Current Affairs-August 3, 2022

 

INDIA

– PM Modi meets Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in New Delhi; both countries ink six pacts to broad-base ties

– Birth anniversary of Pingali Venkayya, designer of the Indian National flag, observed on August 2

– Lok Sabha passes Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Bill, 2021 seeking to increase the species protected under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972

ECONOMY & CORPORATE

– RBI’s composite financial inclusion index (FI-Index) rises to 56.4 in March

– HDFC Bank Parivartan signs Rs 107 crore deal with IISc Bengaluru for construction of Bagchi-Parthasarathy Hospital

– Tata Group-owned Air India (AI) to raise retirement age of pilots from 58 to 65

WORLD

– US kills al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan

– Pakistani Army helicopter on flood relief operation crashes in Balochistan province, all 6 onboard dead

– Taiwan: US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi lands in Taipei

SPORTS

– Birmingham Commonwealth Games: India win gold in men’s team table tennis by defeating Singapore 3-1 in final

– Birmingham: Commonwealth Games: India win gold in lawn bowls women’s fours team

Current Affairs- August 4, 2022

 INDIA

– Lok Sabha passes Central Universities (Amendment) Bill 2022; Provides for establishing Central universities in various States

– Centre launches State University Research Excellence scheme to create robust Research and Development Ecosystem

– Union Cabinet approves India’s updated NDC (Nationally Determined Contribution) to be communicated to UNFCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)

– Suresh N. Patel sworn in as Central Vigilance Commissioner

– Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav: Archaeological Survey of India announces free entry at all monuments from August 5-15

ECONOMY & CORPORATE

– DRI (Directorate of Revenue Intelligence) detects customs duty evasion of 2,217 crore rupees by Vivo Mobile India Private Limited

– Enforcement Directorate seals Young India office at Herald House in New Delhi

– Congress-promoted Young Indian Private Limited owns the National Herald

– Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approves highest ever Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) of 305 rupees per quintal of sugarcane for sugar season 2022-23 (October-September)

– Government withdraws Data Protection Bill, 2021 from Parliament

WORLD

– US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan ‘dangerous and stupid’, says China

SPORTS

– Parliament passes National Anti-Doping Bill, 2022 that seeks to provide a statutory framework for the functioning of the National Anti-Doping Agency and the National Dope Testing Laboratory

– Birmingham Commonwealth Games: Malaysia win gold in mixed team badminton by beating India 3-1 in final

How to be a Company Secretary: 5 Essential Skills to Master

 Since technology became an essential part of the corporate world, it was thought that the role of company secretaries would eventually diminish. Apparently, the time has shown that the very opposite is true. The position of company secretaries has actually grown significantly in the 20 years or so since computers were introduced in workspaces. In reality, today's company secretaries must be able to demonstrate a number of extra capabilities, which can broadly be categorised as:

Excellent Communication

Company secretaries need to be skilled in negotiating and influencing and should exercise a discretion since they deal with ethical, legal, and delicate matters relating to the companies they work with. They are also regularly engaged in interacting with senior external stakeholders, senior executives, CEOs, and others. How he or she speaks, what they are able to communicate and the impression they create reflect heavily on the company. Hence, excellent communication skills coupled with the ability to think and ideate on your feet are non-negotiable qualities.

Organisational Skills

A company secretary is the point of contact between an organisation and other businesses or organisations. As a result, they are usually engaged in multiple initiatives at the same time - which could easily lead to confusion if not managed properly. It is therefore crucial that they are well organised and capable of successfully maintaining corporate policies and processes.

Attentiveness

A sharp eye for detail is one of the most essential abilities a corporate secretary has to display. With their involvement in crucial documentation processes, as well as their roles as advisers and negotiators, they need to pay rigorous attention to detail.

Ability to multi-task

A company secretary must balance many tasks at once, including preparing for meetings, maintaining corporate governance compliance, facilitating communication between management and the board of directors, and much more. Therefore, anyone who wishes to become a company secretary must possess strong multitasking abilities.

Competence in using specific computer software

For day-to-day operations, every organisation, nowadays, relies heavily on tools like Microsoft Word and Excel. Single sign-on portals are also used by some businesses, especially IT organisations, to access all apps. A company secretary should be able to work competently across the software being used in the organisation.

Assuring that all operations of a company follow relevant laws, rules, and moral guidelines is the responsibility of a company secretary, who also plays a crucial part in the strategy and decision-making of the organisation. A company secretary is also tasked with counselling the board of directors on ethical and corporate behaviour norms and the consequences of their business actions.

Being a company secretary comes with independence, favourable working circumstances, a sense of accomplishment, acknowledgement, support, and solid partnerships. These essential skills will pay off in the long run and provide them with the building blocks they need for success. And for those looking for the roadmap to follow to become a Company Secretary, we have got you covered!

Source: The Telegraph, 29/07/22

Enduring crisis : The world economy in the doldrums

 Over a century ago, the Marxist revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg,  had argued that the capitalist economy needed  “outside” markets to keep its growth going; and she had seen pre-capitalist (colonial) markets as providing that stimulus. Some of the conclusions she had drawn were later criticised, but her overall insight was perfectly valid, as Michal Kalecki, the well-known economist, was to show later. The argument went as follows: imagine an economy with zero growth, where net investment too must be zero; since there is zero growth, the market is not growing and hence there is no incentive to add to capital stock; this continues to keep net investment at zero and perpetuates the economy’s stagnation. A stagnant capitalist economy, unless there is some stimulus for investment from “outside” and not just from its internal market, will, therefore, continue to remain stagnant.

The history of metropolitan capitalism can be analysed with this insight into “outside” market. The period before the First World War which had witnessed a prolonged boom had relied on colonial markets. The exhaustion of colonial markets and the encroachment by a newly-industrialising Japan into Britain’s Asian markets had caused the prolonged Great Depression of the inter-War period. The post-Second World War years, however, saw a new market being opened up “outside” of the capitalist sector proper, namely State expenditure; and this underlay the long boom, sometimes called “the Golden Age of Capitalism”, that lasted till the mid-Seventies.

This boom, however, was accompanied by large accumulations of finance in metropolitan banks and other financial institutions, which went global in their quest for investment opportunities. And since finance is always opposed to any State intervention for boosting aggregate demand (for it undermines the social legitimacy of capital, especially of finance capital), this newly-globalised finance put pressure on countries to pursue neoliberal policies and eschew fiscal activism. The neoliberal period, therefore, left world capitalism without any genuine “outside” stimulus, because of which the growth rate of the world economy slowed down compared to that of the “Golden Age”.

There was nonetheless a sort of pseudo-stimulus even under neoliberalism. This was the formation of asset-price bubbles, which operated in this manner: speculation in some asset markets pushed up their prices far above their true value; everybody knew that these prices would collapse, but people still bought these assets at such highly inflated prices in the belief that they would be able to sell them at even higher prices before the inevitable crash came, that is, before the bubble burst. This increased the apparent wealth of those who held these assets, and the euphoria of being rich caused them to spend more than they would otherwise have done, thereby raising activity and employment.

Two such bubbles in the United States of America boosted the world economy during the neoliberal era: the ‘dot-com’ bubble, which saw sky-rocketing share prices of dot-com companies, and the housing bubble. But with the collapse of the US housing bubble in 2008, even this pseudo-stimulus has come to an end. The growth rate of the world economy during the decade before the pandemic was lower than for any other decade since the Second World War.

The pandemic, which entailed serious economic disruptions, was superimposed upon this underlying structural crisis, of a growth slowdown caused by the drying up of “outside” stimuli for the system. Colonial markets can scarcely play this role now; State expenditure is not allowed to play this role under neoliberalism because of the hegemony of globalised finance; and even the pseudo-stimulus provided by asset price bubbles has become elusive as the dangers of asset-price speculation loom particularly large at present. And now, the Russo-Ukraine war, which has pushed up food and fuel prices, above all through commodity price speculation, has added to the woes of the world economy, where even the International Monetary Fund is talking of the prospect of the worst recession of the last fifty years.

Even after the war in Ukraine gets over, even after the pandemic recedes, there will still be this underlying structural crisis of neoliberal capitalism, about which, predictably, ‘establishment’ economists are silent. The point is: how can the system overcome this structural crisis? It turns out that it cannot, without transcending the neoliberal regime.

If any individual country wants to reduce unemployment through fiscal stimulation (since monetary stimulation via low interest rates, as experience shows, is too feeble), then the opposition of finance will take the form of flight of capital; the country will, therefore, have to impose capital controls. But then financing current account deficits on the balance of payments will become difficult, necessitating trade controls as well. In short, that country will have to roll back the neo-liberal regime.

A group of advanced economies could undertake a coordinated fiscal stimulus, that is, they could synchronously raise State expenditure by increasing the fiscal deficit. Then the incentive for finance to flow out of any one of them will be less. But this would be politically opposed by finance; and what is more, it would revive the sort of inflation in the world economy that had characterised the early Seventies (of which the current inflation provides a foretaste). The way to combat such inflation without squeezing third world absorption of primary commodities is through enhancing the supply of such commodities. For this, however, third world states will have to play an active role, which again will entail a roll-back of neoliberalism. Thus, neoliberalism has brought the world to a crisis from which there is no escape without transcending it.

Prabhat Patnaik is Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Source: The Telegraph, 3/08/22

Young married women are sleeping less and working more in Indian homes, time-use data shows

 M

uch has been written about the fact that only about 1 in 5 women of working age is in paid work in India. Arguments have been made about both gender norms related to marriage, childcare and domestic work as well as the lack of suitable jobs adversely impacting women’s decision to enter labour market.

It is unlikely that any one side can entirely explain a complex phenomenon such as women’s participation in paid work. However, how young Indian women spend their day and how this pattern changes as a result of marriage and employment can throw light on constraints emerging out of gender norms. Specifically, understanding the extent of the trade-off between leisure and work (both paid work and housework) for India’s young women can help us appreciate why they may not enter or retreat from paid work – as has been witnessed in recent years, especially in rural areas.

We extract individual-level data on the pattern of daily time use from the nationally representative time use survey conducted in 2019-20. We then consider women in the age group of 20-29 years who report their primary status activity either as involved in domestic work or employed. This is the age group when women tend to have the largest transformation in time spent in different activities due to marriage and childrearing. With the rising education levels of women, this is also the age when women aspire to start their careers and rise up in their workplaces, especially in urban areas. We leave out young women who are in education because their daily activities mostly revolve around their studies.

Married and employed means less sleep, more work 

Looking after the house and family is a full-time job for most women. Young women who are engaged solely in domestic work spend around 8 hours daily in household chores and child/elderly care. It is feasible that they spread their work throughout the day and end up reporting more time than they actually spend or need in housework. Nonetheless, it is reasonable to assume that it takes up around one-third of their day.

Young women who are employed end up spending 1.5 hours more – 9.5 hours daily in work, adding together time spent on paid work and housework. On average, they spend 5 hours and 15 minutes in paid work and just over 4 hours in housework. Given that housework does not reduce enough to offset the time spent in paid work, the overall burden of work rises for young women who are employed.

If we group young women by their marital status and then compare their daily time spent in work (paid work plus housework), it increases to 10 hours daily for those who are married and employed. Their pattern of work also shifts in favour of housework – they spend half an hour less in paid work, working only an average of 4 hours and 45 minutes out of 10 hours of total work-time.

In contrast, those who are single and employed, spend only 1.5 hours on housework and nearly 6 hours and 40 minutes on paid work. That means, for employed young women, marriage and childcare responsibilities raise time spent on housework from 1.5 hours to around 5 hours and 20 minutes daily.

Consequently, young employed women who are married reduce their time spent on leisure, sleep, self-care and maintenance as well as activities related to community participation due to the dual burden of paid work and domestic work. Daily time spent in all the above groups of activities is the least for these women. They spend barely 1 hour and 20 minutes in leisure activities compared to over 2 hours for married women who are not in paid work, and spend 45 minutes less in self-care and sleep compared to their counterparts involved in domestic work.

Bringing more women into the workforce

It is no surprise that only a few women can manage this trade-off and continue to work full-time after marriage. While the lack of suitable jobs may be a part of the story for a lower proportion of young women in paid work, if a marriage shifts the pattern of housework so drastically for women, it tells us that working full time after getting married makes it difficult for women to manage daily life physically and mentally.

Unless the burden of housework is shared more equally among family members or can be outsourced, more proportion of young married women in India taking up a job and sustaining it for long periods is unlikely. Alternatively, the norms around marriage, which are considered universal in India, especially by a certain age, need to undergo a significant change if the country aims for a higher proportion of young women to take up paid work, if they want to.

Vidya Mahambare is a Professor of Economics and Director (Research),Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, Sowmya Dhanaraj is a Senior Research Fellow, Good Business Lab, and Shambhavi Chandra is a graduate of Madras School of Economics. Views are personal.

Source: The Print, 4/08/22

Quote of the Day August 2, 2022

 

“There are no great people in this world, only great challenges which ordinary people rise to meet.”
William Frederick Halsy, Jr

“इस दुनिया में कोई भी महान व्यक्ति नहीं है, केवल महान चुनौतियां ही हैं, जिनका सामान्य व्यक्ति उठ कर सामना करते हैं।”
विलियम फ्रेडरिक हाल्से, जूनियर

Current Affairs- August 1, 2022

 NDIA

– Vietnam and India to conduct army exercise “Ex VINBAX 2022” in Haryana: August 1-20

– Oman and India to conduct army exercise ‘AL NAJAH-IV’ in Rajasthan: August 1-13

– ITBP DG Sanjay Arora appointed as Commissioner of Delhi Police

– Conference organised in Mumbai by Ports, Shipping & Waterways Ministry on ‘Chabahar Day’: July 31

– located in Iran, Chabahar Port is the commercial transit centre for the region and especially Central Asia

– Vice President Venkaiah Naidu presents President’s colour to Tamil Nadu Police

– Bhutan: Indian Army Chief General Manoj Pande meets King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk in Thimphu

– Bengali singer Nirmala Mishra dies in Kolkata at 81

ECONOMY & CORPORATE

– 5G spectrum auction enters Day 6 of bidding; garners nearly Rs 1.5-trillion so far

WORLD

– Former Philippines President (1992-98) Fidel Ramos dies at 94

– Chinese rocket Long March 5B crash lands in Indian Ocean near the coast of Malayasia; was launched on July 24 for delivering a lab module to China’s Tiangong Space Station.

SPORTS

– Commonwealth Games in Birmingham: India’s Jeremy Lalrinnunga wins gold in men’s 67kg category weightlifting

– Football: England beat Germany 2-1 in the final at Wembley Stadium in London to win women’s European Championship

– Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing wins Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest

– NBA (National Basketball Association) legend Bill Russell dies in US at 88; won 11 titles with Boston Celtics