Indian women’s labor force participation is declining

• According to the World Bank report released in June 2022, Indian women’s labour force participation proportion of the population over the age of 15 that is economically active has been steadily declining since 2005 and is at a low of 19 percent in 2021.

 

How the experts are analysing the falling participation of women?

• Patriarchy in continuity: According to some experts there is continuities of patriarchal oppression and structural barriers to women’s economic participation in India.
• Informal economy not accounted: Other group of experts says these claims fail to acknowledge that this measure does not capture women’s participation in the informal economy.
• Preference for home-based work: In developing economies such as India, women are concentrated in the informal sector and demonstrate a preference for home-based work opportunities that allow them to balance their domestic duties with income-generating activities.
• Social consideration: It is simplistic and instrumental link between women’s labour force participation and measures of societal development.
• Reductionist approach: It is important to move beyond reductionist explanations and probe how women’s employment operates in specific contexts. This calls for a more comprehensive understanding of women’s decision-making and navigation around employment.

 

Economy theory about women participation in labour force

• Standard economic theory: Standard economic theory predicts that as household income increases, women withdraw from devalued labour because their income is no longer required to run the household.
• Income employment: As household income rises and educational attainment improves, women re-enter the workforce.
• Mismatch of skills: But for moderately educated women from upwardly mobile families, there is often a mismatch between available jobs and their skills and ambitions.
• Aversion towards low-paid jobs: As their families are in the process of claiming middle-class status, young women are often averse to taking up low-paid jobs in the formal economy.
• Class and social mobility: If they are unable to secure high-status white-collar jobs, they prefer home-based work such as tailoring or running tuitions for young children. Thus, women’s employment preferences are often intertwined with family-centred projects of class and social mobility.

Study of ground reality about women employment

• Facilitated study group: In a recent study, facilitated study group (FSG) interviewed 6,600 women of working age from low-income communities across 16 cities in India.
• Small job and business: It found that women’s ability to work outside the home is defined by the views of their family members who prefer women working from home or engaging in a small business to allocate more time to household responsibilities. But 59 percent of women prefer jobs in the formal sector over entrepreneurship.
• Less use of child care: Less than 1 percent of working mothers with children under 12 years old have used paid childcare services. 89 percent are unwilling to use paid childcare services.
• Preference to family care: Affordability isn’t a key factor in not considering paid day-care. It’s because mothers do not trust day-care services as they do not provide ‘family-like’ care.
• Balancing the familial expectations: These findings suggest that Indian women’s employment-related decisions are shaped by considerations of providing caregiving to their children and balancing their preferences with familial expectations.

What should be the right approach about women participation?

• Family responsibility and career: women, especially in low-income communities in India, have a composite view of their lives (jobs, enterprises, care work, upholding traditions, and community connections) and navigate through these with their household and extended family.
• Comprehensive view of life: The non-compartmentalisation emerges from a culturally embedded and empirically grounded perspective that does not view culture as a limitation, but as a resource and enabler that provides a comprehensive valuation for all kinds of work that women do (informal and formal).
• Understanding the cultural context: This translates into everyday negotiations that have less to do with upturning the current social structure and more with negotiating for increased autonomy within the cultural context.
• Flexible working Hours: Policy solutions must derive from the negotiations women are interested in undertaking with their employers around home-based work or flexible working hours. It is important to perceive women’s employment goals as reflective of preferences defined not only by their gender but also by their social and cultural context.

 

Conclusion

• The breakdown of the family structure and caregiving systems in developed economies offers an important lesson. If Indian women want to participate in the formal labour force while retaining their family structure, this preference should be accommodated in institutional and interpersonal responses.

Exports drop by 12.2% in 2022

Trade Deficit:

• Trade deficit or negative balance of trade (BOT) is calculated as the difference between exports and imports when imports are higher than exports.
• The opposite of trade deficit is termed trade surplus and it occurs when exports are higher than imports.
• Trade deficit forms a part of the Current Account Deficit.

Current Account Deficit:

• The current account deficit is the measure of a country’s trade when the value of the goods and services it imports is more than the value of the products it exports.
• Current account is calculating using the formula (X-M) + NI + NT
• Where X-M stands for trade balance, X, the value of Exports and M, the value of Imports.
• NI is the net income from abroad which mainly includes income from foreign countries such as interests and dividends.
• NT is the net current transfers which consist of government transfers such as foreign aid.
• The current account is representative of a country’s foreign transactions and along with the capital account, forms a country’s balance of payments (BOP).

Balance Of Payments (BOP)

• The balance of payments (BOP) can also be called as the balance of international payments.
• It is a statement which includes all transactions made between entities in one country and the rest of the world over a fixed period of time, such as a quarter or a year.

India’s Exports

• India exported goods worth $34.48 billion in December 2022 which showcases a 75% rise from November 2022.
• However, it’s a steep 12.2% dip from the same figure last year.
• This is the second time in three months that the value of exports has decreased in a year-on-year basis, the other being October 2022.
• Despite a dip in two months, merchandise exports in the first nine months of 2022-23 showed a rise of 9.1% than a year ago at $332.76 billion.
• Goods imports, on the other hand, had increased by about 25% at $551.7 billion.

Exports from 19 of 30 major exporting sectors shrank in December, including;

• Cotton yarn and handlooms (-40.4%),
• handicrafts (-36.9%),
• petroleum products (-26.9%),
• plastic and linoleum (-26.23%),
• gems and jewellery (-15.2%).

Jallikattu

• Jallikattu is practised in the state of Tamil Nadu annually in the month of January as a part of Pongal celebrations on Mattu Pongal
• The sport is played in an open ground where a bull is let loose amid hordes of people who then try to control the bull by piling on its hump or horns.
• Jallikattu was the traditional way for the peasant community to preserve their pure-breed native bull’s lineage.
• Kangayam, Pulikulam, Umbalachery, Bargur and Malai Maadu are some of the popular native cattle breeds used for Jallikattu.

Historical Antecedence of the Sport:

• The first references of this traditional sport dates back to 400 BC –100 BC, and it is believed to be created by the people who lived in the Mullai division of prehistoric Tamilnadu.
• A seal belonging to the Indus Valley civilization which depicts the practice has been preserved in the National Museum, New Delhi.
• A 1,500 years old cave painting in white kaolin depicting a lone man trying to control a bull has been discovered near Madurai.

 Legal Concerns:

• Jallikattu came under public scrutiny in 2007 when the Animal Welfare Board of India and the animal rights group PETA filed petitions in the Supreme Court against the practice of Jallikattu as well as bullock cart races.
• In 2011, the Centre added bulls to the list of animals whose training and exhibition has been prohibited.
• Citing the 2011 notification the Supreme Court in 2014 banned Jallikattu.
• Tamil Nadu government created Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act of 2017 and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Conduct of Jallikattu) Rules of 2017 to counter the ban.
• In 2018, the Supreme Court referred the Jallikattu case to a Constitution Bench, where it has remained pending till now.
• Two persons were gored to death in two jallikattu events at Palamedu in Madurai district and Periya Suriyur in Tiruchi district on 16th January 2023.

Environment Impact Assessment Must Be Done Before Allowing Urban Development Projects: Supreme Court

• Recently, the Supreme Court has urged legislators and policy experts to ensure that Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) studies are done before giving the green signal for urban development projects in India’s cities.
• The judgment came in regard to a proposal to convert independent residential units into apartments in Chandigarh Phase 1.
• The court prohibited the move in order to protect the heritage status of ‘Corbusian’ Chandigarh.

Highlights

• Exercising its powers under Article 142, the Court directed the Heritage Committee to consider the issue of redensification in Phase I, subsequent to which the Chandigarh Administration should consider revising the Chandigarh Master Plan 2031 and the 2017 Rules applicable to Phase I.
• The court stated that it is time for the legislature, executive branch, and policymakers at the national and state levels to take note of the environmental harm caused by haphazard growth and decide to take the required steps to prevent environmental harm.
• Bengaluru’s “Garden City” has been destroyed by urban growth, as was shown during a significant rainstorm in September 2022.
• The city, which was drowned after the rain, reportedly struggled to find drinking water, according to the court.
• It’s crucial to strike the right balance between environmental preservation and sustainable development.

Need

• Centres of growth: As the world gets more urbanised, the city’s function as a generator of economic growth has assumed greater significance.
• Cities must be smart in their expansion and investments if they are to take advantage of opportunities.
• Collaboration: It was said that the legislature, governments, and experts should collaborate in order to “create appropriate arrangements for carrying out Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) studies before approving the urban expansion,”.
• Long-term vision: It acknowledged that long-term city visioning exercises can incorporate environmental issues, as demonstrated by City Development Strategies (CDSs).
• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) aims to ensure that the environmental effects of decisions relating to a particular activity are considered before the decisions are made, according to the court.

What is Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)?

• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) evaluates the likely environmental impacts of a proposed project or development, taking into account inter-related socio-economic, cultural, and human-health impacts, both beneficial and adverse.
• UNEP defines Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as a tool used to identify the environmental, social, and economic impacts of a project prior to decision-making.

Significance

• It aims to predict environmental impacts early in project planning and design, find ways and means to reduce the adverse effects, shape projects to suit the local environment and present the predictions and options to decision-makers.
• Using EIA both environmental and economic benefits can be achieved, such as:
  • reduced cost and time of project implementation and design,
  • avoided treatment/clean-up costs, and
  • impacts of laws and regulations.

Chandigarh The Swiss-French urban planner Le Corbusier had planned Chandigarh for half a million Partition-uprooted people. Chandigarh is a planned city in India. Chandigarh is bordered by the state of Haryana to the east and the state of Punjab to the west and the south. It is one of India’s first planned cities after independence, Chandigarh is renowned worldwide for its architecture and urban planning. Capitol Complex- The UNESCO World Heritage Site It’s one of the most monumental Architectural Compositions of Modern Architecture by Le Corbusier arising out of a unique geo-political and cultural setting. It has been given the status of UNESCO World Heritage. The Capitol Complex is strategically located at Geographic and Topographic “Head” of the city against the back-drop of Shavlik Hills

Conclusion

• More than half of the world’s population currently resides in urban areas, according to a publication by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which was cited in the verdict.
• The Supreme Court ordered that copies of the decision be sent to the Chief Secretaries of every State and the Cabinet Secretary of the Union of India so that they can both take notice of it.
• The court expressed its hope that both the Union of India and the State governments would make serious efforts in that direction.

Competition Commission of India

 Google has said that the order passed by India’s competition regulator — the Competition Commission of India (CCI) — against Android’s operating system policies will result in devices getting expensive in India and lead to proliferation of unchecked apps that will pose threats for individual and national security.

About Competition Commission of India:

• The Competition Commission of India has been established to enforce the competition law under the Competition Act, 2002.
• It comes under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
• It should be noted that on the recommendations of Raghavan committee, the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969 (MRTP Act) was repealed and replaced by the Competition Act, 2002.
• The Commission consists of a Chairperson and not more than 6 Members appointed by the Central Government.
• It is the statutory duty of the Commission to eliminate practices having an adverse effect on competition, promote and sustain competition, protect the interests of consumers and ensure freedom of trade carried on by other participants, in markets in India as provided in the Preamble as well as Section 18 of the Act.
• The Commission is also mandated to give its opinion on competition issues to government or statutory authority and to undertake competition advocacy for creating awareness of competition law.
• Advocacy is at the core of effective competition regulation.
• Competition Commission of India (CCI), which has been entrusted with implementation of law, has always believed in complementing robust enforcement with facilitative advocacy.
• It is a quasi-judicial body.
• CCI also approves combination under the act so that two merging entities do not overtake the market.

The Competition Act

• The Competition Act, 2002, as amended by the Competition (Amendment) Act, 2007, follows the philosophy of modern competition laws.
• The Act prohibits anti-competitive agreements, abuse of dominant position by enterprises and regulates combinations (acquisition, acquiring of control and M&A), which causes or likely to cause an appreciable adverse effect on competition within India.