Daily Mains Practice Questions 27-03-2023

KEY POINTS

·        The central gain is the decentralisation of medical and healthcare administration.

·        Powers have been substantially transferred to the heads of the department to purchase drugs.

·        Decentralisation has empowered individual departments to prioritise their needs and hasten decisions in patient care in accordance with evidence-based medical advancement.

·        Negotiations with insurance companies have become cumbersome exercises for the already overworked patient care teams in public sector hospitals.

·        Administrative delays by insurance companies have shifted the focus of hospitals from patient care, teaching and research to claiming money from companies.

·        The proportion of permanent staff with respect to rising patients in government hospitals has come down alarmingly.

·        The alarming attrition rate among the contractual staff and the loss of well-trained staff in the new system leads to a compromise in the quality of service.

·        Not extending the contract of nearly 350 dialysis technicians and 3,000 nursing staff has further fuelled a trust deficit among the young workforce.

·        Doctors in the primary health centres are functioning like managers rather than clinicians.

·        Medicine is neither an absolute science nor a commodity but an art that needs passion and compassion.

·        Mere profit-loss calculation and treatment of public health as a health industry will lead to an erosion of compassion among health professionals.

KEY POINTS

·        Fintech tends to thrive in a climate of strong innovation and weak regulation.

·        No longer. In recent times, the regulatory spotlight in India has been on digital lending firms that bypass KYC, or target financially unsophisticated borrowers with predatory loans, or extend buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) schemes underwritten by non-banking entities.

·        Fintech firms work best when they are able to address white-spaces in the market that are unserved or underserved by formal financial institutions.

·        Small merchants, start-ups and SMEs are not top-of-mind for commercial banks, who prefer instead to lend to entities with large balance sheets and long track records.

·        India remains uniquely positioned to strengthen its global reputation as a fintech powerhouse. There are many reasons for this optimism.

·        First, the country is awash with entrepreneurial ambition.

·        Second, India continues to be a fountain of unresolved problems with respect to payments, credit, and insurance for consumers, SMEs, and also the financially excluded.

·        Third, there is a holy trinity at work: affordable smartphones in the hands of citizens, a robust digital public infrastructure on the cloud, and a regulatory regime trying to strike a fine balance between enforcing rules and fostering innovation.

·        Finally, Indian fintech has arguably catalysed more financial inclusion in the last decade than a century of traditional banking that preceded it.

KEY POINTS

·        Amendments to taxation rules regarding debt funds included in the Finance Bill 2023 have delivered an unexpected blow to mutual fund investors.

·        Finance Ministry officials have justified the change as plugging a loophole that allowed debt mutual funds to convert the interest income on bonds into capital gains.

·        While it may be justified from a revenue viewpoint, the Centre should do a holistic assessment of capital gains taxes, including other priorities in it such as directing capital to preferred avenues and building up different market segments.

·        This move, along with the Budget proposal to tax proceeds of high-value insurance plans, clearly signals the Centre’s intent to close all opportunities for tax arbitrage wherever it unearths them.

·        While corporate treasuries will be unaffected by the change now, high net worth investors in long-term debt funds could bear the brunt, which is probably the intent too.

·        While indexation benefits have now been removed for all financial assets, physical assets such as real estate and gold continue to enjoy them.

·        If simplifying the tax regime is the Centre’s intent, it would do well to refrain from such piecemeal changes and usher in a uniform tax treatment for income, short and long-term capital gains that holds good for all instruments and assets.