Top News Highlights- 27 September 2024

Make in India: A Decade of Transformation

• Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): The inflow of FDI increased by 119% from 2014 to 2024, amounting to $667.4 billion.
• Employment Growth: Employment in manufacturing went up from 57 million in 2017-18 to 64.4 million in 2022-23.
• Ease of Doing Business: Rank for India improved from 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2019 in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report.
• Sectoral Successes: Victory can be seen in defense manufacturing-including INS Vikrant and electronics-Samsung’s Noida plant.

Sustainable Food Systems and India’s Trade

• Definition: A sustainable food system ensures food security and nutrition, using economic, social as well as environmental sustainability
• Keen Challenges: the challenge in integrated supply chains, the demand for strong public-private partnerships as well as data deficits, issues a barrier to development
• Recommendations: set up “farm to fork” traceability (GrapeNet), enhance coordination between the ministries on regulatory fronts as well as offer a relief in trade barriers through certification standards.

NBFC Resilience under Scale-Based Regulation

• Non-Performing Assets (NPA) : Government NBFCs’ GNPA ratio declined from 4.4% at the end of 2021 to 2.4% as on 31 Mar 2023.
• Credit Growth: After SBR, robust back-to-back double-digit credit growth was possible with consistency in profitability for NBFCs.
• New Risks: Cybersecurity and climate risks pose new vulnerabilities to sectoral stability.

National Health Accounts (NHA) 2020-21

• Government Health Expenditure (GHE): Share of GHE in total health expenditure increased from 29% in 2014-15 to 48% in 2021-22.
• Out-of-Pocket Expenditure (OOPE): OOPE declined from 62.6% to 39.4%, indicating better access to healthcare through schemes like Ayushman Bharat.
• Per Capita GHE: The same increased from ₹1,108 in 2014-15 to ₹3,169 in 2021-22

WHO’s Guidance for Clinical Trials

• The Challenges: These encompass a lack of financing, poorly managed procedures, and uniformity in clinical trial populations.
• Key Recommendations: Regional research priorities, diversity in the cohorts of the trials, and embracing digital processes to further enhance trial efficiency and transparency.

Cooler Finance Report: Sustainable Cooling Solutions

• Emissions Impact: As coolants can account for over 66% of cooling-related emissions in developing countries by 2022, developing countries are expected to account for over 80% of emissions by 2050.
• Market Potential: the market for sustainable cooling could reach annual revenues of over $600 billion by 2050.
• India Initiatives: Initiatives such as the India Cooling Action Plan and energy-efficient air conditioning policy are more crucial for that country.

Asia Power Index 2024

• Ranking of India: India is now ranked third most powerful country in Asia behind Singapore and China, surpassing Japan.
• General Power Ranking: While ranking of each country has been done here through eight weighted measures of military, economic, and diplomatic influence.

Key Concepts & Policies

• Make in India: Initiative to boost manufacturing innovation and investment.
• SFS: Sustainable food systems that ensure food security will come through environmentally sound and economically feasible practices.
• Scale-Based Regulation: A regulatory framework for NBFCs built on the scale and the risk involved in any bank.
• Ayushman Bharat PMJAY: This is an ambitious healthcare scheme with an avowed objective of fast-tracking India’s universal health coverage program.
• India Cooling Action Plan: It is a venture that works toward reducing cooling-related emissions. And also works for increasing the energy efficiency of air conditioning.