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With the Government pushing the deadline of its Smart Cities Mission to next June, the 100 cities that are part of it are marking their completed projects with logos, in a strategy aimed at displaying the accomplishments so far.
In a letter on June 19 detailing the strategy, the Mission told the Smart Cities’ CEOs that given the “scale and scope” of the projects, “it is intuitively difficult to associate changes in the city functioning (due) to specific projects/ initiatives undertaken”
It is important, the Mission wrote, to form a “link to build trust with the community” and that the labelling would “not only create awareness but also strengthen the loop between citizen feedback and project implementation.”
According to data provided by the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry to the Lok Sabha on July 20, 74% of the nearly 8,000 projects for which work orders have been issued, have been completed.
In May, when the Ministry extended the Mission’s deadline from June this year to June 30, 2024, 72% of the projects were complete. Lok Sabha elections are expected to be held by May next year.
The “labelling strategy” was first rolled out as a pilot in 15 cities in April and expanded to all 100 cities in June. It laid out options for using bespoke logos as well as common imagery such as the Mission logo.
Express Network
India gifts missile corvette Kirpan to Vietnamese navy (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
In the first-ever instance of India offering a fully operational missile corvette to Vietnam, the Navy on Saturday decommissioned INS Kirpan and handed it over to Vietnam People’s Navy (VPN)—reflecting the growing defence ties and strategic partnership between New Delhi and Hanoi.
The handing over ceremony took place at Cam Ranh in Vietnam and was presided over by Adm R Hari Kumar, Chief of Naval Staff, Indian Navy and Rear Adm Pham Manh Hung, Deputy Commander-in-Chief and Chief of Staff, VPN.
INS Kirpan—which is an indigenously-built missile corvette—was decommissioned after completing 32 years of service to be gifted to Vietnam.
It was handed over to VPN with a complete weapon complement. Since its commissioning in 1991, the ship has been an integral part of the Navy’s Eastern Fleet and has participated in several operations.
It is manned by about 12 officers and 100 sailors and is 90 meters long and 10.45 meters in width with a maximum displacement of 1,450 tons.
Underlining the deep-rooted friendship and strategic partnership between India and Vietnam, Navy Chief Admiral R Hari Kumar said what made the occasion even more significant is the fact that this is the first-ever occasion that India is offering a fully-operational corvette to any Friendly Foreign Country.
Explained
The ethanol impetus (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
India’s ethanol production programme has come a long way in the past five years, both in terms of the quantities supplied by sugar mills/distilleries to oil marketing companies (OMCs) and the raw material used — from cane molasses and juice to rice, damaged grains, maize and, down the line, millets.
Ethanol is basically 99.9% pure alcohol that can be blended with petrol. It is different from the 94% rectified spirit having applications in paints, pharmaceuticals, personal care products and other industries, and 96% extra neutral alcohol that goes to make potable liquor.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a G20 Energy Ministers’ meet on Saturday (July 22), said that India has rolled out 20% ethanol-blended petrol this year and aims to “cover the entire country by 2025”.
Till 2017-18 (December-November supply year), sugar mills produced ethanol only from ‘C-heavy’ molasses. The cane they crush typically has 13.5-14% TFS or total fermentable sugars content.
Around 11.5% of it is recovered from the juice as sugar, with the uncrystallised, non-recoverable 2-2.5% TFS going into so-called C-heavy molasses. Every one tonne of C-heavy molasses, containing 40-45% sugar, gives 220-225 litres of ethanol.
Editorial
How not to tame inflation (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The June Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation figure of 4.8 per cent is discomforting for the RBI as well as the government. Further, the erratic monsoon has raised the risk of inflation.
The government has imposed a ban on exports of white rice with the hope of taming cereal inflation. But will the move succeed? Our research says “no”.
For proof, take the case of wheat. India imposed a ban on wheat exports in May 2022, and in June this year, it further tightened the grip on markets by imposing stocking limits on traders and processors. Yet, inflation in wheat has been in double digits.
The reason: Policymakers are using instruments of the 1960s. Such bans on exports and strangulation of domestic markets will not be appreciated at all by G20 countries.
The rice export ban will hurt the African countries most as rice prices are likely to go up internationally. India is the largest exporter of rice, accounting for almost 40 per cent of the global rice trade.
Domestically, it reflects a knee-jerk reaction and a strong pro-consumer bias, which is also anti-farmer. Such export bans on rice and wheat, and stocking limits on wheat also make a mockery of the agri-marketing reforms that the now-withdrawn farm laws were trying to achieve.
There is no doubt that cereals and products inflation is high at 12.71 per cent. It contributes about 22.8 per cent to CPI inflation, as it has a high weight of 9.7 per cent in the food group in the CPI basket.
The inflation rate for wheat stands at 12.37 per cent despite the recent ban on exports and the stocking limits on traders and processors.
Furthermore, rice inflation stands at 11.78 per cent, and the FCI’s open market operations have elicited a lukewarm response.
Tax as incentive (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s rise as a global economic powerhouse, amplified by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to the US, has been extraordinary.
With a focus on surpassing the $5 trillion milestone, the Indian economy faces the challenge of nurturing sustainable growth.
The participation of key stakeholders, including the government, corporates, investors and civil society is crucial to achieving this goal. In an era where fiscal accountability and transparency hold paramount importance, tax transparency has emerged as a catalyst for sustainable growth.
While India’s tax reforms have been awe-inspiring in magnitude and scale in recent years, the country needs a voluntary tax transparency framework to sustain the current economic growth.
This framework should incentivise organisations operating in India, including private companies, multinationals and public-sector units, to disclose their strategies and approaches towards domestic and international taxation.
Such voluntary disclosures could also be linked to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) framework. Although voluntary, this framework could become a standard that every company follows to demonstrate its commitment to sustainability.