 Good evening aspirants. Welcome to the Hindu news analysis by Shankara IS Academy. The list of articles that has been chosen for today's analysis along with the page numbers of Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Tiruvannantapuram Medicines are provided here. The link for the handwritten notes in the PDF format and the time stamping for the given articles is provided in the description box below and for the benefit of smartphone users the time stamping is also provided in the comment section. Let us move on to the first article analysis. This first news article is about e-cigarettes. This discussion can be linked to the syllabus that is given here for your reference. The news article states that the union cabinet is in favor of approving an ordinance. This ordinance is for prohibiting the manufacturing and sale of e-cigarettes in the country. So now what is an ordinance? An ordinance is a law and it can introduce legislative changes. But we know that the power to make laws is with the legislature. So does the parliament pass an ordinance? No. When parliament is not in session and when some immediate action is needed the president can issue an ordinance. This provision is provided by the constitution. Under article 123 of the constitution the president of India has the power to promulgate or enact ordinances when both the houses of parliament are not in session. Under this article 123 the president can exercise his legislative powers of promulgating ordinance in accordance with the aid and advice of the council of ministers. So now today's article states that the union cabinet is going to approve the ordinance for prohibiting the manufacturing and sale of e-cigarettes in the country. After this the president will promulgate the ordinance if he is satisfied that there are circumstances which makes it necessary for him or her to take immediate action. According to the news sources if the ordinance is promulgated the law would make production, manufacture, import, export, transport, sale, distribution or even advertisements of e-cigarettes as a cognizable offence. So what is a cognizable offence? Cognizable offences are those in which the police can arrest a person without any warrant. These offences are more serious in nature. So by this we can say that the government is planning to make the production of e-cigarettes, manufacturing even advertisements as offences of serious nature. Then according to the news article as per the draft of the ordinance these offences will be punishable with imprisonment up to 1 year or fine up to rupees 1 lakh or both for the first time offenders. And then for repeat offenders the punishment is for imprisonment up to 3 years and fine up to rupees 5 lakh. Under this draft ordinance the storage of e-cigarettes is also punishable. It is punishable with imprisonment up to 6 months or fine up to 50,000 rupees or both. Now this move is welcomed by anti-tobacco health experts and even experts from various fields have welcomed this move and they have urged government to pass the ordinance in the larger interest of public health. But the tobacco industry and its allies state that if this law is enforced then this would be draconian law hitting at the livelihood of many. Here draconian means excessively harsh and severe. By draconian law they mean that the law is extremely severe and it is more than what is right or what is necessary. And they are saying it will be a hitting on the livelihood of many because many are dependent on the production, manufacture, import, export, even transport, sale, distribution and even advertisement of e-cigarettes. If this law is passed then they might have to look for some other job. So, now what is the background behind this ban? If you see in June 2019 the Indian Council of Medical Research or in short ICMR recommended for a complete prohibition on on ends or e-cigarettes in India. Ends is short for electronic nicotine delivery systems and these e-cigarettes fall under the electronic nicotine delivery system or in short ends devices. ICMR recommended for this complete prohibition based on a white paper on electronic nicotine delivery system which was released by it. Now before getting into what the paper stated you should note one point here. Initially ends or e-cigarettes were used as a tobacco control measure. Now keep this in mind. Now the paper stated that the tobacco consumption especially cigarette smoking has shown a decline in India in recent years. This is in response to several tobacco control measures that has already been initiated by our government. So, the paper states at this point marketing of a product like ends or e-cigarettes is unwarranted as a tobacco control measure. The paper states that e-cigarettes benefits have not been proved yet and also it poses a high potential harm due to addiction and health risks and also the adverse population level health impact will outweigh any presumed benefit to individual cigarette smokers. Moreover it can open a gateway for new tobacco addiction also which is a potential threat to the country's tobacco control laws and ongoing tobacco control programs and efforts. So now what are these ends or e-cigarettes? They are battery powered devices used to smoke or vape. Here vape is a word that denotes inhalation and exhalation of the vapor that is produced by an electronic cigarette. The e-cigarettes are made up of a flavored solution which contains a varying concentration of nicotine. The most common type is an e-cigarette that produces an aerosolized mixture of flavored liquids and nicotine and then it is inhaled by the user. Now here nicotine is an addictive chemical that is found in cigarettes and even in other forms of tobacco products. Nicotine is considered as one of the most addictive substances. The potential risk of a person being addicted to nicotine throughout his or her life depends on the rapidity at which nicotine is introduced into the body. That is like at what age they got their first exposure and what dosage is being administered to them. These things decide whether they will be addicted to nicotine or not. These ends or e-cigarettes are manufactured in such a way to resemble traditional tobacco products like cigarettes, pipe cigars and common gadgets like flash drives, flash lights or pens. According to ICMR currently there are more than 460 different e-cigarette brands in the market. They all have a varied design of nicotine delivery. If you see structurally most e-cigarettes contain four different components. The first component is a cartridge or reservoir which holds a liquid solution containing varying amounts of nicotine with flavorings and even other chemicals like e-liquid or e-juice. Then it contains a power source which is usually a battery. Then the next component is heating element and then it also contains a mouthpiece that the person uses to inhale. So now this is the description about ends and e-cigarettes. Now the paper published by ICMR states that the use of e-cigarettes adversely affects almost all the human body systems. The impact is across the life course of a human being that is the impact is from the womb to tomb. These devices contain other ingredients such as flavoring agents and vaporizers which are found to be harmful for health. A typical device contains about as much nicotine as a pack of 20 regular cigarettes. So it can act as a potential source for nicotine addiction. Additionally the amount of nicotine and other chemicals in these products varies widely and thus the consumer remains unaware of the actual contents of the products they use. And the studies on these nicotine solvents have shown a varied degree of release of potential carcinogens such as acetaldehyde, formaldehyde and acetone. We know that carcinogen is a substance which causes cancer and the liquid vaporizing solutions also contain toxic chemicals and metals and they are responsible for several adverse health effects including cancers and diseases of heart, lungs and brain. The e-cigarette use adverse affects the cardiovascular system then it impairs respiratory immune cell function and it also impairs airways in a similar way to normal cigarette smoking and it is also responsible for severe respiratory disease. It also poses a risk to fetal, infant and child brain development. Then ends or e-cigarettes are also harmful to non-users and these non-users have adverse health impacts even when people are exposed to second hand vapors. Second hand vapors are those vapors which are exhaled by a smoker and obviously they contain chemicals and these chemicals are even inhaled by a non-smoker also. So, even though we are not using ends or e-cigarettes by ourselves if we are exposed to those vapors we will be also having adverse health impacts. Then it is also stated that passive exposure to vapors during pregnancy can severely affect the health of both the mother and the fetus. There are also reports of poisoning due to accidental swallowing of ends by children also. These devices can also cause fire and explosion. Then shockingly it was also found that use of ends or e-cigarettes by non-smokers can lead to nicotine addiction and regular smoking also and studies have also found that the young persons who are using ends are more likely to use regular cigarettes later in their life and also these e-cigarettes increase the likelihood to experiment with regular tobacco products and increase the intention to indulge in cigarette smoking. So, now based on all these information and currently available scientific data from multiple streams of research the ICMR recommended for a complete prohibition on ends or e-cigarettes in India. This recommendation is also based on the fact that the magnitude of potential short-term and long-term health risks to the users is not yet determined at the population level for these ends or e-cigarettes. It is not yet determined because the products are recent and they come in diverse forms. And then whether e-cigarettes benefits as a tobacco cessation aid or to which degree benefits as a tobacco cessation aids is not yet definitely established. Here tobacco cessation aid means a product used as a tobacco control measure. So, now based on these ICMR recommended for a complete prohibition. Now you should also know that in India use of nicotine as an ingredient in any food items is prohibited under the food safety and standards prohibition and restriction on sales regulation of 2011. It comes under the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006. Then nicotine and nicotine sulfate are listed as hazardous chemicals under the Environment Protection Act of 1986 and then it is also listed as hazardous in the manufacturers storage and import of hazardous chemicals rules of 1989. There are also other laws and regulations which are also applicable to ends such as an advisory from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Government of India. This advisory was given to all states and union territories. This advisory ensures that ends and similar devices are not sold, manufactured, distributed, traded, imported and advertised in their jurisdictions. Now the proposed ordinance makes all these actions as cognizable offenses. Then there is also a ban on e-cigarettes imported by the Department of Revenue and there is also a ban on e-cigarettes advertisements under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. So now based on these rules regulations and recommendations the government is planning for the ordinance. With this we come to the end of this article discussion. The displayed practice questions will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next article discussion which is about National Animal Disease Control Program of the Central Government. The syllabus relevant to the analysis of this news article is given here for your reference. The National Animal Disease Control Program was launched by Prime Minister on 12th September that is yesterday at Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. This scheme has been announced by the Central Government in Union Budget 2019-20. The actual name of the scheme is National Animal Disease Control Program for Foot and Mouth Disease and Brusillosis. So before discussing about this scheme let us discuss these diseases. First let us see about the Foot and Mouth Disease. This Foot and Mouth Disease is an important livestock disease in the world in terms of economic impact. It is a highly contagious viral vesicular disease in livestock. Here contagious means it spreads from one animal to another animal and vesicular means small rashes or blisters. These blisters occur in the mouth, foot and udder or mammary gland of the livestock. We know that livestock includes animals such as cow, buffalo, goat, sheep, pigs, etc. This Foot and Mouth Disease is caused by a virus belonging to Pekorna Verite family of the genus Aptovirus. This Foot and Mouth Disease affects the production of livestock that is it will be tough to produce new generation of livestock. Also the milk production will be heavily affected because it affects the mammary glands and the mammary glands only produce milk. So the milk trade will be affected. This is why we saw that Foot and Mouth Disease is an important livestock disease in the world in terms of economic impact. Then it is a trans-boundary animal disease that is it spreads from one country to another. The disease is endemic and widely prevalent in South Asia. The outbreak of this disease happens at regular intervals in the countries of South Asia. Foot and Mouth Disease can be controlled by mass vaccination of cattle at regular intervals. So vaccination will be given till the incidence of disease comes down to negligible levels. This Foot and Mouth Disease primarily affects cows and buffaloes. So if cows and buffaloes are properly vaccinated then the spread of this disease can be controlled. Now let us see about brucellosis. Brucellosis is also a contagious disease. It is caused by a bacteria which belongs to the genus Bricella. In cows and buffaloes the disease affects the reproductive organs and the udder that is the mammary glands. The bacteria are shed in milk or they are shed via the aborted fetus or via other reproductive tract discharges. So brucellosis is commonly transmitted to other animals by direct contact with affected animals or it is also transmitted in an environment that has been contaminated with discharges from infected animals. Hence we call brucellosis as contagious. Also the milk production will be reduced because of this disease. So we can see that brucellosis is harmful especially to the female animals because both the reproduction and milk production will be affected. Currently vaccination is available for brucellosis to treat the infected animals. Now know that India introduced a special program to tackle the spread of foot and mouth disease. In 2003 the government of India came up with foot and mouth disease control program. This was introduced as one of the component of the scheme named as livestock health and disease control. This livestock health and disease control is a centrally sponsored scheme. This was introduced in a phased manner in many districts across India to prevent the spread of foot and mouth disease. For those districts that were not covered under this program there was another program which is named as assistance to states for control of animal diseases. Under this program need-based vaccination for foot and mouth disease was given. Now in this budget that is in the 2019-20 union budget the central government has announced a new central sector scheme called as national animal disease control program for foot and mouth disease and brucellosis. As announced in the budget the prime minister has launched this program yesterday at Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. Around 500 crore has been allotted for the scheme in the budget. For this the total outlay for the scheme is rupees 12,652 crore from 2019 to 2024. The overall aim of the scheme is to completely control foot and mouth disease by the year 2025 with vaccination. Also foot and mouth disease should be eventually eradicated that is it should be eliminated by the year 2030. We saw that this new program is a central sector scheme. It means that the entire program will be sponsored by the central government. This program will vaccinate over 600 million cows, buffaloes, sheep, goats etc. That is over 60 crore animals in the country will be vaccinated so as to prevent the spread of both foot and mouth disease and brucellosis. The program also aims to vaccinate 36 million that is 3.6 crore female bovine calves that is the young domestic cattle every year for brucellosis disease. So this program will result in increased domestic production and also in increased export of milk and livestock products. I know that this scheme comes under ministry of fisheries, animal husbandry and dairy. Now along with this during the launch of the scheme the prime minister has also mentioned the model that is followed in the country of Ravanda. This program of Ravanda is called as Girinqa program. The word Girinqa is translated as may you have a cow. This word describes a centuries old cultural practice of Ravanda. The practice is that a cow is given by one person to another as a sign of respect and gratitude. This program was started by Ravanda to address the high rate of childhood malnutrition and also to reduce poverty. The program also aimed to integrate the livestock management with crop farming. The program has contributed to an increase in agricultural production in Ravanda especially milk production and products and the program has also reduced malnutrition and it has also increased incomes. In addition to this the program is also aimed at promoting unity and reconciliation among Ravandans based on the cultural principle. It is a cultural practice that we saw that if a cow is given from one person to another it establishes trust and respect between the giver and the beneficiary. So under this scheme a cow is donated to each household. The first calf produced by the cow is then given to the government. Then the government donates it to other villages who do not have a cow. So this works like a chain. This Ravandan model creates a network of employment. This scheme also helped to ensure that cow livestock and milk production became part of the rural economy of Ravanda. Now also remember that in July 2018 our prime minister visited Ravanda. At that time he donated 250 cows to Ravanda as a part of this program. So just remember this Girinaka model. So whenever you are studying about some new country try to know one or more important geographical features of that country. So let us see in brief about Ravanda. Ravanda is a landlocked country. It is situated in Central Africa. This country lies to the south of Equita and also know that the tropic of Capricorn does not pass through Ravanda. Ravanda is bordered by Uganda to the north, Tanzania to the east, Burundi to the south and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the west. Then know that Kigali is the capital of Ravanda. The population is predominantly female. Female are 51.8 percentage of the total population. And whenever you study about Ravanda know about Ravanda genocide of 1994. The population of Ravanda consists of two communities. One is Hutu and other one is Tutsi. Hutus are the majority and Tutsi are in minority. About 85 percentage of Ravandans are Hutus but the Tutsi minority dominated the country for a long time. In the year 1959 the Hutus overthrew the Tutsi minority and many Tutsis fled to neighboring countries including Uganda. Then in the year 1962 Ravanda got independence from Belgium. At the same time Tutsis formed a rebel group called as Ravandan patriotic front. In the year 1992 these rebels fought against Ravanda and a ceasefire agreement was signed between the Hutu majority government and the Tutsi rebels. But the Hutu extremists were not happy. This led to killing of people belonging to Tutsi. It is said that more than 8 lakh people were killed in this mass genocide. After this the Tutsis won the war and they started to rule Ravanda. If you are interested to know more about this Ravandan genocide you can watch a Hollywood movie named Hotel Ravanda which is based on this genocide. With this we have come to the end of this article discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next article discussion which is based on an editorial about reducing the global greenhouse gas emissions. The discussion can be linked to the syllabus that is given here for your reference. We know that climate change is a global problem. It affects the entire population of the world. So a global problem requires a global solution. It is because even the recent intergovernmental panel on climate change report that is the IPCC report it was stated that humankind has just a decade or more left to limit the global warming. That is we have some 10 or more years to limit global warming. The report says that the total global greenhouse gas emissions need to reduce by 45 percentage from levels and this has to be done by the year 2030 and by the year 2050 the global emissions have to reach net zero. Net zero emission means that all man-made greenhouse gas emissions must be removed from the atmosphere through reduction measures. It means for every ton of carbon dioxide we emit it must be matched by a ton that we have to remove from the atmosphere. The authors of this editorial are saying that there will be disastrous consequences if these targets are not met and the most affected by these disastrous consequences will be the densely populated tropical regions of the world and these regions are mainly concentrated in the global south which has the developing and underdeveloped countries. The global south already have a very high temperature and their low altitudes will make them vulnerable to sea level rising and floods also if these targets are not met. But if you see actually the countries in the global south have contributed very less to global emissions as compared to the global north because the global north consists of most developed industrial countries such as USA. Even at present the per capita carbon emissions of global south are much lesser and smaller in comparison to the countries that are in the global north. So the global south is at the receiving end that is the global south will suffer for the choices that are made by the global north. The authors note that a global consensus on the mitigation or reduction of emissions is still missing. So we need a collective agreement to reduce further damage to the environment. Hence to avoid this global danger both the global north and global south need to contribute based on their self-interest. But the burden of adjusting to climate change cannot be equal between the global north and global south because they have different historical contributions in emissions that is the emissions post industrialization are unequal. This is depicted in the climate injustice funnel that is given in the news article. This picture shows that as the income level increases their per capita emission of carbon dioxide also increases manifold that is it increases in multiples. So the author believes that a just or fair or equitable approach would involve a global sharing of responsibility among the countries according to their respective shares in global emissions. But at present the most accepted mitigating strategy is carbon trading process. According to the authors this process has certain limitations. So the author proposes an alternative. The alternative is the just energy transition or in short jet. Jet is based on a sense of global justice in terms of climatic fallouts that is in terms of bad events and it is based on respective contributions of the countries to global emissions. The authors believes that this would help the resource poor developing countries and underdeveloped countries to make an energy transition and they can make this energy transition without worrying about expenses. The authors discuss certain strategies that would help us to make the planet a better place to live for the future generations without doing injustice to the poor countries. In this first comes the fundamental change in energy infrastructure. It requires massive investments for green energy program across the world. The authors proposes a new global green deal to finance this project. This means countries on the top of the climate injustice funnel can partially support the transition for the countries at the bottom of the funnel. So the countries at the top have to fund their own energy transition and they have to also fund for the energy transition of the countries at the bottom of the funnel. This sharing of burden will help to invert the injustice funnel. According to the authors a successful transition to greener energy program needs countries to spend around 1.5 percentage of their GDP. So they propose financing the global energy transition through a global carbon tax. See according to the authors the total global carbon emissions are 36.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. Now this would amount to a global carbon tax of 46.1 dollars per metric ton. So for imposing this global carbon tax the world countries can be classified into two. One those who emits above the global per capita average emissions and second those who emits below the global per capita average emissions. Those who emits above have to pay for their own transition plus they have to fund part of the energy transition for the countries who emits below. So the sharing of global carbon tax would compensate the climate injustice towards the global south. Because the global south contains the developing and underdeveloped countries who have historically contributed less to the global carbon emissions. If this is implemented on an overall the entire earth would become greener. Now under this method the countries can be divided into payers and beneficiaries. At present the global average of carbon emissions is 4.97 metric ton per capita. So all the countries with emissions above this level are payers who will finance energy transition. In this level there are total 68 countries and the countries which emit below this level are called as beneficiaries and in this there are total 135 countries. They are called as beneficiaries because they will receive funds from the payers. So the amount which will be given by the payers to beneficiaries can be called as a carbon compensation and the author says that the total amount of carbon compensation made by the payer nations is around $570 billion. The payer countries will have to contribute this fund according to their emission levels as compared to the global average. So country with more emission pays more. Then the compensated countries will receive this fund based on how lower their emissions are in comparison to the global average. So low emitting country will get more compensation. So by adding or subtracting the carbon compensation amount to or from the payer and beneficiary country respectively we will get the effective carbon tax for them. According to the authors USA and China are the top two payer countries. This is due to their large amount of emissions. But the author says that despite being a payer country the effective tax rate for China is lower than the possible universal tax that is it is lower than $46.1 per metric ton. According to the authors China's own energy transition by spending 1.5 percentage of its GDP and the global compensation requires China to pay only $34.4 per metric ton which is much lesser than $46.1 per metric ton. Then in terms of the countries who will be compensated that is the beneficiary countries India comes at the top. This is due to the population size of our country and also due to the distance from the global emissions average whichever country has because India has a per capita emission of 1.73 metric tons only. But we saw that global average is 4.97 metric ton per capita. So you can see the difference here that is why India will be at the top to receive the compensation and the authors are saying that most of the beneficiaries are from the global south and in the beneficiary list some northern countries like France, Sweden and Switzerland is also included. It is because these countries have kept their per capita emissions low like the beneficiaries. This means that even high income countries like France, Sweden and Switzerland can be beneficiaries if they lower their per capita emissions if we follow this just policy. So we can say that according to this policy China is in the payer list and some other first world countries are in the beneficiary list. So the policy wants countries to climb down the emission ladder without having to give up their standard of living that is they have to reduce their emissions without giving up their standard of living. So the authors conclude this article by saying that this global carbon tax is a global green robin hood tax because this global carbon tax will take from the rich and it will give it to the needy like the robin hood. With this we have come to the end of this article discussion. Moving on to the next article discussion which is about the report of OPEC. The syllabus relevant to the analysis of this news article is given here for your reference. First know that OPEC is the acronym for Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. It releases a monthly report in the newspaper it is mentioned as World Oil Demand Report but know that the actual report name is Monthly Oil Market Report. In this report there is a chapter on World Oil Demand so it is wrongly mentioned in the newspaper. First let us see the news article and then we will see about OPEC. This report has said that even though India's growth or economic expansion has slowed down there will not be any slowdown in India's demand for oil. It means that India's oil demand will increase this year as well. At present as on July 2019 India's oil consumption is 4.44 million barrels per day. It is projected to rise by 3.21 percentage. So by the end of 2019 India's oil consumption will be 4.88 million barrels per day and in the year 2020 it will again rise by 3.36 percentage. So India will be consuming 5.05 million barrels per day. From this we can see that India's oil demand will only increase and there is no sign of decrease in this. If we see in terms of growth in demand India will be ahead of China since China's oil demand is slightly lower when compared to India. But if you see USA is the largest oil consumer in the world and the second largest oil consumer is China. The report also mentions that the world oil demand is expected to grow by 1.02 million barrels per day in the year 2019. Before this report it was projected that the world oil demand would be expected to grow by 1.1 million barrels per day in the year 2019. So we can see that the present projections have lowered. The present projections are low because the oil demand has reduced in many countries in the first half of the financial year 2019. In addition to this low economic growth is projected in many of the nations. So the oil demand projections have been lowered by OPEC. See even Indian economy is growing slower India's GDP growth slowed down to 5 percentage in the first quarter of the financial year 2019 to 20 that is in the months of April to June. Whereas if you see the growth in the first quarter in the previous financial year that is in the year 2018 to 2019 it was 8 percentage. So we can see that there is an economic slowdown in India. So now let us discuss about OPEC in brief. As we saw earlier OPEC stands for Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. It is a permanent intergovernmental organization of 14 oil exporting developing nations. It was created in the year 1960 at the Baghdad conference. It was created by five countries. They are Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. All these five countries are the founding members of OPEC. Now it has 14 members. So the other members are Algeria, Angola, Congo, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Nigeria and United Arab Emirates. If you see before 2019 Qatar was also a member of OPEC but Qatar left OPEC on January 2019. There are also other oil exporting nations. They join OPEC meetings as observers. The main mission of OPEC is that its member countries should act in a coordinated manner to ensure that they remain stable so that there is an efficient economic and regular supply of petroleum to the consumers. Also it will ensure steady income to the oil producers. It will also ensure the business interests of the investors in the petroleum industries. I also remember that the headquarters of OPEC is located in Vienna in Austria. The executive organ of OPEC is the OPEC secretariat. It is also located in Vienna. Recently we saw Vienna in the context of Global Livability Index of 2019. In this Vienna topped the index and it was ranked as the most livable out of the 140 cities that were surveyed. Whenever we study about these kinds of organizations we should also know what are the reports they release. So remember that World Oil Outlook is released by OPEC. With this we have come to the end of this article discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. This news article is about a new species named as cryodrakin boreas. The syllabus relevant to the analysis of this news article is given here for your reference. The news article states that scientists have recently discovered a new species of pterosaur called as cryodrakin boreas. A pterosaur is an extinct flying reptile which has a featherless wing membrane that is extending from the side of the body along the arm. The pterosaurs existed during the late Triassic period throughout the Jurassic period and most of the Cretaceous period. That means they were present in the most of the Mesozoic era because Triassic period was the first period of the Mesozoic era and it occurred between 251 million and 199 million years ago and the Jurassic period was the second segment of the Mesozoic era. It occurred from 199.6 to 145.5 million years ago and the Jurassic period was between the Triassic period and the Cretaceous period. The Cretaceous period was the last and the longest segment of the Mesozoic era. It lasted for approximately 79 million years. So, now a new species of pterosaur has been discovered by the scientists. This cryodrakin boreas were a size of an airplane. This plane-sized reptiles had a wingspan of 10 meter and they weighed around 250 kilograms. Scientists call this discovery as a great discovery because it helped them to identify cryodrakin as being distinct from Quetzalcoatlus. This Quetzalcoatlus is another giant pterosaur and initially the scientists mistook cryodrakin as Quetzalcoatlus. The scientists are saying that cryodrakin boreas ruled over primal or the ancient skies above the T. rex, triceratops and other dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period. Know that T. rex lived throughout what is now we know as western North America during the Cretaceous period. The scientists are saying that the cryodrakin boreas was hiding in a plain site, meaning that the species was there but they failed to identify it as a separate species. They are saying this because the remains of cryodrakin boreas was first discovered almost 30 years ago in Alberta which is in Canada. So the scientists are saying that even after finding the remains of cryodrakin boreas before 30 years ago itself it did not cause much excitement because of the misclassification. Now after they got a closer look at the fossil remains it helped them to realize that it was a new species. According to the scientists this cryodrakin boreas lived almost 77 million years ago and it had a similar food habit like other winged reptiles which lived during the same period and this cryodrakin boreas was a carnivorous and it probably fed on lizards small mammals and even baby dinosaurs. With this we have come to the end of this news article discussion. Moving on to the last article discussion for the day which is about Mental Health Care Act of 2017. The syllabus relevant to the analysis of this news article is given here for your reference. The mental health care act is in effect since April 2017. It is an act for the persons with mental illness. It will provide mental health care and services to those persons who are suffering from mental illness. This act will also protect promote and fulfill the rights of such persons during the delivery of the mental health care and services. Now also know that the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities was adopted by United Nations on 13th December 2006. This convention entered into force on 3rd May 2008 and India is a signatory to this convention. India ratified this convention on 1st October 2007. As per the article 4 of this convention it is necessary to align and harmonize the existing national laws with the said convention. In accordance with this the Mental Health Care Act of 2017 came into force. In this act the term mental illness has been defined. According to this act mental illness means a substantial disorder of thinking, mood, perception, orientation or disorder in memory of any individual. When there are such disorders it would impair that is it would weaken or damage the judgment behavior and capacity to recognize the reality or it will damage the ability to meet the ordinary demands of that individual's life. And the definition for this mental illness also includes the mental conditions that are associated with the abuse of alcohol and drugs. This act also mentions that mental illness does not include mental retardation. Mental retardation is a condition of arrested or incomplete development of mind of a person. It is specially characterized by subnormality of intelligence that is who are having low IQ levels. So from this definition we can see that mental illness also includes the mental conditions that are associated with the abuse of alcohol and drugs. So now let us come to the news article. In May 2019 around 23 inmates that is those persons who lived in an illegal de-addiction center in Pinjore were rescued by Haryana Police. All of them were addicted to drugs. After being rescued these inmates were shifted to the government de-addiction center so as to treat them for the mental conditions that is associated with the abuse of drugs. The news article mentions that Haryana Police has pioneered or they are the first to start registering a case under Mental Health Care Act of 2017. They have registered a case under section 100 of this act. Section 100 of this act mandates protection and rehabilitation of a person with mental illness who is found wandering or otherwise. This section also explains the duties of the police officer about how they have to deal with the persons with mental illness. Then the subsection 1 clause A of this section states that every police officer who is in charge of a police station shall have a duty to take under protection any person who is found wandering within the limits of the police station. If the police officer has a reason to believe that that particular person has a mental illness and he or she is incapable of taking care of himself or herself. Then subsection 1 clause B of this section states that every officer in charge of the police station shall have a duty to take under protection any person within the limits of the police station if the officer has a reason to believe that the person might be a risk to himself or others by the reason of mental illness. So these are the two conditions under which a police officer can take any person under their protection. Then subsection 4 of section 100 states that such persons shall not be detained in the police lockup or they shall not be detained in prison in any circumstances. And subsection 7 of this section states that in case of a person who has mental illness, if that person is homeless and is found wandering in the community then a first information report that is FIR of a missing person shall be lodged at the concerned police station and the station house officer shall have a duty to trace the family of such person and they have to inform the family about the whereabouts of this particular person. So these are some of the rights with respect to the persons with mental illness. With this we have come to the end of news article discussion session. The respite practice question will be discussed in the next session. We have come to the last session for the day that is the practice questions discussion session. This first question is about e-cigarettes. Three statements have been given and we have to choose the correct statement. If you look at the first statement it can be divided into two parts. The first part is e-cigarettes are battery-powered devices which are used to smoke. Now this part is correct. We saw this during our discussion and the second part says it does not contain nicotine. Now this part is wrong because e-cigarettes are made up of flavored solution which contains a varying concentration of nicotine. So this means statement one is wrong. So you can eliminate option A and option B which contains statement one. Now the second statement is a bit confusing because you may not be sure whether e-cigarettes contain these that is whether it contains acetaldehyde, formaldehyde and acetone and you may not be also sure whether they are carcinogens that is whether they cause cancer or not and we may not always remember every detail about a topic. So in this situation if you see the remaining options C and D in both these options statement two is mentioned and only one option contains statement three. So this means based on this question statement two should be correct and just now we have to say whether statement three is correct or not. The statement three states the use of nicotine as an ingredient in any food item is prohibited under the Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006. Now during discussion we saw that use of nicotine as an ingredient in any food item is prohibited under the Food Safety and Standards prohibition and restrictions on sales regulation of 2011 and this regulation comes under Food Safety and Standards Act of 2006. So this means it is also prohibited under this act so this makes this statement as a correct statement. So finally we can arrive at the option D, two and three as the correct answer to this question but also remember that e-cigarettes contain acetaldehyde, formaldehyde and acetone and all these three are carcinogens that is they are cancer causing elements. If you look at this next question it is about National Animal Disease Control Program. The question asks this program aims to eradicate which of the following diseases in livestock? Three diseases have been given one is foot and mouth disease, second is anthrax and third is brucellosis. Now today during our discussion we saw about foot and mouth disease and brucellosis and here anthrax is an infectious zoonotic disease which means it can be transferred from animals to humans. It is caused by a bacterium called as bacillus anthracis and this anthrax disease is not covered under this National Animal Disease Control Program. So you can eliminate option B and D and we know that foot and mouth disease and brucellosis are included in this program. So the correct answer to this question is option C one and three only. Now the next question asks equator does not pass through which of the following countries? Five countries have been given. We have to choose the correct answer from these codes. Now here first option given is India. We know that equator does not pass through India. India lies north of equator. So this means equator does not pass through India and the question asks for those countries through which equator does not pass through. This means the final answer should contain code one that means we can eliminate C and D directly. From the available options we have to just say that whether through Rwanda equator passes or not. During discussion we also saw that Rwanda lies south of equator. So this means even through Rwanda equator does not pass through. So the correct answer to this question is option B one and two only. Now also know that equator passes through 13 countries. As you can see in this map it passes through equator, Colombia, Brazil, Gabon, Satom and Prinsip, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Somalia, Kenya, Maldives, Indonesia and Kiribati. Now this next question is based on organization of petroleum exporting countries that is OPEC. The question asks which of the following countries are the members of OPEC. Four countries have been given and we have to choose the correct answer from the code given below. Now in this options India is also given. OPEC is an organization of petroleum exporting countries and we know that India usually imports high quantities of petroleum and is depending on the petroleum exporting nations for its energy needs. So this means we can eliminate India. So this means from the options India can be eliminated. That means the final answer should not contain option three. So we can eliminate options C and D. Now the remaining three options are Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran. If you would have answered this question last year then the final correct answer to this question would be option B one, two and four only. But Qatar left OPEC on January 2019. It is not a member currently. So we have to eliminate Qatar also. So the final correct answer to this question is option A one and four only. Also remember that along with Saudi Arabia and Iran Iraq, Kuwait and Venezuela are the founding members and the other members are Algeria, Angola, Congo, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Nigeria and United Arab Emirates. Now in this question two statements have been given and we have to choose the correct statements. First statement states India has a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Now this statement is correct. India has not only a signatory but India also ratified this convention in the year 2007 and this convention was adopted by United Nations in the year 2006 and it it came into force in 2008. So this statement is correct. Now the second statement states based on the convention requirements India enacted the Mental Health Care Act of 2017 an act to provide for mental health care and services for persons with mental illness. We know that it is an act which provides for mental health care and services for persons with mental illness. So this part of the question is correct. Now we have to know whether this act was enacted based on this convention. Yes it was enacted based on the article four of this convention because the article four of the convention says that it is necessary to align and harmonize the existing national laws with this convention. So in accordance with this the mental health care act of 2017 came into force. So this means both the statements are correct. So the final correct answer to this question is option C both one and two. With this we have come to the end of today's sessions. If you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to Shankar IAC Academy YouTube channel for more updates on civil service examination preparation.