27-Feb-2024

#GS2 –01. CNAP

Telecom operators should adopt calling name presentation (CNAP). This feature will offer the single most important feature that Truecaller offers—the ability to recognize a caller’s name before receiving the call. Truecaller does this by utilizing cross-referenced contact information from its user-base, while Trai’s proposal for CNAP is to display the name with which a user or a business’ number is registered with a telco.
– Commentary in News

Key Terms/Issues : CNAP

#GS4 — 02. Work-Life Balance

One of the main farmers’ unions, Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) announced it would observe ‘Quit WTO Day’. Farmers want the Union government to put pressure on developed countries at the WTO’s next meeting to keep agriculture out of the ambit of the intergovernmental body, peeved by its limits on crop price guarantees allowed for individual nations.

Government of India must Firmly defend the rights of the country to protect its farmers And ensure national food security.
– Commentary in News

#GS2 –03. Poverty

I have long argued for a higher poverty line in India, one that befits the improved status of the population. Data indicates that it should be even higher than the 68% higher PPP $ 3.2 poverty line. By this, in 2011-12,morethanhalf our population (53.6%) was poor; in 2022-23, poverty reduced to just 21% (25%in rural areas and 12% in urban areas).The aggregate decline in PPP $3.2 poverty is thus more than 30 percentage points in a short space of 11 years. This fast pace of poverty decline has never been observed in India before, and is rare in the rest of the world. More results. For the first time in Indian history, inequality has declined in both rural and urban areas. This is a very rare event even elsewhere, and points to strong redistribution under the growth policies of the Narendra Modi government. The Gini coefficient (multiplied by100) for rural India has declined from28.7 in 2011-12 to 27.0 in 2022-23;urban inequality fell sharply from 36.7 to 31.9. It is rarer still to have inequality declines in the context of strong growth. Rural real per capita consumption growth was at a3.1% annual rate over 11 years (a cumulative 40%) and per capita urban grow that 2.6% annually (a cumulative 33%). It is this strong growth and large decline in inequality that make India’s recent development so remarkably pro-poor and unusual.

– Former IMF ED Surjit Bhalla

#GS3 — 04.Women in Indian Coast Guard

If the Centre does not grant permanent commission to eligible women officers in Indian Coast Guard, then the Supreme court will do it. Women cannot be left out.

-Supreme Court

#GS3 — 05. Remittances

India’s proposal to lower the cost of cross-border remittances has found support from many World Trade Organization members including the European Union. Except for the US, most countries have favoured a work programme at the WTO for cheaper, faster and more accessible cross-border payments including remittances. Separately, Indonesia has backed New Delhi’s proposal to reinvigorate the work under the Work Programme on Electronic Commerce, which

requires structured discussion on trade-related issues over global ecommerce, taking into account the economic, financial and development needs of developing countries.

Lower transaction costs are key to reducing inequality within and among countries, especially in developing countries such as India, since the global average cost for sending remittances is 6.18%, more than twice the target to lower them below 3% under Sustainable Development Goals.

India has also proposed that the work programme examine the drivers of cost of cross-border remittances and challenges associated with reducing it, and identify the opportunities created for lowering the cost of cross-border remittances due to digitalisation and emergence of new technologies.

– Commentary in News

#GS4 –06. Corporate Governance Issues in Byju’s

In 13 years, Byju’s became market leader of the Indian edtech sector, commanding peak valuations of $22 billion two years ago. The pandemic — prompting a shift to online education — provided the wind to the edtech industry’s sails. However, expensive acquisitions, questionable business practices and misgovernance soon brought trouble for the company. The latest developments have been about ED issuing a lookout circular for the company’s founder and CEO, Byju Raveendran, over forex violations and a group of investors voting to oust him from CEO’s position.

Incidentally, Byju’s attempt of dispensing Saraswati to gain Lakshmi couldn’t sustain for long — with allegations of mis-selling, unfair trade practices, unethical accounting practices, expensive acquisitions, mishandling of user data, forex violations, toxic work environment, financial mismanagement, loan defaults and unpaid employees.

Unveiling of Byju’s not only underscores the need for governance in the unlisted startup space but also shows how this need gets accentuated when the entities are proliferating in areas that are considered as public goods or essential services, such as education, healthcare and banking

Education, healthcare and banking services are vital public services in India. Education is seen as a critical route to achieving social and economic mobility for Indian households. Families across socioeconomic strata save money or take loans to ensure their kids get a good education.

Affordable and accessible healthcare is a critical public service in a country that does not yet have universal health coverage. Most in the country are one major health calamity away from slipping into ind indebtedness. Likewise, accessible banking and financial services remain essential in India, where millions are joining the formal economy every year.

Startups in consumer products, retail, entertainment or space exploration can mushroom, experiment or fail, without having any significant socioeconomic repercussions for the masses. But when new-age businesses with innovative business models engage in essential services and fail, the loss hits harder, the pain is more widely felt, and the loss hits harder, the pain is more widely felt, and the trust deficit is graver.

Self-regulation isn’t a strong guard rail, as has been made evident by Byju’s debacle.In 2022, India’s edtech industry set up a self-regulatory body, the India EdTech Consortium. In July that year, GoI warned edtech companies against unfair trade practices, stating that it would formulate stringent guidelines if self-regulation did not work. But there is an inherent conflict in the idea of self-regulation — it is difficult to police one’s failings. Little wonder, then, that a body manned with the who’s who of the edtech industry failed to check the misgovernance happening in the sector’s leading player.