Useful News Articles

A. GS1 Related

Nothing here today folks!

B. GS2 Related

The breakthrough with Japan

Category: International Relations

Topic: India – Japan

Key Points:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Japan packed quite a punch: from supporting India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group ( NSG) and rationalising the Mumbai- Ahmedabad bullet train timeline to the easing of Indian student visas, training of 30,000 Indians in Japanese- style manufacturing practices, and merging of India’s “ Act East Policy” with Japan’s “ Free and Open Indo- Pacific Strategy”
Even as Japanese business leaders and investors sought more “ free and open” investment climate and relaxation of land acquisition policies,Modi called for greater participation and engagement of Japanese industries in India

The nuclear deal

But the signing of the civil nuclear deal was the biggest item on the agenda. With this, Japan is making an exception to its rule of not conducting nuclear commerce with any state that is not a signatory to the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty ( NPT)
Though this pact has been the subject of intense negotiations between the two countries for the last six years, Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s personal ties managed to give it new momentum
Against the backdrop of China’s reluctance to support India’s candidacy for the membership of the NSG, the import of Indo Japanese nuclear cooperation assumes great salience
This is a remarkable turnaround in many ways
After India tested nuclear weapons in 1998, Japan suspended economic assistance for three years and froze all political exchanges
The former included halting aid for new projects, suspension of yen loans and imposition of strict control over technology transfers
Tokyo called on the G8 countries to condemn the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests

Israeli President arrives on 6-day visit

Category: International Relations

Topic: India-Israel

Key Points:

Setting the stage for a prime ministerial visit from India in 2017, Israeli president Reuven Rivlin arrived in India
The two nations are expected to sign 15 agreements. Before embarking on the visit, Mr. Rivlin took to Twitter and wrote in Hindi that he would focus on industrial and academic issues during his visit
Rivlin is likely to focus on agriculture cooperation between the two sides during the visit
He is accompanied by Michael Mirilashvili, chairman of Watergen, one of the most important futuristic companies of Israel that specialises in optimal use of water resource
This is a special visit to celebrate our 25 years of diplomatic relations and we are sure that India will fall in love with our loving and compassionate president,” said Anat Bernstein-Reich of India-Israel Chamber of Commerce
Rivlin is the second president of Israel to visit India in two decades
The first was Ezer Weizman who visited Delhi in 1997
Rivlin’s arrival will set in motion bilateral exchanges to mark twenty-five years of formal diplomatic ties which was started in 1992 at the end of the Cold War

C. GS3 Related

Demonetisation and after

Category: Economy

Topic: Demonetisation

Key Points:

The long, anxious, and frustrating wait by people outside banks and ATMs across the country over the last five days is an inevitable consequence of the decision to demonetise notes of 500 and Rs. 1,000
The new 500 notes that hit the market on Monday could have been released immediately after the announcement last week. Putting out new Rs. 500 notes along the Rs. 2,000 notes would have placed much less strain on those of the Rs. 100 denomination, which are anyway in short supply
Second, it appears that officials woke up a little late to the issue of recalibrating At least a day, if not more, was lost as banks realised the ATMs would not be able to dispense the new notes
The communication with the public, who were in a state of panic, could have been better, too
Thankfully, the Centre has woken up to ease the pressure on the system by increasing withdrawal limits, allowing for petroleum outlets and hospitals to accept the old series of notes until November 24 and pushing more cash through post offices
The worst- affected are people in rural areas and villages where cash is king and the banking system’s penetration is poor
The decision to relax cash- holding limits for banking correspondents, the crucial link between banks and villages, to 50,000 and allowing them to replenish multiple times a day should help in faster distribution. This ought to have been done much earlier
The cash crunch of the last few days is certain to have an adverse impact on consumption spending, especially in the rural areas, with the resultant effect on the economy in the third quarter

The tragedy of the commons

Category: Environment

Topic: Pollution

Key Points:

Residents in the already polluted Capital experienced something of a turning point on Diwali
The belaboured, particulate- loaded air was further bombed with Some described the scene as a war zone with active shelling
The act of burdening common air further was almost like an act of violence
While pollution and other environmental degradation have physical impacts on people, their emotional and psychological costs are often overlooked
In Delhi, for instance, the anxiety of knowing that the air is deadly is adding to the physical challenges of living there
The time to consider psychological impacts of environmental degradation surely is now

Inaction costs us

The environment is our habitat, and we make interventions in it for habitation — air conditioning, heating, sunshades, and now, air purifiers and air pollution Dangers in the environment, such as pollution, are usually looked at as medical cases
Sometimes, compensation is meted out for long term environmental damage or spills
But the very idea of compensation following damage is transactional — it suggests something broken can be healed
However, in the case of environmental damage the issue is more problematic
It is difficult to compute the extent of environmental damage to both people as well as ecosystems
It has also proved difficult to understand the costs society is likely to have in the future
This has given rise to the idea of Precautionary Principle, which suggests not carrying out an activity that is likely to seriously harm the environment
Moving from a traditional view of paying for environmental damage after it has occurred, new approaches are trying to suggest what scenarios would occur if pollution or damage is caused ( before it occurs), and subsequently, understanding the costs of inaction on the environmental front
A 2013 World Bank report said environmental degradation cost India 7 per cent of its GDP in 2009
The report concluded that environmental degradation is actively harming the economy
In terms of prevention, it made another equally important observation: after a certain point of environmental degradation, clean- up becomes cripplingly expensive, as we are witnessing in rivers Yamuna and Ganga today

Collective responsibility

Much of the Swachh Bharat ( Clean India) campaign focusses on not just governance and municipal responsibility, but also personal habits
People are extolled not to litter, spit or destroy the environment
To a limited extent, the issue of tackling air pollution is also about individual habits
Getting pollution checks on personal vehicles, not causing garbage fires and not burning firecrackers are some of the most common ways individuals combat air pollution
The only option out for public policy for environmental damage is to place strong emphasis on individual and social cost of inaction
Further, the psychological costs of inaction have to be better explained
This could be through public announcements, popular outreach and education

D. GS4 Related

Nothing here today folks!

E. Important Editorials: A Quick Glance

Livemint

Improving India’s job creation ranking

Category: Indian Economy

Topic: Employment

Key Points:

This is the season of rankings
In the past few months, several reputed international organizations have assessed, compared and ranked the performance of countries on different indicators on issues like competitiveness, ease of doing business, hunger, youth development, gender gap, press freedom and consumer confidence
There is none specifically onjob creation
India has exceeded expectations on some, and has performed not so well on others
For instance, theWorld Economic Forum (WEF) ranked India at the 39th position on the Global Competitiveness Index, an impressive jump of 16 places in a year
Despite such a jump, WEF cautions that India’s performance is low by global standards, and huge challenges lie ahead on the path to prosperity
This is reflected in the high average tariff that India is maintaining on its imports, low level of factor accumulation, and relatively high incremental capital-output ratio
Among other factors, this is also due to a less than optimal domestic regulatory environment and near absence of regulatory harmonization
This is one of the reasons why India moved up by only one notch on the World Bank’s recent ease of doing business ranking
However, the bank has recognized the government’s efforts towards a better business growth environment
Also, India’s performance on social, education and health-related indices has been abysmal. The WEF report on global gender gap reveals that on the indicator of women’s health, India is third last
Similarly, on the global hunger index, India lies among the bottom group of countries, even below neighbours like Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh

Job creation

The number of jobs created in 2015 is much less than what it was a few years ago
As mechanization of agriculture and manufacturing is moving at a faster pace and the services sector is becoming more skill-oriented, fewer jobs are being created which can match the existing skill level of the vast majority
Consequently, it is not difficult to surmise that while India’s gross domestic product (GDP) is growing, such growth is increasingly becoming exclusionary.
India’s poor have traditionally been dependent on agriculture and manufacturing, which have ceased to offer large-scaleemployment opportunities
Lack of quality and affordable healthcare and education robs the poor of opportunity to compete with their well-off counterparts in the job market
As a result, the poor get stuck in unproductive agricultural activities and are under-employed in the informal sector
All these challenges have resulted in India remaining a low middle-income country over the last couple of decades
In order to improve its status to first become a high middle-income and then a high-income country, it has to overcome the challenges of the middle-income trap
The two most important components on which theIndian economy should focus to create jobs over the next few years are productive agriculture and mass manufacturing

A large accumulation of small defeats

Category: Environment

Topic: Pollution

Key Points:

The toxic haze that enveloped Delhi for two weeks after Diwali has diminished
But it would be foolhardy to think the moment has passed
How do we go on from here, knowing that next year, too, farmers will burn crop stubble, people will burn garbage and burst Diwali firecrackers, diesel generators will remain in use, environmentally harmful industry practices will prevail and private vehicles will still be the preferred means of transport?
India produces about 62 million tonnes of solid waste annually, of which 75-80% is collected, and only 22-28% is treated
The rest lands up in open dumpyards and landfills or is burnt
According to a 2016 study by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, on Delhi’s air quality, the burning of municipal solid waste accounts for 7-8% of particulate matter pollution
Landfills, on the other hand, release noxious methane fumes into the air and leachates into the groundwater, presenting a permanent challenge to tackling pollution in cities
Yet landfills continue to be overlooked by flagship policies
The Swachh Bharat (Urban) scheme focuses on water, sanitation and hygiene, with scant attention being paid to the solid waste coagulating unchecked in landfills
The National Urban Sanitation Policy 2008 was concerned with access to sanitation facilities for the urban poor, but landfills remained outside that conversation
Landfills were limited to the ambit of the erstwhile Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling Rules), 2000
We need to move towards environmentally sound policymaking, and away from the formulaic inter-governmental squabble that seems to pass for crisis management
Without this, a city, as Jeet Thayil describes in Narcopolis, isn’t much more than “a large accumulation of small defeats”

F. Concepts-in-News: Related Concepts to Revise/Learn:

Air Pollution
Black Money
Demonetisation
India-Israel
India – Japan

G. BILLS/ACTS/SCHEMES/ORGS IN NEWS

The Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016

H. Fun with Practice Questions 🙂

Question 1.Which of the following is/are true?

The Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, has set up “Japan Plus”
It is a special management team to facilitate and fast track investment proposals from Japan

a) Only 1 b) Only 2 c) Both 1 and 2 d) Neither 1 nor 2

Question 2.Which of the following is/are not correctly matched ?

Environmental pollution consists of five basic types of pollution, namely, air, water, soil, noise and light
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), released from refrigerators, air-conditioners, deodorants and insect repellents cause severe damage to the Earth’s environment which has also slowly damaged the atmosphere and depleted the ozone layer leading to global warming

a) Only 1 b) Only 2 c) Both 1 and 2 d) Neither 1 nor 2

Question 3.Which of the following is true?

The “Marrakesh Agreement” has no expiration date
Only 12 WTO members are parties to the Marrakesh Agreement

a) Only 1 b) Only 2 c) Neither 1 nor 2 d) Both 1 and 2

Question 4.Which of the following best explains the concept of ‘Demonetisation’?

Demonetization is the act of stripping a currency unit of its status as legal tender
Demonetization reduces the chances of hoarding of money, increase in parallel economy and offers new ventures for producing fake currency in the economy

a) Only 1 b) Only 2 c) Both 1 and 2 d) Neither 1 nor 2

Question 5.Which of the following countries does not border Israel?

a) Jordan b) Egypt c) Lebanon d) Iraq

Check Your Answers

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