Daily The Hindu Analysis

1st July 2022

 The vote of confidence
of the new
government will be
held tomorrow
 The 91st Amendment Act (2003) has added the following two
provisions
 1. The total number of ministers, including the Chief Minister in the
Council of Ministers in a State shall not exceed 15% of the total
strength of the Legislative Assembly of that state.
 But, the number of minister including the Chief Minister in a state
shall not be less than 12.
 2. A member of either House of State Legislature belonging to
any political party who is disqualified on the ground of defection
shall also disqualified to be appointed as a minister.
 The Chief Minister, recommends persons to be appointed as the
ministers by the Governor. Allocates and reshuffles the portfolios
among the ministers.
 Can ask a minister to resign or advise the Governor to dismiss the
minister in case of difference of opinion.
 Presides over the meetings of the Council of Ministers and
influences its decisions. Guides, directs, controls and coordinates
the activities of all the ministers.
 Can bring about the collapse of the Council of Ministers by
resigning from the office.
Speaker of Legislative Assembly
 It is elected by the Assembly itself from amongst its members and
remains in office during the life of the Assembly.
 However, he/she may vacate his office by resigning by writing to the
Deputy Speaker or be removed by a resolution passed by a majority of
all the then members of the assembly or if he ceases to be a member
of the Assembly.
 Such a resolution can be moved only after giving 14 days prior notice.
Constitutional Position of Speaker
 Though, he/she is an elected member of the Vidhan Sabha, he
continues to hold his/her office even after the dissolution of the Vidhan
Sabha till the new Vidhan Sabha is constituted.
• Landslides are caused due to three major factors: geology, morphology, and human
activity.

• Geology refers to characteristics of the material. The earth or rock might be weak or
fractured, or different layers may have different strengths and stiffness.
• Morphology refers to the structure of the land. For example, slopes that lose their
vegetation to fire or drought are more vulnerable to landslides.
• Vegetation holds soil in place, and without the root systems of trees, bushes, and
other plants, the land is more likely to slide away.
• Human activity which includes agriculture and construction increases the risk of a
landslide.
Mitigation:

• Restriction on the construction and other developmental activities such as

roads and dams in the areas prone to landslides.
• Limiting agriculture to valleys and areas with moderate slopes.
• Control on the development of large settlements in the high vulnerability
zones.
• Promoting large-scale afforestation programmes and construction of bunds
to reduce the flow of water.
• Terrace farming should be encouraged in the northeastern hill states where
Jhumming (Slash and Burn/Shifting Cultivation) is still prevalent.
The moral content of
democracy cannot be eroded
and India expects better
compliance of the law by its
lawmakers
 The political developments in Maharashtra throw up troubling questions about
how the political class is emasculating the anti-defection law which was described
by the Supreme Court of India as “constitutional correctives against a legislatively
perceived political evil of unprincipled defections induced by the lure of office and
monitory inducements”.
 It was enacted as the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India, in 1985, under
Rajiv Gandhi’s premiership.
 It was actually the culmination of long years of debate, deliberations,
disagreements, formulations and reformulations, with finally a consensus.
 The law as it was enacted provided for the disqualification of a legislator
belonging to a political party if he voluntarily gave up his membership of his party
or if he defied the whip of his party by voting contrary to its directions in the
legislative house.
 The first exception was a split in their original political party resulting in
the formation of a group of legislators. If the group consisted of one third
of such legislators of that party, they were exempted from disqualification.
 This exception was deleted from the schedule through a Constitution
Amendment Act of 2003 because of frequent misuse of this provision.
 The second exception was ‘merger’ which can be invoked when the
original political party of a legislator merges with another party and not
less than two thirds of its legislators agree to such a merger.
 Some insights
 A particularly compelling
case for ‘Selfish Rich
Inequality’ is constructed by
Almåsa et al. (2022), based
on an analysis of the Gallup
World Poll of 2018; that is,
whether the rich are richer
than the poor because they
have been more selfish in life
than the latter.
 They demonstrate that the non-productive grabbing behaviour of the
rich is typical of countries with weak institutions, stemming from a weak
rule of law, malfunctioning bureaucracy and corruption.
 Hence, people in such countries are more likely to believe that the rich
have become richer because they have been involved in selfish grabbing
activities.
 Support for the selfish rich inequality hypothesis rises with the level of
corruption and decreases with an individual’s rank in the country’s
income distribution.
 This study’s final analysis shows that popular belief in selfish rich
inequality is positively associated with broad agreement that inequality
in their country is unfair and that the government should aim to reduce
it.
 The rich are richer because they engage in non-productive grabbing
behaviour in countries with weak institutions, stemming from a weak rule
of law, malfunctioning bureaucracy and corruption, is largely corroborated
in India.
 The Central Consumer
Protection Authority (CCPA)
notified guidelines for
‘Prevention of Misleading
Advertisements and
Endorsements for
Misleading Advertisements,
2022’.
 The Consumer Protection Act of 2019 does have a provision on
misleading advertisements, the CCPA can impose a penalty of up to
₹10 lakh on manufacturers, advertisers and endorsers for misleading
advertisements and a penalty of up to ₹50 lakh for subsequent
contraventions.
 It can also prohibit the endorser of a misleading advertisement from
making any endorsement for up to one year; for subsequent
contravention, prohibition can extend up to three years.
 They overlap with the ‘Code for Self-Regulation in Advertising’, which
was adopted by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI).
 It’s the trust which people repose in some of the celebrities [that they] pass on
to the image of the brand. [Having such brand endorsers] impacts the buyers’
purchasing decisions because of the celebrity’s authority and/or relationship
with the audience.
 with these guidelines there will be an increase in transparency and more
responsible advertising.
 There are celebrities who do their due diligence and are careful before they
endorse a product or a brand. T
 hen there are those who are uninterested in what the brand is, or what the
product is, and it’s just about the money they’re making from the
endorsement.
 These guidelines are good, but in the real world it is going to make only so
much of a difference because the penalty on the brand ambassadors is so
[little], it doesn’t really matter to them.
 Why are countries
increasing their interest
rates? What are the ways
in which the RBI has tried
to cushion the fall of the
rupee?
 The Indian rupee hit an all-time low against the U.S. dollar,
weakening past the 79 rupees to a dollar mark and selling as low as
79.05 against the dollar on Wednesday.
 Since March this year, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been raising its
benchmark interest rate causing investors to pull capital away from
emerging markets such as India and back into the U.S.
 This, in turn, has put pressure on emerging market currencies which
have depreciated significantly against the U.S. dollar so far this year.
 The RBI has been trying to rein in domestic consumer price
inflation, which hit a 95-month high of 7.8% in April, by raising rates
and tightening liquidity.
 The drop in India’s forex reserves is believed to be largely due to steps
taken by the Reserve Bank of India to support the rupee.
 RBI officials, however, have noted that the drop in forex reserves is due
to a fall in the dollar value of assets held as reserves by the RBI.
 For instance, if a portion of the reserves are in euros and the euro
depreciates against the dollar, this would cause a drop in the value of
forex reserves.
 What determines the rupee’s value?
 The value of any currency is determined by demand for the currency as well as its
supply. When the supply of a currency increases, its value drops.
 On the other hand, when the demand for a currency increases, its value rises. In the
wider economy, central banks determine the supply of currencies, while the
demand for currencies depends on the amount of goods and services produced in
the economy.
 In the forex market, the supply of rupees is determined by the demand for imports
and various foreign assets.
 So, if there is high demand to import oil, it can lead to an increase in the supply of
rupees in the forex market and cause the rupee’s value to drop.
 The demand for rupees in the forex market, on the other hand, depends on foreign
demand for Indian exports and other domestic assets.
 So, for instance, when there is great enthusiasm among foreign investors to invest
in India, it can lead to an increase in the supply of dollars in the forex market which
in turn causes the rupee’s value to rise against the dollar.
 Since March this year, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been raising its benchmark interest
rate causing investors seeking higher returns to pull capital away from emerging
markets such as India and back into the U.S.
 This, in turn, has put pressure on emerging market currencies which have depreciated
significantly against the U.S. dollar so far this year.
 Even developed market currencies such as the euro and the yen have depreciated
against the dollar and the dollar index is up more than 9% so far this year.
 In fact, some analysts believe that the RBI’s surprise decision to raise rates in May
could have simply been to defend the rupee by preventing any rapid outflow of capital
from India.
 In 2013, the rupee fell 15% against the dollar in about three months after investors
were spooked by the US Federal Reserve’s decision to trim down its bond purchase
program that had helped keep long-term interest rates low.
 In spite of several years of
policymaking to improve
road safety, India remains
among the worst-performing
countries in this area with a
toll of 1,47,913 lives lost to
road traffic accidents in 2017
as per Ministry of Road
Transport and Highways
statistics.
 The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figure for the same year is
1,50,093 road accident deaths.
 Further, India’s data on road crash mortality are seen as an undercount, and
the Global Burden of Disease report for 2017 estimates, based on verbal
autopsy sources, that there were 2,18,876 deaths.
 The persistently high annual death toll brings into question the country’s
ability to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.6, which aims to halve
the fatalities and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2030.
 The United Nations is holding a high-level meeting on Global Road Safety on
June 30 and July 1, 2022 to review the progress and challenges.
 Clofazimine is one of the three essential
drugs in the Multi Drug Treatment of
Multibacillary Leprosy (MB-MDT) cases,
along with Rifampicin and Dapsone.
 Under the NLEP (National Leprosy
Eradication Programme), the government
has been ensuring the steady supply of
monthly blister packs for 12 months to
all the multibacillary leprosy cases
containing these three drugs.
 But, the present market crisis of
Clofazimine is seriously affecting the
Indian Leprosy Treatment scenario.”
India’s scheduled commercial banks as
well as non-banking financial
companies have sufficient capital
buffers to withstand any shock that
may emanate from the pandemic or
the ongoing geopolitical tensions in
Europe, the Reserve Bank of India said
in its biannual Financial Stability
Report (FSR) released on Thursday.