 Good evening aspirants. I have an announcement to make. Asprelims is nearing, our Akadami that is Shankarayesh Akadami has launched a mock test program that is a free all India mock test program. The test starts on 15th of May 2022. The test will be held in both online and offline modes across 13 centres. The link for registration for the online mock test is given in the description. Use this opportunity and check your progress. Now let us get into the discussion. Today 19th of April 2022. The list of articles we will be discussing today is displayed here. Now let's start the discussion. Take a look at this news article. This article talks about the showers and thunderstorms in parts of Telangana. So let us take this as an opportunity to learn about thunderstorms, its formation and its types. First, what is a thunderstorm? A thunderstorm is a violent, short lived weather disturbance. It is almost always associated with lightning, thunder, dense clouds, heavy rain and strong or gusty winds. Now when does it occur and how does a thunderstorm gets formed? See thunderstorms arise when layers of warm moist air rapidly raises to the cooler regions of the atmosphere. There the moisture contained in the racing warm air condenses to form large cumulonimbus clouds and then eventually precipitation occurs. See this is how thunderstorm forms. Also note that while warm moist air is raising upwards, columns of cooled air sink earthward. Once this cooled air reaches the earth, it moves in the horizontal direction as strong winds. Now why is thunderstorm always associated with lightning and thunder? See when thunderstorm occurs, electrical charges accumulate on cloud particles. Cloud particles here are nothing but water droplets and ice that is present in the cloud. These electric charge keep on accumulating. Once the electric charge is sufficient enough, lightning discharge occurs. When lightning occurs, it heats up the air, it passes through. We all know what happens when air gets heated up right. Yes, it expands. So when air expands suddenly due to lightning, shock waves are created. These shock waves are heard as claps and rolls of thunder. So this is why thunderstorm is always associated with lightning and thunder. In addition to lightning and thunder, sometimes severe thunderstorms are accompanied by swirling vortices of air that becomes so concentrated and so powerful that sometime they end up forming tornadoes. Now what is a tornado? A tornado is nothing but a violent rotating column of air extending from the base of the thunderstorm down to the earth's surface. So this is what a tornado is. See these are the basics about thunderstorm. Now let us see the types of thunderstorms. First let us take single cell and multi cell thunderstorm. In that first let us take single cell thunderstorm. See a single cell thunderstorm is also known as a popcorn convection. These storms are small, brief and very weak. They tend to grow and die within an hour. You will typically see these storms on a hot summer afternoon. But don't be fooled by their weak description. Single cell thunderstorm can produce brief heavy rain and lightning. On the other hand multi cell thunderstorm can be a bit more severe. As your typical thunderstorm, multi cell thunderstorm can produce new cells and therefore last as a system for hours. They can also produce hail, strong winds, brief tornadoes and flooding. This is about multi cell thunderstorms. The next classification is squalls and supercells. First let us take squalls. When multi cell thunderstorm occurs in a straight line that is 10 to 20 miles wide, we call that a squall line. This group of storms is often accompanied by high winds and heavy rain. While squall lines can be very intense, they tend to pass very quickly. That is squall lines are short lived but they produce high winds and heavy rain. This is about squall lines. Now moving on to supercells. Supercells are long lived. In fact, they occur for at least 1 hour. These heavy organized storms feed off an racing hot air that is tilted and rotating. This racing hot air column or updraft can be up to 10 miles in diameter and up to 50,000 feet tall. So this is the difference between squall line and supercell thunderstorms. Now moving on. The last type of thunderstorm grouping is the MISO Scale Convection System. This is a collection of thunderstorms that can spread across an entire state and last more than 12 hours. So this is the largest and most intense thunderstorm. So these are the types of thunderstorms you have to know for your Plym's examination. Now before completing this discussion, let us do a quick recap. What all we saw in this discussion? We saw what are thunderstorms? How they are formed? Then we saw why thunder and lightning are associated with thunderstorms. Then we saw why tornadoes form? After that we saw about the different types of thunderstorms. In that we saw about single cell and multi cell thunderstorms. Then we saw about squall lines and supercell thunderstorms and finally we saw what is MISO Scale Convection System. With this, let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. See this article here. It is an editorial article. See it says that Sri Lanka has been in use so much and its current crisis are the stuff of popular knowledge. See the crisis is the extreme deprivation caused to its people due to the absence of staple food at an affordable price in the market and it is due to shortage of petrol at the petrol pump. And there is this reducing foreign exchange reserves which are needed not only to import food but also service external debt. There are many factors that led to this crisis in Sri Lanka. We also discussed about the causes of the crisis as a part of our discussion previously. But here what is difficult to understand is that how is that a country fails to produce sufficiently even the most basic of foodstuff such as rice and milk powder. We will understand this in this discussion. Apart from this, this article also talks about three lessons for India from the current Sri Lankan economic crisis. We will also see about these three lessons. Before getting into the discussion, first the syllabus regarding this discussion is highlighted here for your reference you can go through it. Now let us start the discussion. See, since the end of the colonial rule, Sri Lanka's political arrangement have been a combination of nationalism in politics and welfareism in economics. Particularly, ethno-nationalism was given more importance. This can be seen in the terms of Singhala identity. It is also visible in the official Singhala only language policy introduced. See, this action it empowered ethno-chauhanism and it left the Tamil-speaking population insecure. The origins of the linguistic disenfranchisement of Tamils caused not only the alienation of the Tamil-speaking population but also led to the formation of the Tamil Tigers that is LTT and a civil war. See, as you may know, the Tamil Tigers were fully vanquished but it took over 200 decades for the Sri Lankan state to achieve this. Meanwhile, there was an exodus of the Tamils. See, here exodus is a situation in which many people leave a place at the same time. See, due to the harsh policies of the Sri Lankan government, the Tamils who were well-off economically went for the western countries like the United Kingdom and Canada and Tamils who were not well-off but were able to escape headed to Tamil Nadu. The Tamils in Sri Lanka before the civil war had significant presence in all professions. So, after the war, when the exodus of the Tamils happened, Sri Lanka experienced a loss of expertise in almost all spheres. This loss of expertise was not immediately felt. The economic issues due to the exodus of the Tamil people was slowly building up. See, the impact of the loss of technical expertise for an economy is slow and often it is impossible to clearly distinguish but it sure will affect the economy adversely. In addition to this, the civil war also affected the investment. See, the private investors would be reluctant to commit their money in the time of war and uncertainty. This is the private investment. And think about the government side also. See, a government pursuing a civil war will hardly make any public investment. And why is this? See, this is because it is bound to be, that is the government is bound to be severely fund constrained due to its military operations. And it would not have the time to address stress points that arise in an market economy. And it would not have the time for the economic development plan. So, the takeaway point here is that a social strafe, that is a trouble or fight between two social groups will hamper the development of the productive forces of a country and its economic growth will be affected. And this is the first and foremost lesson for India from Sri Lanka. See, Sri Lanka's crisis may seem economic on the surface. But it came from social strafe and this social strafe is because of the majoritarian identity politics followed by the government. Know that identity politics between social groups is the root cause for economic disaster. Now, you may think, how is this related to India? See, even if there is an improvement in ease of doing business, the strafe between the center and the state and antagonism, that is the feeling of hate between religious communities are sure way to negatively impact investment in India. And this can be seen in the exit of some high net worth Indians from our country. And there is also an outflow of foreign debt investment due to this. So, according to the author, India must move away from identity politics and work towards social integration to achieve economic growth. This is the first lesson. Now moving on to the next one. See, the second is about how a flawed economic policy can affect a country's economic prospects. In the 1950s, the Sri Lankan economic policy was praised for its welfare programs. Sri Lanka was particularly praised for its subsidized rise program. But not everyone was impressed at that time. Cambridge economist John Robinson had described this as a case of wanting to taste the fruit before growing it. John Robinson was against the policy of welfareism followed by the Sri Lankan government. Here, welfareism is an economic policy which mainly focuses on the distribution of consumer goods. In Sri Lanka, distribution went ahead of domestic sources. That is, before building up a strong base of production, the Sri Lankan government went ahead with the distribution of resources. This is also one of the reason for the present crisis in Sri Lanka. And this should be a lesson for the political class of India. See, as India's economy has grown, many of the states have stepped up their welfare spending. Somehow distributed bicycles for girls and others, television sets and laptops for families and students. See, when revenues are limited, government concentrating on providing free bicycles, laptops or television might limit government spending on measures that increases economic productivity of the country. And the measures that increase in country's economic productivity includes building social infrastructure like schools, hospitals and physical infrastructure like roads and railways. See, what the author is essentially saying here is that instead of focusing on freebies, the government must focus on providing the people with basic infrastructure first. The author also says that there is also an ethical issue when government focuses more on welfareism. See, when welfareism is funded by government revenue, it is fine. But when welfareism is financed by borrowing, it is the future generations that pay for the current conception. Here I want to quote a famous economist Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman said, there is no free lunch. What Milton Friedman says through this is that nothing in an economy is free. If a government is providing something to you for free, you are going to pay for it indirectly. When something is provided for free in an unsustainable manner, it is the future generation that will get affected. And this is the second lesson, which is welfareism beyond a country's capacity is detrimental to the country's economic health. This is the second lesson that India can learn from the current crisis in Sri Lanka. Now coming to the third and the final lesson. See, Sri Lanka looked at openness to the world economy as a universal remedy to its economic problems. In the 1970s, in a switch from the socialist economic policy, Sri Lanka liberalized trade and capital flows. What naturally happens after globalization is that country's economy integrates with the global supply chain. When fully integrated to the global economy, what every country does is it stops producing products when it can be bought at a cheap rate in the international market. This is a very normal rational economic decision. This is exactly what Sri Lanka did. Sri Lanka started specializing on producing goods which could be sold at a higher margin in the international market like tea, textile and rubber and started relying on imports for goods that it does not produce, that is mostly essential items like food crops. This economic decision of Sri Lanka is based on a wrong assumption that there will be a continuous demand in the world market for the goods that the country produces. In this case, it is tea, rubber and textiles. When pandemic struck, the global demand for Sri Lanka's main export products decreased. So, its forex earning also was affected. But at the same time, Sri Lanka has to continue to import essential commodities like food and fuel for which Sri Lanka has no domestic production base. This is how the Sri Lankan crisis occurred. It occurred due to over reliance on liberalization and flawed economic policy. So, Sri Lanka's first task to combat the crisis would be to urgently revive its food production sector. This is the next lesson for India. See, although economic integration with the world economy is important, India must also ensure protection of essential commodities within India itself. So, according to the author, India must focus argumenting local production of oil seeds and different equipments. India must also improve production of renewable energy to reduce its oil dependency. Okay, that's all about this editorial. Before concluding this discussion, let us do a quick recap. Although this discussion was lengthy, the essence of this discussion is basically this. What India must learn from Sri Lanka crisis is that instead of focusing on identity politics, India must focus on social integration. The next lesson is that while welfareism is important, India must spend within its means and not over extent. Welfareism and investment in physical and social infrastructure must go hand in hand. Finally, India must argument its domestic production of essential commodity and move away from import dependency. These are the key takeaway points from this discussion. With this, let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Look at this news article. This news article talks about hemophilia. The Home Minister said that Health Department will try its best to improve the quality of life of hemophilia patients. This is as per the International Protocol. This attempt is to ensure maximum treatment facilities for hemophilia patients at Thaluk Hospital level so that patients are not put to difficulties. This is the essence of the article given here. So in this context, let us learn about hemophilia. What is hemophilia? Hemophilia is an inherited condition. It causes bleeding for long time after injury or surgery and painful swelling of joints either after injury or even without injury. Here inherited means the disease is passed from parents to children through their genes. Now what causes hemophilia? Hemophilia is due to a deficiency of clotting factor that results in increased bleeding. There are two types of hemophilia. Firstly, hemophilia A. This is due to the deficiency in clotting factor 8. See, hemophilia A is more common and occurs in 1 in 5000 births. Now the second type is hemophilia B. It is caused due to deficiency in clotting factor 9. See, this hemophilia B is less common and occurs in 1 in about 20,000 births. So these are the causes and the types of hemophilia. Now, how is hemophilia inherited from our parents? The disease of hemophilia is x-linked and inherited from the mother. Though the disease of hemophilia is present mostly in males. In the x-linked variety of hemophilia, the inheritance is due to a defective gene in the x-chromosome. All humans have x-chromosome. In females there are two x-chromosome, while males have one x and one y-chromosome. Only the x-chromosome carries the genes related to hemophilia. A male who inherits hemophilia gene on his x-chromosome from his mother will suffer from hemophilia. If a female has a defective gene on one of her x-chromosome, she is a hemophilia carrier and she will not suffer from hemophilia. She will just be a carrier alone. See, the hemophilia carrier does not suffer from hemophilia, but they can pass on the disease to their sons. Their daughters will not have the disease, but they may also be carriers like their mothers. See, hemophilia can also occur as new mutations in families without the history of hemophilia also. Since x-linked disorders are associated with mutations on x-chromosome, these disorders affect males more often than females. Because females have an additional x-chromosome that acts as a backup and males only have x-chromosome. Any mutation in factor 8 or factor 9 of the gene will result in hemophilia. See, like hemophilia, there are few more disorders that are caused due to x-linked disorders. For example, red-green color blindness, congenital night blindness, some high blood pressure genes, ducine muscular dystrophy and fragile x-syndrome are caused due to x-linked disorder. That's all regarding this discussion. Just a small recap before we conclude. Hemophilia is a condition in which ability to form blood clots is reduced. It is an x-linked inherited disease. It affects men more often than women. Women can be carriers of defective gene, but they do not get affected by the disease due to the presence of additional x-chromosome. Okay? These are the take-away points from this discussion. With this, let us conclude this discussion in the next news article. See this article here. It talks about organ allocation for the transplantation. It says that TransTan, which is the transplant authority of Tamil Nadu, has made the patient registration a fully automated process. This is done via an application and this application was rolled out in August 2021 by TransTan. This application is called as VDL and the registration of patients from start to finish is done on this platform. And the article also says that no TransTan is testing the possibility of organ allocation through its recently developed application to make the entire process transparent. This is the crux of the article given here. In this context, let us learn about the issues related to organ transplantation and the steps taken by the government regarding this. First of all, organ transplantation is defined as a transfer of an organ or tissue from one person's body into another person's body to replace a deceased or failed organ or tissue. And a transplant candidate is an individual who has been identified as medically suited to benefit from an organ transplant and has been placed on waiting list by the organ program. See, there are many legal, ethical and human rights issues involved in organ transplantation. Now we will see them one by one. First of all, let us see the systemic issues associated with organ transplantation. In spite of periodic amendments to organ transplant act in the recent past, there has not been a significant change in overall donation numbers or to the establishment of donation system within the country. Secondly, in the case of living organ donation, that is from a living donor to a recipient, if the donor is not related to the recipient, the transplant needs to be approved by a state level committee or hospital committee including government officials. And naturally, this long process and requirements lead to delays in the whole transplantation process. Thirdly, in the case of deceased organ donations, only few hospitals declare brain deaths and people are not in place to counsel families both of which are leading to poor organ donation rate in our country. See, brain death as a form of death is not widely understood or recognized by the public. Also, there is hesitation on the part of the medical community to certify brain death. This has to change if organ donation rates have to increase in our country. And then there is the infrastructural and skilled personal problems. See, only few hospitals are equipped in terms of required personnel that is qualified doctors and has required equipments to conduct a successful organ transplantation. In addition to this, there is only a limited facilities for transport of donated organs in critical situations. This is regarding the infrastructural and skilled personal problems. Then there is the lack of awareness and religious and other issues related to organ transplantation. See, lack of awareness remains one of the leading reasons for low organ donation rates in India. There are no structured or focused awareness initiatives or drives to help people understand what, why and how of organ donation. It is a usual refrain that people in India do not sign up for organ donation. But in reality, there are hardly any platform available for signing up for organ donation. Most people have never been offered this opportunity in their lifetime. Many even don't know where to go even if they are aware and willing. Okay? So, lack of awareness remains one of the leading reasons for low organ donation rates in India. Now moving on. Religious beliefs also may be the reason why families do not agree to deceased organ donation. The idea of charity and perception about organ donation varies from one community to another. The religious mindset together with unpleasant experience in the healthcare sector faced by people is detrimental to the improvement of organ transplantation sector in India. And then there is the clinical issues also. Which is the expectation of the possibility of organ rejection. See certain studies reveal that technically there is always a possibility that the patient might face a rejection wherein body fights of the newly implanted organ even if the surgery goes well. Rejection is harmful to transplant success because body fights of the new organ as if it were a virus or a bacteria. The immune system makes proteins called antibodies that goes on to the transplanted organ and tries to kill it. So this is the clinical issues that is proving detrimental to the organ donation ecosystem in India. Finally, the major issue regarding organ donation in India is the lack of centralized registry for organ donation which is normally present in other countries. See India does not have a centralized system in place to enable and assist donors or medical institutions. There is no centralized list of potential recipients being available to different hospitals so that organs could reach the right people at the right time. Lack of centralized registry also leads to unethical and unhealthy practices like organ transplant racketeering. Further it leads to wastage of organs also. See apart from few states there is no sharing of protocol in place in the rest of India regarding organ transplantation. See these are the many issues that are detrimental to organ donation and organ transplantation ecosystem in our country. And according to the article for making the whole process transparent, trans-stand, that is the organ transplant authority of Tamil Nadu is testing the possibility of organ allocation through its recently developed application that is VDL. See to overcome the challenges and to fine-tune the process to achieve the two contradicting goals of transparency and data privacy, the VDL app was launched for patient registry and organ allocation. See from sending SMS and emails to hospitals trans-stand has no mood to WhatsApp based allocation in May 2018 to intimate about the availability of organ donors. Trans-stand redesigned the patient registry and registration to make it a fully automated process. And this is done by integrating other authentication payment gateway for private hospitals, SMS pathway, automated calls to hospitals and web and mobile notification. See it ensued that patient database was secure and this will also help improve transparency and help in standardizing the whole organ allocation process. Okay, that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw about the various issues hampering organ donation in India. We also saw some steps taken by trans-stand to make organ transportation process transparent. With these points, let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Take a look at this news article. It talks about the use of electric vehicles by the delivery personnel like those working in Zomato, Swiggy, Dunzo, etc. This is because fuel prices are increasing rapidly. That is, the delivery personnel's expenditure towards fuel has increased when compared to their income. Okay, hence a few companies are looking at switching to a safer and more sustainable option for their delivery partners. In this context today, let us discuss about the important provisions of the National Electric Mobility Plan 2020. See, first, what is national electric mobility plan? It is a national mission document prepared in 2020. It is to provide vision and roadmap for the faster adoption of electric vehicles and their manufacturing in the country. This plan has been designed to enhance national fuel security then to provide affordable and environmentally friendly transportation. And lastly, to enable the Indian automotive industry to achieve greater manufacturing leadership in the electric vehicle sector. Okay, now let us see some important provisions of this plan. National Electric Mobility Mission intends to allow hybrid and electric vehicles to become the first choice for the purchasers. This is to replace the conventional vehicles and thus reducing the liquid fuel consumption in the country. Okay, this National Electric Mobility Plan is a composite scheme. The mission uses various methods to enhance faster adoption of electric vehicles. Firstly, it provides incentives. By providing demand side incentives to the consumers, the mission plans to facilitate the acquisition of hybrid or electric vehicles by the consumers. Along with demand side incentives to the consumers, the mission also provides supply side incentives to the producers. This is to encourage local manufacturing of e-vehicles. The next focus is on research and development. The mission is promoting research and development in technology, include battery technology, power electronics, motors, system integration, battery management system, testing infrastructure and ensuring industry participation. See, this will help bring down the cost of e-vehicles. Okay, the next focus is on the promotion of charging infrastructure. Only when the charging infrastructure is properly developed people will start buying e-vehicles. Okay, finally, the mission plans to encourage retro fitment of on-road conventional vehicles with hybrid kit. See, these are the focus areas mentioned in the mission for faster adoption of electric vehicles. Okay, that's all regarding the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020. With this, let us conclude the news article discussion and take up the practice problems questions. We have two practice problems questions today. Let us see them one by one. Look at the first question. This question is in regards to organ transplantation. It is a two statements question. We have to find the correct statements. Let us take up the first statement. After natural cardiac death, only a few organs or tissues can be donated, like cornea, bone, skin, blood vessels whereas after brainstem death, almost 37 different organs and tissues can be donated including vital organs such as kidneys, heart, liver and lungs. See, this statement is correct. Indeed, after brainstem death, almost all vital organs can be donated and in case of natural cardiac death only few organs or tissues can be donated. See, in India brainstem death is recognized as a legal death under transplantation of human organs act. Okay, this is regarding the first statement and this statement is correct. Let us take up the second statement. Tissues are not included as organs as per the transplantation of human organs amendment act 2011. See, this statement is incorrect. Government of India initiated the process of amending and reforming the transplantation of human organs act 1994 and consequently the transplantation of human organs amendment act 2011 was enacted. One of the important amendments under the amendment act 2011 is that tissues have not been included along with organs. So, statement 2 is incorrect. Since statement 1 is correct and statement 2 is incorrect the correct option here is option A only. Now, let us take up the second question. This is also a two statement question. This question is in reference to National Electric Mobility Mission Plan. Let us take up the first statement. National Electric Mobility Mission Plan launched faster adoption and manufacturing of hybrid and electric vehicles in India scheme. This statement is correct. Indeed NEMMP launched the Fame India scheme to promote manufacturing of electric and hybrid vehicle technology. Now let us take up the second statement. NEMMP planned to enhance national fuel security. See, this statement is also correct because from our discussion we saw that National Electric Mobility Mission is a composite scheme which is designed to enhance national fuel security and it also plans to provide affordable and environmentally friendly transportation. The mission plan also plans to enable Indian Automotive Industry to achieve global manufacturing leadership. So, both statements 1 and 2 are correct. So, correct option here is option C both 1 and 2. The main question based on today's discussion is displayed here. Write your answers and post it in the comment section. If you liked today's discussion, like, comment and share it with your friends and subscribe to Shankara AS Academy YouTube channel. Thank you.