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With international air travel to and from India on a path of swift recovery, Indian carriers are cashing in, expanding their collective market share — by passengers — to a seven-year high, shows an analysis of data for the December quarter (October-December 2022).
The cumulative market share of Indian carriers by passengers carried on international flights was 43.5 per cent in October-December 2022 up from 39.2 per cent in the corresponding period of 2019, the last full quarter of regular operations before Covid froze the aviation industry. Leading this expansion in market share, primarily, are IndiGo and Vistara.
In fact, the October-December share is the highest among all corresponding quarters that had regular international flight operations since 2015.
The assessment excludes the October-December periods of 2020 and 2021 as regular international flights had not resumed at the time and bubble arrangements were still in place. Data prior to 2015 has not been made publicly available by the DGCA.
Express Network
India to launch global alliance for big cats invest $100mn (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India has proposed to launch a mega global alliance under its leadership to protect big cats and assured support over five years with guaranteed funding of $100 million (over Rs 800 crore), according to records reviewed.
The proposed International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) will work towards the protection and conservation of the seven major big cats — tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, puma, jaguar and cheetah. Membership to the alliance will be open to 97 “range” countries, which contain the natural habitat of these big cats, as well as other interested nations, international organisations, etc.
Last month, the Government reached out to potential IBCA member nations with its proposal, it is learnt. According to a proposed timeline, the alliance is expected to be launched next month in a “suitable office complex” in India.
According to sources in the Environment Ministry, the alliance was “inspired by the arrival of cheetahs” last year from Namibia.
Since we got the cheetahs, we are the only country in the world to have tigers, lions, leopards, snow leopards and cheetahs in the wild. We have all the big cats, except the pumas and jaguars, today.
So it is only befitting that India takes the lead to bring together all big cat range countries under an UN-like umbrella.
CEA regulations violate SC rules, pose threat to endangered species: Petitioners (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has issued Draft Central Electricity Authority (Construction of Electric Lines in Great Indian Bustard Area) Regulations, 2023, according to which all electric lines of 33 kV and below passing through the ‘Great Indian Bustard Area’ will be underground, while those above 33KV will be overhead lines installed with bird flight diverters.
The regulations, issued on February 1, came in light of a case in the Supreme Court on the issue of threat to the endangered Great Indian Bustards.
The petitioners in the Supreme Court case have objected to the regulations, saying they are in direct violation of the court’s directives and a threat to the endangered species.
According to the SC order issued on April 19, 2021, all electricity lines passing through the Great Indian Bustard territory needs to be underground – this is for both existing as well as new electricity lines.
However, none of the existing lines have been moved underground. “Yes, the new lines are being laid underground but when the authority says that power lines under 33KV voltage will go underground, this primarily means 11, 13 and 15KV lines – which are anyway exempt,’’says petitioner M K Ranjit Sinh, former director, wildlife, and the chair of the committee on cheetahs set up by the government. The CEA had called for objections and suggestions from the public by March 3.
Editorial
Red carpet, bright lights (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
The resolute insistence of the United States and its allies that the Group of 20 (G20) admonish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine contributed to the failure of the Bali Summit last year. By pushing a political issue onto the agenda of an economic and financial forum, the Group of 7 (G7) are on the verge of destabilising the New Delhi G20 Summit.
As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reminded a New Delhi audience last week, the G20 had never opened itself up to discussing global security and geo-political issues when the US and its NATO allies pursued war across Asia and Africa over the past quarter century.
While it is understandable that European political leadership is under public pressure to use every global platform to denounce Russia, such anti-war sentiment in the Global South never dissuaded the West from securing its geopolitical interests.
Such hypocrisy is understandable since geopolitics is bereft of morality. But recent G7 actions raise the question whether it is willing to see the Delhi Summit implode under political pressure to toe the US line.
The G20 finance and foreign ministers’ meetings, held recently in Bengaluru and New Delhi, show that the G20 are divided into three groups — the G7, the Global South represented by the four successive chairs (Indonesia, India, Brazil and South Africa), and China and Russia.
Ideas Page
A new trade strategy (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s robust export performance has made a critical contribution to its economic growth in recent times. Despite global economic woes, India’s overall exports, merchant and services combined, grew at 17.33 per cent to $641 billion during April-January 2022-23 compared to $547 billion during the same period last year.
This comes after India witnessed an unprecedented growth of 45 per cent with exports touching $422 billion in 2021-22, baffling most pessimistic trade theorists.
During this period, India has demonstrated its capability to navigate successfully through the “storm” – of post-pandemic supply-chain woes as well as geopolitical factors — and its resilience has stunned the world.
The country’s exports performance was not an accident but was the result of well-crafted trade policy interventions, their efficacious implementation and a host of other initiatives to create a conducive ecosystem to promote exports.
Export facilitation ensured the effective conceptualisation and implementation of a bundle of export promotion schemes such as the Market Access Initiative (MAI), Remission of Duties and Tax on Exported Products (RoDTEP), Trade Infrastructure for Exports Scheme (TIES) and Interest Equalisation Schemes on pre- and post-shipment rupee export credit, among others.
This export promotion strategy has led to a sustainable rise in India’s exports. The focused approach to capitalise on the country’s inherent strengths has led to a transformation of its export basket.
For instance, toy exports from India rose to Rs 1,017 crore in April-December 2022 from merely Rs167 crore in April-December 2013.
Explained
What is Hindu rate of growth; is India headed there? (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
PTI reported that former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan feels India is “dangerously close” to the “Hindu rate of growth”.
Rajan was reportedly responding to the latest GDP data released by the government. According to the PTI report, he stated that the sequential slowdown in the quarterly growth, as revealed by the latest estimate of national income released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) last month, was worrying.
The data in question pertains to India’s GDP growth in the third quarter (October to December, 2022) of the current financial year (2022-23).
A key takeaway was that India’s GDP grew at just 4.4% in the quarter ending December 2022.
CHART 1 below stacks up the quarterly GDP growth rates since the start of 2016-17 onwards. The third quarter data for each financial year is highlighted in blue just for ease. The chart brings out the broader point of a steady deceleration in quarterly GDP growth rates.
Economy
Govt may revise PLI outlay for IT hardware to 20,000 cr (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Centre is expected to launch an updated version of its production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for IT hardware soon, and could increase the overall outlay for the scheme to around Rs 20,000 crore.
The PLI for IT hardware such as laptops, tablets, all-in-one computers, and servers was first announced in February 2021 with an initial outlay of around Rs 7,300 crore over a period of four years.
Under the scheme, domestic players investing Rs 20 crore and clocking sales of Rs 50 crore in the first year, Rs 100 crore in the second, Rs 200 crore in the third, and Rs 300 crore in the final year, would pocket incentives of 1-4 per cent on incremental sales over 2019-20, the base financial year.
With the restructured scheme, the government is hoping to attract major electronics manufacturing companies like Apple and HP, and also boost exports in the sector.
The updated scheme will also increase incentive rates to nearly two times, and to allow for increased flexibility, applicants will be able to decide their own start and end dates between a period of five to seven years, a senior government official said.
The SWAMIH investment fund : Who benefits (Page no. 17)
Since the Fund considers first-time developers, established developers with troubled projects, developers with a poor track record of stalled projects, customer complaints and NPA accounts, and even projects where there are litigation issues, it is considered as the lender of last resort for distressed projects.
The Fund’s presence in a project often acts as a catalyst for better collections and sales primarily in projects that were delayed for years.
According to the Finance Ministry, SWAMIH Fund has one of the largest domestic real estate private equity teams focused only on funding and monitoring the completion of stressed housing projects.
SWAMIH has so far provided final approval to about 130 projects with sanctions worth over Rs 12,000 crore. The Fund has completed 20,557 homes and aims to complete over 81,000 homes in the next three years across 30 tier 1 and 2 cities.
The Fund has been able to complete construction in 26 projects and generate returns for its investors, a government release said.
It added, “The Fund has also played a critical role in the growth of many ancillary industries in real estate and infrastructure sector having successfully unlocked liquidity of more than Rs. 35,000 crore.”