Budget 2020: Will the second budget by Nirmala Sitharaman help to boost the India’s Economy
Various well researched economically and financially good strategies are being annouced by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to boost the Indian Economy.
The strategies mainly decided on the idea to support the small and medium businesses of India. Though, the announcement is still going on it will be early to criticise and praise. However, the budget sounds nice.
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Information Credit:- NDTV India, Doordarshan, Lok Sabha TV .
Democracy Index 2019: The largest democracy India slips the list along with Hong Kong & Singapore
The country known as the largest democracy in the world fall the list of "Democracy Index 2019". India's overall score fell from 7.23 in 2018 to 6.90 on the index that provide the current situation of democracy worldwide for 165 countries and 2 territories. Norway topped the list whereas North Korea was in the bottom. India slips 10 places & got the 51st place on the list. The current cause for democratic regression was an erosion of 'Civil Liberties' in the country.
India slipped 10 places to achieve the 51st place on the list of 2019 Democracy Index's Global Ranking. The main cause of slipping 10 places is "Erosion of Civil Liberties" in the country, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.
India's overall score fell from 7.23 in 2018 to 6.90 in the current list. The index is based on five categories-- Electoral Process or Pluralism, Functioning of Government, Political Culture, Political Participation, & Civil Liberties. We will discuss these terms in details in the further of this article.
Based on their total score the countries are categorized as one of the four types of regimes: 'Full Democracy'(scores greater than 8), 'Flawed Democracy'(scores greater than 6 & equal to 8), 'Hybrid Regimes'(scores greater than 4 or equal to 6), & 'Authoritarian Regimes'(scores less than or equal to 4). And, in this list India was categorized as one of the 'Flawed Democracies'.
The currently ruling government in India is a Hindu Nationalist government. And, this government has responded very harshly to the ongoing protests against a controversial, a religion based citizenship law(Citizenship Amendment Act - CAA) many Muslims have said that their neighborhoods have been targeted, while the central government has attempted to ban protests and urged TV news channels not to broadcast the "Anti-National" content.
Harsh action of police against the student protests, brutally beating students inside college campus, library & toilets, hate speech by different leaders of ruling party, internet shutdown, shutting Kashmir and detaining the leaders in Kashmir by the Central Government, all these reasons are responsible for the downgrade of democracy in India.
Now, we have discussed what is going on in India, and we will discuss about China, Hong Kong and Singapore too. But, first let's know and understand what the "Democracy Index" really is!!....
What Is Democracy Index??
The Democracy Index is an index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a UK based company. It intends to measure the state of democracy in 167 countries, of which 166 are sovereign states and 164 are UN member states.
The index was first published in 2006. The index is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories, measuring Pluralism, Civil Liberties, Political Culture, Functioning of Government, & Political Participation. In addition to a numeric score and a ranking, the index categorizes each country in one of four regime types; Full Democracies, Flawed Democracies, Hybrid Regimes, Authoritarian Regimes.
Electoral Process or Pluralism
Pluralism as a political philosophy is the recognition and affirmation to diversity within a political body, which permits the peaceful coexistence of different interests, convictions and lifestyles.
Civil Liberties
Civil Liberties are guarantees and freedoms that liberal governments commit not to abridge, either by legislation or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries.
Political Participation
Participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions- and ideally exert influence- regarding political, economic, managements or other social decisions.
Political Culture
Political Culture is defined by the International Encyclopedia of the social sciences as the "Set of attitudes, beliefs & sentiments that give order and meaning to a political process & which provide the underlying assumption and rules that govern behavior in the political system.
We are not discussing the fifth term, "Functioning of Government" as it is not that complex to understand the meaning of this term.
Four Regimes
1) Full Democracies
Full Democracies are nations where civil liberties and fundamental political freedoms are not only respected but also reinforced by a political culture conducive to the thriving of democratic principles. These nations have a valid system of governmental checks and balances, an independent judiciary whose decisions are enforced, governments that function adequately, and diverse and independent media. These nations have only limited problems in democratic functioning.
2) Flawed Democracies
Flawed Democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honored but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement). These nations have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.
3) Hybrid Regimes
Hybrid Regimes are nations with regular electoral frauds, preventing them from being fair and free democracy. These nations commonly have governments that apply pressure on political opponents, non-independent judiciaries, widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anaemic rule of law, and more pronounced faults than flawed democracies in the realms of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance.
4) Authoritarian Regimes
Authoritarian Regimes are nations where political pluralism has vanished or is extremely limited. These nations are often absolute monarchies or dictatorships, may have some conventional institutions of democracy but with meagre significance, infringements and abuses of civil liberties are commonplace, elections (if they take place) are not fair and free, the media is often state-owned or controlled by groups associated with the ruling regime, the judiciary is not independent, and there are omnipresent censorship and suppression of governmental criticism.
Reason For Hong Kong's Fall On The Index
The EIU group said,"Hong Kong fell three places to achieve 75th rank out of 167th of total, because of the long period violent and disruptive protests rocked the Asian Financial Hub. Also an aggressive police response early in the unrest, when protests were mostly peaceful, led to a "Marked decline in confidence in government-- the main factor behind the decline in the territory's score in our 2019 index".
Reason For Singapore's Fall On The Index
In Singapore, which also achieved the same rank as Hong Kong, 75th out of 167, a new "Fake News" law led to a deteriorating score on Civil Liberties.
"The government claims that the law was brought just to prevent the dissemination of fake news, but it somehow threatens freedom of expression in Singapore, as it can be used to curtail political debate & silence critics of the government".
Reason For China's Fall On The Index
China's score fell to just 2.26 in the list, making China to the 153rd spot out of 167th, which is almost the bottom. And, it happened because of China's discrimination against minorities, repression & surveillance of the population intensified. "Still, the majority of the population in the China think that the democracy is not going to benefit their economy, and support for democratic ideals is absent".
Top 10 Countries With Their Total Score On The Index
Norway- 9.87
Iceland- 9.58
Sweden- 9.39
New Zealand- 9.26
Finland- 9.25
Ireland- 9.24
Denmark- 9.22
Canada- 9.22
Australia- 9.09
Switzerland- 9.03
Thanks A Lot for reading. I hope you got some useful information.
Two Satellites orbiting Earth might collide at 50 feet per second above Pittsburgh
There's a lot of stuff up there, whizzing around in low-Earth orbit. Given the thousands of old, defunct satellites that can no longer communicate with Earth, it's surprising how seldom they collide; but just such a collision might happen this week.
According to space debris tracking service LeoLabs, IRAS (a decommissioned space telescope launched in 1983) and GGSE-4 (a science payload aboard a decommissioned and only relatively recently declassified military satellite launched in 1967) are headed for a close encounter.
Data says, on January 29, at 23:39:35 UTC, the two spacecraft will pass within just 15 to 30 metres (50 to 100 feet) of each other at an altitude of around 900 kilometres or 560 miles. And because both are dead as doornails, there's no way Earth can communicate with them to conduct evasive manoeuvres.
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