Current Affairs of 19 June 2026

The Real Barriers to Trade Are No Longer Tariffs 

Context

• International trade negotiations have traditionally been judged by reductions in tariff rates and customs duties, however, the structure of global trade has evolved significantly.
• While tariffs remain politically visible, the most important determinants of market access today are Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) such as technical regulations, quality standards, licensing requirements, and testing procedures.
• As economies become increasingly interconnected, addressing NTBs has become more critical than merely reducing tariffs.

Understanding Non-Tariff Barriers

• What are NTBs?
  • Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) refer to regulations and procedures that goods must satisfy before entering a foreign market. These include:
    • Technical standards
    • Health and safety regulations
    • Environmental requirements
    • Product certification
    • Packaging and labeling norms
    • Licensing and approval procedures
  • Unlike tariffs, which are transparent and measurable, NTBs operate through regulatory systems and often increase compliance costs for exporters.
• Growing Importance of NTBs
  • Since the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, global tariff rates have fallen considerably.
  • However, governments have increasingly relied on NTBs to regulate trade. Today, NTBs affect nearly 90% of global trade, while thousands of new regulatory measures are introduced every year.
  • As a result, exporters face a complex web of compliance requirements that often restrict market access more effectively than tariffs.

NTBs as Instruments of Economic Power

• The European Union's Regulatory Framework
  • The European Union (EU) has developed one of the world's most extensive regulatory systems. Its trade policies rely heavily on:
    • Environmental regulations
    • Chemical safety standards
    • Product conformity requirements
    • Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)
    • EU Deforestation Regulation
  • Although designed to promote sustainability and consumer protection, these measures also function as powerful filters for imports.
• The United States' Strategic Approach
  • The United States increasingly employs NTBs to advance strategic and security interests. Key instruments include:
    • Export controls
    • Technology restrictions
    • Semiconductor regulations
    • Advanced computing and AI controls
  • These measures influence global supply chains and restrict access to critical technologies.
• India's Evolving Trade Strategy
  • India has traditionally relied on tariffs for trade protection. However, recent industrial policies indicate a shift toward:
    • Quality Control Orders (QCOs)
    • Product standards
    • Import regulations
    • Domestic manufacturing support measures
  • This reflects India's growing recognition of the importance of regulatory tools in international trade.

India's Experience with Free Trade Agreements

• Challenges in Existing FTAs
  • India's experience demonstrates that tariff reductions alone do not guarantee increased trade.
  • Despite Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with ASEAN, Japan, and South Korea, exporters continue to face significant regulatory barriers.
  • Examples include:
    • Lengthy pharmaceutical approval processes in Japan.
    • Complex registration requirements in ASEAN countries.
  • Restrictive customs procedures affecting Indian exports.
  • Consequently, India's FTA utilisation rate remains significantly lower than that of many developed economies.
• Impact on Trade Competitiveness
  • These barriers increase transaction costs, delay market entry, and reduce the practical benefits of tariff concessions.
  • As a result, agreements that appear successful on paper often fail to generate their full economic potential.

Emerging Solutions: The New Generation of Trade Agreements

• India-UAE CEPA
  • The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between India and the UAE incorporates measures such as:
• Mutual recognition of standards
  • Acceptance of international testing and certification
  • Reduced duplication of compliance procedures
  • These provisions lower costs and improve market access for businesses.
• India-EFTA Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement
  • The Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) goes further by including:
  • Mutual recognition agreements
    • Streamlined conformity assessments
    • Institutional mechanisms to address NTBs
    • Legally binding commitments on regulatory cooperation
  • Such provisions represent a significant shift toward addressing the real barriers to trade.

Key Themes and Significance

• Transformation of Global Trade
  • The focus of international trade has shifted from tariff reduction to regulatory governance.
  • Compliance with standards and regulations now determines competitiveness in global markets.
• Hidden Protectionism
  • While many NTBs serve legitimate purposes such as consumer protection, public health, and environmental sustainability, they can also function as indirect forms of protectionism by limiting foreign competition.
• Regulatory Power and Influence
  • Modern trade relationships are increasingly shaped by those who establish global standards.
  • Regulatory frameworks have become instruments of economic influence and strategic leverage.

Conclusion

• While tariffs continue to dominate political discussions, Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) have become the primary determinants of market access and competitiveness.
• For India and other emerging economies, future trade success depends not merely on securing lower tariffs but on achieving greater regulatory cooperation, transparency, mutual recognition of standards, and reduction of unnecessary compliance burdens.
• In the twenty-first century, overcoming regulatory barriers is the key to unlocking the full potential of international trade.

The Real Barriers to Trade Are No Longer Tariffs FAQs

Q1. What are Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs)?

Ans. Non-Tariff Barriers are regulations, standards, licensing requirements, and testing procedures that goods must satisfy before entering a foreign market.

Q2. Why are NTBs more important than tariffs today?

Ans. NTBs are more important because they have a greater impact on market access and affect a large share of global trade.

Q3. How does the European Union use NTBs?

Ans. The European Union uses environmental regulations, product standards, and safety requirements as important trade regulations.

Q4. Why has India’s FTA utilisation remained low?

Ans. India’s FTA utilisation has remained low because exporters continue to face regulatory and compliance barriers despite lower tariffs.

Q5. What is the key to successful trade agreements in the future?

Ans. Successful trade agreements will depend on reducing regulatory barriers and promoting mutual recognition of standards.

Source: The Hindu

NFHS-6 Reveals Progress Amid Nutrition Challenges

Context

• The National Family Health Survey-6 (NFHS-6) has been released, presenting India's latest health and nutrition report card.
• The survey data — collected during 2023-24 — reveals a mixed picture: measurable gains in healthcare access and child immunisation, but persistent failures in feeding practices, diet quality, and child nutrition outcomes.
• In this context, this article argues that better healthcare alone cannot solve India's deep nutrition challenge.

What NFHS-6 Shows: The Gains

• Stunting (children under 5) - 35.5% (NFHS-5); 3% ↓ (NFHS-6)
• Wasting (weight-for-height) - No significant change (NFHS-5); Slight improvement only in severe wasting (NFHS-6)
• Stunting reflects long periods of sub-optimal food intake combined with other deprivations.
• Any decline is welcome given the complexity of factors involved — women's access to resources, water and sanitation, and diet quality.
• Improvements in Healthcare Access
  • Institutional births: Reached 90%, with public facilities accounting for 58% of births.
  • Skilled birth attendance:91% of deliveries attended by trained medical personnel.
  • Antenatal care:95% of mothers received at least one health personnel visit during pregnancy.
  • Full vaccination (12–23 months):87% of children are fully vaccinated — a strong performance driven primarily by frontline workers (ASHA, AWW, ANM), with private facilities accounting for only 3% of vaccinations.
• These gains are directly attributed to better healthcare access, immunisation coverage, maternal education, and improvements in housing, water and sanitation.

Where Progress Stalls: Feeding Practices

• Despite strong healthcare metrics, feeding practices remain the weakest link in India's nutrition chain.
  • Only 50% of newborns are breastfed within the first hour of birth — despite 90% institutional deliveries
  • Only 60% of children aged 6–8 months receive solid or semi-solid food on time
  • Only 15% of children aged 6–23 months receive an adequate diet
• This disconnect — strong healthcare access but poor feeding outcomes — is the central paradox of NFHS-6.
• The First 1,000 Days: The Critical Window
  • The period from pregnancy to a child's second birthday (first 1,000 days) is the most critical for physical and cognitive development. Most brain growth occurs in the first five years.
  • Stunting typically peaks during the second year of life and growth faltering often begins much earlier.
  • Yet NFHS-6 does not provide disaggregated data for the 0–2 age group — a significant data gap.
• The Annaprasana Link
  • In India, complementary feeding is culturally tied to the annaprasana ritual (first solid food ceremony), typically performed between 6–12 months.
  • Any delay in this ritual directly translates into growth faltering. Behaviour change programmes must integrate such cultural practices rather than work around them.

The Processed Food Trap

• Consumer expenditure data reveals a worrying dietary shift:
  • Households are spending less on cereals and more on dairy, processed foods, and beverages. This creates an illusion of dietary diversity without nutritional adequacy.
  • A genuinely nutritious diet — pulses, millets, fruits, vegetables, animal foods, nuts — following ICMR-NIN dietary guidelines — is unaffordable for a large section of the population.
  • Processed foods, by contrast, are cheap, packaged in small affordable units, and easily available.
• This is the nutrition transition trap — households moving away from traditional staples toward energy-dense but nutrient-poor processed foods.

The Hidden Factor: Maternal Time Poverty

• A critically under-examined driver of poor child feeding is maternal time poverty.
  • NFHS-6 reports ~30% of women in paid work — but this significantly underestimates the true work burden.
  • A large share of women in informal economies engage in unpaid labour — farming, livestock, domestic chores.
  • There is no reliable data on what proportion of mothers with children aged 6–23 months are in the workforce.
• In rural areas, in the absence of crèches, women leave infants with older family members or older siblings — most often girls — when working in fields, directly impacting breastfeeding and complementary feeding

What Needs to Be Done: Key Recommendations

• Strengthen Frontline Workers
  • AWWs collect monthly anthropometric data on children — their data quality skills must be improved.
  • Collected data should be analysed locally and feedback given to ASHAs and AWWs for timely action.
  • Recruit a nutritionist and data analyst at district level to enable this.
• Use Digital Tools
  • Supplement in-person counselling with digital tools providing practical feeding guidance to frontline workers and mothers, based on locally available, affordable foods.
• Behaviour Change Communication
  • Must be culturally grounded — integrate the annaprasana tradition to reinforce timely complementary feeding.
  • Joint capacity building of ASHAs, AWWs, and ANMs in assessing feeding practices and counselling families.
• Multisectoral Convergence
  • Child nutrition must be a standing agenda item in Gram Sabha and Panchayat meetings.
  • Local planning must prioritise Anganwadi infrastructure, safe water, and sanitation.
  • POSHAN Abhiyaan currently focuses on rehabilitation of severely malnourished children — greater emphasis must shift to prevention of growth faltering through early identification.
• Crèches as Social Infrastructure
  • Crèches are not merely childcare facilities — they are social infrastructure that enables women's economic participation and reduces unpaid care burdens.
  • Many NGOs have developed crèche models combining childcare, nutrition and early learning — these must be scaled up.
• Engage Men in Childcare
  • Promoting shared domestic responsibilities and engaging men in childcare can significantly improve feeding and caregiving outcomes.

Conclusion

• NFHS-6 tells a tale of two Indias — one where children are being born in hospitals and vaccinated on schedule, and another where half of them are not being fed adequately in their most critical developmental window.
• Better healthcare brought us this far; only better food systems, empowered mothers, and convergent community action can take us further.

NFHS-6 Reveals Progress Amid Nutrition Challenges FAQs

Q1. What major improvements have been highlighted by NFHS-6?

Ans: NFHS-6 reports better institutional deliveries, skilled birth attendance, antenatal care coverage, vaccination rates, and a decline in child stunting levels.

Q2. Why does the article describe feeding practices as India's weakest nutrition link?

Ans: Despite improved healthcare access, many children do not receive timely breastfeeding, complementary feeding, or nutritionally adequate diets during critical growth periods.

Q3. What is the significance of the first 1,000 days of life?

Ans: The first 1,000 days are crucial for physical and cognitive development, with inadequate nutrition during this period causing long-term health consequences.

Q4. How do processed foods contribute to India's nutrition challenge?

Ans: Processed foods are often affordable and accessible but provide poor nutritional value, leading households away from balanced and nutrient-rich traditional diets.

Q5. Why are crèches important for improving child nutrition outcomes?

Ans: Crèches support working mothers, reduce caregiving burdens, improve childcare quality, and help ensure better feeding and developmental outcomes for young children.

Source:TH

Employment, Empowerment and the Road to Viksit Bharat

Context

• India’s economy and society have transformed over the last 12 years under the leadership of the current Prime Minister (PM) of India.
• Over these years, employment generation, youth empowerment, social security expansion, and the launch of the PM Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana (PMVBRY) acted as key pillars of India's journey towards Viksit Bharat (Developed India).

India’s Transformation - From Fragile Economy to Growth Engine

• Over the past decade, India has evolved from being grouped among the “Fragile Five” economies in 2013 to becoming the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
• The country has emerged as a global leader in Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), startup ecosystem development, innovation and technology adoption, and global economic and diplomatic influence.
• This transformation has been supported by a governance model centred on empowerment, inclusion, and economic opportunity.

Youth as the Driver of Growth

• Recognising the importance of its demographic dividend, the government launched several flagship initiatives aimed at enhancing employability and entrepreneurship.
• Key initiatives are Make in India, Digital India, Startup India, Skill India, PM Mudra Yojana, and National Career Service (NCS) Portal.
• These programmes, coupled with investments in infrastructure and technology, have expanded opportunities for:
  • Employment generation
  • Skill development
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Formalisation of the economy

Employment Growth - Key Trends

• Rising employment elasticity:
  • Employment elasticity measures the responsiveness of employment to economic growth.
  • For example, in the period of 2011-12 to 2017-18, it was 0.008, while for 2017-18 to 2023-24, it was 1.11.
  • This implies that a 1% increase in Gross Value Added (GVA) generated a 1.11% rise in employment, indicating stronger job creation alongside economic growth.
• Employment indicators:
  • According to RBI KLEMS data,
    • Over 17 crore jobs were created between 2014 and 2024. In comparison, around 2.9 crore jobs were created between 2004 and 2014.
    • The employment rate increased from 46.8% (2017-18) to 57.4% (2025).
    • The unemployment rate declined to around 3.1%, below the global average of 4.8%.
    • EPFO payroll data indicate addition of over 8 crore formal-sector jobs between 2017 and 2025.
  • These trends are presented as evidence of expanding labour-market opportunities and increasing formalisation.

Expansion of Social Security Coverage

• A major dimension of India's development journey has been the expansion of social protection.
• Growth in social security coverage:
  • 2015: 25 crore people covered (19% of population).
  • 2025: More than 94 crore people covered (64.3% of population).
  • This substantial increase reflects efforts to extend welfare benefits and social-security protection to larger sections of society.
• Global recognition: India received the International Social Security Association (ISSA) Award for Outstanding Achievement in Social Security (2025), recognising progress in expanding social-security coverage.

Pradhan Mantri Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana (PMVBRY)

• About: Introduced (1 August 2025) in the first Budget of the present government's third term with a financial outlay of nearly ₹1 lakh crore, PMVBRY is projected as one of India's largest employment-generation initiatives.
• Employment target: Creation of more than 3.5 crore employment opportunities over two years.

• Key features:

  • Part A (Support for first-time employees): Financial assistance of up to ₹15,000 disbursed in two instalments.
  • Part B (Incentives for employers):
    • Up to ₹3,000 per employee per month applicable for each additional worker hired.
    • Incentives available: Up to 4 years for manufacturing sector employers. Up to 2 years for employers in other sectors.

  • Expected benefits:

    • Encourages workforce participation, reduces hiring costs for employers, and supports industrial growth through employment-linked incentives.
    • Enhances income security for workers and families, and strengthens the virtuous cycle of production, employment, and consumption.

  • Implementation and outreach:

    • To mark the implementation of PMVBRY, incentives worth ₹2,400 crore are being disbursed through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to approximately 15 lakh beneficiaries.
    • Events, distributing appointment letters to beneficiaries, recognising employers generating employment opportunities, are being organised across 200 major industrial clusters.

Towards Viksit Bharat 2047

• As India approaches the centenary of Independence in 2047, the country’s greatest asset is its young population.
• The government views both employees and employers as equal partners in nation-building, seeking to balance worker welfare with enterprise growth.
• The broader vision of Viksit Bharat rests on:
  • Employment-led growth
  • Skill development
  • Entrepreneurship promotion
  • Social-security expansion
  • Formalisation of the workforce
  • Inclusive economic development

Conclusion

• India's development trajectory is a combination of economic reforms, youth empowerment, employment generation, and social protection.
• Schemes such as PMVBRY seek to strengthen the relationship between labour and industry, positioning employees and employers as the twin engines driving India’s journey towards a prosperous, inclusive, and developed nation by 2047.

Road to Viksit Bharat FAQs

Q1. How does employment elasticity reflect the relationship between economic growth and job creation?

Ans. Employment elasticity of 1.11 indicates that employment growth has become more responsive to increase in GVA.

Q2. What role does demographic dividend play in India's development strategy?

Ans. It is being leveraged through initiatives such as Skill India, Startup India, Make in India, and PM Mudra Yojana.

Q3. What is the significance of the PMVBRY?

Ans. PMVBRY aims to generate over 3.5 crore employment opportunities through financial incentives for both employees and employers.

Q4. What is the contribution of the expansion of social security coverage in India?

Ans. Enhancing welfare protection and reducing economic vulnerabilities among citizens.

Q5. Why are employees and employers considered the twin engines of India's Viksit Bharat vision?

Ans. They ensure employment generation, productivity enhancement, and equitable distribution of development benefits.

Source: IE