Daily Factly Articles – 26/03/2022

NITI Aayog Releases Second Edition of Export Preparedness Index 2021

What is the News?

NITI Aayog has released the Export Preparedness Index (EPI) 2021. 

What is the Export Preparedness Index (EPI) 2021?

• Released by: NITI Aayog in partnership with the Institute of Competitiveness
• Aim: To examine export readiness and export performance of the Indian States and Union Territories.
• Objective: To instil competition among all Indian states to bring about
  • a) favourable export-promotion policies, 
  • b) ease the regulatory framework to prompt subnational export promotion, 
  • c) create the necessary infrastructure for exports and 
  • d) assist in identifying strategic recommendations for improving export competitiveness. 
• Parameters: The index ranks states and UTs on 4 main pillars and 11 sub-pillars.The four pillars include –

• Policy – A comprehensive trade policy provides a strategic direction for exports and imports.
  • Business Ecosystem – It examines the business ecosystem, as an efficient business ecosystem can help attract investments and create an enabling infrastructure for businesses to grow.
  • Export Ecosystem- It aims to assess the business environment, specific to exports.
  • Export Performance – It examines the reach of export footprints of states and union territories.

Significance of the index: The index can be used by states and union territories (UTs) to benchmark their performance against their peers and analyze potential challenges to develop better policy mechanisms to foster export-led growth at the subnational level

What are the key Rankings of the index?

• States: Gujarat has retained the top position in the index, followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka.
• Union Territories: Delhi has topped the index, followed by Goa.
• The index has found that most of the ‘Coastal States’ are the best performers. 
• The top-six states in India —Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana —contribute 75% of India’s overall exports.

What are the challenges in export promotion?

The index brings out three major challenges to India’s export promotion. These are: 

• 1) Intra- and inter-regional differences in export infrastructure, 
• 2) Weak trade support and growth orientation across states and 
• 3) Lack of R&D infrastructure to promote complex and unique exports.

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3 in 1: New Bill silent on Corpn funding

What is the News?

• The central government introduced the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, in the Lok Sabha.
• The Bill seeks to merge the three municipal corporations of Delhi into a single entity. 

What is the rationale behind the bill? 

• The 2011 Trifurcation of the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi was uneven in terms of territorial divisions and revenue generating potential. As a result, there was a huge gap in the resources available to the three corporations compared to their obligations. 
• Further, the trifurcation has failed to offer efficient civic services as was expected from the more compact municipal corporation of Delhi. 
• Hence, the bill seeks to merge three Delhi MCDs. 

About Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill 

• The bill proposes to give wide-ranging powers to the central government in running the municipal body.  
• The bill contains a provision allowing the central government, “if necessary”, to appoint a person to be called “special officer“. The officer will exercise the power and discharge the functions of the municipal corporation until the date on which the first meeting of the unified body is held. 
• Bill is silent on fund allocation to the singular municipal corporation. Finance has been the bone of contention between the three municipal corporations and Delhi government for a long period.  
  • Under the current system, a part of the corporations’ finances comes from Delhi government as per the recommendations of the state finance commission.  
• The bill contends that since the trifurcation, the money gap has only widened. It blames this lack of funds for the frequent strikes by the municipal employees which have not only affected civic services, but also created concomitant problems of cleanliness and sanitisation. 
• Another proposed change is a reduction in the number of wards under the municipal corporation from 272 to 250. This makes delimitation of ward boundaries and rotation of wards for reserved seats before the next civic polls an inevitability.  
  • The bill adds that the number of seats of councillors and those reserved for Scheduled Castes in the merged body will be determined by the central government through a gazette notification. 

Why there is an opposition to the bill? 

The bill is being opposed on the following grounds: 

• The legislation to divide the singular Municipal Corporation of Delhi into three entities was cleared by Delhi assembly, and so Parliament did not have the jurisdiction to merge them. 
• As per the Indian Constitution, power to constitute municipal bodies is vested with the states. 
• The bill hasn’t suggested anything to resolve the financial crisis facing the municipal body. 
• The move to reunify the three civic bodies was a ploy to defer the scheduled MCD elections . 

What is the govt’s stance in the matter? 

• As per the Govt, Article 239AA of the Constitution gives Parliament the right to make laws for Delhi. 
•  It further stated that the trifurcation of MCD was done to improve governance in the capital, but the experience of the last decade had shown results to the contrary. 

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A good foreign policy must also make a difference at home 

What is the News?

India’s foreign policy is at the centre of debate due to ongoing geopolitical issues like the treatment of Indian students from the conflict-ridden Ukraine.  

What are the ingredients of a good foreign policy?  

• A good foreign policy does not necessarily have to sound nice. It must be able to meet the everyday needs of Indian national nationals from the outside world, like assuring our national security.  
• Foreign policy is the link to the outside world. It must pass the test like It enables us to draw what we need for everyday need, like technology or capital, best practices, or even work opportunities.  
• At Personal level: 
  • (1) For a student, it means ease of getting visas, the ability to travel during times of Covid, employment after studies, safely evacuation of the Indian nationals from the geopolitical crisis like Russia-Ukraine Conflict 2022, 
  • (2) For a businessperson, it mean access to foreign markets, receiving information about regulations and practices, and where circumstances demand it, assistance to solve problems, and 
  • (3) For the professionals and workers, it may be fair employment contracts, protection and welfare measures in times of difficulty etc. 
• For external or internal security: Diplomacy can help prevent, mitigate or solve a security problem. 
  • For example, countries can partner against common dangers, like terrorism, radicalization etc.  
• For an economy: Foreign policy can facilitate the creation of new capacities at home. It helps in obtaining capital, technology and best practices from abroad vis-à-vis information technology, auto manufacturing, food processing, metros or bullet trains, space capabilities or nuclear energy etc. For example, Japan was the pioneer in this regard during the Meiji era, while China after Deng Xiaoping.
  • Therefore, it can accelerate India’s progress, expand employment and improve your quality of life.  
• The foreign policy must be able to address big issues of like Pandemics, Terrorism, and Climate change.
• It is important that our foreign policy shape India’s image and influence the narrative prevalent worldwide about India. It matters what other nations think of India, our culture and our way of life. 
• Indian diplomacy should be able to deal with contingencies. For example, the neighbours (like China) may be unpredictable due to divergence of interests. Therefore, the policy must be able to show capabilities and deterrence.  

Objectives of India’s Foreign Policy Since 2014

There were six broad objectives that were spelt out to the policy-makers and implementers:

• One, we must bring about a change in the way of thinking about us in the world.  
• Two, we should create a partnership which is on more equal terms, and more generous with smaller countries.  
• Three, the global agenda and the big issues of our times should be shaped by India as much as possible.  
• Four, foreign relationships should be actively explored and leveraged for domestic development and progress.  
• Five, the very conceptualisation of India’s foreign policy should be guided by a people-centric approach.  
• Six, our culture, traditions and thoughts should be able to influence international debates and initiatives. For example, Yoga and Ayurveda were obvious examples in this regard. 

What is the way forward?

• India has entered into the 75th year of independence. We are going to celebrate Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.
• In this regard, we should be fully aware of the opportunities and challenges that the world currently presents.  

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India’s complex position on Islamophobia 

What is the News?

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a consensus resolution declaring March 15 to be celebrated as “International Day to Combat Islamophobia” annually.  

What is Islamophobia? 

• It refers to the fear of and prejudice, discrimination and hate speech against Islam.
• For example, Muslims claims the face negative stereotyping in Western countries has exacerbated since 9/11 terrorist attacks.  

Who Introduced the resolution and for what purpose?

• It was sponsored by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). 
• OIC wanted “high-visibility events” for curbing Islamophobia by the member states of UN. But, OIC had to withdraw this demand.
• Instead, it was decided to observe March 15 as “International Day to combat Islamophobia” in “an appropriate manner”. 

What was the stand by various countries and organizations?

India and the European Union (EU) had major difficulties with the very basis of the proposal.

India

• India wanted that the prevalence of religiophobia should be acknowledged instead of focussing on just one religion. The prevalence of ‘phobias’ are just not against Abrahamic faiths.
• These are found against non-Abrahamic faiths also like Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. For example, India has given refuge to the prosecuted members of Zoroastrians, Jews and Buddhists (Dalai Lama and his followers). India did “condemn” Islamophobia along with all other religiophobia.
• India formally accepted the resolution and allowed the resolution to pass without breaking the consensus. 

EU

• Unlike India, the EU’s opposition was based on different philosophical underpinnings. The EU placed its focus on individual rights and freedoms.
• It did not focus on protection of religions per se. Thus, its emphasis was on the rights of non-believers.  

China

• China sponsored the resolution. This was despite China’s abysmal record of treating the Uighurs (its Muslims).
• However, the China’s approach to the Resolution perhaps may be a result of a quid pro quo 

What is the way forward?

Focus on a single religion may lead to divisiveness based on “religious camps” in UN. 

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Forging a social contract for data

What is the News?

In February 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) released the Data India Data Accessibility and Use Policy 2022 (or Draft Policy) for public consultation.  

What are the aims of the draft policy? 

• It will help in overcoming a number of historical bottlenecks:
  • (1) slow progress on the Open Government Data (OGD) platform,
  • (2) fragmentation of data sets into departmental silos,
  • (3) lack of data quality standards, licensing, and valuation frameworks to support data-sharing etc. 
• It can help in informed decision-making, improvement in citizen-centric delivery of public services, and economy-wide digital innovation. 

What are the issues with the draft policy?

• The Draft Policy is silent on the norms, rules, and mechanisms that are required to achieve the objectives. 
• The draft policy allows transparency only in case of access to the non-personal data sets of the public data.
  • It may lead to privacy or risk of data misuse due to transparency-accountability considerations, as some citizen data sets generated during service delivery also contain personal identifiers.
• The anonymisation standards put on the personal data sets are insufficient safeguards against privacy risks.  
• India has no personal data protection law. It makes it problematic to process the dataset. 
• The government agencies treat themselves as ‘owners’ of the public data under The National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP). There is a lack of a data trusteeship framework.
  • Therefore, NDSAP gives government agencies unilateral privileges to determine the terms of data licensing.  
• The draft does not allow data-sharing from both public and private sector actors across various sectors.
  • In fact, the private sector holds the most valuable data resources which can help in socioeconomic innovation. 
• The laws and regulations related to competition are inadequate for the platform economy in India.  

What is the way forward? 

We need a new social contract for data whereby the government is the custodian or trustee. It would act as a fiduciary to promote data use for public good. It was also recommended by the 2020 Report of the MEITY Committee of Experts on non-personal data governance. 

• Democratisation of data value should be ensured through accountable institutional mechanisms for data governance. 
• Voluntary data-sharing should be promoted between the Public and Private sector. For example, The European Union has created a common and interoperable data space for such purposes.
• A data stewardship model can also be promoted. It refers to the use of high-value data sets. It was proposed by the MEITY’s Committee of Experts in their Report on Non-Personal Data Governance (2020).
  • In this, a government/not-for-profit organisation should be allowed to request the Non-Personal Data Authority or NPDA for the creation of a high-value data sets.
• There should be mandatory public access to private data in exceptional cases such as public emergencies. For instance, it has been suggested in EU’s proposed Data Act (2022).

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Heartening milestone: On India’s overseas shipping record

What is the News?

Govt has announced that India’s merchandise exports have already surpassed the target set for this fiscal year, with overseas shipments crossing a record $400 billion mark by March 21. 

Why is this news significant? 

• This news assumes importance esp in light of the last fiscal’s pandemic-induced slump in global demand. 
• Also, the fact that the export growth has been achieved against the backdrop of persistent logistical challenges, including container shortages and port congestion, is laudable. It further reflects the concerted effort made by the government in coordination with industry and the country’s overseas missions. 

Which sectors have performed well? 

• Petroleum products were the standout performer as the global surge in oil prices lifted the dollar value of overseas shipments of goods produced at India’s refineries by 150% over the first 11 months of the fiscal. 
• Key value-added sectors of engineering goods and apparel and garments have also done well this year. 

What are some challenges that need to be addressed? 

• Multiple challenges persist on the trade front. 
• Inc in trade deficit: Imports have outpaced exports this year, almost doubling the trade deficit in the April-February period to more than $175 billion. The gap is wider than the pre-pandemic year of 2019-2020 as well and points to the pressing need to step up the pace of export growth. 
• Lack of purchase of capital goods: Project goods were the only item of import, among the 30 broad categories listed by the Ministry that contracted over the 11-month period. The lack of overseas purchases of capital goods for new projects is a clear indicator that private Indian businesses are still not making fresh investments given the lack of momentum in personal consumption.
• War in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia is now posing fresh problems for exporters seeking to ship goods to not only these countries but other markets in Europe as well. 

Project goods are the input materials required in the construction of civil and private infrastructure projects. The import of project goods may act as a barometer for the pace of infrastructure creation, both public and private, in the country.

India is a net importer of such goods and, historically, has had a higher inflow during periods of growing infrastructure activities.

What is the way forward? 

• Commerce and Industry Minister made a reference to the role played by India’s embassies and envoys in exploring new opportunities for Indian products. If the current momentum in exports is to be sustained in the coming years, the diplomatic corps will need to enlarge their role in trade promotion.
• Policymakers must go beyond stopgap measures such as enabling rupee-rouble trade. They need to expedite ongoing negotiations on  free trade agreements so as to at least help lower some of the tariff walls.

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Explained: Calcutta HC orders CBI probe into Bogtui killings, here’s how the agency investigates

What is the News?

The Calcutta High Court has ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the killings in West Bengal’s Birbhum district, where eight persons were burnt alive.

How does the CBI take up cases?

• Unlike the National Investigation Agency(NIA), CBI cannot take suo motu cognizance of a case in a state — whether in a matter of corruption involving government officials of the Centre and PSU staff or an incident of violent crime.
• In order to take up corruption cases involving central government staff, it either needs general consent of the state government or specific consent on a case-to-case basis. 
• For all other cases, whether involving corruption in the state government or an incident of crime, the state has to request an investigation by the CBI, and the Centre has to agree to the same.
• In case the state does not make such a request, the CBI can take over a case based on the orders of the High Court concerned or the Supreme Court.

Can the CBI decline to take up a case for investigation?

After a state makes a request for an inquiry by the CBI, the Centre seeks the opinion of the agency. 

• If the CBI feels that it is not worthwhile to spend time and energy on the case, it may decline to take it up.
• In the past, the CBI has refused to take over cases citing a lack of enough personnel to investigate and saying it is overburdened.

What is the role of state consent in an investigation by the CBI?

• Since 2015, as many as nine states — Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Mizoram and Meghalaya — have withdrawn general consent to the CBI. 
• Withdrawal of general consent means that to probe any case in these states, CBI would have to take prior permission from the state government. CBI has claimed that this has tied its hands.
• In 2021, the Supreme Court expressed concern over CBI’s submission that 78% of its 150 requests for sanction to investigate cases were pending with state governments that had withdrawn consent to the CBI.

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Explained: Targeting big tech, what EU’s landmark Digital Act aims to achieve

What is the News?

The European Union (EU) has finalized details of its Digital Markets Act(DMA).

What is the aim of the Digital Markets Act(DMA)?

The DMA defines clear rules for large online platforms. It aims to ensure that no large online platform that acts as a ‘gatekeeper’ for a large number of users abuses its position to the detriment of companies wishing to access such users.

Which platforms are considered gatekeepers?

To qualify as a gatekeeper:

• Firstly, it must either have had an annual turnover of at least €7.5 billion within the European Union (EU) in the past three years or have a market valuation of at least €75 billion
• Secondly, it must have at least 45 million monthly end-users and at least 10,000 business users established in the EU.
• Thirdly, the platform must also control one or more core platform services in at least three member states. These core platform services include marketplaces and app stores, search engines, social networking, cloud services, advertising services, voice assistants and web browsers.

Small and medium enterprises are exempt from being identified as gatekeepers.

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What are the key provisions of the Digital Markets Act(DMA)?

According to the Act, Gatekeepers will have to:

• Ensure that users have the right to unsubscribe from core platform services under similar conditions to subscription,
• Users will not be forced to use software by default when installing the OS and mentions web browsers,
• Interoperability between the basic functionalities of messaging services. This could mean that a user on WhatsApp and one on iMessage should be able to talk to each other,
• Allow app developers fair access to the supplementary functionalities of smartphones (e.g. NFC chip),
• Give sellers access to their marketing or advertising performance data on the platform,
• inform the European Commission of their acquisitions and mergers.

But the Gatekeepers cannot:

• 1) Rank their own products or services higher than those of others (self-preferencing), 
• 2) Reuse private data collected during a service for the purposes of another service, 
• 3) Establish unfair conditions for business users, 
• 4) Pre-install certain software applications require app developers to use certain services (e.g. payment systems or identity providers) in order to be listed in app stores.

What if a gatekeeper does not comply with the rules?

• If a gatekeeper violates the rules laid down in the legislation, it risks a fine of up to 10% of its total worldwide turnover. For a repeat offence, a fine of up to 20% of its worldwide turnover may be imposed.
• If a gatekeeper systematically fails to comply with the DMA, i.e. it violates the rules at least three times in eight years, the European Commission can open a market investigation and, if necessary, impose behavioural or structural remedies.

What is the significance of the DMA Act?

The Act could dramatically change the way big tech firms such as Apple, Google, Meta, and Amazon operate in Europe and have ramifications for the rest of the world as well.

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World Water Development Report 2022: Unlocking potential of groundwater can provide water security, boost economy: UN

What is the News?

UNESCO on behalf of UN-Water has released the United Nations World Water Development Report 2022 titled “Groundwater: Making the invisible visible”

What are the key findings of the report?

• Importance of Groundwater: Groundwater accounts for 99% of liquid freshwater on Earth and is the source of one-quarter of all the water used by humans.
• Water Scarcity: An estimated four billion people live in areas that suffer from severe physical water scarcity for at least one month per year.
• Largest Groundwater User: India is the largest groundwater user globally, followed by China and Pakistan.
• Sector-wise Groundwater use: India uses 89% of the total groundwater abstracted per year for agriculture — also the highest in the world.
  • Globally, 69% of the total volume is abstracted for use in the agricultural sector, 22% for domestic uses and 9% for industrial purposes.
• Crops contributing to Groundwater Depletion: Wheat, maize, rice, sugarcane, cotton and fodder are the principal crops contributing to groundwater depletion. These crops are heavily traded, indicating highly unsustainable water footprints from intensive export. China, India, Iran, Pakistan and the US account for about 70% of the unsustainable water footprint.

What are the recommendations given by the report?

To unlock groundwater’s full potential, the report has given the following recommendations: 

• Collecting groundwater data as groundwater monitoring is often a ‘neglected area’.
• Strengthening environmental regulations for groundwater pollution.
• Reinforcing human, material and financial resources by way of increasing groundwater professionals among the staff of institutions as well as local and national governments.
• Financing and supporting groundwater departments/agencies.

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