 Good evening aspirants welcome to the hindi news analysis by Shankara's academy for the date 21st of May 2021 these are the list of news articles taken for today's discussion they have been provided along with the page numbers of these articles in different editions of hindi newspaper the notes for these articles will be provided in the pdf format and the link for this pdf will be provided in the description box and in the comment section and the time stamping for these news articles will also be provided in the description So now let us move on to our first session which is previous year question discussion session in this session we are discussing 3-4 questions every day that were asked in the UPSA civil services preliminary examination of 2020 and today we have taken 3 questions let us start our discussion now the first question which we have taken is based on pulse production in India as you know pulses providers with protein pulses are the legume crops which increase the natural fertility of soils through nitrogen fixation now India is a leading producer of pulses in the world and in India pulses cultivation is largely concentrated in the drylands of Deccan plateau and central plateau and also in the north western parts of the country and note that gram and tur are the main pulses cultivated in India now if you look at the question 2 of the statements focus on black gram and green gram so let us see about these pulses in brief first see black gram is also known as black lentil or urud bain it is one of the important pulses grown throughout the country it is resistant to adverse climatic conditions and it contains about 26 percentage of protein and this is almost three times that of the cereals other than proteins it also contains other minerals and vitamins now the black gram crop requires hot and humid climate for best growth because it is basically a warm weather crop and most importantly it is grown in both seasons that is a curry and a rabbi seasons in curry season sowing is done with the onset of monsoon in the later part of June or early part of July and in the rabbi season it is sown in the second fortnight of October and second fortnight of November now major black gram producing states are Uttar Pradesh and the Pradesh Madhya Pradesh etc now especially in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu etc the crop is grown in rabbi season and in Madhya Pradesh Uttar Pradesh etc the crop is grown in the curry season now next let us see about green gram it is also known as golden gram or mung bean or mung bean and generally this crop is grown as rainfed but under a shoot irrigation during the summer in the Indo-Gangetic plains of North India the crop needs a high temperature but less humidity and moderate rainfall of about 60 to 80 centimeters and note that water logging is fatal for the root development of this crop so best soil for its cultivation is loam soil with good drainage and importantly note that this crop is also grown in both the seasons that is in rabbi season and khariv season and the major green gram producing states are Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra now coming to the production of major pulses as you saw gram and tur are the main pulses cultivated in India and in this table you can see that percentage share of gram production is between 40 to 45 percentage and the tours share is between 15 to 21 percentage and similarly you can see that production of green gram is 7 to 10 percentage and you can see the production percentage for other pulses also so now based on this information now let us look at the question the question asks with reference to pulse production in India consider the following statements first statement is black gram can be cultivated as both kharif and rabbi crop now this statement is correct we saw that both black gram and green gram can be cultivated as kharif and rabbi crop now the second statement is green gram alone accounts for nearly half of pulse production now this statement is incorrect because just now we saw that gram production accounts to around 40 to 45 percentage and tours share is between 15 to 21 percentage but if you take green gram it is only around 7 to 10 percentage so this statement is incorrect and if you look at the third statement in the last three decades while the production of kharif pulses has increased the production of rabbi pulses has decreased so this statement is about pulses production in the last three decades which means from 1991 to 2020 now from this table and graphical representation it is clear that both kharif and rabbi pulses production has increased from 1990s or we can also say that the converse is true that there's a rabbi pulses production has increased compared to kharif pulses because production of kharif pulses has dwindled between 4 to 7 million tons from 2002 to 2015 and on the other hand if you take rabbi crops its production has majorly stayed in the 10 to 14 million tons band so this makes the statement 3 as incorrect either the statement should have been production of kharif pulses has decreased and rabbi pulses has increased or it should have been the production of both the pulses have substantially increased compared to 2000s so this statement is incorrect so from this we can arrive at the correct answer which is option A 1 on D now you may think this is a quite difficult question because it has three different kinds of statements and it is not easy to know about all the three statements and among these three the third statement is quite difficult to know but if you see the given options for this question actually there is no need to know about this statement because once you know that statement second is incorrect you can easily arrive at the correct answer option A 1 only without even knowing about statement 3 so in this way also difficult statements can be eliminated so now let us take the next question okay this question is based on coal particularly talks about coal ash pollutants released by coal 5 plants and the ash content in Indian coal see as you know coal is one of the abundant and widely distributed fossil fuels it is primarily used to generate electric power so in coal fired power plants coal is used as a fuel especially a bituminous coal sub-bituminous coal or lignite is burnt in these coal fired power plants therefore coal industry is a global industry that makes a significant economic contribution to the global economy and this coal is mined commercially in many countries India is also one among them now particularly in India major portion of power demand is met by thermal power plants due to availability of fossil fuels such as coal oil etc and the Indian coal is mostly of a sub-bituminous rank followed by bituminous coal and lignite also now to make the gap between the demand and supply of coal this fossil fuel is also imported from other countries and note that there is a difference between Indian coal and coal which is imported from other countries such as Australia and America the main difference is that Indian coals have a high percentage of ash that ranges between 20 to 45 percentage and the sulfur content is generally less than 0.6 percentage but if you consider the ash content of imported coal it varies from 10 to 20 percentage only therefore Indian coal has comparatively high ash content than the imported coal and the reason stated for this is the drift theory of formation of coal deposits in India see the coal seams which are formed due to drift theory contains higher ash content as compared to the institute theory of coal formation you just generally know that there are two theories of coal formation one is institute theory of formation and the second one is drift theory of formation now according to the drift theory the plant material was transported with the flowing of water from one place to another and they finally got deposited in a place of swamps lakes seas and estuaries that had suitable condition like supply of sediments and these plant materials which were drifted away where only made into coal in the longer run and note that the coal seams of India are of this drift origin only and this is one of the main reasons why Indian coal has higher ash content now as you know one of the issues with coal fired power plants is that it affects the environment because when coal is burnt it releases a number of airborne toxins and pollutants now these toxins and pollutants include mercury lead sulfur dioxide nitrogen oxides particulates and various other heavy metals now these pollutants and toxins cause health issues like asthma and other breathing difficulties brain damage heart problem etc etc now one of the products produced in these coal fired power plants is the coal ash so let us see about that now because the question also talks about coal ash see coal ash is also referred to as coal combustion residuals it is produced primarily from the burning of coal in the coal fired power plants and also in other industries so coal ash is one of the largest types of industrial waste generated this coal ash includes a number of byproducts that are produced from burning coal and these byproducts include a fly ash water mash boiler slag etc see once coal ash is produced it is either disposed of or it is used now it is disposed of in landfills or it is also discharged into a nearby waterway but note that coal ash is not always disposed of sometimes it is also used in different ways depending on the type of the byproduct depending on the process at the plant and also depending on the regulations which the power plant had to follow so based on this the coal ash is either recycled or reused for example coal ash may be recycled into products like concrete or wallboard and it is also reused on mine sites to fill pits or to create or amend the soil etc so these uses of coal ash have several environmental and economic benefits we are saying environmental benefit because the coal ash contains contaminants and trace elements like mercury, cadmium, arsenic, chromium, nickel, zinc, selenium, antimony and lead so if this coal ash is not recycled or reused it will be released into the environment then it will ultimately lead to the contaminants polluting the waterways groundwater drinking water and the air and that is why in many countries coal ash disposal and its use is regulated so keeping all these facts in mind now let us look at the question first statement is coal ash, arsenic, lead and mercury now this statement is correct second statement coal fire power plants release sulfur dioxide and oxygen nitrogen into the environment this statement is also correct along with this it also releases many other toxins and pollutants now the third statement is high ash content is observed in Indian coal this statement is also correct we saw that Indian coal has comparatively higher ash content than the imported coal and here the question asks for the correct statements so the correct answer is option D one two and three now this next question is based on public key infrastructure for let us see what is it public key infrastructure is the combination of software encryption technologies and services that enables the entities to protect the security of their communications and business transactions on the networks so it provides security PKI or public key infrastructure integrates digital certificates public key cryptography and certification authorities into one complete network security architecture and that is why it has the term infrastructure in its name now it uses a combination of private key and public key cryptography to enable a number of security services such as data confidentiality data integrity and non-depudiation here a public key is nothing but a cryptography key that can be distributed to the public and it does not require secure storage now the messages are encrypted by the public key and they can only be decrypted by the corresponding private key so this is where private keys come these are used by the recipient to decrypt a message that is encrypted using a public key now since the message is encrypted using a given public key it can only be decrypted by the matching private key so this establishes the ownership of the private key and public key that ultimately ensures that the message is only read by the approved parties so this is how it provides security to the communications and business transactions on the networks so public key and private key are two main components then other important components include a certificate authority certificate store certificate revocation list and hardware security module so in short we can say that PKI is the underlying framework that enables entities such as the users and servers to securely exchange information using digital certificates now a typical PKI infrastructure encompasses the issuance of digital certificates to individual users and servers it includes end user enrollment software it contains integration with certificate directories etc now here a digital certificate is also known as PKI certificate it is a data package that authenticates the identity of the server which is associated with the public key that is it allows someone to digitally bind their identity and to use the certificate to perform certain functions such as they can encrypt and authenticate email messages they can digitally sign email messages and documents etc etc so now let us come to the question it asks in India the term public key infrastructure is used in the context of option a digital security infrastructure option b food security infrastructure option c health care and education infrastructure option d telecommunication and transportation infrastructure so from the discussion we can easily say that the correct answer is option a digital security infrastructure so with this question we have come to the end of previous question discussion so now let us move on to the news articles in discussion session our first news article discussion for today is based on this opiate article which is based on a rare topic a topic which we do not often get to discuss in a current affairs session see this opiate article talks about the issues associated with the form of bureaucracy in India in this article author talks about the Weberian model of bureaucracy and the issues with it so let us discuss about this model of bureaucracy what are the issues and also the way forward suggested by the author the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see as we know due to this ongoing pandemic our public institutions and their efficacy have been put to test as they are being ineffective in curtailing the covid crisis and the author of this opiate article feels that our bureaucracy is a major concern in this regard our bureaucracy reflects the outdated traditional nature of public bureaucracy this traditional form of bureaucracy is based on the Weberian bureaucracy see in the classical approach to administration Weberian model of bureaucracy finds a central place as its name suggests this approach is conceived by Max Weber who is a German sociologist and historian and he was the first thinker who had systemically studied the bureaucracy and note that this Weberian ideal type bureaucracy continues to be the dominant paradigm in the public administration see initially this theory of bureaucracy was a response to the demands of industrial capitalist economy which required an efficient administration so Weber made an attempt at the rationalization of bureaucratic structures and he emphasized on the control and discipline in the working of organization but note that Weber never defined bureaucracy he only described it as an administrative body of appointed officials and bureaucracy includes explicitly the appointed officials only living of the electorate once we all know that so even though Weber did not define bureaucracy he categorized bureaucracy into two first one is the patrimonial bureaucracy that is found in traditional and charismatic authorities and second one is legal rational bureaucracy that is found only in the legal type of authority so it does not focus on these categorization rather we should focus on the elements of Weberian model of bureaucracy the important elements of this model includes impersonal order rules sphere of competence hierarchy separation of personal and public ends written documents and monocratic type so what do these elements mean let us see about them one by one see Weber emphasized that the official should perform their duties in an impersonal manner this was the first element it means authority that is the power of control which derives from an acknowledged status which exists essentially in the office and not in the particular person who performs the official rule and next element is the rules rules are the basis for the functioning of legal rational authority and officials are bound by the rules and these rules regulate the conduct of an office now the next element is the sphere of competence it involves a sphere of obligation to perform functions which is a part of systemic division of labor this sphere of competence also implies the provision of the incumbent personal with the necessary authority to carry out the functions the next element is hierarchy according to Weber every office and every official is a part of a hierarchy and under this system the lower office functions under the control of higher office the next element is separation of personal and public ends see under this element Weber pleads for separation of officials from their ownership in the means of administration that means officials cannot use their office position for personal ends and the office property is separated from the personal property now the next element is written documents this is the heart of Weberian bureaucracy and this means all the administrative acts decisions and rules which are recorded in writing these documents make the administration accountable to the people and it also provides a ready reference for future action and the last element is the monocratic type see it means certain functions performed by bureaucracy cannot be performed by any other organization this element means that bureaucrats monopolize certain functions and only the authorized officials can perform that function which makes them monocratic in nature so these are the elements of Weberian model of bureaucracy and in this regard author notes Weberian bureaucracy still prefers a generalist officer over a specialist officer see that is a generalist officer such as an IS officer is deemed as an expert and is deemed to be superior to the specialists for example during the pandemic specialists health care professionals work under the generalist officers who makes policies so this is one of the major issue of Weberian bureaucracy now the second issue is that this traditional bureaucracy is still stuck with the leadership of position over leadership of function the leadership of function is when a person has an expert knowledge of a particular responsibility in a particular situation but when we prefer leadership based on position then bureaucracy becomes an end in itself rather than being a means to an end then the next issue of this traditional bureaucracy is red tape ism or the rigid adherence to the rules an example for this could be the cumbersome clearing process which is required to get the covid-19 aid so how to overcome these issues the way forward suggested by the author in this regard is the collaborative governance see in this the public sector private players and civil society especially NGOs they work together for effective public service delivery and most importantly the collaborative governance ensures that there is no domination of public bureaucracy as the sole agency in policy formulation and implementation author is suggesting this collaborative governance based on the existing fact that major revolutions with huge implications on public service delivery have come through collective governance and not exclusively from bureaucracy for example we can take the green revolution it was led by ms for minadan then the white revolution was led by bergis kurian and then the other enable services was led by nanda nilakani these are certain examples where collective governance has resulted leading to an effective public service delivery so these are the points that you can take note from this editorial article in which we discussed about the barbarian model of bureaucracy and the issues with it now let's move on to the next discussion now this next discussion is based on this news article which reports about the role played by ventilation in diluting the aerosols which are emitted by the covid infection patients so in this regard today let us see about aerosols and the important points mentioned in the article the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for a reference see an aerosol can be defined as a dispersion of solid and liquid particles suspended in gas and these aerosols tend to stay stable for a period of few seconds to even for several months and note that the term aerosol includes particulate matters and also the suspending gas and these aerosols occur in both the troposphere and the stratosphere however there is a considerable difference in the size chemical nature and the sources of aerosols that occur in these two atmospheric layers now the aerosols can be divided into two broad categories one is primary aerosols and the second one is secondary aerosols primary aerosols refer to those particles that are directly emitted into the atmosphere like dust and sea salt now the secondary aerosol refers to those that arise from gas to particle conversion see the gas to particle conversion happens due to condensation which adds mass to the existing aerosols or it also happens due to the direct nucleation from the gas when the aerosols are formed and this gas to particle conversion strongly depends on the concentration of acid gases and the water vapor in the atmosphere so now what are these sources of aerosols see the sources can also be divided into two types broadly one is the natural sources and the second one is anthropogenic or man-made sources the natural sources include volcanic dust biological debris forest fires etc and anthropogenic sources include industrial dust vehicle exhaust emissions power plants mining etc so based on this what are the common types of aerosols it includes dust fog mist cloud droplets smog smoke haze etc now one of the major issues with aerosols is that they cause air pollution because these solid and liquid particles and certain gases end up in our air which ultimately pollutes the air sometimes they are even at the concentration which may be toxic to our body and they can cause adverse health effects if they are inhaled and when such solid liquid particles along with certain gases are inhaled they increase the risk of heart disease stroke lung disease asthma etc and particularly note that the health risks from fine particle exposure are said to be the highest in China and India and that too in the urban areas of these countries now other than the air pollution aerosols also influence the climate by changing the amount of heat that gets in or out of the atmosphere and they also affect the way in which the clouds form see even though aerosols have these many risks these are still widely used in a range of fields like cosmetics insect repellents disinfectants inhalers anesthetic preparations air fresheners paints varnishes etc etc so now what is the news today as we saw in the beginning the news is that government has told ventilation will help in diluting the aerosols which are emitted by the covid infected patients so we know that the primary mode of virus transmission in SARS coronavirus 2 is the saliva and nasal discharge in the form of droplets and also the form of aerosols by the infected person now these droplets emitted by an infected person land on various surfaces and because of this only we are advised to wash our hands and even wear masks now here the main issue is that the droplets fall up to 2 meter from an infected persons but the aerosols they even disperse further that is the aerosols when discharged from an infected person could travel up to 10 meters so therefore the government insists on improving the ventilation of indoor spaces in order to reduce the virus transmission the reason for this is because just like how smells can be diluted from the air through opening windows and doors and using exhaust systems these ventilating spaces will improve the directional air flow which ultimately decreases the accumulated viral load in the air and thereby it will reduce the risk of transmission also so according to the government ventilation is a community defense that protects all of us from getting infected at home or at work so these are some of the points that you should know about aerosols and their relation to covid-19 now let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this editorial article which discusses about the health infrastructure in India see the editorial article highlights the flaws in the healthcare system by highlighting certain data from world bank and also other institutes such as center for economic data and analysis so let us see what are these flaws and we'll also see the suggestions provided by author to overcome these flaws the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see firstly we can say that the health infrastructure of a country and its state is revealed by the number of physicians hospital beds availability number of nurses and midwives per one lakh people and according to the world bank data India had only 85.7 physicians per one lakh people in the year 2017 also the hospital bed availability is just 53 per one lakh people and there are just 172.7 nurses and midwives per one lakh people so this shows the terrible condition of India's health infrastructure and according to the author India's condition is at a poor state even when we compare India to the South Asian countries such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka and when compared to the developed nations like Japan author concludes that India is far away from achieving the health equity and universal healthcare so such pathetic is the state of our health infrastructure which ultimately made it difficult for the country to fight against the second wave of covid-19 pandemic so what are the major flaws in it and how it has affected our response to the pandemic see one of the major reason for the sorry state of health infrastructure in our country is the appalling low public health expenditure see as per the data narrative from the center for economic data and analysis the public health expenditure has been stagnant for many years it was at one percentage of GDP in 2013 to 14 and even in 2017 to 18 it was just 1.28 percentage so there is no substantial improvement in public health funding and as we know even this minuscule spending includes the overall expenditure from the union all the states and the union territories but already measures have been taken to improve this condition for example the national health policy of 2017 has set a target of increasing the health expenditure by the government as a percentage of GDP from the existing 1.15 percentage to 2.5 percentage by the year 2025 and we are nearing the 2025 target but still there is no improvement in the health expenditure and same is the state during this pandemic also because we can see that the health expenditure has not risen at a required level even during the pandemic times now the second reason for the pathetic state of health infrastructure even during the pandemic is a lack of export bodies at state levels see center is the key player in the public health management this is because the main bodies with technical expertise are under centers control such as the national center for disease control and the Indian council of medical research which are playing a vital role in disease control in research they are all under centers control but the states lack such expert bodies so it is difficult even for the center to deal with the pandemic in a decentralized approach the third reason is the variation in the fiscal space that is available to the states in dealing with the pandemic see as we know health is a state subject in India and according to the author state spending constitutes nearly 69 percentage of all the government health expenditure so comparatively if we see center has low contributions in health expenditure and this variation in fiscal space available to the states is due to the interstate variation in per capita expenditure now this is revealed by the data provided by the center for economic data and analysis according to this data it has compared 21 states in our country and we can see that there is a wide difference in per capita expenditure of these states see the average per capita expenditure stands at rupees 150080 and as you can see here the states of Bihar Uttar Pradesh are finding it difficult to reach this average per capita expenditure here one point we should remember is that Bihar Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh have been consistently been at the bottom of ranking in all the years and they are struggling to cope with the pandemic because of this so now all these reasons of low public health provisions contribute to India being among the highest out-of-pocket expenditures of all countries in the world see as you know out-of-pocket expenditure is the money that the people spend on their own at the time when they receive the healthcare and according to WHO 62 percentage of the total health expenditure in India is out-of-pocket expenditure and this is among the highest in the world and even as per the recent analysis of center for economic data and analysis the states that have very low per capita public health expenditure also have a high ratio of out-of-pocket expenditure in total health expenditure so this regressive nature means that the poor in the poorest states who are the most vulnerable sections are the worst victims of a health emergency but remember that already there is a policy measure in place for reducing this burden on people it is the national health policy target this has set a target by the year 2025 to decrease the proportion of households facing catastrophic health expenditure from the current levels by 25 percentage but however the progress towards this goal is yet to be seen according to the author so based on these flaws and the resultant burden on people and also on the health infrastructure author has given certain suggestions the first suggestion is the need for a coordinated national plan at the central level to fight the pandemic so already center has taken certain initiatives in this regard such as the PM cares fund and the first round of vaccinations where the center procured the vaccines so now author wants the continuation of such strategies where the central government can play a responsible role for ensuring health equity but unfortunately recently states themselves have begun to directly procure vaccines from international markets and according to the author this move is less advantageous so he suggests that the central government can take the responsibility of a direct procurement because it can bargain for a good price from the vaccine manufacturers in its capacity as a single large buyer and then the center can redistribute these vaccines procured so according to the author these suggestion of central coordination if carried out they will help in internalizing the existing disparities in health infrastructure across states in addition to this author has also suggested the creation of a pandemic preparedness unit which was recommended by the center for economic data and analysis see this unit should have to function under the central government for a wide range of purposes including disease surveillance and reporting systems and even for coordinating public health management etc so based on this suggestion we can say that the decentralized approach in the public health management is not a wise idea according to the author because author feels that it will exacerbate the inequality that is already prevailing in the country among these states 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 our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about the conservation efforts in the kawwal tiger reserve see officials of this reserve have taken measures which has resulted in spotting of more animals in the reserve and the measures include food patrolling by using m stripes app which minimizes the disturbances in the tiger reserve from human beings so in this context let us see in detail about the kawwal tiger reserve it is located in the adilabad district of telangana it is situated along the banks of river godavari so it forms part of the decan peninsula central highlands particularly it is a part of the sahiyadri mountain ranges and it has diverse habitat which comprises of dense forest grasslands open areas rivers streams and water bodies now geographically this tiger reserve is situated in the southernmost tip of the central indian tiger landscape and it has linkages with the todoba andari tiger reserve in maharashtra and the indravati tiger reserve in chattisgarh therefore the habitat has tremendous significance for tiger conservation in the region now the reason is also a major catchment of river godavari and local rivulets like pedavagu river and kadam river now this tiger reserve represents typical flora and faunal diversity of the decan plateau here note that biogeographically kawwal falls under the decan plateau zone the forest vegetation of the core area of this forest has been classified as southern tropical dry deciduous forest and in this forest teak is found extensively along with bamboo i note that more than 650 plant species have been recorded here now along with this kawwal also has a faunal diversity which is also typical to the decan plateau so zoo geographically the reserve comes under the indomaline region and therefore the major wild animals here include a kneel guy chausinga that is it is a type of antelope then the chinkara or the indian gazel then black buck jackal tiger leopard etc apart from its flora and faunal diversity the reserve is also rich in cultural heritage with aboriginal people like people from the tribes of gond nike pods and colombs but note that currently the kawwal tiger reserve has a low tiger density but it has tremendous potential as a source area with stepped up protection and habitat betterment under the project tiger so along with this kawwal tiger reserve let us also see another important tiger reserve in telangana it is the amrabad tiger reserve it is located in the nallamala hills of telangana see this amrabad tiger reserve was earlier part of the nagarjuna sagarshi silam tiger reserve but after the bifurcation of andhra pradesh the northern part of the reserve is vested with the telangana and it has been renamed as the amrabad tiger reserve and despite this division it still happens to be india's second largest tiger reserve next to nagarjuna sagarshi silam tiger reserve i note that both these tiger reserves together form what is probably india's largest protected dry forest in addition to this amrabad reserve is also dominated by chenshu tribe as you know chenshus are particularly vulnerable tribal group from andhra pradesh and telangana and these are the other pvtgs from the state of andhra pradesh including telangana you can just take note of it so that is all about this discussion now let's move on to the next one now our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about the newly formed iceberg in antartica see it has been named a 76 see recently a huge ice block has broken off from the western antartica into the vedal sea and this has become the largest iceberg in the world and has been named a 76 now this iceberg is measuring around 170 kilometers long and 25 kilometers wide and it has an area of around 4,320 square kilometers and as we just saw it is floating in the vedal sea and this iceberg break off was confirmed using the images from the copernicus satellite of european space agency so in this context let us see about ice shelves and icebergs see ice shelves are permanent floating sheets of ice that are connected to a land mass the most of the world's ice shelves hug the coast of antartica but however ice shelves can also form wherever ice flows from land into cold ocean waters including some glaciers in the northern hemisphere but what is iceberg icebergs are those that form when large pieces of ice break off from the ice shelves or glaciers and they begin to float in open waters so this makes it important to know about the formation of ice shelves the ice from enormous ice sheets slowly oozes into the sea through glaciers and ice streams if the ocean is cold enough then the newly arrived ice doesn't melt right away instead it may float on the surface and it grows larger as the glacial ice behind it continues to flow into the sea therefore after a long period of time along the protected coastlines the resulting ice shelves can survive for thousands of years which are supported by the rock of peninsulas and islands now most importantly the ice shelves grow when they gain ice from land and they occasionally also shrink when the icebergs carve off their edges that is when the icebergs split and shed their edges so this give and take helps the ice shelves to maintain a dynamic stability now today we are discussing about the iceberg a76 as you just saw it is a newly formed iceberg and it is from the ron ice shelf of antartica as you can see it is at the western part of antartica near the antartic peninsula here you should take note of the other icebergs such as george six iceberg abbot getz ross amry iceberg etc and you should also know the locations of these icebergs it is important from praline's perspective now what is the reason for collapsing off ice shelves see scientists think that collapsing off ice shelf in both antartica and arctic are related to climate change so based on this scientists attribute to the rapid ice shelf collapse to warmer air and water temperatures as well as increased melt on the ice shelf surface so this is the normal reason provided for collapsing off ice shelf but according to the scientists the case of a76 iceberg is different because they say that the break off of a76 appeared to be a part of natural polar cycle only not due to warm air and water temperatures etc so these are some of the points that you should take note from this article where we have discussed about the a76 iceberg and important ice shelves in antartica now let us move on to the next discussion next let us take some articles which are based on the areas that have been covered already in our hindi news analysis sessions so if you take these articles they talk about mucormycosis and the news is that union government has asked the states to declare mucormycosis as an epidemic as you know it is a fungal infection that is being reported in the covid 19 patients but we know that covid 19 is called as a pandemic so what is the difference between epidemic and pandemic see epidemic refers to the occurrence of cases of an illness or a specific health related behavior or other health related events and such cases are clearly in excess of the normal expectancy in a community or region in other words epidemic refers to an increase in the number of cases of a disease above what is normally expected in that population in that particular area and such increase in cases is often sudden if this criteria fits then it is declared as an epidemic now the number of cases indicating the presence of an epidemic varies according to the agent size and type of population exposed also depends on the previous experience or lack of exposure to the disease and also depends on the time and place of occurrence so now what about pandemic a pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease or it also refers to an epidemic that has spread over several countries or continents and usually it is affecting a large number of people like the covid 19 disease so now since mucormycosis is suddenly occurring in large number of patients now it has been asked by the government to be declared as an epidemic now the reason for this is if it is declared as epidemic then health facilities will start screening for this fungal infection and they will start to report all the cases of mucormycosis to the government and this decision is also taken since mucormycosis is leading to prolonged morbidity and mortality amongst the covid 19 patients and based on the center's direction the news article mentions that Rajasthan Telangana and Tamil Nadu have declared mucormycosis as an epidemic now in addition to these the states have also declared mucormycosis as a notified disease under their state legislation such as Tamil Nadu state government has declared mucormycosis as a notified disease under its Tamil Nadu public health act of 1939 and this is also based on the center's direction to declare it as a notified disease see here a notifiable disease means the government has to be mandatorily informed about any case that is detected with that disease so now mucormycosis is a notifiable disease now other notifiable diseases include tuberculosis cholera dipteria etc so as you can see that these news articles are focused on mucormycosis now we have discussed about mucormycosis its symptoms treatment causes in detail on our May 12th Hindi news analysis so you can view this analysis to know more about mucormycosis now in the same place we have this news article which mentions that Delhi High Court has asked big hospitals in New Delhi to install pressure swing adsorption oxygen plants see the news article mentions it as absorption it is not absorption it is adsorption the High Court has asked the large hospitals and nursing homes with more than 100 beds to install these plants having twice the capacity of normal requirements now in this pandemic this pressure swing adsorption technology is assuming importance and we have already discussed about it on our May 16th Hindi news analysis so I request viewers to view that analysis for better understanding now next is this news article which talks about a webinar on cloud computing technology it mentions that this webinar is to be organized by SRM Institute of Science and Technology and we are hearing every day that cloud computing is assuming importance in this technological era so from exam perspective we also need to know about this especially from the prince perspective now we have covered about cloud services and cloud computing its benefits and its types on our January 9th Hindi news analysis viewers can visit this analysis to know about cloud computing now we have chosen these kinds of articles today because many of our aspirants are having doubts that many important articles are appearing in newspaper but we are not covering in our Indian analysis see mainly the fact is that either we would have covered it very recently or we will be covering in the next coming days now since these topics are often in news and they are important from problems and mains perspective today we have chosen these articles and we have told you on which date you can find discussions on these areas so we hope that it will help the aspirants so with this we have come to the end of news articles discussion session and now let us move on to the next session of practice questions discussion and these questions have been framed based on the news articles which we just now discussed now this first question is a descriptive based question it asks this is a tiger reserve in Telangana it is part of Deccan peninsula central highlands it is also a major catchment of river Godavari its tropical dry deciduous forest has extensive teak along with bamboo the above paragraph best describes Thadoba, Andhari tiger reserve, Amrabha tiger reserve, Kavval tiger reserve, Indravati tiger reserve see in a descriptive type of question you need to focus on the statements which talk about where that place belongs to or what is the particular feature of that place etc so in the questions like this you should focus on where this tiger reserve is actually from because it may not be possible to know whether these tiger reserves have tropical dry deciduous forest or not so here the question states this tiger reserve is in Telangana so based on this we can eliminate options A and D because Thadoba, Andhari tiger reserve is in Maharashtra and Indravati tiger reserve is in Chattisgarh now the confusion may come in the option B and C because both of these tiger reserves are in Telangana so here we have to use another feature of the tiger reserve which is mentioned in the question which is it is a major catchment of river Godavari and based on this we can arrive at the correct answer which is option C because as we saw during the discussion Kavval is located in the Deccan peninsula central highlands area and it is a major catchment of river Godavari but Amrabad tiger reserve area lies along the patch where Nallavagu and Dindi rivers merge and these rivers after merging forms a major tributary and a catchment of Krishna river so based on this distinction we can arrive at the correct answer of option C. Now this next question is based on aerosols the first statement is they are a system of liquid or solid particles uniformly distributed in a finely divided state through a gas usually air this is a correct statement we can say it is correct based on our discussion but the second statement is they have the potential to cause adverse health effects like heart disease stroke lung disease asthma this is also correct we saw that aerosols and certain gases go up in air and they pollute the air and sometimes they are also toxic which causes adverse health effects in humans now the third statement is they influence climate by changing the amount of heat that gets in or out of the atmosphere so just like the greenhouse gases aerosols are able to change earth's radiative or energy balance that is aerosols can control how much energy from the sun reaches the planet's surface by changing the amount that is absorbed in the atmosphere and the amount that is scattered back out to the space and these aerosols are cooling that is they reflect the sun's energy back out into space but that is also one day one aerosol called soot it is also known as black carbon it actually contributes to global warming by boosting the warming effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so based on this the statement three is also correct and here the question asks for the correct statements so the correct answer is option d one two and three now this is a question based on Antarctic peninsula the question asks which of the following sea or seas is or are not bordering the Antarctic peninsula so Moe's sea, Davis sea, Wendell's sea, Barren's sea see those who are well versed in geography they can easily identify that Barren's sea is not situated in the Antarctic region rather Barren's is one of Europe's last large clean and relatively undistributed marine ecosystems and it is near Arctic ocean and not bordering the Antarctic peninsula so that means four should be in answer and in hurry don't mark sea as the correct answer because here the question doesn't ask that the sea switch border Antarctica rather it specifically asks the sea switch border Antarctic peninsula and this is where Antarctic peninsula is and as you can see here Wendell's sea borders Antarctic peninsula but so Moe's sea is in the southern region of Antarctica and Davis sea is in the eastern part of Antarctica whereas Antarctic peninsula is on the western part so that means option three should not be in the answer and that is why the correct answer option A one two and four only. Now let us take two main questions based on GS paper two you can answer these questions and post it in the comment section. With this we have come to the end of today's India news analysis along with the practice questions discussion session. If you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation.