www.afeias.com IMPORTANTNEWSCLIPPINGS(28‐june‐19) 1Date:28-06-19 Beyond tariffs Indo ‐ US partnership’s full potential remains untapped, mutual tradeoffs will be worthwhile TOI Editorials Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend two informal meetings on the sidelines of the ongoing G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. He will host the Russia, India, China group meeting. Separately, he will participate in a meeting of the Japan, America, India group. These independent meetings encapsulate the delicate balancing act India is currently carrying out in a world where developments are increasingly influenced by big power rivalry. India’s challenge is to safeguard its strategic interests in this setting. US secretary of state Michael Pompeo this week in New Delhi made a case for a tighter trade and defence relationship between the two countries. On trade and investment, US is already India’s largest partner. In defence, ties have been on the upswing. On the heels of the purchase of heavy‐lift helicopters by India, the US military for the first time will participate in a tri‐service exercise with Indian defence forces this year. In this upbeat backdrop, a tweet by US President Donald Trump yesterday showed why this is a tricky moment in the bilateral relationship. He complained about India’s “high tariffs” and promised to take it up with Modi in Osaka. India, as a member of WTO, harmonises its tariffs and relevant laws with its international obligations. However, this hasn’t been enough for Trump. Increasingly, there are bilateral attempts to bring changes in India’s structure that synchronise with American interests. This is clearly not possible. Therefore, the way out for both sides is to negotiate and arrive at positions which are mutually acceptable. As Pompeo pointed out, neither country will get everything they want. Both sides have to make tradeoffs. Since tradeoffs are a foregone conclusion, the question is the framework within which these should be made. External affairs minister S Jaishankar said that points of friction between the two sides will be discussed in the framework of the big picture. The big picture, as Pompeo observed, is that the two countries share both common interests and values. This is the right framework to help resolve differences. In areas such as flow of data, both sides have common interests. Privacy, for instance, is where there can largely be convergence even while India upholds its legitimate interests. On issues pertaining to Indo‐Pacific, the countries have compatible aims. However, on the Indo‐Russian missile deal there can be no compromise. Indo‐US partnership is one for the long‐term. That’s why US now needs to be more accommodating.
Microsoft Word - 28-06-19-newsclips1
Date:28-06-19
Beyond tariffs Indo US partnership’s full potential remains
untapped, mutual tradeoffs will be worthwhile
TOI Editorials
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend two informal
meetings on the sidelines of the ongoing G20 summit in Osaka,
Japan. He will host the Russia, India, China group meeting.
Separately, he will participate in a meeting of the Japan, America,
India group. These independent meetings encapsulate the delicate
balancing act India is currently carrying out in a world where
developments are increasingly influenced by big power rivalry.
India’s challenge is to safeguard its strategic interests in this
setting.
US secretary of state Michael Pompeo this week in New Delhi made a
case for a tighter trade and defence relationship between the two
countries. On trade and investment, US is already India’s largest
partner. In defence, ties have been on the upswing. On the heels of
the purchase of heavylift helicopters by India, the US military for
the first time will participate in a triservice exercise with
Indian defence forces this year. In this upbeat backdrop, a tweet
by US President Donald Trump yesterday showed why this is a tricky
moment in the bilateral relationship. He complained about India’s
“high tariffs” and promised to take it up with Modi in Osaka.
India, as a member of WTO, harmonises its tariffs and relevant laws
with its international obligations. However, this hasn’t been
enough for Trump. Increasingly, there are bilateral attempts to
bring changes in India’s structure that synchronise with American
interests. This is clearly not possible. Therefore, the way out for
both sides is to negotiate and arrive at positions which are
mutually acceptable. As Pompeo pointed out, neither country will
get everything they want. Both sides have to make tradeoffs. Since
tradeoffs are a foregone conclusion, the question is the framework
within which these should be made.
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Formally, an informal solution
Sachin Jain, [The writer is dean, Bennett University, Greater
Noida, UP]
With half of India’s population under 25 years, and more than one
crore turning 18 every year, unemployment is a looming concern.
NITI Aayog, in its ‘Strategy for New India@75’ report, indicated
the need to create 8090 lakh jobs annually to deploy the country’s
youth coming into the workforce every year, besides absorbing those
moving from the farming to nonfarming sectors.
Some studies have pegged the contribution of the informal sector as
over 54% to India’s gross value added (GVA) (200809 estimates).
According to International Labour Organisation (ILO) data, the
total share of informal employment in India has increased to 81% in
201617 as compared to 78% in 1999 2000, despite more than 7% GDP
growth during the same period.
According to Economic Survey 2018, 87% of firms, representing 21%
of total turnover, are purely informal, outside both the tax and
social security nets. Given the massive base, shouldn’t the
informal sector be promoted through ‘ease of doing business’,
labour reforms et al, thereby making it an equally potent arm of
the economy to drive growth and address the issue of
unemployment?
With some of the pillars already casted by the first Narendra Modi
government in the form of Jan Dhan AadhaarMobile (JAM), Digital
India, Skill India, Pradhan Mantri MUDRA (Micro Units Development
and Refinance Agency) Yojana (PMMY) and the Apprenticeship Act,
this may be the time to build a solid informal economy platform on
this foundation, thereby addressing issues of unemployment at three
levels.
One, with 44% of India’s about 50 crore workforce currently
deployed in agriculture, contributing only 15% of GVA, there is an
urgent need to transition labour out of the farming sector.
With mobile internet reaching 500 million Indians across India,
GoI’s plan of setting up one lakh digital villages, hybrid
(onlineoffline teaching) skilling centres for rural youngsters on
farmbased valueadded products, or nonfarmbased traditional crafts —
coupled with funding support through PMMY for successful
participants — can help shift rural youth from agriculture to
entrepreneurial valueadded products and services. This has an added
advantage of restricting overurbanisation.
With support from ecommerce and organised retail players through
policy interventions and incentives, these rural products can be
delivered at our doorsteps.
Two, with the gross enrolment ratio in higher education being only
26%, India needs to reinvent secondary education curricula, with
more emphasis on developing an entrepreneurial mindset, design
thinking and skillbased education for the 74% of two crore Class 12
students who never make it to a college. While some states have
taken steps in introducing entrepreneurship and skillbased learning
at the higher secondary level, such curricula along with skilling
centres should be mandated by the HRD ministry across all 52
education boards.
www.afeias.com IMPORTANT NEWSCLIPPINGS (28june19)
4
The Apprenticeship Act should be further strengthened for all
organisations above a certain threshold (say,.`50 crore in revenue)
to hire at least 45% of its workforce annually as
apprentices.
Of this lot, half should be students not pursuing higher education.
This will ensure handson learning in the students’ area of
interest, which will help them move into employment (selfemployed
or otherwise) faster.
Finally, as according to the All India Survey Higher Education
(AISHE) 201718 Report, out of 3.7 crore students pursuing higher
studies across 900 universities and 50,000 colleges or standalone
institutions, close to 80% students are pursuing undergraduate
programmes of which the highest number (36.4%) of students are
enrolled in arts, humanities and social sciences courses. The
curricula of these programmes are out of sync with industry
expectations, resulting in suboptimal outcomes for students and a
massive drain on the public exchequer in subsidising fees and
maintaining public universities.
India Skill Report 2018 corroborates this, stating that 53% of
those coming out of higher education institutions are unemployable.
Further, National Skill Development Policy estimates only 5% of
India’s workforce having gone through formal skilltraining.
This is extremely low when compared to countries like South Korea
(96%) and Germany (75%). If a portion of these HRD ministry grants
to public universities is redeployed in introducing future skills
and entrepreneurial thinkingbased curricula at universities and
colleges, the outcome for students can be enhanced at
zeroincremental cost.
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www.afeias.com IMPORTANT NEWSCLIPPINGS (28june19)
5
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words very carefully. The words “twothirds of the Members. have agreed to such merger”, used in Para 4(2),
make it abundantly clear that
the merger takes place between
two parties and the requisite
number of legislators of
that party must agree to such merger. Thereafter,
the speaker exempts those legislators
from
disqualification. It may be noted here that the legislators do not merge, they only agree to the merger done by
their original political party. Thus, a merger between
the political parties concerned has
to take place first.
Only then can the legislators “agree to such merger”.