General Studies – III
Energy
1) To foster domestic production of solar energy, India must focus on the initial stages of the solar value chain to reduce costs. Elaborate (200 Words)
Refer - Business Line
Economy
2) India must further its cross-border digital payment linkages for better economic development. Discuss (200 Words)
Refer - The Hindu
3) The process of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) evaluations are directly linked with green washing by firms. Analyse (200 Words)
Refer - Business Line
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 2 years
KEY POINTS
· China recently amended its rules to ban the export of several core solar panel technologies in order to maintain its market leadership with the largest share in the sector.
· Chinese firms have mastered cutting-edge technology to produce bigger, thinner and smarter wafers which play a big part in reducing the cost of solar power by more than 90 per cent.
· Business firms in India are trying to develop domestic supply-chains to chip-away China’s advantage but still lack the technical expertise in development of larger wafers to cut costs and increase productivity.
· India can transform itself by transitioning not only into renewable energy but also leading the path of net carbon-neutrality.
· There are direct and indirect cost centres in the distinct segments of the whole ecosystem of solar panels.
· A total of 65 per cent direct cost of a larger, agiler and smarter solar cell is layered in the initial three stages (see Figure).
· India lacks in-house material, technical know-how, production capabilities and manufacturing capacities at the initial three stages of value.
· Accordingly, our policy interventions in the form of incentives/subsidies should be focussed on only these stages, which are sourcing polysilicon, ingots and converting them into cells.
· Hence, considering the challenges at various stages of manufacturing of solar cells, we should not only be strategising for localisation.
KEY POINTS
· Transferring money to a relative studying or living in Singapore or receiving remittances from a family member working in the Southeast Asian city-state just got a whole lot simpler.
· The transactions marked the start of a cross-border link for real-time person-to-person money transfers between South Asia’s largest economy.
· The link now enables individuals wishing to remit either Singapore dollar (SGD) or Indian rupee funds for the ‘maintenance of a relative’ or as a ‘gift’ to transfer the money seamlessly using the UPI at the Indian end and the PayNow app at the Singapore end.
· The tie-up is also part of a wider regional effort to facilitate cross-border real-time money transfers in a manner that reduces operational costs for individuals and merchants.
· Singapore, which had established a similar payment link with Thailand in 2021, is part of a larger five-member initiative among the central banks of Southeast Asian economies including Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines that aims to interconnect their domestic digital payment systems.
· India too could build on the springboard it has gained in Singapore to further its cross-border digital payment linkages and extend the partnership to the city-state’s other Association of Southeast Asian Nations partners.
· Besides a sure-shot boost to regional trade and tourism, such a network would help India to further formalise the flow of inbound remittances.
KEY POINTS
· Governance lapses often put Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) evaluations under review.
· When reputed business groups are accused of pulling the ‘largest con in corporate history’, ESG inadvertently gets dragged into it.
· This isn’t surprising as there’s a growing trend among companies to play the ESG card.
· These practices, called greenwashing, are unfortunate given that ESG is becoming mainstream for both start-up Davids and corporate Goliaths.
· The Volkswagen scandal still resonates. The company lost 46 per cent of its value and incurred huge recall costs.
· And think of the way Enron executives used dubious accounting practices to inflate the company’s revenues.
· Similarly, the Foxconn episode the firm was hit by a wave of workers’ suicides brought to the fore the perils of ignoring responsible governance practices.
· But ESG practices must be embraced in their totality. Adoption of green technology is as critical to the ESG profile of a business as sound employment culture and positive social practices.
· Expectedly, investors are engaging with companies that demonstrate positive ESG behaviour.
· Also, ESG has a proven track record at the bourses. ESGRisk.ai’s study revealed that from April 2020 to March 2022, top-rated ESG companies delivered 16 per cent higher returns than that of Nifty.
