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Govt & Politics
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the website for Mera Yuva Bharat (MY Bharat), a new autonomous body for youth and youth-led development, would be launched soon and appealed to young Indians to sign up for various programs through it.
Speaking during his monthly radio address, Mann Ki Baat, the Prime Minister said the new national organisation would be launched on October 31, the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
Recalling the contribution of Patel in integrating princely states, Modi said October 31 was a special day. He said the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations of 75 years of Independence would culminate on October 31 with soil collected from across the country being placed in “Amrit Vatika” in Delhi.
He also paid tribute to late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated on October 31, 1984.
Editorial
111 tales to inspire (Page no. 8)
(Miscellaneous)
Indian athletes continue to back the country’s Olympic-size dreams. Close on the heels of a record-setting performance at the Asian Games and the strong pitch to host the 2036 Summer Games, India’s para-athletes dazzled with the country’s best-ever showing at the continental event.
In an encore of historical magnitude at Hangzhou, India finished with 111 medals — 29 gold, 31 silver and 51 bronze — at the Asian Para Games.
The medal count may be a fraction of China’s tally of 521, but the back-to-back hundreds at Hangzhou — India’s count at Asian Games was 107 medals — spoke of a sporting ecosystem that wasn’t just consistent in producing champion athletes but was inclusive too.
The Asian Para rich haul is also a hat-tip to the parents, coaches and administrators who spotted and nurtured the sporting passion in the hearts and minds of children with physical disabilities. Hangzhou gave India 111 inspirational tales.
Ideas Page
Policy to what end, at whose cost (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Given that a number of state elections are coming up, one can understand the central government’s overdrive to tame food inflation.
Obviously, it does not want inflation to be an issue in election campaigns. But how we tame food inflation, and at whose cost, is important to analyse for rational policy making.
The classic case is limiting the exports of basmati rice by putting a minimum export price (MEP) of $1,200/tonne. India has been exporting, on an average, about 4.5 million tonnes (MT) a year over the last five years or so.
This is a premium rice consumed by the upper middle class and the rich in India, and is exported to Gulf countries, some European countries and also the US. Punjab and Haryana are the primary producers.
The export price normally hovers between $800 to $1,000/tonne. By putting an MEP of $1,200, practically, much of the basmati export is restricted.
And if this MEP continues, in all likelihood, India’s basmati exports this year will register a sharp fall.
Govt & Politics
India’s first dist level study on hypertension flags disparities in care (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
In Karnataka, four districts — Chikmagalur, Shimoga, Udupi and Chitradurga — have a similar prevalence of hypertension, but the proportion of participants diagnosed and treated in Chikmagalur and Udupi was higher.
In Meghalaya, the five districts of Garo Hills, the two districts of Jaintia Hills and the three districts of Khasi Hills all have a similar prevalence of hypertension, but the proportion of those diagnosed is much lower in Garo Hills than in Jaintia Hills and Khasi Hills.
These are among the key findings of an exhaustive study that has, for the first time, mapped and assessed the variation in hypertension care at the district level in India, highlighting the urgent need for a more “targeted” approach to fight the medical condition often referred to as the “silent killer”.
According to a recent WHO report, 188.3 million people in India suffer from hypertension but only 37% get diagnosed, only 30% start treatment, and only 15% manage to keep their blood pressure under control.
It estimated that at least 4.6 million deaths in India can be prevented by 2040 if half of those with the condition manage to keep their blood pressure under control.
World
Prachanda invites UN to play a role in Nepal peace process (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ Sunday met UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and invited the world body to play a role in concluding Nepal’s peace and transitional justice process, a move that will likely fuel debate in the country’s political circles.
Guterres, in Kathmandu for a four-day visit, pledged the UN’s support but laid clear conditions — that the process must be in accordance with international standards and verdicts of the Nepal Supreme Court, and fulfill basic needs of the victims of the decade-long conflict involving Maoists that killed 17,000 people.
Guterres’ conditions came after Prachanda had lobbied at home and internationally for securing general amnesty for himself and Maoist combatants for human right violations. About six weeks ago, a draft bill was scuttled by a House committee that opposed the blanket amnesty.
The United Mission to Nepal, a special office of the UN, was created after the peace accord was signed in 2006 by the then Nepal government and the Maoists.
Its objective was to oversee weapons of the Maoists and the country’s army. However, it departed in 2011 after triggering controversy over its confrontation with the regular UN system, and alleged bias and overstepping of mandate. The Prime Minister’s invitation to the UN, therefore, is not likely to go down well in the country.
Economy
In higher income tax slabs, better compliance and upward mobility (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The latest income tax returns statistics for assessment years 2019-20 to 2021-22 released by the Income Tax Department show wider compliance and a shift in taxpayers towards higher-income slabs from lower-income slabs.
However, there are still a significant number of taxpayers who have been brought under the tax net but do not file tax returns, a reason for concern among policymakers.
Even as a total of 6.75 crore taxpayers filed income tax returns in assessment year 2021-22 (financial year 2020-21), a rise of 5.6 per cent from 6.39 crore taxpayers in the previous year, additionally around 2.1 crore taxpayers paid taxes but did not file returns.
Opposition leaders had pointed out the widening gap between the ultra-rich and the middle class based on ITR data. Subsequently, the tax department issued a detailed statement stating that returns filed by individual taxpayers increased by 90 per cent over the nine-year period of Assessment Year 2021-22 (financial year 2020-21) to AY 2013-14.
The tax department called it as an indication of the widening of tax base due to measures taken, adding that there is a “robust growth in the gross total income of individuals across different income groups”.
Explained
China model India didn’t follow (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
In 1954, the Saint Lucian economist William Arthur Lewis wrote on the enormous industrialisation possibilities for underdeveloped countries having an unlimited supply of labour available at subsistence wages.
The marginal productivity of such labour, engaged in sectors such agriculture, was “negligible, zero, or even negative”: Their withdrawal from farms would, far from reducing agricultural output, make the existing holdings more viable and amenable to productivity-enhancing mechanisation.
Lewis’ influential essay (‘Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour’) argued that an expanding manufacturing (“capitalist”) sector could absorb much of the surplus labour in agriculture and other “subsistence” sectors.
All it had to do was pay wages just high enough to make men leave the family farm. So long as the higher subsistence wage levels matched the value of the additional output that was produced, the factories would keep hiring workers. In this situation, “new industries can be created, or old industries expanded, without limit”.
Idea exchange
Hosting olympics is not about just two weeks, it’s about a higher level of achievement (Page no. 15)
(Miscellaneous)
IOC Athletes Commission member Abhinav Bindra on what hosting the Olympics could mean for India, engaging with the younger demographic, grooming talent through robust organisations and the growing self-belief of Indian athletes. The session was moderated by Senior Assistant Editor Mihir Vasavda.
This IOC session was one of the best organised and credit goes to Mrs (Nita) Ambani, chairperson, Reliance Foundation, that it was flawless in every respect.
What it has managed to achieve is to showcase our potential not just in sport but the overall development that’s happening in the country.
It’s both in the interest of the IOC and our country to engage with the Olympic movement. First, from the IOC’s side, it is an opportunity to engage with the world’s largest and youngest population.
It is a market, a country where the IOC has been trying for many years to really make its presence felt in a meaningful way. The wheels are slowly starting to turn there.