India's apparel exports to register 40% growth in FY21: AEPC

 

Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) Chairman A. Sakthivel, quoted that the apparel exports from the India is likely to expand by about 40 per cent in the current financial year.While addressing the 41st Annual General Meeting of the industry body, the Chairman said: "We are working with a target to achieve a 40 per cent increase in apparel exports this financial year with major focus on new medical textiles, which will  take the total apparel exports from $15.4 billion in last fiscal to about $22 billion in 2020-21."

He also thanked Union Minister of Textiles, Smriti Zubin Irani for the initiatives taken to help this industry.

He urged the international buyers to do 'commerce with compassion' and honour their export orders.

Besides this, he facilitated the apparel into production of personal protective equipment (PPE) making India the second largest producer of medical textiles within a short period of time.

He further said the industry needs product diversification into Man Made Fibre (MMF) and plans to sign MoUs with several MMF manufacturers, including Reliance Industries Ltd, to improve the sector as MMF plays an important role in increasing India's textile exports to the global market.

Jal Jeevan Mission promotes research and development

 Jal Jeevan Mission is being implemented in partnership with States, to enable every household in villages to have functional household tap connection by 2024. This Mission aims at ensuring potable water supply in adequate quantity (@ the rate of 55 litres per person per day) and of prescribed quality to every rural household on regular and long-term basis.

On completion of 1st year of Jal Jeevan Mission, announced by the Prime Minister in his Independence Day address to the nation from the ramparts of Red Fort on 15th August, 2020; in the whole country, 2 Crore households have been provided tap water connection in this period. More than 1 lakh families are given tap water connections daily.

The rural drinking water supply is a complex subject with various social, environmental and technical challenges like geo-genic and anthropogenic water quality issues, long-term portable water supply in harsh edaphoclimatic conditions and disaster-prone areas, measurement and monitoring of water service delivery, behaviour change management, cost-effective grey-water treatment and reuse etc. Thus, given the challenges and the knowledge gaps being faced while implementing the Jal Jeevan Mission with speed and scale along with the future of rural water security, there is a pressing need for significant research and innovation in the water supply sector.

Now, more than ever, National Jal Jeevan Mission will be supporting, promoting and cultivating research and innovation to solve the issue faced by water supply sector in rural areas. National Jal Jeevan Mission is inviting proposals from young innovators, researchers, academia, entrepreneurs, start-ups working in this sector to provide cost-effective solutions and fill knowledge gaps.  Further, the Department/ National Mission/ SWSM will conduct action research and concurrent evaluation studies for adopting evidence-based technical intervention to manage rural water supply efficiently, effectively and economically.  These R&D projects under Jal Jeevan Mission will facilitate in building partnership with scientists and R&D institutions, innovators, entrepreneurs and create useful knowledge that will help in in addressing various challenges in the drinking water sector so as to improve the lives of people.

The R&D guidelines is available on the Departmental portal i.e. https://jalshakti-ddws.gov.in/. All interested individual/ agencies/ institutions may use this opportunity and apply their proposals.

Shri Piyush Goyal says that New-age entrepreneurs are going to change the fortune of India.

 

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry & Railways Shri Piyush Goyal has said that New age ideas will help us to prepare India to contribute in a much bigger way to global supply chains. Addressing CII's event on ‘Launch of India's Future Business Group’ today, he said that New-age entrepreneurs are going to change the fortune of India. He said, “We need to build a platform with like-minded countries and trusted partners to promote new-age businesses in India.” India can engage with other countries and build up a platform with trusted partners to promote new-age businesses, he added.

The minister said that it is the youngsters, who are going to change the fortune of India, create jobs & bring prosperity to the people. “We have a huge start-up ecosystem in India. It's more about recognizing our capabilities, uplifting our entrepreneurs. Some of the ideas that youngsters have come up with are truly revolutionary.” He suggested that Colleges should look at entrepreneurship or other courses around new-age businesses. We can also look at more vocational training & assessment process to see what is in the young person's mind, he added.

Talking about the improvement in India’s rank from 52 to 48 in the Global Innovation Index, Shri Goyal said “Let us all work together to truly make India the innovation hub. We have a huge start-up ecosystem. I have no doubt that the spirit of the industry will even encourage even Government to proactively go forward with new ideas & processes to make it easier & simpler to do business in India.  No power on earth can stop us from succeeding”

Speaking about the innovation in Railways, Shri Goyal said that in the last six years, our Indian coach making factories have not only stopped making old coaches, we are now making better LHB coaches. As a result of this, in the last 17 months, not even a single Railway passenger has died because of Railway accident:

Shri Goyal said that the real start-up entrepreneur with ideas is the Prime Minister. Narrating an anecdote, Shri Goyal said that while discussing the need of fencing the railway tracks for the high-speed trains, Shri Narendra Modi suggested bidding solar projects along Railway tracks, which will bring in Low-cost power, Private investment, make the track secure and also Railways eco-friendly.

Shri Goyal called upon the senior business leaders to become mentors, not only to their own family or businesses but also to the new age & young entrepreneurs. He said “I would appeal to them to allocate quality time for this. It will really encourage the youngsters”.

The Minister referred to the Aatmanirbhar Bharat as only the beginning of India's self-realization of its own potential to grow which will contribute to the global economy from a position of strength and trusted partner in resilient global supply chains. He said that India has tremendous potential for new businesses. He said “The objective is to get growth back in India. We will all have to work collectively to achieve that. Prime Minister had once said, "We have a million problems but at the same time, we have a billion minds." Our industry has truly demonstrated the capabilities of the intelligent Indian entrepreneur and the ability to surpass traditional businesses to promote new age businesses. India has immense capability & strength to grab the future. We will overcome the pandemic faster than anybody imagines.”

Prime Minister Delivers Special Keynote Address at the US-India 2020 Summit of US-ISPF

 

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi today delivered the Special Keynote Address at the US-India 2020 Summit through video conference.

The US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) is a non-profit organization that works for the partnership between India and the U.S.

The Theme of the 5-day Summit that began on the 31st of August is “US-India Navigating New Challenges”.

Addressing the Summit, Shri Narendra Modi said the global pandemic has impacted everyone and that it is testing our resilience, our public health systems, our economic systems.

The current situation demands a fresh mind set. A mind set where the approach to development is human centric. Where there is a spirit of cooperation between everyone, he said.

Talking about the way ahead the Prime Minister said that the country is focussing on ramping up capacities, securing the poor and future proofing our citizens.

Referring to various steps taken to ramp up facilities for fighting COVID and to increase awareness amongst the citizens, the Prime Minister said all such early measures ensured that the country with 1.3 billion people and limited resources has one of the lowest death rates per million in the World.

He expressed his happiness that India’s business community, especially the small business has been proactive. Starting from almost nothing, they made us the second largest PPE kits manufacturer in the World, he said.

Referring to various reforms the Prime Minister said that the pandemic failed to impact the aspirations and ambitions of 1.3 billion Indians.

He said there have been far reaching reforms in the country in recent times which have made the business easier and red-tapism lesser.

Shri Narendra Modi said that work is actively underway on the world's largest housing program and that the renewable energy infrastructure is being expanded.

Prime Minister also referred to the boosting of the Rail, road and air connectivity.

He said India is creating a unique digital model to build a national digital health mission.

We are using the best of fin-tech to provide banking, credit, digital payments and insurance to millions. All these initiatives are being taken using world-class technology and global best practices, he said.

Shri Modi said that the pandemic has shown the world that decision on developing global supply chains should be based not only on costs. They should also be based on trust. Along with affordability of geography, companies are now also looking for reliability and policy stability. India is the location which has all of these qualities.

Owing to these, he said, India is becoming one of the favourable destinations for Foreign Investment.

He said be it America, the Europe, Australia or the Gulf the world believes in us. We have received over 20 billion dollars of foreign investment flows during this year. Google, Amazon and Mubadala Investments have announced long-term plans for India.

Prime Minister referred to the transparent and predictable India offers and how the system encourages and supports honest taxpayers. He said, India’s GST is unified, fully enabled indirect tax system.

Shri Modi referred to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code which reduces risk for the entire financial system. He also dwelt on the Comprehensive Labour Reforms that reduce compliance burden for employers and how it provides social security protection to the workers.

Prime Minister discussed the importance of investment in driving growth and how India is tackling both demand and supply side of it.

He said this is being done by making India one of the lowest tax destinations in the world and with further incentive for new manufacturing units.

Prime Minister referred to the mandatory e- platform based ‘faceless assessment’ and said it will go a long way in helping citizens along with the Tax-payers charter. The continued regulatory reforms in bond markets ensure improved ease of access for investors.

He said FDI into India rose by 20 percent in 2019, when the global FDI inflows fell by 1 Percent and that this shows the success of our FDI regime.

Shri Modi said all the above steps will ensure a brighter and more prosperous tomorrow. They will also contribute to a stronger global economy.

Referring to the mission embarked by 1.3 Billion Indians to make an AatmaNirbhar Bharat or Self-Reliant India, Prime Minister said it merges the local with the global and that India’s strengths act as global force multiplier.

He said it is about transforming India from being just a passive market to an active manufacturing hub at the heart of global value chains.

Prime Minister said the road further ahead is full of opportunities especially in Private and Public sectors and referred to the opening of sectors such as Coal, Mining, Railways, Defence, Space, and Atomic Energy.

He also referred to Production Linked Incentive schemes launched for- mobile & electronics, medical devices, pharma sectors along with reforms in Agriculture.

Prime Minister told the summit that for the challenges in India there is a Government that believes in delivering results, a government for which ease of living is as important as ease of doing business.

He described India as a young country with 65% population less than 35 years old which is aspirational and decided to take the nation to new heights. He said India is a country with political stability and political continuity and that it is committed to democracy and diversity.

Electricity demand improves to 98% of pre-Covid-19 level in August: ICRA

 

Electricity demand in India has recovered on account of the recovery in rural areas and the increase of demand for electricity in the country. ICRA rating agency has stated that the growth has improved to about 98 per cent of pre-COVID-19 level in August. The electricity demand recovery on an all-India level has largely been led by northern and eastern states with a year-on-year (y-o-y) increase of 6-13 per cent in demand in July 2020, it said. "The rise in demand was mainly driven by rural consumption though it continues to be lower as compared to the pre-COVID-19 levels," it said.

The electricity demand in large industrial states witnessed a 6-15 per cent fall in July 2020 on a y-o-y basis, on the back of slower recovery in industrial activity. Also, the recovery in the all-India demand in August 2020 is on a lower base, considering the demand decline witnessed as compared to same month last year. ICRA Sector Head and Vice President (Corporate Ratings) Girishkumar Kadam stated that while the monthly demand recovered from 85 billion units in April 2020 to 112 billion units in July 2020, it remained lower on a year-on-year basis. While the peak demand recovered from 133 gigawatts (GW) during April 2020 to 171 GW in July 2020, it remained lower by 3.3 per cent compared to July 2019. "This was also because of the re-imposition of lockdown restrictions in many parts across the country, due to rise in COVID-19 infections. Given the energy demand trends so far across the key states, ICRA continues to maintain its outlook for about 5-6 per cent decline in the all-India electricity demand in FY2021 over FY2020.”

 

He added that the decline in demand is expected to supress the thermal plant load factor (PLF) on an all-India level to about 50-51 per cent in 2020-21 against 56 per cent in 2019-20. ICRA said the decline in demand has adversely impacted revenues and cash collections for the power distribution companies (discoms), especially given that the bulk of the consumption decline has come from high tariff-paying industrial and commercial consumers. "The consequent revenue gap for the discoms at all-India level is estimated to increase by about Rs 42,000-45,000 crore in FY2021," it said. "Nonetheless, the discoms' ability to make timely payments in a sustained manner towards the generating companies continues to remain a key monitorable, which would be dependent on the demand recovery from industrial and commercial consumers in the near term," its Associate Head and Assistant Vice President Vikram V said. Besides, it will also depend upon the efforts to address the structural issues confronting the distribution segment, he added.

NASA congratulates Indian astronomers on Star Galaxy discovery

 

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has congratulated Indian astronomers on the discovery of one of the farthest Star galaxies in the universe estimated to be located 9.3 billion lightyears away from Earth. NASA described this discovery as an effort that will further humankind's understanding.

NASA's Public Affairs Officer Felicia Chou stated, "Science is a collaborative effort around the world, and discoveries like these help further humankind's understanding of where we come from, where are we going, and are we alone." India's first Multi-Wavelength Space Observatory "AstroSat" detected extreme-UV light from a galaxy located 9.3 billion lightyears away from Earth. The galaxy called AUDFs01 was discovered by a team of astronomers led by Dr Kanak Saha from the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) Pune.

India's AstroSat/UVIT was able to achieve this unique feat because the background noise in the UVIT detector is much less than one on the Hubble Space Telescope of US-based NASA. Director of IUCAA, Dr Somak Ray Chaudhury, stated that the discovery offers a very important clue to how the dark ages of the Universe ended and there was light in the Universe. "We need to know when this started, but it has been very hard to find the earliest sources of light," he said. India's first Space Observatory AstroSat, was launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on September 28, 2015.

Another milestone for farm sector: Now, Kharif acreage at lifetime high; bumper harvest likely. After a bumper rabi harvest, the acreage of the Kharif crops has skyrocketed to a lifetime high in the current year.

 

With a favourable monsoon this year, the agriculture sector has drawn the silver linings on the dark clouds of India’s severe economic stress. After a bumper rabi harvest, the acreage of the Kharif crops has skyrocketed to a lifetime high in the current year. The area sown for Kharif crops surged 7.2 per cent in only a year to 108.2 million hectares by 28 August 2020, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. The area sown this Kharif season is higher by almost two million hectares, compared to the normal acreage for the Kharif season, which is 106.6 million hectares. On top of it, the sown area is likely to rise further by 2.5 to 3.5 per cent this year.

Good pre-monsoon rainfall; the normal onset of monsoon and its rapid advancement over the country; and overall satisfactory progress of rainfall during the monsoon season so far contributed to the increase in area sown during this Kharif season, CMIE added. The acreage under all major pulses like arhar, green gram, and black gram has also crossed the normal acreage for the season.

While the construction sector has halved in the first quarter and the manufacturing sector has nosedived amid the nationwide lockdown, the agriculture sector remained almost unaffected from the curse of the pandemic. The farm sector recorded a growth of 3.4 per cent against the overall GDP contraction of 23.9 per cent in Q1 FY21.

Meanwhile, the sharp expansion in acreage across most major crops and the strong revival in monsoon in August indicate a bumper harvest this season. However, continued heavy rains pose a threat to the Kharif crop. Rainfall at over 40 per cent above the long period average (LPA) was recorded during week-ended August 19 and week-ended 26 August, CMIE underlined. Also, the rising cases of coronavirus in rural areas also pose risk to the flourishing farm sector.

Cabinet approves "Mission Karmayogi"- National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB)

 

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister; Shri Narendra Modi has approved launching of a National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB) with the following institutional framework: -

 (i)   Prime Minister's Public Human Resources (HR) Council,

(ii)   Capacity Building Commission.

(iii)  Special Purpose Vehicle for owning and operating the digital assets and the technological platform for online training,

(iv)  Coordination Unit headed by the Cabinet Secretary.

 Salient Features

NPCSCB has been carefully designed to lay the foundations for capacity building for Civil Servants so that they remain entrenched in Indian Culture and sensibilities and remain connected, with their roots, while they learn from the best institutions and practices across the world. The Programme will be delivered by setting up an Integrated Government Online Training-iGOTKarmayogiPlatform. The core guiding principles of the Programme will be:

• Supporting Transition from 'Rules based' to 'Roles based* HR Management. Aligning work allocation of civil servants by matching their competencies to the requirements of the post.
• To emphasize on 'on-site learning' to complement the ‘off-site’ learning,
• To create an ecosystem of shared training infrastructure including that of learning materials, institutions and personnel,
• To calibrate all Civil Service positions to a Framework of Roles, Activities and Competencies (FRACs) approach and to create and deliver learning content relevant to the identified FRACs in every Government entity,
• To make available to all civil servants, an opportunity to continuously build and strengthen their Behavioural, Functional and Domain Competencies in their self-driven and mandated learning paths.
• To enable all the Central Ministries and Departments and their Organizations to directly invest their resources towards co-creation and sharing the collaborative and common ecosystem of learning through an annual financial subscription for every employee,
• To encourage and partner with the best-in-class learning content creators including public training institutions, universities, start-tips and individual experts,
• To undertake data analytics in respect of data emit provided by iGOT- Karmayogi pertaining to various aspects of capacity building, content creation, user feedback and mapping of competencies and identify areas for policy reforms.

 

Objectives

It is also proposed to set up a Capacity Building Commission, with a view to ensure a uniform approach in managing and regulating the capacity building ecosystem on collaborative and co-sharing basis.

The role of Commission will be as under-

• To assist the PM Public Human Resources Council in approving the Annual Capacity Building Plans.
• To exercise functional supervision over all Central Training Institutions dealing with civil services capacity building.
• To create shared learning resources, including internal and external faculty and resource centers.
• To coordinate and supervise the implementation of the Capacity Building Plans with the stakeholder Departments.
• To make recommendations on standardization of training and capacity building, pedagogy and methodology
• To set norms for common mid-career training programs across all civil services.
• To suggest policy interventions required in the areas of HR Management and Capacity Building to the Government.

iGOT-Karmayogi platform brings the scale and state-of-the-art infrastructure to augment the capacities of over two crore officials in India. The platform is expected to evolve into a vibrant and world-class marketplace for content where carefully curated and vetted digital e-learning material will be made available. Besides capacity building, service matters like confirmation after probation period, deployment, work assignment and notification of vacancies etc. would eventually be integrated with the proposed competency framework.

Mission Karmayogi aims to prepare the Indian Civil Servant for the future by making him more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology enabled. Empowered with specific role-competencies, the civil servant will be able to ensure efficient service delivery of the highest quality standards.

Financial implications

To cover around 46 lakh Central employees, a sum of Rs.510.86 crore will be spent over a period of 5 years from 2020-21 to 2024-25. The expenditure is partly funded by multilateral assistance to the tune of USD 50 million. A wholly owned Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for NPCSCB will be set up under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013. The SPV will be a "not-for-profit" company and will own and manage iGOT-Karmayogi platform. The SPV will create and operationalize the content, marketplace and manage key business services of iGOT-Karmayogi platform, relating to content validation, independent proctored assessments and telemetry data availability. The SPV will own all Intellectual Property Rights on behalf of the Government of India. An appropriate monitoring and evaluation framework will also be put in place for performance evaluation of all users of the iGOT-Karmayogi platform to generate a dashboard view of Key Performance Indicators.

Background

Capacity of Civil Services plays a vital role in rendering a wide variety of services, implementing welfare programs and performing core governance functions. A transformational change in Civil Service Capacity is proposed to be affected by organically linking the transformation of work culture, strengthening public institutions and adopting modern technology to build civil service capacity with the overall aim of ensuring efficient delivery of services to citizens.

A Public Human Resources Council comprising of select Union Ministers, Chief Ministers, eminent public HR practitioners, thinkers, global thought leaders and Public Service functionaries under the Chairmanship of Hon'ble Prime Minister will serve as the apex body for providing strategic direction to the task of Civil Services Reform and capacity building.

India jumps 4 places to rank 48 on Global Innovation Index 2020

 

India jumped four places to rank at 48th position at the 2020 edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII). The index, compiled by World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) along with Cornell University and the INSEAD business school, presents the latest global innovation trends and annual innovation ranking of 131 economies.

Moving up four positions since last year, India became the third most innovative lower middle-income economy in the world. The report noted that the jump can be attributed to newly available indicators and improvements in various areas of the GII.

India ranks in the top 15 in indicators such as ICT services exports, government online services, graduates in science and engineering, and R&D-intensive global companies. "Thanks to universities such as the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay and Delhi and the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, and its top scientific publications, India is the lower middle-income economy with the highest innovation quality," the report noted.

India increased the most in three pillars: Institutions (61st), business sophistication (55th), and creative outputs (64th), it noted. While the data shows stability at the top, WIPO said it also clearly indicates that "a gradual eastward shift in the locus of innovation" is under way, with a group of Asian economies advancing up the rankings.

China, India, the Philippines and Vietnam have made the most progress on the index in recent years, with all four now among the top 50, it said. China, which is the only middle-income economy among the top 30, now holds the 14th place.

India's pharma firms see strong growth

 As India battles the Covid-19 pandemic, its pharmaceutical industry and health care services have seen a strong growth. Companies such as Ipca showed improved sales and profitability led by its export’s formulations and APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredient) business which jumped by 72 percent year-on-year (y-o-y). The demand for malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate (HCQ) to treat Covid-19 had led the momentum in APIs for Ipca.

Dr Reddy’s, another significant player in the API space, which partners with global pharma companies across the United States, Europe, Latin America, Japan and China, saw an 88 percent jump in its pharmaceutical services and API business, totalling ₹855.3 crore, in the three months to June.

In the June-ended quarter, strong growth was also seen through domestic sales of drugs for chronic therapies—particularly cardiac, anti-diabetes and immunity boosters (see table)—in the June-ended quarter. A similar trend continued in July, where cardiac therapy, anti-malaria, analgesics and respiratory-related drugs saw strong sales.

A visible element of the earnings was also a rise in margins, as pharmaceutical companies were able to lower their operational expenses in the past three months. This was across segments where companies managed to cut their travel expenses, marketing and advertising costs and on-the-ground expenditure, says Isha Chaudhary, director at Crisil. All of these boosted margins and profits earnings.

Global innovators are trying to gradually shift their focus from China to markets like India, which has led to an increase in the API business. And analysts are confident that the outlook for pharma companies’ earnings will continue to be bright because of this.

Currently, about 65 percent of the raw material for Indian drug makers is being sourced from China, often used for tuberculosis and vitamin medicines. But there is a conscious move by India to reduce its dependence on imports of APIs from China. This could be done by looking for alternatives to China or increasing the domestic production. The ministry of pharmaceuticals in June released the guidelines for a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to kick-start the domestic manufacturing of key APIs and key starting materials (KSM) in India. This gives details of the API or KSM to be manufactured, the minimum production level, investment to be made, applicants to be selected per category and the rate of incentive.

The focus in the near-term will, however, shift towards the research Indian manufacturers have been carrying out for a Covid-19 vaccine. At least five Indian manufacturers are in the race, led by the Serum Institute of India for the Oxford University vaccine, followed by Bharat Biotech, Zydus Cadila, Gennova Biopharmaceuticals and Biological E, which are in various stages of research or boosting manufacturing capacity.