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In the run-up to the Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland Assembly elections this month, the State Bank of India sold electoral bonds worth Rs 308.76 crore in January, with about 30 per cent of sales at the Kolkata branch and over 60 per cent of the total value redeemed at the New Delhi branch, according to data obtained by The Indian Express under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
Responding Wednesday to an RTI query, SBI stated that the sale of electoral bonds took place at eight branches, out of the 29 authorised under the scheme, during the 25th tranche from January 19-28 this year.
A total of 437 bonds were sold, including 300 of Rs 1 crore each, the highest available denomination. The Kolkata branch had the highest sales, with Rs 98.50 crore.
The Mumbai branch, which has seen the most sales since the start of the scheme in 2018, was second with Rs 60.20 crore.A total of 437 bonds were sold, including 300 of Rs 1 crore each, the highest available denomination.
This time, the sale amount was less than half the total value sold during the Gujarat Assembly election campaign in November 2022 (RsNagaland Assembly Election 2018, 676.2 crore), as per the reply.
When it came to encashing, 429 bonds were redeemed at six branches — all but Rs 26,000 of the total value was encashed. The New Delhi branch remained the top choice with Rs 193.71 crore encashed at the SBI branch on Parliament Street. The Kolkata branch saw Rs 80.50 crore being encashed in the 25th tranche.
As per the reply, out of the total electoral bonds sold so far, worth Rs 12,008.59 crore, Mumbai accounted for Rs 3,225.77 crore while New Delhi saw the most encashed (Rs 7,797.04 crore out of Rs 11,984.91 crore).
Big infrastructure push for villages on border; 7 new ITBP battalions (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
In a concerted push to upgrade infrastructure along the country’s northern border amid the ongoing standoff with China, the Union Cabinet approved the allocation of Rs 4,800 crore for the Centre’s Vibrant Villages Programme even as the Cabinet Committee on Security approved the induction of over 9,000 troops in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).
The Centrally sponsored village scheme will cover the border areas of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Ladakh, Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said. Out of the total outlay, Rs 2,500 crore will be spent on the creation of road infrastructure in these areas.
Taking to Twitter later, Union Home Minister Amit Shah wrote: “For the first time a government is working in such committed way for the development of border areas and to uplift the standard of living of people there.
The Cabinet approved Vibrant Village Programme will transform 663 border villages which will stop migration and strengthen border security.
The ITBP decision, meanwhile, will entail the raising of seven new battalions and a new sector headquarters. With ITBP being the first line of defence on the China border, sources said this will strengthen the security grid on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). It will also provide a window for the ITBP to rest, recuperate and train its personnel.
“This was a long-pending proposal from the ITBP, and has been there since 2013-14. Initially, it was envisaged to raise 12 new battalions, but that has now been decreased to seven battalions.
This is in conjunction with the decision to increase the number of border outposts and staging camps along the LAC,” said a Home Ministry official.
Govt & Politics
Cabinet to set up 2L credit units, co-ops in 5 years (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Centre has cleared a plan for setting up 2 lakh Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS), dairy, and fisheries cooperatives in the country in the next five years.
A decision to this effect was taken during the meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday.
The plan, mooted by the Ministry of Cooperation, is aimed at “strengthening cooperative movement in the country and deepening its reach up to the grassroots”.
The Cabinet also approved the constitution of a “high level Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC)” headed by Minister of Home and Cooperation Amit Shah to oversee the rollout of the plan.
According to an official statement, the Cooperation Ministry formulated a plan to establish viable PACS, dairy and fishery cooperatives in villages, and strengthen the existing ones through convergence of various schemes of the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying by leveraging the ‘whole-of-government’ approach.
“Initially, 2 lakh PACS, dairy, fishery cooperatives will be established in the next five years. The action plan for implementation of the project shall be prepared by NABARD, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and National Fishery Development Board (NFDB),” the statement said.
As per the statement, four schemes have been identified for convergence to enable formation of 2 lakh PACS, dairy and fishery cooperatives. These four schemes are—National Programme for Dairy Development (NPDD), and Dairy Processing &Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF) under the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying; and Pradhan Mantri MatsyaSampada Yojana (PMMSY), and Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development (FIDF) under the Department of Fisheries.
First G20 culture group meet in Khajuraho next week (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 1, Art and Culture)
The first G20 Culture Working Group (CWG) meet, to be held in Khajuraho next week, will be themed around the protection and restitution of cultural property. More than 125 delegates will attend the meeting.
Keeping with this, an exhibition of artefacts that have been repatriated to India in recent years from various countries is being organised on the sidelines.
‘Re(ad)dress: Return of Treasures’ will comprise a four-day exhibition of 25 artefacts that have returned to India, after having been stolen from India and smuggled abroad, said Union Culture Secretary Govind Mohan in New Delhi.
Through the exhibition, India will not only present the story of these 25 repatriated objects, and their cultural biographies, but also create awareness about restitution laws and conventions, and highlight successful case studies.
The story of these objects will be narrated through the Parrot Lady, an 800-year-old sandstone sculpture, which was looted from a Khajuraho temple, but was returned by Canada to India in 2015.
The objective is to achieve a significant reduction in illicit trafficking of cultural property by 2030, strengthen regulation of online trading platforms and social media, and raise awareness among the general public through educational and social media campaigns.
The G20 cultural track will focus on four themes – Protection and Restitution of Cultural Property; Harnessing Living Heritage for a Sustainable Future; Promotion of Cultural and Creative Industries, and Creative Economy; and Leveraging Digital Technologies for Protection and Promotion of Culture. These will be discussed over the four G20 Culture Working group meetings in Khajuraho, Bhubaneshwar and Hampi, while the fourth location is yet to be decided.
Express network
India to spend 75% of defence capital on procurement from local industries: Rajnath (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
In a boost to the government’s plans to achieve greater self reliance in defence, India will spend 75 per cent of its defence capital in 2023-24 on procurement from the domestic industry, up from 68 per cent in 2022-23.
The announcement was made at the Bandhan ceremony on the sidelines of the five-day Aero India, 2023. As many as 266 partnerships were forged during the event, including 201 MoUs, 53 major announcements, nine product launches and three Transfers of Technology, worth around Rs 80,000 crore, the Defence Ministry said.
The overall Defence budget earmarked for 2023-24 is Rs 5.94 lakh crore, including pensions of Rs 1.38 lakh crore, up by 12.9 per cent from Rs 5.25 lakh crore allocated in the previous (2022-23) fiscal. This is 13.18 per cent of the total Budget outlay of Rs 45,03,097 crore.
Of this, the capital outlay has been earmarked at Rs1.63 lakh crore.In 2021-22, the Defence Ministry had earmarked 64 per cent of its budget towards procurements from indigenous sources.
But, with a large number of indigenous procurements towards the end of the financial year, the government exceeded the 64 per cent target and spent 68 per cent of the budget on domestic procurements.
The ministry subsequently in 2022-23 earmarked 68 per cent of its capital outlay for indigenous sources.It is immediately not known what percentage of this target has been spent on domestic procurements so far.
Explained
Action against the BBC: What is an IT survey ,how it differs from search (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Government Policies and Interventions)
The Income Tax (I-T) Department conducted surveys at the premises of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in Delhi and Mumbai. What is an I-T “survey” and how is it different from a raid?
The surveys at the BBC’s offices are being carried out under various provisions of the I-T Act, 1961, such as Section 133A, which gives the I-T Department the power to carry out “surveys” to collect hidden information. The provision for surveys was incorporated into the Act through an amendment carried out in 1964.
Section 133A allows an authorised officer to enter any place of business or profession or charitable activity within their jurisdiction to verify the books of account or other documents, cash, stock, or other valuable article or thing, which may be useful for or relevant to any proceeding under the Act.
An I-T authority may, during the survey, make an inventory of any cash, stock, or other valuables; it may record the statements of anyone, or place marks of identification on the books and documents, or take their extracts or copies.
The I-T authority may also “impound and retain any books of account or other documents after recording reasons for doing so”.
However, to retain such books for more than 15 days (excluding holidays), prior approval of a senior officer, including the Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner or Principal Director General or Director General or Principal Commissioner or Commissioner, must be obtained.
The provisions for impounding or seizing the goods were introduced only by the Finance Act, 2002.
Ring found beyond dwarf planet’s Roche limit: why this matters (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Space)
Astronomers have found a ring around a dwarf planet, located in the Kuiper Belt at the solar system’s edge, called Quaoar, according to a new study. The ring, however, is positioned much further away from the planet than is usual and defies theoretical explanations.
Published in the journal Nature, the study, ‘A dense ring of the trans-Neptunian object Quaoar outside its Roche limit’, has been done by Bruno Morgado of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Bruno Sicardy of the Paris Observatory, and others.
Speaking to the media, Morgado described the findings as “very strange”, saying they might force astronomers to rethink the laws governing planetary rings.
According to the study, the ring lies far away from the Roche limit — a mathematically determined distance beyond which rings aren’t supposed to exist.
With an estimated radius of 555 km, Quaoar is roughly half the size of Pluto and orbits beyond Neptune. It also has a moon of its own, which is known as Weywot.
As the dwarf planet is too small and too distant to be observed directly, the researchers detected the ring with the help of a phenomenon called stellar occultation.
A stellar occultation occurs when, as seen from Earth, a bright star passes behind a planet. This allows astronomers or anybody on Earth to observe the sharp silhouette of the planet for a brief period of time.
The phenomenon, which rarely occurs, is used by researchers to analyse a planet’s atmosphere and determine if it has a ring around it — in 1977, scientists discovered the Uranian ring system with the help of stellar occultation.
Editorial
The price pinch (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Inflation is proving to be the Achilles heel of the Indian economy’s recovery from the pandemic and subsequent global disruptions. After softening for three consecutive months, it spiked again in January.
The RBI has been playing the part of an inflation targeting central bank over the last few months, raising interest rates in an attempt to rein in inflation.
However, the fight to bring down inflation is clearly far from over. The latest inflation data also raises the question if the RBI is doing enough.
The inflation targeting framework mandates the RBI to achieve a CPI (consumer price index) inflation target of 4 per cent. During the pandemic period of March 2020 to September 2021, CPI inflation averaged 5.9 per cent.
This was higher than the point target of 4 per cent but still within the inflation targeting band of 2-6 per cent. Since then, however, the inflation outlook has been worsening.
In 2022, CPI inflation was above the upper threshold of the RBI’s targeting band for 10 consecutive months, which meant the target was not achieved for three quarters in a row. Inflation began softening towards the later part of the year.
By December 2022, CPI inflation was down to 5.7 per cent. This led many to believe that the inflation peak had passed, and that inflation was on its way to the official target.
This optimism was misplaced. Underlying inflationary pressures still persist. The softening of inflation in November and December 2022 was largely driven by a steep fall in vegetable prices. Excluding vegetables, CPI inflation was in fact more than 7 per cent. The misplaced optimism has now become evident.
The January 2023 CPI inflation came out to be 6.5 per cent, once again crossing the upper threshold of the RBI’s inflation targeting band.
Ideas Page
Start up and Scale up (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
By agreeing to India’s proposal to create the Startup20 Engagement Group — the only new group — the Group of Twenty has turned itself into an ambidextrous institution, one where both large corporations and startups have an equal voice in taking the economies forward.
In the new architecture, while the existing B20 Engagement Group continues its focus on corporations, the Startup20 takes on the policy issues concerning the global startup ecosystem, with the necessary linkages between the two groups.
The proposition is simple: Just as nature has designed the animal kingdom such that animals who wish to exploit their full capability must develop both sets of limbs, can we design economies with the capability to exploit both the stability and scale of large corporations and the agility and innovativeness of smaller startups?
It may be interesting to note that contemporary cultures have lost the emphasis on developing ambidexterity in individuals, which was once present when wars were fought between armies.
For example, the ancient Greeks systematically developed ambidexterity in warriors by teaching them to be as proficient in fighting with their non-dominant limb as the dominant one.
A measure of how deeply they must have believed in developing ambidexterity is evident from their language Boustrophedon, where the script read from right-to-left, and right-to-left on alternate lines.
There is a similar emphasis in the Mahabharat. Arjun carries the epithet Savyasachi — one who is an equally capable archer with both arms, or simply, ambidextrous. In the present day and age, it is the arts and sports that contribute to developing ambidexterity.
In contemporary business literature, there is an active debate about ambidexterity, albeit limited to the capability of a single firm to simultaneously exploit what it is good at and explore new opportunities, despite limited resources. In contrast, the G20’s move to create Startup20 raises this argument to the level of nations, and collectively, the world.
Flying high (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
On February 18, 1911, a 23-year-old Frenchman, Henri Pequet, flew the first official airmail flight over the Yamuna River. This 10-kilometre flight between Prayagraj (then Allahabad) and Naini was a part of the Industrial and Agricultural Exhibition and started India’s unique tryst with commercial aviation.
Today, India is the third largest domestic civil aviation market in the world after China and the US. Domestic passengers more than doubled from 60 million in 2014 to 143 million in 2020, prior to Covid-19.
There has also been a significant increase in international air passengers — from 23 million to 35 million. Flying is no longer looked upon as an elitist luxury but a necessary service.
India’s civil aviation sector has not only democratised air travel by adding crores of first-time fliers but it has also provided employment opportunities for engineers, trained technicians and airline service staff.
Many private airlines have attempted to attract India’s large middle class into becoming commercial air travellers by offering no-frills, cost-effective services.
Central to this strategy was to make flight operations to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities commercially viable. To accelerate this, in 2017, the Government of India approved a budget of Rs 4,500 crore for the revival of existing unserved and underserved airports and airstrips through the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS).
Since then, UDAN — UdeDesh ka Aam Nagrik — has expedited connectivity to non-metros. Left to private enterprise alone, connectivity to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities in India would have taken a very long time.
Economy
SBI, Union Bank, Bank of Baroda raise MCLR by up to 25 bps (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Following a hike in the repo rate by the Reserve Bank last week, some of the lenders including State Bank of India (SBI) and Union Bank of India have raised their marginal cost of fund-based lending rate (MCLR) by up to 25 basis points, which will result in a higher equated monthly installment (EMI) for borrowers.
The country’s largest lender SBI also hiked the interest rates on domestic retail term deposits below Rs 2 crore by up to 25 bps on certain maturity buckets, effective February 15.
In its February 8 monetary policy review, the RBI raised the repo rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 6.5 per cent, taking the cumulative increase in the key rate by 250 bps since May 2022.
SBI has increased its MCLR by 10 bps across all tenors, effective February 15, 2023.The overnight MCLR has been hiked by 10 bps to 7.95 per cent.
The bank is offering MCLR of 8.1 per cent each on one-month and six-month loans, compared to 8 per cent earlier on both the tenors.
The lender has raised the one-year MCLR to 8.5 per cent from 8.4 earlier. The two-year and three-year MCLRs have been revised to 8.6 per cent and 8.7 per cent respectively.
On the deposit front, SBI is offering an interest rate of 6.8 per cent on deposits maturing between one-year and less than two years, as against 6.75 per cent earlier.