 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Reyes Academy. Displayed are the list of news articles selected for today's analysis and the page numbers in different editions of the newspaper. The link for the handwritten notes in the PDF format and the time stamping of the discussed articles are provided in the description box and also provided in the comment section for the benefit of mobile phone viewers. And before entering to the analysis of first news article, we would like to inform about one correction with respect to the PDF published on the 13th November 2019 news analysis. On that day, while discussing the article titled as India's cancer care facilities highly inadequate, we have made a spelling mistake with respect to the explanation of the spread of cancer from one part of the body to other. It was mentioned as metastatus. One of our regular viewers has noted to us the mistake done and the right word for the spread of cancerous cell from one part of the body to the other parts. It is called as metastasis. Kindly make this correction in your notes. Now let's move on to the analysis of first news article. This news article is with respect to the question that whether the creamy layer concept should apply while providing reservation in promotions for the persons belonging to the schedule cast and the schedule tribes. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference. First, let us see with respect to the concept of creamy layer. See the article mentions that this concept first found expression in one of the Supreme Court's landmark judgments and this judgment is the Indraswani versus Union of India in the year 1992. This case is also known as Mandel case as in this case the government's move was challenged because the government's move was based on the recommendations of Mandel commission or the second backward classes commission. If you see the judgment, it mentions that the concept of creamy layer means some members of a backward class are highly advanced socially, economically and educationally. These people constitute the forward section of the particular backward class and they are as forward as any other forward class member or other class member. They enjoy all the benefits of reservations which are meant for backward classes thereby not allowing the benefits to reach the truly backward members of a particular backward class. They are called creamy in the sense that they are highly advanced socially, economically and educationally. See this judgment upheld the government's actions which were based on Mandel commission report to give 27% reservation for other backward classes but this judgment held that the creamy layer of other backward classes can be and must be excluded so that the benefits of reservation would really reach the truly backward members. So on what basis can we define the term creamy layer? The news article mentions that the judgment said that economic criterion could be adopted as a measure of social advancement in order to identify members of a creamy layer in a particular class or in a particular group. Therefore supreme court asked the central government to fix the norms for income, property and status for identifying creamy layer. In 1993 the creamy layer ceiling was fixed at rupees 1 lakh that is at that time it was mentioned that sons and daughters of persons having gross annual income of rupees 1 lakh or above for a period of three consecutive years they would fall within the definition of creamy layer and they would not be entitled to get the benefit of reservation that is available to the other backward classes and this number 1 lakh has been subsequently increased to 2.5 lakh in 2004 4.5 lakh in 2008 6 lakh in 2013 and recently in 2017 the tab has been raised to 8 lakhs. Now one other aspect of the judgment was supreme court held that reservation should be confined to initial appointments only and it should not be extended to promotions. Now let's see what was the center's response in this matter regarding reservations in promotions. In 1995 the government of India introduced article 16 class 4 capital A through the amendment called as 77th constitution amendment act. Through this constitutional amendment act the government of India nullified the effect of Indra Swani case by introducing this article. This is because this article enabled the government to extend reservation for persons belonging to schedule cars and the schedule tribes in promotions as well as long as the nation or the state believes that people belonging to schedule cast and schedule tribes are not adequately represented in government services. Then in 2000 the government introduced one another constitutional amendment act called as the 81st constitutional amendment act. By this the government introduced article 16 class 4 capital B this article enabled the government to carry forward unfilled vacancies to be filled up in or any succeeding years and the article categorically mentions that such vacancies that are carry forwarded because they are unfilled in previous years. These carry forwarded vacancies shall not be considered for determining the 50% ceiling of reservation on total number of vacancies of a particular year. Here article 16 class 4 capital B deals with initial appointments and here when we say total reservation it means the reservation that is given for all communities including other backward classes and the article asked the government not to include the carry forward vacancies in the calculation of reservation ceiling for a particular year. Then the government amended article 335 of Indian constitution through the 82nd constitutional amendment act. This constitutional amendment act came into force in the year 2000. If you see article 335 it mentions that the claims of members of the schedule cast and the schedule tribes shall be taken into consideration in the making of appointments to services and posts in connection with the affairs of union or of a state consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration. This was the original content of article 335 but it was amended by the 82nd constitutional amendment act 2000. This amendment act mentioned that nothing mentioned in article 335 shall prevent in making any provision in favor of the members of the schedule cast and the schedule tribes for relaxation and qualifying marks in any examination or lowering the standards of evaluation for reservation in matters of promotion to any class or classes of services or any posts in connection with the affairs of the union or the affairs of a state. These amendments were challenged at the supreme court through various petitions. One such case law is called as M Nagraj case. For this case the judgment was delivered in the year 2006. The five judgments of the supreme court upheld the constitutional amendments. They mentioned it as constitutionally valid but the supreme court laid down three conditions for promotion of members belonging to schedule cast and schedule tribes in public employment. It mentioned that the government can introduce quota in promotion for the members belonging to schedule cast or schedule tribes provided it proves three conditions. One the particular community is backward. Two the particular community is inadequately represented in public employment and three providing reservation and promotion for the particular community will not affect the overall efficiency of public administration and these has to be based on quantifiable data that is based on solid scientific research and the judgment in M Nagraj and others versus union of India also held that creamy layer was applicable to the schedule cast and the schedule tribes in government promotions. When this was a statement made by the supreme court there were various appeals to the supreme court to review the verdict given by the court in this Nagraj case. One such case which appealed for review the verdict given in the Nagraj judgment was Jarnal Singh versus Lakmi Narain Gupta case. Supreme Court has delivered its verdict for this case in the year 2018. Supreme Court upheld the verdict given by it in the Nagraj case in 2006. It upheld that the creamy layer principle was based on the right to equality. It said that reservation or quota benefits should go to the weakest of the weak and it cannot be snatched away by the creamy layer of the same class. It upheld the concept of creamy layer because this concept ensured that only the genuinely deserving members of a particular community will get the benefits of reservation. Therefore, the state cannot provide reservations in promotion to the members belonging to schedule cast and the schedule tribes if they belong to the creamy layer in the particular community itself. In the case law of Jarnal Singh versus Lakmi Narain Gupta supreme court has made one main modification. It has struck down or it has held invalid that the states have to show quantifiable data to prove backwardness among the members of schedule cast and schedule tribes with respect to reservations in promotion. Now why the central government is asking the supreme court to refer the question whether creamy layer concept should apply for the members of schedule cast and schedule tribes in promotions to a seven judgment. This is because in 2018 verdict the supreme court upheld the concept of creamy layer as it felt that the creamy layer concept will ensure the benefits to reach the genuinely deserving members of the schedule cast and schedule tribes and to get much clarity on this matter the central government has asked the supreme court of India to refer this question to a seven judge bench. So these are some of the information with respect to the analysis of this news article. Now let us move on to next news article. These news articles talk about measles the syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article has been highlighted here for your reference. See measles is an infection of the respiratory system. This infection is caused by a virus and this virus is named as paramyxovirus. The natural hosts of this virus are the human beings. See it is a highly contagious disease meaning that this infection or this disease can easily spread from one person to other person. So note that the human to human transmission of measles infection is possible. This infection can be transmitted through droplets from nose mouth or throat of the infected persons to a healthy individual. Even when these droplets are released in the air they can spread the infection and a virus can be injected into the environment just by sneezing or coughing. So this disease is a communicable disease. See some of the important symptoms of measles we can say like common cold, fever, cough and conjunctivitis. Here conjunctivitis refers to infection or inflammation of outer membrane of eyeball and inner eyelid. It is also called as pink eye. In our country conjunctivitis is also called as medras eye. We have seen conjunctivitis in detail on October 17th 2019. This measles infection it can lead to serious health complications for example blindness, encephalities, severe diarrhea, some severe respiratory infections particularly you know pneumonia and some ear infections are also seen among those who are infected with measles. Here the challenge is that severe measles or measles are most likely to affect poorly nourished young children particularly those children with insufficient vitamin A and severe measles was also noted among children whose immune systems were already weakened because of the presence of some other infections or disease or by HIV or AIDS. This disease can take the life of children by infecting them and these are some of the reasons why World Health Organization calls this disease as a killer childhood disease. See this is a vaccine preventable disease or it is a preventable medical condition. The safest and effective method to prevent this infection is by vaccination on schedule. That is timely vaccination is necessary to prevent this disease from infecting children. We are using a vaccine called as MR vaccine or measles rubella vaccine to prevent measles and to control rubella. Two doses of MR vaccine is administered to the children. See first dose of MR vaccine is administered once nine months of age is completed. The second dose of MR vaccine is administered between 16 to 24 months of age since birth. So here the point to notice under our national immunization program we are administering measles rubella vaccine to the children so as to prevent measles and rubella together. The first dose of measles vaccine was introduced in our national immunization program in the 1990s and we have started to give the second dose as part of our immunization program only since 2010. This is based on World Health Organization's recommendation to administer a second dose to prevent infection and death among at least 90 to 95 percent of already vaccinated children that is those children who are vaccinated by the first dose of measles. And one of the news articles mentioned that India was one of the last countries to add a second dose of measles vaccine as recommended by the World Health Organization. So with respect to measles India aims to eliminate measles by the year 2020. And in the news article you can find a term called as congenital rubella syndrome. Article mentions that rubella virus is the primary cause of congenital rubella syndrome leading to abortions and leading to children being born with birth defects in heart eye and brain. See this rubella is also a contagious viral infection and this rubella occurs more frequently among children and young adults. As we saw similar to measles it is also a vaccine preventable disease. So when it can cause congenital rubella syndrome when rubella infects pregnant women there are two things it may cause death of the fetus or it may cause congenital defects which is known as congenital rubella syndrome. There is no specific treatment for rubella but as we know it is a preventable disease by vaccination. Now this first news article which states that measles outbreaks continue unabated. This news article is based on new estimates released by World Health Organization and the Center for Diseases Control and Prevention. Here the Center for Diseases Control and Prevention comes under the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The main observation made by these two institutions most of the people who died from measles in 2018 are children under the age of five. The reason mentioned by World Health Organization for such poor performance particularly among children is the poor vaccination coverage and that large pockets of unvaccinated children have led to devastating measles outbreak in many parts of the world. Now some of the reasons why they call it as devastating outbreaks is because even in countries that had high coverage rates and even in countries that had previously eliminated this disease there were such measles outbreaks in 2018. And there are some other reasons some of the regions are really hard to reach to vaccinate children these are regions of conflict regions that witnessing security failure or breakdown in services because of maybe natural disasters or some kind of disasters and there are also reasons such as complacency mistrust or misinformation related to vaccines so thereby parents are not vaccinating their children these are some of the contributing factors for for poor vaccination coverage among children. Now the next news article focuses on India mainly and few other countries this news article states that in 2018 India had the second largest number of children who are not vaccinated against measles in the world India's second only to Nigeria because Nigeria had around 2.4 million children who are not vaccinated last year whereas India had 2.3 million children who are not vaccinated this amounts to around 23 lakh children in our country. There is slight improvement with respect to this matter see in 2017 there were around 2.9 million children in our country below one year of age who are not vaccinated with the first dose it is this number that has reduced from 2.9 to 2.3 million in 2018 among the children under one year of age news article highlights that the issue of not vaccinating effectively among children is serious in six countries among the six countries India and its neighbor Pakistan feature other countries are Nigeria Ethiopia Indonesia and Philippines so these are some of the information with respect to the analysis of these news articles now let us move on to the analysis of next news article this news article mentions that the personal income tax rate may be cut the syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article has been highlighted here for your reference we have discussed some of the reasons and solutions suggested to address the continuing slowdown in our economy in some of our previous analysis in one of the editorials we even discussed that the challenge of continuing slowdown can be effectively contained or tackled by addressing structural issues and in fact the author was mentioning that it is the structural issues that needed attention not from the demand side today let us discuss some of the measures suggested in this article with respect to reviving our economy see the growth in the GDP in the second quarter of 2019 2020 has become the lowest in the last six years if we see quarter wise growth rate and we have also received information that even the reserve bank of India has reduced its growth projection for the financial year 2020 rba has predicted around 6.1 growth rate whereas it has now reduced it to around five percentage the news article states that the finance minister has said that government has taken several measures to boost the economy now let's see some of the measures taken by the government we know that when people are unable to buy goods and services there will be low economic activity because there will be less demand as a result there will be a lesser production because the producing companies do not want to just produce and keep it as a waste material because it will not be consumed by the consumers so this would result into low economic growth therefore in order to boost economic activity and to boost the consumption more money should be made available in the hands of the people who are the consumers so the article mentions that the last two months the public sector banks had dispersed nearly around five lakh crore to credit worthy people and companies so that they will have this money to spend and also to invest in economic activities so this would boost consumption and therefore there will be an improvement in the demand and the article also mentions that the government is focusing more on spending on infrastructure this is based on the logic that the better infrastructure would facilitate the industrial economic activities but while making such spending on infrastructure or any other matter the government should show some financial prudency this is because proper planning is necessary to advance money and also to invest in areas that gives high returns otherwise whatever money that is given to the people or given to the industrial activities or given to industries or various sectors may become non-performing assets and that will lead the economy into deep troubles in September 2019 the government had announced a reduction in corporate tax structure by way of bringing an ordinance the government has slashed the corporate tax rate to 22 percent from 30 percent for companies and it has reduced the corporate tax from 25 percent to 15 percent for new manufacturing companies there have been various conditions with respect to these companies for example the companies for which the tax rate has been reduced from 30 to 30 percentage this tax rate reduction will apply provided that these companies will not avail any benefits from the income tax act and if you include surcharge and says along with the income tax that is the corporate tax the effective tax rate it has come down from 35 percent to around 25.17 percent for those companies which will not avail any benefit or incentives under the income tax act so this tax reduction was aimed to pull the economy out from the slowdown by giving a reduction in the corporate tax structure now we have discussed about the reduction in corporate tax structure for this for for existing companies and for new manufacturing companies we also discussed about the minimum alternate tax in our hindu news analysis on september 21 2019 so for deep understanding on these issues we request you to visit the particular article analysis on september 21 while this reduction is appreciated by various corporate entities it was also criticized equally by various sections because it will reduce the income of the government and therefore it will affect the spending capacity of the government know that the corporate tax cut has actually resulted into a drop of revenue of the government to the tune of rupees 1.45 lakh crore so there is an opinion that since the corporate tax forms around 33 percent of total tax revenue in our country there will be a considerable drop of reduction in our total tax revenue as a result of the tax reduction in corporate tax and this may result in decreasing government expenditure in particular sectors there is also another comment that while government has given money in the hands of corporates that may believing that it will lead to more investments but criticisms are there the corporates may not go for investments because there is lower demand in the same line how it was demanded from the corporate entities to reduce the corporate tax there has been demand to rationalize the personal income tax rate as well so that when personal income tax is reduced people will have more disposable income and also there is demand to simplify the payment of income tax and also various procedures with respect to it for example it is noted that the present income tax paying structure is complicated as it seeks more information from the taxpayer many experts have stated that people are more fed up with the entire process if you honestly ask the people how many of them are willing to file it returns on their own without any external assistance it is really difficult to say because more people feel that it is much of a technical nature so resolving these issues and reducing the income tax rate will ensure more tax complaints while at the same time give more hands in the money of people which they may use for consumption and the finance minister has also stated that there will be rationalization in GST rates as well here rationalization refers to simplification or reduction even in the GST rates because once the goods and services tax rate is reduced consumption will increase because the prices of a particular commodity will come down these are all the measures that we can easily write in an examination these measures will work but there is also cost of the revenue of the government because more the tax rate the more the revenue for the government the less the tax rate the less will be the revenue collections we have recently discussed that particular the central government has written to states that it does not have enough amount so as to compensate to the states as required under the GST compensation to states act of 2017 so the government requires enormous planning before taking various measures to handle the present situation of our economy so these are some of the information with respect to the analysis of this news article now let us move on to next news article this news article talks about the trade margin rationalization regime for price control on certain imports from united states of america the syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article is highlighted here for your reference the news article mentions the statement made by the president and ceo of the us india strategic partnership forum who stated that the outstanding trade issues between india and the united states are moving towards a resolution and he is expecting that both countries may conclude the ongoing talks by the end of march 2020 that is by the first quarter of 2020 and there is also a mention about both countries moving towards resolution on restoring india as a beneficiary of the generalized system of preferences program of united states where at the same time resolving the price cap dispute with respect to american medical devices in our country the article mentions that india is open to the idea of trade margin rationalization for price control on imported medical devices particularly from united states of america this trade margin rationalization regime is being demanded by united states medical manufacturers as an alternative to the price regulations on imported medical devices the price regulations with respect to medical devices are made by national pharmaceutical pricing authority in this context we'll see about the trade margin rationalization the negotiations and few challenges in implementing the trade margin rationalization see in february 2017 national pharmaceutical pricing authority for the first time has cut the prices of life saving coronary stents the price cuts were to the tune of 85 percentage the bare metal stents which were used to cost to the tune of around 1.21 lakh before the imposition of price cap the cost of bare metal stents was around 45 000 after the price cap it was made to be around 7400 and prior to the price cap the price of drug eluting stent was around 1.21 lakh however because of the intervention of national pharmaceutical pricing authority by a price cut it came down to rupees 30 180 the price cut by national pharmaceutical pricing authority has provided great relief to the patient suffering from various cardiac diseases here when we say coronary stent we are referring to a tube-shaped device that is placed in the arteries that supply blood to heart and both these stents bare metal stents or drug eluting stents they are used in cardiac surgeries see india's price control regime it operates under the drug prices control order which is issued under the essential commodities act and this drug prices control order is implemented by national pharmaceutical pricing authority and it was found that there is a gross abuse and overcharging in the pricing of these essential medical devices and therefore the NPPA has imposed price controls after gathering evidence that there has been gross abuse and overcharging in august 2017 NPPA has further slashed the prices of knee implants to the tune of around 65 to 69 percentage so many patients who are suffering from knee related problems these price cuts were seen as a greater relief see knee implants or devices that are used to replace parts of damaged knee joints in the patients if you see for example one of the widely used knee implant called as cobalt chromium knee implant the prices came down to around 55,000 from around some 1.5 lakhs can because of the action carried out by national pharmaceutical pricing authority while the reduced prices were heavily welcomed by the patients but at the same time the heavy price regulation by this authority was not welcomed by the united states manufacturers their argument is that price capping will hinder the innovation and quality health care their argument is that if you are going to cap the prices of these devices it may hinder the motivation of the manufacturers so they will not maintain the quality because they will think whatever investment they may put this price is going to be sold at this particular level only so their argument is that the price capping mechanism may not be the permanent solution for the healthcare sector see we are just expressing the arguments made by the manufacturers in united states so they have been continuously putting pressure on government of india to bring an acceptable solution to resolve their concerns one important point of turmoil between the india united states bilateral relations particularly in the months of may june was that u s saying that it will withdraw india from the gsp beneficiary list it demanded uh india to resolve the concerns made by us manufacturers particularly the parmosetical and medical devices manufacturers but the issues raised by them were not resolved and with effect from fifth june of 2019 the united states administration has removed india from the gsp beneficiary list earlier in april 2018 the united states administration has placed india under eligibility review with respect to generalized system of preferences so what is this gsp see it is a trade preference program called a generalized system of preferences it was established in the year 1976 by their legislation called us trade act of 1974 of united states this program aims to promote economic development by eliminating duties on thousands of products that are imported from designated beneficiary countries of united states at present if you see there are more than 100 countries that are designated as beneficiary countries and if you look at some of the statistics released by the united states trade representative in 2018 india was placed as the top beneficiary of this program in fact india was ranked number one by this us trade representative but because of various concerns raised by the us manufacturers related to price capping in india in 2017 us has placed india an eligibility review for this program and because of various issues raised by amazon walmart and some other united states based e-commerce giants in india for indian government making rules with respect to e-commerce and rules with respect to foreign direct investment for e-commerce firms even these platforms such as walmart and amazon have also made complaints to their us administration the complaints made by walmart and amazon are that india did not give them equitable and reasonable access and finally by june 5 2019 india was withdrawn from the beneficiary list of this generalized system of program and it was estimated that because of this action of united states that is because of termination of gsp beneficiary status of india india will be losing around 190 million dollars every year so these are the background so presently the business companies from united states they're holding negotiations with india their deal is like give and take we will make you back into the gsp program as a beneficiary and in return you give us the trade margin rationalization regime for the medical devices so what is this trade margin rationalization here when we say trade margin we are referring to profit that is made in the trade chain see this regime aims at price regulation that is based on capping the trade margin in the entire trade chain that is from the first point of sale to the last point of sale the price regulation will be carried out by capping the trade margin here there will be capping of profit gained based on the price at which the products are sold at the first point of sale till the last point of sale in each stages there will be capping of the profit gained simply after the negotiations if there is a rule that at the first point of sale there shall be a trade margin of 30% only then say for example the base price is 1000 then at the first point of sale the product of the goodness rupees 1300 so they claim that it is the trade margin that determines the final price at the last point of sale which is retail price but there are various concerns in this regime one is the price of the product that is sold by the manufacturer say for example there is an agreement between indian and united states government and the participating business entities what about the initial price that is to be mentioned by the manufacturer how the government of india can verify that the manufacturer has spent this much amount to make this product this is one challenge and then the challenge lies in fixing the trade margin there may be demand that you elevate the prices to from the present level to 60 to 65 percent or 100 percent whereas government may decide that even 10 percent may be a huge burden on the indian patients and there is another challenge about monitoring the system monitoring at each point of sale is so difficult this is one of the reason why national pharmaceutical pricing authority determines the tax end price to easily monitor the system if you go and monitor each point of sale it is very difficult to monitor this is one another concern with this trade margin rationalization system but if such a system is agreed upon the effectiveness of such a system depends mainly on the efficient monitoring of the prices at every level otherwise the prices of the medical devices will go beyond control that may be definitely not affordable to the patients so criticism is that it is naturally it is really difficult to enforce such a system therefore trade margin rationalization regime is not something to be suggested to resolve the concerns of us manufacturers but those who support this tmr regime they are saying that if there is effective monitoring it can improve the transparency in the retail chain of medical devices so these are some of the information with respect to the analysis of this news article the negotiations are going on with respect to this regime and we do not know how early such a negotiation will come to a agreeable conclusion between both sides now this question is with reference to measles and rubella infection consider the following statements they have given four statements and are asking which of the both statements are correct first statement both measles and rubella infections are viral infections so this statement is correct as both of them are caused by a virus now you can eliminate option c because it doesn't say statement one is correct now if you see the remaining options a b and d all these options are saying first and second statement are correct so now let's see the third and fourth statements third statement mentions that measles is a communicable disease which is correct so you can eliminate option a now the probability of attempting correct answer has increased to 50 percent now let's see the fourth statement india along with other world health organization southeast asia region countries has resolved to eliminate measles and control rubella or congenital rubella syndrome by 2020 now this statement is correct india has resolved along with the WHO southeast asian region countries in september 2013 to eliminate measles and to control rubella by 2020 so the correct answer for this question is option d one two three and four now if you see the second statement it states that one of the targets under the sustainable development goals framework is to end preventable deaths of new bonds and children under five years of age by 2030 now this statement is correct if you see goal number three which is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being of all at all ages there is a target 3.2 which asks member countries to end preventable deaths of new bonds and children under five years of age by 2030 with all countries aiming to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 per thousand live births and under five mortality to at least as low as 25 per thousand live births in this question all the statements are correct correct answer is option d one two three and four consider the following statements regarding reservation for members of the schedule cast and the schedule tribes in public employment they have given three statements and are asking to select the correct statements from the courts given below first statement article 335 states that the claims of the members of the schedule cast and the schedule tribes shall be taken into consideration consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration now the statement is correct so you can eliminate option b now the second statement in 2018 in the journal singh versus lakmi nareng upta case the supreme court opined that the creamy layer principle should not be made applicable to the members of schedule cast and the schedule tribes in matters of promotion this statement is incorrect so you can eliminate option a and option d and easily arrive at the correct answer which is option c one and three only third statement the 82nd constitutional amendment act 2000 enable the government to make any provision in favor of the members of the schedule cast in the schedule tribes for relaxation in qualifying marks in any examination are lowering the standards of evaluation for reservation in matters of promotion to any class or classes of services or posts in connection with the affairs of the union or of a state this statement is correct so the correct answer is option c one and three only