UPSC Key- February 3, 2023: Learn about Coastal Regulation Zone, Follow-on Public Offer (FPO) and Shaligram stone

‘Should not miss bus this time… PM said keep growth momentum intact’

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development-Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.

Main Examination: General Studies III: Government Budgeting

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- A day after presenting the Union Budget for 2023-24, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said growth was the predominant focus from Day 1 when she and her team sat down to prepare the last full-year Budget ahead of Lok Sabha elections. “The Prime Minister was also on board with it. He said growth ka momentum rakhna chahiye (we need to keep the growth momentum). If anything, we need to speed it up, oil it better and run it better, and that is why this number of Rs 10 lakh crore for capital expenditure came up,” Sitharaman told The Indian Express in an interview at her North Block office Thursday.

• Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman kept her focus on two key aspects-What are those aspects?

• How much did the government proposed to spend or do its total expenditure in 2023-24?

• Which sector get the highest allocations, in 2023-24?

• What are the main tax proposals in the Union Budget?

• What steps have been done toward fiscal consolidation in accordance with the Union Budget?

• The budget goes through the certain stages in the Parliament-what are they?

• After presenting budget in the parliament, now what?

• How provision of budget is enacted?

• What is ‘Voting on Demands for Grants’?

• When and how does a demand turn into a grant?

• What is a ‘cut motion’?

• Is Budget a Finance Bill or Money Bill?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Nirmala Sitharaman: ‘This is a golden opportunity for India. We should really not miss the bus this time’

RBI seeks details from banks on exposure to Adani firms

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance

Main Examination: 

• General Studies III: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.

• General Studies IV: corporate governance

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- AS the market continued to hammer its stocks with the flagship Adani Enterprises dipping another 26.50% and over $100 billion shaved off the group’s total market cap, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has sought details from banks about their exposure to the group. This comes amid the sustained fall in the shares of group companies and in the wake of last night’s withdrawal of the follow-on public offer of Rs 20,000 crore.

• Quick Recall-Adani Enterprises has cancelled its Rs 20,000 crore follow-on public offer (FPO), the company said in a regulatory filing late on Wednesday (February 1) evening. The company will refund proceeds it had received as part of its FPO, which was bailed out largely by corporates and foreign investors on Tuesday. The extraordinary development has come amid a massive market rout in Adani Group stocks following the release of the Hindenburg Research report that accused the group of “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud”.

• What Is a Follow-on Public Offer (FPO)?

• How Follow on Public Offer is different from IPO?

• Why Adani Enterprises has cancelled its Rs 20,000 crore follow-on public offer (FPO)?

• But wasn’t the Adani FPO oversubscribed?

• Adani Group calls off FPO: Why, what happened?

• What has the Adani Group said on the FPO?

• What does Hindenburg Research do?

• Who are the people behind the company?

• What other work has Hindenburg done?

• Finally, why is the company called ‘Hindenburg’?

• What Hindenburg Research said about the Adani Group?

• What is short selling?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Adani Group calls off FPO, to return money to investors: What exactly has happened?

📍What is Hindenburg Research, the company that has accused Adani Group of stock manipulation, fraud?

📍Hindenburg Research, which has accused the Adani Group of fraud, is a short seller. What is short selling?

EXPRESS NETWORK

A 1,000-km-long journey: Leaving no stone unturned for Ram temple

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Main Examination: General Studies I: Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- Travelling 1,000 kilometres over a week, carted on trucks, worshipped by devotees along the way, and guarded by police personnel, two ‘Shaligram’ stones weighing 31 tonnes and 15 tonnes each reached Ayodhya on Thursday. With that, one more step was completed on the road to the Ram temple at Ayodhya which, the Modi government has declared, would be ready come January next year, and where work is on day and night to meet the deadline.

• Ayodhya is regarded as one of the seven sacred cities of the Hindus-Why?

• Map Work-Ayodhya

• Ayodhya-Know the historical background

• What is a shaligram stone?

• For Your Information- Anthropologist Holly Walters writes in her book, “Shaligram Pilgrimage in the Nepal Himalayas,” that shaligram stones are fossils of ammonite, which is a type of mollusc that lived between 400 million and 65 million years ago. Referring to a Geological Survey of India publication from 1904, Walters wrote that shaligram stones “date specifically from the early Oxfordian to the late Tithonian Age near the end of the Jurassic Period some 165–140 million years ago.”

• Why use the shaligram stone in the Ram temple?

• Do You Know- According to Holly Walters, an anthropologist, in her book “Shaligram Pilgrimage in the Nepal Himalayas,” Shaligram stone is mostly found in riverbeds or on the banks of the Kali Gandaki, a tributary of the Gandaki River in Nepal. This stone is revered by Hindus, who believe it to be a representation of Lord Vishnu. According to Hindu mythology, Lord Vishnu was cursed to become the shaligram stone for “betraying the chastity of the goddess Tulsi.” She writes that “the stone is considered to have divine powers and is seen as a symbol of good luck and prosperity”.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍The sacred Shaligram: 140 mn-year-old stones to be used for the idol of Lord Ram in Ayodhya

THE EDITORIAL PAGE

An eye on the future

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development-Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.

Main Examination: General Studies III: Government Budgeting

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- NK Singh and Prachi Mishra writes: Are all budgets invariably contextual — a melange of flashbacks, existing in realities and crystal gazing? This budget is an innovative amalgamation. It comes in the backdrop of the impending state elections and the general election in 2024. Temptations for excessive subsidies and measures designed to influence the electoral psyche are inevitable. It is laudable when the short-term temptations are spurned in favour of longer-term outcomes. Indeed, the budget is a unique example of being both responsive and responsible

• How this year’s union budget is responsive?

• What is ‘Amrit Kaal’?

• How this year’s union budget is also responsible?

• In an economy, how are macroeconomic stability and growth ensured?

• Does the budget sufficiently address issues in the neglected health and education sectors?

• For Your Information-With a hike of 2.7 per cent relative to what was originally budgeted in FY23, health expenditure is now assumed at Rs 88,956 crore. The 157 new nursing colleges will improve human resource capability and primary health centres. Other measures would be necessary to improve overall health outcomes. On education, given the need to improve outcomes, there is recognition that other initiatives are necessary. The enhanced allocation in school and higher education of Rs 68,804 and Rs 44,094 crore respectively, represents an increase of 8 per cent in both. This will be buttressed by improved outcomes through the National Digital Library, and revamp of teacher training, all in line with the overall vision for a digital economy.

• What does the budget do for India’s commitment for an orderly transition to a Green Economy?

• Does it position India well not only for the COP28 in the UAE but India’s presidency of the G20?

• Do You Know- In order to ensure India’s commitment for an orderly transition to a Green Economy, Rs 35,000 crore allocation is declared for energy transition and net-zero carbon emission targets; an annual production target of 5 MMT by 2030 for Green Hydrogen Mission; and a Green Credit Programme under the Environment (Protection) Act to incentivise sustainable actions. Issues of innovative financing, risk mitigation for crowding in private investments and securing participation of multilateral institutions would need continuing engagement.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍A budget for the few

📍ADDING IT UP

EXPLAINED

Deer could be reservoir of old coronavirus variants, suggests US-based study

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Main Examination: General Studies II: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- The alpha and gamma variants of the coronavirus continued to circulate and evolve in white-tailed deer, even after they stopped spreading widely among people, a new study suggests. Whether the variants are still circulating in deer remains unknown. “That’s the big question,” said Dr Diego Diel, a virus expert at Cornell University and an author of the study, which was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday.

• What’s the link between deer and coronavirus?

• How was the study conducted?

• For Your Information-Previous studies of deer have suggested humans have repeatedly introduced the coronavirus into white-tailed deer populations in the United States and Canada and that deer can spread the virus to one another. Scientists are not sure how people are passing the virus to deer, but they have speculated that it might happen when people feed deer or deer encounter human trash or waste. The scale of the risk that infected deer pose to humans remains unclear. Scientists have documented one case that most likely resulted from deer-to-human transmission in Ontario, and they note that hunters and others who have regular contact with the animals could potentially catch the virus from them.

• What are the variants of Covid?

• Why do variants occur?

• Are all variants equally infectious?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍From Delta to Omicron: All about Covid-19 and its many variants

Choosing the right tax regime

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development-Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.

Main Examination: General Studies III: Government Budgeting

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-By tweaking tax slabs and rates in the new personal income tax regime in the Budget for 2023-24, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman nudged taxpayers towards a simpler, hassle-free tax regime with minimal compliance burden, as against the more complicated old system.

• New tax regime is the default. What does it mean?

• For Your Information-In her Budget speech for 2023-24, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the new tax regime would be the “default” for individual taxpayers, leading to considerable speculation on what exactly this meant. According to senior government officials, it only means that when taxpayers log on to the income tax portal to file returns, the new tax regime option would be checked by default. But that does not mean that the taxpayer cannot opt for the old regime. In fact, individual taxpayers, except those with income from business, can switch between the two tax regimes every year. This flexibility will also be available to new taxpayers.

• New Income Tax regime, Budget 2023: What changes?

• Should you shift to the new regime?

• Will this impact savings?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Budget’s good economics: No shadow of 2024, light of fiscal prudence — capex surge, tax savings for young and those retiring

Proposed Pen Monument to Karunanidhi — plan and the criticism

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: General issues on Environmental ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change – that do not require subject specialization.

Mains Examination: General Studies III: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story– A planned offshore memorial to the late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi was opposed by representatives of some opposition parties and fishermen’s and environmental groups on grounds of environmental damage and loss of livelihoods in Chennai this week, and the leader of a Tamil nationalist party threatened to break the installation if it was built. The proposed ‘Muthamizh Arignar Dr Kalaignar Pen Monument’ off Marina beach falls under Coastal Regulation Zones (CRZ) IA, II, and IVA, and requires clearance under Section 4(ii)(j) of the Union Environment Ministry’s Coastal Regulation Zone Notification, 2011 (amended up to March 22, 2016).

• The memorial in the shape of a pen represents what?

• An environmental impact assessment done by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) has said there are no sensitive marine flora and fauna species such as coral reefs, sea grass, or Olive Ridley turtles in the vicinity of the proposed monument, but still there is opposition-Why?

• What is coastal regulation zone (CRZ)?

• Which coastal areas comes under coastal regulation zone (CRZ)?

• What is high tide line (HTL) and low tide line (LTL)?

• For Your Information-The Ministry of Environment and Forests first issued a Coastal Regulation Zone notification in February 1991 to regulate activities in the coastal area under section 3 of India’s Environment Protection Act, 1986. (MoEF)

• The coastal areas have been classified as CRZ-1, CRZ-2, CRZ-3, CRZ-4-Know about them

• What does the Sailesh Nayak committee report said about the coastal regulation zone (CRZ)?

• Why Regulation of Coastal Zones are important and urgent?

• What were the changes in the CRZ notification in 2019?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Sailesh Nayak Committee report on coastal zone regulations released 18 months after submission

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