Daily News Compilation (HINDU) for 21st March

States grow much faster than national growth rate

Sixteen of the 17 non-Special Category States grew faster than the rate at which the all-India gross domestic product (GDP) grew in 2012-13.

The weighted growth rates for Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of States add up to 6.84 per cent for 2012-13, according to the CSO data. The National GDP growth rate is 4.47 per cent. 

Normally, the States GDP adds up to about 90 per cent of the national GDP. The difference is the output of the sectors that do not belong to any State such as the Bombay High.

“The Finance Ministry, it seems, suspects that some States could also be deliberately over-stating or inflating their GSDP and has requested the CSO to validate the States’ data as early as possible,” said the sources. The Finance Ministry is dependent on the GSDP data for pegging the annual borrowing limits for each State.

The GSDP data is prepared and then submitted by the State Directorates of Statistics to the CSO. After which the CSO validates the data. Normally, the data undergoes significant changes post-validation. The validated data becomes available after a lag of about two years.

Major source of over-estimation in the States’ data is the data on the agricultural produce for which estimates are revised over several rounds through a year.

Gyaan

* MCQ can be made on GSDP using the bold points in article

Gross Domestic Product

The monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period, though GDP is usually calculated on an annual basis. It includes all of private and public consumption, government outlays, investments and exports less imports that occur within a defined territory.

GDP = C + G + I + NX

where:

"C" is equal to all private consumption, or consumer spending, in a nation's economy
"G" is the sum of government spending
"I" is the sum of all the country's businesses spending on capital
"NX" is the nation's total net exports, calculated as total exports minus total imports. (NX = Exports - Imports)
GDP is commonly used as an indicator of the economic health of a country, as well as to gauge a country's standard of living. Critics of using GDP as an economic measure say the statistic does not take into account the underground economy - transactions that, for whatever reason, are not reported to the government. Others say that GDP is not intended to gauge material well-being, but serves as a measure of a nation's productivity, which is unrelated.


Can anyone tell difference between GDP and GNP??

Gross State Product

Gross state product (GSP), or gross regional product (GRP), is a measurement of the economic output of a state or province (i.e., of a subnational entity). It is the sum of all value added by industries within the state and serves as a counterpart to the gross domestic product (GDP).

Conceptually, there is no difficulty in taking the definition of GDP for a nation and applying it to a smaller jurisdiction such as a state, or even a local government area. In practice, however, flows of goods, services, labour and capital across state boundaries (i.e., flows within a nation) are generally not measured with any great accuracy. By contrast, flows across national boundaries are normally recorded as part of the ordinary operations of government. As a result, it is often hard to measure the value added within a state, since this requires netting out 'imports' from other states, and including 'exports' to other states. Similarly, it is difficult to measure the income accruing to factors of production (labour and capital) within a given state.

Russia-U.S. tensions hit Syria

The tensions between the United States and Russia over Ukraine seem to be echoing in Syria, with Moscow accusing Washington of pursuing regime change in the Levantine state.

The Russian Foreign Ministry sharply accused the U.S. of disregarding diplomacy as a means to resolve the Syrian crisis after Washington decided to close the Syrian embassy as well as the country’s two consulates in Michigan and Texas.

Russia and the U.S. have co-sponsored talks in Geneva to resolve the three-year-old crisis, but the dialogue has so far failed to achieve any tangible results.

Syria has slammed the U.S. decision as a violation of the Vienna Convention of Diplomatic Relations.

John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State, justified his government’s decision on the ground that “the illegitimacy of the Assad regime is so overwhelming.”

The U.S. decision to close the Syrian diplomatic missions follows impressive gains on the ground by forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad. The Syrian military has recaptured from the armed opposition, the city of Yabroud — a strategic asset which allows Damascus to dominate transport routes, used by its foes to funnel fighters and weapons from Lebanon. 

“Sardar Khushwant Singh dead”

Khushwant Singh (February 2, 1915 – March 20, 2014) was an Indian novelist, lawyer, politician and journalist. An Indo-Anglian writer, Singh was best known for his trenchant secularism,[1] his humor, and an abiding love of poetry. His comparisons of social and behavioral characteristics of Westerners and Indians are laced with acid wit. He served as the editor of several literary and news magazines, as well as two broadsheet newspapers, through the 1970s and 1980s. He was the recipient of Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian award in India.

Australia finds possible lead on MH370

Ships and aircraft on Thursday intensified search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight deep in the southern Indian Ocean, far to the west of Australia, after satellites picked up images of debris that officials said may be linked to the Boeing 777.

The caste bogey in election analysis

The author has tried to prove that there is no correlation between caste and voting behaviour.

1. Except for Maharashtra where Marathas, of one kind or another, constitute about 33 per cent of the population, everywhere else, no caste, in a numeric sense, dominates any constituency. West Uttar Pradesh is supposed to be a Jat stronghold, but the Jats constitute between 8-10 per cent of the population.

So author says that in most constituencies there are five to six castes of roughly equal size, but nearly always two major contenders and people are forced to choose between the two because otherwise their vote will be wasted.

Politicians, true to form, function differently, raised as they have been on patron-client networks. This is why when it comes to giving the ticket, appointing election agents and recruiting goon squads, they look for hangers-on from their own caste and kin groups first. Sadly, most journalists reflect these caste calculations because of their proximity to political bigwigs. As their election jaunts with politicians in jeeps and planes are treated like scoops, they miss facts that are at a slight distance, and don’t even know it.

2. There is yet another reason why election specialists go wrong, and we may call this an outcome of an urban bias. From a distance it appears as if all those who belong to the category called “Scheduled Castes” (SC) or “Other Backward Classes” (OBC) look alike, think alike and are organically linked. This is another myth.

When the Marathwada riots exploded in Maharashtra in 1979, the Mahars, but not the other SCs, were the object of Maratha wrath. This prompted many Mang and Matang families to etch their caste names prominently on their huts to escape Maratha rage. 

We make a similar error when it comes to the OBCs. From a distance, it seems, once again, that all these agrarian communities are one undifferentiated mass with earth in their toe nails, but that is where the resemblance stops. The Jats and Gujjars, for example, have a poor opinion about each other. In fact, there are popular tales and fables, that are related at the drop of a hat where one community calumnies the other.

This should prepare us to look for reasons other than caste loyalties, or traditions, when we examine the rise of OBC mobilisation. Agrarian castes united, post-Mandal, not because they had traditional ties of solidarity, but because they felt deprived in a rapidly urbanising society. They saw opportunity in OBC reservations. There are always straightforward economic reasons behind many a caste manoeuvre. 

Neither the Jats nor the Yadavs were a majority community anywhere. But it was their secular accomplishments that magnified their presence.

The situation is changing. Over the past 30 years or so, other OBCs have managed to send forth their own band of notables from within their respective castes. This has diminished the aura that the Jats and Yadavs once had. The same process holds true for the SCs as well. At one time, the Mahars were the best connected among the SCs in Maharashtra just as the Jatavs were in U.P. With time, however, other SCs have also gained their own clutch of virtuosos: literati, schoolteachers, police inspectors, businessmen, and so on. Consequently, their dependence on the Mahars or Jatavs has, more or less, snapped.

Unlike the 1990s, caste and patronage no longer go together, not even within the OBCs and SCs. This is because there are now patrons, or near patrons, that come from many castes, whether from the SC or OBC category. There is then greater elite rivalry among castes making it difficult to play the caste card down the middle.