23 July 2024, The Hindu
Economy likely to grow by 6.5% to 7% this year: Survey
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment
- The Indian economy has broadly caught up with pre-COVID growth trends, averting any permanent scarring, and is likely to grow by 6.5% to 7% this year with prospects of clocking 7%-plus growth in coming years, as per the Economic Survey for 2023-24 that also drew attention to the need to address inequality and unemployment as a policy priority.
- Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) V. Anantha Nageswaran, the lead author of the Survey put together by the Economics Division in the Department of Economic Affairs, made a pitch for the Central and State governments to let go of their myriad regulatory powers to ease the burden on businesses.
- He also prodded the corporate sector, ‘swimming in excess profits’, to take responsibility of generating productive jobs in its own ‘enlightened self-interest’.
Heat stress is more than a degree of concern
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Prelims syllabus: General issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity and Climate Change
- In recent periods, climate change and environmental degradation have significantly affected the safety and the health of workers worldwide.
- Heat stress is anticipated to affect labour efficiency and productivity, in turn reducing work hours and hindering the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) objective of promoting fair and decent employment.
- Workers, who are particularly vulnerable to climate change hazards, sometimes cannot cease working despite hazardous conditions because of financial constraints.
The issues with state-sponsored street art
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GS 1: Indian Culture – Salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and Architecture
- As India’s cities groan and roads struggle to accommodate increasing users and their needs, state-sponsored public art initiatives along the streets merit interrogation.
- Lately, commissioned artists have been adorning walls with vignettes that barely relate to these streets and local environments, such as collages of leaping dolphins, implausibly large flowers, Mickey Mouse, and romanticised stereotypes such as village women at wells.
- Hurriedly executed with industrial pigments, these paintings have begun to cover every available surface along the streets in some cities.
- They have transformed the facades of houses, schools, hospitals, government buildings, and religious institutions
How and when can a bill be defined as a money Bill?
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GS 2: Parliament and State Legislatures- structure, functioning, conduct of business, powers & privileges
- The Chief Justice of India (CJI) has agreed to list before Constitution Benches, the petitions challenging the money Bill route taken by the Centre to pass contentious laws/amendments.
- The Constitution defines certain categories of bills that deal with financial matters as money Bills and financial Bills.
- Article 110(1)(a) to (f) defines a money Bill as a bill that contains ‘only’ provisions dealing with one or more of six specific matters.
- They relate to taxation; borrowing by government; custody of consolidated fund or contingency fund and payment/withdrawal of money from such fund; appropriation out of consolidated fund; expenditure charged on consolidated fund; receipt on account of consolidated fund or public account or the audit of accounts of Union or States.
Inclusivity in corporate board rooms: comparing Europe and India
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment
- As more women enter the corporate workforce, understanding their experiences and the impact of gender diversity has become crucial.
- Scholars are examining this issue from economic, cultural, and social perspectives, investigating how gender dynamics function within traditionally male-dominated environments.
- Research increasingly focuses on how women’s involvement, particularly in leadership roles, influences organisational culture and performance.
- Analysing these changes provides insights into how gender diversity can reshape and drive progress in sectors historically not designed with women in mind, making them more accessible and inclusive for an evolving world.
‘Mental health a key driver of individual, national development’
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GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
- Acknowledging mental health as a principally impactful driver of individual and national development, the Economic Survey 2023-24 tabled by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament on Monday extensively highlights this health issue, and its significance and implications on policy recommendations for the first time.
- The Survey mentions that at an aggregate economic level, mental health disorders are associated with significant productivity losses due to absenteeism, decreased productivity, disability, increased healthcare costs, and so on.
- There is also evidence of poverty exacerbating the risk of mental health due to stressful living conditions, financial instability, and lack of opportunities for upward mobility, which contribute to heightened psychological distress, the Survey adds.
‘India has shifted to women-led development; female labour force participation rate rising’
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment.
- Observing that India is transitioning from women’s development to women-led development, the Chief Economic Advisor on July 22 said there has been a 218.8% increase in budgetary allocation for schemes for the welfare and empowerment of women even as it acknowledged that women in India face the “’motherhood penalty” with a drop in female labour force participation rate around childbearing years.
- “The share of the Gender Budget in the total Union Budget has increased to 6.5% in Financial Year 2025, the highest since the introduction of Gender Budgeting Scheme in Financial Year 2006,” the Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) said in the Economic Survey, which was tabled in Parliament.
‘Proposed EU Carbon Border Adjustment Tax is protectionist’
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Prelims syllabus: Current events of national and international importance
- Echoing the Centre’s concerns on “protectionism”, the Economic Survey has noted that the forthcoming Carbon Border Adjustment Tax (CBAT) mooted by the European Union “went against the spirit of the Paris Agreement.”
- The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), as it is called, are tariffs that will apply on energy-intensive goods imported into the European Union.
- This is to ensure that local manufacturers of iron, steel and aluminium, which consume enormous fossil fuel, aren’t at a competitive disadvantage from similar goods produced in developing countries whose industries have more permissive fossil fuel emission norms.
Cleanest pigs ever are raised to grow organs for humans
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GS 3: General awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, Robotics, Nanotechnology, bio-technology
- Wide-eyed piglets rushing to check out the visitors to their unusual barn just might represent the future of organ transplantation – and there’s no rolling around in the mud here.
- The first gene-edited pig organs ever transplanted into people came from animals born on this special research farm in the Blue Ridge mountains – behind locked gates, where entry requires washing down your vehicle, swapping your clothes for medical scrubs and stepping into tubs of disinfectant to clean your boots between each air-conditioned barn.
