 So, our topics of the day, open acreage licensing policy, SALSA, 70 point performance grading index for main propellants and quota for general category on mains perspective. So, now let us move on to our first film's topic, open acreage licensing policy. So, why it is in use? The union minister of petroleum and natural gas and skilled development and under pressure has launched NIO and MRSE, which means notice for inviting offer and model revenue sharing contract for open acreage licensing policy bit round two, ok. So, it is an auction process. So, initially the government has decided for five auction rounds, ok. Now, it is going to be the second auction on which was delayed for several months, ok. This government is planning to auction nearly 30,000 square kilometers of areas for exploring and production blocks, ok. So, they have decided 14 exploration production blocks for exploring hydrocarbons, ok. So, this is done by the most investor friendly health project, which means hydrocarbon exploration licensing policy regime, ok. So, out of this 14 exploration and production blocks, 10 blocks are decided by expression of interest given by the investors themselves. So, who are all exploring? They have given the area of 10 blocks and the 4 blocks were carved out by the government based on the national seismic program and reassessment survey, ok. Based on the data, they have given 4 blocks. So, this is the news, ok. Now, let us see what is the background, ok. So, before 1997, most of this oil and gas explorations were done by ONGC and OAL India, but most of the states have started demanding for incentives in exploring because the most of the projects are becoming unviable. So, for fulfilling those demands, the government has introduced NEL, which means New Exploration Licensing Policy in the year 1997, which was continued till 2016. But what is the problem with this NELP, ok? This NELP is only for the conventional natural gases, ok. It does not talk about the non-conventional natural gas because non-conventional natural gas was not present at that time like shale gases, etcetera, ok. And it also has different licensing policy for each hydrocarbon. So, that is also a major problem here. Then it also says that government will carve out the areas for exploration and the bidders have to auction it and they have to get the areas. But the problem here is with 2016, nearly 250 blocks have been given by the government out of which 254 blocks were taken by the bidders. But out of this, 156 blocks were relinquished back to the government because of the unbiability. So, it is a problem with the NELP. So, for that, they have introduced a program called New Domestic Pricing Policy only in the difficult or a great licensing areas, ok. So, in that, the government will give special incentives for the most difficult exploring areas, ok. Even that is not fulfilling. The NELP government introduced HELP which means hydrocarbon exploration licensing policy. So, why it is important? This is a single licensing policy and also it has expression of interest which means the investors can choose the location of their own choice, ok. And added to that, the government has also introduced open acreage licensing policy in which the bidders can choose their area and national depository data registry which means it shows the potential area for the exploration of natural gases based on the seismic studies, ok. That will help for this petroleum exploration. So, this is a background regarding this open acreage licensing policy. Now, let us see why these reforms are important. So, we must know that. So, India is the third largest oil importer country, ok. But the problem here is most of the oil or importer we are aiming to reduce this oil import bill from 10 percent to 67 percent by the year 2022, ok. But still the energy demand is around 81 percent by imports, ok. This already we had seen that this NELP challenges and exploration production policies were already a challenges. So, that is why we have chose for this HELP regime, ok. Then this production sharing mechanism was initially used by the government which was to get maximum revenue. But now we have shifted to the revenue sharing mechanisms in which the government will have most of the revenues as well as the investors will have the more option for investments. So, hence we are choosing these reforms to have more investments as well as the domestic production in order to reduce the import of hydrocarbons from outside countries, ok. Now, how this HELP will help, ok. Now, let us see. So, it is a single license regime for all conventional and non-conventional fuels. So, it covers all the hydrocarbon compounds, ok. Then it will have the increased productions based on the investor friendly mechanisms and it also gives more responsibility to the investors in order to take care of the environment facilities, ok. Then they promote more investments, jobs and self-sufficiency because India does not want to depend on foreign countries and it also increases ease of doing businesses and reduced royalty which was a problem in with NELP and also there is no SESS mechanisms and revenue sharing mechanism which also helps to reduce the problem with the NELP mechanism, ok. Now, they had given marketing and pricing freedom to the bidders because initially the government will fix the rate of this hydrocarbons. Now they had given the independence to the investors, ok. And now apart from that we have expression of interest, auctions and online bidding programs. So, these are the important reforms made in this HELP team to increase the production of hydrocarbons as well as reduce the import of hydrocarbons to India, ok. So, this based on open acreage licensing policy. Now, let us move on to our next topic Salsa. So, what is Salsa means? That is subglacial, Antarctic lakes, scientific assess. So, this was a two-year program to start in the year 2016 with nearly 14 scientists from various US institutions, they are seeing the, they are actually drilling the Antarctic areas to see whether any life form is available, ok. That is termed as the hunt for life below Antarctic sea, ok. Now, what is the present news, ok? They have discovered a lake called Lake Mercer which is a subglacial lake which is hydrologically active and it encompasses nearly 60 to square miles below 3500 feet, ok. This is a second of its type after Lake Willam which was actually discovered in the year 2013. This lake Mercer is located 370 miles in southern side of the South Pole, ok. Now what they had said is, this is not a new discovery, it was initially discovered a decade before by a satellite study, but we have not explored. Recently in the last December, we have explored this subglacial lake, ok. So, now what are the studies they are going to do? This salsa is an extremely freshwater lake, ok. This Mercer is a freshwater lake and they had used a high-pressure hot water drill to reach the lake. So, now they have reached the lake, but what they are going to do in future is, they are going to collect waters and sediments, sediments from bottom of the lake and microbial DNA to check whether any life form is available in this lake and also to check the ice from the top of the lake to know the nature of the ices above the lake surfaces. Then for the first time, they have used a remote vehicle to submerge into the lake and take videos and cameras which of 4K video range, ok. And they are also introduced another instrument called CTD instrument which is nothing but conductivity, temperature and depth instrument that is going to read the temperature and structure of water and they are also going to compare the habitat of the lakes compared to the deep ocean, deep water habitat in Mars as well as in the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, ok. And it also helps to understand another lake called Lake Willem which is of fragile ecosystem which is of very pure ecosystems and it is isolated and it also helps to build the future of Antarctic Radia which is still a mysterious one. So, this is the most important perspective of this Salsa mission which is going to it is an ongoing program, ok. Now, let us move on to our next topic, 70 point performance grading index, ok. Recently, Ministry of Human Resource Development has launched 70 point performance grading index program to assess the quality of school education in all the states, ok. So, out in this program there is a 70 parameters which scores nearly 1000 marks each parameters will have 10 to 20 points per parameters, ok. The most interesting thing is all the 35 states and union territories have already confirmed for this participation in this index and they use 70 parameters. Some of the parameters like teachers vacancies, infrastructures, leaderships, their cleanliness, sanitation these are taken into consideration and Ministry of Human Resource Development has also given many other information like they are going to print more NCRT books in the future nearly 6 crores which is of greater demand in recent times. So, it is helpful for private institutions and parents to get the cheaper books, ok. Now, what are the highlights of this index? Now, they said the index will give a correct picture of states positions. The states will know where they are standing compared to other states. So, this will help to assess the area of deficiencies and give a targeted interventions to reduce the deficiencies and provide a level playing field. So, that will enhance a fair competition as well as the improvement of all the states developing together, ok. Another important perspective is NITI-IO with its School Education Quality Index is also going to use 33 parameters out of these 70 parameters produced by Ministry of Human Resource Development and in another initiative is with NCRT and HRD Ministry they are going to institute a central institute for assessment and handholding of states. This assessment will give a comprehensive method of all these education institutions and it also handholds states to improve their standard in education, ok. And what are the other highlights? They are going to give schools with digital board in order to increase e-learning mechanism in schools and another initiative is they are going to start a four year integrated bachelor of education degree in all school center and state level universities and also private universities if they are up to do four year integrated courses. This will help to have a comprehensive experience for teachers from class 1 to 10 and it is based on internship programs and teacher training institutes. So, these are the basic for this four year integrated bachelor of education degree. So, this all these mechanisms will help to have a well-equipped teachers and have a parity in all center state and private institutions, modern pedagogical tools for developing students and e-learning mechanisms and also helps to compare with other global best practices. So, hence it is an important topic for problems, ok. Now, let us move on to our main topic, quota for general category. So, why it is in use, ok. So, Ministry of Social Justice has introduced 124th Constitutional Amendment Bill 2019 in Lok Sabha and it was also passed and now it is also passed in Rajya Sabha. If it is accepted by half of the state, if it is ratified by half of the states it will become an act, ok. So, according to this bill that is the 10% reservations for general category in economically weaker sections. So, once it is become an act it will change the article 15 and 16 which is based on reservation for an employment as well as education, ok. But this economically weaker session will be determined by each state. So, it depends on each state who are going to be the economically weaker sections and this reservations will be applicable in all state and center education institutions, jobs as well as in private higher educations. So, this was important in use, but now we are going to see what is reservations. So, reservation is given for development of a particular homogeneous group, ok. In India 15% reservation is given for scheduled cast and 7.5 for scheduled tribes, 27 for other backward class. For general category and open category it is 50.5%. So, this is a reservation criteria in India. So, what is the background for this reservations? For India, the reservations started from the pre-independence era of Pune PAC 1932 between a father of nation Mahatma Gandhi and leader of people without nation which is Mr. Ambedkar. So, between them it was signed. So, it was to improve the standard of depressed classes. So, in that PAC one of the criteria is reservations. So, that started the reservation mechanism. And in constitutions we have also given article 340 which says about socially and educationally backward people to given representatives, to give reservations. And then the 9th schedule was introduced into the constitution by first constitutional amendment act 1951 in which the reservation is also a criteria which prevents supreme court from judicious scrutiny into that schedules. And later on the government also formed the first backward class commission by Kalka Kaleikar in the year 1953 and it submitted its report in 1955. But this commission report was rejected because it does not give any objectified attitude to the backward classes. Then again this backward class commission was formed in the year 1979 by BP Mandel and he had submitted the report in the year 1980. Later a decade the government, this VPC government has started to scrutinize the report and they had given 27% reservation for OBCs. Okay, in the year 1990s, again in 1991 Nasim Rao government has said that that must be two criteria for this OBC. One is giving preference to the poor OBCs that means creamy layer. Another one is 10% for economically weaker session of Hayaka. So, this was started in the year 1991. But supreme court rejected this provision because constitution only recognizes this educationally and socially backward class, not economically backward people. Again, based on this they have introduced creamy layer and in 1992 Mandel case they had said this creamy layer must be introduced changing the article 16. Okay, then according to this they have also constituted Ram Nandan committee in order to identify the creamy layers within the other backward classes. Okay, now based on this perspective they have also started National Commission for Backward Classes in the year 1993 but in the same year the Indra Shani case had came up that also said that the constitution has determined only the social and educationally backward caste not economically backward caste and that is an exception to a particular state called Tamil Nadu. In the year 1994 they have introduced 76th Amendment Act which provides 69% reservations for Tamil Nadu based on special conditions and at the last the least one is 2007 which is the judicial review of nine schedule. So, supreme court had said that any inclusion of nine schedule after 24 April 1973 will be subjected to judicial review and it is not escaping any judicial scrutiny. So, this is the history of this general category or otherwise this OBC categories. Okay, now let's see what are the pros and cons. So, what are the arguments for this quota reservations? They had said that the quota must be reserved for poor people because it is not based on equality. Equity must also be considered. So, poor people and economically backward people also must get reservations and they also said that it must help the urban and rural poor people because they are mostly they are economically backward. So, economically backward reservations will help to improve the livelihoods of urban and rural poor people and they also helped to reduce undue benefits which is going to reach the higher income group of these OBCs and SCST communities and they also stopped the rush to SCST and OBC status. We recently seen recent times like Marathas, Jads and Patel or actually rushing to get OBC status in order to get reservations and they also said that this existing reservation mechanism is inadequate to fulfill or mainstream this SCST communities. So, hence the economic reservation is also important and this unemployment is not subjected only to the poorer people or SCST people. It is also there in major communities and general category, hence this quota reservation is important and it benefits educated youth. What they have said is this caste based reservation is temporary which was introduced only till 10 years but it is even extended more than 70 years. Okay, hence a reform must be needed in this one and other things are like this non-poor beneficiaries getting reservation is actually increasing the social divide which can be seen in this Patel strike or Maratha strike or Jad strikes and what they had said is all these reservations have not prevented the ill treatment towards SC and STs or Dalits. Hence there must be a reform to get reprieve for this deprived people. Okay, now let's see the arguments against quota. So what they had said is it will play a full on Supreme Court judgment of 50% cap. So it will again increase another 10% which is 60%. So it is going to violate the judgment of Supreme Court and what they had said is the criteria is given for this economically weaker section is they must have at least income below 8 lakhs and they must have acres below 5 acres but this will actually accommodate 90% of Indians even in the budget they had said that most of the farmers in India are having lesser than one acre of land. So hence it is going to cover 90% of Indians and in constitution it does not mention any economically weaker section. So once we implement this it is going to be constitutionally violated and what they had said is the purpose of reservation is social justice. It is not a poverty alleviation program or economic program it is a social justice program which wanted to abolish the untouchability which was practiced for a longer time. This is the basic structure of constitution also and according to the former secretary of India P.S. Krishna who was very much renowned for the social justice he said that this quota will actually violate the constitution. That must need to be an economic programs for this economically weaker sections like giving scholarships, loans and employment opportunities, skill development but not reservations. Hence we already know that reservation process is becoming more unsustainable in recent times and what they had said is the government jobs in central as well as state are actually reducing year by year. Also even the public sector banks recommendations also getting reduced. Hence this is getting unviable and one more thing is this reservation is actually a 1960s and 70s concept it is not applicable for the present day. Hence what they had said is that should not be efflensy or evimsy of this political gimmicks rather than provide a sustainable as well as a structural benefit for the economically weaker sections not to deprive people of what they deserve. Okay, so with this I conclude today's topic. Please like, share and subscribe to your YouTube channel. Thank you.