 A very good evening aspirants, welcome to Hindi newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankarae's Academy for the date 11th of April 2022. Displayed here are the list of articles that we are going to discuss today. Without any delay, let's get into the article discussion. Look at this article here, it states that 19 Sri Lankan citizens reached Dhanushkodi illegally in two vessels on Sunday. See, they were fleeing Sri Lanka because of the worsening economic crisis. See, the article also mentions that already 20 persons from Sri Lanka have arrived in the last 15 to 20 days. And this is the essence of the news article given here. In this context, let us see who are refugees, various instances where India received the influx of refugees and the impact of refugee influx on India. First of all, who are refugees? See, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, that is the UNHCR, refugees are people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and have crossed an international border to find safety in another country. See, the refugees are unable or unwilling to return to their own country due to various reasons like the fear of being persecuted due to their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. And this is the UNHCR definition of refugees. So, basically, refugees are displaced people who have crossed the international borders due to various reasons. And now, I hope you have a basic understanding of who a refugee is. And now, let's see how a refugee is different from an asylum seeker and a migrant. See, according to Amnesty International, an asylum seeker is a person who has left their country and is seeking protection from persecution and serious human rights violations in another country. See, the difference between an asylum seeker and a migrant is that an asylum seeker becomes a refugee once he is legally recognized. So, when people move from one country to another country and that too, due to the fear of persecution, they are initially called as asylum seekers. And once they are legally recognized, they are called refugees. Now, who are migrants? See, there is no internationally accepted definition for migrants. But according to Amnesty International, people staying outside their country of origin and who are not officially classified as refugees or asylum seekers are called as migrants. So, basically, people who are other than refugees or asylum seekers, they are called as migrants. See, we saw that refugees move from their own country to another country due to war, violence, conflict or persecution, right? Likewise, migrants move to another country due to various reasons. We'll see what they are. They move to find work, to study, to escape poverty, to escape natural disaster. See, recently, there is a new category of migrants called the environmental migrants and environmental migrants are people who flee their country of origin due to climate change. And after looking at these definitions, we can understand that the 19 people who arrived in India from Sri Lanka, they are not refugees, but they are migrants who are fleeing from poverty in Sri Lanka. See, the migrants can also be divided into two, legal migrants and the illegal migrants. Legal migrants are people who are not in violation of migration laws of the country to which they migrate to. Let us take the example that is given in the article itself. 19 people have moved from Sri Lanka to India, right? So, these people, if they do not violate the migration laws of India, they are called legal migrants. While illegal migrants are the people who are in violation of migration laws of the country to which they migrate to. Since the illegal migrants lack the legal documents, they are also called as undocumented migrants. And having understood the difference between refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, now let us see various instances when India received asylum seekers. See, here I have deliberately used the word asylum seekers instead of refugees because until they are given the refugee status by India, they cannot be called as refugees. Now, let us see the different instances where India received refugees. The first one is when independent India received refugees during partition. See, legally, they cannot be called as refugees because the people who migrated from Pakistan to India during partition did not lose their citizenship and they continued to be Indian citizens. Colloquially, they were called as refugees because they were forced to live like refugees in refugee camps. Now, moving to the next instance, and this is when India received a huge influx of people in 1959. See, in 1959, there was a Tibetan uprising against China. China quashed the uprising in a brutal manner and to escape the prosecution by Chinese government in 1959, the Dalai Lama along with more than one lakh followers, they fled Tibet and came to India seeking political asylum. See, India also provided them with the refugee status but this move by India proved costly. See, we all know this was one of the reasons for 1962 Indochina war and that's it about the influx of refugees in the year 1959. Now, moving on to the next instance, see the next major influx happened during 1971 which was the Bangladesh war of independence. Millions of people migrated from the country to India fleeing the conflict between the Pakistan army and the Bangladeshi forces. India, citing the uncontrolled influx of people, went into the war and played a significant role in the independence of Bangladesh. Then in 1979, India received people from Afghanistan. We know that in 1979, Russia invaded Afghanistan, right? People came to India fleeing Russian prosecution. Small groups of Afghan refugees kept coming to India in the subsequent years also. See, these refugees are mostly concentrated in and around Delhi. Now, the next influx and it is due to the Sri Lankan civil war. More than 1.34 lakh Sri Lankan tummels crossed the park straight to India between 1983 and 1987 alone. In three more phases, many more refugees entered India. The war-torn Sri Lankans sought refuge in southern India with more than 60,000 refugees currently staying in one out nine camps in Tamil Nadu alone. See, very recently in the year 2017, there was a huge influx of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar due to the political repression they faced. See, in this case, the office of UNHCR has issued identity cards to about 16,500 Rohingya in India. The issuing of identity cards will help prevent harassment, arbitrary arrest, detention and deportation of refugees. India, on its part, categorized the Rohingya Muslims as illegal migrants and India also appealed to Myanmar to take back its citizens. And finally, let us see about the Chakma and Hajong communities. See, they are ethnic people who lived in Chittagong Hill Tracks, most of which are located in Bangladesh. In this, the Chakmas are predominantly Buddhists and Hajongs are Hindus. They fled erstwhile east Pakistan, that is the Bangladesh, in the year 1964 to 65, and they came to India and settled in Arunachal Pradesh. They have been living as refugees in India for more than five decades. Recently, in the year 2015, the Supreme Court of India had directed the central government to give citizenship to both Chakma and Hajong refugees. So, these are the instances when independent India received a large influx of people. So far, we have seen the definition of refugee by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and we saw about asylum seeker and migrants. We saw two categories of migrants, that is the legal migrants and illegal migrants and we saw different instances where India received influx of refugees. The first one is during partition of India-Pakistan. The next one in the year 1959, when Tibet fought against China and the next one is in the year 1971, that is the Bangladesh War of Independence. And the next one in the year 1979, when Russia invaded Afghanistan and the next influx is between the years 1983 to 1987, this is due to Sri Lankan Civil War and the most recent one is influx of Rohingya Muslims that was in the year 2017. Now, having seen this, let us see the impacts of the influx of refugees on India. First of all, let us take up the economic impacts. See, a large-scale inflow of refugees can overburden local financial and administrative capacities. This might create social tensions in areas where the refugees are located. In addition to this, a huge influx of people will result in supply-side shock in the local labour market. See, this will bring down the wage rate due to the sudden increase in the labour supply. This will result in local unskilled workers or the semi-skilled workers losing their bargaining power at their jobs. See, this is one impact. See, we all know the refugees will spend their money to get access to goods and services, right? This will increase the demand locally. So, while the local labourers lose their job due to the influx of refugees, the local business stands to gain. So, by this, we understand that there is also a benefit in this. And these are the economic impacts. Now, let us see the social impacts. See, in the case of Bangladesh refugees, they are still not completely integrated in Indian society. This has often resulted in conflict. See, the conflict is fiercest in a number of northeastern states such as Assam, Tripura and Manipur. The local communities and the tribal groups have alleged that refugees from Bangladesh and the continuous flow of illegal migrants have led to change in the social demography of that area. So, what does this mean? This means the locals become a minority in their own homeland. This is one of the adverse impacts of the inflow of refugees. See, people's movements also result in some unique demographic changes. Consider the partition of India. After partition and the associated migration, the literacy rate in Delhi and areas around Delhi increased. This is because during partition, Muslims who moved to Pakistan were from the lower ranges of the society. But Muslims with education and social capital stayed back in India. Also, the Hindu migrants who came from the Pakistan were mostly literates. So, after the partition of India due to this phenomenon, the literacy level increased in Delhi and areas around Delhi. And these are some of the social and demographic impacts of refugees in India. And with this, we have come to the end of the discussion. We'll have a quick recap. What all we saw? We saw the UNHCR definition of refugee who are people who have fled war violence conflict or persecution and have crossed an international border to find safety in another country. And we saw the definition of asylum seeker according to Amnesty International. He or she is a person who has left their country and is seeking protection from persecution and serious human rights violation. We also saw that an asylum seeker becomes a refugee once he is legally recognized. And migrants are the ones who stay outside their country of origin due to various reasons like work, education, poverty, natural disaster, etc. And we saw different instances where India received a huge amount of refugees into its territory. The first instance is during partition that is the India-Pakistan partition. The next one is 1959, Tibet uprising against China. The next one is 1971, Bangladesh war of independence. And the next one is 1979, Russian invasion of Afghanistan. The next one is between the years 1983 to 1987 which is due to Sri Lankan civil war and the recent one is in the year 2017 which is the influx of Rohingya Muslims. After that we saw some of the impacts of the influx of refugees on India. We saw economic and social impacts. The first one is it can over burden the local financial and administrative capacities. It will affect the bargaining power of the unskilled and semi-skilled workers in the local area but the local business will gain because of the increased demand by the refugees. See the social impact is that the demography of a particular area will change. We saw that locals will become a minority in their own homeland. And there are also positive impacts due to the influx of the refugees. We saw an example during partition. We saw that during partition Muslims who have moved to Pakistan were from the lower range of the society and the Muslim with education and social capital stayed back. Likewise Hindu immigrants who came from Pakistan were mostly literates. So this changed the demography in a positive way. And with these points in mind now let's move on to the next article discussion. Take a look at this news article. See according to this news article the Kerala State Electricity Board is preparing to hold the referendum of trade unions on April 28. This referendum is conducted to decide the eligibility of trade unions. And this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context let us quickly go through what is referendum and its purpose and along with that we shall see other devices of direct democracy. See as you know democracies of two types direct and indirect. In direct democracy people exercise their supreme power directly as in the case of Switzerland. And to exercise such supreme power people use four devices of direct democracy namely referendum, initiative, recall and plebiscite. We'll see what they are but before that we'll see about indirect democracy. See in indirect democracy the representatives elected by the people exercise the supreme power. And thus they carry on the government and make the loss. And this type of democracy is also known as the representative democracy and it is of two kinds parliamentary and presidential. See Indian constitution provides for representative parliamentary democracy under which the executive is responsible to the legislature for all its policies and actions. Universal adult franchise, periodic elections, rule of law, independence of judiciary, absence of discrimination on certain grounds are the manifestations of the democratic character of Indian polity. And with this basic understanding now let us see the four devices of the direct democracy. The first one is referendum. See it is a procedure whereby a proposed legislation is referred to the electorate for settlement by direct votes. In simple words it is an occasion when all the people of the country can vote on a particular political question. And this is what a referendum is. Now moving on to the next one, initiative. See it is a method by means of which the people can propose a bill to the legislature for enactment. Any proposed law can be put on the ballot in an election and to do this petitions have to be signed by a certain portion of the voters. If the petitions are approved and the signatures are valid the proposal can be voted on. If it passes it becomes a law. Sometimes initiatives are first submitted to the legislature itself. If they are passed there they become the law without the need for a popular vote. If they fail they may be submitted directly to a vote by the public who may overwrite the action of the legislature. And this is what an initiative is. Now let's see about recall. It is a method by means of which the voters can remove a representative or an officer before the expiry of his term. And that too when he fails to discharge his duties properly. It is based on the principle that office holders or the agents of the popular will that is the people's will and they should be constantly subject to its control. Now let's move on to the final one which is the plebiscite. See it is a method of up chaining the opinion of people on any issue of public importance. See it is generally used to solve the territorial disputes. For example after the partition of India and Pakistan in the year 1947 the Indian government made consistent efforts to persuade the Nawab of Jinnagar to accede to India but he did not agree. The Nawab wanted to join Pakistan. So to resolve this issue on 24th February 1948 a plebiscite was held. And in that 99 percentage of the predominantly Hindu population of Jinnagar voted to join India. And this is how Jinnagar became part of India. And with this we have also come to the end of the article discussion. We will have a quick recap. We saw about two types of democracy which is direct and indirect. In direct democracy people exercise supreme power. In indirect democracy the representatives elected by the people those representatives enjoy the supreme power. They run the government and they make the laws. And after that we saw four devices of direct democracy referendum initiative recall and plebiscite. Referendum is a procedure by which a proposed legislation is referred to the electorate that is the voters for settlement by their direct votes. Initiative is a method by which people propose a bill to the legislature for enactment. It can be put on ballot for election. It can be submitted to the legislature in the first instance. If it is passed in the legislature it becomes law without the popular vote. If it fails there it is put to vote by the public which overwrite the action of the legislature. And the recall it is a method by which voters can remove the representative or an office holder before the expiry of the term when he fails to discharge his duties properly. And finally plebiscite is a method of up chaining the opinion of people on any issue of public importance. We saw the example of how junagath joined India. And with these points in mind now let's move on to the next article discussion. Take a look at this editorial article here. See this article talks about India's role in the current disordered world. See due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war western nations have decided to throw Russia out of the G20 and China has opposed this move. And between this India will be the chair of the G20 from December 1 2022. See the world is greatly disordered and in this situation what should India stand for is the biggest question. Let us find the answer from this editorial. But before that the syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference please go through it. See according to the author the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war is not the only instance in which the institutions of global governance have failed to unite the world. There remain many other instances. For example, summit after summit being held on the global climate crisis. But no proper solution has been found in resolving the global climate crisis. Secondly, there was a vaccination divide between the rich and poor countries. We know that the countries which could afford the vaccination, they hoarded the vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic while the poor countries they starved without the vaccinations. This is the second instance. Thirdly, in a funny note the author says that the World Trade Organization was already in ICU before the novel coronavirus pandemic and this is due to the sad reality that despite being an institution of global governance it could not arrive at an equitable rule between rich and poor countries when the global supply chains were frozen by COVID-19. Upon all these the war in the Ukraine in February 2022 has put the final nail in the coffin of the boundaryless global economy. Now in this next segment the author quotes some of the other instances to show how the global governance is not democratic. We'll see them in detail. See the war is not something new the world is facing. If you can recall millions of civilians died in the Second World War and the war came to an end with two nuclear bombs to terrorize the Japanese government into submission which erased two Japanese cities and killed thousands of civilians. See the victors of the war declared that never again. This means a war like this and in this intensity will never happen and to reaffirm this new institutions for global governance were established like the United Nations to maintain international peace and security the general agreement on tariffs and trade to take off non-interrupted global trade and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to provide finance to build the economies of all countries to eliminate poverty. However the victors retained their veto power within the United Nations Security Council and this is to determine when force can be used to keep the world in order and to prevent the proliferation of nuclear power outside their small circle. See this is because they could not trust other countries to use it wisely. They also control the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. See apart from this as you know the UN General Assembly meets every year and it has 193 member nations. It passes many resolutions to address global problems such as hunger, poverty, women's rights, terrorism, climate change etc. However the members of the Security Council retain their right to deny the democratic will of the assembly when it does not suit them. In such cases global governance is not democratic. For example if the leader of any member country overrules the resolution of its own parliament he would be branded as an undemocratic dictator. Armed interventions and sanctions will be imposed on such countries with the authorization of the Security Council. See these actions will be taken in the name of restoring democracy in those countries but according to the author these situations make a mockery of the global democracy. And thirdly an organization called G7 was formed in the year 1976 by the non-communist powers that is the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan, West Germany and Canada. It was formed so that the non-communist power could come together to discuss the economic concerns like inflation and recession at that time. Russia joined the organization in 1998 and its inclusion was meant as a signal of cooperation between East and West after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. However Russia was thrown out in the year 2014 when it invaded the Crimea. China was never a member of this G7. Later after the victory of Washington Consensus in 1991 the rapid development of global finance and trade they created instabilities in developing countries. See Washington Consensus is nothing but a set of 10 economic policy prescriptions considered to constitute the standard reform package promoted for the crisis racked developing countries by Washington DC based institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, United States Department of the Treasury. So this is what is Washington Consensus. See the prescriptions encompassed free market promoting policies in areas such as macroeconomic stabilization, economic opening with respect to both trade and investment, the expansion of market forces within the domestic economy. This actually created instabilities in the developing countries. This was followed by Asian financial crisis in 1999 which led to the formation of G20. See G20 was formed with the goal of discussing strategies to achieve international financial stability. Now the western nations want to throw Russia out of the G20. China has opposed them. So here the question is will India be the chair of G20 from December 2022 or will it be G19 by then. Meanwhile officials from the United States and the United Kingdom are urging India to support their sanctions against Russia. So far India has refused to be intimidated. See according to the author the rules of the governance of capitalist and the democratic institutions have always been in tension within societies. Capitalist institutions desire to be free of democratic rules in order to do business more easily. According to the author this has invariably increased the inequalities and increased the social tensions and sectarian conflicts which more elections cannot resolve democratically. So this raises the question of way forward which is what should be done. Firstly there is a need for redistribution of power. See power accumulates in societies by the principle of cumulative causation. That is those who already have more power from greater wealth or more education will use their power to not only improve the rules of the game but also ensure they remain in power. So there is a crucial need for redistribution of power within a society. Secondly all violence must stop. See to prevent violence it is essential that global governance becomes genuinely democratic. Countries must not attack each other. Instead they must be given the freedom to evolve their own democracies and economies and not be dictated by the others. The hypocrisy of undemocratic global dictators using their financial powers to impose sanctions to bring down their opponents must stop. And according to the author calling a democratic country like India to take their side must also come to an end. And with this we have come to the end of the article discussion. We will have a quick recap. So what all we saw? We saw how the global institutions of governance have failed to unite the world. The first instance is in spite of the summit being held on global climate crisis no proper solution has been found. Secondly there was a vaccination divide and thirdly the World Trade Organization could not arrive at an equitable rule between the rich and poor countries when the global supply chains were frozen by Covid-19. And after that we moved on to see some of the instances to show how the global governance is not democratic. The first one is the Second World War. The second one is the retention of power by the winners of Second World War in the name of United Nations Security Council and we also saw that they also control the World Bank IMF and WTO. We saw that how the UN General Assembly's resolution were curtailed by the Security Council because they read and they write to deny the democratic will of the assembly when it does not suit them. And finally we saw about the G7 organization and the membership of Russia in it. And after that we saw about the Washington Consensus in the year 1991 Asian financial crisis and the rules of governance of capitalistic and democratic institutions. See we saw that the capitalist institutions desire to be free of the democratic rules. But according to the author of the editorial this has increased the inequalities and increased social tensions and sectarian conflicts. And finally we ended our discussion with the way forward which is the need for redistribution of power and we saw that all violence must stop. And it is unfair to ask a democratic country like India to take sides also. With these points in mind now let's move on to the next article discussion. See this article here. See this article is an editorial article and it talks about the Monetary Policy Committee. See this committee comes under RBI. See RBI having known about the importance of curbing inflation that is stopping inflation it has put inflation before growth in the sequence of priorities. And this is because without curbing inflation sustainable growth cannot be promoted. And the Monetary Policy Committee has raised the inflation forecast and forecast is from 4.5 percentage to 5.7 percentage. And this is the cracks of the news article given here. In this context we are going to learn about the Monetary Policy Committee in detail. See it is useful for your problems also. See Monetary Policy Committee it was constituted by the central government. This was constituted under RBI Act 1934 and this is to determine the policy interest rate required to achieve the inflation target. Note that this committee is assisted by Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Department and this assistance is to formulate the monetary policy. And aspirants I have a little task for you here. Go and search who sets the inflation target. It will be useful for your problems also. Now coming back to the monetary policy what does monetary policy mean? See it refers to the use of monetary instruments under the control of the central bank. This is to regulate the magnitude such as interest rates, money supply and the availability of credit. All these are done to achieve the ultimate objective of economic policy. I hope you understand. Now let us see the composition of Monetary Policy Committee. See Monetary Policy Committee is a six member panel. It consists of three members from the RBI and three independent members. And these three independent members will be selected by the government. We will see who are these members. Firstly the governor of RBI serves as an ex-officio chairman. What does this mean? See the governor of RBI by default will become the chairperson of the Monetary Policy Committee. Secondly the deputy governor of the RBI he also serves as an ex-officio member and he is in charge of the Monetary Policy. Thirdly when officer from RBI he or she should be nominated by the central board of the RBI and he or she also serves as an ex-officio member of the Monetary Policy Committee. So these three members they are from the RBI. Now the three members who are the independent persons they are to be appointed by the central government right? Let us not go into the details of how they are appointed here because that is not necessary. Just know that three members are from RBI and three persons are appointed by the central government and they also serve as the members of the Monetary Policy Committee. See the Monetary Policy Committee is required to meet at least four times a year. That means they are meeting quarterly and the quorum for the meeting is four members. What is quorum here? The minimum attendance required to proceed with the meeting. See each member has one vote and in the event of an equality of votes the governor who is the chairperson of the committee has a second hour casting vote. And regarding the functions of the Monetary Policy Committee as I already said their main function is to determine the policy rate and to maintain the price stability and to achieve the inflation target. Additionally the important point to be noted here is that the decision of the Monetary Policy Committee will be binding on the bank and that is all about the article discussion. Now let's have a quick recap. See we saw about Monetary Policy Committee constituted by central government under RBI Act 1934. The aim is to determine the policy interest rate required to achieve the inflation target. It formulates the monetary policy and we moved on to see about the monetary policy which is the use of monetary instruments that are under the control of central bank. They will rise or decrease the interest rate with respect to the inflation target. And we moved on to see about the composition of Monetary Policy Committee. Three members from RBI, three independent members. Independent members are appointed by the central government. Governor of RBI serves as the chairperson deputy governor of RBI. He is in charge of monetary policy and one more officer from RBI nominated by the central board. He is also a member of the Monetary Policy Committee so totally six members. And we saw that MPC is required to meet at least four times in a year. The quorum is four members and each member has one vote. With these points in mind now let's move on to the next article discussion. See this news article here it talks about the recommendations of an expert appraisal committee of the central government. See the committee recommended environmental clearance to the national investment and manufacturing zone and this zone is located at about 120 kilometers from the state capital that is Delhi. So in this context let us know what is the meaning of certain terms like environmental clearance, environmental impact assessment and environment management plan. See these are important for your prelims so pay attention to this discussion. First of all let us know what is environmental clearance. See the advent of industrialization brought many changes in our lifestyle and the environment. And throughout these years the awareness towards environment and the concern for its protection has made the Indian constitution to enforce some laws and regulation towards this matter like environmental clearance. See it is nothing but a procedure to get clearance from the government for installation and modification of certain projects. It is mandatory for projects which can cause high environmental pollution and Indian constitution made a list of those projects under EIA notification 2006 which includes mining, thermal power plant, infrastructure etc. So basically environmental clearance is like a license you get from the government to do certain projects. Now let us see about the environmental impact assessment. See it is the process of evaluating the environmental impacts of the proposed project or the development. It also takes into account interrelated socio-economic, cultural, human health impacts. See here the impact is not just about the adverse impact it includes the beneficial ones also. Environment impact assessment in India is statutorily backed by the Environment Protection Act 1986 and this contains various provisions on EIA methodology and process. Why is this EIA important? See EIA links environment with the development for environmentally safe and sustainable development. Also it provides a cost effective method to eliminate or minimize the adverse impact of the development projects. And then EIA enables the decision makers to analyze the effect of the developmental activities on the environment well before the developmental project is implemented. Thus EIA encourages the adaptation of the mitigation strategies in the developmental plan itself and EIA makes sure that the developmental plan is environmentally sound and within the limits of the capacity of assimilation and regeneration of the ecosystem. So to summarize EIA it evaluates the impacts created by the proposed project. At the same time it also has the developmental plan for mitigation strategies. Now let us see about the environment management plan EMP. See EMP means a guidance document for the mitigation measures including prevention and control of each environmental component and also it includes rehabilitation and resettlement plan and thus the preparation of environmental managed plan it helps to reduce the impacts to a minimum and this is the reason for making EMP as a step in the environmental impact assessment project. So this is what happens EIA report will be formed and in that EIA report EMP that is the developmental plan will be a part of the EIA report and this EIA report is submitted to the government that is the environment ministry and the environmental clearance is obtained and with this we have come to the end of the discussion. Now let's have a quick recap we saw about environmental clearance it is nothing but a procedure to get clearance from the government for the installation and modification of certain projects. We saw about environmental impact assessment it is a process of evaluating the environmental impacts of a proposed project what all it takes into account it takes into account the socio-economic cultural human health impacts both the beneficial ones and the adverse ones. See it also contains developmental plan for mitigation strategies and that plan is called the environmental management plan see it is a guidance document for mitigation measures including prevention and control for each environmental component and with these points in mind now let's move on to the next article discussion. See this news article here see it talks about the leopards. In Odisha leopards are being lost to poaching this was very well indicated by the leopard hides seized by the Odisha special task force STF and the forest department together in the past two years. From this it is indicated that five percentage of the state's leopard population has already been poached thus a wildlife activist suggests the state government to come up with an action plan to reverse the trend also he says that the conviction rate should be improved and in this context today we shall see a few facts about the leopards their geographical range in India and in the world and reasons for their decline in the population and finally some suggestions to conserve the leopard population. See the leopard is the most widely distributed highly adaptable member of the family Felidae. See Felidae is usually a part of carnivores Felidae has 41 species ranging from large animals such as lion tiger to small animals such as domestic cat. As we saw before leopards are coming under this Felidae family with this basic understanding now let's see the geographical range of leopard. See historically the range of leopards spanned across sub Saharan area North Africa the Middle East South and Southeast Asia and Russian Far East you can see the spread in this map here however currently their distribution and numbers have significantly reduced across the range. See in this map itself it is given as extent that is live animals possibly extinct that is they are not in wild anymore and extent. So what might have led to this decline see it could be due to the human induced decline such as man-animal conflict poaching habitat loss less availability of prey wildlife trade and so on and with this understanding about the geographical range of leopards all over the world now let us discuss about the leopard population in India. See you should know that there are four sub-population in leopards they are the leopards in western Ghats region leopards in semi-arid region of Deccan Plateau then in Shivalik and leopards in Terai region in this map you can see the distribution of leopard population across the four geographic regions that are Terai, Shivalik, Deccan Plateau and western Ghats in India. See the decline in percentage of numbers of each sub-population is also estimated the Deccan Plateau, Shivalik and Terai sub-populations show 90 percentage, 90 percentage and 88 percentage decline in population size respectively whereas the western Ghats sub-population show relatively less decline in population size which is 75 percentage decline and here why western Ghats alone shows less population decline see western Ghats retains possibly the largest contiguous forested landscape with multiple interconnected protected areas and hence relatively less decline in leopard population whereas the other regions have a lot of human activities possibly affecting the leopard populations also living in them. See there is no major movement of leopards from one geographical region to other say for example from Terai to Shivalik or from Deccan to western Ghats are from western Ghats to Deccan western Ghats to Shivalik like this no major movement is seen in leopard population and because of this lack of movement there is restricted gene flow among the species and hence significant genetic variations are not seen. Now let's move on to see what are all the possible threats to the leopard population firstly the fragmentation of forest as well as the decline in the quality of forest lead to habitat loss and this causes the leopard population to decline and then comes the human-animal conflict and thirdly and most importantly poaching and lastly depletion of natural prey base which also causes decline in leopard population. Thus to address the decline in leopard population detailed landscape level ecological studies on leopard populations are very critical and apart from that an initiative similar to project tiger is required for arresting the decline in leopard population as well as the conservation of species oh yeah the conservation part is very important when it comes to problems you should know what is the IUCN status now let us see what it is see the IUCN status of leopard is vulnerable just know that the leopards are protected under schedule one of the wildlife protection act 1972 and leopards are also listed in appendix one of the sites and with this we have come to the end of the article discussion so we saw that leopard belongs to the family felidae they are carnivores historically they were present in sub-saharan area north Africa middle east south south east asia and russian far east but now the population and distribution have reduced significantly and this is due to a variety of factors such as man-animal conflict poaching habitat loss less availability of prey while life trade and after that we saw leopard population in India we saw there are four sub-population western guts region decan plateau shivalik and terai region and we also saw that leopard population is in decline in these areas and why is that the first reason is a fragmentation of forest human leopard conflict poaching depletion of natural prey and we ended our discussion by seeing the conservation status which is vulnerable according to the IUCN it is protected under schedule one of the wildlife protection act 1972 it is listed in appendix one of the sites and with these points in mind now let us move on to the next part of a discussion that is the practice prelims question discussion see we have five prelims question today as usual I have one quiz question for you now let's start solving the questions the first question consider the following statements about UN refugee convention 1951 statement 1951 was universally applicable when it was first established it is a legally binding document it is a signatory of the 1951 UN refugee convention which of the following statements is or are correct see the first statement here it is incorrect because UN refugee convention 1951 initially had limited geographical scope see initially its scope was limited to persons fleeing events occurring before january 1951 and within euro and it was only after the 1967 protocol the geographical and temporal boundaries of the convention was removed and this made the convention universally applicable so statement one is wrong statement two it is correct because it is legally binding now statement three it is also incorrect see India has not signed the 1951 refugee convention or its 1967 protocol India reminds one of the few liberal democracies which have not signed and supported or ratified the international convention although there is no official explanation for India not signing the convention it is believed that the chief reason is related to security issues we all know that south asian borders are porous and any conflict can cause a huge displacement of people and influx of people during such times can put a lot of strain on the resources of the local economy and also it can cause an imbalance in the delicate demography of the region then what is the right option the right option is option b 2 only now moving on to the second question which of the following are the devices of direct democracy aspirants this is the quiz question for you so read it carefully try to attempt the question and post your answer in the comment section statement one referendum statement two initiative statement three recall statement four plebiscite select the correct answer using the code given below one and two only one two and three only one two three and four only four and leave so it is a very easy question post your answer in the comment section now moving on to the third question consider the following statements with reference to monetary policy committee statement one they are constituted under the banking regulation act 1949 this statement is incorrect why because the monetary policy committee is constituted under the rba act of 1934 second statement they are assisted by the reserve banks monetary policy department this is true this we saw in our discussion itself statement three they determine policy interest rate to achieve the inflation target this is also true yes they determine the policy interest rate they increase or decrease it to achieve the inflation target see read this question carefully the question asked for incorrect statements so we saw statement one is incorrect statement two and three are correct so what is the incorrect statement one so the right option here is option a one only now moving on to the next question consider the following statements with reference to environmental impact assessment statement one public has no right to express their opinion during EIA process this is wrong because public do have the right to express their views or opinion during the EIA process the step is called public hearing so the statement is incorrect all projects all projects need to undergo the complete process of EIA see this is also incorrect only category a category b1 projects need to undergo the complete process of EIA other projects that are belonging to the category b2 don't have to undergo all the steps in the EIA process now statement three EIA encourages the adaptation of mitigation strategies in the developmental plan this is true this we saw in our discussion itself this encourages the developmental plan and this is a guidance document for the mitigation measures and that guidance document is called as environment management plan see this question this question also asked for the incorrect statement so what are all the incorrect statements here statement one and statement two so the right option here is option a one and two only now moving on to the final question which among the following does not have the IUCN status as vulnerable option a panthera tigress option b panthera leo option c panthera pardis option b asinonix jubatis see with some guess you'll find out option a and option b this is tiger and this is lion right now what is panthera pardis it is leopard and what is asinonix jubatis it is cheetah see without knowing these two you can find the answer how it is possible for that you should have known the IUCN status of tiger see here the IUCN status of tiger is endangered if you know this then you know that this is the only one which does not have the IUCN status as vulnerable then the right option here is option a panthera tigress now what are the IUCN status of the other three that is the lion leopard and cheetah these three are vulnerable I have given a couple of main questions for your practice so interested aspirants write it and post it in the comment section and don't forget to attempt the quiz question and that's it we have come to the end if you find the video useful like share and comment and do subscribe to shankarae's academy's youtube channel for further updates thank you