The Hindu Editorial Analysis In English | Free PDF Download – 13th Sept’18

Sage advice

• Next financial crisis:
• In his note to Parliament’s Estimates Committee on bank nonperforming assets (NPAs), Mr. Rajan has flagged three major sources of potential trouble:

1. Mudra credit: ₹6.37 lakh crore (7% of the total outstanding bank credit)
2. Kisan Credit Cards
3. Small Industries Development Bank of India: Credit Guarantee Scheme for MSMEs

• • Banks’ lack of resources to chase small & informal loans.

• Mr. Rajan’s advice on loan waivers: vitiating the credit culture and creating a moral hazard where farmer-borrowers assume that their loans will invariably be waived off.
• Recognition is the first step in a clean-up, and unless banks are cleaned of their non-performing loans, they cannot make fresh loans. A. Professionalising bank boards with appointments done by an independent Banks Board Bureau. B. Inducting talent from outside if required C. Banks should never be leaderless

An education that is in sync

• • GER is the ratio (expressed as percentage), of the total enrolment within a country in a specific level of education, regardless of age, to the population in the official age group corresponding to this level of education.
  • All India Survey on Higher Education: gross enrolment ratio (GER) was 25.8% in 2017-18, up from 10% in 2004-05.
  • Age group for higher education: 18 to 23 years
  • GER for higher education in India is still less than what it is in developed countries, but the rate of growth is not bad.
  • Radhakrishnan Commission Report (RCR)
  • The RCR recommended a well-balanced education with ‘general’ , ‘liberal’ and ‘occupational’ components.
  • Without all-round general (including liberal) education, one could not be expected to play roles expected of a citizen outside one’s immediate professional sphere.
  • General education and specialized/professional education should proceed together.
  • A lack of communication skills could be a handicap.
  • “The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgement should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of special knowledge. If a person masters the fundamentals of his subject and has learned to think and work independently, he will surely find his way….” -Einstein (1931)
  • Problems in a real-life setting are interdisciplinary and require an appreciation of related fields.

• National Academies Press (NAP): “The aggregate evidence reviewed by the committee shows that certain educational experiences that integrate the arts and humanities with STEM at the undergraduate level are associated with increased critical thinking abilities, higher order thinking and deeper learning, content mastery, creative problem solving, teamwork and communication skills.”
• HEIs are far from integrated.
• General education programmes are missing in most universityaffiliated science colleges.

Prison of patriarchy

• • Marriage is a career stopper for the majority of Indian women.
  • India’s female workforce participation is among the lowest in the world.
  • Economic Survey 2017-18: women comprise only 24% of the Indian workforce
  • Enrolment of girls in higher education courses is growing steadily — to 46% in 2014 from 39% in 2007, the number of women in workplaces is declining steadily.
  • Quitting work is a necessary precondition to the wedding itself.
  • The richer the family is, the lower the chances that they allow women to pursue a career.
  • In low-income families, economic pressure sometimes trumps social stigma.
  • Childbirth and taking care of elderly parents or in-laws account for the subsequent points where women drop off the employment pipeline.

• The Supreme Court has set a benchmark of 25% of a husband’s net salary as a “just and proper” amount for alimony, leaving divorced women with full custody of the children at a quarter of the family income.
• Much credit for India’s low divorce rate goes to this Stockholm syndrome-like situation of Indian marriages.

Drawing a curtain on the past

• November 25, 1949: In Constituent Assembly , Dr. B.R. Ambedkar said that the document ought to serve as a lodestar in the endeavour to make India not merely a political but also a social democracy.
• He saw liberty, equality and fraternity as principles of life, as a collective “union of trinity”. “To divorce one from the other,” he said, “is to defeat the very purpose of democracy.”
• Section 377 was Victorian notion of public morality.
• Thomas Macaulay, the law’s drafter
• The 4 separate opinions in Navtej Singh Johar, written respectively by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices R.F. Nariman, D.Y. Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra, collectively espouse an interpretive model that gives to India’s history its full consideration.

 Uganda’s new hope

• Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has been apotheosised among African leaders by comparisons to Nelson Mandela or by labels such as “beacon of hope”.
• Bobi Wine and several other MPs had been arrested and apparently illtreated in custody.
• Now a new generation of young Ugandans are united by the growing preponderance of social media, platforms that enable fierce debates over burning issues in national, not only local, politics.

Important News

 Cabinet clears new procurement policy

• The Centre has announced a ₹15,053 crore scheme to ensure that farmers growing oilseeds, pulses and copra actually get the minimum support price (MSP) they are promised for their crops every year.
• The umbrella policy — Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyan (PM-AASHA) — was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday.
• Apart from the ₹15,053 crore to be spent over a two-year period to implement the scheme, the Cabinet approved an additional government credit guarantee of ₹16,550 crore for agencies undertaking procurement. “The government is working with a holistic approach… Increasing MSP is not adequate and it is more important that farmers get the full benefit of the announced MSP,” said the statement.
• The government announces minimum support prices for 23 crops every year. This year, these rates were set at 50% higher than the farmers’ production costs, including that for labour.
• However, most of the 21 other crops are sold at market prices, often below the MSP, as the government’s procurement operations are temporary.
• The Price Deficiency Payment Scheme is modelled on the Bhavantar experiment in Madhya Pradesh last year, where there is no physical procurement at all. Instead, farmers will sell their produce in the market, and the government will directly pay them the difference between the MSP and the average market rate.

Row as Mallya says he met Arun Jaitley

‘No Band-Aid fix for fuel prices’

• Under attack from the Opposition over rising fuel prices, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal asserted that the government would not allow itself to react in a “kneejerk” manner on the issue as any move made in haste could potentially end up harming the economy by pushing up inflation and worsening the fiscal deficit.

Deal kosher, IAF needs Rafale jets badly: Dhanoa

• Says government-to-government procurements were done earlier too; sounds an alarm over the Air Force’s depleting combat edge

Centre hikes ethanol prices

• The Centre has hiked ethanol prices, with a special incentive for ethanol directly produced from 100% sugarcane juice, in a dual bid to reduce both surplus sugar production and the fuel import bill. The ethanol produced from sugar is blended with petrol.

 Financial News

Download Free PDF – Daily Hindu Editorial Analysis

Sharing is caring!