Daily Mains Practice Questions 24-02-2023

KEY POINTS

·        China recently amended its rules to ban the export of several core solar panel technologies in order to maintain its market leadership with the largest share in the sector.

·        Chinese firms have mastered cutting-edge technology to produce bigger, thinner and smarter wafers which play a big part in reducing the cost of solar power by more than 90 per cent.

·        Business firms in India are trying to develop domestic supply-chains to chip-away China’s advantage but still lack the technical expertise in development of larger wafers to cut costs and increase productivity.

·        India can transform itself by transitioning not only into renewable energy but also leading the path of net carbon-neutrality.

·        There are direct and indirect cost centres in the distinct segments of the whole ecosystem of solar panels.

·        A total of 65 per cent direct cost of a larger, agiler and smarter solar cell is layered in the initial three stages (see Figure).

·        India lacks in-house material, technical know-how, production capabilities and manufacturing capacities at the initial three stages of value.

·        Accordingly, our policy interventions in the form of incentives/subsidies should be focussed on only these stages, which are sourcing polysilicon, ingots and converting them into cells.

·        Hence, considering the challenges at various stages of manufacturing of solar cells, we should not only be strategising for localisation.

KEY POINTS

·        Transferring money to a relative studying or living in Singapore or receiving remittances from a family member working in the Southeast Asian city-state just got a whole lot simpler.

·        The transactions marked the start of a cross-border link for real-time person-to-person money transfers between South Asia’s largest economy.

·        The link now enables individuals wishing to remit either Singapore dollar (SGD) or Indian rupee funds for the ‘maintenance of a relative’ or as a ‘gift’ to transfer the money seamlessly using the UPI at the Indian end and the PayNow app at the Singapore end.

·        The tie-up is also part of a wider regional effort to facilitate cross-border real-time money transfers in a manner that reduces operational costs for individuals and merchants.

·        Singapore, which had established a similar payment link with Thailand in 2021, is part of a larger five-member initiative among the central banks of Southeast Asian economies including Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines that aims to interconnect their domestic digital payment systems.

·        India too could build on the springboard it has gained in Singapore to further its cross-border digital payment linkages and extend the partnership to the city-state’s other Association of Southeast Asian Nations partners.

·        Besides a sure-shot boost to regional trade and tourism, such a network would help India to further formalise the flow of inbound remittances.

KEY POINTS

·        Governance lapses often put Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) evaluations under review.

·        When reputed business groups are accused of pulling the ‘largest con in corporate history’, ESG inadvertently gets dragged into it.

·        This isn’t surprising as there’s a growing trend among companies to play the ESG card.

·        These practices, called greenwashing, are unfortunate given that ESG is becoming mainstream for both start-up Davids and corporate Goliaths.

·        The Volkswagen scandal still resonates. The company lost 46 per cent of its value and incurred huge recall costs.

·        And think of the way Enron executives used dubious accounting practices to inflate the company’s revenues.

·        Similarly, the Foxconn episode  the firm was hit by a wave of workers’ suicides  brought to the fore the perils of ignoring responsible governance practices.

·        But ESG practices must be embraced in their totality. Adoption of green technology is as critical to the ESG profile of a business as sound employment culture and positive social practices.

·        Expectedly, investors are engaging with companies that demonstrate positive ESG behaviour.

·        Also, ESG has a proven track record at the bourses. ESGRisk.ai’s study revealed that from April 2020 to March 2022, top-rated ESG companies delivered 16 per cent higher returns than that of Nifty.