04 March 2020: PIB Summary & Analysis

Read the daily PIB update and stay up-to-date on current affairs for the UPSC exam.

March 4th, 2020 PIB:- Download PDF Here

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Foreign Direct Investment policy on Civil Aviation
2. Mega Consolidation in Public Sector Banks
3. Companies (Second Amendment) Bill, 2019
4. India Pharma & India Medical Device 2020 Conference
5. New Export Incentive Scheme
6. Make In India
7. Military Exercises
8. New test with quantum coins & computers for quantum sensing
9. Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)
10. Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) Phase-II

1. Foreign Direct Investment policy on Civil Aviation

Context:

Cabinet approves the Foreign Direct Investment policy on Civil Aviation.

Details:

• To permit foreign investment up to 100% by those NRIs who are Indian Nationals, in case of M/s Air India Ltd., the Union Cabinet has approved to amend the extant FDI Policy to permit Foreign Investment (s) in Air India by NRIs who are Indian Nationals, up to 100% under automatic route.
• As per the present FDI Policy, 100% FDI is permitted in scheduled Air Transport Service/Domestic Scheduled Passenger Airline (Automatic up to 49% and Government route beyond 49%).
• However, for NRIs, 100% FDI is permitted under automatic route in Scheduled Air Transport Service/Domestic Scheduled Passenger Airline.
• Further, FDI is subject to the condition that Substantial Ownership & Effective Control (SOEC) shall be vested in Indian Nationals as per Aircraft Rules, 1937.
• However, for Air India, as per the present policy, foreign investment(s) including that of foreign Airline(s) shall not exceed 49%, either directly or indirectly, subject to the condition that substantial ownership and effective control of Air India shall continue to be vested in Indian Nationals.
• Therefore, although 100% FDI is permitted under automatic route for NRIs in Scheduled Air Transport Service/Domestic Scheduled Passenger Airline, it is restricted to be only 49% in case of M/s Air India.

Benefits:

• In light of the proposed strategic disinvestment of 100% of Air India by the Government of India, the airline will have no residual Government ownership and will be completely privately owned; it has been decided that foreign investment in Air India be brought on a level playing field with other scheduled airline operators.
• The amendment in FDI policy will permit foreign investment in Air India at par with other Scheduled Airline Operators i.e. up to 100% in Air India by those NRIs who are Indian Nationals.
• The proposed changes in FDI Policy will enable foreign investment by NRIs into M/s Air India Ltd. Up to 100%, under the automatic route.

Background:

• FDI is a major driver of economic growth and a source of non-debt finance for the economic development of the country.
• FDI policy provisions have been progressively liberalized across various sectors in the recent past to make India an attractive investment destination.
  • Some of the sectors include defence, construction development, trading, pharmaceuticals, power exchanges, insurance, pension, other financial services, asset reconstruction companies, broadcasting, single-brand retail trading, coal mining, digital media, etc.

2. Mega Consolidation in Public Sector Banks

Context:

Cabinet approves Mega Consolidation in Public Sector Banks (PSBs) with effect from 1.4.2020.

Details:

• The Union Cabinet has approved the mega consolidation of ten PSBs into four which include the:
  • Amalgamation of Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India into Punjab National Bank
  • Amalgamation of Syndicate Bank into Canara Bank
  • Amalgamation of Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank into Union Bank of India
  • Amalgamation of Allahabad Bank into Indian Bank
• Benefits of the amalgamation:
  • The amalgamation would result in the creation of seven large PSBs with scale and national reach with each amalgamated entity having a business of over Rs. Eight lakh crore.
  • The mega consolidation would help create banks with a scale comparable to global banks and capable of competing effectively in India and globally.
  • Greater scale and synergy through consolidation would lead to cost benefits which should enable the PSBs to enhance their competitiveness and positively impact the Indian banking system.
  • The consolidation would also provide an impetus to the amalgamated entities by increasing their ability to support larger ticket-size lending and have competitive operations by virtue of greater financial capacity.
  • The adoption of best practices across amalgamating entities would enable the banks to improve their cost efficiency and risk management, and also boost the goal of financial inclusion through wider reach.
  • Further, with the adoption of technologies across the amalgamating banks, access to a wider talent pool, and a larger database, PSBs would be in a position to gain competitive advantage by leveraging analytics in a rapidly digitalising banking landscape.

3. Companies (Second Amendment) Bill, 2019

Context:

The Union Cabinet has approved the Companies (Second Amendment) Bill, 2019 to amend the Companies Act, 2013.

Details:

• The Bill would remove criminality under the Act in case of defaults which can be determined objectively and which, otherwise, lack the element of fraud or do not involve larger public interest.
• This would also lead to further de-clogging of the criminal justice system in the country.
• The Bill would also further ease of living for law-abiding corporates.
• The Amendment Bill, inter alia, would enable the listing of Indian companies on stock exchanges in foreign jurisdictions.
  • The listing of Indian companies in foreign stock exchanges is expected to increase the competitiveness of Indian companies in terms of access to capital, broader investor base and better valuations.

Also read: Indian Companies Act

4. India Pharma & India Medical Device 2020 Conference

Context:

The Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, in association with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) is organising the ‘India Pharma 2020 & India Medical Device 2020 Conference & Exhibition’ at Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

Details:

• The theme of the three-day conference is “India Pharma: Meeting Challenges of Affordable and Quality Healthcare and India Medical Device: Promoting Affordable responsible and Quality Medical Device for Universal Health Care”.
• It aims to encourage innovations to further reduce the cost of quality healthcare for all and a platform to the global investment community to connect with stakeholders in the medical device sector in India, Central and State Governments, leading business leaders and top executives from the industry, academics and experts from the world.
• The objective of this event is to promote consumer-centric manufacturing by involving medical electronics, devices, health diagnostics, hospitals and surgical equipment, etc.
• The event also aims at deliberations and technology demonstration towards constituting an ecosystem for empowering the Indian electronics technology development and manufacturing base.

Related Facts:

• The Indian pharmaceutical market is the third-largest in terms of volume and thirteenth-largest in terms of value.
• India is the largest supplier of generic medicines globally.
• The medical devices industry in India is valued at USD 5.2 billion and contributes about 4-5 percent to the USD 96.7 billion Indian healthcare Industry.

5. New Export Incentive Scheme

Context:

The Government is formulating a Scheme for Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP).

Details:

• Under this scheme, a mechanism would be created for the reimbursement of taxes/duties/levies, which are currently not being refunded under any other mechanism, at the central, state and local levels, but which are incurred in the process of manufacture and distribution of exported products.
• RoDTEP is based on the principle that taxes and levies borne on the exported products should be either exempted or remitted to exporters unlike the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS), which is an export incentive scheme.
• RoDTEP Scheme is being conceptualized keeping in view the WTO provisions, particularly the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM).

6. Make In India

Context:

Investments under ‘Make in India’.

Details:

• The Government of India had launched the ‘Make in India’ initiative in 2014 for promoting India as an important investment destination and a global hub for manufacturing, design and innovation.
• FDI can be one measure to track the growth of Make in India. The total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow was USD 318.80 billion between April 2014 and September 2019, representing nearly 50% of the cumulative FDI in India since April 2000.
• In 2018-19, FDI inflow stood at a record of USD 62 billion, highest ever recorded for a fiscal year ever especially in Services Sector, Automobile Industry, Construction (Infrastructure) and Activities.

Read more on Make in India here.

7. Military Exercises

Details:

The Indian Armed Forces conduct/participate in various bilateral and multilateral military exercises with foreign countries. The details of such exercise include the following:

(This is beneficial for the UPSC prelims exam.)

There are several other multilateral exercises that India is a part of.

8. New test with quantum coins & computers for quantum sensing

Context:

Researchers from Raman Research Institute (RRI), an autonomous institution under the Department of Science & Technology (DST), have devised a new test for fairness of quantum coin or ‘qubit’ (the basic unit of information in a quantum computer) using entanglement theory.

Details:

• This is a significant contribution to quantum state discrimination, an essential aspect of quantum information science which is expected to influence quantum sensing. The new test uses entanglement to test the fairness of the quantum coin.
• Entanglement is a special type of correlation that exists in the quantum world with no classical counterpart.
  • The researchers from RRI made use of this quantum resource to arrive at a test for fairness of a quantum coin (a qubit).
  • Their strategy, which makes use of entanglement, enables better discrimination between quantum states. Such an advantage is valuable in quantum sensors.
• This work is a significant contribution to the domain of quantum state discrimination, which is an essential aspect of quantum information science.
• It brings out the crucial role of entanglement in improving our ability to discriminate quantum states.
• In this work, the researchers concretely implemented the theoretical idea on the simulation facility of the IBM quantum computer.
• They also carried out experiments on the IBM quantum computer which have brought out the shortcomings of the experimental hardware and their work is expected to pave the way towards improving the experimental devices (by reducing gate errors and noise due to decoherence) used in the IBM quantum computer facility.
• The domain of Quantum Information and Quantum Computing Technology is a growing area of research which is expected to influence Data Processing, which in turn, plays a central role in our lives in this Information Age.
  • For instance, bank transactions, online shopping and so on crucially depend on the efficiency of information transfer. Thus the recent work on quantum state discrimination is expected to be valuable in people’s lives in the current era.

9. Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)

Context:

The Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship says that 40% of 73 lakh candidates trained under PMKVY are women candidates.

To know more about Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), click on the linked article.

10. Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) Phase-II

Context:

The Union Minister for Jal Shakti launched Phase II of Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) [SBM (G)].

Details:

• Phase – II of the SBM (G) will focus on sustaining the gains made under the programme in the last five years in terms of toilet access and usage, ensuring that no one is left behind.
• It will ensure that effective solid and liquid waste management (SLWM) is instituted in every Gram Panchayat of the country.
• The scheme will be implemented from 2020-21 to 2024-25 in a mission mode with a total outlay of Rs. 1,40,881 crores.
• This will be a novel model of convergence between different verticals of financing. Of this Rs. 52,497 crore will be allocated from the budget of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, while the remaining amount will be dovetailed from the funds being released under the 15^th Finance Commission, MGNREGS and revenue generation models particularly for solid and liquid waste management.
• The Solid and Liquid Waste Management (SLWM) component of Open Defecation Free (ODF) Plus, ODF Plus, will be monitored on the basis of output-outcome indicators for four key areas:
  • Plastic waste management
  • Bio-degradable solid waste management (including animal waste management)
  • Greywater management
  • Faecal sludge management
• The SBM-G Phase II will continue to generate employment and provide impetus to the rural economy through construction of household toilets and community toilets, as well as infrastructure for SLWM such as compost pits, soak pits, waste stabilisation ponds, material recovery facilities, etc.
• Since the launch of the SBM-G in 2014, over 10 crore toilets have been built in rural areas; over 5.9 lakh villages, 699 districts, and 35 States/UTs have declared themselves Open Defecation Free (ODF).
• A study was done by the UNICEF and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) on the impact of the SBM (G) on rural women, titled “Impact of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) on the convenience, safety and self-respect of women in rural India”.
  • The Study surveyed 6,993 women across the 5 states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, in February 2020.
  • It indicated that the increased access to household toilets has led to the improvement in the Suvidha, Suraksha and Swabhimaan of women in rural India.
  • Key findings:
    • 93% of women feel safer from assault by not going out in the open to defecate.
    • 91% of women save up to one hour of their day, earlier spent on walking to defecation sites.
    • 88% of women are proud to own a toilet.

Also read: Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

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