The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 3 August 2023

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis for UPSC

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 2 August 2023

• The GST Council on Wednesday blinked a little on technicalities and kept the door open for a review down the road, but stuck to its earlier decision to impose a 28% levy on the full face value of bets placed on online gaming, casinos and horse racing, with an eye on implementing it from October 1.
• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who chaired the Council’s meeting, said the Centre would now strive to amend the Goods and Services Tax (GST) law in Parliament’s current session itself to enable the implementation of the levy, despite dissent from Sikkim and Goa over the modalities of the tax for casino users.

 The Hindu Editorial Today

What is GST Council?

• The GST Council is a constitutional body responsible for making recommendations on issues related to the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in India.
• As per Article 279A (1) of the amended Constitution, the GST Council was constituted by the President.
• Members:
• The members of the Council include the Union Finance Minister (chairperson), the Union Minister of State (Finance) from the Centre.
• Each state can nominate a minister in-charge of finance or taxation or any other minister as a member.

• Of greater significance to the world is that the G-20 is being led by India, the world’s most populous country. Global financial crises in the last 30 years compelled the G-7, the United States-led cabal of western countries (and Japan) that controls global financial institutions, to expand the G-20 by adding China, India, Russia, Brazil, and a few other countries for solutions to global problems.
• The G-20 is at an impasse because the U.S. wants its members to shut out Russia and China who it sees as threats to its global hegemony. India is not easily swayed by pressure from the G-7. It wants the G-20 to concentrate on the agenda of 90% of humanity outside the G-7.
• Global governance is in bad shape. The trajectory of progress must change.
• Humanity cannot carry on the way it is. The trajectory of progress must be changed to make economic growth more equitable and sustainable.
• The SDGs describe 17 complex combinations of environmental, social, and economic problems. All 17 problems do not appear in every country, and when they do, they do not appear in the same form.
• The McKinsey Global Institute has produced a detailed map of realities on the ground, in its report, “Pixels of Progress: A granular look at human development around the world” (December 7, 2022).
• Pressure to change and new solutions must come from the peripheries of power systems, with movements on the ground in India and around the world.

• It unambiguously demonstrated the Biden administration’s intense desire to cultivate India as a durable, long-term partner in a variety of realms, including in the United States’ strategic competition with China for the foreseeable future.
• In comparison with the substantial progress in many areas, the economic, and more specifically, trade relationship between the two countries, is growing — surpassing U.S.$120 billion — but it continues to underperform relative to the sheer potential.
• With greater ambition, the often-mentioned target of $500-$600 billion in bilateral trade by 2030 can easily be attained and surpassed. The sky’s the limit for this partnership of the century.

• The ouster of Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26 is a blow against political stability in the nascent democracy and efforts to counter fast-spreading Islamist insurgency in the Sahel region.

• The U.S. and France see Niger, the largest country in West Africa, as a bulwark against Islamist insurgency in the region.
• Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and several other jihadist groups operate in the Sahel region, with Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali particularly hit. In Mali and Burkina Faso, which saw coups in 2021 and 2022

• Today, there are more than one lakh startups recognised by the government, with about half of them coming from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. It has created a sense of agency among India’s youth, and a sense of freedom of being able to determine their own destiny.
• The Startup movement is moving beyond the consumer Internet and e-commerce to genuine deep technology areas, such as space and remote sensing, artificial intelligence and robotics, biotech and pharma, electric vehicles, drones, defence, telecommunications, semiconductors, and many more.
• First, the availability of much larger risk capital for deeptech startups. The government must lay much more emphasis on the aforementioned sectors in the existing SIDBI Fund of Funds. Industry must increase and channel their research funds towards financing deeptech startups.
• Second, we need to enable mass procurement of indigenously developed technologies.

• One more cheetah died at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, wildlife authorities confirmed on Wednesday. While a post-mortem is under way, the female cheetah, Dhatri, sourced from South Africa, is believed to have contracted a parasitic infection after repeatedly scratching its skin and wounding itself. This is the sixth death reported among the 20 cheetahs brought in from Namibia and South Africa.
• Some of the previous deaths were likely from infections due to chafing by the radio collars worn by the cheetahs, causing lacerations on their skin made fragile from humidity and exposing them to parasites against which they have no natural immunity.
• On Tuesday, the Environment Ministry and the National Tiger Conservation Authority told the Supreme Court that the deaths were due to “natural causes” and not from accidents.
• National Tiger Conservation Authority
• National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.
• It was established in 2005 following the recommendations of the Tiger Task Force.
• It was constituted under enabling provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, as amended in 2006, for strengthening tiger conservation, as per powers and functions assigned to it.

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