Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
Liz Truss said she would resign as British prime minister, brought down just six weeks into the job by an economic programme that shattered investor confidence and enraged much of her Conservative Party.
Speaking outside the door of her Number 10 Downing Street office, Truss accepted that she had lost the faith of her party and said she would step down next week, becoming the shortest-serving prime minister in British history.
Truss, who had said she was a "fighter and not a quitter", told the mass of journalists gathered in Downing Street that she realised she could no longer deliver on the promises that won her the Conservative leadership.
I have therefore spoken to His Majesty the King to notify him that I am resigning as leader of the Conservative Party," said Truss, who was supported only by her husband with her aides and loyal ministers noticeably absent.
A new leadership election will be completed by next Friday, Oct. 28. Those expected to run include former finance minister Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, a former defence minister.
Jeremy Hunt, the man brought in to rescue the public finances, has ruled himself out.Party members and Conservative lawmakers are expected to be given a say in the vote. A poll earlier this week showed that most members wanted former prime minister Boris Johnson - who was ousted from Downing Street in July - to return.
Britain is not scheduled to hold a national election for another two years.Betting odds put Sunak as the favourite, ahead of Mordaunt and Johnson.
Appointed on Sept. 6, Truss was forced to sack her finance minister and closest political ally, KwasiKwarteng, and abandon almost all her economic programme after their plans for vast unfunded tax cuts crashed the pound and British bonds. Approval ratings for her and the Conservative Party collapsed.
She lost the second of the government's four most senior ministers, faced laughter as she tried to defend her record to parliament and saw her lawmakers openly quarrel over policy, deepening the sense of chaos at Westminster.
New finance minister Hunt is now racing to find tens of billions of pounds of spending cuts to try to reassure investors and rebuild Britain's fiscal reputation as the economy heads into recession and inflation runs at a 40-year high.
In a very short speech, Truss - whose brief term as premier beat the record of George Canning, who had held the role for 119 days when he died in 1827 - said she had come into office as the country faced great uncertainty.
India-Russia trade soars to record high as imports of oil and fertiliser drive surge (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Fuelled by a surge in import of oil and fertilisers, India’s bilateral trade with Russia has soared to an all-time high of $18,229.03 million in just five months (April-August) of this financial year (2022-23), according to the latest data available with the Department of Commerce.
In contrast, the total annual bilateral trade between the two countries stood at $13,124.68 million in 2021-22, and $8,141.26 million in 2020-21. Pre-Covid, it was $10,110.68 million in 2019-20, $8,229.91 million in 2018-19, and $10,686.85 million in 2017-18.
With the sharp spike in trade, Russia has now become India’s seventh biggest trading partner — up from its 25th position last year. The US ($57,632.37 million), China ($50,792.83 million), UAE ($36,820.33 million), Saudi Arabia ($23,995 million), Iraq ($18,822.27 million) and Indonesia ($18,816.58 million) were the six countries which recorded higher volumes of trade with India during the first five months of 2022-23.
Of the total $18,229.03 million bilateral trade in April-August, India’s imports from Russia accounted for $17,236.29 million, while New Delhi’s exports to Moscow were only worth $992.73 million, leaving a negative trade balance of $16,243.56 million.
In 2021-22, India’s exports to Russia stood at $3,254.68 million, while imports from Moscow were valued at $9,869.99 million.
In the past, there have been only two occasions when bilateral trade between the two countries crossed the $10 billion mark – in 2017-18 ($10,686.85 million) and 2019-20 ($10,110.68 million).
An analysis of the data shows that Russia’s share in India’s total trade has increased to 3.54%, up from 1.27% in 2021-22. While Russia’s share in India’s total trade was 2.1% in 1997-98, it has hovered below 2% for the last 25 years.
The record level of bilateral trade between India and Russia is mainly due to a sudden jump in imports from Moscow, which began to surge earlier this year.
There was an over 500% increase in three months – 561.1% in June, 577.63% in July and 642.68% in August – as compared to the same months of the previous year.
Petroleum oil and other fuel items (mineral fuels, mineral oils and products of their distillation; bituminous substances; mineral waxes) accounted for 84% of India’s total imports from Russia in April-August this year, adding up to $14,476.52 million as compared to $1,593.58 million last year.
Fertilisers were second, with imports from Russia surging by 666.24% to $1,236.96 million in April-August this year, up from $161.43 million during the same period last year. Fertilisers and fuel together account for over 91% of the total imports from Russia this year.
On the other hand, pharmaceutical products ($176.51 million) and organic chemicals ($117.29 million) were the two main items shipped to Moscow.
Teach in mother tongue until age 8 new language can undo learning: NCF (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The National Curriculum Framework (NCF) for foundational stage education, released by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, has recommended that the mother tongue should be the primary medium of instruction for children till eight years of age, in both public and private schools, saying a new language “reverses the entire learning process” in the early years. It adds that English could be one of the second language options.
The previous NCF, released in 2005, had also stated that the language of interaction and communication in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) would “normally be the child’s first language, or home language”.
However, it also said that in the light of socio-political realities, English has to be introduced early as a second language, either in Class I, as several states have already done, or at the pre-school level.
The new NCF, which deals with pre-school and classes I-II, steers clear of any detailed instruction on a timeframe for introducing English. It states that English can be one of the second languages taught at the foundational level, but doesn’t specify which grade.
Instead, it emphasises the virtues of the mother tongue as the primary medium of instruction, saying that by the time children join pre-school, they acquire significant competence in the “home language”.
If the child is taught with a new or unfamiliar language as the medium of instruction, the three-four years of experience that the child comes with gets completely disregarded, as a new language is taught from the beginning, at the cost of negating the foundational experiences, skills, and learning that the child has already accumulated, thus reversing the entire learning process.
Since children learn concepts most rapidly and deeply in their home language, the primary medium of instruction would optimally be the child’s home language/ mother tongue/ familiar language in the foundational stage. This should be the approach in both public and private schools.
For young children to acquire skills of speaking fluently in their language 2 or language 3 (which could also be English), a natural, communication-focussed approach that also uses scaffolding of their language 1 (primary medium of instruction) needs to be adopted,” it says.
The previous NCF had observed that language teaching is a complex issue in a multilingual country like India, where teachers may be required to cope with a number of languages in a classroom.
Any Indian language used as a medium of instruction in pre-schools, especially in towns and cities, poses problems for children coming from different language backgrounds and dialects.
Pay 1337 cr for abusing dominance : CCI to Google (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The competition Commission of India (CCI) has imposed a provisional penalty of Rs 1,337.76 crore ($162 million) on Google for “abusing its dominant position” in multiple categories related to the Android mobile device ecosystem in the country.
The anti-trust watchdog said Google had abused its dominance in the licensing of its operating system for smart mobile devices, app store market for Android smart mobiles, general web search services, non-operating system specific mobile web browsers, and online video hosting platforms.
The CCI also issued cease and desist directions to the tech giant on a number of its business practices. For instance, it said that Google should not deny access to its Play Services plugins to “disadvantaged” original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and the licencing of Play Store to OEMs should not be linked to the requirement of pre-installing Google search, Chrome browser, YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail or any other Google application.
The CCI also said that Google will have to allow users to choose their default search engine during the initial device setup. It asked Google not to restrict the ability of app developers to distribute their apps through side-loading – offering their apps outside of Google’s Play Store. This is significant since Google has, for long, cautioned users against side-loading apps, calling it a potential security threat.
Google is facing a series of anti-trust cases in India. The competition watchdog is also looking into Google’s business conduct in the smart TV market and its in-app payments system.
In 2019, the CCI had ordered a detailed probe following complaints by consumers of Android-based smartphones. Android is an open-source, mobile operating system installed by OEMs of smartphones and tablets.
According to CCI, Google manages the Android operating system as well as other licences, which gives it advantage over its competitors to pre-install most prominent search entry points such as search apps, widget and Chrome browser on Android devices. Further, Google also secured a significant competitive edge in relation to its other revenue earning apps like YouTube in the Android devices, it held.
The competitors of these services could never avail the same level of market access which Google secured and embedded for itself through MADA (Mobile Application Distribution Agreement) Network effects, coupled with status quo bias, creating significant entry barriers for competitors of Google to enter or operate in the concerned markets,” CCI said in its order.
Govt& Politics
Invest in defence industry, assure good returns :Rajnath at Def Expo(Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Assuring “good returns”, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh invited investment from the domestic industry and foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) in the Indian defence sector and urged them to take advantage of the opportunity to integrate global supply chains.
Speaking at the ‘Invest for Defence’ outreach event at the DefExpo 2022 in Gandhinagar, Singh said the Indian defence industry will be “a sunrise sector in the years to come”.
By the year 2025, the government plans to increase defence production from USD 12 billion to USD 22 billion. The possibility of this figure exceeding the USD 22 billion cannot be ruled out. You can just imagine the opportunities that will be available for the industry, with this kind of growth,” he said.
Earlier, the doors of the Defence ministry used to remain closed. Defence ministers and officials in the Ministry used to hesitate (to agree) for a meeting.
The concern was that someone might point an accusing finger. We are not worried about this. If the investors have a problem, the doors of my officials and mine are always open.
Usually, the strength of a country stands on two pillars. The first is the GDP, and the second is its defence capability or its ability to keep itself secure. These two factors decide the development of knowledge, science, agriculture, trade, etc. A prosperous country can bear the cost of security for a longer time. The more secure a country is, it can make better economic progress.
For a long time, there was a line of thought in the country that defence and development were opposite poles. It meant that if we concentrated on our social-economic development, then we would have to compromise on our defence capabilities; and if we increased our defence capabilities, then we had to compromise with socio-economic development. It is surprising that despite gaining Independence, we could not gain independence from this point of view,” he said, adding that a long time was spent in balancing economic growth and defence capabilities.
To increase the participation of domestic industry in the defence sector, the government has reserved 68% of the defence capital acquisition for domestic procurement for the year 2022-23, which is approximately Rs 85,000 crore and 25% of this has been reserved for the domestic private industry.
We have been able to create such an environment for our investors. It will not only provide them good returns, but will also create an image for them in domestic and global markets.
Editorial
How not to measure hunger(Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The world seems to have gone index-happy. Happiness Index, Ease of Doing Business Index, Calmness Index, you name it.
The problem with this mini-industry of index creation is that it has the potential to both influence government action and generate aggressive pushback. The experience with the Global Hunger Index provides a salutary lesson in the latter.
Recently, Concern Worldwide released the Global Hunger Index. India ranked 107 out of 123 countries, dropping from the rank of 101 in 2021.
The government has responded sharply to the publicity surrounding this, rejecting the methodology employed by the researchers and noting the substantial efforts made by the government to improve access to foodgrains by India’s poor.
The rebuttal by the government rests on valid grounds — about a third of the index rests on the Food and Agricultural Organisation’s estimates of the proportion of undernourished in the population. Digging deep, we see that these estimates are based on Gallup World Poll’s survey of 3,000 households in India (and 1,000 households in smaller countries).
In addition to its small size, the Gallup sampling methodology does not follow the usual processes used in India. This suggests a need to evaluate the representativeness of the sample.
Unfortunately, we cannot easily do this because the underlying data are located behind a paywall. To ensure transparency, it is essential that international agencies only use data that are freely available in the public domain along with key characteristics such as education, residence and age of the respondents.
In this case, the uncritical use of questions is particularly problematic because FAO has not released standard errors for their estimates, making it difficult for us to evaluate whether the growth in the proportion of households experiencing hunger in India, from 14.8 per cent in 2013-15 to 16.3 per cent in 2019-21, is statistically significant. This is very important given the difficulties in collecting data during the pandemic.
However, quibbles about this one indicator obfuscate the larger question: Is this index genuinely measuring hunger, or is it lumping together various indicators with only a weak relationship with hunger? The index rests on four indicators: Proportion of undernourished in the population, under-five mortality rate, prevalence of stunting (low height-for-age) and wasting (low weight-for-height) in children under five.
The last three indicators come from the National Family Health Survey for India. Proportion undernourished and child mortality contribute 1/3 each to the index, while stunting and wasting contribute 1/6 each.
How good are these indicators in picking up on hunger? While the first, if well collected, could presumably identify the proportion experiencing hunger, the latter three are only partially related to hunger.
Child mortality depends heavily on a country’s disease climate and public health systems. Today, 40 of 1,000 children in India die before their fifth birthday; 27 of these deaths occur in the first month of life.
This suggests that many child deaths are associated with conditions surrounding birth, congenital conditions, or delivery complications. These are not necessarily markers of hunger.
Ideas Page
The climate front(Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Climate change is a global concern and requires a well-coordinated global approach to address it. In simple terms, what needs to be done is to assess and monitor the net stock of GHG (greenhouse gases) present in the atmosphere at any given time, and work out ways to contain/reduce it.
Unlike many pollutant gases that have a relatively shorter life span once emitted, GHG can remain in the atmosphere for a fairly long time. For instance, carbon dioxide, the major constituent of GHG, can remain in the atmosphere for as long as a thousand years.
Another aspect of this is the distance up to which GHG can travel from the emitting source in the atmosphere. As compared to pollutant gases like sulphur dioxide, which can at best travel up to a few hundred kilometres, carbon dioxide can travel up to thousands of kilometres.
So, while excessive sulphur dioxide emissions could cause acid rain (rainwater containing sulphuric acid) in areas near the emitting source, GHG could potentially impact climate in places far away from the source.
The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and industrialisation in the world added to great volumes of GHG in the atmosphere over time. Unfortunately, the realisation of their adverse impact on climate came quite late.
International climate change negotiations amongst different countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) framework started only in 1994. In some ways, the damage had already been done by then.Surprisingly, many sceptics still don’t believe in the adverse climatic impact of GHG.
GHG targets discussed in COP meetings under the UNFCCC framework largely focus on containing inflows of new emissions, which would add to the GHG stock already in the atmosphere.
While the commitment to check inflows is important, what is equally or more important is to reduce the already existing huge stock.
To address this, substantial financial resources and the latest technologies are required. Developed countries, which are responsible for creating this mess in the first place and have the better financial capacity and technological capability, have to bear the major burden for this.
They need to provide funds to developing countries and facilitate technology transfers. This is the basic philosophy behind the “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” principle.
Unfortunately, despite all the talk, this is not happening. In the COP meeting in Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries pledged to channel $100 billion a year to developing countries by 2020 to help them adapt to and mitigate climate change.
This pledge is nowhere near being honoured. Developed countries have tried to further confuse the matter with accounting issues. Many have come out with various win-win solutions trying to obfuscate the need for financial transfers.
If everyone was indeed winning, there would have been no point in wasting time, energy and resources of 197 countries in annual COP meetings.
Express Network
Reduce, Reuse and recycle for a sustainable future says PM(Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United Nations Secretary-General AntónioGuterres launched Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment), a global plan of action that aims to save the planet from the disastrous consequences of climate change, at the Statue of Unity in Narmada’s Kevadia.
Modi said countries must “learn from the mistakes of the past” to pave way for a sustainable future. Quoting the Atharvaveda, he said, “‘Mata BhumihPutrohamPrithvih’, which means that the Earth is our mother and we are her children. India has a tradition of worshiping nature.
The Vedas specifically mention the importance of the elements of nature such as water, earth, land, fire and wind. There should be emphasis on ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ and circular economy.
Mission LiFE will include every lifestyle related to nature conservation, which our forefathers adopted and can be made a part of our lifestyle today. The impact of climate change is evident as unexpected disasters are being experienced in the last few decades.
Highlighting the significance of the launch taking place in Gujarat, the Prime Minister said Gujarat was the first state in the country to initiate steps in the direction of renewable energy and climate protection — “be it installing solar panels on canals or initiating water conservation projects for the drought-affected areas, Gujarat has always come forward as a leader and a trendsetter.
Mission LiFE will be essential and promising for the world to save the Earth from this difficult period of crisis, said Guterres.
Warning against overconsumption, which is at the root of the triple crisis of climate change, he urged all individuals and communities to be a part of the solution to protect the collective future of the planet. “We are using the equivalent of 1.6 planet earth to support our lifestyle.
This great excess is compounded by the great inequality. I am encouraged by India’s commitment to environment-friendly policies and significant increase in investment in renewable energy.
The launch of Mission LiFE comes a month ahead of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (CoP27), the mega UN climate meet, which will be held in Egypt.
Championing the international solar alliance, he said that the revolution of renewable energy needed to be unleashed and the United Nations was eager to work with India. At the upcoming CoP27, an in-depth discussion will be held to advance this agenda.
Economy
Govt now mulls single window clearance system for exports(Page no. 21)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
In line with the existing clearance system for imports, the government is now planning to introduce a single window clearance system for exports.
A system is in the works where web-based registration of goods, including from special economic zones, would be allowed to facilitate integration of Customs systems with other regulatory agencies to ensure faster clearances for consignments.
Currently, we still have physical process for registration on exports side, but we are actually working on a system where web-based registration of goods is possible which would mean that there’s no need for any broker or exporter to actually travel to a port to submit their documents to customs for initiating processes
You are familiar with the single window on the import side. We are trying to introduce something similar on the export side. There are export consignments that require regulatory intervention from control agencies,say drug controller, other agencies.
We are trying to integrate Customs ICEGATE with these agencies. This will further compress time taken to release export consignments.
Indian Customs Electronic Gateway (ICEGATE) is the national Customs portal of CBIC that provides e-filing services including electronic filing of the Bill of Entry (import goods declaration), Shipping Bills (export goods declaration), e-payment of Customs Duty, Common Signer utility for signing all the Customs Documents, to trade, cargo carriers and other trading partners electronically.
At present, about 43,542 users are registered with ICEGATE who are serving over 12.5 lakh importers/exporters. Customs is also trying to integrate SEZs to the ICES portal.
Johri also said that the average release time, which is measured by the time of arrival of goods to the port and their actual departure, of export cargo has been halved.
The Trade Facilitation Action Plan, which ends in 2023, has set a target of average release time of 24 hours and 12 hours for exports through sea port and airport, respectively.
There is a need for further compression in release time taken by regulatory agencies. The target is quite steep. We are very consciously working on reducing the average release time.
He also said that 80-85 per cent of the average release time of export cargo is on account of the time taken after Customs clears the consignments.
There is a need to share real time information with exporters, such as the time when the vessel is docking at port for taking the consignment, which will also help cut down on the time to release export consignments.
Rupee recovers on RBI intervention(Page no. 21)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Indian rupee recovered on suspected Reserve Bank intervention after hitting a record low of 83.29 against the dollar during the day’s session.
The rupee pared all its losses to end at 82.75, registering a gain of 27 paise over its previous close. The central bank reportedly sold around $ one billion via state-run banks after worries over surging US Treasury yields pushed the currency to a record low.
The rupee opened weak at 83.05 against the greenback but later lost ground to quote at 83.29. It also touched an intra-day high of 82.72. In the previous session, the rupee had settled at an all-time low of 83.02 against the dollar.
Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, slipped 0.17 per cent to 112.79.
US yields surged on disappointing response to a 20-year bond auction. Yields have spiked 13-14 bps across the curve with 2y at 4.57 per cent and 10-year at 4.14 per cent, both multi-year highs.
The negative credit implications of the Indian rupee’s depreciation will be limited for Moody’s-rated companies in India. Nearly half of 23 rated companies have natural hedges against rupee weakness, while another four have global operations that enable them to match foreign-currency debt service with foreign-currency cash flows, often at the subsidiary level.”
The remaining companies use financial hedges to manage their exposure to US dollar debt costs, have low exposure to rising US dollar debt costs, or have a combination of these factors to help limit the strain on cash flow and leverage.
Higher than expected inflation data in the UK and Eurozone reaffirmed fears that Central Banks will maintain their aggressive stance. Weaker than expected employment gains in Australia also showed the impact of aggressive monetary policy tightening.