Mains Factly January 2023

ESSAY

• IMF Deputy MD: – India is a relative bright spot in the world economy today, growing at rates significantly above its peer average

GS-1

SOCIETY

• Gender Gap
  • According to the World Bank, the gender gap in labour force participation has been narrowing globally, including in India. However, this is primarily because of falling labour force participation among males. Globally, the gender gap in favour of men is at 25 percent and 38 percent for lower middle-income countries, compared to 51 percent for India
  • According to OECD, women’s labour force participation leads to higher ownership and control of financial assets which in turn accelerates development by reducing poverty and inequalities

GEOGRAPHY

• Land Subsidence
  • According to US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), subsidence is the “sinking of ground cz of underground material movement“
• Population
  • According to the United Nations Projections, India’s populations stood at 2 million in 2022 (more than China’s) — and is expected to reach 1428.6 million in 2023
• Andaman and Nicobar Islands constitute just 2 percent of India’s landmass but account for 30 percent of the country’s 200- nautical miles Exclusive Economic Zones
• The Indian Mangrooves cover 2 percent of the World’s Forest Area, supporting larger estuarine biodiversity (FAO, 2020)

GS-2

POLITY& GOVERNANCE

Facts

• Inadequacy of Resources in Court
  • There is a glaring inadequacy of primary resources at court complexes in India. As of August 2022, roughly one in every four (27 per cent) courtrooms was equipped with a computer for video conferencing; almost half (46 percent) did not have purified drinking water facilities and only 5 percent had basic medical facilities
• Pending Cases in Judiciary
  • Over 4.7 crores cases are pending across various courts in India. Of them, 4 percent were pending in subordinate courts, 12.4 percent in High Courts and nearly 1.8 lakh cases have been pending for over 30 years
• Healthcare
  • India ranks poorly on multiple health financing indicators. Its public health expenditure as a percentage of its GDP (1.28%) and share of general govt expenditure dedicated to health (4.8%) remain akin to the poorest countries. Private spending still constitutes nearly 60% of overall expenditure on health
  • The govt. aims to spend at least 5 per cent of GDP on healthcare annually. Currently it spends 1.9 percent, compared with 1.2 per cent in FY14. Despite a consistent rise, the expenditure levels are still significantly lower than the 8-9 percent of GDP spent annually by major economics.
  • India’s rural and urban populations have diametrically opposite experiences of healthcare. Urban Residents, who accounts for just 28% of the population, have access to 60% of country’s hospital beds while the remaining 72% of the rural population have access to just one third.
  • 2017-18 National NCD monitoring survey reported that 98% of Indians do not take adequate fruits and vegetables and only 59% of adults do adequate physical activity.
  • A/q to study Report “India: Health of the Nation’s States” — The India State Level Disease Burden initiative in 2017 by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), it is estimated that the proportion of deaths due to Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in India have increased from 37.9% in 1900 to 61.8% in 2016. The four major NCDs are cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), cancer, chronic respiratory diseases (CRDa) and diabetes which share four behavioral risk factors — unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity and use of tobacco and
  • India’s Rural Healthcare system continues to be plagued by shortfall in 2 critical fronts– doctors and infrastructures. There is a shortage of 2 percent of surgeons, 74.2 percent of obstetricians and gynecologists, 79.1 percent of physicians and 81.6 percent of paediatrician, according to the Rural Health Statistics 2021-2022 released this week.
  • The World Health Organization and the UN have designated 2021-2030 as the Decade of Healthy Aging, building on the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing that aligns with Sustainable Development Goals
  • According to WHO, India’s suicide rate in 2019, at 12.9/100000 was higher than the regional average of 10.2 and the global average of 9.0. Suicide has become the leading cause of death among those aged 15-29 in India
• Education
  • As per All India Survey for Higher Education (AISHE) 2019-2020 report, there are 3805 diploma levels technical institutes such as Polytechnics.
  • In India learning poverty has shot up from 54 percent to 70 percent. The World Bank Report defines learning poverty as the inability of children to attain minimum reading proficiency and corelates this with the proportion of children who are out of the school.
  • As per the Indian govt’s Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE), 2021 report, the annual dropout rate of secondary school students in the country was 6 percent
  • The Union Education Ministry on Sunday released data from All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), 2020-2021, which showed a 7.5% increase in the student enrollments across the country from the 2019-20 figures, with the total enrollment reaching 4.13 crore
  • Gross Enrollment Ratio for all enrollments (as per 2011 Census) increased by over 2 points to 27.3. The highest enrollment was seen at the undergraduate level, which accounted for 78.9% of all enrollments, followed by postgraduate level courses, which accounted for 4% of the year’s total enrollments

IR

• According to UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics (UIS) latest report, the G20 Nations accounted for 90.6% of global GERD in 2018. Global R&D expenditure has reached a record high of about 2.2 trillion current PPP$(2018), while Research Intensity has gradually increased from 43% in 1998 to 1.72% in 2018
• Countries of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) consisting of United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Oman. Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain with over 8.5 million non-resident Indians, constitute 65 percent of the total NRIs
• Diaspora
  • Indian diaspora in the Middle East accounts for arround 6 million people with UAE at 3,41,000 followed by Saudi Arabia with 25,94,857. Kuwait hosts 10.29,861 Indians, Oman 7,79,351, Qatar 7,56,062. As per the RBI Report, remittances that this diaspora sends are said to be arround 30% of the total remittances received by India from abroad, however earlier this figure used to be 50%

GS-3

ECONOMY

• Trade
  • 80% of world trade happens using the seas, 40 per cent of the world’s population live near coastal areas, and more than 3 billion people access the oceans for theirlivelihood
• Energy
  • India can save $19.5 billion a year with shift from coal to clean power: Global Energy Monitor
• Agriculture
  • If agriculture is to continue to feed the country’s undernourished population—5 million, according to the UN’s State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2022 — and drive its economy, it needs to work in harmony with nature, not against it.
  • The investment rate in agriculture (ratio of gross capital formation in agriculture to GDP-Agri) stood at 12 percent in 2000-2001, increased to 18 percent in 2011-12, and as per the latest available figures, stands at 15.9 percent in 2020-21
• Non-Institutional Credit
  • According to a NABARD Survey, approximately 30% of all agricultural households had borrowed money from non-institutional sources, which is primarily made up of relative, friends or informal moneylenders
• GDP
  • The IMF has reduced India’s GDP growth projection for fiscal 2023 to 8 percent, from its earlier forecast of 7.4 percent
• FPO
  • According to a report from Azim Premji University (2022), less than 4 percent of the FPOs have paid up capital of more than Rs10 lakh
• Renewable Energy
  • MNRE estimates roughly $25 billion annual investment to meet the Renewable Energy Generation Target of 500 GW by 2030
• Fish Production
  • The Pradhan Mantri Matsya Yojana (PMMSY), aims to increase fish production to 220 lakh tonne, avg annual growth rate of fish production to 9 percent, fisheries exports Rs 100000 crore, reduce post-harvest losses to 10 percent and increase employment in the sector to 55 lakh by 2024-25.
  • India is the 2nd largest fish producing country in the world accounting for 7.56% of global production and contributing about 1.24% to the country’s GVA and over 28% to the agricultural GVA. Fisheries and aquaculture continue to be an important source of food nutrition, income and livelihood to millions of people. Export earnings from fishery sector has been Rs 46,662.85 crores during 2019-20
• Oil Palm
  • Oil Palm has the capability to produce 4-5 tonnes of oils per hectare, compared with any other oil crop
• Millets
  • The $470 million (in 2021) global millets market is projected to register a CAGR of 4.5 per cent during the 2021-2026 period. APEDA has set a target of $100 million millet exports by 2023-2024 from $64.28 million in 2021-22
• Remittances
  • According to the latest World Bank Migration and Development– For the first time a single country, India is on track to receive more than $100 billion in yearly remittances
• Irrigation
  • A/q to a report by WCD, approximately 35 percent of the water needed for irrigation in India is provided by large storage reservoir
• Tax
  • A report by the State of Tax Justice states that India is losing arround Rs75000 crore in taxes every year due to International corporate tax abuse and private evasions
  • According to Finance Ministry data, only 1 percent of Indians pay income tax and declare earnings above the non-taxable threshold. Only 78 crore income tax returns were filed by individual taxpayers for FY2018-19 till Feb 2020.
  • India’s tax to GDP ratio is still below the critical mark of 15 per cent, which is when a country starts to comfortably get resources to make quality expenditures.
  • The number of income tax payers in the status of individuals stands at 80,40,45,511 for the assessment year 2018-19 as per the information provided by the Administrative Handbook of the CBDT. They accounted for the collection of Rs 4,73,121 crore out of a total direct tax collection of over Rs 11 lakh crore
  • Data released by the Ministry of Finance last week reaffirmed the healthy growth in the central govt’s tax collections this financial year. At the aggregate level, the govt’s direct tax collections upto January 10, 2023, stood at Rs 14.71 lakh crore, almost 25 percent higher than over the same period last year.
  • A report to the Fifteenth Finance Commission by Vidhi Centre for Legal shows that is 2012-13 proceeds from the cesses formed 6.88 percent of the total tax revenues, which increased to 11.8 percent in the financial year 2018-19
• Wealth
  • The Oxfam Survival of the Richest Report Corroborates this. There are now 166 billionares in India, up from 106 in 2020, it notes. It is estimated that the wealth is concentrated among the top deciles, with the top 30 percent accounting for 90 percent of the wealth
• Export
  • According to the Ministry of Commerce, India’s export to the gulf countries has increased by 58.26 percent to about USD 44 billion in 2021-22 against USD 27.8 billion in 2020-21, with Gulf countries. Bilateral Trade between India and the Gulf Cooperation Council grew from US$ 87.55 billion in FY 2020-21 to US$ 154.66 billion in FY 2021-22, registering a whopping increase of 77.06% on a year-on-year basis.
• MSME
  • To achieve the goal of 5 trillion economy, focusing on the 63 million SMEs/MSMEs is a must. Ninety four percent are small, 4.5 percent are micro and only 1 per cent are in the medium sector only. They contribute 30 percent to the GDP and most important employ 110 million

ENVIRONMENT

• Groundwater
  • Groundwater is the backbone of India’s agriculture and drinking water security in rural and urban areas, meeting nearly 80% of the country’s drinking water and two third of its irrigation needs. Groundwater is pivotal to India’s water security. The fact that the theme of the UN World Water Day 2022 was “Groundwater, Making the Invisible Visible” is a reflection of the importance given to the resources across the globe
  • According to UN’s World Water Development Report, 2022, the country extracts 251 cubic km or more than a quarter of the world’s groundwater withdrawal each year; 90 percent of this water is used for agriculture
  • Data shows that India, with nearly 18% of the world’s population, occupies about 4% of the total geographical area and consumes 4% of the total water resources. A World Bank Report says that India is the largest groundwater uses. A rapidly growing economy and population are straining the country’s groundwater resources
• Carbon Footprints
  • Although India is the 2nd largest country by population, its carbon footprint is less than 5% and per capital co2 emissions are only 40% of the global average. According to the World Energy Outlook 2022, the country’s coal generation and oil imports will peak in 2030, with gas imports doubling arround the same time