 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Iyer's Academy. The list of topics chosen for today's discussion along with the page numbers is given here for your reference. Dear viewers, government as a part of budget session has released economic survey for Financially 2021 study. So we are going to have lot of economic news articles today. So if you are not an economics liking guy, please be patient with today's news analysis. I am trying to make it as simple as possible. Firstly, the main page article says that economic survey predicts 11% growth next fiscal year. The Indian economy is in the middle of a v-shaped recovery path. What is this v-shaped? First, due to COVID-19 lockdowns, the economic growth has fallen sharply and now it is increasing in v-shape, which is a good thing. And as I said before, the economic growth will be around 11% in next year and it is estimated that the current year that is 2020-2021 will be contracted by around 7.7%. Further economic survey uses a term called counter-cyclical fiscal policy till the country returns to pre-COVID-19 growth path. So what is this counter-cyclical fiscal policy? See, basically there are two types of cyclical fiscal policies. One is counter-cyclical, other is pro-cyclical. First, what is this cyclicality? See, cyclicality refers to change in direction of government expenditure and taxes based on economic conditions. So as a cycle, we will be moving forward or backward. So cyclicality is direction of government's policies regarding expenditure and tax rates. So coming to counter-cyclical fiscal policy, it refers to steps taken by the government that go against the direction of economic or business cycle. Simply, if there is a recession or a slowdown, government will increase the expenditure and reduce taxes. On the other hand, if economy is booming, counter-cyclical fiscal policy aims at increasing the taxes and cutting public expenditure. So if government does opposite to the conditions of business or economic cycle, then we call it as counter-cyclical. If economy is booming, government is going conservative. If economy is falling, then government will be aggressive. That is what we mean by counter-cyclical fiscal policy. The economic survey gives a very good example of ancient Indian kings. See, ancient Indian kings used to build palaces during droughts. See, when drought occurs, the entire economy of that country will be fallen because those days, the entire economy is surrounded with agriculture. So then the kings will start building new palaces so that the people will get labour money from the kings so that the economy will be forced to move forward. That is what we call counter-cyclical fiscal policy. So then what is pro-cyclical fiscal policy? Here, government reinforces the business cycle by being expansionary during good times and contractionary during recession. So when economy is booming, government will further help it to go forward. When economy is contracting, government will also reduce the public expenditure. This kind of pro-cyclical fiscal policy is generally dangerous because it also increases macroeconomic volatility and also depresses investment in real and human capital. So generally, pro-cyclical fiscal policy is dangerous. So economic survey asks the government to loosen its strings to spur the economy with a counter-cyclical fiscal push. So as our economy has been falling in the recent years, now it is the time for government to go for aggressive spending. Guys, generally economic survey will be coming up with new concepts every year. For example, in 2019, they came with behavioral economics or nut-jeffet. Last year, they have talked about thalinomics. This time, they are talking about counter-cyclical fiscal policy. So have a brief idea because these kind of concepts or potential questions in films are main six. On coming to this news article regarding social sector, it says that bare necessities gap between states has narrowed since 2012. But there is still a gap between urban and rural India and among income groups. If you see this map given in the news article, it talks about state of access. So the bare necessities index ranges between 0 and 1. 1 represents the best access while 0 represents poor access. So this index is based on access to basics of daily life, like housing, water, power, sanitation, cooking gas, etc. As you can see, Gujarat, Kerala, Putarakhand, Punjab, Haryana have topped the index. While eastern states like Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura have occupied the lowest places. And most of the states are marked with yellow color, which means their index rating is around 0.5 to 0.7. So according to this index, the bare necessities has improved disproportionately more for the poorest households compared to richest households across both rural and urban areas. So this is a good thing because the basic amenities are being provided to almost all the people in the country. However, the survey noted that there is still a gap between urban and rural India. Meaning, urban people are getting better amenities compared to rural areas. So in this article, we have to know few things. In terms of basic amenities, India is improving. Secondly, a new index called BNI has been formulated and this index has put the quality of basic amenities in our country in an optimistic note. And if you see this news article, which talks, Increase ratio of prices of rice wheat. Increasing the prices in ration shops is a very sensitive issue. It will lead to a lot of public uproar. The economic survey has said that the central government must increase the prices of rice and wheat in public distribution shops. See, under National Food Security Act, ration card holders are allowed to buy rice at 3 rupees per kilo and wheat at 2 rupees per kilo. This rate is known as central issue price. But it is to be noted that this price has not been increased since the National Food Security Act was enacted in 2013. But the Food Corporation of India, which procures grains across the country, has to pay more amount per kg of food grains compared to 2013 in 2020. This is because the cost of food grains is being increased on an annual basis. Because of this reason, the subsidy bill on the government has increased a lot. So, economic survey has asked the government to raise the prices in PDS shops to cut short the subsidy bill. And if you see this news article, which is titled, Withdraw Forbearance Once Economy Recovers. So, the economic survey has asked for an early withdrawal of regulatory forbearance which was adopted in the wake of pandemic. Here forbearance means, government has given various relaxations to banks, NBFCs, companies during COVID-19 period to come out of the crisis. So, economic survey warns that these loose-end norms or relaxations should be withdrawn immediately once the Indian economy starts recovering. This is because a similar issue happened during 2008 global financial crisis. So, during this crisis, the forbearance or the relaxations which were given should have been ideally discontinued in 2011 because by 2011, the GDP exports, IIP, credit growth, everything recovered significantly. But the forbearance which was given was continued for many years even after recovery. So, the banks, NBFCs, credit institutions have used these relaxed norms to restructure loans even for unviable entities. This letter led to NPA crisis. RBI had to come up with something called asset quality review. So, the economic survey cautions that all the benefits being given now should be discontinued once the economy is recovered. So, the article is titled, Withdraw Forbearance Once Economy Recovers. See, we are discussing too many new economic terms like counter-cyclical fiscal policy. And now we have discussed about forbearance. And we also talked about the rising the prices in food shops. So, why we are discussing all these terms is, there will be more news articles like editorials, op-eds in the coming days and budget is also coming sooner. So, if you understand these terms now, the coming articles will be very easy. So, please be a little more patient in trying to understand the economic terms. And if you come to business page, the article is titled, Businesses must ramp up R&D spending to boost innovation. See, the economic survey noted that government is contributing around 56% of gross expenditure on research and development. So, it means the investment on R&D innovation from the private sector or the business sector has been very minimal in our country. As we all know, India is currently the fifth largest economy. But we lag behind most other large economies on most indicators of innovation. So, we are producing a lot, but we are not innovating a lot. Why? Because R&D investment is the key to innovation. If you are not doing research and development, how can we innovate? If we see the expenditure on R&D in our country, see India's gross domestic expenditure on R&D, which is abbreviated GERD is around 0.65% of GDP. So, this figure is currently the lowest among other large economies. Economic survey asks the government to raise this GERD to at least 2%. So, why GERD has been low in our country? The survey says that India's low GERD is mainly due to disproportionately lower contribution from business sector. See, generally it is private sector or business sector which should be investing more on research and development. But contradictingly, in India, the business sector contribution is just around 37%. If we see the top 10 economies, the business sector contribution there is around 68%, that is average value. So, this disproportionately lower contribution from the business sector is also a reason for low innovation in our country. And as we said before, the Indian government is pumping around 56% of gross expenditure on R&D. So, this disproportion where government is spending more and businesses spending less needs to be corrected and overall GERD should be raised from 0.65% to 2%. Next, see these two news articles which talk about important points from economic survey on health sector. The first article is regarding out-of-pocket expenditure and second article is regarding Gen RRJ Yojana. See, out-of-payment expenses or expenditure, that is, OOP is the direct payment made by the individual to healthcare provided at the time of service use. So, in simple words, OOP are expenditures borne directly by a patient where insurance does not cover the full cost of health service. So, these unregulated direct charges by the hospitals often constitute a major access barrier to needed healthcare and it contributes to high OOP, which generate problems of financial protection. So, often high OOP leads to catastrophic health expenditure which is called CHE. So, when payments for health services exceed 40% of household disposable income, it is called catastrophic health expenditure. So, regarding this, economic survey has noted that India has one of the highest levels of OOP in the world because 17% of population spends more than 10% of their income on health, as you can see in this picture. So, OOP for health increases the risk of vulnerable groups slipping into poverty because of catastrophic health expenditure. So, there is a need for increased prioritization of healthcare in the central and state budgets because it crucially impacts how much protection citizens get against financial hardship due to OOP payments. As you can see in this image, OOP expenditure as a share of total health expenditure drops when public health expenditure is increased and India is at the lowest levels of public health expenditure which is less than 3%. So, based on this survey suggests that increasing the public health expenditure to 3% of GDP can reduce OOP by 30%. The same has been already proved by countries like China, Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan, etc. This scenario is also true at the level of states in our country. As you can see in this graph, states having higher per capita health spending have lower OOP. If you see states of Sikkim, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh which are spending more on health, the OOP has been very less. And this is where Pradhan Mantri Jen Aragyojna assumes significance. So, the economic survey in the second news article says that states which implemented Jen Aragyojna have improved in many health outcomes. For example, as you can see in this graph, states that joined Jen Aragyojna experienced greater penetration of health insurance as compared to states that did not implement the Jen Aragyojna or Aishman Bharat. So, if there is greater penetration of health insurance, the OOP comes down. The same effect could be seen in other health outcomes like reduction in IMR, MMR, greater awareness of HIV, AIDS, family planning, etc. So, the economic survey beautifully links the state expenditure on health and the out-of-pocket expenditure of citizens. And the Jen Aragyojna has already proved that the increased health expenditure will improve the health outcomes. See this news article which is titled India's ratings do not reflect economies fundamentals. This statement was made by Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian. The economic survey said that the sovereign credit ratings do not reflect Indian economies fundamentals and are noisy, opaque and biased. So, before we understand why credit ratings are opaque and biased, we will try to understand what is sovereign credit rating. See this credit rating is an independent assessment of credit worthiness of a country. It means if we invest our money into that country, what is the probability of getting back our money? So, investors across the world use these credit ratings as a way to assess the riskiness of a particular country's bonds. So, who gives these credit ratings a credit rating agency? So, generally government across the world in any country borrow the money by giving bonds. These bonds will be purchased by both Indians as well as foreigners. So, foreigners use these credit ratings to decide whether to invest in such a country or not. So, if credit rating is poor, the foreign direct investment, the foreign portfolio investments will be affected. So, the issue of credit rating agency is in spotlight because recently Moody's reduced India's ratings to BAA-3 from BAA-2. So, BAA-3 is lowest investment grade rating. If it is further reduced, it means India is not safe for investments. So, in the light of this chief economic advisor has said that never in the history of sovereign credit ratings, a fifth largest economy in the world has been rated as the lowest rank of investment grade, that is BAA-3. He said that this is due to bias against India or developing countries. If you see, there are three major credit rating agencies in the world. One is Moody's, other is S&P and Fitch. These three are western credit rating agencies and hold over 90% of sovereign ratings market. So, the chief economic advisor is accusing that these western dominated credit rating agencies are showing bias against India. This is reflecting in according poor credit ratings to fifth largest economy in the world. If you see this, Moody's, Fitch, S&P, most of them have given BAA or BBB. See, we all know that India is one of the fastest growing large economies. India is the fifth largest economy, third largest economy in PPP terms and a global power. In spite of all these things, the western credit rating agencies are giving poor investment rate to India. The CES says that the size of Indian economy itself is enough to say that the investments made into country are safer. Now, let us see why this low score is harmful for India's economic interests. Firstly, foreign portfolio investments will reduce because a negative outlook with low rating means there is a weak economic growth and worsening fiscal health. This in turn will mean bonds issued by Indian government and companies are now riskier than before. So, this in turn will lead to Indian government and companies borrowing at a very high interest rate. Why? When few people are coming to buy government or companies bonds, government should offer more interest on the face value to attract more investors. So, basically this means that when India sovereign credit rating is downgraded, it becomes costlier for Indian government as well as Indian companies to raise funds. So, this is what this news article says. Remember that what is a credit rating and how is it determining the economic prospects of the country? So far we have discussed all the positive points towards government in the form of economic survey. But in this column from today's editorial page, author talks about India's economic as a whole and take a very critical stand of Indian government. This article is written by experts including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Finance Minister Chidambaram. So, let us see what these experts are trying to see. The relevant syllabus is given here for your reference. First, to start with, where did the government go wrong and where government could have done better? First issue, obviously the lockdown imposed. The issue here is the lockdown was not planned well. So, a properly planned lockdown could have reduced the deep distress in labour market which led to loosing of jobs by many. According to authors, by December around 12 million adult Indians have dropped out of labour force. This led to high demand for work under Meghna Rega program. Why? Because this Meghna Rega program provides at least 100 days of guaranteed employment to every rural household. So, migrants and informal workers who return to their hometown during lockdown wanted to earn at least some money to support their families. And authors say that Meghna Rega proved to be only safety net for them. So, because of this reason, the demand under Meghna Rega is 53% more. Even this issue could have been overcome if the next issue has addressed properly which is inadequate fiscal aid package provided by government. See, government provided cash transfers under Garib Kalyan Yojana but the cash transfer is just rupees 500 per month for Jandan Yojana women account holders 1000 rupees for widows, divyongs, etc. See, these meager amounts are not even sufficient for food expenses. So, this led to widening of inequality in the society and made the poor, even poorer, pushing them into deeper poverty. So, authors say that this could have been avoided if fiscal aid package was more generous and more expansionary. Next, according to authors, RBA's monetary policies were also inadequate. If we take the monetary policy measures, RBA has reduced interest rates, pumped a lot of money into economy. So, this had some sort of benefit which is stock market indices reaching highest levels. But the issue here is, who got these benefits? According to authors, it benefited only a small group of members which include top companies and not the broader economy. Around 50 top companies increased their market wealth by nearly 3 lakh crores during this time. This means the rich became richer even during the pandemic. And if we consider the fiscal measures such as government's corporate tax cuts, loan moratoriums and guaranteed credit schemes, it has helped the corporates to boost their profits and reduce their debt. But the intention with which these measures were taken such as increasing investments or creating more jobs or increasing wages did not fulfill. So, because of all these measures, the government has taken in response to pandemic, it is said that the last economic year was one of the worst phases of economic disparity between rich and poor. The poor became even more poorer, the rich became even more richer. The next issue is consumer price inflation that is CPI. The inflation is on higher side in the last 10 months and if you know the tolerance limit is 4 plus or minus 2. That is the inflation should not be less than 2% and should not be more than 6%. But we have seen multiple months in the last year where inflation has been more than 6%. So, if inflation continues to rise, then RBI eventually has to take up a tighter monetary policy. Tighter monetary policy means absorbing the excess money in the market. So, when availability of money in the market is reduced, the money for purchasing will also decrease, automatically demand comes down and inflation comes down. So, generally RBI does this by raising interest rates through policy changes to the repo rate. But adopting a tighter monetary policy that is increasing repo rates, it has certain risks because increasing the interest rate makes borrowing less attractive. So, this affects all types of borrowings, personal loans, mortgages, credit cards, etc. Whatever happens, the private spending will decrease, private investment will decrease, automatically the economic growth rate will be affected. So, RBI is in a position if it does not reduce the money in the market, inflation will increase. If it reduces the money in the market, economic growth will be impacted. So, RBI is in a very confusing state. But amidst all these issues, authors support the government's policy of not reducing the expenditure even though there are fears of fiscal deficit. Simply fiscal deficit means the borrowings of government. So, whenever government's expenditure exceeds the revenue, it has to borrow that money which is called fiscal deficit. So, there are fears of increasing fiscal deficit because the revenue collection in the last year is not as expected. If you see the figures, government has been able to collect only 7 lakh crores in tax revenues while the expected collection was around 16 lakh crores. So, even though revenues were falling, government did not reduce the expenditure. So, authors have supported government's move to increase the expenditure despite falling revenues. And finally, they have given suggestions on priority areas for expenditure. So, where money should be spent? First priority is for health sector and mainly public health infrastructure. So, they have suggested that increasing the expenditure from current levels of 2% from 70,000 crores to at least 1 lakh crore. Second priority, defense expenditure. So, this is based on recent border tensions with China and Pakistan. So, they have suggested to increase defense expenditure to 3% of nominal GDP from current 1.6%. So, the public investment should increase because it can provide jobs and stimulate demand in the long term. So, authors suggest to increase central government's capital expenditure to at least 20 to 25% of total expenditure from current 14%. So, what is the need of the hover? First, to commence a large-scale public investment program. This will stimulate economic activity, create jobs and revive the demand. Second, providing a basic income safety net for a six-month period. So, these should be the most prioritized areas to support the poorer sections and also to improve the demand and consequently the growth rate. So, as a conclusion, authors suggest government not to introduce any new laws, ordinances or bills for the next one year. It is because the new form laws have been already creating havoc and seems to be against public sentiment. So, it distracts government's attention from focusing on economic recovery, which is the ultimate need of the hover. So, this is the end of discussion of all economic articles from today's newspaper, right from what economic survey has to say to the decisions given by former prime minister and finance minister to the government. We have discussed almost all the important news articles. Now, let us see the other important articles from today's newspaper. See, this news article is with reference to the fisherman issue of Tamil Nadu. Last week, we have discussed the issues regarding fishing of Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan waters. What happened was last week, four Indian fishermen from Tamil Nadu died while fishing near the Park Street. Though the Sri Lankan Navy has said that they have died while trying to resist the arrest, the relatives claimed that the fisherman died because of shooting by the Sri Lankan Navy. So, this led to a huge grief and anger to fishermen of Ramnathapuram, the southern district of Tamil Nadu, close to Sri Lankan border. So, this is a ground zero report with an elaborate discussion right from the start of the issue to what governments had done in the recent years and what should be done to solve the issue as early as possible. First of all, the main problem is the use of bottom trawlers by Indian fishermen. See, these trawlers use monofilament nets which are extremely harmful for marine species. Using this net, the fisherman drags the net using their trawlers. So, in this method of fishing, a large net is dumped into the sea and it is dragged with the help of a trawler that is a ship. So, this leads to virtually scooping out young fishers, shrimps and other organisms from the seabed indiscriminately. It means this lead to wiping off of almost all marine resources in the sea. Not just that, in this kind of fishing, even small fishers get caught in this net, leading to depletion of resources in the long run. Since Indian fishermen have been using this method for a very long time, the marine resources on the Indian side have already become depleted. So, to get a better catch, our fishermen are going to Sri Lankan waters now. But the problem here is, our fishermen are using the same bottom trawling method in Sri Lankan waters too. This has upset the fishermen of Sri Lanka because already their livelihoods were affected by the civil war, that is LTE war. Now, our fishermen are going there and destroying or depleting their marine resources also. So, how can Sri Lankan fishermen survive if we are depleting their resources? So, this is the main issue between India and Sri Lanka. Now, the question is, why is India continuing with this dangerous bottom trawling method even though there are protests from Sri Lankan government? For this, we have to go to 1950s. See, India started mechanizing fishing using bottom trawlers from 1950s and 1970s. So, after this modernization was done, there was increase in the catch of fishers and other marine species. The center and state governments were happy because with the increase of catch of fishers, we are exporting lot of fishers to other countries and we are getting very valuable foreign exchange. And government did not much care about the depletion of marine resources and damage to marine environment. Further, we should also note that these trawlers are owned by politically influential people who are more interested in this trawling method because the catch is very high compared to other methods. So, it becomes important here that the Tamil Nadu fishermen who are dependent on these waters are not a homogeneous group. So, one section of fishermen are politically influential and rich people while other section are poor who are practicing traditional fishing in their small mechanized boats. So, what happens here is these trawlers are not only causing damage to environment but also depleting marine resources which is leading to zero catch or very less catch to small fishermen, which means not just Sri Lankan fishermen even the small fishermen of India are also getting affected by the use of these mechanical trawlers. So, what steps have been taken to provide a solution to this issue by the governments? From the Sri Lankan Navy side, they have arrested Indian fishermen and they have even seized the trawlers. The Sri Lankan government has officially banned bottom trawling in their waters. Further, to pacify this issue, Sri Lankan Navy offered joint patrol with Indian Navy side. Additionally, both the governments had set up a joint working group. However, in spite of many rounds of negotiations of joint working group, no solution has been achieved because the Indian fishermen have not completely faced out bottom trawling method and Indian side is expecting long face out period to completely eliminate bottom trawlers. As we said before, the trawlers are owned by political influential people and they are influencing the decisions of Indian government for long face out periods. So, with no solution in sight, the Indian government had come up with two solutions. One is deep sea fishing, the other is fish farming. So, what is deep sea fishing? See in deep sea fishing, the fishermen using deep sea vessels go into international waters that is far from the country and they use specialized nets to catch the fishes from deep sea rather than from top sea. For this purpose, government has started deep sea fishing project in 2017. But it is saddening to note that only less than a tenth of this project's target has been achieved so far. The limited achievement is because the deep sea fishing vessels are costly and governments are offering around 70% of subsidy. But fishermen who are majorly or from poor or middle class background are unable to contribute the remaining amount. Further, the government also introduced fish farming to increase the income of small scale fishermen in the Gulf of Manar region. Fish farming means we will artificially improve the number of fishers by increasing the breeding. This project has not picked up the steam in spite of successful demonstration by Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute. So, you can understand that these projects require behavioral change and the cost of scheme that is fishing vessel is also very huge. So, we need to give some more time for fishermen to adopt to these modern measures. Our government has to contribute more by giving higher subsidies. But what seems to be the request of fishermen from both sides is that since it is a very emotional issue, there should not be any politicization of this issue. Rather, what they want is a different solution to this issue. This is because it is not just about an invisible border that is water boundary but primarily it is about lives of fishermen and livelihoods of fishermen. So, let's wait and see what governments of both sides will do in solving this issue as early as possible. Let us see this comment column from today's editorial page. This column is authored by former Secretary of Department of Science and Technology. So, this article talks about two individuals who had a great interest in science and how they have worked for the benefit of the humanity. Though the article mainly talks about Chidambaram Subramaniam, it also talks about Subramaniam Chitrashekar. So, Chidambaram Subramaniam and Subramaniam Chitrashekar both are two different individuals who had a very great interest in science and worked for the betterment of humanity. Before going further, the relevant syllabus is given here for your reference. See, you might be surprising how this article will be helpful in your example's perspective. If you see your GS4 paper, that is ethics paper, in the syllabus it is clearly given as human values, lessons from lives and teachings of great leaders, reformers and administrators. So, here this article assumes a lot of significance. As we are going to talk about two great individuals who worked for the betterment of humanity, we can use these examples to quote in our GS4 paper. GS4 paper is all about giving examples to the concepts. We will understand that. Don't worry. See, firstly, Dr. Subramaniam Chitrashekar was concerned about the process of importance in the evolution of stars in the universe. He was an Indian-born astrophysicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983. So, he explored space and propounded the concept of black holes. He was one of the first scientists to couple the study of physics with the study of astronomy. He proved that there was an upper limit to mass of a white dwarf star and that limit is now known as Chandrasekhar limit. Very briefly, the limit showed that stars more massive than sun would explode or form black holes as they die. So, this is about Subramaniam Chandrasekhar. Now, let us come to Chidambaram Subramaniam. The names might be a little confusing. See, this man, Chidambaram Subramaniam, was greatly concerned about the problem of food security in our country. See, whenever we say green revolution, we often hear the name of agro-scientist Dr. M.S. Swaminathan. But, Chidambaram Subramaniam is the one who sowed the seeds of green revolution in Indian agriculture. He is called as political architect of green revolution in our country. This article reports that he championed the cause of science and technology to solve societal problems. So, when Subramaniam Chandrasekhar is more concerned with science of the universe, Chidambaram Subramaniam is concerned with science for humanity. So, today's article mainly discusses this great man as today is his 111th birth anniversary. See, many of you might know this and even we have discussed multiple times. Before green revolution, that is in 1960s, India lived the ship to mouth existence which means the Indian mouths were fed with the grains which came in ship. That is what we call ship to mouth existence. We used to get imports from US under PL480 program. Only with that program, many of Indians were fed. So, this was the case in 1960s. But, within a short span of 5 to 10 years, India achieved self-sufficiency in food grain production with the help of green revolution. So, regarding green revolution in India, we study about contribution of 3s. One says Subramaniam. Then comes the agriculture minister Sivaraman and agriculture secretary Swaminathan. So, these three people are mainly known for success of green revolution in our country. So, talking about Chidambaram Subramaniam, he was an architect of public policy for Indian science and called for the practice of science celebrated not only by scientists but also by citizens and humanity. He served as union minister in different portfolios in 1970s but he is mainly known for having superordinate, that is not ordinary, ambitious national goals and probability in governance and institutional mechanisms. His extraordinary goals turned India from ship to mouth status to a nation of food security and surplus in a very short span of time. So, according to Subramaniam, the economic freedom of every citizen of India was heavily reliant on 4s education, environment, economy and empowerment of our farmers. You can quote these 4s in your exam. Note them down please. Further, he relied on evidence based approaches in decision making. The author reports that transparency and probability were his powerful tools. As we said before, the terms transparency, probability come under GS4 paper. That is ethics. Along with these, we can attribute values like selfless service, spirit of service, dedication towards work to the great Chidambaram Subramaniam. If you have studied GS4 ethics paper, you might be knowing all these values say probability, transparency, accountability, integrity, honesty. But if a question comes like this, write a short note on your famous administrator, reformer and their values. Then it becomes difficult to write a unique reformer or an unique administrator. Many of you might be knowing Gandhiji, Metro Man, Sridharan or TN session of Election Commission of India. Many people will write about these great personalities in the exam. But if you can quote a unique name like this, Chidambaram Subramaniam, then your answer will be distant and there is a chance of scoring high marks. So, this is all about the discussion of this news article. Whenever you go through a great reformer or administrator, try to note down the values they have followed. Let us move on to practice questions discussion session. Consider the following statements with regard to impacts of lower sovereign credit rating. Statement one, it will lead to increased foreign portfolio investments. This statement is incorrect. As we have seen, FPS will be reduced. Statement two, it will make borrowing easier and cheaper for Indian government and companies. This statement is also incorrect because the borrowings will become costlier. So, both statements are incorrect. Therefore, the correct answer is option D, neither one nor two. Consider the following statements. Statement one, India has one of the lowest levels of out-of-pocket expenditure for health in the world. This statement is incorrect because India is having one of the highest levels of OOP. Statement two, Indian states that implemented Gen Aragyajna experienced greater penetration of health insurance compared to states that did not implement it. Yes, this statement is correct. As we are supposed to identify incorrect statements, the correct answer is option A, one only. Two main questions are given here. Write them and post them in the comment section.