Editorial 1 : A message of fiscal stability, growth continuity
Context
The FY25 Union Budget has sent out a strong message under the new administration — there remains an unequivocal focus on stability (fiscal) and continuity (of sustainable growth impulses) amidst a new chiselled focus on providing growth a more inclusive character in India.
Focus on ‘weaker building blocks’
- The 8.2% GDP growth in FY24, while commendable, was driven by an uneven K-shaped segmentation.
- The premiumisation of consumption, as seen in the robust demand for luxury cars, houses and goods, coincided with stagnant wages, low fast-moving consumer goods sales and (food) inflation continuing to vociferously bite those at the bottom end of the income pyramid.
- The fiscal deficit, at 5.6% of GDP in FY24, still high compared to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, provided the needed growth impetus via capital spending at a time when the private capex cycle remained much on the sidelines.
- Against this background, the FY25 Budget, through a panoply of measures, has addressed the weaker building blocks, viz. to improve the quality of employment, fortify agriculture and bring in the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) into a meaningful role play in India’s manufacturing renaissance. This will pave the path to establish a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
- From an agriculture perspective — currently a key priority — promotion of Atmanirbharta in pulses and oilseeds, a focus on agriculture research. large-scale clusters for vegetable production, and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in agriculture for coverage of farmers and their lands, are all likely to support the Annadata (i.e., farmer).
- A thriving agriculture sector will allow the government to deliver on its promise of foodgrains under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), now extended for five years.
On employment generation
- The Budget entailed an energised focus on employment generation, for the youth especially, within the ambit of the formal workforce.
- A new scheme offering incentives to employers as well as employees who join the workforce for the first time, was announced at an outlay of ₹10,000 crore through the Ministry of Labour.
- Other fresh schemes incentivising internships with an outlay of ₹2,000 crore, and for skilling youth in collaboration with State governments and industry were envisaged.
- This somewhat resonates with the tripartite compact (between Centre, States, private sector) that the Economic Survey had recommended on the eve of the FY25 Union Budget to deliver on the rising aspirations of Indian youth.
- Outlay towards housing saw a massive jump in the FY25 Budget.
- For urban Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), the government allocated 37% more funds in FY25 versus FY24, which though impressive, pales into some degree of insignificance when compared to the 70% jump budgeted for the rural counterpart of the scheme.
- Housing for all remains a key hallmark of the government, which now embarks on its version 2.0.
- The PLI Scheme too got a handsome raise of 75% in the FY25 Budget, driven by higher allocation to the auto sector.
- This was accompanied by tweaks to sectoral custom duties in a bid to support domestic manufacturing and deepen local value addition.
- Financing constraints, typically faced by MSMEs, were addressed via promise to facilitate term loans to MSMEs for purchase of machinery and equipment without collateral.
- To facilitate improved and undisrupted lending, banks will now be allowed to develop in-house credit assessment and a facilitation backed by the government to continue to extend credit to MSMEs even during stress times.
- Most of these measures will dovetail handsomely with the macro focus of pushing a job-led growth in the medium term.
- Commendably, the government has succeeded in maintaining the fiscal discipline whilst extending a wide gamut of measures to stimulate the economy.
Other changes
- Compared to the interim Budget’s fiscal deficit estimate of 5.1% of GDP, the government pruned the FY25 headline deficit target to 4.9%.
- It kept the intended 70 Basis points consolidation over FY24 intact, as in the interim Budget. This allows for a smoother transition to 4.6% fiscal deficit to GDP in FY26.
- The display of intent to continue to consolidate its fiscal position well beyond FY26, preserves the trust that this government has earned from economy watchers in the last few years, despite facing the pressure of new demands by regional partners.
- While the capex target was left unchanged at ₹11.1 trillion, the gains from the Reserve Bank of India’s transfer of a record high dividend of ₹2.1 trillion earlier this year were divided between higher welfare spends and a reduction in fiscal deficit.
Conclusion
- All this will serve India well, at a time when domestic bonds have embarked on a maiden journey of getting included in global bond indices.
- In the face of greater scrutiny of India’s fiscal metrics by international agencies, now more than ever, an adherence to fiscal discipline prepares the groundwork for the possibility of a sovereign rating upgrade in the future.
Editorial 2 : Drug used to treat clots can protect against cobra venom damage
Introduction
Orange-red in colour and native to Tanzania, the Naja pallida — the red-spitting cobra — is a formidable, 1.2-metre-long foe. When threatened, it raises its hood and hisses loudly. If this display doesn’t deter its predator, it will use its most potent weapon, its venom.
The physiology
- Muscles around the snake’s venom glands squeeze, releasing jets of venom onto the eyes, nose, and mouth of the threat.
- As the victim’s face sears in pain, the cobra takes the opportunity to lunge forward and bite, delivering a massive quantity of venom into the victim’s body.
- The venom attacks cells in the body and damages the nervous system.
- For most of the cobra’s regular victims — toads, frogs, birds, and other snakes — the only fate is death.
- A lucky human might be spared, but with a permanent disability.
Bad deal on antivenoms
- Encounters with venomous snakes kill about 1.4 lakh people every year, especially in the tropical regions of Africa and Asia.
- Despite this alarming number, the treatment for snakebites has remained archaic.
- Based on the work of French scientists in the late 1800s, antivenom is made today by injecting domestic animals like horses and sheep with small amounts of snake venom.
- This kicks the animal’s immune system into action, producing antibodies to neutralise the venom.
- Researchers extract these antibodies from the animal’s blood and transport them in cold storage to hospitals, where they are injected into the bodies of snakebite victims.
- Difficulties in production, storage, transportation, and administration aside, antivenoms are also expensive and can have severe side effects in humans; some of them could be fatal.
- That may soon change. In a July 2024 study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, a team of Australian, British, Canadian, and Costa Rican scientists reported that tinzaparin, a drug commonly used to prevent blood clots, significantly reduces damage to cells due to spitting cobra venom.
- The team also found the drug could reduce skin damage in mice injected with the venom.
- Given that this resistance to spitting cobra venom had been conferred by the absence of a gene, the authors concluded the said genes were involved in facilitating the venom’s effects on normal human cells.
- Further investigation revealed that many of these genes were involved in the synthesis of a sugar compound called heparan sulphate, which is known to regulate the formation of blood vessels and clots in the human body.
Blood thinner to antidote
- The researchers hypothesised that if the venom’s toxicity depended on the biological pathway that synthesised heparan sulphate, artificially stopping this pathway could ameliorate the venom’s toxic effects.
- One way of doing so is to introduce molecules that closely resemble heparan sulphate.
- As the body senses an excess of these molecules, it shuts down the pathways responsible for heparan sulphate synthesis. One such molecule is tinzaparin, a drug used to treat serious blood clots.
- When the team introduced tinzaparin immediately after subjecting cells to the snake venom, the cells survived. Tinzaparin could protect these cells even when it was introduced an hour after the cells had been exposed to the venom.
- Further experiments revealed that tinzaparin worked by blocking the interaction between the venom and its receptor in the cell by binding to venom molecules.
Conclusion
The study’s use of the “highly efficient CRISPR approach” to a “mighty but neglected problem” could potentially renew the global scientific community’s interest in understanding mechanisms underlying snake venom toxicity.
