#EVERYDAYQUIZ #THE HINDU #INDIAN EXPRESS #bUSINESS STANDARD #THE DNA
THE HINDU: To Brexit or not to Brexit
It should not have
needed a visiting U.S.
President to
puncture the arguments of eurosceptic Britons, who believe their country is
better off outside the European Union (EU).
But so strong is the hold of
Britain’s history as an imperial power that the prospect of a destiny inside
Europe, that too one driven by adominant Franco-German alliance, is
deeply unpalatable to sections of the political class. For all the fury and
noise over the referendum in June, the question whether to stay inside or leave
the bloc has cast a long and troublesome shadow on a country that joined the EU
in 1973 under a Conservative Prime Minister. When the Labour leader Harold
Wilson won public approval for that step in a 1975 referendum, the hope was
that the overwhelming mandate would be irreversible. With the benefit of
hindsight, we know that the debate is far from over. Years on, Prime Minister
David Cameron finds himself in Wilson’s shoes. His Conservative backbenchers
forced his hand on a U.K. vote on continued EU
membership and prominent
Cabinet colleagues are now spearheading the leave campaign. Now, as in 1975,
the main argument against membership is the perceived loss of national
sovereignty. At the heart of the issue is what Brexit could mean for the
workforce. There are over two million EU immigrants working in Britain today, a
body of people that not only provides it with critical skills but also
contributes to its tax kitty. Could Brexit lead to an exodus among such people?
On the other hand, immigration has become a key element in the eurosceptic
armoury, acquiring renewed potency following the large inflow of refugees from
Syria into the EU. The exit camp is exploiting the cracks in EU policy over
their rehabilitation to frontally attack the free movement principle underlying
the Schengen borderless travel zone.
The
objectives of the U.K.’s membership of the EU have always been primarily
economic rather than political. It is apparent that these interests are better
served if London assumes its rightful place at the European high table. Non-EU
members Norway and Switzerland have access to the bloc’s internal market, but
no voice in shaping its laws. Such an arrangement may not befit a country with
the wealth and influence of Britain. As a result, a measure of euroscepticism
has existed side by side with London’s desire to stake out special positions in
key areas. This was reflected most recently in the package that Mr. Cameron
negotiated ahead of the referendum to protect London’s status as a financial
hub. The exemption from adopting the single currency and participation in the
Schengen area are the other major opt-outs from common policies. The champions
of Brexit have taken exception to the U.S. President expressing his opinion on
the referendum. But they would surely know that from Washington’s standpoint
the “special relationship” with Britain would carry real meaning only if it
translates into an effective voice inside the EU, the world’s largest single
trading bloc.
Eurosceptic
› a person, especially a politician, who opposes closer connections between Britain and the European Union
be better off
› to have more money than you had in the past or
more money than most
other people:
Obviously we're
better off now that we're both working.
unpalatable
› An
unpalatable fact or idea is unpleasant or shocking and therefore difficult to accept:
the unpalatable
truth/facts about the war
hindsight
› the ability to understand an event or situation only after it has happened:
With (the benefit/wisdom of) hindsight, I should
have taken the job.
spearhead
› to lead something such as an attack or a course of action:
British troops spearheaded the invasion.
exodus
› the movement of a lot of people from a place:
There has been
a mass exodus of workers from the villages to the towns.
befit
› to be suitable or right for someone or something:
She was buried in the cathedral, as befits someone of
her position.
THE HINDU: Building on the Paris Agreement
The 174 countries and
the European Union that signed up to the Paris
Climate Change Agreement in
New York on April 22 have committed themselves to the decision that a range of
actions must be undertaken to keep the rise in global average temperature well
below 2° Celsius over pre-industrial levels. The debate on climate change shifted after the climate summit in
Paris in December from whether scientific evidence is strong enough to warrant
making aggressive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, to how this should be
achieved without hurting economic growth in developing countries such as India.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change accepts differentiated
responsibility for developing nations, which are not responsible for the
accumulated stock of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as opposed to rich
countries that historically had the benefit of the unfettered use of fossil
fuels. What makes carbon emissions particularly problematic, however, is that
polluting local flows have a global effect over relatively short periods, and
far-flung countries, such as small island nations, suffer the impact. India’s
estimate of its share of global greenhouse gas emissions submitted to the UN
for the Paris treaty is 4.10 per cent, but it faces a double jeopardy: of
having to emit large volumes of carbon dioxide to achieve growth, while
preparing to adapt to the destructive effects of intense weather events, such
as droughts and floods, linked to climate change.
After
Paris, the challenge before India is to implement its pledge — to sharply cut emissions intensity of GDP
by 2020. A small reduction was achieved between 2005 and 2010, and the effort
now should be to maintain the trend. Energy, transport and infrastructure are
key areas where sound national policies are needed. The doubling of the cess on
coal in the Budget, and the general policy to keep fuel prices high using
taxation are welcome, but they must translate into funding for green
alternatives. It should be possible, for instance, to unlock middle class
investments in renewable energy with an effective grid-connected rooftop solar
subsidy programme. In the absence of strong backing from State governments to
ensure net metering and transfer subsidies, progress in this area has been
slow. New buildings should also be required to conform to energy efficiency
codes in all States. The National Electric Mobility Mission Plan aims to put
about seven million electric or hybrid vehicles on the road by 2020, but for
this to happen, the creation of charging infrastructure and introduction of
consumer incentives are vital; greening public transport bus fleets will give
the Mission a face. Once the Paris Agreement is ratified, funding for such
initiatives should come from the wealthy countries, which are required to raise
at least $100 billion a year. The pact requires them to provide even higher
levels of assistance. The success of the climate compact will ultimately depend
on whether rich countries, including the U.S. — where a conservative President
and Congress could reject it — fund innovation and open-source their green
technologies to developing nations.
accumulate
> to collect a large number of things over a long period of time:
As people accumulate more wealth, they tend to spend a greater proportion of their incomes.
unfettered
› not limited by rules or any other controlling influence:
Poets are
unfettered by the normal rules of sentence structure.
in jeopardy
› in danger of being damaged or destroyed:
The lives of thousands of birds are in jeopardy as a result of the oil spill.
THE INDIAN
EXPRESS: Art of trifling
Perhaps the National Green Tribunal
(NGT) doth not protest too much, but forsooth it doth protest too late. It has
pulled up the Art of Living Foundation (ALF) for standing in the way of its
expert panel, which was to inspect the venue of the World Culture Festival
hosted by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in the floodplain of the Yamuna. The body
was scheduled to sketch out an action plan for rejuvenating the site, which was
overrun by giant structures and hordes of visitors in the course of the
extravaganza, and reckon the modicum of compensation which would make good the
damage and restore the site to its former state.
But the NGT has only itself to blame if
it now looks like a walkover. After barring Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s show on the
ground that it would harm the ecosystem of the river, it had backed off when it
found itself served with a fait accompli by the spiritual leader. Hectares of
the flood plain had already been levelled and denuded of its natural vegetation
(Sri Sri had earlier disparaged it as “weeds”), farms had been uprooted to make
way for roads, support infrastructure and a stage of about seven acres, and an
impressive guest list had been drawn up, including a bishop, a grand mufti, the
prime minister and the higher echelons of the Central and state governments.
Only the president had declined to attend the event.
But the NGT’s real comedown was the
readiness with which it allowed the show to go ahead on the payment of Rs 25
lakh, just five per cent of its initial demand of Rs 5 crore. When a watchdog
organisation backs off repeatedly, it leaves behind the impression that it can
be brushed off. And now, the ALF has prevented the NGT’s expert panel from
inspecting the site in order to compute the final compensation figure and
facilitate rejuvenation over the long term. The incident has set several
unfortunate precedents. It has left behind the impression that it is legitimate
to do environmental damage if compensation follows. Further, it suggests that
compensation is not necessarily laid down by a court — if the authority of the
tribunal is not absolute, it can be bargained with, as if it were a market
entity. Indeed, it can be trifled with.
trifling
› A trifling matter or amount of money is small or not important:
It was such a
trifling sum of money to argue about!
rejuvenate
› to make
someone look or feel young and energetic again:
She felt rejuvenated by her fortnight in the Bahamas.
extravaganza
› a large, exciting, and expensive event or entertainment:
a musical/dance extravaganza
walkover
› a game or sports event that is won very easily by one side or one person:
The semifinal should be a walkover
for France.
› the act of winning one stage of a competition without having to compete in it because the person that you should be playing against is no longer taking part
back off
› to stop being involved in a situation, usually in order to allow other people to deal with it themselves:
She started to criticize me, then she suddenly backed off.
Just back off
and let us do this
on our own, will
you?
B2 to move backwards away from someone,
usually because you are frightened:
I saw the knife and backed off.
denude
› to remove the covering of something, especially land:
The countryside has been denuded by war.
Drought and years of heavy grazing by sheep have completely denuded the hills of grass.
brush sth off
› to refuse to listen to what someone says, or
to refuse to think about something seriously:
He just brushed off all their criticisms.
BUSINESS
STANDARD: Transforming India needs
planning
The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public
Grievances (DARPG) within the personnel ministry has issued the much-awaited
product of a major process of policy consultation initiated by Prime Minister
Narendra Modi at the end of last year. In December, eight teams of secretaries
to the Government of India were formed and allotted a theme to focus on; on New
Year's Eve, they made presentations to the PM and action points were agreed
upon; over the course of the next few months, internal discussion in ministries
followed, and various action points were incorporated into the Union Budget for
2016-17. Now, the eight groups' recommendations are available on the DARPG's
website as an e-book titled Transforming India. At almost 100 pages, with
several points, targets and schemes on every page, the e-book stands as
testimony to the government's energy under Mr Modi. If everything outlined in
its pages approaches implementation by the ambitious target dates, then India
will indeed, as the book promises, have taken great steps towards sustained,
inclusive growth.
While such ambition and energy are welcome, there are some obvious questions that need to be asked. Perhaps the most fundamental one is about the nature of the state that will be tasked to accomplish these heroic feats. It might raise a few eyebrows that a Department of Administrative Reforms should have produced a major vision document for the future of the Indian state without suggesting reform of how the state operates. Staffing, accountability and responsiveness within the state need to be made much more transparent and flexible if the Transforming India agenda is to reach anywhere near fruition. But, perhaps unsurprisingly given that this document was drafted by committees of secretaries, the question of genuine administrative reform is never even addressed.
The other question is about the overall unity of the plans provided in the document. Individual targets in various sectors are all very well; but how do they hang together? The old and discredited planning process at least did, however imperfectly, attempt to solve the problems of prioritisation, of backward and forward inter-linkages, of spillovers and bottlenecks. These are largely ignored in the Transforming India version of planning. This means the numbers do not hang together, and therefore fail to persuade. There is a palpable lack of a unifying underlying model that could serve as a guide for implementation. Absent such a model, there is no question that Transforming India, for all its big ideas, comes across as a scattergun approach rather than a focused attempt to fix India's problems. Two years into the government's tenure, it is gratifying that there is an attempt to at least outline its efforts in various directions. But these efforts need to be systematised and not just outlined.
While such ambition and energy are welcome, there are some obvious questions that need to be asked. Perhaps the most fundamental one is about the nature of the state that will be tasked to accomplish these heroic feats. It might raise a few eyebrows that a Department of Administrative Reforms should have produced a major vision document for the future of the Indian state without suggesting reform of how the state operates. Staffing, accountability and responsiveness within the state need to be made much more transparent and flexible if the Transforming India agenda is to reach anywhere near fruition. But, perhaps unsurprisingly given that this document was drafted by committees of secretaries, the question of genuine administrative reform is never even addressed.
The other question is about the overall unity of the plans provided in the document. Individual targets in various sectors are all very well; but how do they hang together? The old and discredited planning process at least did, however imperfectly, attempt to solve the problems of prioritisation, of backward and forward inter-linkages, of spillovers and bottlenecks. These are largely ignored in the Transforming India version of planning. This means the numbers do not hang together, and therefore fail to persuade. There is a palpable lack of a unifying underlying model that could serve as a guide for implementation. Absent such a model, there is no question that Transforming India, for all its big ideas, comes across as a scattergun approach rather than a focused attempt to fix India's problems. Two years into the government's tenure, it is gratifying that there is an attempt to at least outline its efforts in various directions. But these efforts need to be systematised and not just outlined.
fruition
› an occasion when a plan or an idea begins to happen, exist, or be successful:
None of his grand plans for a TV series ever came to fruition.
discredit
› to cause people to stop respecting someone or believing in an idea or person:
Evidence of links with drug dealers has discredited the mayor.
discredited theories
spillover (LIQUID)
› an amount of liquid that has become too much for the object that contains it and flows or spreads out:
The spillover
from the adjacent river flooded the lower fields.
bottleneck
› a problem that delays progress:
Is there any
way of getting around this bureaucratic
bottleneck?
palpable
› so obvious that it can easily be seen or known, or (of a feeling) so strong that it seems as if it can be touched or physically felt:
a palpable effect
Her joy was palpable.
DNA: TMC all set to come back in West Bengal
About 6.55 crore voters in West Bengal are in the process of
electing their MLAs in the days ahead with the results coming out on May 19.
Despite a well orchestrated campaign by opposition and the media against
Trinamool Congress (TMC) and its chief Mamata Banerjee over the last five
years, the party has held sway. The last three opinion polls by Zee-24 Ghanta,
Times Now and India TV give TMC comfortable majority. The first channel gave
200 seats to TMC and only 90 seats to the Left-Congress alliance. The second
can foresee 160 seats for TMC and 126 seats for the alliance. The last
predicted 156 seats for TMC and 127 for the Left-Congress combine. The three
principal themes of opposition-media campaign are Saradha, Narada and the
recent flyover collapse in Kolkata.
Allegedly TMC MP Kunal Ghosh drew a salary of Rs1.6
million per month from Saradha Group as its employee. MP Srinjoy Bose was
directly involved with the group’s media operations. Transport minister Madan
Mitra headed the employees’ union of the group and publicly encouraged people
to invest their savings with it. Sudipto Sen, the group’s chairman and managing
director, reportedly spent Rs18.6 million to buy paintings by Mamata Banerjee,
whose government later issued a notification that public libraries should buy
and display Saradha Group newspapers.
All these, however, remain to be proved. The court case has
dragged on and bail has been denied for far too long. Yet the guilt of those
behind bars is yet to be established, so conviction is a far cry. Therefore,
its impact on TMC’s reputation, whatever it was in the beginning, has slowly
been decreasing.
Consider Narada! Here, too, the authenticity of the tapes is
yet to be established and the nature of the transactions captured on camera, is
not clear — ie, whether it is bribe or donation. Whereas bribe-taking is
illegal, donations will perhaps not be considered so. Moreover, the shock
inflicted by the visual publicity of the transactions has worn off has it has
got no further coverage in the media. Thus its impact on TMC’s electoral
prospects would perhaps be marginal unless some damning evidence is unearthed
before the election process is over.
Last but not least, the flyover crash has been the most
agonising accident particularly for Kolkata. Although, determining
responsibilities will take time, there is likely to be some anti-establishment
cry outs impacting the prospects in election.
It cannot be denied that Mamata has a way with the poor and
rural masses. The 24 Ghanta-Zee survey revealed a great degree of satisfaction
among the voters towards the ruling party as far as the roads, water supply and
electricity is concerned. Moreover schemes like Kanya Shree, fair price
government medicine shops and quite a few other successful projects are proving
very popular. The state is showing some signs of economic revival and West
Bengal’s track record in human development has been noteworthy. All these and
Kolkata’s beautification should get TMC some sizable votes.
The BJP has much to offer to all the disenchanted voters —
many of whom are disillusioned with Banerjee’s apparent pro-Muslim policies —
in terms of better governance. The provision of NOTA is unlikely to attract
many voters as the electorate is politically conscious. I foresee the TMC
getting 180-185 seats, Left-Congress 80-85, GMM 1-3 and BJP 25-30 seats.
sway (MOVE)
› to move slowly from side to side:
The trees were swaying in the wind.
The movement of the ship caused the mast to sway from side to side/back and forth.
inflict
› to force someone to experience something very unpleasant:
These new bullets are capable of inflicting massive injuries.
wear off
>If a feeling or the effect of something wears off, it gradually disappears:
Most patients find that the numbness from the injection wears off after about an hour.
disenchanted
› no longer believing in the value of something, especially having learned of the problems with it:
Many voters have become disenchanted with the president.
#SSC #IBPS #SBI #RBI #NABARD #NICL #NIACL #CAT #NMAT #everydayquiz
No comments:
Post a Comment