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India will discuss both export opportunities and joint development of defence equipment at the defence ministers’ conclave on February 14 which is scheduled as part of Aero India 2023, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said.
Singh was addressing the media ahead of the 14th edition of Aero India to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday. The biennial event will be held from February 13 to 17 and will see participation from 98 countries.
The defence ministers of 32 countries, air chiefs of 29 countries and 73 CEOs of global and Indian OEMs are expected to attend the event where 809 defence companies, including MSMEs and start-ups, will showcase niche technologies and the growth in the aerospace and defence sector.
The biggest-ever Aero India-2023 comes amid the Russia-Ukraine war which completes a year this month. Responding to a question on the event being organised amid the war, Singh said: “We want to make India self-reliant and aim to increase exports”. Towards this, he said, efforts are on to completely indigenise Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas. The LCA Tejas Mk 1 is powered by the GE F404 engine.
According to the government, India will focus on showcasing indigenous equipment and forging partnerships with foreign companies during the five-day event, themed ‘The runway to a billion opportunities’, expected to be attended by about 5 lakh visitors.
Retd Supreme Court Judge, 2 Army officers among Governors for 12 states, one Union Terittory (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
President DroupadiMurmu Sunday announced the appointment of Governors in a dozen states and a Union Territory; the 13 include a retired Supreme Court judge, two retired Army officers, and four BJP leaders. She also accepted the resignation of Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari and Ladakh Lieutenant Governor Radha Krishnan Mathur.
Justice (retired) S Abdul Nazeer, who was part of the Supreme Court bench which delivered the historic 2019 Ayodhya verdict, and retired in January this year, has been appointed the Governor of Andhra Pradesh.
He was also part of the five-judge bench in the ‘triple talaq’ matter but had delivered a minority verdict along with the then Chief Justice of India J S Khehar.
The gubernatorial appointments were made following the recommendations of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. Of the 13 governors named Sunday, six are fresh, and seven others have been moved from one state or UT to another.
A press statement issued by the President House said Lieutenant General KaiwalyaTrivikramParnaik (retired) will be the new Governor of Arunachal Pradesh. Lakshman Prasad Acharya was appointed the Governor of Sikkim; C P Radhakrishnan the Governor of Jharkhand; Shiv Pratap Shukla the Governor of Himachal Pradesh; and Gulab Chand Kataria the Governor of Assam.
Andhra Pradesh Governor BiswaBhusanHarichandan has been appointed the Governor of Chhattisgarh; Chhattisgarh Governor AnusuiyaUikey has been shifted as Governor of Manipur; Manipur Governor La Ganesan has been appointed the Governor of Nagaland; Bihar Governor Phagu Chauhan is now Governor of Meghalaya; Himachal Pradesh Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar has been shifted as Governor of Bihar, Jharkhand Governor Ramesh Bais is now Governor of Maharashtra; and Arunachal Pradesh governor Brigadier B D Mishra (retired) has been appointed as L-G of Ladakh.
Govt & Politics
PM Narendra Modi hails legacy of Dayanand Saraswati (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 1, Personalities)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to Dayanand Saraswati on the 200th birth anniversary of the social reformer, hailing his contributions towards the fight against social discrimination and untouchability. Evils that were falsely attributed to religion, swamiji removed them with the light of religion itself.
Speaking in New Delhi after inaugurating the birth anniversary celebrations that will take place over two years, Modi said that at the time of Dayanand Saraswati’s birth, India was losing its prestige “owing to centuries of slavery”.
At that time, he came forward to prove that the problem is not in India’s dharma and tradition, but in the fact that we have forgotten its true meaning. There was an effort to humiliate us on the basis of false interpretations of our vedas by foreigners.
In the 21st century, when the world is facing several challenges, and is surrounded by violence and instability, the path shown by Dayanand Saraswati gives hope to crores of people.
Modi said when he talks of walking on the path of “kartavya”, he is questioned for not bringing up rights. “If this is the case with me in the 21st century, imagine 150 years ago what kind of difficulties Swami Dayanand would have faced in showing a path to society,” he said.
He made special mention of Dayanand Saraswati’s role in women empowerment, and towards education of girls, saying his government is following this in letter and spirit.
PM Modi: committed to bringing water to 13 Rajasthan districts (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Infrastructure)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Central Government will consider taking the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project (ERCP) forward once both Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are on the same page, while also taking a dig at Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot for reading portions from the state’s last year’s Budget speech.
Addressing the second of his two rallies in Dausa on Sunday — the first one was to launch the completed Delhi-Lalsot-Dausa leg of the Delhi-Mumbai expressway — the PM said: “Resolving the challenge of water in Rajasthan is a priority of the BJP government.
You are seeing that the work to join Ken Betwa between MP and UP is starting. In the same way, we are committed to providing drinking water and irrigation facilities in 13 eastern Rajasthan districts.
Mentioning ERCP, he said a praroop (draft) of the big project has been prepared. This praroop has been shared by the Centre with the governments of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. A special committee on rivers has included this proposal as a priority project. When both the states will agree, the Centre will definitely consider taking it forward.
Earlier during the PM’s first rally, Gehlot, joining in via a video conference from Jaipur, had raised the issue, saying: “Since you have arrived, I hope you will keep your point on ERCP. It has become an issue here.
During the last elections, you had mentioned in Jaipur and Ajmer that you will positively try to declare it as a national project. There are 16 national projects and if you declare one then all Rajasthanis will be grateful to you. And you are in Dausa, which is among the 13 (ERCP) districts.
Meanwhile, after mentioning the Centre’s stance on ERCP, Modi said: “The Congress governments didn’t develop border villages and districts because they were scared. And they have said this in Parliament that if we make roads on the border, what if the enemy uses the same,” the PM said.
Express Network
MIIRA: India readies plan to popularise millets on world stage (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Agriculture)
With food security and nutrition a top priority in agriculture during its G20 Presidency, India is planning to propose the launch of a global initiative to encourage the consumption and production of millets.
MIIRA” or Millet International Initiative for Research and Awareness will be aimed at coordinating millet research programmes at the international level.
It is in line with the UN declaring 2023 as the International Year of Millets and the Centre’s plan to make India a global hub for millets.
While the main G20 Summit will be held on September 9-10, 2023 in New Delhi, sources said India’s Presidency year will also see five meetings on agriculture: three of Agriculture Deputies, one of chief scientists, and one where the Agriculture Ministers of all G-20 countries will gather.
MIIRA will be launched keeping in mind the nutritional value and the climate resilient nature of millets,” one of the sources cited above said, adding a draft charter of the initiative is ready and will be placed for approval at the first meeting of the Agricultural Deputies from February 13-15 at Indore.
According to the sources, MIIRA will aim to connect the millet research organisations across the world while also supporting research on millet crops. Besides setting up a web platform to connect researchers and holding international research conferences, the plan is also to promote millet consumption by raising awareness.
For MIIRA to take off, India will contribute the “seed money” while each G20 member will later have to contribute to its budget in the form of a membership fee.
The MIIRA secretariat will be in Delhi, the sources said, adding that this will, with India being a major producer of millets, ensure a flow of investment from the country’s industry and research bodies.
Ideas Page
India’s fiscal dilemma (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The recently announced budget affords a good opportunity to take stock of the fiscal situation. Most obviously, because it is the last full budget before the 2024 elections.
More importantly, because next fiscal is the first time in a long time that India’s economy might actually have a normal year. In 2019-20 came the NBFC crisis, 2020-21 saw the pandemic and 2021-22 the recovery, while 2022-23 witnessed global turmoil in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is only in the next fiscal that we can finally compare like with like, one “normal” budget with another.
The good news is that in many ways the fiscal situation has proved resilient to the successive shocks (see table). Tax collections as a per cent of GDP are actually marginally higher than they were in 2018-19.
On the spending side, the composition has improved, as capital expenditure has soared from 1.5 per cent of GDP to a budgeted 3.5 per cent of GDP.
And sizeable off-budget expenditures were brought back onto the budget two years ago in a major and laudable step to improve transparency.
The fiscal deficit is now on a downward trajectory, budgeted to fall to about 6 per cent of GDP next year from a Covid peak of more than 9 per cent.
At the same time, there have been some mixed developments, particularly on the revenue side. Personal income taxes have shown an encouraging rise, but this has been accompanied by increases in exemption limits, meaning that taxation is now resting on a narrower base of taxpayers, even as prosperity grows and spreads to the middle class.
Meanwhile, the GST’s promise has not yet been realised, as its collection ratio has remained essentially the same as it was five years ago, largely because efficiency gains have been offset by repeated reductions in rates.
Furthermore, corporate tax revenues have declined significantly, again because tax rates have been reduced, in this case more than offsetting the returns from the improved profitability and market share gains of large corporations (at the expense of the informal sector).
Economy
Why has SEBI proposed tightening duties of trustees? (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) recently proposed to review the role and accountability of trustees of mutual funds with an aim to protect unitholders’ interests.
Besides, the regulators also put forward some recommendations to enhance the accountability of the board of asset management companies (AMC).
Mutual funds in India have a three-tiered structure – mutual fund, the trustees and the AMC. Board of trustees or trustee company holds the property of the mutual fund in trust for the benefit of the unit holders. They appoint an AMC to float schemes for the mutual fund and manage the funds mobilised under various schemes.
They are also expected to exercise supervisory oversight over AMC and its activities so as to ensure that AMC acts in the interest of the unitholders.
Sebi has recommended that the trustees will be responsible for taking steps so that there are system-level checks in place to prevent fraudulent transactions.
To ensure that they focus on their core responsibilities, Sebi has proposed that the trustees should take help of audit, legal firms and merchant bankers for carrying out due diligence on their behalf.
Sebi has also recommended amending certain regulations for AMC and also include additional clauses to enhance the role, responsibility and accountability of the board of AMC.
The markets regulator also proposed the constitution of a ‘Unit Holder Protection Committee’ (UHPC) by board of AMC. This will help in an independent review mechanism for the decisions of AMC from the perspective of the unit holders’ interest, across all products and services.
Explained
Protected Speech of MPs: its history, reasons for curbs (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
On February 9, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge wrote to Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar protesting the “directions…made by the Chair to authenticate six observations” he had made during his speech in the House the previous day. Kharge pointed out that Parliament is the “platform to fix the accountability of the Executive”, and criticism of the government amounts neither to an allegation against an individual Member nor to an attack on the dignity of the Council of States. Kharge also underlined that Article 105 of the Constitution “guarantees freedom of speech for the Members of Parliament”.
Article 105 protects the words and votes of MPs from legal proceedings. This freedom is a fundamental requirement for the functioning of the parliamentary system.
It traces its origin to the British Parliament that codified this freedom in a law made in 1688 called the Bill of Rights. One of its sections states “That the Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parlyament.”
In the Indian context, this principle found place in the Government of India Act of 1919 which set up modern legislatures in pre-Independence India.
The rules made under this law regulated the work of these legislative institutions. For the Central Legislative Assembly, the rules specified that members in their speeches should not refer to matters pending before courts, make personal allegations against other members, comment on the conduct of high offices (like the King, Governor General) or use seditious, defamatory words.
What farm exports data show (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s agricultural exports are poised to scale a new peak in the financial year ending March 31, 2023. But so are imports, bringing down the overall farm trade surplus.
Government data show the value of farm exports in April-December 2022, at $39 billion, was 7.9% higher than the $36.2 bn for the corresponding period of the previous year. At the present rate, the record $50.2 bn exports achieved in 2021-22 look set to be surpassed.
However, equally significant are the imports of agri produce that, at $27.8 bn in Apr-Dec 2022, have grown 15.4% over the $24.1 bn for Apr-Dec 2021.
As a result, there has been a further shrinking of the surplus on the farm trade account. The accompanying table shows that the surpluses even in 2020-21 ($20.2 bn) and 2021-22 ($17.8 bn) were lower than the $22.7 bn and $27.7 bn of 2012-13 and 2013-14 respectively.
India in 2021-22 shipped out an all-time-high 21.21 million tonnes (mt) of rice valued at $9.66 billion. That included 17.26 mt of non-basmati (worth $6.12 billion) and 3.95 mt ($3.54 billion) of basmati rice.
In the current fiscal, the growth has been primarily led by basmati rice. Its exports have gone up by 40.3% in value (from $2.38 billion in April-December 2021 to $3.34 billion in April-December 2022) and 16.6% in quantity (2.74 mt to 3.20 mt) terms.
The corresponding increases have been less for non-basmati exports: 3.3% in value ($4.51 billion to $4.66 billion) and 4.6% in quantity (12.60 mt to 13.17 mt).