 A very good evening everyone. Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis brought to you by Shankara A.S. Academy. Before getting into the discussion, let me tell you some good news. Yes, about 300 plus selections have been made from our Academy and we all know our Academy, Shankara A.S. Academy is partner with the Ministry of Social Justice. Through this partnership, Mr. Ranjit has made it to the list. So, congratulations to everyone who has made it to the list. Now, before going into the discussion, in our last discussion, we had discussed about Western Guards. And when we were talking about Western Guards, I had asked students to tell the states through which Eastern Guards passes through. A lot of people have posted the correct answers. So, before getting into the discussion, let me tell you the answer for that question. So, the Eastern Guard passes through first from Tamil Nadu. It goes to Andhra Pradesh. It also touches upon Talingana and then to Karnataka and also Odisha. Most of you have gotten the question. And some of you had also included West Bengal. See West Bengal does not have Eastern Guards. According to reliable sources, West Bengal does not have Eastern Guards. So, we are ruling out West Bengal. So, Eastern Guards passes through five states. Please keep that in mind. So, with that, let's go on to the discussion for today. We have like five articles chosen for discussion and we have two reference articles. So, first article will be based on Taiwan Strait. And in that discussion, we will be talking about the geography of the Strait. And we will also know the story of the Taiwan crisis. It's a pretty interesting story and it is very important for the world history point of view also. And next we are talking about the NIRF. And even in the last discussion, I think we just brushed upon the NIRF but here we will be discussing in slightly more of a detail. And we will be discussing about one particular parameter and the glitch attached to it. And the third discussion will be based on a small news article and through that we will be discussing about fluorescence and photo luminescence. So, this is a S&T discussion there. And next we will be talking about one particular scheme that is PM Kusum. And there is an editorial also based on that. So, we will see what is the scheme about and what are the challenges in the implementation of the same and also the way forward. So, that particular article is important for preliminary as well as main exam. All right. And next we will be talking about our Prime Minister's speech in the United Nations General Assembly. He called our nation as mother of democracies. And that is something of a proud moment for us. And in that context, our discussion will mainly focus on the United Nations General Assembly. So, that is a preliminary topic. And next we will be talking about the data point. So, that data point has focused on women participation in the politics. So, we will just highlight like three data's which should be relevant for our main exam. All right. And our next discussion is on Quad. See, we are not getting into the discussion of Quad because we have discussed it extensively already. And lastly is based on, lastly the discussion is based on cyclonic storms. See, that is also discussed extensively. So, that is just a reference article here. And we will conclude our discussion by discussing three preliminary questions from our discussion today. And of course, lastly we will display some main exam questions which you can write and post it in the comment section. All right. So, with that, let's get into the discussion for today. Let's take up this news article now. The article here reports about the incident of a British warship sailing through the Taiwan. This move not only marks a rare voyage by a non-US military vessel, but it also challenges Beijing's claim to the sensitive waterway. See, Taiwan state is a very contentious region, okay. That is a region where Beijing and US try to exhort their supremacy. So, in order to do that, what the US will do is it will send its vessel now and then to the Taiwan state just to, you know, say that this belongs to international waters. This happened last in May 20th also this year. So, in this context, what we are going to do right now is we'll understand Taiwan's geography first. And then we will go into the Taiwan issue, okay. First, let us start with geography. See, Taiwan was formally known as Formosa. So, it is an island that is situated in the western Pacific, as you can see from the map. It lies roughly 100 miles off the coast of the southeast in China. And as you can see here, Taiwan is a part of a string of islands. It's not just one island, and it is situated off the coast of east and southeast Asia. And also note, it extends from Japan to Philippines to Indonesia and the south. So, talking about its waters, remember that Taiwan is bounded in the north and the northeast by the east China Sea. And we have Rukiu Islands to the northeast. And to its east lies the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean. And in the south lies the Basi Channel. See, this Basi Channel separates Taiwan from Philippines. And to the west is the Formosa Street or the Taiwan Street, which separates Taiwan from the Chinese mainland. See, these are here are four key reasons why Taiwan has such a strong hold on the Chinese leadership. We'll come back to that. Before that, we'll understand the issue in detail. See, Taiwan has seen about three major crises. First crisis goes back to 1949 to the Chinese civil war. And the US policy towards East Asia and the early Cold War also contributed to furthering of tensions in the Taiwan Street. See, the China claims Taiwan to be a part of its own territory. Whereas Taiwan and also the western countries considered Taiwan as a separate entity with a democratic government. So, the first and the second Taiwan crisis were armed conflicts in the 1950s that culminated from 1949. And the third crisis took place in 1990s to be precise in 1996 around the election times of Taiwan. So, what happened is the China sensed that Taiwan might vote in favor of a democratic party. We know that China is communist, right? And a communist power in Taiwan would be more in China's favor. So, they didn't want democracy to blossom in Taiwan. So, seeing the popular trend, because Taiwan was in favor of democracy, China felt threatened. So, the People's Republic of China flexed its military muscle in the street. When we say People's Republic of China, it is the China. This was reciprocated by the US in support of Taiwan. So, this was the third Taiwan crisis. And the third Taiwan crisis came to an end. Since then, various issues have flared up in this area. And recently US ship made a passage through the Taiwan Strait, like I said, and now the UK ship has made a passage. So, people are predicting there could be a fourth Taiwan crisis as well. So, in a nutshell, the issue is this, while the Strait is an international water, Taiwan is a separate entity. So, the water that is Taiwan Strait is international waters. And this is the status widely accepted as well as in the West. So, that makes it straight as international waters. So, this will give the right to passage. So, if at all Taiwan Strait is international waters, the passage of US ship or the UK ship over there will not be an issue, right? Because Beijing thinks Taiwan is a part of China, Taiwan Strait loses its status international waters. And that becomes a violation of the Chinese territory. I hope you understand the difference or stance. But China claims self governing Taiwan as its own territory, like we just said. And in that case, China visualizes this passage as an intrusion and against its one China policy. So, China does regard the foreign presence in the area as a show of support for the island's democratic government. Okay, so this is the issue in nutshell. So, again, remember people's Republic of China means China. And Taiwan is commonly called as Republic of China. So, if you're brushing through the world history, just remember these differences in names. So, this can also be a potential world history area. So, pay attention to these crisis is also because it is making use very often in the current parlance. So, this takes us to the question as to why is Taiwan so important to the China? There are like few reasons. Let's go over it one by one. First, is the historical importance of Taiwan. So, that traces back to the civil war and the legacy of the foreign intervention. And second is because of the leadership which has put immense gravity on the reunification, that is, the Chinese Communist Party that is ruling China right now, they want to reunite the Taiwan with China because that will add to their legitimacy because they want to stay in power. And the third and the most important reason is because Taiwan holds strategic importance. Adding to that, it also serves as a potential base for foreign military forces. Say, Taiwan moves in favor of the West, whereas China is in the opposite party. So, the China will find Taiwan as a threat always, which is right in its backyard. So, that is one major reason. And another reason for this is because the primary mission focus of the People's Liberation Army has been on Taiwan for the past 15 years. And this becomes a concern since if China fails to bring Taiwan to heel, it could actually cause the PLA to exert authority over the civilian leadership. So, this will set back years of reforms and driving China into isolation. So, this is all about the Taiwan issue. So, in this discussion, we briefly saw about Taiwan's geography. We also saw about Taiwan crisis. So, keep this in mind. So, the second part of the discussion is very relevant for me. The first part of the discussion that is geography is very relevant for your understanding and as well as for your preliminary exam. It's a map based topic. So, with that information, let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion. See, this discussion is going to be based on this particular editorial article. Okay, at present, one of the popular ways through which we judge or analyze the quality or standard of a higher education institution is through the ranking, right? And the recent ranking that has come into vogue is the National Institutional Ranking Framework or NIRF. So, for those who are not aware, see the NIRF is a methodology adopted by the Ministry of Education to rank the higher educational institution is India. Remember to rank the higher educational institutions. On those lines, our Education Minister recently released the sixth edition of NIRF ranking. And this editorial article is an analysis of one of the major ranking parameter. Let us see what is the parameter? And we'll also briefly see what is NIRF, the parameters involved and the shortcoming in one of the parameters. So, this is the syllabus relevant for this particular article. Keep in mind. First of all, let me give you a brief introduction about the NIRF and its evolution so far. Already, we saw that in the previous discussion, but this is a quick refresh from the previous article. See, the NIRF is the first ever effort made by our Indian government in 2016 to rank the higher education institutions of India. Because before that, the Indian higher educational institutions were usually ranked by private entities. The time rankings and all were very famous, especially the news magazines. So, initially, participating in the NIRF was voluntary because previously it was ranked by the private institutions. So, when the government was taking it over, they made it only voluntary. They didn't have to enroll in the NIRF compulsorily. But this changed in 2018 and it was made compulsory for all the government run educational institutions. See, here you have to pay attention. See, there is a preliminary statement. Okay, NIRF is compulsory for all the educational institutions from 2018. Okay, this statement will be false because it is compulsory for all. Only the government run education institutions, the private institutions are still free to stay away from this ranking. Okay, so pay attention to this particular fact here. Now, coming back to the discussion. In order to be ranked, all education institutions are assessed on five parameters. Even in the last discussion, one of the student had actually listed out the five parameters in the common section. Now, let us see that again. First is teaching. Next is learning and resources. Next, we have research and professional practices. Then we have graduation outcome. We have outreach and inclusivity. And lastly, we have perception. That is how is it received by the public. And each of these parameters has further got five subparameters in maximum. There is one to five subparameters. So, we're not going to see these subparameters because they are very extensive and they're not going to ask you in the exam. Just briefly remember these five parameters. So, in this discussion, we are going to analyze the criteria of the region diversity. See, this is one of the subparameters of the parameter named outreach and inclusivity. Okay, see, generally for calculating the regional diversity of the higher education institutions, what NIRF does is it takes into account only the percentage of the students who have enrolled from other states and countries at that particular institutions. That means the regional diversity is not calculated based on the number of states from which the students have been enrolled. It's simply monolithically states that the number of percentage of students from the other state is considered for diversity. So, it is calculated based on the percentage of the total students enrolled from all states except the state where the institution is located. And this approach of calculating is actually misleading. To understand better, let me give you an example. Let us assume there is a total of 100 students in an institution in New Delhi and among them 99 belong to UP. So, when we apply the said measure of the regional diversity here, then the institution is extremely diverse because it says the percentage of students who are not from the state where the institution is located. So, UP is not New Delhi. So, about 99 students are from a different state. So, it says it is diverse. So, is that true? Because 99 percentage of the students are from one particular state that does not mean diversity, right? Only one person is from that particular state. So, basically, it is completely monolithic based on one particular state and diversity is just one person. So, this is one big flaw in this approach. So, in order to improve the accuracy of the process, the author here prescribes the NIRF two criteria to satisfy before they arrive at a decision. And they are the criteria of horizontal and vertical regional diversity. So, when you take horizontal regional diversity, it is the process of estimating the number of other state students who come to study at that institutions. So, this can be done by taking into account the states represented by the students enrolled in the institution. So, going back to that example, say we have 100 seats and we have like 25 students from New Delhi and rest 75, maybe five will be from Tamil Nadu, maybe five will be from Mizoram, maybe five will be from Bihar, maybe five will be from Rajasthan. So, that is diversity. So, the different states from which they are taken in for admission should also be taken into account. So, this is what horizontal regional diversity means. Next is the vertical regional diversity. See, vertical regional diversity is much more local. See, the vertical regional diversity evaluates the number of students who come from different parts of the state within the state. See, institution is located in the state of Jharkhand. Okay. So, that particular state will have tier one cities, tier two cities and tier three cities. But if you see the general trend in admissions for the cream of institutions, right, like the high profile institutions, generally, the admission is from the tier one cities, because that is where they have the access to coaching, they have the exposure, they have the quality schools. So, the admissions take place only from the tier one cities. So, the tier two and tier three cities are excluded. So, when an institution takes in students from tier two and tier three cities, it means that the institution gives chance to those people who are from disadvantaged backgrounds also, which means the students also are given chance from the rural background as well. So, that places the particular educational institution at a higher pedestal. So, that is what they mean. So, simply put, horizontal diversity is more of a bird's eye view where we calculate the total number of states covered. Whereas, on the contrary, in vertical diversity, we follow a more narrow approach where we dwell deeper into one state and analyze the different regions covered, right? But however, this is a tedious process, because when we are trying to estimate a student's place, see, there are so many things, the place of birth, then the student would have studied in different places at different points of time, the UG would have been in one city, the schooling would have been in a different city, and may or probably different state. And then comes the residence of the parents, then there comes the parents' birthplace. So, anything can be the place. So, there will be this confusion. But there should be an objective way to determine this as well. So, to conclude, it can't be denied that NIRF is creating a transparent hierarchy of higher educational institution is in India through its ranking based on five parameters. But the author points out that some parameters like this are still flawed and they need attention. Although fine tuning in itself is little tedious, it is worth adopting because NIRF ranking has gained some credibility among the institutions. And it is worth going through the trouble of verifying these small details. So, basically, in this part of discussion, we saw about the NIRF. Yeah, it's we saw that it is based on five parameters and the ranking is published on 11 heads. Okay. And apart from that, we also saw the evolution of NIRF, we saw the shortcomings associated with NIRF in this particular discussion. So, NIRF is relevant for preliminary hands down. And apart from that, if at all there is a question in mains that asks you to identify the glitches in the functioning of NIRF, then you can actually quote two or three points from this discussion in your main exam. Alright. So, this is the major takeaway from this part of the discussion. With that, let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion. See our next discussion is going to be based on this particular article. And it is more of a science discussion. So, this news article mentions that CSIR National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology has won an award. And this award has been awarded Certificate of Merit under the CSIR Technology Awards. And the award was given for the development of fluorescent materials for security printing and anti-counterfeiting applications. Okay. A group of scientists at the NISD have indigenously manufactured fluorescent inks and pigments. And these pigments have applications in the security printing and anti-counterfeiting techniques. So, in this context, we will first know what is fluorescence. So, this is the science and tech part which is important for preliminary. So, pay attention here. Generally, when we say fluorescent, it refers to any substance that gives a very bright light when electricity or other waves go through it. See, this happens due to the property called fluorescence. Right? See, fluorescence is a type of photoluminescence. So, let's understand this. See, photoluminescence is a phenomena in which the luminescence is generated through the excitation of a molecule. Right? Particularly, this excitation is caused by the UV light or the infrared light or even for that matter, visible light photons. Okay? And that means these ultraviolet or the visible light photons, they provide the external energy supply. Okay? And this energy is absorbed by the object. This then leads to the excitation of the molecule. Now, depending upon both the electronic configuration and the emission pathway, photoluminescence is further categorized into first fluorescence and then we have the phosphorescence. Okay? So, fluorescence is the property of some atoms and molecules to absorb the light at a particular wavelength and after absorbing the light, they subsequently emit the light of longer wavelength after a brief interval. Here, what happens is, when the molecule absorbs the light, their energy level is raised to a brief, excited state. And when they decay from this excited state, that is, when they travel back to their original ground state, they emit fluorescent light. That is, absorbed energy is given away as light. And remember that what differentiates fluorescence from other forms of light emission is that in fluorescence, energy from an external source of light is absorbed and almost immediately re-emitted without much of delay. Okay? And now the molecules that are capable of fluorescence are known as fluorescent probes, fluorophores, fluorochromes, or fluorescent dyes. See, these are extensively used in research and development, especially in bio-research. These compounds are used for tagging the molecules and also they are used in immunosorbent assays and all. Okay? And in this manner, the CSIR-NIST has developed materials such as pigments and dyes having appropriate fluorescence characteristic. Now, according to NIST, these materials consist of powders and under daylight are white or off-white in color. But when they're exposed to the UV light, they glow with different colors such as blue, green, yellow, red, etc. So when the material is coated on various products, these materials remain visible to the naked eye but it emits brilliant colors under UV light as you can see in the image. These are the colors emitted. So pay attention there. Now, the advantage of such a technology is that these materials could be used for security printing. See, security printing is the branch of the industry that deals with the printing of items such as bank nodes, checks, passports, tamper evident labels, stock certificates and other high-value documents. Particularly, it is possible of being used to prevent counterfeiting and forgery of currency nodes and because the material can be printed at a transparent feature or a visible design element on currency, this has gained its application as a feature in the currency nodes as well. So if anyone wants to counterfeit the currency, what they'll do is they will incorporate the visible design with some dark ink but the original ink or the pigment will glow under UV light like you can see in the picture. So this makes counterfeiting much more difficult. That is anyone having a UV light can immediately save the notice counterfeited or not. So that is exactly why this particular invention or the discovery has been lauded. So keep this in mind. So the major takeaway from this part of discussion is that we saw what is fluorescence and we also saw about the application of fluorescence especially with respect to making rupee notes. So with that information in mind, let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion. Okay so next let us take up this news article. Recently the Union Minister of Power Renewable Energy reviewed the progress of PM Kusum scheme and after reviewing the scheme the ministry reaffirmed the government's commitment to accelerating solar pump adoption. So in this context let us discuss some of the important points highlighted in the editorial. We will also briefly know what is PM Kusum scheme. See this is the syllabus relevant to this particular article. So first let us start by knowing what is PM Kusum scheme. See PM Kusum stands for Pradhan Mantri, Kisan, Urja, Suraksha Evam, Uttam, Mahabayan. Again Pradhan Mantri, Kisan, Urja, Sukhsha Evam, Uttam, Mahabayan and it was launched in 2019. So what does this scheme aim to? The scheme aims to help farmers access reliable daytime solar power for irrigation and it also aims to reduce power subsidies and to decarbonize agriculture. See understand this. See for agriculture the government provides free electricity to pump water and this comes as power subsidy and it has a heavy toll on the coffers of the government and this particular scheme aims to reduce that kind of dependence that farmers have on the government. Second is it tries to decarbonize agriculture. How? See most of the electricity about 55 percentage of the electricity generated in India is from coal-based sources and when we give that agriculture to a farmer so that is carbonization of agriculture because we take electricity from carbon-based source to perform agriculture. Now when we are trying to decarbonize agriculture we depend on renewable sources which does not involve burning of carbon. Okay. So this was the two major objectives of the PM Kusum. So as you can see it is the much required scheme in today's scenario but this scheme is facing many hurdles. First it is suffering from hurdles like pandemic. We know pandemic has made itself as a hurdle in anything and everything and it has made itself as a hurdle in this also and apart from that there is a limited buy-in from the states and apart from that we also have some implementation challenges. What is limited buy-in from the states? See the states are not willing to buy the excess electricity made from the renewable sources for agriculture by the farmers or from the renewable producers so they're not ready to buy that is the states are not ready to buy the electricity from the farmers and this has this incentivized the dependence on the renewable sources. So all these factors have affected the scheme's rollout. See PM Kusum provides farmers with incentives to install solar power pumps and plants in their fields and this scheme has three deployment models. They are first off grid solar pumps, solarized agricultural feeders and grid connected pumps. See understand all these three things. First when you say off grid solar pumps one particular solar pump or cluster of solar pump is powered by a solar source and this solar source is not connected to the main electricity grid. So a farmer or a group of farmers they have their own source of electricity. Okay this is off grid solar pump. The second one is grid connected pumps. Here the solar pumps are connected to the grid. This has two advantages. Okay so in case there is a disruption in the solar power supply they can actually rely on the grid. That is they can rely on the government source of the power or if the farmer makes excess of electricity he can also give the electricity to the government. So he can sell the electricity. So that is the advantage of grid connected pump. And coming to solarized agricultural feeders. See here a solar plant is set up in one particular agricultural land or for one particular agricultural land or a group of agricultural lands and from their separate feeders which is different from the regular electricity feeders are made available for the agricultural purposes. Okay so these are the three deployment models. So a farmer has the option to choose from any one of these three deployment models. See of the three models the off grid pumps have been the most popular. Nearly about 280,000 off grid pump systems have been deployed so far. But still this number falls far short of the scheme's target. See the scheme aims to install two million systems by 2022. So we can observe how poorly we are performing and how much we are lagging behind. Then we have a question. What about the other two models? Right? See the progress on the other two models has been very poor compared to this. It was way lesser than the off grid solar pump models. See the models of solarized agricultural feeder and grid connected pumps suffer due to regulatory hurdles, financial hurdles, operational and technical challenges. And apart from that there is also limited awareness regarding these solar pump models. So because of these reasons the progress on the other two models has been very poor. So far only a handful of states have initiated tenders and commissioned for solar feeder or grid connected pumps. And still we have a long way to go. And author notes that these models are worth scaling up as well because these models allows farmers to earn additional income by selling solar power to DISCOMs. The DISCOM can also procure cheap power from these systems increasing our dependence on the renewable sources. So we are yet to fully realize its potential. So we just saw that these two models have very good potential. This takes us to the question as to how can we do that? See this editorial proposes a few steps as well for tackling the challenges regarding the PM Qosms implementation. Let us see about it. First we have to extend the schemes timelines. See by extending PM Qosms timelines beyond 2022. We can align the scheme with the power purchase planning of the DISCOMs. Second we have to create a level playing field for the distributed solar plants. See distributed solar plants suffer from some disadvantages. For example the power generated through distributed solar plants is higher in cost. And also the distributed power plants are not location friendly. So many DISCOMs do not favor distributed solar plants. So we have to provide a level playing field for distributed solar plants. Next we have to streamline land regulations through inter-departmental coordination. By doing so we can reduce the delay in leasing of land and we can also easily convert agricultural lands for non-agricultural purposes such as solar power generation. And apart from that we should support innovative solutions for financing farmers contribution. See many farmers struggle to pay about 30 to 40 percentage of the upfront cost in the compliance with the scheme requirements. And also these farmers cannot access bank loans without collateral. And we know most of the farmers in India they don't have lands. They rent the land they take it for lease and then they sow their crops. So we need an out of the box solution. For example take the state of Karnataka. This state has launched a farmer developer special purpose vehicle. This vehicle was launched to help farmers install solar power plants on their farms. And this has actually taken off well. So you can quote this particular model in your answers as well. So pay attention there. Now next we have to extensively support grid connected solar pumps. See grid connected solar pumps face many obstacles regarding their adoption. Currently it is not economically viable. See the grid connected model requires pumps to be metered and billed for accounting purposes. But the issue is there is a lack of trust between the farmers and discomps. The farmer does not think the discount will pay. And the discomps does not think the farmers will actually maintain the accounts. So because of the lack of trust the grid connector solar pump suffers. So we have to adopt solutions like smart meters, smart transformers. So the answer lies in the hands of technology. And these solution can build farmers trusts and it can also build discomps trust. So these are the important points highlighted in the editorial. See if the PM Kusum scheme is implemented successfully. It can generate thousands of jobs. Apart from that it can reduce dependence on carbon based source of power. Can reduce the carbon food print of agriculture. So it is more of a journey towards a renewable future. In addition it can also result in oil import savings. See the last part that we just discussed can be advantages of the PM Kusum scheme. And in the first part we saw about the obstacles in the implementation of the PM Kusum scheme. Next we saw about the way forward and lastly we also saw about some of the advantages. Okay so these are the informations regarding PM Kusum scheme. See PM Kusum can be an important preliminary topic. Given the fame it has achieved and given the obstacle phases it can also be a potential main exam question. All right so keep that in mind. So with that let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion. See recently our Prime Minister spoke in the United Nations General Assembly and that made headlines because he called our democracy as the mother of all democracies. He defended our democratic values and that had appealed to the world. Besides during his address he also highlighted India's achievements in the field of green technology, in the field of vaccines, in the field of pharmaceuticals and others. So basically the address had put India at a higher pedestal and it has projected India's achievement to the world. So that is something that is much needed right now especially in the diplomatic jargon. So in this context we are going to see about the United Nation General Assembly. So United Nations General Assembly is an important preliminary topic so pay attention here. See the United Nation General Assembly was established in 1945. So we have a charter that established it. It is Charter of United Nations. So this was established after the World War II. It is the chief deliberative policy making and the representative organ of the United Nations. See this is a direct pick from the United Nations website. So what it means is basically United Nation General Assembly is the body in which people discuss. They make the policies that has to be brought in the world and it also is a body which has the representation from around the world okay and note that all the 193 members of the United Nations are represented in the General Assembly. It is the most representative global body and this makes it the only body with the universal representation which means all the countries are represented. See the assembly provides a unique forum for multilateral discussions involving international issues that are covered by the charter because it has all the nations. We have all the nations in one room so we can actually talk about the world issues and the decisions on important questions such as those on peace and security or for that matter taking in new members and for that matter budget and others these require a two-thirds majority okay so important decisions require two-thirds majority but decisions on other simple questions are done via simple majority and the assembly also plays a significant role in the process of standard setting and the codification of international law. Remember each year in September the full united nation membership meets in general assembly hall in New York for the annual general assembly session remember this and the assembly's precedent changes with each annual session and it is elected by the body itself so every year the precedentship keeps changing and the precedent of the general assembly is elected every year like we just saw but this is done on a secret ballot that is no one will know who's voting for the precedent and it requires only a simple majority vote of the general assembly and united nation general assembly precedent is empowered to enforce rules of procedure such as opening debates setting agenda limiting speaking time for representatives and suspending or adjourning the debate so this sounds familiar to any of you yeah so the president of general assembly the role of president of general assembly is very similar to that of a speaker in the parliamentary settings right now coming back to the discussion note that the presidency of the general assembly rotates among the five regional groups so we'll see what are the five regional groups okay the first group is the group of Asian states the second is the group of Eastern European states third we have the group of Latin American and the Caribbean states and we have the group of African states and besides we also have the Western Europe and the other state group as per the established rules of the regional rotation the president of the 76th session of the general assembly was to be elected from the group of Asia Pacific states okay and the united nation general assembly also elects the non-permanent member of the security council so if you quickly recollect the security council has five permanent members and we also have some non-permanent members so the non-permanent members are 10 in number and they're elected based on the groups that we just saw and if you recollect India right now is a non-permanent member that is it is one among the 10 members and it holds tenure from 2021 and 2022 so the united nation general assembly elects the non-permanent members of the security council and besides this it also elects the members of other UN bodies such as human rights council and it also appoints the secretary general based on the security council's recommendation and apart from this its other functions include the consideration of the reports from other organs of the united nation assessing the financial situation of the member states and also to improve the UN budget okay so these are the basic functions of the united nation general assembly so keep this in mind united nation general assembly is a very important topic for preliminary okay so with that information in mind let's move on to the next topic for today so you look at this data point we are not going to discuss this data point in detail this data point is about women participation in the politics see the participation of women in Indian politics has been very meager and you can expect a main question based on this trend in India so apparently this data point points out that only 78 of the 543 elected members in the current Lok Sabha are women so as you can see it's a very meager percentage see understand this in a population approximately fitting in the gender binary we can say that 50 percentage are men 50 percentage are women so when you see that the representation of women in the parliament is not 50 percentage you can imagine the level of bias in the policy making against women that is the policies that are women friendly that are taking into consideration the votes of the women are not being made so that is a major issue when there is very little participation of women in politics that is the problems of women are not being represented in the political level so with that say remember this particular fact that is 78 out of 543 are women and that we have not even touched 50 percentage recently even the chief justice of India has raised the issue of 50% reservation for women in the judiciary even judiciary is under represented in women thanks to the patriarchal society so just remember few facts from this data point which will be easy for you to remember and quote in your exam okay so this is one fact that you can remember and look at this between 1952 and 2019 a total of 661 women have been elected to the Lok Sabha so that is also very little given the male representation in comparison right and the share of women MPs when passed the 10% mark only from the 2009 election so you can imagine after so many years of independence only after 2009 the share of women in the politics has gone up from 10% so this is all a very sorry state of affair you can quote these kind of simple facts in your main exam to increase the marks that you gain from one particular question so these facts can be universally quoted on any women related mains question or for that matter essay even so remember facts that you can reutilize in multiple questions because cramming facts is a very tedious task okay and if you are going to cram the facts extensively there is a good chance that you will forget all the facts in the exam cram like 5 facts related to women reutilize these facts for any women related question any social justice related question or for that matter essay okay so keep this information in mind so this is the relevance of this particular data point we are not going to discuss it any further so with that let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion see apart from this we have a editorial on quad which is relevant for our exam we are not going to get into the details of quad and occurs because very extensively we have discussed repeatedly in our previous discussions and there is another article which is titled high water and this is based on the cyclonic storms even this has been discussed repeatedly in our discussions previously so we are not going to get into the details of that all over again because that will be a repetition rather than a revision okay so with that information in mind let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion now here we are at the last segment of today's discussion practice preliminary questions so for that we have three questions let's go over it one by one so this is the first question based on united nation general assembly remember we had a discussion in united nation general assembly so two statement question the first statement goes like this it elects the non-permanent members of the security council so we saw this during the discussion yes the united nation general assembly elects the 10 non-permanent members of the security council and we also saw that India right now is a member of the security council as a non-permanent member so statement one is right coming to statement two the presidency of the general assembly rotates among the five regional groups see this also we saw in the discussion we have like five regional groups and one president is elected for a term of one year by the united nation general assembly and we also saw that this the 76 presidency goes to the Asia Pacific region so with that information we can say that both one and two are the right statement and the right option is option C moving on to the next question so this is about the fluorescence that we saw in the discussion so we have a three statement question let's go over it one by one so the first statement goes like this fluorescence is generated by a chemical reaction see this is an incorrect statement see in fluorescence the energy from an external source of light is absorbed and immediately reemitted whereas in chemical reaction it is known as chemiluminescence so here the production of light happens when the excitation energy has come from a chemical reaction so fluorescence does not necessarily require a chemical reaction all right so statement one is incorrect going to statement two fluorescence needs an external source to glue see second statement is right because we need a energy source to hit on something and for reemission so we need an external source of light so two is right going to the third statement bioluminescence is the light emitted by living organisms yes as the name goes bioluminescence is the light emitted by the living organisms see sometimes when they say the answer will be the question itself this is one such statement say right bio and luminescence and if you want to know just remember that bioluminescence is a subset of chemiluminescence and is generated by chemical reaction and bioluminescence is generated by a chemical reaction involving an enzyme within the living organism okay so generally the living organism resort to bioluminescence for mating attracting prey or from escaping from predators and such others so statement two and three are right so with that knowledge we can say option D so if you want to attempt this question just based on your observation of the question then you directly go to third statement that is bioluminescence is the light emitted by the living organism so here from the word only you will know bioluminescence is the light emitted by living organism statement is correct okay and with that itself you will arrive at option D because only option D has the third statement you outrightly eliminate option A, B and C so only with elimination technique only with observation you can actually attempt this particular question knowledge if you have well and good but some questions can be attempted this way also okay not all questions again the risk involved in such kind of attempts without the knowledge is higher so it should be attempted only during your second or third rounds of attempting okay so keep this in mind so with that let's move on to the next question so this is based on Taiwan Strait see the question asks you which of the following lies in the South China Sea we have like four options here first is Taiwan Strait yes we saw that we have East China Sea to the North and obviously we have South China Sea here and we have Strait of Malacca see remember Strait of Malacca is in South China Sea it's a very contentious area again and Hainan Strait you will have to remember this and apart from that we also have Luzhan Strait so locate these things in the map here so with that we can say all these are located in the South China Sea so the option is 1, 2, 3 and 4 so with that let's wrap up our practice preliminary question discussion so here are some of the main exam questions so write the answers and post it in the comments section writing answers every day will give you a significant edge in your main exam preparation so I'll ask those students who are appearing for the next cycle to write the answers and post it in the comments section and the rest please focus on the preliminary exam and with that let's wrap up our discussion for today we are mask stay safe good day