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Amid a raging debate on the financial implication of freebies promised by political parties during elections — or the revdi culture referred to by Prime Minister Narendra Modi — the Election Commission of India wrote to parties proposing that they spell out ways and means of raising additional resources to finance the promises, and the impact it would have on the fiscal sustainability of the state or the Central government.
Floating a consultation paper, the EC, in its letter to all recognised national and state parties, has prescribed a standardised disclosure proforma for them to declare quantification of the physical coverage of the schemes promised, financial implications of the promise and availability of the financial resources. The EC has asked the parties to furnish their views by October 19.
The proforma seeks details of the extent and expanse of the coverage of the promised scheme (for instance whether it would be universal, for below the poverty line families or community specific) quantification of physical coverage and financial implications, availability of financial resources, and ways and means of raising resources for meeting the additional expenditure to be incurred in fulfilling the promises.
The parties will have to detail how they propose to raise the additional resources to finance the scheme or schemes if voted to power – like whether they plan an increase in tax and non-tax revenues, rationalise expenditure, go for additional borrowings or do it in any other manner.
The impact of the additional resource raising plan for fulfilling the promises on fiscal sustainability of the State or the Union Government will also have to be specified.
The debate on freebies has already divided the political spectrum. The EC’s move drew a sharp reaction from the main Opposition Congress which said “this is simply not the business of the EC.
It goes against the very essence and spirit of competitive politics and will be yet another nail on the coffin of democracy in India.
The RJD, DMK and Shiv Sena too criticised the move. While the AIADMK took a cautious stand, the CPM said it will wait for the EC communication before it formulates its view.
The EC said that disclosure of the promises in a prescribed format will bring in standardisation in the nature of information and help voters compare and make an informed decision.
To make these steps mandatory, the EC plans to propose an amendment to the relevant clauses in the Model Code of Conduct.
PM tells Zelenskyy: No military solution, India ready to help (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Days after India abstained on a United Nations Security Council resolution which sought to declare Russian annexation of captured Ukrainian territories as invalid, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and told him “there can be no military solution” to the conflict and India was ready to “contribute to any peace efforts”.
The Ministry of External Affairs, in a statement, said, “The leaders discussed the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Prime Minister reiterated his call for an early cessation of hostilities and the need to pursue the path of dialogue and diplomacy. He expressed his firm conviction that there can be no military solution to the conflict and conveyed India’s readiness to contribute to any peace efforts.”
Prime Minister also reiterated the importance of respecting the UN Charter, International Law, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states.
According to the MEA, the Prime Minister emphasised the importance India attaches to the safety and security of nuclear installations, including in Ukraine.
He underlined that endangerment of nuclear facilities could have far-reaching and catastrophic consequences for public health and the environment.
The two leaders also touched upon important areas of bilateral cooperation, following up on their last meeting in Glasgow in November 2021.
India abstained on a UNSC resolution against Russia over its annexation of Ukrainian territories, saying “escalation of rhetoric or tensions is in no one’s interest” and it is “important that pathways are found for a return to the negotiating table”.
The UNSC could not adopt the resolution because Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, vetoed it. It was supported by 10 of the 15 members of the Council, while China, Gabon, India and Brazil abstained.
Express Network
After LCH induction, focus on indigenous medium-lift chopper (Page no. 8)
GS Paper 3, Defence)
With the Indian Air Force inducting the indigenous multi-role Light Combat Helicopter (LCH), Prachand, the focus is on the development of medium-lift category Indian Multi Role Helicopter (IMRH), to replace the fleets of IAF’s workhorse Mi-17 and other helicopters which will start phasing out over the coming decade.
Over the last two decades, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), the state-owned aerospace major, has rolled out three indigenously designed and developed helicopters in the light category (below 10 ton) – the 5-ton class Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) Dhruv, its weaponised version ALH Rudra, and the LCH.
It has also developed a 3-ton class Light Utility Helicopter (LUH), primarily as a replacement for the French origin legacy helicopters Chetak and Cheetah. So the next logical step is a Made-in-India medium lift helicopter in the 13-ton category – the IMRH.
On March 11 this year, the Ministry of Defence identified 18 major strategic platforms for industry-led design and development. In line with the announcement in the Union Budget 2022-23 that allocated 25 per cent of defence research and development budget for industry-led effort, these 18 platforms have been identified for research and development under various routes.
The list includes the IMRH under the Special Purpose Vehicle model, where private industries will be encouraged to take up design and development, in collaboration with various government organisations.
The IMRH project is slated to be executed by HAL, in collaboration with private players, pending sanction from the government.
On April 2, speaking at a function to mark 60 years of service of Chetak helicopters, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh emphasised the need to develop the IMRH which, he said, is a significant requirement for the armed forces and has a huge market potential.
He also pushed for fast-tracking the development of helicopter technology, saying this will not only be a key strategic asset in the defence sector, but will also make India a dominant force in the global helicopter market.
Senior defence officials said the IAF currently operates a fleet of over 220 medium lift helicopters, Mi-17 and its variants Mi-17IV and Mi-17V5, primarily used for utility and troop transport.
With the estimated requirement touching 250 by 2028, and with Mi-17 fleets starting to be phased out, there will be a large requirement for medium lift helicopters.
Explained Page
What led to the Credit Suisse crisis; and the road ahead (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Reportedly, Credit Suisse had just over 50,000 employees and 1.6 trillion Swiss francs ($1.62 trillion) in assets under management at the end of 2021.
However, it has been losing its market value since the 2008 global financial crisis. The share price has witnessed almost a secular decline.
The reason for this is fairly straightforward — Credit Suisse has made several risky bets and ended up losing a lot of investor money. That, in turn, has hurt its profitability, eroded investor confidence, and has made raising fresh capital costlier.
For instance, Credit Suisse directed many customers to invest as much $10 billion in Greensill Capital. Greensill was itself a lender of sorts — it intermediated between suppliers and clients.
In other words, it paid suppliers upfront cash and took their place in waiting for the clients to pay. The business attracted a lot of attention and money, thanks to banks such as Credit Suisse.
But there were increasing question marks over Greensill’s ability to remain solvent. By March 2021, Greensill had filed for bankruptcy, denting Credit Suisse and its rich investors.
When Archegos Capital Management, a hedge fund run by Bill Hwang, collapsed, also in March 2021, Credit Suisse lost another $5.5 billion.
Such losses were punctuated by high-profile managerial malpractices and exits, further undermining investor confidence. For example, in 2020, then CEO Tidjane Thiam had to quit after it became clear that he had been spying on Credit Suisse’s wealth management executive Iqbal Khan.
The secular decline in Credit Suisse’s share price is one good way to understand how investors have progressively shrugged away from the iconic bank.
Further, Credit Suisse bonds have increasingly become cheaper — because fewer people want to lend money to it — and this has resulted in the yields rising quite sharply. Higher yields essentially imply that the bank would have to pay higher returns for every dollar or euro it borrows from the market.
This becomes a problem, especially in the current scenario facing the developed economies, when growth prospects are tanking and central banks are raising interest rates to contain inflation.
Break throughs in quantum tech (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
For about 100 years now, quantum ‘entanglement’ has triggered an intense but fascinating debate over the nature of reality among some of the sharpest brains of the 20th century.
It’s one of the main reasons why Quantum Theory appears so strange and counterintuitive. It is also precisely this behaviour of quantum particles that Albert Einstein famously described as ‘spooky’.
The Nobel Prize committee decided to honour three scientists — Alain Aspect of France, John Clauser of the US, and Anton Zeilinger of Austria — who, over the last four decades, have tilted the balance of the debate in one direction. Their experiments have conclusively established that the ‘entanglement’ phenomenon observed in quantum particles was real, not a result of any ‘hidden’ or unknown forces, and that it could be utilised to make transformative technological advances in computing, hack-free communications, and science fiction-like concept of ‘teleportation’.
Together, these three have made seminal contributions to not just the foundations of quantum theory but also to efforts that have now enabled the possibility of a wide range of applications.
In a way, the Nobel Prize for these three was long overdue, and quite expected,” said Urbasi Sinha, who works in a similar domain at the Raman Research Institute in Bengaluru.
By the start of the 20th century, just when some had begun believing that everything that was there to be discovered about the way nature worked had already been discovered, a few scientists observed that the behaviour of tiny sub-atomic particles like protons or electrons was not consistent with the classical Newtonion laws of physics. The more they probed, the more bewildering results they got.
In their endeavour to explain what they saw, a group of mostly young physicists made a series of astonishing discoveries over the next 30 years that completely altered our understanding of how nature worked in the sub-atomic space.
Together they strung together the Quantum Theory, which described the seemingly bizarre behaviour of sub-atomic particles with remarkable accuracy.
But Quantum Theory went completely against everyday experiences. It allowed a particle to exist simultaneously at multiple locations, a phenomenon known as superposition.
The chance of finding the particle at any given place was dictated by probabilistic calculations, and once it was found, or observed, at one location, it ceased to exist at all other places.
Entanglement was another of several weird properties exhibited by these tiny particles. Two particles, having ‘interacted’ with each other at some stage, were found to have got ‘entangled’ in a way that the behaviour of one produced an instantaneous reaction in the other even if the two were no longer connected in any way and were separated by very large distances.
Editorial Page
Second-guessing Beijing (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), scheduled in mid-October, promises to deliver important outcomes, which will impact not just China but affairs of other nations, far and near.
As a transient Twitter-storm about an alleged “coup” in Beijing showed, Chinese politics remain impervious to external scrutiny.
While it is believed that Xi Jinping’s bid for an unprecedented third five-year term as general-secretary, even though contested, is likely to succeed, political fortunes can be unpredictable.
Whether it is Xi who is restored to power, or there is a leadership struggle in the Great Hall of the People, China is likely to see a period of flux and volatility.
The new dispensation, in order to assert its authority, may not only tighten its grip domestically, but also be tempted to indulge in military adventurism.
As China’s next-door neighbour, with our armies arrayed eyeball-to-eyeball across a disputed border, it is vital for India to undertake an urgent reappraisal of the emerging security situation.
We have been on tenterhooks since the sanguinary Galwan clash of 2020, and borne a heavy cost for the “mirror-deployment” of 50,000-60,000 additional troops in Ladakh. Sino-Indian diplomatic parleys having been suspended, the task of LAC negotiations has been foisted on local military commanders.
The 16th successive commanders’ meeting would have seen yet another futile conclusion, but for compulsions of the impending Shanghai Cooperative Organisation, which apparently led to a modest breakthrough.
Consequently, the third round of troop disengagement and the creation of another buffer zone has taken place in Siachen, this time in the area of Gogra-Hot Springs.
While China’s long-term intentions remain shrouded in opacity, one can surmise that chances of the PLA resuming the pre-2020 status quo in Ladakh are now extinct.
Although the man on the street has no idea of what the “pre-2020 status quo” means on the ground, he feels a sense of disquiet when India’s senior military leaders speak of “the unilateral and provocative actions by the adversary to alter status quo by force.”
EAM Jaishankar’s terse summation of the India-China relationship, as going through an “extremely difficult phase”, did little to calm nerves.
Idea Page
A health plan for the nation (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
I woke up in a panic but felt relieved when I realised it was only a nightmare. I had gone back in time to being a young doctor, feeling helpless with the high infant and maternal mortality rates, a paediatric ward filled with children suffering from tuberculous meningitis, polio, severe malnutrition and diarrhoea.
Today the scenario has vastly changed. The past 10 years especially, have seen rapid progress. We are now blessed with a growing economy and a huge, young population that is relatively healthy.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the world our capability to handle mega problems. With good leadership and active community participation we became self-sufficient in terms of PPE, ventilators and vaccines. India@100 may see people recount Covid nightmares like the one I woke up from today.
Now, new challenges await us. These include climate change, the rising aspirations of people, inequitable access to resources and the biggest challenge of all: Health. India is predicted to be the capital of non-communicable diseases, cancers and deaths due to trauma.
The challenges are humongous due to the huge population of 1.4 billion, juxtaposed against a relatively inadequate public health system and the deep crevice separating the haves and have-nots.
However, I envision that India@100 will have addressed all these woes humanely, efficiently and adequately. The need of the day is a revolution to make India a world leader in health.
Having spent nearly 40 years in the armed forces, with the motto of my life being, “Country First and Always”, I strongly feel that this is the opportunity of a lifetime for every Indian to give back to the nation.
Provided we act now, the next 25 years will witness a big change in the health indices. For this, we need to collaborate and work together as a society and as a polity.
The silos of medical education in colleges, life science research in laboratories and public health in government hospitals will need to be integrated and work in close collaboration, with appropriate linkages through the opportunities lent by NEP 2020, National Digital Health Mission and most importantly, in synchronisation with the central and state governments. India@100 will then see a smoothly oiled machine where public health drives education and research.
Medical education today faces numerous challenges. The most critical of these are the mushrooming of medical, nursing and AYUSH colleges, and non-availability of dedicated faculty.
We can overcome these drawbacks by using digital technology to reach the unreached students quickly and effectively. We can also align medical education to India’s healthcare needs through integrated courses and creating a bigger and better pool of paramedical and nursing personnel on priority.
The World
Zelenskyy signs decree, rules out any negotiations with Putin as impossible (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday igned a decree formally announcing the "impossible" prospect of peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian President still left the door open for negotiations with Russia, but that will not be conducted with Putin as its President.
The decree came after Vladimir Putin announced four occupied Ukrainian regions as part of Russia on Friday. He made that announcement after an overwhelming majority of the four regions reportedly "chose" to become part of Russia in a referendum. The referendum was rejected by Kyiv and West, who called it a sham conducted at gunpoint.
He (Putin) does not know what dignity and honesty are. Therefore, we are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but with another president of Russia.
Ukrainian forces now seem to be focusing on pushing the Russian Army out of these annexed areas. They have broken through the Russian defenses in the important southern Kherson area and are now rapidly attacking towards the east, seizing back more and more territories annexed by Russia.
It's tense, let's put it that way," Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed head of Ukraine's Kherson region, said on state television.
Where the Kakhovka (reservoir) is, there is a settlement called Dudchany it is in this area that there is a breakthrough and there are settlements taken by Ukrainian troops.
Ukraine's counter-offensive against Russia has been surprising to many defense experts who predicted the fall of Ukraine within days of the Russian invasion.
Ukraine has taken back more than 4000 square miles of territories from Russia including Izium and Kupiansk, two strategically important towns in the northeast that served as logistical hubs for Russian forces.
According to the New York Times, American and British intelligence officials were directly involved in the planning of the Ukrainian counter-offensive. US intelligence agencies also provided Ukraine with information on Russia's weak defense links.