Skip to main content

Water Management & Gloomy State Of The Economy - Today Current Affairs Topics

Water Management In The 21st Century


What is the issue?
  • Our ideas & institutions dealing with water management have become out-dated.
  • We are probably peddling towards disastrous wrongly perceieved  solutions, that calls for an immediate course correction.
What is the background?
  • Flooding across various regions in India has become an annual phenomenon.
  • Alternately, farmers in other regions committing suicide due to lack of rains have also become common.
  • Notably, lakes catching fire, water contamination & plummeting ground-water tables are indicative of the seriousness of the crisis that we face.
What are our systemic flaws?
  • Outdated Ideas - Ideas have been slow to evolve in India.
  • Whether it is management of floods or droughts, the government planning engineers haven’t thought outside conventional norms.
  • The legal and constitutional mandates too are archaic and in most cases lack clarity & relevance to the 21st century. 
  • The legal framework is yet to recognized the concepts of “Integrated Water Resource Management, Environment flows, Conjunctive use, Basin management, Water footprint and Virtual water trade”.
  • Multitude of Organisations - About 23 organisations deal with water resources at the union government level alone.
  • Similar counterparts exist at State, district and village levels with overlapping jurisdictions.
  • Paradoxically, these organisations rarely co-ordinate or integrate between themselves to solve a water problem.
  • Expertise - Also, most engineers in water organisations in India don’t have the requisit qualifications regarding water resources.
  • Even the Central Water Engineering Services, the only dedicated water service cadre of union isn’t composed of technocrats in water resources but civil servants and civil engineers.

How can the future be best approached?
  • The 21st century faces daunting challenges that were unknown earlier.
  • Population explosion and changes in consumption patterns have raised the demand for water.
  • Climate change, silting & aging dams and the deteriorating quality of freshwater are serious issues that needs focus. 
  • This calls for relevant structurtal & policy changes along with the development of expertise that is capable of thinking out of the box.

The Gloomy State Of The Economy


Why is the issue?
  • The GDP growth is slowing & inflation is high.
  • Although, short-term disturbances will get rectified soon, a full bounce back looks far off.
What do the latest numbers say?
  • The Index of Industrial Production has slumped to 1.2% in July as against a 4.5% during the same month last year.
  • IIP for June this year was even worse at -0.2%
  • Retail price inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, rose to a five-month high of 3.36% in August.
  • These numbers follow the slowdown reported earlier this month in the GDP growth during the first quarter of 2017-18.
  • Growth in the latest quarter hit a three-year low.
What has caused the slowdown?
  • The implementation of the GST has caused significant uncertainty among businesses.
  • This has led to a drop in business activity across the value chain, which is being reflected in the industrial output numbers.
  • Also, the economy has been contracting for the last five consecutive quarters, starting well before the implementation of GST or the demonetisation.
  • Many have attributed this to the drought in private investment which has lasted for years now.
  • The current slowdown is thus very likely the result of both short-term disturbances caused by GST as well as other factors.
What is the likely policy response?
  • The slump in economic growth has increased pressure on the RBI to provide a boost to the economy by cutting interest rates.
  • The underlying belief is that printing money can grow the economy.
  • The rise in retail inflation in August, however, probably rules out any form of aggressive monetary stimulus by the RBI in its next policy meeting due to be held in October.
  • Some part of the lost growth may be recovered over the next few quarters as the economy adapts to GST and other related short-term disturbances.
  • A sustained recovery that puts India on the high-growth trajectory for years, however, may be possible only after the government implements structural reforms in the labour and land market.

Labels:
Location: Door No 18, Old Plot No 109, New Plot No 259, AL Block, 4th Avenue, Shanthi Colony, Annanagar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600040, India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Role Of CAG, Creation And Economic, CEPA With South Korea - Today Current Affairs Topics

Upgrading The CEPA With South Korea Why in news? India has decided to upgrade its existing trade pact with South Korea. The domestic industry has flagged concerns over the agreement. What is CEPA? Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement - CEPA, was a trade deal signed between India & South Korea in 2009 . The CEPA has increased bilateral trade volumes by over 50%. Many Korean companies have penetrated deep into the Indian consumer goods market and have directly benefitted from CEPA. Recently in a review meeting, both countries have decided to upgrade the CEPA at the earliest – possibly by 2018. This has angering domestic exporters, who claim the pact has disproportionately helped Korean exporters. What are the concerns about CEPA? Trade Deficit –  India’s trade defict with South Korea is continuously worsening with time. While India imported $12.58 billion worth of goods from South Korea in 2016-17, its exports totalled only $4.24 billion. Misuse -  T
Post a Comment
Read more

NEET, Further Rate Cut. Private Hospitals - Today Current Affairs Topics

Addressing The Concerns With NEET What is the issue? National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) is distressing rural students with medical aspirations, the test needs a reform.  What is the basis of NEET? NEET is based on a core curriculum approach, whereby the syllabi of all the school boards have been taken into consideration. It has been prepared by the CBSE, Council of Boards of School Education,National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and adopted by the Medical Council of India. What are the issues with Indian education system? India doesn’t have a common core curriculum, there are 50 different boards. There are wide variations with regard to curriculum design, curriculum transaction and curriculum evaluation among these boards. No significant efforts had been taken so far to bring some sort of uniformity in these curriculums. Only few state boards have prepared their content in tune with the curriculum of national boards, particularly
Post a Comment
Read more

genral studies key discussion

1.A 2.D ----1. ncoar in in min science and tech ----2. mplads is under statistics and implementation 3.B....prions it is smaller than virus 4. D. skanda Gupta is last great ruler but not the last 5.C . KVIC is in  not min rural development 6. b. orissa plain is called utkal .. utkal iniversity is in orissa 7.c. this movement in   andhra . whereas chippko was in north india   8. C. kookaburra also called trupuri .... .......... tripura and pudhucherry are two have only four states 9.land of god is uttrakand . god own country is kerala 10 A. so far admiral of navy is not conferred to any one... arjun singh is field marshal 11. nano technology .. all the  four are associated wit nano tech....but C .. Richard was the first person 12.D 13. cnidarians mostly live in water not in land... 14. compound eye is character of arthropods 15. madame Tussuad's is wax museum with replicates famous personality.... recently it made model of tendulkar 16.A 17.A , Nagpur is al
2 comments
Read more