PIB Summary- 27th January, 2021 | PIB (Press Information Bureau) Summary - UPSC PDF Download

Pro Active Governance and Timely Implementation (PRAGATI)

Context: PM chairs 35th PRAGATI interaction.

PRAGATI

PRAGATI is an information and communications technology-based platform for, as the name reveals, pro-active governance and timely implementation.

• It was launched in 2015.
• It is an interactive and integrated platform chiefly for addressing the grievances of the common man, while at the same time, monitoring government projects and programmes/schemes.
• The platform was designed by the PMO in coordination with the National Informatics Centre.
• The chief aims of the PRAGATI platform: 
  • Project implementation
  • Project monitoring
  • Grievance redressal 
• The platform combines three technologies namely, Digital data management Video conferencing Geo-spatial technology The platform also brings together the different secretaries of the GOI and the States’ Chief Secretaries, along with the Prime Minister.
• The PM discusses the issues related to the projects and is also presented with the ground-level situation.

PRAGATI Features
The major features of this platform are described below.

• The system is a 3-tier system comprising of:
  • PM
  • Secretaries of the GOI
  • State Chief Secretaries
• The PM will hold monthly interactions with the secretaries and Chief Secretaries via this platform. The interactions will take place on the fourth Wednesday of every month. The day will be called ‘PRAGATI Day’.
• The issues that will be discussed are picked out from the databases related to ongoing programmes of the government, pending projects and public grievances.
• The issues will take into account the various letters written to the PM by the common man and other people.
• The PM is able to see on screen the issues and the latest updates on them.

Davos Dialogue

Context: PM to address WEF’s Davos Dialogue.

About the World Economic Forum (WEF)

• The WEF is an international NGO founded in 1971 and based in Cologny, Switzerland. 
• Earlier known as the European Management Forum, it changed its name to its current one in 1987.
• The WEF states its mission as “committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas”.
• The WEF hosts an annual meeting at the end of January in Davos, Switzerland. The meeting brings together some 3,000 business leaders, international political leaders, economists, celebrities and journalists for up to five days to discuss global issues, across 500 sessions.
• The Davos Dialogues agenda marks the launch of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset Initiative in the post COVID world.

National Informatics Centre Services Incorporated (NICSI)

Context: NICSI to celebrate its Silver Jubilee. 

About NICSI

• NICSI is a public sector enterprise under the National Informatics Centre (NIC), Ministry of Electronics & Technology, GOI.
• NICSI was founded in 1996, and provides end-to-end IT solutions for e-governance projects for Central and State Governments and other PSUs across India.
• It also provides ICT services at the international level.
• The core services of NICSI include IT Consultancy, Centre of Excellence for Data Analytics, Productization & International Promotion, Cloud Services, ICT product installations, Human Resource/Roll out/Training.
• Some of its key offerings extends to eOffice, eTransport, eHospital, ePrisons, eCourts and so.
• NICSI is headquartered in New Delhi.

National Informatics Centre (NIC)

• NIC, established in 1976, is an attached office of the MeitY.
• It provides ICT and e-Governance support to the Government.
• NIC spearheaded “Informatics-Led-Development” by implementing ICT applications in social and public administration and facilitates electronic delivery of services to the government (G2G), business (G2B), citizen (G2C) and government employee (G2E). 
• NIC, through its ICT Network, “NICNET”, has institutional linkages with all the Ministries/Departments of the Central Government, 37 State Governments/Union Territories, and about 720+ District Administrations of India.

Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC)

Context: CBIC celebrates International Customs Day, 2021.

About the International Customs Day

• Annually held on January 26, International Customs Day (ICD) recognizes the role of customs officials and agencies in maintaining border security.
• It focuses on the working conditions and challenges that customs officers face in their jobs.
• It was instituted by the World Customs Organization (WCO).
• January 26th commemorates the day in 1952 when the inaugural session of the Customs Cooperation Council (CCC) was held in Brussels, Belgium.
• In 1994 the CCC was renamed World Customs Organization (WCO) and today customs organizations from 183 countries are WCO members. The WCO is headquartered in Brussels.
• The theme for the 2021 commemoration was, “Customs bolstering Recovery, Renewal and Resilience for a sustainable supply chain”.

About the Documentation Identification Number (DIN) system

• From now on, any CBIC communication will have to have a Documentation Identification Number.
• The government has already executed the DIN system in the direct tax administration. 
• This step is to further the government’s objectives of bringing transparency and accountability in the indirect tax administration also, through the widespread use of information technology.
• To begin with, in the indirect tax administration, the DIN would be used for search authorisation, summons, arrest memo, inspection notices and letters issued in the course of any enquiry.
• From now onwards, any communication from GST or Custom or Central Excise department without a computer-generated DIN, would be treated as invalid and shall be non est in law or deemed to be as if it has never been issued.
• It would also provide the taxpayer a digital facility to verify any communications.
• Now all such specified communications with DIN would be verifiable on the online portal cbicddm.gov.in.

About the Central Board of Indirect Taxes (CBIC)

• The Central Board of Indirect Taxes (CBIC) is a part of the Department of Revenue under the Ministry of Finance, Government of India.
• The CBIC is the apex body for administering the levy and collection of indirect taxes of the Union of India.
• It deals with the tasks of formulation of policy concerning levy and collection of Customs, Central Excise duties, Central Goods & Services Tax and IGST, prevention of smuggling and administration of matters relating to Customs, Central Excise, Central Goods & Services Tax, IGST and Narcotics to the extent under CBIC’s purview.
• It is the administrative authority for its subordinate organizations, including Custom Houses, Central Excise and Central GST Commissionerates and the Central Revenues Control Laboratory.
• Functions of the CBIC 
  • Regulatory functions: 
    • Levy and collection of Customs and Central Excise duties, CGST & IGST 
    • Registration and monitoring of units manufacturing excisable goods and service providers
    • Receipt and scrutiny of declarations and returns filed with the department 
    • Prevention of smuggling and combating evasion of duties and service tax 
    • Enforcement of border control on goods and conveyances
    • Assessment, examination and clearance of imported goods and export goods 
    • Implementation of export promotion measures
    • Clearance of international passengers and their baggage
    • Resolution of disputes through administrative and legal measures
    • Sanction of refund, rebate and drawback
    • Realization of arrears of revenue
    • Audit of assessments for ensuring tax compliance
  • Service functions:
    • Dissemination of information on law and procedures through electronic and print media
    • Enabling filing of declarations, returns and claims through online services. 
    • Providing information on the status of processing of declarations, returns and claims
    • Assisting the right holders in protecting their intellectual property rights 
    • Responding to public enquiries relating to Customs, Central Goods and Service Tax matters
    • Providing Customs services such as examination of goods and factory stuffing of export goods at clients’ sites, as per policy
  • The CBIC was formerly known as the Central Board of Excise & Customs. The name was changed in 2018 after the introduction of the GST (which subsumed indirect taxes).

Future Investment Initiative Forum

Context: Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare addressed the 4th edition of the Future Investment Initiative Forum.

Future Investment Initiative (FII)

• The Future Investment Initiative (FII) is an annual investment forum held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss trends in the world economy and investment environment.
• It is hosted by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia(PIF). The first event was in October 2017.
  • The PIF is Saudi Arabia’s main sovereign wealth fund.

India signs Strategic Partnership Agreement with International Energy Agency (IEA)

What’s in News? 
The Framework for Strategic Partnership between the International Energy Agency (IEA) members and the Government of India was signed in January 2021 to strengthen mutual trust and cooperation & enhance global energy security, stability and sustainability.

Details

• This partnership is expected to lead to an extensive exchange of knowledge and would be a stepping stone towards India becoming a full member of the IEA.
• The contents of the Strategic Partnership will be jointly decided by the IEA Members and India.
  • This includes a phased increase in benefits and responsibilities for India as an IEA Strategic Partner;
  • Building on existing areas of work within Association and the Clean Energy Transitions Programme (CETP), such as energy security, clean & sustainable energy, energy efficiency, enhancing petroleum storage capacity in India, expansion of gas-based economy in India, etc.

Origin of International Energy Agency

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a grouping of major oil-importing countries which was created in 1974 by the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at Paris, France, following the Arab oil embargo of 1973 which had resulted in a dramatic rise in oil prices. It was established with a broad mandate on energy security and other issues about energy policy cooperation among the member countries. Long term supply, information transparency, the security of supply, international energy relations, research and development were its focal points.
However, today IEA has expanded and evolved to be at the heart of global dialogue on energy, examining the spectrum of energy issues to advocate policies and ensure affordability, reliability & sustainability of energy among its member countries. It has 30 member nations and only OECD nations are given membership to the IEA. All the OECD member states except for Chile, Iceland, Israel, Mexico and Slovenia are members of IEA. India became an Associate Member of IEA in 2017 while Mexico became the 30th member of IEA in 2018. The other Associate members, apart from India, are China, Brazil, Morocco, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Latest Context related to International Energy Agency – IEA
The IEA has released the India Energy Outlook 2021 Report. It is a new special report from the IEA’s World Energy Outlook series. The report explores the opportunities and challenges ahead for India as the country seeks to ensure reliable, affordable and sustainable energy for a growing population.

• As per the report, over the next two decades, India will make up the biggest share of energy demand growth at 25%.  Presently, India is the fourth-largest global energy consumer behind China, the United States and the European Union.
• Prior to the global pandemic, India’s energy demand was projected to increase by almost 50% between 2019 and 2030, but growth over this period is now closer to 35%.

Objectives of IEA
The International Energy Agency was established with an objective to coordinate the response of the participating states to the world energy crisis along with developing a mechanism for oil-sharing for use during supply difficulties. IEA mainly focuses on its energy policies which include economic development, energy security and environmental protection. These policies are also known as the 3 E’S of IEA.

Structure of Indian Energy Agency (IEA)
The IEA consists of three main controlling bodies:

1. Governing Board Management
2. Committee
3. The Secretariat

The Governing Board is composed of ministers of all the member-governments who are responsible for decision making. The Board is assisted by three standing groups dealing with emergency questions, long-term cooperation and the oil market.
The Management Committee deals with energy, research and development and the non-member countries.
The Secretariat is headed by the Executive Director. Apart from these, the IEA also maintains an import-monitoring system and a quick response mechanism.

India and IEA

India became an associate member of IEA in March 2017 but it was in engagement with IEA long before its association with the organization. India was a party to the Declaration of Cooperation, signed in 1998 which covered the matters relating to energy security and statistics. India had also signed three joint statements with IEA that covered various areas of mutual interest in the energy arena with major focus to gas and oil security.
Some of the benefits provided to India for being an associate member of the IEA are: 

1. Providing access to India to participate in meetings of working groups, standing groups and committees that constitute the governance structure of IEA.
2. Allowing India to take lead in the geopolitical platform on climate and energy issues due to IEA’s increasing role in combating climate change.
3. Helping India to take forward the International Solar Alliance framework to other countries through a greater partnership with IEA.
4. To help India in achieving its vision of ensuring 24×7 affordable and environment-friendly ‘Power for All’ with increased engagement with IEA.
5. To enable India in setting up its own robust integrated database on energy. With India as an associate member, IEA now formally covers 70% of the world’s energy consumption.

India’s relationship with various inter-governmental organisations is an important part of the UPSC syllabus for International Relations segment.

Achievements of the International Energy Agency
Though the threat to the new energy crisis reduced with the global recession, oil glut and increased efficiency, the IEA warned against energy conservation “complacency” in the 1980s. The IEA had been successful in meeting the possible oil crisis in 1990 following the Gulf War by approving a contingency plan which assured ‘security of supply’ by making available additional 2.5 million barrels of oil per day until the completion of Operation Desert Storm. The IEA energy ministers agreed in March 1991 to meet regularly after the Gulf War to discuss environmental concerns and ways to increase energy efficiency with their counterparts in non-IEA countries. In recent years, the IEA has been increasingly involved in the assessment of nuclear issues, as public and governmental support for use of power-generating nuclear reactors has declined.

Textiles Committee

Context: Textiles Committee, Ministry of Textiles signs MoU with M/s Nissenken Quality Evaluation Centre, Japan.

Details of the MoU

• The aim of the MoU is to boost the export of Indian textiles and apparel to the Japanese market.
• The main objective of the MoU is to provide the required support to the textiles trade and industry for ensuring quality as per the requirement of Japanese buyers through Testing, Inspection & Conformity Assessment, Training & Capacity Building, Research & Development (R&D) and Consultancy.
• It is expected that the MoU will strengthen the bilateral trade by enhancing India’s export of Textile and Apparels (T&A) to Japan, which is the third-largest export destination of the world.

Background

• India and Japan had signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in 2011 which inter-alia facilitates the import of garments from India to Japan at zero duty.
• Despite CEPA, the growth in trade in Textiles and Apparel (T&A) between the two countries has been moderate.
• Japan is the third-largest importer of T&A in the world and India is the 6th largest exporter and there is huge untapped potential for trade.

About Textiles Committee

• The Textiles Committee was established in 1963 by an Act of Parliament and is a statutory body under the Ministry of Textiles.
• One of its mandates is to ensure the quality of all textiles and textile products for domestic and export markets.
• The Textiles Committee is the only body providing for all the quality-related needs of the entire Textiles Value Chain (TVC) in an integrated format on a pan-India basis through its network of 28 offices across the country including 19 state-of-the-art laboratories accredited under relevant national and international standards.

Prelims Facts

Govind Ballabh Pant

• G B Pant was a freedom fighter and the first Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh post-independence.
• He was the Premier of the United Provinces from 1937 to 1939.
• He was also the Union Home Minister from 1955 to 1961.
• G B Pant received the Bharat Ratna in 1957.