 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar IAS Academy. Displayed at the list of news articles taken up for today's analysis along with the page numbers of Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Tiruvananthapuram editions. The handwritten notes in PDF format and the time stamping of all the news articles taken up for today's analysis will be available in the description section and also in the common section for the benefit of the smartphone users. Let us now start our analysis. The first news article is about recent development in detecting malaria where a new paper-based test kit has been developed. The analysis of this news article will be helpful in your prelims preparation under current events of national and international importance and also under general science. The analysis will also be relevant in your main preparation in your general studies paper too under issues relating to development and management of social sector services relating to health where you can use this news as an example as a cost-effective detection or a diagnostic tool. Before discussing the news article, let us see about malaria in brief. Malaria is a vector-borne disease which is caused by plasmonium parasites. These parasites are spread to people through the bites of infected female anopheles mosquitoes which are called as malaria vectors. If you see, there are five parasite species that cause malaria in humans and out of these five, only two of these species pose the greatest threat which are plasmodium falciparum and plasmodium vivax. Next if you see, plasmodium vivax is very common in American continents and plasmodium falciparum is common in rest of the world especially if you see in Africa, Southeast Asia and Western Pacific. Next, let us see how malaria is transmitted to human beings. In most cases malaria is transmitted through the bites of female anopheles mosquitoes. The mosquitoes bite between the dusk and dawn that is after the sun sets till the sun rises the next day. The intensity of transmission depends on factors related to the parasite that is plasmodium, the vector that is the mosquito, the human host and the environment. Most mosquitoes lay their eggs in water which hatch into larvae eventually emerging as adult mosquitoes. The female mosquitoes seek a blood meal in order to nurture their eggs which they have hatched, so they bite the human beings for the blood. This is how these mosquitoes act as a vector by transferring the malaria parasite into the human body. In rare cases if you see malaria can also be transmitted through blood transfusion, organ transplant or the shared use of needles or syringes contaminated with blood. But sexual transmission of malaria is not possible, so please keep this in mind. If you see malaria is an acute febrile illness, here acute febrile means severe fever like conditions. In an individual who is not immune to malaria the symptoms usually appear 10 to 15 days after the infective mosquito bite. The first symptoms such as fever, headache and chills may be mild and difficult to recognize it as malaria. If not treated within 24 hours the malaria can progress to severe illness and often this leads to death. If you see people residing in the malaria endemic areas people may develop partial immunity. This causes asymptomatic infections that is infections without any symptoms in those individuals who are living in the malaria endemic areas. Next the children with severe malaria frequently develop one or more of the following symptoms like severe anemia, respiratory distress or cerebral malaria. In adults multi-organ failure is also very frequent. Here anemia means a condition in which there is a frequency of red cells or of hemoglobin in the blood. Cerebral malaria is a neurological complication and it is characterized by coma and asexual forms of the parasite on peripheral blood smears. Now let us see about the world malaria report of the year 2018. According to this latest world malaria report which was released in November 2018 by the world health organization there were 219 million cases of malaria in the year 2017. If you see this value is at least 2 million more than the 217 million cases which was recorded in the year 2016. The estimated number of malaria deaths stood at 435,000 in the year 2017. And out of this if you see children under 5 years of age are the most vulnerable group which has affected by the malaria. In the year 2017 the children under 5 years of age accounted for 61 percentage out of this total 435,000 deaths worldwide. It means that around 266,000 children died due to malaria. And according to this report India accounts for 4 percentage of the total malaria cases that have been recorded worldwide. Now if you see this picture here malaria is more prevalent in the tropical areas of North and South America than in Southeast Asia and also in majority of Africa. We saw that malaria is a vector-bond disease. Vector control is the main way to prevent and reduce the malaria transmission. The world health organization recommends protection for all people at risk of malaria with effective malaria vector control. There are 2 forms of vector control namely insecticide treated mosquito nets and indoor residual spraying which are very much effective in a wide range of circumstances. Next the anti-malarial drugs. Let us see about the anti-malarial drugs that are available in India. First we have chloroquine and primakwine and also RT-mesanin combination therapy. This RT-mesanin combination therapy consists of RT-sunit. This RT-sunit is an RT-mesanin derivative and it also consists of sulfidoxine and pyrimethamine which is an anti-malarial. If you see monotherapy of oral RT-mesanin derivatives is banned in India. Here you should know that monotherapy means the treatment of a disease with a single drug. Using oral RT-mesanin derivatives will lead to RT-mesanin resistance. Hence it is exclusive usage banned in India. Instead it is combined with an anti-malarial and given. And also know that both chloroquine and primakwine are used to treat plasmodium vivax and RT-saminin combination therapy is primarily used for treating plasmodium falciparum parasite. Now let us discuss the news article. A group of researchers from IIT Guwahati have developed a simple detection method for malaria. This method uses an instrument when in the lab or a piece of chromatographic paper when in the field that is wherever they are moving around. The kit can be used to detect plasmodium parasite which causes malaria and also specifically detect plasmodium falciparum which is commonly found in India. The team has applied for patents for one aptamer and the detection strategy which they have used. Here you should know that aptamer means a short segment of DNA, RNA or peptide that binds to a specific molecular target such as a protein. In this research DNA aptamer were used nothing but a short segment of DNA were used. Being an ordinary syringe fitted with a small magnet, magnetic beads and few chemicals inside the researchers were able to specifically capture the antigen released by the parasites in the blood of the malaria patients. As the blood has many interfering agents the researchers have used magnetic bead tethered aptamer consisting of two small DNA molecules. These aptamer capture only the specific antigens from the malaria parasite strains and separate these from the blood serum to perform the reaction. The magnetic bead helps in holding the aptamer. Once these malaria parasite antigens are separated or captured from the blood serum they interact with specific substrates which is present inside the syringe. Here the blue dye turns into a pink one. The dye is then adsorbed over a modified chromatographic paper. Here know that chromatographic paper is used to separate the colored chemicals or substances. The formation of pink color on the paper indicates that malaria parasites are present in the blood serum. Now when the concentration of a malaria parasite antigen is very high the intensity of the color in the chromatographic paper also increases as you can see in this picture displayed in the news article. The researchers have said that this kit has high stability in hot and humid conditions. So when they are mass produced this kit can be available very cheaper than the existing rapid detection test kit that is available in the market. How this kit works is just for your knowledge you need not memorize all this. Know that a new kit has been discovered and also know the terms like aptamer and chromatographic paper for your exam preparation. Now have a look at the practice prelims question. Let us move on to the next news article. The next news article is about the golden langur. This article is titled as golden langur to get fruits of Mandrega in Assam. Now the analysis of this news article will be relevant in your prelims preparation under current events of national importance, next under Indian polity and governance especially the public policy and also under general issues on environmental ecology and biodiversity. This news can also be quoted as an example for environmental conservation in any of your relevant environment related question as a part of your general studies paper 3 under the topic conservation. Now the news is that for the first time since the Mahatma Gandhi National Dural Employment Guarantee Act which is popularly called as Mandrega became law in the year 2005. This act will have a non-human beneficiary. The non-human beneficiaries here are the rare golden langurs that are found in a reserve forest which is located in the Bungai Gaon district in western Assam. If you see in the last week the district authorities have launched a 27.24 lakh project under this Mandrega scheme. Under this project around 10,575 saplings and seedlings of fruit bearing trees such as Guava, Mango, Blackberry and other trees will be planted. The Assam forest department and local communities will maintain the saplings. Now planting such fruit bearing trees will ensure that the golden langurs that reside in this 17 square kilometer Kakojiana reserve forest do not have to risk their lives to find the fruit. If you see several golden langurs have died due to electrocution and also due to road accidents by looking for food beyond the reserve forest range. Here you should know that electrocution means the death by an electric shock. So the farmers have electric fences on the fringes of the forest in order to protect their agricultural fields. When golden langurs go in search of food beyond the reserve forest range to these agricultural fields then they die due to electrocution. Now this project has been appreciated by the wildlife activists. So they have appreciated the Bungai Gaon district administration. So it actually took an action to conserve the golden langurs. But these activists have said that the effort can be sustained only if Kakojiana is declared as a wildlife sanctuary. We just saw that it is a reserve forest and not a wildlife sanctuary. The news tells that Kakojiana reserve forest was once contiguous which means it was continuous with the Chakrasheela wildlife sanctuary. If you see since the reserve forest is not contiguous now the golden langur population is also very scattered or you can tell that there is a fragmentation of wildlife habitats. This would lead to their population decline in the long run. Community based conservation by local NGOs or the non-governmental organization involving around 34 villages around this Kakojiana reserve forest has helped the low golden langur population in Kakojiana to rise to 500 by the year 2015. But the scarce food saw some of them set up colonies in the forest patches or we can tell in the fragmented forest patches. Hence the district administration has decided to plant fruit bearing trees under this Mandrega scheme as of now. Now that we saw about golden langur let us see some facts about golden langur. Golden langurs are also called as G's golden langur. Here langur means a long tailed arboreal Asian monkey with a characteristic loud call. Here arboreal means they live on trees and the scientific name of this golden langurs are Trakai Pethikas GI. These golden langurs are found only in Bhutan and India and in India they especially found in the North Asian state of Assam and also very close to the border of West Bengal. If you see golden langurs are classified as Endangered as per IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Here IUCN means the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There are only 6500 mature golden langurs in the world out of which 1400 is in India as per the fact given by the district officials in this newspaper. And these golden langurs are also classified under Schedule 1 of Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 and they are also listed under Appendix 1 of Sites nothing but the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Now have a look at the practice prelims question. Let us move on to the next news article. The next news article is about Superconductivity. This discussion will be relevant in your current events of national importance and next under General Science. It can also be linked to your main syllabus in your General Studies Paper 3 under Science and Technology, its developments in their applications and their effects in everyday life. Next it can also be linked under Achievements of Indians in Science and Technology and developing new technology and also under awareness in the field of Nanotechnology. In the recent days we have been seeing many news articles relating to Superconductivity. By simply seeing the name we think it is something that is very much related to the complex physics. So today we are going to discuss about what is Superconductivity and why is it of so much importance. First to understand about Superconductivity, we need to revise some basic physics like we need to understand how electrical current passes through a material and what role the resistance plays in this process. The flow of electricity through a wire is actually a flow of electron and electron is nothing but a negatively charged subatomic particle. Then we need a conductor. Conductor is a material in which electricity easily travels. So we can say that a wire is a type of conductor. Now this wire contains copper and we have studied in school that copper is a good conductor of electricity. In electrical conductors current results from the movement of electrons from one atom to the next. Electrons are either positively or negatively charged. Now negative electrons are attracted to positive electrons. If you see at the atomic level a negative electron will jump from one atom to another. This jump causes a negative electron to jump from the second atom to the third atom. Then one jump from the third to a fourth and so on. This jumping of negative electrons from atom to atom is called as electrical flow. So now it is clear that current is the flow of electrons in a circuit or an electrical system. You can also think of current as the volume of water flowing through a water pipe in order to easily understand how current flows. So in short we can say to have an electric current you need to have two materials, one negatively charged material and next a material that has a relatively positive charge and then a conductor that passes electrons from the negatively charged material to the positively charged one. But however this process is not very perfect because not every material passes these electrons as easily as the next and even in the most conductive metals like copper the material offers resistance to the current. Resistance in physics also has the same meaning like how we tell in English. In English it means resistance means refusing to accept a matter and opposing someone or something because of it. Like that in physics resistance means it opposes the flow of current. In other words the entire current cannot pass through the material. In total if the resistance is higher then the flow of electrons will be lower. So when all the current that is produced cannot pass through smoothly the current loses some of its energy in the form of heat. This is why when you charge a phone it gets hot sometimes because there is a loss of energy which you can notice. But this energy loss isn't necessarily bad as this heat energy is what gives us electric lights and other modern technologies such as the reason that a hot dryer blows hot air is because of resistance in the internal wiring that produces heat. But if you are transmitting power from one part of the country to the another then this energy loss is incredibly inefficient. So this is a very big problem which needs to be addressed. Another issue is that the current weakens over time while passing through a resistant material. This is because the strength of the current is slowly taken away as heat energy. That means there is a limit to how far an electric current can travel before it dissipates or disappears entirely. Now this is the reason why superconductivity is so special because superconductivity is when a material stops resisting meaning it has no resistance to an electric current and allows the current to pass through it very freely. So when the current passes through freely there is no energy loss. Hence superconductivity which has a unique material characteristic has the potential to revolutionize electrical transmission, transportation and also physics. Now this superconductivity has two main characteristics. First is the one which we just saw that is zero resistance. The second one is the diap magnetism. To understand diap magnetism let us first know what is a magnetic field. Again we are going into basics physics. Magnetic field is the area around a magnet magnetic object or an electric charge in which the magnetic force is exerted. It is the technical definition now let us put it this way. The invisible area around a magnetic object that can pull another magnetic object towards it or push another magnetic object away from it is called a magnetic field. It is a kind of invisible force fields that surround an object with invisible power that we see in sky-fi movies or books. Magnetic fields are created by moving the electric charge. If you remember in school we used to draw this diagram. Here know that the magnetic field is present everywhere around the magnet not just along the field lines that we draw but even between the field lines. The lines simply help us visualize the direction the field is flowing at various locations around the magnet and even within the magnet. But when the external magnetic field does not penetrate the object and remain at its surface this property is called as diap magnetism. This is a field expulsion phenomenon and it is also known as the Meissner effect which is named after the physicist who first observed it in the year 1933. So, when a magnetic field is applied from outside then the superconductor expels magnetic field and never allows magnetic field to go through it. This leads to levitation of a superconductor like the one you see in this picture. So, levitation is the process by which an object is held aloft that is held up in the air like in the picture without any mechanical support and it is in a stable position. Now, how can a material achieve the superconductive state? To get a material into a superconductive state the material has to be frozen to an extremely low temperature sometimes to only a few degrees above absolute zero. Then for reasons that we cannot still explain electrical resistance abruptly stops and an electrical current continues to flow without interruption like seemingly forever. This is where today's news article has to be linked because Indian Institute of Science which is located in Bengaluru has showed clear evidence of diap magnetism at ambient temperature and pressure. Ambient temperature is nothing but the room temperature but just now we saw superconductivity is achieved when the material is frozen to an extremely low temperature. So, it means superconductivity at ambient temperature is a new breakthrough in physics. The IISC team has been able to achieve superconductivity in gold silver nanostructures at an ambient pressure and temperature of 286 Kelvin that is 13 degree Celsius. Nanostructures refer to materials or structures that have at least one dimension between 1 and 100 nanometer. Two of the most important properties of superconductivity that is the diap magnetism and zero resistance were seen in the material they studied at 286 Kelvin that is at 13 degree Celsius. The team saw a clear transition from a normal state to a superconducting state. This is more than so far anyone has reported. The material gold silver nanostructure has also exhibited current voltage characteristics with regards to superconductivity. Look voltage is also known as electromotive force. This is the pressure of the electrons in a system. It is similar to water pressure in a pipe. In current voltage characteristic the current is increased while the voltage remains zero and then at a critical current the voltage suddenly increases and superconductivity is destroyed. The IISC team observed that at a critical temperature of 160 Kelvin that is minus 113.15 degree Celsius and at a critical current of a little less than 10 milli ampere the voltage suddenly shoots up and the gold silver nanostructures no longer exhibit superconductivity. This is because the resistance increases rapidly. But whether the data provided by IISC's correct or not can be settled only through the means of scientific discourse that is by peer reviewing and other groups of scientists reproducing it. This is all about the news article. Now let us see some uses of superconductors from exam point of view. Superconductors can carry current in a much more compact form than it is possible with copper. This means that your wires instead of being as thick as they are from the wall to a computer would be as much as smaller. This might not strike you as being a key component because you do not actually devote that much space to the wires in the home or office. But when you talk about supplying the power that is required in a city then you have a different matter in hand. Currently in many places across the world it is approaching the limits in the major cities of the world where it is not able to or possible to fit more wires. So superconductivity will help in this critical planning. The most widely used application for superconductors is an MRI machine which is commonly found in hospitals. Only a superconductive system can allow the energy required to generate a magnetic field that powers an MRI. Besides the MRI machine the most well known use of superconductive materials is in particle accelerators like the kind used in CERN's large headron collider or its proposed future circular collider. In this large headron collider the scientists send trillions of particles around 27 kilometer of tunnels at a speed closer to the speed of light. This is done by keeping the particle beam very stable and moving along the precise path requires a magnetic field of immense power. This requires an enormous amount of energy which can be provided by the superconducting coils. So the world is still exploring more practical applications of superconductors. Whether we come to the end of the analysis of this topic now have a look at the practice prelims question. Let us move on to the next news article. The next news article is about 5G network. The analysis of this news article will be helpful in your prelims preparation under current events of national and international importance and under general science. The analysis will also be relevant in your main preparation in your general studies paper 3 under infrastructure, next under science and technology developments and their applications and effects in everyday life and also under awareness in the fields of information technology that is IT. This news article has appeared in FAQ or frequently asked questions column in all the editions. If you see this article is very extensive so from exam point of view we shall be seeing about 5G technology. 5G technology or the fifth generation technology is the next generation cellular technology which will provide for faster and more reliable communication with ultra low latency. We shall be seeing what is ultra low latency as we discuss the article. If you see a government panel report tells that with the introduction of 5G network the peak network data speeds are expected to be in the range of 2 to 20 gigabits per second. The peak network data speed for 4G network in India at present is in the range of 6 to 7 megabits per second. If you see the 4G speed in advanced countries is up to 25 megabits per second. Here just know that 1000 megabits is equal to 1 gigabit. So we can clearly see that the speed of the 5G network will be at least 900 percentage faster than 4G's maximum data speed. The largest beneficiaries of this 5G network will be the mobile phone users. With 5G technology mobile consumers will be able to download data heavy content that is content with heavy data such as like your 8K movies and games with better graphics in just a few seconds. Like by 2020 when one is using 5G it will just take only 40 seconds to download a 5G movie. But once 5G becomes commercial users will be required to change their current devices in favor of 5G enabled ones. Apart from the personal mobile devices 5G is also expected to form the backbone of emerging technologies. When we speak about emerging technologies things like internet of things and machine to machine communications are all emerging technologies. All these will support a much larger range of applications and services that includes your driverless vehicles, tele-surgery and also real-time data analytics. A government panel on 5G says that the technology will extend the use of wireless technologies. For the first time 5G will be used across completely new sectors of the economy such as in your educational sector, healthcare sector, agricultural sector, financial sector and also in the social sector. One of the primary applications of 5G will be implementation of sensor embedded network. This will actually allow real-time relay of information across fields such as manufacturing, consumer durables and agriculture. 5G can also help make transport infrastructure more efficient by making it smart. 5G will enable vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure communication as well like making driverless cars among other things a reality. Next let us see some of the advantages in using this 5G technology. First one is the ultra low latency which we just saw during the starting of our discussion. This ultra low latency offered by 5G makes the 5G technology desirable to be used in all these new sectors and areas that we just discussed. Know that latency is the amount of time that the data takes to travel between its source and destination that is from the point source to the destination. So low latency means quicker travel of data. 5G will have an ultra low latency of 1 millisecond. If you see the latency of 4G network is 10 milliseconds. Next is the lower level of investments and costs that is required in setting the physical infrastructure for 5G. The panel report also stresses that even after the entry of 5G into Indian networks the earlier generation mobile technology such as 2G, 3G and 4G will continue to be in use and that it may take 10 or more years to phase them out. Next let us see the economic impact of 5G. This 5G technology is expected to create a cumulative economic impact of $1 trillion in India by the year 2035. This is according to the report by the government appointed panel. Now according to a separate report by the telecom gear maker Ericsson who is a private player this 5G enable digitalization revenue potential in India will be about $27 billion by the year 2026. Additionally the global telecom industry named global system for mobile communications association which is in short called as GSMA is also forecasted about the 5G technology. It has told that India will have 70 million 5G connections by the year 2025. Next let us see when 5G technology will be launched in India. The union minister of electronics and information technology Mr. Ravishankar Prasad has announced that the government plans to start for 5G trials in the next 100 days or that is by the mid-september. The minister has also announced that the government will be holding an auction for spectrum which includes airwaves that will be used to offer 5G or the fifth generation services in the current calendar If you see during the first term of Modi government the central government has set a target of 2020 for the commercial launch of 5G services largely in line with the rest of the world. It is nothing but the 5G would be introduced by the year 2020 but for the trials to begin the government needs to allocate or allot certain amount of spectrum to the telecommunication companies. Hence the government has announced that it will be holding an auction for spectrum. Now to catch up with the advanced countries our Indian government has launched a three-year program which started in March 2018. Now this program's main aim is to advance innovation and research in 5G technology with a budget of around 224 crore. Now this budget amount is not important for us. Similarly a private player called Ericsson has also installed a 5G testbed at IIT Delhi for developing applications in the broadband and low latency areas. All this will help develop India specific usage scenarios and applications. Worldwide if you see South Korea and the United States became the first countries to commercially launch 5G services where they launched the 5G services in April 2019. Now just know that spectrum auction for 5G services is about to take place and the regulator is Troy or the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India because if you see in the news article there is about two subtopics under this spectrum allocation which is not relevant for us. But let us just know what is meant by spectrum auction. Before that you need to know what is meant by a spectrum. If you see electromagnetic waves span a wide range of frequencies and accordingly the wavelengths. This range of frequencies and wavelengths is called the electromagnetic spectrum. Now if you see the government owns this electromagnetic spectrum in India and it auctions specific bands of the electromagnetic spectrum as and when required. So by this auctioning process the government sells the rights to transmit signals to the network operators by providing them a license. In India the network operators include companies like Bharti, Airtel, Vodafone, Geo etc. So this process of auctioning the spectrum is called as the spectrum auctioning. Since the government owns the spectrum spectrum auctions are a major revenue earner for the government. If you see in the last auction held in October 2016 it fetched the government over 65,000 crores which is a very huge amount for the government in terms of revenue. However if you see 60 percentage of the spectrum remain unsolved. Besides the spectrum 5G will require a fundamental change to the core architecture of the communication system. Right now if you see we have LTE or the long-term evolution infrastructure. Simply upgrading the existing LTE infrastructure will not be able to support the various requirements of 5G technology. A report on 5G technology by a private company named Deloitte has told that the industry might require an additional investment of 60 to 70 billion US dollars to properly implement 5G networks. Now have a look at the practice problems question. Let us move on to the next news article. The next news article is about India-Maldives relations. The news article is titled India-Maldives signed six key agreements. The analysis of this news article will be relevant in your problems preparation under current events of international importance. The analysis will also be relevant in your mains preparation in your general studies paper two under India and its neighborhood relations. This news article is of importance due to two facts. One it is the first visit of the newly spawned prime minister of India to Maldives. This visit again proves that India is committed to its neighborhood first policy. The India-Maldives relations are slowly building up after the change of new government in Maldives since November 2018. Before that there was a pro-China government in place in Maldives and the India-Maldives relations were at its worst or very low. Know that this new government of Maldives is pro-Indian and it has declared that it is committed to India first policy. So the prime minister's visit to Maldives is of high importance. Now as a part of this prime minister's visit key agreements were signed and meaningful bilateral level talks were held. This reaffirms the cooperation between India and Maldives. As a part of this visit Indian prime minister Modi was conferred the Maldives highest honor or the award which is called the rule of Nishan Izzuddin by the president of Maldives. The prime minister addressed the Maldivian parliament the Mujlies as a part of this visit as well. Indian prime minister has stressed the need for global cooperation in combating terror when he was addressing this parliament. He has also noted that state sponsorship of terrorism is the biggest threat that the world is facing today and that combating terrorism and radicalization is the most accurate test of the leadership in the world. The memorandum of understanding between India and Maldives covered areas such as hydrography, health, passenger and cargo services by sea, capacity building in customs and civil services training. Here just know that hydrography means the science of surveying and charting bodies of water such as seas, lakes and rivers. If you see India extended 800 million dollar line of credit earlier this year and an agreement was signed for this line of credit in March 2019. Now this line of credit will assist Maldives in achieving sustainable social and economic development. So with this money the Maldives will be doing some social sector and economic related initiatives to develop their country. Now know that the line of credit is not a grant but a soft loan. This soft loan is provided on concessional interest rates to the developing countries by India. So this has to be repaid by the borrowing government. So line of credit is not a grant but a soft loan. This line of credit also helps to promote exports of Indian goods and services as 75% of the value of the contract must be sourced from India. This news article also tells that the prime minister will be visiting Sri Lanka to express a strong message of solidarity with Sri Lankans who are affected by Easter bombings. His visit to Sri Lanka again reaffirms India's neighborhood first policy. So you can use this news as an example in any of your main question which is related to India Maldives relations or which is related to India's neighborhood first policy. With this we come to the end of the analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion. Let us now move on to the practice questions discussion session. Consider the following statements about malaria and they have given two statements and have asked for the correct answer. Here the first statement is correct. Malaria is a vector bond disease caused by plasmodium parasites especially by plasmodium vivax and plasmodium fawziperum. The parasites are spread to people through the bites of infected female anopheles mosquitoes. Here the second statement is wrong as we saw during our discussion that sexual transmission of malaria is not possible. In rare cases malaria can also be transmitted through blood transfusion, organ transplant or the shared use of needles or syringes contaminated with blood. Here the question is asked for the correct statements. The correct answer is option A1 only. Moving on to the second question consider the following statements about G's golden langurs which was recently in news they have given three statements and have asked for the correct statement. Here the first statement is correct as we saw during our discussion that golden langurs are the first non-human beneficiaries under this Mandrega scheme and the fruit bearing trees would be planted under the scheme to help the golden langurs meet their food requirements in their natural habitats only. And the second statement here is wrong they are classified as endangered and not as critically endangered as per IUCN red list of threatened species. The third statement is also wrong if you would have listened carefully our discussion we saw that they are found only in the northeastern part of India here Rajasthan is given so the statement is wrong. So the question is asked for the correct statements the correct answer is option A1 only since both the statements are 2 and 3 are wrong. Moving on to the next question which among the following describes superconductivity which is often seen in the news. The question is asked for the description of superconductivity now if it is a really confusing question if you are not paid attention to our discussion session. If you remember the discussion we studied that superconductivity as two main characteristics first is zero resistance and then is the diamagnetism from this we know that the answer should contain zero resistance which is available in option C and D so we can directly eliminate other two options. In these two options C and D one says it conducts electricity and another says it stops the conducting of electricity look it is very obvious that superconductivity should mean conducting electricity because we know conductor is a material in which electricity easily travels so we can eliminate the option which says does not or stop the conduct of electricity. Hence correct answer is option D it is the ability of certain materials to conduct electric current with zero resistance so option D is the correct answer. Moving on to the next question which of the following statements is are correct with reference to 5G communication technology they have given three statements and have asked for the correct statements here the first statement is wrong 5G technology has not yet been commercially launched in India it is being planned to be launched by the year 2020. The question is asked to choose the correct statements if the first statement is wrong you can directly eliminate options A, B and C so we will get the answer option D but let us also see the other two statements. So the second statement tells that 5G has ultra low latency levels the statement is correct know that latency is the amount of time data takes to travel between its source and destination so low latency means quicker travel of data and 5G will have an ultra low latency of one millisecond if you see the latency of 4G network is 10 milliseconds the third statement is also correct as we saw there are possibilities of utilizing this 5G technologies in tele-surgery and driverless cars and also in real-time data analytics so always try to use the elimination technique you can start from any statement that you know better so whenever you are trying to study about technology related questions try to understand the basic concepts and terminologies which is more than enough wherever possible try to compare the latest technology with its previous versions mostly UPSC questions are based on comparisons and basic concepts and terminologies with respect to science and technology but this we come to the end of the practice question discussion session and also the analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion to like comment and share the video and subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel for latest videos and updates stay focused and motivated friends thank you