Question of the day 1.

Briefly discuss the following:

(i) Status of Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission Act (MRTPA) (ii)Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), under Current Economic Reforms of Government of India. The Union government has approved 76 per cent FDI in non-news media and 26 per cent FDI in news and current affairs publications. 2. Discuss the effects of increasing the FDI in media.

IIFT Holds Trade Winds 2013 Continuing with its Golden Jubilee celebrations, the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade here organised 'Trade Winds 2013: Annual Business Summit' from August 27-30, 2013. Dr. Surajit Mitra, Director, IIFT said that the Summit endeavours to prepare a stage where ideas are thrown into the open for debate and discussion, where views are exchanged and participants draw key business insights from the minds of the decision makers themselves". He said that the outcomes of these deliberations are us ed for the policy making by the Government and other non-government bodies. House panel proposes measures for working women A Parliamentary panel has asked the Centre to make it mandatory for all of its departments to place single women employees at locations closest to their hometowns or places of their choice. The Parliamentary Standing Committee also advised that the government should consider framing a policy to allow flexible working hours for women, especially those with small children, or extending them the work-from-home facility, noting that responsibility of family continues to be one of the major reasons for some of them to quit their jobs. In some countries, women employees are given longer maternity leaves, part-time leaves of up to two hours a day till the child is three years old, child-care leave which can be divided into periods for both parents to take care of the child alternately, and spouse maternity leave, among various other facilities. A US Federal agency has launched an investigation into Indian trade policies which allegedly discriminate against the American trade and investment. The investigation, "Trade, Investment and Industrial Policies in India: Effects on the US Economy", was requested jointly by the Senate Committee on Finance and the House Committee on Ways and Means. USITC will report on recent policies and measures in India that affect US exports and investment and evaluate the effects of such barriers on US firms and the economy, the federal agency has said in a statement ESSAY Smaller states are not the solution After Independence, smaller princely states were combined together mainly on linguistic basis. States have been reorganised since then. Andhra Pradesh was carved out of Madras in 1953. In 1956, 14 states and six Union Territories were created. Bombay was split into Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960. In 1963, Nagaland was carved out of Assam; in 1966, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh were carved

out of Punjab. In 1972, Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura were formed. In 2000, three states were carved out Uttarakhand from Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh from Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand from Bihar. The United Progressive Alliance government decided to carve out Telangana from Andhra Pradesh on July 30, 2013. Generally, regional variation in development has been the major reason for demand for a separate state. Both bigger and smaller states have their own sets of problems. Improved governance is a major argument in favour of smaller states due to the smaller area to be governed. However, if the state is not self-sufficient in generating its own resources for developmental needs, its dependence on central government for resources increases. A number of states have problems relating to distribution of river-water. State reorganisation not only aggravates this but also creates complexities with respect to redistribution of power, other resources/assets and liabilities of combined states. An oft-quoted argument in favour of smaller states is their higher economic growth achievement. Smaller size of operation is not the only condition affecting growth. Initial conditions, proactive growth policies, quality of labour force and governance have a larger role to play in the growth of an economy. A states economic growth performance depends on national economic growth performance, whic h in turn depends on global growth performance. The production structure of a state also weighs heavily on its economic performance. During the global trade slowdown, the states with larger proportion of exports (for example, Karnataka) were adversely ( ) affected. The auto sector, at present, is going through a tough time. As a result, the economy of states like Gujarat; Haryana and Tamil Nadu will be more affected compared to other states. Due to different economic regimes, a comparison between pre- and post-state formation economic performance will yield incorrect conclusions. In order to avoid problems associated with compound annual growth rate, average annual growth rate is used. The states are divided in two groupssmall and big. States having more than 2.5% of the all-India area are classified as big states and the rest as small states. If the ratio is more than one, it implies that the states economic performance is better than the national growth performanc e. In terms of average GSDP growth, 11 states performed better than all of India and the performance of the remaining 10 states was lower than the nations. However, among the better-performing 11 states, only three are small; the remaining eight have been classified as big. The list of the ten that performed lower than the nation taken together is split equally under the small and big classifications. Uttarakhand, Haryana and Goa are the three small states that have performance figures better than the countrysalthough some small states did well, the hypothesis that smaller states grow faster compared to bigger states looks untenable. Another hypothesis put forward in favour of having smaller states is that they perform better than the larger parent states. While Uttarakhand performed much better than its parent state, Uttar Pradesh, in case of Bihar, the parent state has performed much better than the new state, Jharkhand. In the case of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, although Madhya Pradesh has performed better than Chhattisgarh, the performance of parent state and the new state is not significantly different. The growth performance of these six states does not provide any conclusive evidence to accept hypothesis that newly-formed states perform better than their parent states. Income is one of the dimensions of development, not the end result. Even the social performance of the three states carved out in 2000 does not support the hypothesis of better development in smaller states. In case of literacy and infant mortality rate, all three bigger states have performed better than the states carved out of them. All three parent states after division had worse social indicators compared to the newly-formed states, which hints at faster improvement by the parent states. However, in case of household access to safe drinking water, the trend is mixed. Although small size increases the likelihood of improved governance, this cannot be assumed to be a given. While improved governance may push the growth of the newly-created states economies, other factors are more important for sustaining that growth over the years. In India, broader economic policy contours are fixed by the economic policies of the central government. It is the responsibility of the state governments to align their policies in line with the national economic policies. While the global factors have a role in the present Indian economic slowdown, policy logjam, project clearances, environment/forest clearances, land acquisition and infrastructure issues are some bottlenecks to growth. The size of the economy has no role in either fast-tracking or slowing these decisions.

1.

Match the following: Place 1.Delhi 2.Kanpur 3.Lucknow 4.Jagdishpur

Revolt Led by A. B. C. D. A.Gen. Bakht Khan B.Nana Sahib C.Hazrat Mahal D.Kunwar Singh

Code: ABCD a) b) c) d) 2. 4321 3412 2143 1234 Choose the correct code:

(a)Arya Samaj - Raja Rammohan Roy - Bombay (b)Ramakrishna Mission- Ramakrishna Paramhans - Midnapur (c)Theosophical Society-Blowatskey and Olcott- U.S. (d)Muhammadan Literary Society- Sayyad Ahmed Khan - Allahabad 3.Consider the following statements: 1.Lord Curzon in 1905 issued an order of partitioning the province of Bengal in 3 parts. 2.Massive protest under leadership of Surendera Nath Benerjee and Krishna Kumar Mitra was organized in Town Hall, Calcutta. 3.'Amar Sonar Bangla' was composed by R.N. Tagore on the eve of partition. 4.National Boycott, Education, Swaraj were the Components of Swadeshi Movement. Choose the correct answer: (a)All (b)None (c)1, 3 and 4 (d)2, 3 and 4 (e)1 and 2 only 3. 4.In context of Mahatma Gandhi consider the following statements:

1.1st -Non cooperation Movement - Kheda 2.1st-Civil Disobedience Movement- Champaran 3.1st-Hunger Strike - Ahmedabad 4. 1st-All India Satyagraha- Rowlatt Act

Choose the correct codes: (a)All(b)None (c)1, 2 and 3(d)1, 3 and 4 (e)1 and 4

5.

Consider the following statement:

1.Committee on Agricultural Cost and Prices was set up in 1965 and is presently under ministry of food Processing Industries. 2.CACP's functions includes advising on price policy, recommending measures for making price policy effective, examining prevailing method and costs of marketing, suggest measures to reduce costs of marketing and recommend fair price margins. 3.MSP-maximum support price is the price at which govt. is ready to purchase the production of crop from the farmer. 4.CIP-Central Issue Price is the price at which the state Govt. has to sell the agriculture produce to the BPL at the ration shops. Which of the following codes are correct: (a)All(b)1, 2 and 3 (c)1, 3 and 4(d)2, 3 and 4 (e)1, 2 and 4 Answers 1.(a) 2.(c) 3.(d) 4.(a) 5.(d)