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The World Bank lifted its growth forecast for India’s economy this year to 6.9%, after having downgraded it to 6.5% in October, citing resilience in economic activity despite a deteriorating external environment.
The Bank said it revised the GDP forecast considering the strong upturn in the July to September quarter of 2022-23, when it grew 6.3% despite inflationary pressures and tighter financing conditions, “driven by strong private consumption and investment”.
The government’s focus on bolstering capital expenditure also supported domestic demand in the first half of 2022-23. High frequency indicators indicate continued robust growth of domestic demand at the start of Q3 (October to December quarter.
India’s economy has been remarkably resilient to the deteriorating external environment, and strong macroeconomic fundamentals have placed it in good stead compared to other emerging market economies.
In response to a query on whether India was experiencing ‘jobless growth’, Mr. Kouame said that jobs are being created, but they are all in the informal sector.
The Bank expects the Indian economy to grow at a slightly slower 6.6% in 2023-24 as a challenging external environment and faltering global growth will affect its economic outlook through different channels.
The report said that while a one percentage point decline in growth in the United States is associated with a 0.4 percentage point decline in India’s growth, the effect is around 1.5 times larger for other emerging economies, and the result is similar for growth spillovers from the EU and China.
Dhruv Sharma, senior economist at the Bank and lead author of the report, said that a well-crafted and prudent policy response to global spillovers is helping India navigate global and domestic challenges.
The report, however, cautions about trade-offs between trying to limit the adverse impact of global spillovers on growth and the available policy space.
Curbing terror financing in Afghanistan holds the key to regional security: NSA (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
Curbing terrorism and terrorist financing in Afghanistan, and the use of trade and connectivity routes via Iran are key to regional security said India as National Security Advisor Ajit Doval chaired the first India-Central Asia meeting of NSAs and Secretaries of Security Councils in Delhi.
The daylong meeting, which was the outcome of the India-Central Asia virtual summit held in January this year, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and agreed to have security chiefs meet on a regular basis to discuss India’s “extended neighbourhood.”
The discussed the current situation in Afghanistan and its impact on the security and stability of the region, reiterating strong support for a peaceful, stable and secure Afghanistan, emphasising respect for its sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity and urging non-interference in its internal affairs.
The meeting, that focussed on the situation on Afghanistan is among a number of conversations New Delhi is having this week with various stakeholders.
In addition, New Delhi has intensified its engagement with the Taliban regime, with the head of the Indian Mission in Kabul meeting with its “Interim” Ministers last week to discuss restarting Indian projects in Afghanistan.
The joint communique emphasised the role that Chabahar Port played during the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and its “immense potential in enhancing trade and connectivity, as well as the logistics infrastructure of the Central Asian countries in the delivery of humanitarian goods to the Afghan people by international organisations.”
Prior to the fall of Kabul to Taliban, New Delhi had delivered 100,000 tonnes of wheat and medicines to Afghanistan via the sea route to Chabahar port’s Shahid Beheshti terminal that was developed by India. However, in the past year, India has used the land route via Pakistan to send humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.
The participants supported India’s proposal to include the Chabahar port within the framework of the International North-South Transport Corridor that connects Iran to Russia via Central Asia, the communique said and also noted Uzbekistan’s creation of the “Multifunctional Transport and Logistics Hub” in Termez that helped channel aid to Afghanistan.
Kangaroo court puts price on union of love (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
When Pradeep, a diploma holder, married his then girlfriend, a B.Sc. Botony graduate, it was a union of love, duly registered. In time, their families accepted the couple, both from the same Dalit community.
But opposition came from an unexpected quarter.
The Manayakarar (community head) of the Scheduled Caste village with over 200 households in Thogarapalli panchayat in Mathur held a community ‘court’ and slapped a fine of ₹25,000 on the families of the couple.
Mr. Pradeep’s case would be the beginning of the practice of the levy of ‘fines’ for falling in love by the feudal ‘kangaroo courts’ headed by Arignar, the DravidaMunnetraKazhagam (DMK) union secretary for the Bargur South constituency in the Thogarapalli panchayat.
“In our village, people have had love marriages before too. But, these penalties started with my marriage after Arignar was made the community head.
That was a huge amount. They threatened to disconnect our water and electricity connection. We were unable to fight and our families paid up ₹25,000 each.
Mr. Venkatesan’s brother’s son married within the same Dalit community in what was a ‘love-cum-arranged marriage’. The February marriage, however, was met with a similar ‘fine’ from Mr. Arignar’s assembly.
Mr. Venkatesan’s family refused to pay up. “We did nothing wrong. They did not elope. The marriage was blessed by the families, then why would we pay.
But the village adhered to the community diktat. “When we inquired, we were told that if anybody came for the funeral they would have to pay a fine of ₹10,000,” he said.
Editorial
Scenarios for the future of India, and the world (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Making predictions of the economic growth of nations — long term, annual, and quarterly — is a lucrative industry employing many economists, researchers, analysts, and commentators.
The fast growth of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) economies was forecast by economists at the turn of the millennium. The prediction had a large impact on the public imagination and on corporate investments.
Some industry leaders in the World Economic Forum (WEF) were wary. They recalled that economists in the 1980s, extrapolating the remarkable post-war performance of Japan, had predicted that the 21st century would be Japan’s century.
Few economists then had predicted the quick collapse of the Soviet Union or foresaw China’s remarkable ascent. In the next decade, Japan’s growth was limping, the Soviet Union was history, and China was the country investors were being directed to. China was the economic powerhouse in the BRICS projection: India, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa were the other four.
Whereas economists’ forecasts do not compute the effects of social conditions and domestic politics on economic policies, strategic thinkers in the Shell Oil company, using methods of “scenario planning”, had forecasted the collapse of the Soviet Union and integration of the Russian economy with the West. Shell redirected billions of dollars of investments beforehand and gained a strategic advantage over its competition.
Responding to its members’ needs, WEF commissioned a “scenario planning” exercise for the BRICs countries in 2004. WEF collaborated with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to prepare scenarios for India’s growth because CII had supported a similar exercise internally in 2000 and knew the methods of scenario planning.
The foundational discipline of scenario planning, which distinguishes it from conventional forecasting and planning, is “systems thinking”. Scenario planning does not begin with the data.
It starts with listening to diverse points of view about what is going on within a complex system at present to understand the undercurrents that will surface and disrupt predictions of economists’ models.
Intense engagement (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
German Foreign Minister AnnalenaBaerbock’s visit to India and talks with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar have set the stage for a more updated bilateral relationship.
The two sides signed an agreement on mobility and migration that boosts travel for students, researchers and investors and businesses, and the meeting was preceded by Germany’s agreement to fund renewable energy projects worth a billion Euros.
The year 2022 has seen intense high-level engagement, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi made two visits to Germany — for the India-Germany Inter-Governmental Consultations with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin and the G-7 outreach summit in Bavaria.
The leaders also met at the G-20 summit in Bali. In 2023, Mr. Scholz is expected to be in Delhi, in spring, and again in September for the G-20 summit in India.
On the multilateral stage, Ms. Baerbock, a leader of the German Alliance 90/Green party, made countering climate change an important issue where New Delhi and Berlin can cooperate at the G-20 under India’s presidency. Mr. Jaishankar spoke of the need to keep pushing for UN Security Council reform, where India and Germany have been part of the ‘G-4’ grouping since 2005.
Ms. Baerbock also walked back previous controversial comments calling for the “United Nations track” to resolve the Kashmir dispute.
The substance of the relationship will be tested in continuing differences over the war in Ukraine. Mr. Jaishankar’s line to journalists was that India’s imports of Russian oil, a national interest necessity, remain a fraction of the fossil fuels Europe continues to buy.
While this may be correct, it is also true that the European Union countries have cut all other links with Moscow, and falling fuel imports are likely to drop further once the December 5 launch of the “oil price cap” for seaborne imports kicks in.
Explainer
Europe’s concerns about the U.S. IRA (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
French President Emmanuel Macron during his two-day visit to the U.S. questioned Joe Biden about clean energy subsidies in the new Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which European countries believe are discriminatory to non-American companies. Addressing lawmakers at the Library of Congress, Mr. Macron described the IRA as “super aggressive” toward European companies. The EU has asked for a resolution of its concerns before the Act kicks in on January 1 next year.
Signed into law on August 16, the IRA is a $430 billion package of federal spending, tax breaks, credits, and levies, aimed at fighting climate change, reducing healthcare costs, and making large corporations pay their “fair share” in taxes.
The Act is a scaled-down version of Mr. Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better plan that did not get the Senate’s approval in 2021.
Besides its goal of bringing down inflation, the Act is the biggest climate action package in U.S. history — earmarking $370 billion for climate-focused funding and investments aimed at cutting emissions by around 40% below 2005 levels by 2030.
The IRA combines climate action goals with industrial policy, aiming to transition to clean energy by incentivising local manufacturing of renewable energy components. It also seeks to reduce American reliance on China for materials and components for the clean energy industry.
In order to bolster clean energy development in the U.S., the IRA provides consumer and industry-side incentives. To promote the use of electric vehicles (EV) and to secure domestic supply chains for their manufacturing, the federal tax incentive policy for EVs has been changed.
Now, only passenger EVs assembled in North America are eligible for a $7,500 tax credit incentive. Those who buy used EVs will be eligible for a $4,000 tax credit if 40% of the critical minerals used in the car batteries are extracted, processed and recycled in North America or a country having a free-trade agreement with Washington.
How is TRAI proposing to help callers identify spammers? (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) floated a consultation paper seeking comments about the potential introduction of a Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) feature.
The feature would provide an individual with information about the calling party (similar to ‘Truecaller’ and ‘Bharat Caller ID & Anti-Spam’).
The idea is to ensure that telephone subscribers are able to make an informed choice about incoming calls and curb harassment by unknown or spam callers. Comments for the consultation paper are invited until December 27.
Existing technologies present the number of the calling entity on the potential receiver’s handset. Since subscribers are not given the name and identity of the caller, they sometimes choose not to answer them believing it could be unsolicited commercial communication from unregistered telemarketers. This could lead to even genuine calls being unanswered.
Additionally, there have been rising concerns about robocalls (calls made automatically using IT-enabled systems with a pre-recorded voice), spam calls and fraudulent calls.
Truecaller’s ‘2021 Global Spam and Scam Report’ revealed that the average number of spam calls per user each month in India, stood at 16.8 while total spam volumes received by its users were in excess of 3.8 billion calls in October alone.
Smartphone users, at present, rely on in-built features or third-party apps to mark and tackle spam calls. However, as per the regulator, their reliance on crowd-sourced data may not be reliable.
Isha Suri, a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), opines that, notwithstanding the utility, it is not particularly clear how the CNAP mechanism would balance the caller’s right to remain anonymous, an essential component of the right to privacy.
Text & Context
The workings of ChatGPT, the latest natural language processing tool (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
A tool called ChatGPT was released on the internet. It created quite a stir especially among the artificial intelligence (AI) crowd because this tool ‘knew’ every topic under the sun; it could answer questions and carry on a conversation.
Experts in the AI community call this an epochal moment, stressing how powerful ChatGPT is. This tool interacts with humans in natural language and is impressive because aside from answering general queries, it has many other functions. ChatGPT has been developed by OpenAI, which is a research institute and company that focuses on developing artificial intelligence technology in a responsible and safe way.
It was founded in 2015 by a group of entrepreneurs and researchers, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Greg Brockman.
ChatGPT is much more than a chat bot. For example, you can ask it to write a program or even a simple software application. It can also do creative tasks such as writing a story.
It can explain scientific concepts and answer any question that needs factual answers. ChatGPT is what is called a Language Model, rather than a chat bot.
A language model is a software that prints out a sequence of words as output that are related to some words given as input with appropriate semantic relation; in practical terms, it means that it can perform tasks like answering questions and carrying on a conversation with humans.
It is often used in natural language processing (NLP) applications, such as speech recognition, automatic translation, and text generation.
It is also a neural network. A neural network can be thought of as a large network of computers that can fine tune its output of words based on the feedback given to it during stages of training: this training process and the technology together are called Reinforcement Learning.
News
Pendency of 5 crore court cases a matter of grave concern, says Kiren Rijiju (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday expressed concern over the number of pending court cases across the country, which he said was “inching towards five crore” and has been a “matter of grave concern”.
Mr. Rijiju said while pendency of cases is likely to come down in the Supreme Court and High Courts, the “real challenge” was in the lower courts.
The Law Minister said that the infrastructure in the lower court is the real challenge and that the Central and State governments must work together to improve it.
The Law Minister was speaking at the inaugural function of Delhi High Court’s ‘S’ Block building. The event was also attended by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud, Supreme Court judge Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Delhi High Court Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and other judges of the High Court.
The Delhi High Court itself is a whiff of fresh air in the corridors of jurisprudence. It’s a court of equity, and it’s a court of relief for citizens, even in the most difficult of the times.
CJI Chandrachud stressed that the judicial system and courtrooms must be democratic, inclusive and equally accessible, noting that their design must accommodate people from diverse backgrounds, ensuring meaningful participation.
An important component of actualising the right to access to justice is ensuring that we have adequate judicial infrastructure, including physical and digital infrastructure and personnel strength.
He said, “We must create a multitude of equitable ways for different groups -- women, Dalits, the marginalised groups, the LGBTQ+ community, persons with disabilities, the elderly and the poor -- to engage and participate in the process of adjudication in a meaningful way”.
The ‘S’ block building will have over 200 lawyers’ chambers, a judicial convention centre, an auditorium, a space for the Delhi International Arbitration Centre, administration offices and parking facilities, common meeting rooms, a cafeteria and green spaces.
India holds a discussion on security with Bangladesh (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
The India and Bangladesh Joint Working Group (JWG) concluded talks, after discussing bilateral issues including the illegal crossing of the border and measures to combat terrorism, according to a statement from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
The 18th meeting of the India-Bangladesh JWG on Security and Border Management was held on December 5 and 6. The Indian delegation was led by Piyush Goyal, Additional Secretary, MHA and the Bangladesh delegation was led by A.K. Mukhlesur Rahman, Additional Secretary, MHA, Bangladesh.
The statement added that Home Minister Amit Shah met his Bangladeshi counterpart Asaduzzaman Khan on November 18 on the sidelines of the ‘No Money For Terror’ Conference in Delhi. “Both sides had productive exchanges on border management and common security-related issues during that meeting.
Following up on the November meeting, Tuesday’s meeting highlighted the “excellent bilateral relations between the two countries and reiterated their commitment to further deepen and strengthen cooperation in security and border-related issues.”
Bilateral issues such as border fencing and developmental works within 150 yards of the international border, illegal crossing, bilateral cooperation in checking insurgency, combating terrorism, organized crimes and smuggling etc. were discussed in the meeting.
New labour codes give a free hand to employers: unions (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
International workers’ groups criticised the Centre’s labour policies, including four new labour codes, at the 17th Asia and the Pacific Regional Meeting (APRM) of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) which began in Singapore .
India’s new labour codes violate the tripartite agreements — between workers, employers and the government — and give a free hand to employers, alleged Felix Anthony, workers’ representative in the APRM and senior leaders of the International Trade Unions Confederation (ITUC). Speaking at a session of the APRM, Mr. Anthony added that trade unions in India have been opposing such policies.
The power of inspection has been left with employers through the new codes, and it will threaten the tripartite system in the country, he said, adding that the workers are asking for a new social contract.
A contract with governments and employers and particularly at the national level. A contract which is based on the availability of decent jobs for all; respect of rights for all; fair wages including minimum wage; adequate and easily available social protection; respect for equality; inclusiveness and no forms of any discrimination.
Hiro Matsui, the vice president of the International Organisation of Employers’ Asia chapter, said that declining productivity growth has a negative impact on workers, on the sustainability of enterprises — especially micro, small and medium-sized enterprises — on economies, and on communities.
Enhancing productivity will be critical to economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work. Recognising persisting skills challenges and that effective and demand-driven skills development and lifelong learning benefit governments, employers and workers by advancing and promoting employability, sustainable development, productivity growth and economic prosperity. Digital skills, core skills, entrepreneurial skills and soft skills should be better harnessed.
Business
DoT proposes not to monetise Bharatnet infrastructure (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Infrastructure)
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has proposed not to monetise rural broadband network infrastructure built under Bharatnet project and plans to replace it with alternative assets to achieve its target fixed under the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP).
According to sources, the earlier attempt to monetise the asset under Bharatnet failed to get satisfactory response from private players.
DoT under the Ministry of Communications has so far not raised any money through asset monetisation against the target of ₹20,180 crore in the current financial year.
An e-mail sent to DoT seeking comments remained unanswered.According to the NMP document, 5,25,706 kilometres of optical fibre has been laid under Bharatnet project which aims to connect all villages in the country with a high-speed broadband network.
The indicative monetisation value for Bharatnet fibre assets is considered based on a capex approach.Earlier the scope of the project was limited to 2.5 lakh panchayats, which has now been extended to village level.
In the first phase of telecom asset monetisation proposed in FY23, the NMP estimates to realise ₹20,180 crore, which includes ₹15,780 crore from Bharatnet fibre and ₹4,400 crore from mobile tower sale.
According to the document, BSNL's 13,567 mobile tower assets and MTNL's 1,350 towers have been valued at ₹8,800 crore. Both the public sector units jointly own 69,047 mobile towers.
The government has monetised assets worth ₹33,422 crore under the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) in 2022-23 so far, with the Coal Ministry leading the list by raising ₹17,000 crore, and the Ports and Shipping Ministry surpassing its overall fiscal target.
In 2021-22, the government surpassed the programme's first-year target of ₹88,000 crore by completing transactions worth ₹1 lakh crore.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in a meeting with NITI Aayog CEO Parameswaran Iyer on November 14 reviewed the progress of NMP implementation.