Daily Mains Practice Questions 04-02-2023

KEY POINTS

·        A recently published paper in an IMF book, “South Asia’s Path to Resilient Growth”, argues that a strong base exists for South Asia trading more with dynamic East Asia.

·        The total merchandise trade between South Asia and East Asia (in dollar terms) grew at about 10% annually between 1990 and 2018 to $332 billion in 2018, and could reach about $500 billion looking ahead.

·        Regional trade integration across Asia can be encouraged by gradually reducing barriers to goods and services trade.

·        Import tariffs and murky non-tariff measures have risen in several South Asian economies since the 2008 global financial crisis — and never reversed.

·        Adjustment financing to losing sectors to reallocate factors of production and re-training of workers is also essential to promote gains from trade and mitigate income inequality.

·        Improve the performance of special economic zones (SEZs) and invest in services SEZs to facilitate industrial clustering and exports. South Asia has over 600 SEZs in operation, in Kochi (India), Gwadar (Pakistan), Mirsarai (Bangladesh) and Hambantota (Sri Lanka).

·        If India joins RCEP, the rest of South Asia may be incentivised to join out of a fear of being left out and suffering from trade diversion effects.

·        India is South Asia’s largest economy and its G-20 presidency can be a good platform to initiate these changes.

KEY POINTS

·        The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets.

·        Millets have special nutritive properties (they are high in protein, dietary fibre, micronutrients and antioxidants) and special agronomic characteristics (drought-resistant and suitable for semi-arid regions).

·        Unless productivity and production are increased substantially, all exhortations to consume millets will come to naught.

·        The millet project of the MSSRF had three objectives — to preserve crop diversity in local millet varieties; to increase production and the consumption of millets, and to enhance farm incomes.

·        The Kolli hills block of Namakkal district, the project area, is a distinct geographic and agro-ecological region of the Eastern Ghats, populated by income-poor Scheduled Tribe households.

·        The reasons for a shift in land use include low yields. Further, processing of millets is a time-consuming and laborious task, undertaken by women.

·        Community seed banks were designed and constructed to conserve, restore, revive, strengthen, and improve local seed systems.

·        Ready-to-cook products were branded under the Kolli Hills Natural Foods label and market links established.

·        The shift from hand pounding to milling has reduced the drudgery for women and encouraged millet consumption.

·        In conclusion, increasing the production of millets and reversing the decline in area cultivated are feasible steps but not easy, and require multiple interventions.

KEY POINTS

·        The transition to green alternatives from the current reliance on fossil fuels is therefore an urgent imperative and an opportunity to leverage this move to catalyse new industries, generate jobs on a sizeable scale.

·        Budget 2023-24 devoted a fair amount of space to the green industrial and economic transition needed.

·        The Budget hearteningly proposes to exempt customs duty on the import of capital goods and machinery required to manufacture lithium-ion cells used in EV batteries.

·        Another key proposal relates to the establishment of a viability gap funding mechanism to support the creation of battery energy storage systems with a capacity of 4,000 MWh.

·        With wind turbine farms and solar photovoltaic projects characteristically producers of variable electric supply, battery storage systems become enablers of ensuring the electricity these generators.

·        With its vast stretches of barren land and one of the country’s highest levels of sunlight availability, Ladakh is considered an ideal location to site photovoltaic arrays for producing a substantial capacity of solar power.

·        The transmission line will help address what had so far been the hurdle in setting up solar capacity in the region, given its remoteness from India’s main power grid.

KINDLY REVIEW

KINDLY REVIEW

KINDLY REVIEW