land that had been under control of Iraq’s central government.
Centennial anniversary of Sykes-Picot Agreement:-
It is four months before the centennial of the Sykes-Picot agreement under which Britain and France carved spheres of influence from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
Maintaining the status quo would ensure further regional disintegration and destruction.
New Pact:-
Regional and global powers now needed to enshrine a new pact that would protect communities in Iraq and Syria, where divisions have become entrenched on socio-religious and sectarian lines.
It’s considered illogical to continue or insist on repeating a wrong experiment that was repeated for 100 years and is leading nowhere.
Iraq is divided now for which the Arabs are not responsible .
On the contrary, they feel that they have done their best to preserve Iraqi unity and a democratic Iraq
The existing culture in Iraq is not one of co-existence.
Who are the Kurds?
The Kurds are one of the indigenous people of the Mesopotamian plains and the highlands in what are now south-eastern Turkey, north-eastern Syria, northern Iraq, north-western Iran and south-western Armenia.
For more:- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29702440
[3]. Sri Lanka tops South Asia in human development
Context:-
Sri Lanka has maintained its high ranking in human development.
These findings are among the highlights of the Global Human Development Report (HDR) 2015 released by the UN Development Programme (UNDP)
Lower average annual HDI:-
The country’s performance in terms of average annual human development index (HDI) growth rate during 1990-2014 was lower than many other South Asian countries.
This can be attributed to the “size effect” and that countries traditionally enjoying higher economic and human development cannot grow much beyond a point. This was why Sri Lanka, which was better placed than many other countries in the region even in the 1970s and 1980s, posted lower growth rate during the 25-year-long period.
Srilankan Rankings:-
Sri Lanka has been placed at the 73rd rank with an HDI value of 0.757. In the previous year’s report, it occupied the 74th place. Since the end of the civil war in 2009, the country’s rank went up by five.
HDR 2015:-
The report, which studied a total of 188 countries and territories, has determined the HDI values by assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development—a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living.
India in HDI:-
India is placed at 130th rank and Pakistan, 147th. As for the growth rate during 1990-2014, South Asia’s figure was 1.38, the highest among all regions.
India and Bhutan fall under the category of medium human development countries and Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan come under the group of low human development countries.
Economic Digest
[1]. Parliamentary panel to study work progress on industrial corridors
Context:-
A Parliamentary panel will undertake field visits to sites where industrial corridors are to be established and prepare a report in a bid expedite the projects. The report will be titled ‘Growth and Development of Industrial Corridors in India’.
Impediments:-
The panel will look into all issues concerning these corridors including land acquisition, infrastructure development and financial aspects including loans from banks, financial institutions and multi-lateral/regional agencies such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
Many industrial corridor projects are yet to take off due to various impediments including land acquisition and finance.
Land acquisition was a time-consuming and cumbersome process requiring huge financial resources.
States are now negotiating with farmers and people are coming forward as the corridors are to bring benefits including jobs and lead to greater investment, manufacturing and exports.
Proposed corridors:-
the other proposed corridors are Bengaluru- Mumbai Economic Corridor (BMEC), Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor (CBIC) and Visakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC or the East Coast Economic Corridor).
AKIC covers Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, while DMIC spans Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.BMEC covers Karnataka and Maharashtra.
CBIC includes Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, whereas VCIC covers Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
Other issues:-
Besides, the institutional framework for formation of node/city-level Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) for implementation of DMIC project has also been a time consuming process, needing amendment of existing laws / passing new laws for delegating powers of planning and development to node/city level SPVs and facilitate notification of the proposed investment.
[2]. India to buy more crude oil from Nigeria
Context:-
Nigeria has now agreed to increase the term contract from 1.7 million tonnes per annum to three million tonnes in 2016 on the sidelines of the fourth India- Africa Hydrocarbon Summit in New Delhi.
Third largest contributor:-
Nigeria is the third-largest contributor to India’s oil imports in the first half of this financial year, behind Saudi Arabia (19.56 MT) and Iraq (17.01 MT).
The benefit of a term contract is that not only does it assure a certain quantity to be supplied but also ensures a stable price unlike oil bought from spot markets whose price can fluctuate drastically. Apart from Nigeria, Sudan also wants to increase its engagement with India.
Sudan also has offered more oil blocks for exploration and asked for Indian companies’ expertise to raise production from existing fields.
Diversifying the Oil basket:-
India, on its part, is also keen to diversify its oil import basket as Saudi Arabia’s national oil and gas company recently announced that it would be selling oil to its Asian customers, including India, at a premium of $0.6 a barrel above the prevailing market price in February.
Opinions & Editorials
[1]. The unmet health challenge
Context:-
The first set of data from the National Family Health Survey-4 for 13 States and two Union Territories should be seen as a report card on how effectively India has used its newly created wealth to alter a dismal record of nutritional deprivation, ill-health and lost potential among its citizens, particularly women and children.
High economic growth but poor health levels:-
Evidently, the Indian state has not viewed the health agenda of women and children — even at the height of a prosperous phase of economic growth a decade ago — of 39 per cent of children under the age of five remaining underweight as constituting a national crisis.
This failure to assume responsibility for child nutrition has left 34 per cent of children in that age group underweight today.
There is also a lot of evidence to show that the deprived sections of India’s children have low weight even at birth due to the general neglect of women’s nutrition and well-being.
Access to nutrition and health a right for all:-
The data coming out of NFHS-4 lead to the charting of a new policy course that makes access to nutrition and health a right for all.
Asserting this right would require the strengthening of the Integrated Child Development Services scheme in all States, particularly those with a higher proportion of underweight and stunted children.
Bihar and Madhya Pradesh bring up the rear on these crucial metrics of child development.
ICDS:-
It deserves mention that even within the ICDS, there is a clear deficit in caring for the needs of children under three.
Nutrition in the first two or three years of a child’s life has a lasting impact on her development; care given in later years, including freshly cooked meals at school, cannot undo the setback caused by neglect during this foundational phase.
Health care for women:-
Other key areas requiring intervention are access to antenatal care, reduction of high levels of anaemia among women, and immunisation; it is a cause for concern that a State such as Tamil Nadu with an active public health system recorded a reduced rate of full child immunisation compared with NFHS-3 data.
More frequent assessment:-
Overall, there is a need to assess the health of citizens more frequently than the current NFHS cycle of seven to 10 years allows.
Data gathered every two or three years would help make timely policy corrections. A fuller picture of the health of urban and rural Indians will emerge later in the year when data for all States become available.
They should send out the message that sustained economic growth is not possible without state support to achieve the well-being of the population, especially women and children.
[2]. Education first
Context:-
The article speaks how the most powerful way to reduce inequality is diffusion of education and knowledge… investment in education is the number one policy solution.
Education Inequality:-
India apart from having high and rising levels of income and wealth inequality, the country is right at the bottom when it comes to educational inequality.
Gini Coefficient for education:-
World Bank data uses the Gini coefficient which is a popular measure of inequality, in which zero denotes no inequality and one show extreme inequality.
The Gini coefficient for the distribution of adult schooling years in India’s population was 0.56.
This was not just higher than China’s (0.37), but even more than for almost all Latin American countries (Brazil, 0.39).
Poor Quality:-
The quality of education, whether at primary or college level, continues to be poor. It leaves a large section of the country’s so-called educated manpower ill-equipped to participate in a globalised market economy.
Private sector Domination:-
Successive governments have held back from committing the resources required for universal quality education, while simultaneously thwarting enlightened private-sector initiative through bureaucracies like the University Grants Commission.
Need of the hour:-
India, at this point in time, should bother more about educational inequality than simple consumption-based inequality, primarily because the former is more closely associated with the inequality of opportunity.
There is no Better Avenue for breaking the shackles of inequality — which in India extends to even caste-based discrimination — than giving universal access to quality education.
Addressing inequality of opportunity — more than income and wealth — is going to be a major challenge for India in the coming times.
[3]. Take Piketty with a pinch
Context:-
The article discusses how there is no reliable data to measure Inequality in wealth.
What is wealth?
Wealth is the “value of financial assets plus non-financial assets (principally housing) owned by individuals less their debts”. Given that human capital is a major wealth asset.
Using Household Data:-
According to the latest household data, India would place among the five most unequal economies in the world.
The South African Gini of 70.1 is the worst and Brazil’s Gini of 60 is close to the 10th worst.
Using Income tax Data:-
There are two major problems with the use of income tax data for countries like India.
The first, widely noted problem is that in India, very few individuals are in the tax net and, of these, only about half pay taxes.
Second, only non-farmers pay income taxes and farmers are about 10 per cent.
This means that even with full compliance, there will be tax data for only 7 per cent of the population.
But compliance ratios in India, though improving, are still around 50 per cent we have only have tax data for 3.5 per cent of workers in India.
Household data is more preferred:-
One would have to be bravely foolish to estimate an income distribution on the basis of such scarce tax data. It can be done but only with recourse to household distribution data.
Why No RTI for release of aggregate Tax Data?
It is also surprising that no RTI has been filed for aggregate tax data to be released.
The government makes plans on revenues and tax rates, the CAG periodically disseminates the number of taxpayers and aggregate tax collected for three or four income ranges, yet more complete data is not made available.
Conclusion:-
Even if not very useful for derivation of income distribution, the fact remains that aggregate Indian tax data should be made public.
Regarding speculation about Indian inequality being among the worst in the world we need more reliable data to come to a conclusion on it.
[4]. Begin with a rigorous study
Context:-
The article highlights the need for doing an in-depth policy study to design more appropriate policies and to overcome obstacles. It takes the example of the odd even policy of Delhi government to combat congestion and Pollution.
Result of the study:-
The study shows the odd-even policy was largely received well by car drivers. However, a small but significant number of drivers continued to violate the restrictions, while others cancelled or rescheduled trips, or faced inconveniences. The government will need to grapple with these issues.
Rigorous and Designed Studies:-
The debate around the policy’s impact highlights the need for more rigorous and carefully designed studies, in addition to smart policy experiments and quality data, to uncover which policies work most effectively to contain congestion and pollution.
This, in turn, requires policymakers to work in close collaboration with researchers at the early stages of the policy design.
Conclusion:-
The sources of pollution in Delhi are varied, and so will be the solutions.
The Delhi government’s odd-even policy is a brave experiment and a clear departure from how policymakers have sought to tackle worsening pollution.
However, it reflects only one of the potential policy innovations that need to be carefully designed, piloted and evaluated for impact as well as the costs imposed, until there’s a sustained improvement in Delhi’s air quality.
By: ForumIAS Editorial Team
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