A cooperative is a voluntary association of individuals having common needs, who join hands for the achievement of common economic interest. It aims to provide support to its members, with focus on the interest of the poorer sections of society, through the principle of mutual help. There are different types of cooperatives working in India viz. Consumers’ Cooperatives Societies, Producers’ cooperative societies, Cooperative Credit Societies, Cooperative Farming Societies and Housing Cooperative Society.

Significance of Cooperatives in India:

• Enhancing Social Cohesion: Unlike other processes of social cohesion that are public and involve a third party, the cooperative way is natural, intimate, private and does not involve a third party. It makes cooperation, in the cooperative, an alternative approach to social cohesion.
• Social empowerment: It promotes equal rights, enhances bargaining power of the poor, promotes leadership as all members are equal and free for their rights as well as Cooperative institutions elect their leaders democratically.
• Promoting Financial inclusions: Cooperatives have been revolutionary institutions in providing credit to farmers at cheaper rates and substituting the role of moneylenders and other non-institutional suppliers of credit from the rural scene.
• Reduce inequality of wealth: It helps in facilitating equal distribution of wealth by enhancing accessibility to loans at affordable rates and providing financial and other assistance to marginalized and economically weak sections.
• Role of Cooperatives in Indian Agriculture: It helps in provision of credit, input delivery and its effective usage, processing and marketing of agricultural produce, storage facilities and information sharing.

Recently, the Union Government has created a separate Ministry of Cooperation to be led by the Union Home Minister to give impetus to cooperatives as:

• It will provide a separate administrative, legal and policy framework for strengthening the cooperative movement in the country.
• It will help deepen cooperatives as true people based movements reaching up to the grassroots.
• It will work to streamline processes for Ease of Doing Business for cooperatives and enable development of Multi-State Cooperatives.
• Under the new Ministry, the cooperative movement would get the required financial and legal power to penetrate all over India.

However, the Supreme Court has declared some portions of Part IXB, introduced in the Constitution by the 97th Amendment Act of 2012, which provided the terms for running cooperative societies in a single state as unconstitutional. This has created doubts regarding the role of the newly created Ministry of Cooperation as it will now have powers to frame rules only for multi-state cooperatives or for those cooperatives, which are working in Union Territories. Notwithstanding the legal challenges, there is a need for a strong cooperative movement for developing the rural and agriculture sector of India. For this, various other measures like structural reforms in terms of winding up weaker and inefficient societies and merging stronger and efficient societies, promoting multipurpose societies, ensuring efficiency in functioning, capacity building and promoting transparency for making the cooperative more effective and realizing its objectives are needed to be taken at both levels- union and state- in the spirit of cooperative federalism.

In the 1920s, a significant space in the nationalist spectrum was occupied by Gandhiji’s constructive programme. With the withdrawal of the non-cooperation after mob violence at Chauri-Chaura in 1922, the national movement got diverted into multiple channels. At one end was the politics of ‘constitutional opposition’ practiced by the Swarajists and at the other end, violent revolutionary activities in Punjab, UP and Bengal emerged. Gandhiji’s constructive programme, however, remained the major pillar of nationalist movement in this period. The constructive programme was a multi-faceted phenomenon. It had social, economic and moral dimensions providing it a strategic character,as discussed below: Facets of the Constructive Program of Gandhi:

As Discussed Below:

• Focus on basic and adult education: Basic education or Nai Talim under the constructive program was aimed at transforming village children into model villagers. Furthermore, in the form of adult education, opening the minds of the adult pupils to the greatness and vastness of their country was a key aspect of the program.
• Health and village sanitation: Gandhiji believed that the fundamental laws of health and hygiene are simple and easily learnt. The difficulty is about their observance. The art of keeping one’s health and the knowledge of hygiene was given greater emphasis through concerted efforts as part of the program.
• Socio-economic cohesion: The program focussed on promoting Hindu-Muslim unity, struggle against untouchability and social uplift of the lower caste like Harijans for their dignified life and cohesion among the masses for the larger goal/struggle.
• Participation of illiterate masses: The rural component especially the illiterate masses of the national movement were consolidated by Gandhian constructive work thus preparing the masses for the next round of agitation and prevented demoralisation and disillusionment among the participants in the struggle. It also helped enlarge the social base of the movement.
• Economic alleviation of masses: It consisted of promotion of Khadi, spinning, village industries, providing an alternative source of employment to poor villagers who could substitute their incomes by taking to Khadi work. Under the leadership of All India Spinners Association (AISA), the Khadi programme reached nearly five thousand villages and improved the conditions of a large number of villagers and imbibed the idea of self-reliance.
• Moral dimension: An ideal village life was Gandhiji’s answer to a centralised, aggressive and coercive modernity. The village reconstruction had a great moral significance for Gandhiji. For him the real India lived in its villages, not in the cities. For Gandhiji, the villages were the repository of a superior moral life and an effective answer to the distortions that had crept into human life as a result of excessive industrialisation.
• Provided strategic continuity to the freedom struggle: The constructive work meant going to the villages and focusing on village reconstruction. Under this impulse, many Ashrams opened up in villages and took up the work of spinning and Khadi. The main importance of this type of work for the nationalist struggle was that it provided continuity to the struggle and it helped to link up different phases of agitations.

The multifaceted constructive programme thus formed an important component of Gandhiji’s antiimperialist struggle in which phases of agitation alternated with phases of constructive programme and thus kept the movement going without any break. In this sense the significance went well beyond the anti-imperialist nationalist struggle.

Sterilization is a form of monetary action in which a central bank seeks to limit or neutralize the effect of inflows and outflows of capital on the money supply. For instance, if it takes Rs 70 to purchase 1 USD and the RBI wishes to keep the exchange rate from rising from its current level, it must sell dollars out of its foreign exchange reserves. Since the dollars will be purchased with rupees, the supply of rupees in circulation will decrease and the supply of dollars in circulation will increase, therefore, the value of the dollar will not rise relative to the rupees. But this action reduces the amount of domestic currency in circulation, which might not be desirable. For example, it may lead to a rise in interest rates. To counteract or sterilize this effect, the central bank may simultaneously purchase domestic (Indian) bonds to put domestic currency back in circulation. Similarly, if a central bank is buying foreign currency to keep the value of domestic currency low, it can sterilize such intervention by selling bonds and removing from circulation domestic currency that was introduced by such foreign exchange market intervention. In India, RBI has the following mechanisms to stabilize money supply against external shocks:

• Open Market Operations (OMO): This is the main instrument of sterilization used by RBI, where excess liquidity in the system is absorbed through the outright sale of securities.
  • Market Stabilisation Scheme (MSS): Under this scheme, the RBI issues Market Stabilisation Bonds (MSBs) to withdraw the excess liquidity in the economy. The value of bonds in rupees is treated as net RBI debt to the government. This is because the proceeds from MSS will not go to the government, though it is the government that provided the bonds. The proceeds from the Market Stabilization Scheme are held in a separate identifiable cash account. The fund is appropriated only for the redemption of treasury bills or dated securities issued under the MSS. The interest payments for MSS securities represent the budgetary burden for ensuring price stability and is often referred to as the carrying cost of sterilization.
• Balances of the Government of India with the RBI: As the RBI Act does not permit payments of interest on Government balances, these balances are invested in government securities held in the portfolio of the Reserve Bank for earning interests. As a consequence, it is used as an instrument of sterilization.
• Forex Swaps: They help in the postponement of the creation of liquidity generated by capital inflows and the consequent accretion to reserves e.g., building up of Forward Purchase Obligations to meet repayment of Resurgent India Bonds (RIBs).

Other than these mechanisms, the absorption or injection of liquidity through the Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF) and Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) also can sterilize liquidity. However, they are to be used in extreme cases, when other options are exhausted. Forex market intervention requires a continuous assessment of exchange market conditions, liquidity conditions, G-sec market conditions, and forward market conditions. The prudent sterilized interventions by RBI have not only ensured that the reserve money growth remains consistent with the requirements of the growing economy but also that money market rates remain aligned with the operating target of the monetary policy, no matter how significant and persistent the liquidity impact of forex interventions may be.

Geospatial capabilities are dependent on geospatial data (data about objects, events, or phenomena that have a location on the surface of the earth). In the digital era, geospatial technologies are revolutionizing the economy. From navigating public transport to tracking supply chains and planning efficient delivery routes, digital services built on geospatial data have quietly become part of daily life and commerce. Given its significance, India has undertaken the following measures to boost its geospatial capabilities:

• Earth Observation Satellites: India has one of the largest constellations of remote sensing satellites in operation; with varieties of instruments flown onboard these satellites to provide necessary data in diversified spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions.
• Establishment of dedicated institutions: Like the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, a constituent unit of the ISRO, National Centre of Geo-Informatics (NCG), GIS-based decision support system platform, under the National e-Governance Division (NeGD), etc.
• National Spatial Data Infrastructure: It has been implemented as a network of spatial data nodes established in various data-providing agencies in central and state governments to improve access to geospatial data by all stakeholders.
• Bharatmaps: It is a GIS platform, established by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which depicts the core foundation data as an integrated multi-scale, multi-resolution base map service using reference data from various agencies.
• Bhuvan portal: It is the national Geo-portal developed and hosted by ISRO comprising Geo-Spatial Data, Services, and Tools for Analysis with versatile features, like visualization of Satellite Imagery and Maps.
• India’s indigenous navigation system “NavIC” (Navigation with Indian Constellation): It is designed to provide accurate position information service to users in India as well as the region extending up to 1500 km from its boundary, which is its primary service area.

India’s focus on geospatial technologies is largely due to their varied application and significance in safeguarding the national security of India:

• Strengthening India’s intelligence architecture: Geospatial data overlying on high-resolution satellite images substantially enhances the precision and reliability of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities. Further, a techno-centric gathering of data overcomes limitations of classical methods of intelligence gathering by enabling day and night and all-weather surveillance activities.
• Advancing situational awareness: With its unique ability of real-time monitoring, geospatial data can provide actionable insights for quick and secure decision-making to handle critical insurgencies. Tactical deployment enabled by real-time analysis of geospatial data acts as an effective tool for:
  • Strengthening Border Security and Coastal Surveillance System by mapping of terrain and hotspots of border crossing.
  • Preventing potential internal and external security threats by tracking infiltration and monitoring camps of terrorists, left-wing extremists, etc.
• Supporting military operations: Geospatial data plays a vital role logistically in the movement of troops, supplies, arms, and ammunition across the nation. It also helps in developing tactical plans, exploring terrains virtually, and facilitating communication in remote areas during military operations.
• Tackling new and emerging threats: Geo-spatial analytics can help to predict and counter new threats like cyber-attacks, hybrid warfare, stealth weaponry, etc., which endanger critical infrastructure of the nation. E.g., perpetrators of cyber-attacks can be traced by geo-locating online information.
• Precision-guided munitions: Geospatial intelligence and navigation systems are key to developing hi-tech weaponry like unmanned armed aerial/terrestrial vehicles, automated missiles etc. with capabilities for automatic target detection, intelligent manoeuvring, etc.

To further bolster its geospatial capabilities, India has signed the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Cooperation (BECA) with the USA enabling deep military cooperation between the two countries.