India’s first dedicated navigation satellite, the 1425 – kg IRNSS – 1A is successfully put into orbit after launch from the Satish Dhawan centre in sriharikotta.

Defence Secretary Shashi kant Sharma is appointed as the 12^th Comptroller and Auditor-General. 

Anshu Jamshenpa of Arunachal Pradesh, who holds the record of being the only mother in the world to have scaled the Mount Everest twice in 10 days scales the peak again for the third time.

The Cauvery Delta Farmers Welfare Association presents a memento named Ponniyin Selvi to the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for her efforts in getting the final award of the Cauvery Tribunal notified in the Central gazette, at a function in Thanjavur.

National

The Delhi gangrape victim is posthumously honoured with the Rani Lakshmibai Award, at a function in New Delhi.

Bittihotra mohanty, son of farmer odisha DGP B.B. Mohanty missing since his release on parole on November 20, 2006. While serving a seven year term for rating a german national in alwar, Rajasthan is arrested by the Kerala police in Kannur. 

current affair 
The PSLV C20 puts the 400-kg India – French satellite SARAL and six other into their precise orbits after its successful launch from the Sriharikota spaceport.

Scheme Nirbhaya

·        Launched to protect the dignity and ensuring safety of women in India after the brutal gang rape of a Delhi student on Dec ’16, 2012.

·        Announced Rs.1000 crores in the union budget 2014 by Finance Minister P.Chidambaram to support initiative by the Government and NGOs.

·        Nirbhaya means ‘fearless’ is a pseudonym given to hide the victim’s actual identity.

·        A committee headed by former CJI of India, late Mr. J.S.Verma to make a report about the incident. The three men committee submitted their report within one month, on Jan ‘2013.

Ten key recommendations by the committee are.

i) Make Voyeurism, stalking and intentional touching an offence.

ii) Amend rape laws.

iii) Review security laws in conflict zones.

iv) Monitor illegal, patriarchal village councils.

v) Review medical examination of rape victims.

vi) Police reforms.

vii) Electoral reforms.

viii) Gender sensitisation through education.

ix) Bill of rights.

x) End to Human Trafficking.

Sports

¨    China’s Zhang Jike wins the men’s singles title at the World table tennis championship.

¨    Pune Warriors withdraws from the Indian Premier League.

¨    Andy Murray pulls out of French Open.

¨    Bayern Munich Clinches UEFA Champions League title.

¨    Nico Rosberg wins Monaco Grand Prix.

¨    China wins Sudirman  Cup badminton tournament.

¨    Mumbai Indians crowned IPL champion.

¨    Sachin Tendulkar announces retirement from IPL.

¨    Laura Massaro wins British Open sqash tournament in the women’s section.

¨    Pakistan wins its two-match ODI series against Ireland 1-0.

¨    England confirmed as host of 2019 cricket World Cup.

¨    England beats New Zealand in the second Test at Leeds to win the two match series 2-0.

¨    Wisden Almanack’s 150^th anniversary is observed.

   Sports

§     Paris Saint-Germain is crowned French football league champion.

§     Roberto Mancini sacked as Man-chester City manager.

§     Footballer Rio Ferdinand calls time on his England career.

§     Chelsea wins the Europa League football tournament.

§     Footballer David Beckham announces retirement at end of season.

§     Karnataka wins the Rangaswamy Cup for the men’s senior National hockey championship.

§     Athletico Madrid wins the Copa del Rey football tournament.

§     Adam Gilchrist brings the curtains down on his career, winning his last IPL match    

§     England beats New Zealand in the first Test at Lord’s

§     Refeal Nadal, Serena Williams win Rome Masters.

Sports:
Viswanathan Anand finishes third in the Alekhine memorial chess tournament. 
ATP president brad dre-wett dies at the age of 54. 
P.V.Sindhu wins malay – sian Grand Prix. 

FIDE approves Chennai as venue for world chess championship.

Singapore men and women win team titles in commonwealth table tennis championships. Manchester united manager sir Alex Ferguson announces retirement at end of season.

Barcelona clinches its 22^nd La Liga football title

Fernando Alonso wins the Spanish grand prix.

Rafael nadal and serena Williams win the Madrid masters.

Tiger woods wins the us PGA tour place players championship Churchill brothers win the I – League football tournament.

 

POOR PHARMA POLICY

Source: By Kewal Handa: The Financial Express

The Union Cabinet rejected the proposal of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) to limit Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in domestic manufacturers in rare and critical drugs. The Cabinet decided that the current policy in brownfield and greenfield projects in the pharmaceutical sector will continue to be subject to the additional condition that in all cases of FDI in brownfield pharmaceuticals, there shall be no non-compete clause in any of the inter se agreements.

The DIPP and the Cabinet are of the opinion that if a promoter sells one facility or operation, he should not be barred from starting another venture. The DIPP has notified the new FDI policy for the pharmaceutical sector and it retains its old norms of keeping the FDI cap at 100% for the sector. Moreover, greenfield FDI proposals will be allowed through the automatic route while brownfield FDI will be vetted by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB). But a new clause has been added as per which non-compete clauses will not be allowed for pharmaceutical M&A involving FDI.

The new policy says that non-compete clause will be allowed only in special circumstances, and such requests will have to be vetted through FIPB. However, the press note on the new policy doesn’t shed any light on what precisely constitutes special circumstances for allowing non-compete clause. It is a normal practice by any buyer and seller to have a non-compete clause as it helps to avoid confusion in the market place.

The move to have no non-compete clause will hit the premium valuation which the pharmaceutical companies have commanded so far. The government needs to clarify under what special circumstances the non-compete clause would be allowed. However, leaving it to the discretion of FIPB may not be a good idea. It is important to take a look at the DIPP argument as it runs counter to the Indian entrepreneur spirits. Exclusion of non-compete clause for every M&A deal may dampen investments in the domestic market. FIPB should use this clause selectively and only in cases where shortages will occur or future R&D will suffer.

Given the current scenario, the fear of a monopolistic situation and thereby leading to price increases or the fear of the production being diverted to global market is completely without any rational basis. Acquisition of Indian companies started in 2008 with Japan, Daiichi Sankyo taking over Ranbaxy laboratory. This has been followed by many—Sanofi buying Shantha Biotech, Matrix Lab taking Mylan, PiramalHealthcare by Abbott Laboratories and the latest, Mylan acquiring Agila Specialties.

There is no data to substantiate on record since 2008 to show that it has led to any monopolistic situation or non-ability of the products. On the contrary, we have seen these companies introduce 341 new drugs and formulations in the domestic market since May 2009 and the Department of Pharmaceutical (DoP) price analysis shows almost no changes in prices. There are misplaced concerns that acquisitions in brownfield may lead to shortages and increase in drug prices in the country.

The government must seriously think to build an ecosystem to encourage innovation and R&D in the pharmaceutical sector. It is imperative to create a secure environment that fosters protection through intellectual property rights and it would certainly encourage investments in R&D thereby making the domestic market conducive for FDIs.

India’s second Green Revolution

Agri-transformation that occurred during 2004-05 to 2011-12 was certainly the most remarkable change that happened since the beginning of economic reforms in 1991, and perhaps even one of the best spells for agriculture since Independence! Consider the following facts: over the seven year period of 2004-05 to 2011-12, the real agri-GDP per worker engaged in agriculture increased by a whopping 51% compared to just stagnant, nay marginally lower (by -1.3%) agri-GDP per worker during the preceding five years, 1999-2000 to 2004-05, and only 21% during 1993-94 to 1999-00, as the accompanying graph shows.

The big-bang 51% rise in agri-GDP per worker was presumably propelled by an even more impressive increase of 71.5% in net fixed capital stock per worker in agriculture during 2004-11. No wonder, with each worker better equipped with capital, growth in per worker agri-incomes has accelerated by leaps and bounds, which was never witnessed earlier. That had the most salutary impact on rural poverty ratio (estimated by Tendulkar’s poverty line), which decreased almost three times faster during 2004-05 to 2011-12 (by 2.3 percentage points per annum) than during 1993-94 to 2004-05 (declining by just 0.7 percentage points per annum). This pace of decline in poverty ratio is robust, and will broadly hold, no matter how one defines poverty levels. Isn’t faster poverty reduction one of the most important policy aims of any government in India? And if that is delivered, why don’t we give credit to the policy and stay its course even more rigorously? The problem is poor communication of complex policies and processes that triggered this capital accumulation in agriculture, propelling per worker agri-GDP growth, and fall in rural poverty. Let us try to decipher some of this complexity.

Investments and accumulation of capital in any sector lays down the foundation of growth and prosperity of that sector. Investments in Indian agriculture as a percentage of agri-GDP, have been fluctuating, but broadly hovered around 10-12% during 1980-81 to 2003-04. However, since 2004-05, it had a clear structural break, and by 2011-12, it is now hovering around 20% of agri-GDP. It is coupled with first time drop in absolute number of workforce engaged in agriculture (by about 31 million) during 2004-05 to 2011-12 (as per NSSO). Both are most fundamental, and welcome changes in Indian agriculture since decades, as they equip the agri-workers with more capital and thus raise labour and land productivity. And, that is what seems to have happened.

But what triggered the investments in agriculture? It may be noted that in 2011-12, almost 85% of investments in agriculture came from the private sector. Our econometric analysis of this over the period 1990-91 to 2011-12 reveals that private investments respond strongly to the price ratio of agriculture to non-agriculture commodities, and also to the public sector investments in agriculture. But the elasticity of private investments in agriculture with respect to price ratio is almost three times higher than with public sector investments. So, it is basically the relative prices that have been the game changers. Call it the terms of tradeimpact!

How did it happen? Gradual integration of agriculture to global economy has been a part of the overall liberalisation policy since the 1991 economic reforms. In 1990-91, agri-trade (imports plus exports) were less than 5% of agri-GDP, which increased to more than 18% by 2012-13. What this indicates is that our domestic agri-prices cannot be insulated from global prices for long. What happens to commodity prices in global economy percolates to domestic economy, albeit with a little lag. The global food-prices have been increasing since 2003-04, first gradually but then with an almost volcanic eruption in 2007-08. By 2011-12, global food prices as measured by FAO’s food price index (with 2002-04=100) stood at 230 and then declined marginally to 210 by 2013. Our domestic food price index (with 2004-05=100) stood at 175 in 2011-12, and continued to rise to 210 by the end of 2013. Both food price indices show a remarkable convergence at 210 by 2013. It shows clearly that our agri-prices are very much aligned to the movements in global prices.

What this means in a two-sector economy was that relative prices improved in favour of agriculture, triggering private investments in agriculture, raising productivity and incomes, and ultimately reducing rural poverty at an unprecedented pace.

But it had a side effect too! Food inflation in India at double digits for the last five years seems to be taking a political toll. Onion price spike in 2013, which was more of a seasonal than an inbuilt trend, seems to dominate the news, while the fastest increase in per worker agri-GDP, and the fastest accumulation of capital in agriculture, and most dramatic fall in rural poverty during 2004-11, all go unnoticed!! Call it lack of effective communication of policies, programs, and consequent burial of their benefits!

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