GS Analyst: Daily Current Affairs

The NITI Aayog released India’ first State Energy and Climate Index (SECI, Round 1) for performance in various dimensions of energy-efficiency and climate-resilience.

Key Finding:

• The overall national score is 40.6, which the central government think tank didn’t find encouraging.
• More than half the states scored higher than the average, according to the index. This implies that the remaining couldn’t even manage that.
• Three UTs (Union territories) and two states have scored above 50.
• They are Chandigarh, Delhi, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli).
• Gujarat and Goa are the best-performing state.
• Chandigarh topped the index with a score of 55.7.
• Lakshadweep had the lowest score at 26.9.
• The Index categorised the states and UTs into three segments:
• the top one-third are considered as front-runners
• the middle one-third as achievers and
• the last one-third as aspirants
• Among the larger states, Gujarat, Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra were categorised as front-runners.
• States like Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar were “achievers”. The Rest were “aspirant”.
• Among the larger states, Gujarat has scored the highest of 1, followed by Kerala and Punjab with a score of 49.1 and 48.6 respectively.
• The lowest score of 7 was achieved by Chhattisgarh and it can be observed from the parameters score that the state has not performed well in terms of clean energy initiatives, energy efficiency, environmental sustainability, and new initiatives.

The Index has based the overall performance on six parameters:

• Performance of DISCOMs (power distribution companies)
• Access, affordability and reliability of energy
• Clean energy initiatives
• Energy efficiency
• Environmental sustainability
• New Initiatives.
  

According to a new report, wind energy installations every year across the world must quadruple from the 94 GW installed in 2021 within this decade to meet the global climate targets.

Findings of New study:

• According to Global Wind Report for 2022published by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), new offshore installations in 2022 are likely to decline to the 2019 / 2020 levels, primarily due to the reduction of installations in China.
• However, market growth is expected to regain momentum from 2023, eventually passing the 30GW-mark in 2026. 
• New installations of 6 gigawatt (GW) in 2021 brought global cumulative wind energy capacity to 837 GW, a year-on-year (YoY) growth of 12 per cent.
• In India, more than 1.4 GW of wind was installed in 2021, exceeding the 1.1 GW of installations during the previous year. 
• Global Impediments:
• The global onshore wind market added 72.5 GW in 2021, the report stated. But the world’s two largest markets, China and the United States, failed to install new onshore capacity last year.
• Europe, South America, Africa and West Asia increased their onshore wind installations by 19 per cent, 23 per cent and 120 per cent

Challenges to growth

The wind energy sector continues to face considerable barriers to growth, the report revealed. These barriers include:

• Inconsistent policy environments focused on short-term political aims
• Badly designed markets which do not enable bankable renewable energy projects
• Infrastructure and transmission bottlenecks
• A lack of adequate industrial and trade policies related to renewable technologies Hostile political or misinformation campaigns.

Scope in India

• The Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) have set a target of installing 5 GW of offshore capacity by 2022 and 30 GW by 2030.
• India is yet to develop its offshore wind energy facility.
• India can generate 127 GW of offshore wind energy with its 7,600 km of coastline, according to the MNRE. 
• Onshore wind energy refers to turbines that are located on land and use wind to generate electricity. Offshore wind energy is the energy generated from the wind at sea.

World Parkinson's Day is observed every year on April 11 to spread awareness about the neurodegenerative disease.

About World Parkinson's Day:

• The day also marks the anniversary of James Parkinson who wrote the article - An Essay on the Shaking Palsy in 1817, recognising the disease for the first time.
• The neurodegenerative movement disorder Parkinson's disease occurs when the dopamine-producing cells in a part of the brain called substantia nigra start to deteriorate. It mainly affects people over 60, although younger people are also at risk.
• This year, the theme for the day is ‘integrated health care’ – considered vital for all those living with Parkinson’s disease.
• The theme aims to stress the importance of a multidisciplinary approach involving mental health support, nutritional support, exercise, and language for the holistic well-being of those affected by this disease.

Parkinson’s disease:

• Parkinson’s disease, a progressive nervous system disorder, primarily affects movement due to the loss of specific brain cells.
• The symptoms of the disease are tremor in limbs, stiffness, problems in coordinating movements, posture problems, and sleep problems.
• Some patients may also report behavioural changes like: Depression, Fatigue, Memory difficulties, and Sleep problems.
• Parkinson's disease has no cure but it can be managed by making some dietary changes.
• Fish oils, fava beans, antioxidant-rich meals, and foods strong in vitamins B1, C, and D are some of the foods that can help.  

The corporate tax rate for all existing companies (manufacturing and non-manufacturing) was cut to 22 per cent (without surcharge and cess) from 30 per cent.

The new corporate tax regime

• Under the new regime introduced in September 2019, a tax rate of 15 per cent was announced under Section 115BAB for newly incorporated domestic companies
• This make fresh investment by March 31, 2023, for manufacturing, production, research or distribution of such articles or things manufactured.
• This was extended by one year in this year’s Budget to March 31, 2024.
• In both cases, choosing the concessional tax rate means companies cannot avail exemptions, deductions or incentives provided under the old tax regime.

Corporate tax in India:

• Corporate tax is the tax which is levied on the income of the domestic and foreign companies that arose in India.
• It is levied on both the public and private companies registered under the Companies Act of 2013.
• The rate at which the tax is imposed as per the provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1961 is known as the Corporate Tax Rate.
• The Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2019 caused a reduction in the base corporate tax rate, that is, from 30 percent to 22 per cent for the existing businesses which led to revenue inference of INR 1.45 Lakh Crores.
• While, in case of new manufacturing firms that have been established post 1st October, 2019 and prior to 31st March, 2023, the base corporate tax was reduced from 25 per cent to 15 per cent.
• According to reports, the corporate tax rates in India stand the lowest among other nations across the globe and the impact will be visible in the Indian economy in the upcoming years.
• This strategic action could possibly enhance the comparative adversaries of India’s corporation tax rates with other Asian nations.
• The new corporate tax rates in India is much lower than USA (27%), Japan (30.62%), Brazil (34%), and Germany (30%) and for the new firms the tax rate is similar as of Singapore (17%).

Benefits of corporate tax rate cut

• The benefits are immense, as for every rupee of profit a company makes progressively, it has more with itself to invest or pass on to consumers through price cuts.
• It might expand the corporate universe as new firms will now be taxed at 15 per cent.
• The present tax cut can help revive economy, boost tax collections and compensate for the loss of revenue.
• The big boost to shareholder value is unmistakable and the equity market showed its appreciation by surging the most in a single day in over a decade.
• It can make India more competitive on the global stage by making Indian corporate tax rates comparable to that of rates in East Asia.
• Thus India is likely to attract investors from across the globe as lower tax outflow could increase the share of profit making companies in India over time.
• Above factors will generate more employment and will help increase the purchasing power of the people thereby boosting sales which have been hit in major sectors like automobile sector.
• It will give boost to government initiatives like Make in India, Startup India etc. which had taken a hit in the past couple of years.

Recently a controversy has arisen due to a suggestion given by Home Minister Amit Shah that states should communicate with each other in Hindi rather than English, while stressing that Hindi should not be an alternative to local languages.

Hindi in India:

• The 2011 linguistic census accounts for 121 mother tongues, including 22 languages listed in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.
• Hindi is the most widely spoken, with 52.8 crore individuals, or 6% of the population, declaring it as their mother tongue.
• The next highest is Bengali, mother tongue for 97 lakh (8%) — less than one-fifth of Hindi’s count.
• Nearly 13.9 crore (over 11%) reported Hindi as their second language, which makes it either the mother tongue or second language for nearly 55% of the population.

What explains Hindi’s high numbers?

• One obvious explanation is that Hindi is the predominant language in some of India’s most populous states, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.
• Another reason is that a number of languages are bracketed under Hindi by census enumerators.

How widely is English spoken?

• Although English, alongside Hindi, is one of the two official languages of the central government, it is not among the 22 languages in the 8th Schedule; it is one of the 99 non-scheduled languages.
• In terms of mother tongue, India had just 2.6 lakh English speakers in 2011, a tiny fraction of the 121 crore people counted in that census.
• That does not reflect the extent to which English is spoken. It was the second language of 8.3 crore respondents in 2011, second only to Hindi’s 13.9 crore.
• If third language is added, then English was spoken — as mother tongue, second language or third language — by over 10% of the population in 2011, behind only Hindi’s 57%. Bengali was third at about 9%.

The rare butterfly Palmking has been spotted for the first time in Tamil Nadu.

About Butterfly Palmking:

• The unique woody species was earlier seen only in Kerala.
• It is the first recorded instance of the rare species in Tamil Nadu.
• Palmking was first recorded in South India by British scientist S.Ferguson in 1891.
• More than a Century later, it was rediscovered in 2007 in Thenmala by C. Susanth.
• Distribution:
• This butterfly is widely distributed across parts of India, Myanmar, Indo China, Peninsular Malaysia and Thailand.
• It occurs in the Indonesian archipelago and the Philippines.
• In India, Palmking sightings were recorded in the forests of Arippa, Shendurney, Periyar Tiger Reserve in the south of Western Ghats.
• The butterfly is characterised by its brown colour and dark bands and is described as reclusive, mostly resting in the shade.
• It is not easy to spot a Palmking because its wood colour makes for easy camouflage and it rarely spreads its wings.
• Palmking belongs to the Nymphalidae subfamily and feeds on palm, coconut and calamus varieties of plants.