States under fiscal constraints

Fiscal Deficit and Debt Target

• Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Punjab exceeded debt and fiscal deficit targets for 2020-2021 set by the 15th Finance Commission.
• Kerala, Jharkhand, and West Bengal exceeded the debt target, while Madhya Pradesh overshot the fiscal deficit target.

Dependency on Centre

• Own tax revenue of Haryana, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh constitutes about half of their total revenue collections.
• The primary source of revenue for other States is Central transfers.
• Within own tax revenue, States’ goods and services tax (SGST), States’ excise duties and sales tax are the significant sources of revenue.

High Revenue Expenditure

• The share of revenue expenditure in total expenditure of these States varies in the range of 80-90 percent.
• Some States like Rajasthan, West Bengal, Punjab, and Kerala spend around 90 percent on revenue accounts.

Poor Capital Outlay

• High revenue expenditure results in poor spending quality, as reflected in their high revenue spending to capital outlay ratios.
• Capital outlay is the money spent on acquiring assets while revenue expenditure indicates daily operations expenses like salaries and pensions.

Gold Recycling

• The World Gold Council defines recycled gold as gold that is sold for cash either by consumers or others who are part of the supply chain (such as jewellery manufacturers who may sell old stock).
• It does not include the exchange of gold for gold, such as when retail customers exchange old jewellery for new. 
• Gold is a soft and malleable metal. It is alloyed with other metals, such as copper, silver, nickel, palladium and zinc, to make it hard and fit for use.
• Recyclable gold may either be derived from old jewellery, referred to as high-valued scrap – which roughly accounts for 90 per cent of the total supply of recycled gold globally — or industrial scrap material – primarily consisting of waste electrical and electronic equipment such as computers, tablets and mobile phones.
• The World Gold Council accorded India as the fourth largest recycler of gold, having recycled 75 tonnes of the valuable yellow metal in the previous year.
• About half of India’s new refining capacity opened up in Excise Free Zones (EFZs) in Uttarakhand in 2014.
• China topped the list having recycled about 168 million tonnes of gold in 2021. Italy stood second having recycled 80 million tonnes of gold in 2021, followed by the United States (78 million tonnes).
• Gold dorés are metal bars with high gold content.
• They are composed of a mixture of precious metals but majorly contain gold and silver.
• They require further treatment before they can be used as raw material for producing gold items.
• Dorés can be created from scrap gold.

Shantilal Shah Committee

• In Dec 1966 Shantilal Shah Committee recommended the legalization of abortion in India. 
• With Indira Gandhi's most robust backing, the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act became a reality in Aug 1971.
• In the mid-1960s, the government set up the Shantilal Shah Committee under the leadership of a medical professional, Dr. Shantilal Shah, to look into the issue of abortions and ascertain if the country needed a law in this regard.
• The Committee reviewed the medical, legal, and socio-cultural aspects of abortion in India and recommended legalizing abortion along with a law on comprehensive abortion care in 1964.
• The recommendations were based on reducing unsafe abortions and maternal mortality rates.
• Based on the report of the Shantilal Shah Committee, a medical termination bill was introduced in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and was passed by Parliament in August 1971.
• The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971 came into force on 1 April 1972.

Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act

MTP Act, 1971

• The Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act was brought into force in 1971.
• This law is an exception to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) provisions 312 and 313 and sets out the rules of how and when a medical abortion can be carried out.
• Section 312 of the IPC: a person who “voluntarily causes a woman with child to miscarry” is liable for punishment, attracting a jail term of up to three years or fine or both, unless it was done in good faith where the purpose was to save the life of the pregnant woman.
• Section 313 of the IPC: a person who causes the miscarriage without the consent of the pregnant woman, whether or not she is the in the advanced stages of her pregnancy, shall be punished with life imprisonment or a jail term that could extend to 10 years, as well as a fine.

MTP (Amendment) Act,2021

• The 2021 Act increased the upper limit of the gestation period to which a woman can seek a medical abortion to 24 weeks from 20 weeks permitted in the 1971 Act.
• But this renewed upper limit can only be exercised in specific cases.
• Gestational age, calculated in weeks, is the medical term to describe how far along the pregnancy is and is measured from the first day of the woman’s last menstruation or period.
• Another major amendment was that MTP could not be accessed on the opinion of a single registered medical practitioner up to 20 weeks of the gestational age.
• From 20 weeks up to 24 weeks, the opinion of two registered medical practitioners is required.
• In the previous version of the Act, the opinion of the one registered doctor was required to access a medical abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, while two doctors were required to endorse the abortion up to 20 weeks.

Iskander-M Missile System

• Iskander-M tactical missile systems has the capacity to use both ballistic or cruise missiles, in their conventional and nuclear versions.
• Iskander-M is a term used by Russia to define both the transporter-erector launch system and the short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) it fires.
• The system can also fire ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) – the SSC-7 and the SSC-8.
• The Iskander-M system has been exclusively used by the Russian military, whereas Iskander-E is the one meant for export.
• The Iskander-M missile has a range of 500 km and it can carry a payload of up to 700 kg.
• It is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads.
• The conventional warheads can be equipped with include cluster bombs, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) warheads and bunker-buster munitions, according to the US-based Missile Defence Advocacy Alliance (MDAA).
• The export variant, Iskander-E, has a range of 280 km with a reduced 480 kg payload.
• The M variant is designed to confuse missile defences by flying on a low trajectory and manoeuvring in flight to strike targets within 2 to 5 metres accuracy.
• The Iskander system has already been deployed in Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave, from where it can be fired to target NATO forces in Poland, the Baltic States, and Sweden.