 very good evening aspirants welcome to the hindi news analysis by shankara ace academy for the date 15th march 2021 these are the list of news articles chosen for today's analysis it has been provided along with the page numbers of different editions of hindu newspaper let us start our today's analysis with this first news article this discussion is based on this editorial which focuses on the rising unemployment and growing nativism in jobs see this nativism in jobs or the job nativism is a policy of promoting the job interests of native inhabitants against those of immigrants that is it is nothing but favoring the locals over outsiders so in this editorial author has analyzed these two issues of unemployment and job nativism with an example so let us see these aspects now the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference now first why all of a sudden we are discussing about unemployment and job nativism it is because recently haryana government has passed a legislation that mandates companies in haryana to provide jobs to local people first before it starts hiring people from outside the state and similarly even jharkhand government has approved a legislation to reserve jobs for jharkhand residents then if you come to tamil adhoop as part of their manifesto one political party has already announced a similar proposal that is to reserve jobs for locals so we can see that there is growing job nativism and this has been promoted by the state governments so to make us understand about why states are opting for job nativism author has taken the example of haryana so what is the unemployment status in haryana before that you should know what is unemployment unemployment is a situation when a person actively searches for a job and is unable to find work and this unemployment is frequently measured by unemployment rate unemployment rate is nothing but the unemployed workers divided by total labour force into 100 so as per the recent estimations by centre for monitoring indian economy unemployment rate for whole of india as of 14 march 2021 is 6.5 percentage and this is 7.3 percentage for the urban areas and it is 6.1 percentage for the rural area see this centre for monitoring indian economy or in short cmi is the leading business information company it is primarily an independent think tank the cmi produces economic and business databases and it develops specialized analytical tools to deliver these databases to its customers for decision making and for research it also analyzes the data to decipher the trends in the economy so as a part of this only it has conducted a survey to collect the data regarding the unemployment and as part of this only these datas have been obtained so according to this data the unemployment rate in haryana is the highest of all states in india because haryana's unemployment rate is at 26.4 percentage and as you can see this is way higher than the national average apart from this the survey results also show that 80 percentage of women in haryana who want to work cannot find a job and more than half of all graduates in haryana are jobless and 11 out of 80 million voters of haryana do not have a regular job and because of these reasons only the unemployment rate is being reflected as 26.4 percentage and due to these grave statistics only states like haryana have resorted for job nativism to please its locals and one of the measures as part of job nativism which is used by the states is reservation like reserving the jobs for local people first and then asking the companies to hire people from other states so why usually states go for reservation measures they could create job but they are not doing it but they are doing reservation why it is because they lack the power when it comes to job creation see to understand this first you should know that job creation depends on certain parameters let us see these parameters now first parameter is the performance of the larger economy this plays a huge role in attracting investments which ultimately leads to job creation the next parameter is providing land at affordable prices and this is for setting up of infrastructure and then comes the important amenities such as uninterrupted supply of electricity and water then next important parameter is the establishment of agglomeration economy see agglomeration economy is a localized economy in which a large number of companies services and industries exist in close proximity to one another and they benefit from the cost reductions and gains in efficiency that result from this proximity the next important parameters are ease of doing business and then attractive tax concessions but what is happening is states lack in many of these parameters because of certain shortcomings so what are these shortcomings see when it comes to the larger economy state governments have limited control over their management because larger economy policies are majorly decided by the central government also the availability of skills local labor is a function of many decades of social progress of the state and it cannot be simply reshaped immediately so availability of skills local labor is a long-term process and then when we talk about the fiscal autonomy after the introduction of GST that is goods and services tax state governments in India have lost their fiscal autonomy so they have no power to provide any tax concessions to businesses and these tax concessions play an important role in attracting investments then when we come to agglomeration economy already prosperous states perform better than the developing ones that means currently among these important parameters state governments only have the ability to use land and local infrastructure as tools to attract the businesses so these are the shortcomings from the state's perspective so according to author these shortcomings have led to three three three effect so what is this three three three effect this effect is about the three richest large states and three poorest large states the three richest large states are the Maharashtra Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and the three poorest large states are the Mihar Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh so what is this effect see this effect has resulted in an economy where in terms of per capita income three richest large states are three times richer than the three poorest large states so this is the three three three effect but if you see this was not the case always in the 1970s according to author the three richest large states were only 1.4 times richer than the three poorest large states so now this gap has doubled it has increased from 1.4 times to three times so it is evident that the gap between the richer and the poorest states in India is only widening rapidly and it is not narrowing and this three three effect itself is an example of absence of level playing field among states so in this regard only author has noted that in the absence of level playing field and with no fiscal autonomy it is enormously difficult for developing states in India to attract new investments and to create new jobs and thus author has opined that this potent combination of widening interstate inequality and shrinking fiscal autonomy of state governments will inevitably spread the sub nationalism among the various states of India what is sub nationalism it is an idea of asserting the interest of one's own state region or province as being separate from the interest of the nation and the common interest of all other states regions or provinces and this sub nationalism can be dangerous to nationhood if it goes unchecked so how this can be prevented it can be prevented if more jobs are created and for that states first have to overcome these issues and for that they have to play a major role like states should be consulted while creating major economy policies here the Niti iog and the zonal councils can act as a platform to hear the state's opinion on policies then if you talk about skilling of labor the skilling should be given priority through schemes like Pradhanamantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana then that should be increasing budget allocation for infrastructure spending to attract more investments here the schemes like smart cities mission Pradhanamantri Avas Yojana can be used then next important point to be focused is that fiscal autonomy of the states should be increased for this GST can be reduced so that more investments can be attracted then schemes like micro and small enterprises cluster development program can help in promoting agglomeration economy then land pooling schemes should be promoted to provide land at affordable prices then developing states should be given priority in attracting investments so here if you notice we have given one solution to each of the issues hence by following these steps new jobs can be created which will ultimately lead to reduction in nativism in jobs and ultimately it will create a free and fair market for everyone so these are some of the important points that should take note from this editorial article now let's move on to the next discussion this article is about the ongoing issues regarding mining in the Aravilles earlier the Haryana government had proposed mining the Aravilles but now environmentalists and residents are strongly opposing this idea they are also demanding that no mining in real estate shall be allowed in Aravilles they have also demanded that the state shall come up with a plan to increase the forest cover in the state to 20 percentage so in this context let us discuss in detail about the Aravilles and its significance the syllabus that is relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference first note that the Aravilles lie on the western margins and northwestern margins of the peninsula plateau as you can see here they extend from Gujarat to Delhi in a southwest to northeast direction and these are highly eroded hills and they are found as broken hills now the peaks in the Aravilles reach their maximum height in the southwestern segment only as you can see in this map Aravilles come in the range between 600 to 900 meters that is why they have been represented as checked boxes but note that some peaks in Aravilles even rise more than 1000 meters an example for this could be the Guru Shikhar which is in Mount Abu this Guru Shikhar peak is about 1727 meters high now then when we move north in the Aravilles the range begins to narrow and the hills become modest now by the time the Aravilles reach Delhi they get inundated or engulfed under the young alluvium and they only rise occasionally as hillocks in the region that nears and includes Delhi a best example for this could be the Raisina hill on which the two powerful government offices of our country the north and south block are situated in Delhi now the northeastern part of Aravilles upon which Delhi sits has an average elevation of 400 to 600 meters but the range does not end in Delhi it travels beyond this up to Haridwar but this time it travels under the ground and after Haridwar it disappears and according to some sources the Aravilles system is divided into two sections first section is the Sambhar-Sirohi ranges and these ranges include the taller peaks such as the Guru Shikhar peak and the second section is the Sambhar-K3 ranges and they consist of ridges that are discontinuous and here note that Aravilles range is rich in natural resources including minerals and it also gives rise to several rivers such as Banas river, Looney river, Sakhi river and Sabarmathi river so why this Aravilles is significant see first is mainly because it has solid often impervious underground rocks and these rocks makes Aravilles a significant geologic and geographic feature further the hidden limb or the hidden projection of the Aravilles that extends from Delhi to Haridwar creates a divide between the drainage of rivers of Ganga and Indus so this is one of the main geographic feature then the second one is that the Aravilles are assembled over a very large province of Granite and this is called as the Bundelkhand Créton and Nays here Créton is a part of earth's crust which has been stable for nearly a billion years or so and Nays is nothing but typically hard or gray rock with long white or gray ribbon like bands so the Aravilles are over this Bundelkhand Créton and Nays and over several hundred million years other rocks also gradually assembled above and around this Nays province and these other rocks include the new and younger varieties of granite marble quartzite sandstone rhyolite etc so because of this Aravilles provided the raw material for local feudal lords to create dynasties by building formidable forts and place of worship in the Aravilles and this is one of the main reasons why Harina government is interested in mining the Aravilles because it has many resources of granite marble quartzite etc now apart from these importance Aravilles also play an important role in climate they have had a profound global effect and continue to influence the subcontinent's climate and even in the modern times Aravilles continue to have an impact upon the climate of northwest India and beyond it is because during monsoons the Aravilles mountain range gently guides the weakened monsoon clouds eastwards now this helps to nurture the sub-Himalian rivers and the resulting rain also feeds the north Indian plains further in the winter months Aravilles also protect the fertile alluvial ganstic valley from the attack of cold westerly winds from central asia so here it acts like a wall to the cold westerly winds apart from this Aravilles also impact the groundwater along the areas which they pass through see it is because already as we saw they have impervious granite nays and quartzite rocks now these rocks bear small crack and fractures along with this there are also some porous sandstones and marble so all these features help to regulate the flow of water so these rocks and associated features make the Aravilles a perfect complex groundwater aquifers and these aquifers hold immense quantities of water so that means Aravilles are also important source of groundwater now besides all these the mountain range is also a biodiversity hotspot it has native trees and herbs mammals reptiles etc so because of all these importances only the environmentalists and residents are highly opposing the idea of mining the Aravilles because if mining continues then it will not only affect the resources of Aravilles it will also affect the climate it will pollute the groundwater and it will also affect the biodiversity of the Aravilles so these are some of the points that I should know about Aravilles because this is going to be news for a long time until any decision is made on this mining idea so now let's move on to the next discussion now let us take up this news article which talks about Lassith Borpukhan see the news article mentions about the criticism by opposition parties against the prime minister of India see what happened was our prime minister was at the launching function of Azadika Amrit Mahotsav this is a program to commemorate the 75 years of India's independence from British rule at this function he mentioned about Borpukhan along with those who contributed to the independence of our country so due to this the opposition parties slammed the prime minister for referring to the 17th century Ahom general Lassith Borpukhan as a freedom fighter so in this discussion let us see about Lassith Borpukhan and about the famous battle of Sarayakhaat see he was a contemporary of Shivaji Maharaja he played a significant role in stemming out the advancement of Mughal imperialism in his land that is an Ahom he is known for bringing the Assamese army to the highest pitch of efficiency see prior to British invasion Mughals invaded and they occupied the Ahom capital in 1662 at that time their capital was Gargaon here the Mughals forced the Ahom Kim to flee to the hills and it was during this time Lassith Borpukhan who was an army general made his entry and he subsequently became the most towering personality of Assam history he set out for Guwahati in August 1667 and by November that year itself he expelled the Mughals from the last Ahom frontier which was in Manus then again in 1668 Aurangzeb dispatched a large army under Raja Ram Singh's command to reoccupy Assam now this time Raja Ram Singh launched a massive naval assault which led to the battle of Sarayakhaat in 1671 now this battle of Sarayakhaat happened between the Mughal empire which was led by Kachwa Ha King Raja Ram Singh I and the Ahom kingdom which was led by Lassith Borpukhan and this battle happened on the Brahmaputra river at Sarayakhaat which is now in Guwahati and this battle lasted for one full day and this time Lassith could not be prevented from attaining victory so this battle resulted in the defeat of a huge Mughal army by a small contingent of Assam which was led by Lassith Borpukhan and that is why he is celebrated as one of the important personalities in Ahom history or Assam history but as we can see he was the hero during the Mughal period and not during the British rule so that is why now the opposition parties are criticising the prime minister for referring him as a freedom fighter during the British rule so these are some of the points that you should know about Lassith Borpukhan now let's move on to the next discussion now our next discussion is based on this data point which is a representation about the defections by MLA's and MP's in the recent times so in this context let us see about defection then also about anti-defection law and its resulting disqualifications then we'll also see some relevant data from the data point there's a lot of relevant tools discussion is given here for your reference first what is defection see the word defection basically means to abandon one's duty allegiance or to abandon one's principle but when we see this in a political sense defection refers to the act of changing the party allegiance that is changing from the party on which a person got elected to a different party or to a different legislative body for certain benefits simply defection means a list later jumping from one political party to another political party if you remember in 2019 we saw many examples like this now one such example could be the Manipur example see in the legislative assembly election that was held at Manipur in 2017 one person named as Mr. Shyam Kumar contested in the congress ticket and he became an MLA but in the very same year itself he defected or shifted onto the sides of BJP and he became a minister from BJP's side but here he neither resigned from the party nor he sought re-election and we also often hear many such instances where it is very common for an elected representative to indulge in such defections in order to gain a better post or even sometimes for cash rewards but when you look closely in a democracy the final decision is made by the leaders who represent political parties so though people can replace them it can be done only by another set of party leaders now at such a scenario if the leaders themselves are not stable in their position and party then making suitable and sustainable policies to address the shortcomings of the nation becomes a question and that is why in order to overcome such challenges it is important for the political parties to get reformed and to address this issue only the anti-defection law was passed in the year 1985 this law prevents the elected MLAs and MPs from changing parties and at present know that the law says if any MLA or MP change their parties without following the due procedures then he or she will lose the seat in the legislature and this law has helped in bringing the defection down but it couldn't eradicate it fully at the same time this law has made any dissent by such an MLA or MP even more difficult because now the MLAs and MPs have to accept whatever the party leaders decide they cannot dissent on it let us see why in the following discussion so for that we need to know about the anti-defection law see the 10 schedule to the constitution is what is popularly known as the anti-defection law it is because 10 schedule contains anti-defection provisions that were introduced to the constitution through an amendment it was introduced by the constitution 52nd amendment act of 1985 and later it was amended by the constitution 91st amendment act of 2003 see this 52nd amendment act provides for the disqualification of the members of parliament and the state legislatures on the ground of defection from one political party to another so in particular this 10 schedule lays down the conditions regarding the disqualification on the ground of defection so this anti-defection law or the 10 schedule lays down the process by which the legislators can be disqualified on grounds of defection by the presiding officer of a legislature and such disqualification is based on a petition by another member of the house so in this regard from example's perspective let us see some important provisions of the schedule if you see para 2 of the schedule it provides for the disqualification of the member of a house belonging to any political party on certain grounds firstly if the member voluntarily gives up the membership of the party then she or he shall be disqualified because voluntarily giving up the membership is not the same as resigning from a party and here note that even without resigning a legislator can be disqualified if by her or his conduct the speaker or the chairman of the concerned house draws a reasonable inference that the member has voluntarily given up the membership of her or his party then similarly if a legislator votes in the house against the direction of her party and then her action is not accepted by her party then she can be disqualified likewise if a person abstains from voting in contrary to the direction issued by the political party and that too without obtaining prior permission and here also if the action of such person is not accepted by the party then also she can be disqualified now based on these grounds we can say that a member elected on a party ticket should continue in the party by obeying its directions if not there are chances that they will face disqualifications now the next important ground is regarding the independent members and nominated members see the independent MP or MLA that is members elected without being set up as a candidate by a political party they will be disqualified if they join another political party after election and here a nominated member to the Rajasapha or upper houses in state legislatures can be disqualified if they join any political party after the expiry of six months from the date on which she takes her seat in the house this means that the person may join any political party only within six months of taking their seat in the house not after that now beyond all these grounds the law also provides some exceptions in relation to this disqualification so now let us see these exemptions first exemption is provided if a member goes out of her party as a result of her party being merged with another party now if in this scenario the member goes out of her party then she will not be disqualified but here also note that such a merger should have been agreed by two-thirds of the members of the party then another exception is that if a member after being elected as the presiding officer of the house then that member voluntarily gives up the membership of her party or rejoins that party after she ceases to hold the office of presiding officer then also she cannot be disqualified now this exemption is provided in the view of the dignity and impartiality of the presiding officer's office now here we should note one important amendment to the 10th schedule which is the 2003 amendment this omitted an exception provision which says that disqualification on ground of defection doesn't apply in case of split further remember that any question regarding the disqualification arising out of defection will be decided by the presiding officer of the house but originally the act provided that the decision of the presiding officer is final and it cannot be questioned in any court this is provided in paragraph 7 of 10 schedule but the applicability of this paragraph was changed in 1993 with the kihoto holohan case in this case supreme court declared that this provision is unconstitutional on the ground that it seeks to take away the jurisdiction of supreme court and high courts and further supreme court also noted that the presiding officer while deciding a question under the 10th schedule should function as a tribunal which means that the presiding officer's decision can be subjected to judicial review if there are any shortcomings or defects but here remember that this is a direction given by the kihoto holohan case which declared the paragraph 7 invalid but even till today this paragraph exists in the constitution because the subsequent constitutional amendment acts did not remove this provision so this is the basic that you need to know about defection and anti-defection law now let us see certain datas given in the data point which we will understand now very easily see this data is based on the data from the association of democratic reforms according to its data between 2016 to 2020 around 433 MLAs and MPs left their party and they re-contested elections as members of other parties and this 433 is a large number and in this according to the data point in 2017 up state election 35 candidates quit their own party to re-contest from other parties and this marked the highest defection figure in a single election during that period of time if you look at this graph it represents the data of those MLAs MPs who quit a party and who re-contested with tickets from the new party since the year 2016 and if you see this portion you can see this portion represents the congress party and as per this data point the majority of defections that is around 177 defections happened from congress and majority of these defections or the defectors they went to BJP and this representation provides you the data of the highest number of defectors in these state elections you can take note of the data given for your state and you can use it as an example in your main sensor rating so these are some of the points that you should know about defection and anti-defection now let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article which says that in Kerala teams were formed at the state level and district level to facilitate the creation of an early warning dissemination system now this early warning dissemination system is implemented under the national cyclone risk mitigation project and it is a vital component in disaster risk reduction so in this context let us see about this early warning dissemination system and also about the national cyclone risk mitigation project see this project was initiated by government of India with a view to address cyclone risks in the country the overall objective of the project is to undertake suitable structural and non-structural measures to mitigate the effects of cyclones in the coastal states and in unit territories of India and here note that the national disaster management authority under the ministry of home affairs will be implementing this project and this will be done in coordination with the participating state governments and the ministry of earth sciences the project has identified 13 cyclone prone states and unit territories with varying levels of vulnerability for implementation purpose but the main objective of this project is to reduce the vulnerability of coastal communities to cyclone and other hydro meteorological hazards so this will be done through measures such as improved early warning dissemination systems through enhanced capacity of local communities to respond to disasters and through improved access to emergency shelter evacuation and protection against wind storms flooding and storm surge in high areas etc so in this our focus is today on the early warning dissemination or early warning system and its significance see an early warning system is a set of capacities that is needed to generate and disseminate timely and meaningful warning information of the possible extreme events or disasters and these events or extreme disasters include floods drought fire earthquake tsunamis etc which threaten people's lives now the purpose of this information is to enable the threatened individuals communities and organizations to prepare and act appropriately and in sufficient time to reduce the possibility of harm loss or to reduce the risk here note that the early warning is the integration of four main elements first one is the risk knowledge now this risk knowledge is gained through risk assessment now this risk assessment provides essential information to set priorities for the mitigation and prevention strategies and for designing early warning systems now next element is the monitoring and predicting as we know systems with monitoring predicting capabilities provide timely estimates of the potential risks that is faced by the community's economies and the environment now the next element is disseminating information now the communication systems are needed for delivering warning messages to the potentially affected locations so as to alert the local and regional governmental agencies now the messages need to be reliable synthetic and simple to understood by authorities and public now the final element is response and for perfect response coordination is important along with good governance and appropriate action plans these are key point in an early warning so likewise public awareness and education are also crucial aspects of disaster mitigation so these are some of the points that you should know about early warning systems and national cyclone risk mitigation project now let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about the national population register or in short npr there is a new development regarding npr which is that now the center has allowed residents to fill npr form on their own and this will be done through the online mode so today's discussion will be focused on npr and its implications first note that national population register or npr is a register of usual residents of the country so who is a usual resident a usual resident is a person who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more so this usual resident includes citizens and non-citizens also that means npr will be a register containing the details of usual residents of the country now the objective of npr is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country and this database would contain demographic details and biometric particulars also now the npr is being prepared at different levels such as the local level it includes the village level or the sub-town level then comes the sub-district level district level state and national level more importantly you should note that npr is prepared under the provisions of the citizenship act of 1955 and the citizenship rules of 2003 the exact name of these rules is the citizenship registration of citizens and issue of national identity cards rules 2003 and further under the citizenship act of 1955 it is mandatory for every usual resident of india to register in the npr and this is as per section 14a of citizenship act which makes it compulsory for every citizen of the country to register on the national register of indian citizens that is nr ic but here we are talking about npr see this npr and its creation is the first step towards the preparation of nr ic so if nr ic is compulsory under citizenship act then the first step of it which is npr is also compulsory and also note that this is not the first time that the data for npr is collected previously the data was collected in 2010 along with the house listing phase of census of india of 2011 then this was updated during 2015 and it was updated by conducting a door-to-door survey now the current collection of data is to further update this so that the changes due to birth death and migration could be incorporated in the npr now here note that before it was decided to update the npr along with the house listing phase of census 2021 and which was to be conducted during april to september 2020 in all states and uts except asam but however pandemic hit so this idea did not materialize so in this regard let us see what are the update about npr from the government according to the recently published minister of home affairs report for the year 2019 to 20 there will be a three pronged approach for updating the npr database in this the first part will be self updating where it is proposed to allow the residents to update their own data fields after following some authentication protocols on a web portal which is the news today now the second part will be updating of npr data in the paper format and the third one will be the mobile mode now here note that no documents or biometrics will be collected further already a pretest that is a trial form for the first phase of census and npr has been concluded by the minister of home affairs and this has involved 30 like respondents and this was conducted from august to september 2019 now here you should note that npr in asam is a special case it is because of the nrc that is the national register of citizens and this nrc is said to be needed for checking the inflow of illegal migrants into asam and as you know nrc in the state of asam is updated as per the provisions of citizenship act of 1955 and the citizenship rules of 2003 now this entire exercise of nrc asam is being conducted as per the directions issued by supreme court from time to time but it is funded by the government of india now the objective of the nrc is to update the nrc 1951 in the state of asam that contains the name of persons whose names appear in any of the electoral rules up to the midnight of 24th march of 1971 or which appears in the nrc 1951 and their descendants but there is already issue going on with respect to nrc and this issue is clubbed with the citizenship amendment act of 2019 both of which are being opposed by many state and civil society groups it is because as you know citizenship amendment act allows citizenship on the basis of religion to six undocumented communities from pakistan afghanistan and bangladesh who entered india on or before december 31st of 2014 see even though government has denied that cia and nrc are linked there are already apprehensions that cia followed by a nationwide nrc will benefit the non muslims who are excluded from the proposed citizens register but it will affect the muslims because they will have to prove their citizenship and because of this nrc issue has been going on from 2019 and till now no conclusion has been arrived and that is why the citizenship amendment act of 2019 is not yet implemented so these are some of the points that we should know about npr nrc and also about cia because on some line all these three are linked so now let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this editorial article which is written by mk narayanan who was a former national security advisor and a former governor of his bangal he is currently functioning as an executive chairman of a cyber security joint venture in this editorial he talks about the vulnerability of india to cyber threats especially from the external state actors like china so in this regard he has also talked about the revelations by a us-based cyber security firm known as recorded future this firm has given a report on the threats faced by india's cyberspace from china he remembered that on march 6 we had a very extensive discussion about such cyber threats in our hindu news analysis you can view that analysis for better understanding now today we will discuss about the report of the recorded future and then we will see the important points mentioned by the author the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see in today's world of technology cyber operations continue to provide some countries like china with potent asymmetric capabilities to conduct cyber espionage and also to disrupt the security of their enemies what is cyber espionage it is the form of cyber attack that steals classified sensitive data or even intellectual property to gain an advantage over a competitive company or to gain advantage over a competitive government entity so with respect to china one of the competitive government entity is india and we know that the relations between india and china have deteriorated significantly after the border clashes in may 2020 so in this regard an analysis was done by recorded future which has found out a large increase in suspected targeted intrusion activity against the indian organizations by chinese state sponsored groups so first let us see the highlights of the report of recorded future the report says that from mid 2020 onwards there was a steep rise in the use of an infrastructure by china this infrastructure is known as axiomatic asymptote it was used to target indias critical infrastructure including a group of indias power sector also so what is this axiomatic asymptote see this axiomatic asymptote is a network infrastructure whose servers are known to be used by red echo this red echo is a china based advanced persistent threat group which targets indias power sector here also note that these axiomatic asymptote servers also act as command and control centers for malware known as shadow pad this shadow pad is one of the largest known supply chain attacks it is a back door trojan malware which means it opens a secret path from its target system to its command and control servers now this shadow pad is built to target the supply chain infrastructure in sectors like transportation telecommunication energy and more and this shadow pad was first identified in 2017 and once it is activated the back door allows attackers to deliver further malicious modules or they can easily steal data so these axiomatic asymptote which also acts as a command and control center for shadow pad was continuously used to target indias critical infrastructure so in this regard the report notes that 10 distinct indian power sector organizations including four of five regional load dispatch centers have been identified as targets by china see here regional load dispatch centers are responsible for operation of the power grid through balancing electricity supply and demand then apart from these rldc's the other targets identified include two indian seaports then you also remember that recently we discussed about the october 2020 power outage in mumbai and according to media reports this power outage was caused by chinese cyber intrusion only so these are some of the incidents noted by this report where indias critical infrastructure has been targeted so what is author's opinion regarding this according to the author the reported events are a wake-up call for india he notes that it would be grievous error if india underestimates the extent of cyber threats that is posed to it by china even in this regard he tells that india needs to adopt comprehensive measures to stop a potential cyber pearl harbour from happening to india see this cyber pearl harbour refers to a potential cyber attack that some people believe that will happen and this will threaten id infrastructure and related services of a nation this term was coined in 2012 by u.s defense secretary leon panetta and this term aims to relate the intensity and potential devastation of a major cyber attack with the 1941 attack on pearl harbour of usa this pearl harbour attack is very famous because it was a surprise military attack by japanese navy against the usa now the primary objective behind such cyber pearl harbour attack would be to take control of major id infrastructure or it could be to spread a digital virus or even to delete or steal highly confidential data it can be used or the attack could also be carried out to illegally transfer funds or to carry out virtually any act with the potential of substantially damaging the it assets of a nation so that means if cyber pearl harbour occurs then it could result in a serious loss of it services thus it will affect many governments businesses and other key infrastructure that heavily relies on it but this is not the end we know that many hacking and espionage softwares are being developed by the software companies which are especially us based and china is exploiting this loophole to target even the companies of the western world so china is not only attacking india but it is also planning attacks especially cyber attacks against many nations we are saying this because china was also blamed for global spearfishing campaigns these campaigns are nothing but cyber espionage activities that were directed towards covid-19 vaccine distribution supply chains around the world see the objective of these campaigns seem to have been targeting the vaccine research and gaining future access to corporate networks and also seeking sensitive information relating to the covid-19 vaccine distribution so now what are the implications for india in this matter see author notes that there are no readymade solutions to counter the cyber offensive that emanate from different quarters or from different countries but what india can do is it can invest more on cyber security infrastructure here we can take the example of usa where recently the us president included a sum of over 10 billion dollars for cyber security and his covid-19 relief bill so this has clearly shows that usa is aiming to improve its readiness and resilience in cyberspace so similarly india can also opt for the same so here investment is the key so these are some of the points that you can take note from this editorial article now let's move on to the next discussion now we have come to the last session the practice questions discussion session now let us take this first question it states a category of unemployment arising from the mismatch between the jobs available in the market and the skills of available workers in the market which type of unemployment is being discussed here option a cyclical unemployment option b frictional unemployment option c structural unemployment option d disguised unemployment c cyclical unemployment is the result of the business cycle where unemployment rises during the sessions and declines with economic growth now next comes the frictional unemployment it is also called as search unemployment it refers to the time lag between the jobs when an individual is searching for a new job or is switching between the jobs now next comes the structural unemployment it is a category of unemployment arising from the mismatch between the jobs available in the market and the skills of the available workers in the market and the fourth one is disguised unemployment it is a phenomenon wherein more people are employed than actually needed so the correct answer is option c structural unemployment which talks about the mismatch between the jobs available in the market and the skills of available workers now this next question is about Aravalli hills they are highly eroded hills extending from gujarat to delhi this statement is correct guru shikhar is one of the highest peaks in the Aravallis this statement is also correct the underground extension of Aravalli's from delhi creates a water divide between the drainage of Ganga and the Indus which of the statements given above is or are correct now here all the three statements are correct and the question also asks the correct statements so the correct answer is option d 1 2 and 3 now this next question asks which of the following statements is the accurate description of a usual resident as referred under national population register a person who has acquired the citizenship of India a person who has lived in India for six months and intends to do for next six months or more a foreigner who resides in India for a minimum of one year a person who was a citizen of India but now has renounced his citizenship and the correct answer is option b a person who has lived in India for six months and intends to do so for next six months or more now this next question is based on national cyclone risk mitigation project first statement is it aims to undertake suitable structural non-structural measures to mitigate the effects of cyclones in the coastal states and unit territories of India this statement is correct now the second statement is national disaster management authority is the implementing agency of this project this statement is also correct but here the question asks for the incorrect statements but both the statements are correct so the correct answer is option d neither 1 nor 2 now let us take two main questions this question is based on gs paper 2 and it is about anti defection law and this next question is based on gs paper 3 and it is about job nativism you can write the answers to these questions and post it in the comment section for this we come to the end of today's in the news analysis if you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to shankar is academy youtube channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation