National Current Affairs – UPSC/IAS Exams- 21st September 2019

Corporate Tax

Topic: Economy

In News: Addressing her fourth press conference to revive the economy, the FM announced a cut in the corporate tax rate for domestic companies and new domestic manufacturing companies.

More on the Topic: 

• Corporate tax is a tax imposed on the net income of the company.
• The new effective tax rate inclusive of surcharge and cess for domestic companies would be 25.17% and for new domestic manufacturing companies would be 17.01%.
• The reduction in the corporate tax rate for domestic companies would be effective from 1st April 2019.
• The provisions affecting these changes have been inserted in the Income-tax Act through an ordinance.
• The move will cost the government Rs 1.45 lakh crore annually. This increases the chances of higher fiscal deficit and government may have to resort to spending cuts or embark on higher disinvestments.
• It is expected that it will give a great stimulus to ‘Make In India’, attract private investment from across the globe, improve the competitiveness of the private sector, create more jobs.
• The reduction in corporate tax, effectively, brings India’s ‘headline’ corporate tax rate broadly at par with an average of 23% rate in Asian countries.

Source: Hindu

Needs of Himalayan States

Topic: Polity and Governance

In News: Recently, 11 Himalayan States of India met in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, demanding a “green bonus”, or a payment for environmental services they provide to the nation.

More on the Topic:

• The Himalayan States, stretching from Jammu and Kashmir (which was still a State then) to Tripura paid a developmental price for maintaining forests, rivers, and other environmental goods which helped the rest of the country.
• Various researches have shown how structurally different are Himalayan regions from the Indian mainstream in terms of their social and economic structure.
• Yet, this research has not found place in the political understanding, whether at the level of policy formulation or popular conceptions.
• The problem of integrating the northern mountains to the national mainstream is not specific to India.
• China is struggling to integrate its mountain people and their homelands with its national mainstream. Myanmar and Thailand, besides others, are also facing similar issues.

Demands of the states:

• The States asked for help to develop hydropower resources, subsidies for their environmental protection measures which deny them normal ‘development models’, and recognition of their efforts to meet human development parameters.
• The various ruling parties failed to cater the specificity of the Himalayan region’s needs whether political, social, or ecological-economic.

The Mainland Approach:

• It is the village or town of the Ganga plains, or along the Narmada or Krishna and Cauvery rivers that defined what it means to be ‘Indian’.
• Policies and programmes are devised with the ‘national norm’ in mind, which have unintended consequences on the hilly regions.
• Thus, the secessionist movements in J&K and Nagaland on the one hand and active integrationist movements in H.P., Arunachal Pardesh and Manipur on the other, expresses the same problem.

Way Forward:

• There is need to give more voice to the hilly states when taking decisions affecting their society, ecology and economy.
• The states should be incentivized for their contribution towards protecting environment for the wholesome benefit of the country.
• Due attention must be paid towards the developmental hindrances due to the geographic specificity.
• Decentralized governance and state friendly approach is the way forward for the integration of Himalayan states with main stream India.

Model Mains Question: It is the village or town of the Ganga plains, or along the Narmada or Krishna and Cauvery rivers that defined what it means to be ‘Indian’. Critically Analyze.

Source: Hindu

National Anti-profiteering Authority

Topic: Economy

In News: The GST Council in its recent meeting has discussed the proposal of extending the tenure of the National Anti-profiteering Authority (NAA) to one more year (till 30 November 2020).

More on the Topic:

• The National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA) was constituted under Section 171 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017.
• It has came into existence ( just after the rollout of GST) for two years to deal with complaints by consumers against companies for not passing on GST rate cut benefits.
• Extension for NAA, is being seen necessary as there are many pending cases that need to be resolved before its dissolution.
• The Authority’s main function is to ensure that traders are not realizing an unfair profit by charging high price from consumers in the name of GST and to examine and check such profiteering activities and recommend punitive actions including the cancellation of Registration.

Structure:

• NAA comprises of Chairman, four Technical members, a Standing Committee, Screening Committees in every State and the Directorate General of Safeguards in the Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC).
• The orders of the NAA can be appealed against only in the high court.

Source: Hindu

Controlled Human Infection Model (CHIM)

Topic: Health

In News: The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has proposed to develop new influenza vaccines using a Controlled Human Infection Model (CHIM).

More on the Topic:

• Under the CHIM approach volunteers who take part in trials will be infected, under expert supervision, with infectious viruses or bacteria.
• Vaccines traditionally are made of a weakened form of a disease-causing virus or bacteria and injected into the body to coax the immune system into making antibodies that create immunity against future infection.
• Years of vaccine development have shown that frequently vaccines that work in small groups of people may not always work in large populations, or those that are effective in one country may not be in another.
• A CHIM approach will speed up the process whereby scientists can quantify whether potential vaccine candidates can be effective in people and identify the factors that determine why some vaccinated people fall sick and others do not.
• Experience with CHIM could help to create clinical investigators trained in vaccine development.
• Earlier, The Hyderabad-based biotech company, Bharat Biotech, used the CHIM approach to develop a Typhoid vaccine.
• Though the vaccine is already licensed in India the vaccine’s potency was evaluated by infecting human volunteers at Oxford University in the U.K. and not in India.
• The risk in such trials is that intentionally infecting healthy people with an active virus and causing them to be sick is against medical ethics.
• CHIM approach would also help to study bacterial or enteric viruses (residing in the intestine) like cholera which is prevalent in India.

Source: Hindu

Pusa Yashasvi

Topic: Agriculture

In News: The Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) has released a new variety of wheat named Pusa Yashasvi.

More on the Topic:

• It has higher genetic yield potential (at 79.6 quintals) as compared to other varieties of wheat.
• Pusa Yashasvi has a higher content of zinc, protein, and gluten (which contributes to the strength and elasticity of the dough).
• The best feature of this variety of wheat is that it is highly resistant against all major rust fungi viz. yellow/stripe, brown/leaf, and black/stem.

Source: PIB

The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health Report

Topic: Health

In News: The report gives a comprehensive estimates of disease burden due to malnutrition and its trends in every state of India.

More on the Topic:

• According to the report, two-thirds of the 1.04 million deaths in children under 5 years in India are due to malnutrition.
• The overall under-five death rate due to malnutrition has decreased substantially from 1990 to 2017.However, malnutrition is still the underlying risk factor for 68% of the deaths in under-five children in India.
• The Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY) rate attributable to malnutrition in children varies 7-fold among the states.
• The deaths rate range as high as 7% in Bihar and a low of 50.8% in Kerala.
• Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh are states with a high such proportion.Meghalaya, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram and Goa have the lowest proportions of such deaths.
• Among the malnutrition indicators, ‘low birth weight’ is the largest contributor to child deaths in India.It is followed by child growth failure which includes stunting, underweight, and wasting.
• For substantial improvements across malnutrition indicators, states need to implement an integrated nutrition policy.

Source: Hindu

Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Policy

Topic: Government Policies

In News: The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) approved the ‘Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Policy.

More on the Topic:

• It plans to develop high-density, mixed-use areas around 5 Metro stations in Delhi in the first phase under this policy.
• The primary goals of the policy are to Promote the use of public transport and discourage dependence on private vehicles and to provide walking-distance access to public transport to the maximum possible numbers of people.
• DDA also wants to promote mixed housing and markets close to Metro stations.
• The relevance of TOD lies in the fact that despite a 373-km Delhi Metro rail network and other public transport options, Delhi has been unable to deliver efficient, comfortable, affordable, and subsidised parking options.
• This has led to commuters relying on automobiles, especially private vehicles, much more than on public transport.
• At the heart of TOD, also lie the principles of healthy, more environment-friendly lifestyles.

Source: India Today