THE HINDU Editorial Vocabulary- February 5, 2018 - Topic 1

Limited succor

Budget 2018 and senior citizens

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stressed in his Budget speech last week that “to care for those who cared for us is one of the highest honours”, underscoring the importance the Centre attaches to providing economic support for India’s growing population of senior citizens. He then announced several tax and related incentives to ease the financial burden on people aged 60 and above, all of which are very welcome given that the elderly face steeply escalating health-care costs on declining real interest and pension incomes. 

From affording a five-fold increase in the exemption limit on interest income from savings, fixed and recurring deposits held with banks and post offices to ₹50,000, and doing away with the requirement for tax to be deducted at source on such income, the Budget offers much-needed relief. This it does by leaving a little more money in the hands of elderly savers who are heavily dependent on interest income to meet their living expenses. Another useful tax change is the proposal to raise the annual income tax deduction limit for health insurance premium and/or medical reimbursement to ₹50,000 for all seniors. And a crucially allied step is the move to set the ceiling for deduction in lieu of expenses incurred on certain critical illnesses to ₹1 lakh, irrespective of the age of the senior citizen.

Separately, Mr. Jaitley also proposed extending the Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana by two years, up to March 2020, and doubled the cap on investment in the scheme to ₹15 lakh. This annuity-cum-insurance scheme entitles the senior citizen policyholder to a guaranteed pension that equates to an annual return of 8% on investment. This pension plan, unlike the entirely government-funded Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme for the elderly who live below the poverty line, is contributory and is run by the Life Insurance Corporation of India. While all these Budget measures are laudable insofar as they recognise that the right to a life with dignity doesn’t retire with the crossing of a chronological threshold, much more needs to be done to address the needs of this rapidly growing demographic cohort. With more than 70% of the 104 million elderly living in the rural hinterland, any serious initiative to improve the lot of senior citizens must incorporate adequate budgetary support for social welfare spending on the relevant programmes. While the Budget provisions ₹6,565 crore for the pension scheme for the elderly poor, its outlay for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment’s assistance to voluntary organisations for programmes relating to the ‘aged’ at ₹60 crore is starkly inadequate. With the number of the elderly in India set to surge by 2050 to almost 300 million, or about a fifth of the population, governments need to make more comprehensive efforts to address the nation’s greying demographic.

Vocabulary

Stress: give particular emphasis or importance to a point, statement, or idea made in speech or writing.

Example: They stressed the need for reform

Synonyms: emphasize, draw attention to, underline, underscore

Incentive: a thing that motivates or encourages one to do something.

Example: There is no incentive for customers to conserve water

Synonyms: inducement, motivation, motive, reason, stimulus, stimulant

Antonyms: disincentive

Escalate: increase rapidly.

Example: The price of tickets escalated

Synonyms: increase rapidly, soar, rocket, shoot up, mount, spiral

Antonyms: de-escalate, step down, weaken

Afford: have enough money to pay for.

Example: The best that I could afford was a first-floor room

Synonyms: pay for, bear the expense of, have the money for, spare the price of

Antonyms: break, break down, despair, droop, fail

Recur: occur again, periodically, or repeatedly.

Example: When the symptoms recurred, the doctor diagnosed something different

Synonyms: happen again, reoccur, occur again, repeat itself

Proposal: a plan or suggestion, especially a formal or written one, put forward for consideration or discussion by others.

Example: A set of proposals for a major new high-speed rail link

Synonyms: plan, idea, scheme, project, program, manifesto, motion, proposition

Antonyms: acceptance, denial, disapproval, refusal

Deduction: the action of deducting or subtracting something.

Example: The dividend will be paid without deduction of tax

Synonyms: subtraction, removal, debit, abstraction

Ceiling: the upper interior surface of a room or other similar compartment.

Example: Hard landscape materials are the walls, floors and ceilings of our outdoor rooms

Synonyms: detonating device, crownwork, chapiter

Antonyms: floor

Laudable: deserving praise and commendation.

Example: Laudable though the aim might be, the results have been criticized

Synonyms: praiseworthy, commendable, admirable, meritorious, worthy

Antonyms: unworthy

Dignity: the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect.

Example: A man of dignity and unbending principle

Synonyms: self-regard, lordliness, gravitas

Adequate: satisfactory or acceptable in quality or quantity.

Example: This office is perfectly adequate for my needs

Synonyms: sufficient, enough, requisite; acceptable, passable, reasonable

Antonyms: deficient, undermanned, incompetent, short-handed

Comprehensive: complete; including all or nearly all elements or aspects of something.

Example: A comprehensive list of sources

Synonyms: exhaustive, all-encompassing, thorough

Antonyms: incomprehensive, noncomprehensive, limited, exclusive