🧿 General Study (GS) Articles 🧿

In its 170th report in 1999, the Law Commission of India underscored the importance of intra-party democracy by arguing that a political party cannot be a “dictatorship internally and democratic in its functioning outside".

Private members’ days should never be curtailed. The government should rarely use its authority to scuttle private members’ bills. In fact, private members should be encouraged to take initiatives in the public interest and they should be helped to improve their assessment of public interest as well as their drafting skills. The idea is that instead of treating legislative initiatives as a government monopoly the private members’ contribution to legislation should be welcomed and encouraged.

During this session, the productivity of the House has been 4.79%, he said. Rajya Sabha passed five bills during the Budget session, all of which were passed on the last day. Six bills have also been introduced and only 16 Zero Hour submissions were made. No special mention could be made at all. “We all agree that it was not enough,” Naidu said.

A number of scientists are working on ways to replace sand in concrete with other materials, including fly ash, the material left over by coal-fired power stations; shredded plastic; and even crushed oil palm shells and rice husks. Others are developing concrete that requires less sand, while researchers are also looking at more effective ways to grind down and recycle concrete.

The sectors where India has been doing well are mostly raw materials — iron ore which saw an increase in shipments by 62 per cent and rice which saw a 39 per cent surge in exports during the April-November period. One of the few value-added sectors which performed well as pharmaceuticals, which witnessed a 15 per cent increase during the period. 

“We need to push the exports of Indian value-added products such as textiles, engineering and project exports. Our trade negotiators need to have a proactive approach and try to get trade concessions for these sectors.

Technical textiles, specifically identified for the PLI scheme, definitely need scaling up of demand and domestic production. It has bearings in other sectors too, such as its usage in building and construction (for safety and strength purposes), agriculture (for crop protection), road construction (for durability), etc. Augmenting the proposed National Technical Textiles Mission with interventions for facilitating joint research and development should very much be part of the scheme. Global standards applicable to such products would also require being notified/adopted.

Saudi Arabia, which had in the recent past emerged as one of Pakistan’s strongest allies, is slowly but surely trying to move away from that perception under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). The most recent example of this, which also has an Indian connection, was seen last month, when the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) refused to give permission to the Pakistani embassy in Riyadh and its consulate in Jeddah to “celebrate” “Kashmir black day” on 27 October, which Pakistan observes to mark the anniversary of the day the Indian Army arrived in J&K to fight off the 1947 Pakistani invasion.

China and Iran have drafted a Trade and Military Partnership Agreement. The partnership is detailed in an 18-page proposed agreement as reported by The New York Times. It is an economic and security partnership that would vastly expand Chinese presence in Iran. Chinese investments in Iran would total $400 billion over 25 years. In exchange, China would receive a regular, heavily discounted supply of Iranian oil over the next 25 years. The agreement also proposes deepening military cooperation. It calls for joint training and exercises, joint research and weapons development and intelligence sharing.

The projects ~ nearly 100 are cited in the draft final agreement ~ are very much to extend the economic and strategic influence across Eurasia through the Belt and Road Initiative. They include among others new ports along the coast of the Sea of Oman, a 5G telecommunications network, Chinese Global Positioning System and cyberspace control by China’s Great Firewall.

Tackling social, economic challenge : Of the 86 toppers, only one belonged to the Other Backward Class (OBC) category. None was Dalit or tribal. Of the 76 toppers who responded to this newspaper’s questionnaire, just five were first-generation college-goers.
Comparing caste groups, the ratio of April 2020 employment to previous year average is 0.77 for upper castes, 0.71 for Other Backward Classes (OBC) and intermediate castes, 0.64 for Scheduled Castes (SC) and 0.78 for Scheduled Tribes (ST)7. This indicates that the lowest ranked, stigmatised and marginalised Dalits suffered the largest relative fall in employment

As a result of the current situation, Jaishankar said "trust" was the most valued commodity in international relations today

Some Indian scholars have defined strategic autonomy as “a dependence control strategy aimed at safeguarding its independence in both foreign policy decision-making and protecting strategic assets against American pressure.” Analyst S. Kalyanaraman worries that a closer partnership with the United States will open channels for Washington to pressure India on “core national interests” like nuclear weapons and Kashmir.

Samman — dignity and honour; samvad — greater engagement and dialogue; samriddhi — shared prosperity; suraksha — regional and global security; and sanskriti evam sabhyata — cultural and civilisational linkages.”

The signs started appearing in bookstore windows this week.

“Buy books from people who want to sell books, not colonize the moon.”

“Amazon, please leave the dystopia to Orwell.”

Beijing’s Ladakh aggression forced India to go from a passive commercial withdrawal to an active economic decoupling from China.

India expanded its production-linked incentive scheme to 10 manufacturing sectors to a total of 13. The aim is to spur manufacturing, investment and employment through targeted State support (around Rs 2 trillion) to domestic and foreign firms for local production, build global hubs and champions, and integrate into global value chains

The strategy pivots on manufacturing-led growth with an export bias through market protection, subsidies and other interventions, several of which are part of the pandemic package under the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ rubric. It would be fair to describe it as protectionist, export-seeking through manufacturing self-reliance, coupled with an openness to foreign capital in order to attract large-scale firms relocating from China. 

China has proposed a new economic model — dual circulation, a unique composite comprising ‘internal circulation’ — development and leveraging of domestic demand — and ‘international circulation’ — continued expansion of domestic production for exports

India's backdrop is very different in comparison. This, in fact, is restricted to growth and predates Covid-19. The other markers are as follows: a persistent decline in manufacturing growth, slow rise in output share, capacity slack, failure to attract greenfield foreign direct investments and slower trend export growth. The other markers are as follows: a persistent decline in manufacturing growth, slow rise in output share, capacity slack, failure to attract greenfield foreign direct investments and slower trend export growth. the turn to import-substitution, backed by targeted, State-led support to domestic manufacturing for home and foreign demand — but mainly the latter — can be interpreted as a last resort to revive investment and employment perhaps their slow-paced gains as producers’ input costs have not lowered as much; hence the fiscal bridge of the competitiveness gap vis-à-vis international competitors, bolstered by other missing pieces (for instance, labour reforms). It remains unclear how import substitution fits into the macroeconomic framework.

if China’s turn to domestic demand represents increasing household consumption share in growth, India’s objective is diametrically opposite — to rekindle and raise investment. If China seeks to achieve innovation and technological self-sufficiency due to tensions and competition with another superpower, the US, India’s goal is far humbler and narrow — a route to revive growth. China is foreseeing a different global environment and adjusting to new realities that extend beyond the economic ones. India’s interventionist trade and industry policies, mimicking East Asian economies in the 1960s and China from the 1970s, are seeking opportunities provided by large-scale global producers relocating from China, but reflect the long gap in the two countries’ stages of development.

The smaller and poorer countries are the worst affected. The adverse impact is not fully captured by the fall in the remittance to GDP ratios because the effect of a fall in remittances that reduces the numerator is partly neutralised by the fall in GDP resulting from the crisis.

Combine with the role that remittances play in delivering foreign exchange crucial to finance essential imports, and the adverse balance of payments effects that a decline in remittances can have, that impact is even stronger.