 Good evening aspirants, welcome to the hindi news analysis by Shankarae's academy for the date 10th of October 2023. I have a kind request for you, please subscribe to our YouTube channel to get instant updates. Also, I have two important announcements. The first announcement is regarding a new initiative by Shankarae's academy. Recently, we started Indian Express news analysis also. We plan to publish one video every Sunday covering the week's news. We will choose important news from the Indian Express paper and make it as a compilation and publish in the week's Sunday. We already published a video on 8th October, so please check it out. The second announcement is regarding the second batch of pre-storming. The second batch will start on 15th October and the first test is on 22nd October. Interested aspirants, please make use of this opportunity to boost your problem score. Now coming back, displayed here are the list of news articles we will be going through today. Now without wasting time, let's start the discussion. Let us start today's discussion with this editorial article. This editorial article talks about the World Mental Health Day. Today, that is October 10th is celebrated as the World Mental Health Day. This day is celebrated annually to create awareness about the mental health and remove the stigma that can accompany mental health challenges. The theme of this year's World Mental Health Day is mental health as a universal human right. But in case of India, mental health of a specific group of people is left unnoticed. Here the author is talking about the informal workers. The article also highlights various other challenges faced by them. So in this discussion, let us understand the points mentioned in the article using a mains question. We will also see how to approach the mains question regarding informal workers. Now take a look at this question. Keeping in view, the informal sectors share in the total workforce in the country write about the challenges faced by informal workers. Also examine the relevant inclusive measures initiated by the government of India and its effectiveness. This is the question. This question can be asked in GS paper 3 under the syllabus Indian economy and issues related to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment. See the only key word in this question is examine that too it is in the second part of the question. When the keyword exam is given, you have to investigate and establish the key facts and issues related to the question. This is how you have to approach the question. With this basic understanding, now let's start the answer part. In the introduction, since the question starts by saying keeping in view the informal sectors share in the total workforce in the country, you have to give some data and facts about the informal sector. For example, you can write like this. The informal or the unorganized sector refers to the economic activities and employment arrangements that operate outside the framework of government regulation. In terms of employment share in India, the unorganized sector employ 83% of the workforce, while the organized sector employs only 17%. Nearly 92.4% of the informal workers are employed with no written contract, paid leave and other social security measures. This is the current status of unorganized or informal sector in our country. You can write this in the introduction part. See these data are taken from the IMF website and it is subjected to changes. So whenever there is an update, make a note of it and use it in your main sensor. Now let's move on to the main body of the question. Here you have to split the body into two headings. First you have to talk about the challenges faced by the informal sector workers. You should talk about the relevant measures taken by the government of India and the effectiveness of these measures. At the end, you have to conclude your answer with the balance view. This is the structure. Now let's start by looking at the challenges faced by the informal sector workers. The first challenge is the lack of social security. Workers in the informal sector often lack access to social security benefits like health insurance, pension and unemployment benefits. This makes them vulnerable to financial hardship in times of illness, old age and job loss. Secondly, informal workers often face lack of legal protection and employment rates. This makes them susceptible to exploitation, unfair wages and unsafe working conditions. Thirdly, women constitute majority of the informal participants. But they receive the least benefits. Women in the informal sector face lower pay, income volatility and lack of social safety net. So, there exists a gender disparity within the informal sector itself. Fourthly, informal sector can result in lost tax revenue for the government. This is because many of the businesses in the informal sector do not report their income and pay their taxes. Finally, you can write about the mental health effects faced by the informal workers due to long working hours, insecure job, low nutrition intake, low wages and working in unsafe working environment. Also, informal workers face discrimination in our society. You can write these points as challenges faced by the informal sector workers. Now moving on to the second part of the question. Here you have to write about the measures taken by the government and the effectiveness of these measures. Now let's start. Firstly, you can write about the Pradhan Mantri Sram Yogi Mandan. It is a voluntary and contributory pension scheme for unorganized workers. The eligibility criteria is ages of 18 to 40 with monthly income of 15,000 or less. Each subscriber under the Pradhan Mantri Sram Yogi Mandan will receive minimum assured pension of Rs. 3000 per month after attaining the age of 60. The issue here is that since the program is voluntary and not mandatory, many lack awareness about the program. Now moving on. Secondly, you can mention about the Pradhan Mantri Street Wonders Hartman Irbar Nidhi. The scheme intends to facilitate or provide collateral free working capital loans up to Rs. 10000 for one year tenure. This scheme aims to cover approximately 50 lakh street vendors. This will help them to resume their businesses in the urban areas and in the peri urban and in the rural areas. To avail the loan, the vendors should possess a certificate of lending or an ID card issued by the urban local body. The issue with the scheme is that certain vendors face difficulties in obtaining these documents, particularly if they are not formally registered, whereas some vendors have reported that the loan amounts are insignificant to cover the operating expenses and thereby revive their business effectively. This is about the Pradhan Mantri Street Wonders Hartman Irbar Nidhi. Now moving on. Next you can write about the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana. This scheme aims at providing financial support to small and micro-interpreters, including those in the informal sector. The primary objective of the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana is to promote entrepreneurship and create jobs by offering loans to individuals and small businesses involved in income generating activities. So far, Rs. 23.2 lakh crore has been issued by the banks under this scheme and 41 crore businesses have benefited from this scheme. The issue with the scheme is that most of the loans provided under the Mudra Yojana have turned non-performing. This is because there is no proper monetary mechanism before providing the Mudra Loans. Moving on. Next you can mention about the Yishram Portal. The aim of the portal is to create unified database for unorganized workers to help them access various benefits of central and state government welfare schemes. After registration, a Yishram card containing a 12 digit unique number will be provided to the registered workers. They will be eligible for Rs. 2 lakhs on death or permanent disability and Rs. 1 lakh on partial disability. The issue with this scheme is that people in India, particularly the rural people lack digital literacy. The next issue is that since the amount is provided using other seeded mobile, the accessibility of this scheme is constant. Finally, you can mention about the Skill India Initiative. The Skill India Initiative focuses on providing skill development training to individuals, mainly those in the informal sector. But the issue with this is that the success of the Skill India Initiative is heavily dependent on the government funding. But due to funding constraints, the effectiveness of the Skill India Initiative is greatly reduced. So you can write these points as relevant initiatives taken by the government to address the challenges faced by the informal sector workers. See in this part, I have mentioned the steps taken by the government and also the criticism of the steps that is the effectiveness of the steps. This should be the body of the answer. In the conclusion part, you have to end the answer with a balanced view. Since we talked about the issues in the body of the answer, you can end the answer with a positive note. You can write that even though the government initiative has made progress, further efforts are needed to improve their implementation. For this, government must enhance financial literacy and ensure that marginalized worker benefit effectively from the government initiatives. So the long-term success of these government initiatives lies on the formalization of the informal workers with better regulation and labor protection. This will help create a more inclusive and equitable society. This is a model conclusion that you can use for this type of question. So that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we tried to address a question related to challenges faced by the informal sector workers and the steps taken by the government and its effectiveness. So with this, let us conclude this and take up the next news article. Look at this article. The news is that Kerala's first 3D printed building was going to be open today. The building was named as Amaze 28 and it was completed in just 28 days. It is a demonstration project undertaken by a Chennai based construction tech startup. This building showcased the advantages of 3D printing in construction. The project showcased advantages like time saving, minimal wastage, design flexibility and creative possibilities. This is about the news article given here. In this context, let us revise about the basics of 3D printing and its significance. Firstly, what is 3D printing? 3D printing is the process of making three-dimensional solid objects from a digital file. It is also known as additive manufacturing because it creates 3D printed objects using additive process. Here an additive process means an object is created by laying down successive layers of materials until the entire object is created. In additive process, material is added layer by layer. Each of these layers is like a thinly sliced horizontal section of the actual object. Now we shall see the basics about the process of 3D printing. The process starts with making a virtual design of the object that has to be created. The virtual design is a CAD model. Here CAD stands for computed aided design. It uses 3D modeling programs to create a new object or uses a 3D scanner for an existing object. The slicing software is used to slice the final model into hundreds and thousands of horizontal layers and each horizontal layer is a 2D image. This prepared file is uploaded into the 3D printer and then the printer creates the objects layer by layer in precise geometric shapes. The 3D printer reads every slice and proceeds to create the object. This results in a three dimensional object. This is how 3D printing is done. Now regarding 3D printing, we have to know that the government has created a new policy to boost the 3D printing sector in India. The policy is named as National Strategy for Additive Manufacturing Policy. Here, the additive manufacturing is nothing but 3D printing. The policy is formulated by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The aim of the policy is to increase India's share in global additive manufacturing to 5% within the next three years. Further, it aims to develop 50 India specific technologies for material, machine and software related to 3D printing. It also has the goal of creating 100 new startups for 3D printing. This is about the National Strategy for Additive Manufacturing Policy. With this basic information, now let us see the advantages of 3D printing. Firstly, it reduces the time taken to bring a product from the design stage to the production stage and the market stage in quick time. This is because 3D printing is time efficient. So manufacturing a product using 3D technology is much faster than all conventional manufacturing technologies. This is the first advantage. The second advantage is cost effectiveness. 3D printing is cost effective because about 98% of the raw material is used in the finished product. But in case of conventional manufacturing, only 40-50% of the raw material is converted into the finished product. Another reason why 3D printing is cost effective is the capital cost involved in 3D printing is very low. That is the amount of money required to purchase a 3D printer is low compared to conventional manufacturing machines. This is the second advantage. Lastly, 3D printing improves industrial sustainability. It is almost used in all the sectors in the industry. It is used to create both consumer goods and capital goods. So 3D printing is quite versatile. This is one of the main advantages of 3D printing. Having seen the advantages, now let us see the applications of 3D printing. The first application is in the area of medical and healthcare. Here, 3D printing is used to produce custom medical implants, prosthetics and ortho devices. It enables the creation of patient specific models. Secondly, it is used in aerospace industry. The aerospace industry uses 3D printing to manufacture lightweight and complex components for the aircraft and the spacecraft. It reduces waste material and enhances design flexibility. Due to the less capital cost, the 3D printing also lowers the production cost in the aerospace industry. Thirdly, 3D printing has a wide range of uses in architecture and construction. 3D printing is used to construct buildings and architectural prototypes. It offers design freedom, reduces construction time and minimizes waste material. Finally, 3D printing can contribute to sustainability by reducing material waste. 3D printing also supports recycling and use of eco-friendly products. So this makes 3D printing eco-friendly. These are some of the applications of 3D printing. So that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw the basics about 3D printing. Then we saw some points about national strategy for additive manufacturing policy. Then we saw the advantages of 3D printing and we also saw the applications of 3D printing. With this, let us conclude this and take up the next news article. Look at this article. As we all know, currently a conflict is going on between Israel and Hamas. The article here is written in this context only. The article highlights the difficulties in attaining the two-state solution. That is, the difficulties in dividing the territories between Israel and Palestine. So in our discussion, we will understand some of the points about two-state solution and about the difficulty in achieving the two-state solution. To have a better understanding, we have to know some history about Israel and Palestine. Now look at the map here. See before 1948, there was no separate territory like Palestine or Israel and the whole territory was called Palestine. At that time, Palestine was home to a diverse population of Arabs, Jews and Christians. These communities have lived together and they also had religious ties with the Palestine area, mainly the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is considered a holy city for Muslims, Jews and Christians because the city of Jerusalem holds significant religious structures. Now coming back to history. See from time to time, Palestine was under control of various empires like Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Caliphate, Ottoman Empire and so on. Note that between 1517 to 1917, most of the Palestinian region was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. As we all know, the Ottoman Empire lost the World War I. So when the World War I ended in 1918, there was a power vacuum in Palestine. So the erstwhile League of Nations, which was created after the First World War, granted a mandate to the Britain. Britain was granted a mandate to administer Palestine. As a result, Britain started administering the Palestinian area. This was just a temporary measure. The British government actually aimed to establish a national home for the Jewish people, while also protecting the rights of the majority Arab people. However, this aim was not met during that time. This was because of the raising tensions and widespread violence between the Arabs and the Jewish community. Ultimately, the British authority felt it was difficult to find a solution to the violence. After several years in 1947, the United Nations proposed the Partition Plan, which is famously called the Two-State Solution. The plan was to separate Palestine into a separate Jewish and an Arab state, with Jerusalem as an internationally administered city. See, Jerusalem was proposed to be an internationally administered city because, as we saw earlier, it holds religious significance for both Muslims and Jews. The Partition Plan was largely accepted by the Jewish community. But the Arab community rejected the plan, which led to the outbreak of a civil war. Despite tension, Jewish people established the State of Israel in May 14, 1948. This ended the British rule in Palestine. However, this event triggered the Arabs. The Palestinian Arabs, with the help of neighboring countries like Egypt, Iraq and Syria, started a war against Israel in 1948. This war has come to be known as the First Arab-Israeli War. Israel won the war, and the Palestinian territory was divided into the State of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip. After the war, Israel has emerged as a powerful state. This is how Israel came into existence. Israel countries also acknowledged Israel as a separate state. Finally, the United Nations also recognized Israel as a separate state. This event further triggered the Palestinian Arabs. After several years, in 1964, the Palestinian Arabs have formed a group named the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The main aim of this organization is to liberate Palestine from Israel. In 1967, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, with the help of some neighboring Arab states, waged a war against Israel. This war is known as the Second Arab-Israeli War, or the Six Days War. In the Second Arab-Israeli War also, Israel won the war, and it occupied East Jerusalem, Golan Heights of Syria, and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. And after several years, Israel voluntarily gave up the Sinai Peninsula due to peace efforts. But Israel maintained control over some parts of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. While this was the case, later in 1987, the Hamas Group originated. Now let us see how the Hamas Group came into being. See, in 1987, there was a conflict between the State of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. This conflict is known as the First Palestinian Intifada. During the conflict, some Palestinians were not satisfied by the actions of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. So they started the Hamas Group. The main objective of the Hamas Group is to carry out an armed struggle against Israel to liberate Palestine. Note that Hamas has its strong presence in the Gaza Strip. This is how the Hamas Group came into being. Now coming back to the First Intifada. The First Intifada came to an end in 1993 with the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords. As a result, the Israeli army withdrew from the parts of West Bank in 1997. And based on the peace accords, the Palestinian Authority was formed and it was granted control over some territories in the West Bank. However, this peace accord was opposed by the Hamas Group. The Hamas Group was of the opinion that the Palestinian Liberation Organization did not meet the demands of the Palestinian Arabs to have a unified Palestine. So Hamas even started fighting against the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Overall, the Oslo Accords could not bring permanent peace to the region. Then after several years, the second Palestinian Intifada started in 2000. It was fought between Hamas, Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel. The violence was widespread and it lasted for several years. A ceasefire was finally announced between these three groups because of Israel's promise. Israel had promised to withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip by 2005. And Israel also left the Gaza Strip in 2005. Note that till 2005, Hamas was only involved in militant activities from the Gaza Strip. But after 2005, Hamas engaged in politics and it also won elections in the Gaza Strip in 2006. Since then, Hamas has been ruling the Gaza Strip. Recently, Hamas has launched an air strike against Israel from the Gaza Strip. This again triggered a war between Palestinian Arabs and Israel and this war is currently going on so we have to wait and watch what will happen in the future. Now look at the map here. As of now, Israel is ruling the majority of the area of the erstrail Palestine. Apart from this, Israel is also having some control over parts of the Western Bank, Golan Heights. On the other hand, majority of the Western Bank are under the control of the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip is under the control of the Hamas Group. See, while Israel was accepted as sovereign state by the United Nation, Palestine, which comprises of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, is not accepted as a separate state. This is because of the widespread violence carried out by the Palestinian Arabs and the resistance from the Israel and its allies. This is all about the history associated with the two-state solution. See, if you look closer, the history itself shows us the difficulties in attaining the two-state solution. Here, when the partition plan was proposed by the United Nation, the Jewish people accepted the plan and they established the state of Israel but the Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan which led to a number of Arab-Israeli wars. This angered Israel and it captured much of the territories of the proposed Palestine and Israel is also currently resisting to create a Palestinian state because of the violence inflicted by Hamas. On the other hand, Arabs are continuously struggling to regain the original Palestinian rather than accepting the UN proposed partition. This situation raised the tension rather than attaining a two-state solution. So it is very difficult to attain a two-state solution. So it is up to the people of Israel and Palestine to decide on the two-state solution. See, a war-like situation ultimately affects the civilian the most. So the people of Palestine and Israel should raise their voice to find a permanent and peaceful solution for the region. So that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw the history of two-state solution and why it is difficult to achieve the two-state solution. Now with this, let us conclude this and take up the next news article. Look at this article. It is about the recently released periodic labour force survey. The survey has reported positive trends in various indicators of the labour force. The unemployment rate in urban areas decreased in the period between April and June 2023. The labour force participation rate and worker population ratio has also improved during the same period. So overall the labour force participation rate and the worker population ratio have increased for both men and women in the last year. This is about the news article. So in our discussion today, we will revise about the terms like unemployment rate, labour force participation rate and worker population ratio. Let us start the discussion by looking at the periodic labour force survey. The periodic labour force survey is a nationwide survey. It is conducted to collect data regarding employment, unemployment and labour force participation. The data or the survey covers both the rural and the urban areas. It is conducted by the National Statistical Office. This periodic labour force survey replaced the earlier employment unemployment survey and the employment unemployment survey was conducted by the erstwhile National Sample Survey Office. Now let us see how the data is collected. The data for the periodic labour force survey is collected through household surveys. The information is gathered from selected households and individuals regarding their employment status and the economic activities. Now what is the frequency of the survey? The survey is conducted in two frequencies. Firstly it is conducted in the short interval of three months for only the urban areas in the current weekly status. Secondly it is conducted on annual basis for both rural and urban areas in both usual status and current weekly status. Here the usual status means the measure of unemployment for a long period and the current weekly status is the measure of unemployment for past one week. These are some basic information about the periodic labour force survey. With this we will understand the key terms mentioned in the article. Firstly let us take the unemployment rate. What is mean by unemployment rate? Unemployment rate is defined as the percentage of unemployed people within the labour force. Now comes the question what is the labour force? Labour force is the number of persons who are either employed or unemployed or people who are actively seeking employment. Here you have to know that people who do not actively seek employment opportunity are not part of the labour force. Only people who are employed are people who are unemployed and actively seeking employment are considered as part of the labour force. And as I have already mentioned unemployment rate is the percentage of unemployed people within the labour force. Now moving on let us take up the labour force participation rate. Labour force participation rate is the number of people in the labour force as a percentage of the total working age population. So basically it is the ratio between labour force and the number of people in the working age population. Here in our discussion itself we already saw what labour force is and in case of working age population it refers to the number of people in the 16 to 59 age group. And as per the recent periodic labour force survey in urban areas the labour force participation rate increased from 47.5% in April-June 2022 to 48.8% in April-June 2023. So there has been an improvement in this area. Among the men the labour force participation rate remained relatively stable at around 73.5% during the period. And for women in the urban areas the labour force participation rate increased from 20.9% to 23.2%. Okay this is about the labour force participation rate and the data in the periodic labour force survey. Finally let us take up the worker population ratio. Worker population ratio as the name indicates is the percentage of employed persons in the total population. According to the survey the worker population ratio in urban areas increased from 43.9% in 2022 to 45.5% in 2023. Among men the worker population ratio increased from 68.3% to 69.2%. Similarly for women the worker population ratio increased from 18.9% to 21.1% during the same period. So that is all regarding this discussion. In this discussion we saw three important terms. That is unemployment rate, worker population ratio and the labour force participation rate. These three economic terms are slightly confusing. So only I chose to discuss these three terms in our discussion. So before concluding let me quickly revise it. Okay labour force participation rate is the ratio of labour force by the total number of people in the working age population. Unemployment rate is defined as the ratio of unemployed people by the labour force. Worker population ratio is defined as the ratio of employed people by total population. So correctly note the difference because using this difference UPC can frame a prelims question and confuse you. So that is all regarding this discussion. Now with this let us conclude this and take up the next news article. Look at the last article for today's discussion. Tomorrow that is on October 11th, 2023 the Indian Ocean Rim Association Council of Ministers meeting is going to be held in Colombo. Several foreign ministers including those from India, Bangladesh, Mauritius, Malaysia and South Africa will be participating in the event. The ministers will speak about the ways to cooperate on six priority areas which is identified by the Indian Ocean Rim Association. The priority areas include trade and investment, maritime safety and security, fisheries management, disaster risk management and blue economy. This is about the article given here. In this context let us quickly revise about the Indian Ocean Rim Association in Prelims perspective. See the Indian Ocean Rim Association is an intergovernmental organization which was established in 7th March 1997. It is an intergovernmental organization which is aimed at strengthening regional cooperation and sustainable development within the Indian Ocean region. It is a tripartite agreement in nature that is it brings together government, business and academia. This is done to promote cooperation and close interaction between these three arms. The IORA is based on the principle of open regionalism. The apex body of IORA is the Council of Foreign Ministers which meets annually to discuss the development of IORA. Its secretariat is based in Cyber City, Mauritius. Finally, let us look at the objectives of the organization. Firstly, it aims to promote sustainable growth and balance the development of the region and the member state. Secondly, it focuses on area of economic cooperation to provide maximum opportunities for development and mutual benefits. Lastly, it aims to promote liberalization and remove barriers to ensure free flow of goods and services between the Indian Ocean Rim countries. These are the three main objectives of the organization. Currently, this organization has 23 member states and nine dialogue partners. You can see the member states and the dialogue partners in the image given here. So that is all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we quickly went through some of the important points about the Indian Ocean Rim Association. Now with this, we have come to the end of the news article discussion session. Now let us take up the practice problems questions. We have three practice problems questions today. Let us see them one by one. Let us take up the first question. Which body under the government of India is responsible for collecting and disseminating statistics on various aspects of countries' economy, including national income, industrial production and unemployment. From our discussion, we know that the correct answer here is option B, National Statistical Office. Moving on to the second question. What is the primary technology used in 3D printing? This also we saw in our discussion. The correct answer here is option C, additive manufacturing. Moving on to the last question. Three statements about the Indian Ocean Rim Association is given. We have to find how many of the statements given here are correct. Look at the first statement. One of its objective is to promote sustainable growth and balanced development of the region and the member states. This statement is correct. Moving on to the second statement. Its secretariat is located in Mauritius. This also is correct. This we saw in the discussion itself. Moving on to the third statement. The Indian Ocean Dialogue is a flagship initiative of the Indian Ocean Rim Association. This statement is also correct. Since all the statements given here are correct, the correct answer here is option C, all three. With this we have come to the end of the video. If you like today's video, like, comment and share it with your friends. For more updates regarding UPSC preparation, subscribe to Shankara EIS Academy's YouTube channel. Thank you for listening.