current affairs of uttarakhand from 10th september to 30th september 2017 by samveg ias

current affairs of uttarakhand from 1october to 18 october 2017 by samveg ias

new batch for ias/ukpcs

new batch for ias/ukpcs

job creation:challenges and how to solve it in india.

job creation:challenges and how to solve it .
Introduction

Growth generates employment and employment generates further growth. In general, employment corresponds to the qualitative aspect of growth. If a country is on the growth trajectory, it will generate more employment opportunities and while the growth declines, people start losing jobs.

Jobless growth is an economic phenomenon in which a macro economy experiences growth while maintaining or decreasing its level of employment.

The aim should be at growth that is driven both by improvements in productivity and modernizations of its labour force — especially since better jobs are crucial to improving the lives of millions.

What are the main factors of India’s jobless growth?

The transition peasants into factory workers requires basic training, which is not keeping in pace with job needs. Moreover the main contributor in India’s GDP is service sector which is not labour intensive and thus adds to jobless growth.

The other factor is related to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Their labour intensity is four times higher than that of large firms. SMEs, which employ 40 per cent of the workforce of the country and which represent about 45 per cent of India’s manufacturing output and 40 per cent of India’s total exports, are in a better position to create jobs. But it is not able to do so because of poor infrastructure, lack of skilled labour and also they don’t have easy access to loans.

What can policy-makers do to revive job growth?

An industrial and trade policy is needed.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) is preparing an industrial policy. National Manufacturing Policy came in 2011, was not implemented fully.

While the DIPP is preparing the industrial policy document, it is essential that trade policy is consistent with such an industrial policy. Otherwise the two may work at cross purposes and undermine each other’s objectives.

Excessive imports have been decimating Indian manufacturing.
An inverted duty structure has the following features: higher duty on intermediate goods compared to final finished goods, with the latter often enjoying concessional customs duty.
As a result, domestic manufacturers face high tariffs leading to higher raw material cost at home, emanating from the unfavourable inverted duty structure.
This has prevented many manufacturing sectors from growing since economic reforms began. This must be corrected.
The automobiles sector in India faced no inverted duty structure, and has thrived. India has become in the last decade one of the largest producers of vehicles of several kinds in the world now. Electronics faced an inverted duty structure, but due to changes made, electronics manufacturing has shown slow growth.

Special packages are needed for labour-intensive industries to create jobs.
There are a number of labour intensive manufacturing sectors in India such as food processing, leather and footwear, wood manufacturers and furniture, textiles and apparel and garments.

The apparel and garments sector received a package from the Government of India roughly a year back. The other labour intensive sectors have been ignored.
The nature of the package will need to be individually designed for each sector defined as quickly as possible.

Cluster development
There should be cluster development to support job creation in micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

Most of the unorganised sector employment is in MSMEs, which tend to be concentrated in specific geographic locations.
There are 1,350 modern industry clusters in India and an additional 4,000 traditional product manufacturing clusters, like handloom, handicraft and other traditional single product group clusters.
There is a cluster development programme of the Ministry of MSMEs, which need to be funded adequately and better designed to create more opportunities.

Align urban development with manufacturing clusters to create jobs.
The Ministry of Urban Development has a programme called AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) aimed at improving infrastructure for small towns. Infrastructure investment by the government creates many jobs.

The same intervention should be made in towns which have clusters of unorganised sector economic activities.
Hence an engagement between the Urban Development and MSME Ministries is necessary to attract more investment to industrial clusters and increase non-agricultural jobs.

More focus on women participation
Girls are losing out in jobs, or those with increasing education can’t find them, despite having gotten higher levels of education.

Secondary enrolment in the country rose from 58% to 85% in a matter of five years (2010-2015), with gender parity.
Skilling close to clusters is likely to create more no of jobs.
The problem with skilling programmes has been low placement after skilling is complete.
The availability of jobs close to where the skilling is conducted will also enhance the demand for skilling.

Public investments in health, education, police and judiciary
This can create many government jobs.

Public investment in the health sector has remained even in the last three years at 1.15% of GDP, despite the creation of the national health policy at the beginning of 2017.
The policy indicates that expenditure on health will rise to 2.5% of GDP by 2025.
Given the state of health and nutrition of the population, it is critical that public expenditure on health is increased immediately.
In the absence of greater public expenditure, the private sector in health keeps expanding, which raises the household costs on health without necessarily improving health outcomes, because the private sector does not spend on preventive and public health measures.
Preventive and public health have been in all countries the responsibility of government. More government expenditure in health means more jobs in government and better health outcomes.

Next important area should be Revitalising schools.

Government schools should maintain education quality on par with private schools.
Many new government jobs can be provided if more young people could be trained specially to become teachers for science and mathematics at the secondary and higher secondary levels in government schools.

The same applies to the police and the judiciary.

All the vacancies in Police and judiciary should be filled immediately. More police and a larger judiciary can both reduce crime as well as speed up the process of justice for the ordinary citizen.
Conclusion:

Government schemes rarely create many jobs. International evidence is that when consumer demand grows consistently, whether from domestic or international markets, that is when jobs grow. That requires an industrial policy. Ease of doing business improvement and infrastructure investment increases should improve the economic environment. But most importantly India needs a robust industrial policy.

bureau of Indian standards (BIS) Act 2016 brought into force with effect from 12th October, 2017

bureau of Indian standards (BIS) Act 2016 brought into force with effect from 12th October, 2017

A new Bureau of Indian standards (BIS) Act 2016 which was notified on 22nd March, 2016, has been brought into force with effect from 12th October, 2017. The Act establishes the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) as the National Standards Body of India. The Act has enabling provisions for the Government to bring under compulsory certification regime any goods or article of any scheduled industry, process, system or service which it considers necessary in the public interest or for the protection of human, animal or plant health, safety of the environment, or prevention of unfair trade practices, or national security. Enabling provisions have also been made for making hallmarking of the precious metal articles mandatory. The new Act also allows multiple type of simplified conformity assessment schemes including self-declaration of conformity against a standard which will give simplified options to manufacturers to adhere to the standards and get certificate of conformity. The Act enables the Central Government to appoint any authority/agency, in addition to the BIS, to verify the conformity of products and services to a standard and issue certificate of conformity. Further, there is provision for repair or recall, including product liability of the products bearing Standard Mark but not conforming to the relevant Indian Standard. The Hon’ble Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said that the new Act will further help in ease of doing business in the country, give fillip to Make In India campaign and ensure availability of quality products and services to the consumers.

Audrey Azoulay nominated by UNESCO Executive Board for the post of Director-General:current affairs for upsc pre

Audrey Azoulay nominated by UNESCO Executive Board for the post of Director-General

The 58 members of UNESCO’s Executive Board on 13 October nominated Audrey Azoulay of France for the position of Director-General of the Organization, replacing outgoing Director-General Irina Bokova.
The nomination will be submitted to the vote of the General Conference that brings together all 195 Member States of the Organization every two years on 10 November.

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india-EU
India and the EU have been strategic partners since 2004. The 14th annual Summit between India and the European Union (EU) was held in New Delhi. The two sides reviewed a full spectrum of their ties at the 14th summit with a focus on ramping up two-way trade and investment.

The leaders reviewed the wide-ranging cooperation under the India-EU Strategic Partnership. Recognising that India and the EU are natural partners, the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to further deepen and strengthen the India-EU Strategic Partnership based on shared principles and values of democracy, freedom, rule of law and respect for human rights and territorial integrity of States.

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The U.S. has announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), accusing it of “continuing anti-Israel bias.” Besides the US, Israel has also decided to pull out of UNESCO.

As required by law, the U.S. has stopped funding UNESCO. The U.S. withdrawal will take effect on December 31, 2018. Until then, it will remain a full member.
About UNESCO:

UNESCO is a United Nations organization that helps preserve historical and cultural sites worldwide.

It is a special multi-country agency, formed in 1945 and based in France, that promotes sex education and literacy as well as improving gender equality in countries around the world.
It is also known for its work to preserve cultural and heritage sites such as ancient villages, ruins and temples, and historic sites such as the Great Mosque of Samarra in Iraq, which at one point came under threat of being destroyed by the Islamic State.

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deep sea fishing and marine conservation
Deep sea fishing has been an integral part of the country’s Blue Revolution vision to exploit fishing resources to the maximum within the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ). One day workshop was organized on Deep sea fishing with an aim to promote deep sea fishing as an alternative to trawling in the Palk Bay.

What is the issue with Bottom trawling?

Bottom trawling, an ecologically destructive practice, involves trawlers dragging weighted nets along the sea-floor, causing great depletion of aquatic resources. Bottom trawling captures juvenile fish, thus exhausting the ocean’s resources and affecting marine conservation efforts. This practice was started by Tamil Nadu fishermen in Palk Bay and actively pursued at the peak of the civil war in Sri Lanka.

The Palk Bay fishing conflict has figured prominently in high-level meetings between India and Sri Lanka. The Joint Working Group on Fisheries was formed by the two countries in November, 2016 to discuss the prolonged issue. But Sri Lankan fishermen wanted an immediate end to incursions by Indian trawlers, which resulted into amendment to the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Act by Sri Lankan parliament. Also its navy has been vigilantly patrolling the International Maritime Boundary Line, ‘capturing’ Indian trawl boats and fishers.deep sea fishing and marine conservation

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Sampoorna Bima Gram Yojana
About the Sampoorna Bima Gram (SBG) Yojana:

Under the Sampoorna Bima Gram (SBG) Yojana, at least one village (having a minimum of 100 households) will be identified in each of the revenue districts of the country, wherein endeavour will be made to cover all households of that identified village with a minimum of one RPLI (Rural Postal Life Insurance) policy each. Coverage of all households in the identified Sampoorna Bima Gram village is the primary objective of this scheme.

Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI), introduced on March 24, 1995 on the recommendations of the Malhotra Committee, provides insurance cover to people residing in rural areas, especially weaker sections and women living in rural areas

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National e-Governance Services Ltd (NeSL) has become India’s first information utility (IU) for bankruptcy cases under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016. NeSL is owned by State Bank of India and Life Insurance Corporation Ltd., among others. Recently, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) eased ownership norms for setting up such utilities.

What is an information utility?

Information utility is an information network which would store financial data like borrowings, default and security interests among others of firms. The utility would specialise in procuring, maintaining and providing/supplying financial information to businesses, financial institutions, adjudicating authority, insolvency professionals and other relevant stake holders.

Why is it important? How useful is it?

The objective behind information utilities is to provide high-quality, authenticated information about debts and defaults. Information utilities are expected to play a key role as they allow storage of financial information of registered users and expeditiously process and verify information received.

Moreover, the database and records maintained by them would help lenders in taking informed decisions about credit transactions. It would also make debtors cautious as credit information is available with the utility. More importantly, information available with the utility can be used as evidence in bankruptcy cases before the National Company Law Tribunal

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change in uppcs 2018 exam: new pattern

change in uppcs 2018 exam: new pattern
more friendly to upsc aspirants.now ukpsc candidate can also easily appear in uppcs.