SBI PO MAINS - DESCRIPTIVE TEST
Q.1. Write an essay on any one of the following topics:
(1) Pros and cons of One Rank One pension
(2) Unethical practices in E- commerce
(3) Indian farmers depend on monsoon season
ONE RANK ONE PENSION
One Rank One Pension (OROP) is being seen as a final effort to get the attention of the defence community of the country – at the present moment there are 14 lakh soldiers and officers serving in various capacities in different wings of the national armed forces. There are also in excess of 25 lakh military officers in India who have retired.
Incidentally, this has been demanded for a long time now and has also been promised but till now it had not been implemented. This is also being regarded as an important step taken by the ruling government before the national assembly elections come calling a few months later.
As per officials from the ministry the quoted figure is just a way of showing that the government is committed towards extending the benefit. Chidambaram has said that if any additional amount is needed for this purpose then the same will be provided too, thus confirming the opinions of the defence ministry. The government, though, has not provided any reason as to why the OROP proposal was not passed previously and not mentioned the administrative and legal procedures that led to it being delayed. It is expected that this financial benefit for the military officers and soldiers could lead to civilians making similar demands and it could cost the government anywhere between INR 8,000 and 9,000 crores per year. According to government sources, the long-pending OROP scheme is likely to be rolled out ahead of the Bihar assembly polls.
UNETHICAL PRACTICES IN E- COMMERCE
In the past few years several news stories have emerged detailing the foul practice of information selling, which involves one host company selling the private details of their customers to marketing research groups and other potentially harmful companies. Aside from the obvious problem of such a practice, it should be stated that companies who do business on the internet often store information from customers for their own (usually) non-abusive or unethical purposes. For example, online businesses often use technology to track and better understand their customers and while this is not necessarily a negative practice within itself, it does raise certain ethical questions.
One of the main concerns of consumers worried about unethical business practices in ecommerce, especially when they make purchases online, is that their personal information is being distributed to any number of marketing research or other groups.
Without legal protection for consumers, e-commerce companies could theoretically take all of the information they gathers about its customers and farm it out to other similar companies for a high price. This would allow other groups to see what items people searched for, bought, and whether or not they returned for more. Also many companies that do business over the internet have engaged in the practice of creating “cookies” which are small advertisements, often the form of a pop-up, which record the user’s IP address. As a worse case scenario, they could also give away the full names and addresses that are required for the ordering process so that consumers would be included in junk mail and other lists based on the interests they exhibited as a result of their purchases. In many ways, the information collected by online companies through their website are used for any number of purposes that might be potentially harmful to the consumer or visitor.
INDIAN FARMERS DEPEND ON MONSOON SEASON
The monsoon, which spans from June to September, is essentially a reversal of wind patterns: cool oceanic breeze blows over the hot Indian landmass, resulting in rainfall. It starts over Kerala, its first port of call in the Indian mainland, in the first week of June. The rain-bearing system typically covers the whole of India in a month.
Two-thirds of Indians depend on farm income and over 40% of our cropped area does not have any form of irrigation other than the rains. Millions of farmers wait for the rains to begin summer sowing of major staples, such as rice, sugar, cotton, coarse cereals. Half of India’s farm output comes from summer crops dependent on the monsoon. For good farm output, the rains have to be not just robust but also evenly spread across states. The monsoon also replenishes 81 nationally-monitored water reservoirs vital for drinking, power and irrigation.
When rain-dependent farm output is robust, rural income and therefore spending on almost everything — television sets to gold — goes up. This creates demand for manufactured goods, which in turn helps the general economy. For example, 48% of all motorcycles and 44% of TV sets are sold in rural India. Without this demand, industrial growth would slow down. Normal rains act as a strong check on inflation through plentiful food stocks.
A strong farm sector output is critical to bring down food inflation. High inflation limits scope for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to cut high interest rates, which hamper business activity by making borrowing costlier. A good monsoon raises rural incomes, which helps the economy by fuelling demand for manufactured items.
