Which committee was assigned to recommend reforms in the insurance sector? ?->(Show Answer!)

1. Which committee was assigned to recommend reforms in the insurance sector?

Answer: Malhotra Committee

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MCQ-> Directions: Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions. When times are hard, doomsayers are aplenty. The problem is that if you listen to them too carefully, you tend to overlook the most obvious signs of change. 2011 was a bad year. Can 2012 be any worse? Doomsday forecasts are the easiest to make these days. So let's try a contrarian's forecast instead. Let's start with the global economy. We have seen a steady flow of good news from the US. The employment situation seems to be improving rapidly and consumer sentiment, reflected in retail expenditures on discretionary items like electronics and clothes, has picked up. If these trends sustain, the US might post better growth numbers for 2012 than the 1.5 - 1.8 percent being forecast currently. Japan is likely to pull out of a recession in 2012 as post-earthquake reconstruction efforts gather momentum and the fiscal stimulus announced in 2011 begin to pay off. The consensus estimate for growth in Japan is a respectable 2 percent for 2012. The "hard landing' scenario for China remains and will remain a myth. Growth might decelerate further from the 9 percent that is expected to clock in 2011 but is unlikely to drop below 8 - 8.5 percent in 2012. Europe is certainly in a spot of trouble. It is perhaps already in recession and for 2012 it is likely to post mildly negative growth. The risk of implosion has dwindled over the last few months- peripheral economies like Greece, Italy and Spain have new governments in place and have made progress towards genuine economic reform. Even with some these positive factors in place, we have to accept the fact that global growth in 2012 will be tepid. But there is a flipside to this. Softer growth means lower demand for commodities, and this is likely to drive a correction in commodity prices. Lower commodity inflation will enable emerging market central banks to reverse their monetary stance. China, for instance, has already reversed its stance and have pared its reserve ratio twice. The RBI also seems poised for a reversal in its rate cycle as headline inflation seems well one its way to its target of 7 percent for March 2012. That said, oil might be an exception to the general trend in commodities. Rising geopolitical tensions, particularly the continuing face-off between Iran and the US, might lead to a spurt in prices. It might make sense for our oil companies to hedge this risk instead of buying oil in the spot market. As inflation fears abate, and emerging market central banks begin to cut rates, two things could happen. Lower commodity inflation would mean lower interest rates and better credit availability. This could set the floor to growth and slowly reverse the business cycle within these economies. Second, as the fear of untamed, runaway inflation in these economies abates, the global investor's comfort levels with their markets will increase. Which of the emerging markets will outperform and who will leave behind? In an environment in which global growth is likely to be weak, economies like India that have a powerful domestic consumption dynamic should lead; those dependent on exports should, prima facie, fall behind. Specifically for India, a fall in the exchange rate could not have come at a better time. It will help Indian exporters gain market share even if global trade remains depressed. More importantly, it could lead to massive import substitution that favours domestic producers.Let’s now focus on India and start with a caveat. It is important not to confuse a short run cyclical dip with a permanent derating of its long-term structural potential. The arithmetic is simple. Our growth rate can be in the range of 7-10 percent depending on policy action. Ten percent if we get everything right, 7 percent if we get it all wrong. Which policies and reforms are critical to taking us to our 10 percent potential? In judging this, let’s again be careful. Let’s not go by the laundry list of reforms that FIIs like to wave: The increase in foreign equity limits in foreign shareholding, greater voting rights for institutional shareholders in banks, FDI in retail, etc. These can have an impact only at the margin. We need not bend over backwards to appease the FIIs through these reforms they will invest in our markets when momentum picks up and will be the first to exit when the momentum flags, reforms or not. The reforms that we need are the ones that can actually raise our sustainable longterm growth rate. These have to come in areas like better targeting of subsidies, making projects in infrastructure viable so that they draw capital, raising the productivity of agriculture, improving healthcare and education, bringing the parallel economy under the tax net, implementing fundamental reforms in taxation like GST and the direct tax code and finally easing the myriad rules and regulations that make doing business in India such a nightmare. A number of these things do not require new legislation and can be done through executive order.Which of the following is not true according to the passage?
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MCQ-> Directions : Choose the word/group of words which is most opposite in meaning to the word / group of words printed in bold as used in the passage.When times are hard, doomsayers are aplenty. The problem is that if you listen to them too carefully, you tend to overlook the most obvious signs of change. 2011 was a bad year. Can 2012 be any worse? Doomsday forecasts are the easiest to make these days. So let's try a contrarian's forecast instead. Let's start with the global economy. We have seen a steady flow of good news from the US. The employment situation seems to be improving rapidly and consumer sentiment, reflected in retail expenditures on discretionary items like electronics and clothes, has picked up. If these trends sustain, the US might post better growth numbers for 2012 than the 1.5 - 1.8 percent being forecast currently. Japan is likely to pull out of a recession in 2012 as post-earthquake reconstruction efforts gather momentum and the fiscal stimulus announced in 2011 begin to pay off. The consensus estimate for growth in Japan is a respectable 2 percent for 2012. The "hard landing' scenario for China remains and will remain a myth. Growth might decelerate further from the 9 percent that is expected to clock in 2011 but is unlikely to drop below 8 - 8.5 percent in 2012. Europe is certainly in a spot of trouble. It is perhaps already in recession and for 2012 it is likely to post mildly negative growth. The risk of implosion has dwindled over the last few months- peripheral economies like Greece, Italy and Spain have new governments in place and have made progress towards genuine economic reform. Even with some these positive factors in place, we have to accept the fact that global growth in 2012 will be tepid. But there is a flipside to this. Softer growth means lower demand for commodities, and this is likely to drive a correction in commodity prices. Lower commodity inflation will enable emerging market central banks to reverse their monetary stance. China, for instance, has already reversed its stance and have pared its reserve ratio twice. The RBI also seems poised for a reversal in its rate cycle as headline inflation seems well one its way to its target of 7 percent for March 2012. That said, oil might be an exception to the general trend in commodities. Rising geopolitical tensions, particularly the continuing face-off between Iran and the US, might lead to a spurt in prices. It might make sense for our oil companies to hedge this risk instead of buying oil in the spot market. As inflation fears abate, and emerging market central banks begin to cut rates, two things could happen. Lower commodity inflation would mean lower interest rates and better credit availability. This could set the floor to growth and slowly reverse the business cycle within these economies. Second, as the fear of untamed, runaway inflation in these economies abates, the global investor's comfort levels with their markets will increase. Which of the emerging markets will outperform and who will leave behind? In an environment in which global growth is likely to be weak, economies like India that have a powerful domestic consumption dynamic should lead; those dependent on exports should, prima facie, fall behind. Specifically for India, a fall in the exchange rate could not have come at a better time. It will help Indian exporters gain market share even if global trade remains depressed. More importantly, it could lead to massive import substitution that favours domestic producers.Let’s now focus on India and start with a caveat. It is important not to confuse a short run cyclical dip with a permanent derating of its long-term structural potential. The arithmetic is simple. Our growth rate can be in the range of 7-10 percent depending on policy action. Ten percent if we get everything right, 7 percent if we get it all wrong. Which policies and reforms are critical to taking us to our 10 percent potential? In judging this, let’s again be careful. Let’s not go by the laundry list of reforms that FIIs like to wave: The increase in foreign equity limits in foreign shareholding, greater voting rights for institutional shareholders in banks, FDI in retail, etc. These can have an impact only at the margin. We need not bend over backwards to appease the FIIs through these reforms they will invest in our markets when momentum picks up and will be the first to exit when the momentum flags, reforms or not. The reforms that we need are the ones that can actually raise our sustainable longterm growth rate. These have to come in areas like better targeting of subsidies, making projects in infrastructure viable so that they draw capital, raising the productivity of agriculture, improving healthcare and education, bringing the parallel economy under the tax net, implementing fundamental reforms in taxation like GST and the direct tax code and finally easing the MYRIAD
rules and regulations that make doing business in India such a nightmare. A number of these things do not require new legislation and can be done through executive order.MYRIAD
...

MCQ-> The current debate on intellectual property rights (IPRs) raises a number of important issues concerning the strategy and policies for building a more dynamic national agricultural research system, the relative roles of public and private sectors, and the role of agribusiness multinational corporations (MNCs). This debate has been stimulated by the international agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), negotiated as part of the Uruguay Round. TRIPs, for the first time, seeks to bring innovations in agricultural technology under a new worldwide IPR regime. The agribusiness MNCs (along with pharmaceutical companies) played a leading part in lobbying for such a regime during the Uruguay Round negotiations. The argument was that incentives are necessary to stimulate innovations, and that this calls for a system of patents which gives innovators the sole right to use (or sell/lease the right to use) their innovations for a specified period and protects them against unauthorised copying or use. With strong support of their national governments, they were influential in shaping the agreement on TRIPs, which eventually emerged from the Uruguay Round. The current debate on TRIPs in India - as indeed elsewhere - echoes wider concerns about ‘privatisation’ of research and allowing a free field for MNCs in the sphere of biotechnology and agriculture. The agribusiness corporations, and those with unbounded faith in the power of science to overcome all likely problems, point to the vast potential that new technology holds for solving the problems of hunger, malnutrition and poverty in the world. The exploitation of this potential should be encouraged and this is best done by the private sector for which patents are essential. Some, who do not necessarily accept this optimism, argue that fears of MNC domination are exaggerated and that farmers will accept their products only if they decisively outperform the available alternatives. Those who argue against agreeing to introduce an IPR regime in agriculture and encouraging private sector research are apprehensive that this will work to the disadvantage of farmers by making them more and more dependent on monopolistic MNCs. A different, though related apprehension is that extensive use of hybrids and genetically engineered new varieties might increase the vulnerability of agriculture to outbreaks of pests and diseases. The larger, longer-term consequences of reduced biodiversity that may follow from the use of specially bred varieties are also another cause for concern. Moreover, corporations, driven by the profit motive, will necessarily tend to underplay, if not ignore, potential adverse consequences, especially those which are unknown and which may manifest themselves only over a relatively long period. On the other hand, high-pressure advertising and aggressive sales campaigns by private companies can seduce farmers into accepting varieties without being aware of potential adverse effects and the possibility of disastrous consequences for their livelihood if these varieties happen to fail. There is no provision under the laws, as they now exist, for compensating users against such eventualities. Excessive preoccupation with seeds and seed material has obscured other important issues involved in reviewing the research policy. We need to remind ourselves that improved varieties by themselves are not sufficient for sustained growth of yields. in our own experience, some of the early high yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice and wheat were found susceptible to widespread pest attacks; and some had problems of grain quality. Further research was necessary to solve these problems. This largely successful research was almost entirely done in public research institutions. Of course, it could in principle have been done by private companies, but whether they choose to do so depends crucially on the extent of the loss in market for their original introductions on account of the above factors and whether the companies are financially strong enough to absorb the ‘losses’, invest in research to correct the deficiencies and recover the lost market. Public research, which is not driven by profit, is better placed to take corrective action. Research for improving common pool resource management, maintaining ecological health and ensuring sustainability is both critical and also demanding in terms of technological challenge and resource requirements. As such research is crucial to the impact of new varieties, chemicals and equipment in the farmer’s field, private companies should be interested in such research. But their primary interest is in the sale of seed materials, chemicals, equipment and other inputs produced by them. Knowledge and techniques for resource management are not ‘marketable’ in the same way as those inputs. Their application to land, water and forests has a long gestation and their efficacy depends on resolving difficult problems such as designing institutions for proper and equitable management of common pool resources. Public or quasi-public research institutions informed by broader, long-term concerns can only do such work. The public sector must therefore continue to play a major role in the national research system. It is both wrong and misleading to pose the problem in terms of public sector versus private sector or of privatisation of research. We need to address problems likely to arise on account of the public-private sector complementarity, and ensure that the public research system performs efficiently. Complementarity between various elements of research raises several issues in implementing an IPR regime. Private companies do not produce new varieties and inputs entirely as a result of their own research. Almost all technological improvement is based on knowledge and experience accumulated from the past, and the results of basic and applied research in public and quasi-public institutions (universities, research organisations). Moreover, as is increasingly recognised, accumulated stock of knowledge does not reside only in the scientific community and its academic publications, but is also widely diffused in traditions and folk knowledge of local communities all over. The deciphering of the structure and functioning of DNA forms the basis of much of modern biotechnology. But this fundamental breakthrough is a ‘public good’ freely accessible in the public domain and usable free of any charge. Various techniques developed using that knowledge can however be, and are, patented for private profit. Similarly, private corporations draw extensively, and without any charge, on germplasm available in varieties of plants species (neem and turmeric are by now famous examples). Publicly funded gene banks as well as new varieties bred by public sector research stations can also be used freely by private enterprises for developing their own varieties and seek patent protection for them. Should private breeders be allowed free use of basic scientific discoveries? Should the repositories of traditional knowledge and germplasm be collected which are maintained and improved by publicly funded organisations? Or should users be made to pay for such use? If they are to pay, what should be the basis of compensation? Should the compensation be for individuals or (or communities/institutions to which they belong? Should individual institutions be given the right of patenting their innovations? These are some of the important issues that deserve more attention than they now get and need serious detailed study to evolve reasonably satisfactory, fair and workable solutions. Finally, the tendency to equate the public sector with the government is wrong. The public space is much wider than government departments and includes co- operatives, universities, public trusts and a variety of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Giving greater autonomy to research organisations from government control and giving non- government public institutions the space and resources to play a larger, more effective role in research, is therefore an issue of direct relevance in restructuring the public research system.Which one of the following statements describes an important issue, or important issues, not being raised in the context of the current debate on IPRs?
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MCQ->Below are given statements followed by some conclusions. You have to take the given statements to be true even if they seem to be at variance with the commonly known facts. Statements: I. Health insurance in India caters only to rick 2. Health insurance sector should be regulated. Conclusion : I. Health insurance sector should be nationalized II. Health insurance is not required for the poor. Decide which of the given conclusions logically follow(s) from the given statements....