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Infrastructure is the general term for the basic physical systems of a business, region, or nation. Infrastructure is generally understood as the basic building blocks required for an economy to function efficiently. 

The infrastructure sector primarily comprises of electricity, roads, telecommunications, railways, irrigation, water supply and sanitation, ports and airports, storing facilities, and oil and gas pipelines.

• Power is among the most critical component of infrastructure, crucial for the economic growth and welfare of nations. The existence and development of adequate infrastructure is essential for the sustained growth of the Indian economy.
• India’s power sector is one of the most diversified in the world. Sources of power generation range from conventional sources such as coal, lignite, natural gas, oil, hydro and nuclear power to viable non-conventional sources such as wind, solar, and agricultural and domestic waste. In order to meet the increasing demand for electricity in the country, a massive addition to the installed generating capacity is required.
• Under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, close to 57,000 km of roads will be built. That apart, NHAI would target to award projects for around 23,892 km with a total outlay of around ₹ 62,000 crore in FY 2018-19.
• Airports are a big area, particularly with the present government able to identify infrastructure bottlenecks. The budget document mentions that passenger traffic grew at 18% over the past 3 years and airlines have placed orders for about 900 aircraft. Continuing the focus on increasing air connectivity, the government proposed to increase the standards to accommodate 1 billion flights a year.

NOTE- 

Food production from farm to fork, in general, simply means processing raw materials from the primary sector such as the farm and the sea into food in the food factories, fulfilling the consumer demand. The food then undergoes further preparation or minor processing before it is served for consumption. It does not come under Infrastructure.

Gini coefficient, is a measure of the distribution of income across a population developed by the Italian statistician Corrado Gini in 1912.

• It is often used as a gauge of economic inequality (income), measuring income distribution or, less commonly, wealth distribution among a population. The coefficient ranges from 0 (or 0%) to 1 (or 100%).
• A coefficient of zero indicates a perfectly equal distribution of income or wealth within a population.
• A coefficient of one represents a perfect inequality when one person in a population receives all the income, while other people earn nothing.
• Values over 1 are not practically possible as we don’t take into account the negative incomes.
• A higher Gini index indicates greater inequality, with high income individuals receiving much larger percentages of the total income of the population.

Graphical Representation of the Gini Index (Lorenz curve)

The Gini coefficient is usually defined mathematically based on the Lorenz curve, which plots the proportion of the total income of the population (y-axis) that is cumulatively earned by the bottom x% of the population.

The line at 45 degrees thus represents perfect equality of incomes.

The Gini coefficient satisfies four important principles:

• Anonymity: it does not matter who the high and low earners are.
• Scale independence: the Gini coefficient does not consider the size of the economy, the way it is measured, or whether it is a rich or poor country on average.
• Population independence: it does not matter how large the population of the country is.
• Transfer principle: if income (less than the difference), is transferred from a rich person to a poor person the resulting distribution is more equal.

Amartya Sen is a world-renowned Nobel Laureate who was awarded the Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998 “for his contributions to welfare economics”. Sen was best known for his work on the causes of famine, which led to the development of practical solutions for preventing or limiting the effects of real or perceived shortages of food.

• Welfare economics seeks to evaluate economic policies in terms of their effects on the well being of the community. He was widely acclaimed in the global community due to his pioneering insight in the field of famines, poverty and inequality. Sen, who devoted his career to such issues, was called the “conscience of his profession.” His influential monograph Collective Choice and Social Welfare (1970)—which addressed problems such as individual rights, majority rule, and the availability of information about individual conditions—inspired researchers to turn their attention to issues of basic welfare.
• Sen devised methods of measuring poverty that yielded useful information for improving economic conditions for the poor. For instance, his theoretical work on inequality provided an explanation for why there are fewer women than men in some poor countries in spite of the fact that more women than men are born and infant mortality is higher among males. Sen claimed that this skewed ratio results from the better health treatment and childhood opportunities afforded to boys in those countries.
• In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden’s central bank) established the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize. The Prize is based on a donation received by the Nobel Foundation in 1968 from Sveriges Riksbank on the occasion of the Bank’s 300^th anniversary. The first Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen in 1969.

Banks are the institutional bodies that accept deposits and grant credit to the entities and play a major role in maintaining the economic stature of a country.  

• In India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is the apex banking institution that regulates the monetary policy in the country.
• The banking sector of India can be broadly divided into two major groups’ i.e. scheduled banks and Non-Scheduled Banks.
• Banks that have been included in the second schedule of the RBI Act, 1934 are called the scheduled bank while non scheduled banks are not included in the second schedule of the RBI Act,1934.

Scheduled banks are covered under the 2^nd Schedule of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934. To qualify as a scheduled bank, the bank should conform to the following conditions:

• A bank that has a paid-up capital of Rs. 5 Lakh and above qualifies for the schedule bank category
• A bank requires to satisfy the central bank that its affairs are not carried out in a way that causes harm to the interest of the depositors
• A bank should be a corporation rather than a sole-proprietorship or partnership firm

Hence, it is clear that Scheduled Banks have to be registered with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

1. SEBI- The Securities and Exchange Board of India was established on April 12, 1992, in accordance with the provisions of the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992. 

• It regulates the business in stock exchanges and any other securities markets
• registering  and  regulating  the  working  of  stockbrokers,  sub-brokers,  share  transfer agents,  bankers  to  an  issue,  trustees  of  trust  deeds,  registrars  to  an  issue,  merchant bankers,   underwriters,   portfolio   managers,   investment   advisers   and   such   other intermediaries who may be associated with securities markets in any manner
• registering   and   regulating   the   working   of [venture   capital   funds   and   collective investment schemes], including mutual funds
• promoting and regulating self-regulatory organizations
• prohibiting fraudulent and unfair trade practices relating to securities markets
• promoting investors‘ education and training of intermediaries of securities markets
• prohibiting insider trading in securities.

2. Finance Ministry: 

• The Ministry of Finance is an important ministry within the Government of India concerned with the economy of India, serving as the Indian Treasury Department.
• In particular, it concerns itself with taxation, financial legislation, financial institutions, capital markets, center and state finances, and the Union Budget.

3. SBI: 

• State Bank of India is an Indian multinational, public sector banking and financial services statutory body headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. SBI is ranked 236^th in the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's biggest corporations of 2019.

Labour, also spelled labor, in economics, the general body of wage earners. It is in this sense, for example, that one speaks of “organized labour.” In a more special and technical sense, however, labour means any valuable service rendered by a human agent in the production of wealth, other than accumulating and providing capital or assuming the risks that are a normal part of business undertakings. It includes the services of manual labourers, but it covers many other kinds of services as well. 

• Labour is perishable in nature i.e. labour cannot be stored. If a worker does not turn up to work for one shift his labour of that shift is lost completely. It cannot be stored and utilized the next day.
• Labour has Poor Bargaining Power because it cannot be stored, isn’t very mobile and has no standard or reserve price. So generally laborers are forced to work for whatever wages the employer offers. In comparison to the employer, the laborers have very little bargaining power. There is also the problem that laborers do not have any other reserves to fall back on. They are usually poor and ignorant. And this labour work is their only source of income. So they accept whatever wages the employer offers.
• Labour has less mobility i.e. the laborers can relocate to the site of work. But there are many barriers to the movement of labour from one place to another. So we can say labour is not as mobile as some other factors of production like Capital.
• Inelastic supply of labour i.e. it cannot be increased instantly to keep up with the demand. So say there is a shortage of skilled labour in India, skilled laborers cannot be generated in a day, a week or even a year
• Hence, the Strong bargaining power is not a characteristic of Labour.

NOTE-

Labor economics is the study of the labor force as an element in the process of production. The labor force comprises all those who work for gain within the labor market, whether as employees, employers, or as self-employed, but also the unemployed, who are seeking work. Labor economics involves the study of all that affects these workers before, during, and after their working lives, for example, childcare, education, pay and incentives, fertility, discrimination, their non-work time, and pension reforms.

Thomas Malthus, in full Thomas Robert Malthus, (born 1766), English economist and demographer who is best known for his theory that population growth will always tend to outrun the food supply and that betterment of humankind is impossible without stern limits on reproduction. This thinking is commonly referred to as Malthusianism.

The Malthusian Theory of Population is the theory of exponential population and arithmetic food supply growth. The theory was proposed by Thomas Robert Malthus. He believed that a balance between population growth and food supply can be established through preventive and positive checks.

THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY OF POPULATION GROWTH

• Among the most famous theories of demography is the one associated with the English political economist Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834).
• Malthus’s theory of population growth – outlined in his Essay on Population (1798) – was a rather pessimistic one.
• He argued that human populations tend to grow at a much faster rate than the rate at which the means of human subsistence (especially food, but also clothing and other agriculture-based products) can grow. Therefore humanity is condemned to live in poverty forever because the growth of agricultural production will always be overtaken by population growth.
• While population rises in geometric progression (i.e., like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 etc.), agricultural production can only grow in arithmetic progression (i.e., like 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 etc.). Because population growth always outstrips growth in the production of subsistence resources, the only way to increase prosperity is by controlling the growth of the population. Unfortunately, humanity has only a limited ability to voluntarily reduce the growth of its population (through ‘preventive checks’ such as postponing marriage or practicing sexual abstinence or celibacy).
• Malthus believed therefore that ‘positive checks’ to population growth – in the form of famines and diseases – were inevitable because they were nature’s way of dealing with the imbalance between food supply and increasing population. Malthus’s theory was influential for a long time. But it was also challenged by theorists who claimed that economic growth could outstrip population growth.

Hence, it is clear that Malthus stated that- "Population increases in the Geometric progression, food increases in the Arithmetic progression".

National Sample Survey Office (NSSO)

The National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) in India is a unique setup to carry out surveys on socioeconomic, demographic, agricultural and industrial subjects for collecting data from households and from enterprises located in villages and in the towns. The unregistered manufacturing sub-sector, a complement set to the registered manufacturing sub-sector, covers all the residual units which are not covered under the registered manufacturing sector. The data on the unorganized sector is collected through periodic surveys by the NSSO.

• The release of detailed reports of the 56^th round on unorganized manufacturing enterprises, covering numerous aspects such as employment, input-use, the destination of product sale, and other characteristics (i.e. nature of the operation, type of ownership, registration status, type of contracts, growth status and so on) by National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), has opened up a vast canvas for the researchers to operate on. Perhaps, a number of studies are likely to follow in due course, most ostensibly because of the sheer weight of the unorganized segment in the industrial sector, from the point of view of non-farm employment
• The National Sample Survey(NSS) headed by a Director-General is responsible for the conduct of large-scale sample surveys in diverse fields on All India basis. Primarily data are collected through nation-wide household surveys on various socio-economic subjects, Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), etc. Besides these surveys, NSS collects data on rural and urban prices and plays a significant role in the improvement of crop statistics through the supervision of the area enumeration and crop estimation surveys of the State agencies.  It also maintains a frame of urban area units for use in sample surveys in urban areas.
• NSSO is more systematic surveys of the unorganized manufacturing have been forthcoming and that has led many a researcher to shift their attention from the organized to the unorganized segment.

The NSS has four Divisions:

• Survey Design and Research Division (SDRD)
• Field Operations Division (FOD)
• Data Processing Division (DPD)
• Survey Coordination Division (SCD)

1. Central Statistics Office (CSO) is a government agency responsible for the coordination of statistical activities in India. It is headed by a Director-General assisted by 5 Additional Director Generals. CSO has the following Divisions:

• National Accounts Division (NAD)
• Social Statistics Division (SSD)
• Training Division
• Coordination and Publications Division (CAP)

2. ASI- The Archaeological Survey of India is an Indian government agency attached to the Ministry of Culture that is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation and preservation of cultural monuments in the country. It was founded in 1861 by Alexander Cunningham who also became its first Director-General.

3. The Reserve Bank of India was established on April 1, 1935, in accordance with the provisions of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934. The Central Office of the Reserve Bank was initially established in Kolkata but was permanently moved to Mumbai in 1937. The Central Office is where the Governor sits and where policies are formulated. Though originally privately owned, since nationalization in 1949, the Reserve Bank is fully owned by the Government of India.

The national debt of India is the money owed by India’s federal government, which is based in New Delhi. The debts of India’s states and local government are not counted as part of the country’s national debt. The ultimate guarantor of India’s national debt is the central Indian government, with the name “Government of India” printed on each bond as the issuer.

In many countries, the government’s finance department/Treasury is responsible for issuing bonds and managing debt. However, in India, things are a little different. The Indian national debt is managed by the country’s central bank i.e. Reserve Bank of India.

The Reserve Bank of India raises debt for the Government of India through a range of instruments, which the RBI calls “G-Secs.” This term is short for “government securities” and has become common parlance in the Indian financial services community. The instruments that the PDO issues fall into the following categories: 

• Fixed Rate Bonds – the interest rate payable does not alter over time.
• Floating Rate Bonds (FRB) – the interest rate is expressed as a margin over the national base rate.
• Zero Coupon Bonds – pay no interest but are sold at a discount and redeemed at full face value.
• Capital Indexed Bonds – the face value of the bond increases in line with inflation.
• Inflation Indexed Bonds (IIBs) – both the loan amount an the interest are index linked. Since 2013 these bonds have been issued exclusively to the general public.
• Bonds with Call/ Put Options – The RBI has the right to redeem the bond before maturity (call) or the holder has the right to cash in the bond before maturity (put).
• Sovereign Gold Bond (SGB) – payable in cash, but the value of the bond is linked to the price of gold. Treasury Bills (T-Bills) – these are short-term government bonds that mature within a year.
• Cash Management Bills (CMBs) – very short-term government bonds with a maturity of less than 91 days.

National Savings Certificates, popularly known as NSC, is an Indian Government savings bond, primarily used for small savings and income tax saving investments in India. It is part of the postal savings system of India Post.

The major holders of  India’s national debt are

• Commercial Banks
• Provident Funds
• Others Foreign Portfolio Investors
• Co-operative Banks
• State Governments
• Mutual Funds Institutions
• Corporates Non-Bank

Premium collected in the form of different life insurance policies does not contribute to any kind of debt.

The general definition of the public sector includes government ownership or control rather than mere function and thereby includes, for example, the exercise of public authority or the implementation of public policy. 

PSUs (Public Sector Undertakings) are the government-owned corporations in India, in which 51% or more than 51% of the paid-up share capital is owned by the government of India. However, it can be only the central government or only state government of any state or central government with any state government or state governments.

Public Sector undertakings (PSU) can be classified into three following categories:

• Central public-sector Enterprises (CPSEs) – Companies that are under the direct control of the Central Government or of other CPSEs by 51% or more than 51% of capital share ownership.
• Central Public-Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) are further classified into Strategic CPSE and Non-strategic CPSE.
• Strategic Central Public-sector Enterprises (CPSEs) which includes the Arms & Ammunition and the defense equipment’s, defense aircraft and other items related to Defense, and in the field of atomic energy and Railways transport.
• The rest of the CPSEs are regarded as Non-strategic CPSE.
• Public Sector banks (PSBs) – Banks that are under the direct control of the Central Government or of other PSBs by 51% or more than 51% of capital share ownership.
• State Level Public Enterprises (SLPEs) – Companies that are under the direct control of the State Government or other SLPEs by 51% or more than 51% of capital share ownership.

NOTE-

• ICICI Bank was originally promoted in 1994 by ICICI Limited, an Indian financial institution, and was its wholly-owned subsidiary. ICICI Bank is a leading private sector bank in India.
• Tesco is the biggest private-sector employer in the UK and offers a competitive package of pay and benefits for all jobs, whether as assistants or managers in stores and depots.
• BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited) is a public sector undertaking, working under the Ministry of Heavy Industries, Govt. of India

Planning Commission

1. The Planning Commission was set up by a Resolution of the Government of India in March 1950 in pursuance of declared objectives of the Government to promote a rapid rise in the standard of living of the people by efficient exploitation of the resources of the country, increasing production and offering opportunities to all for employment in the service of the community.
2. The Planning Commission was charged with the responsibility of making assessments of all resources of the country, augmenting deficient resources, formulating plans for the most effective and balanced utilization of resources and determining priorities.

• Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Chairman of the Planning Commission.
• The first Five-year Plan was launched in 1951 and two subsequent five-year plans were formulated until 1965 when there was a break because of the Indo-Pakistan Conflict. Two successive years of drought, devaluation of the currency, a general rise in prices, and erosion of resources disrupted the planning process and after three Annual Plans between 1966 and 1969, the fourth Five-year plan was started in 1969.
• The Eighth Plan could not take off in 1990 due to the fast-changing political situation at the Centre and the years 1990-91 and 1991-92 were treated as Annual Plans. The Eighth Plan was finally launched in 1992 after the initiation of structural adjustment policies.
• For the first eight Plans, the emphasis was on a growing public sector with massive investments in basic and heavy industries, but since the launch of the Ninth Plan in 1997, the emphasis on the public sector has become less pronounced and the current thinking on planning in the country, in general, is that it should increasingly be of an indicative nature.

NOTE- The Prime Minister is the Chairman of the Planning Commission, which works under the overall guidance of the National Development Council. The Deputy Chairman and the full-time members of the Commission, as a composite body, provide advice and guidance to the subject Divisions for the formulation of Five Year Plans, Annual Plans, State Plans, Monitoring Plan Programmes, Projects and Schemes.