 Good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar A.S. Academy for the date 27th January 2023. Displayed here are the list of news articles we will be going through today. Now let's take up the first article for our discussion. Look at this text and context article here. This article is taken from the Hindu newspaper dated 23rd January 2023. As we are constantly saying that on some days if we don't cover some important news articles due to time constraints then we will cover it in upcoming days. This is the exact reason why I chose this article today. I chose this article because this is very much useful for you as it is related to gig and platform workers. In this discussion we are going to see about gig and platform workers. See the question may come in the UPSC mains examination relating to the issues faced by gig workers. So pay attention to this discussion. Now coming to the article. This says this article is related to gig and platform workers. This article primarily says that India has to learn lessons from China regarding the rights of the gig and platform workers. Why was this topic in use? See on January 20th foot tech delivery platform Swiggy announced that it was laying off 380 employees due to challenging macroeconomic conditions. This move by the Swiggy portrays that there is no job and social security for those who are employed in such online delivery platforms. Okay, there are also several petitions filed in the Supreme Court on this record. For example, on September 20, 2021, on behalf of the gig workers, the Indian Federation of App Based Transport Workers filed a public interest litigation. The petition has asked the central government to declare gig workers and platform workers as unorganized workers. These workers are declared as unorganized workers. They would come under the purview of the unorganized workers social security act 2008. So they will get some benefits on par with other employees who are included in that act. In short, the petition demands social security benefits from food delivery platforms such as Zomato and Swiggy and taxi aggregator apps such as Ola and Uber. Okay, now what is the situation in China? See, during last September, China has taken many steps ahead with regards to rights of the gig workers. Owing to public pressure and the resultant government action, two of China's food delivery platform such as Maituan and Ili.me committed to end the practice of forcing workers to register as independent businesses. Earlier, this practice has helped these platforms to evade responsibilities as employers. Due to public pressure, finally, the Chinese government has accepted to safeguard the rights and the interest of the gig workers. So the Chinese government has conducted talks with some online firms such as food delivery platforms and the talks had ended with fruitful outcomes. So the platform will now be required to offer written agreements to food delivery men and other such workers. This ensures better working conditions for the gig workers in China. This is the lesson that India has to learn from the Chinese regarding the rights of the gig and platform workers. This is about the article given here. Now in this discussion, today we are going to understand who are gig workers? Who are platform workers? Then we will see the issues faced by them and finally we will see some solutions to address the mentioned issues. This is the plan for today. Before getting into the discussion, I have highlighted the syllabus regarding this discussion. You can go through it. Let's start. Let's start with the term gig workers. Gig workers are independent contractors or freelancers who typically do short term work. The work may be project based or part time based. The examples of gig workers include freelance writers, online tutors, digital marketing experts, web developers and so on. See in India section 2 class 35 of the code of the Social Security 2022 defines gig workers. It says that a gig worker means a person who performs work or participates in a work agreement and earns from such activities outside of traditional employer-employee relationship. In simpler terms, gig workers are the workers who do short term work and they have no standard work agreement with their employers. Now moving on to platform workers. By hearing the term platform workers, you might assume that platform workers are those who are working on the roadside platforms, right? Your assumption is wrong. See a platform worker is defined as a worker who is working for an organization that provides specific services using an online platform. For example, you can say swiggy full delivery executives as platform workers because they are doing such work for an organization that provides services online. Here the organization is nothing but the swiggy. In India section 2 class 60 and section 2 class 61 of the code of Social Security 2020 defines platform work and platform workers respectively. According to section 2 class 60, platform work means a work agreement outside of the traditional employer-employee relationship in which organizations or individuals use an online platform to access other organization or individuals to solve specific problems or to provide specific services or any such activities which may be notified by the central government in exchange for payment. Simultaneously, section 2 class 61 defines a platform worker. It says that a worker engaged or undertaking platform work as mentioned in section 2 class 60 is defined as a platform worker. In simpler terms, a platform worker is none other than a worker who is working for an organization that provides specific services using an online platform. Having understood the basics, now we will see the issues faced by the platform and the gig workers. The first and foremost issue is high stress. As we all know, for the gig or platform worker there is no regular wage. There is also no job security guaranteed to them. See, these factors yield high stress to the gig workers. The second issue is related to social security. There is no defined social security available for the gig or platform workers. Generally, they will not receive health care and retirement benefits as availed by the regular workers. It makes them feel insecure. For example, if any medical emergencies happen to a gig worker, how will they manage? This is a big question, right? So, a lack of social security is another important concern. Thirdly, lack of workplace entitlements. See, generally when a gig worker got employed, the contract is signed between the platform owner and the gig worker. Those contracts have details about the rights of the employee against the employer. Sometimes these contracts are of discriminatory nature because there is a chance of denying the employee the access to any workplace entitlement. This also provides serious issue to the gig worker. So, this is the third issue. The final issue is the stress due to performance evaluation. See, many platforms are providing wage to the gig worker based on the task and the subsequent performance. This requirement also puts more stress on the workers because they have to work beyond their capacity to get the correct wage. So, these are all some of the issues faced by the platform or the gig worker in India. Now, we will see what would be the possible solution to address these issues. Firstly, the government should provide social security benefits such as health care benefits and insurance benefits to gig workers. This has to be done by enacting separate law in the parliament. It will ensure social security to the gig workers. Secondly, government should provide adequate skill development to the young workforce. This will help them get better job rather than relying on these unsecured jobs. Thirdly, as done by China, the Indian government should also mandate the online platforms to offer written agreements to the gig workers. This would ensure better work condition for the gig workers in India. Apart from the government side, the online platform should also have to take responsibility. The platforms have to make provisions for paid sick leave, health access and insurance for the gig workers. These are some possible solutions that the government and the online platforms can take to address the issues faced by the gig and platform workers. So that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, first we saw about the contents in the news article. In that we saw the lessons that India can learn from the Chinese decision. After that, we saw the definition for gig worker and platform worker as provided in the Social Security Code 2020. After that, we saw the issues faced by the gig and platform workers. And finally, the possible solutions to address the issues. So that's all regarding this discussion. So let's conclude this and take up the next news article. Look at this news article. This news article talks about Aditya L1 mission. According to the news article, the Indian Space Research Organization is planning to launch the Aditya L1 mission by July or June this year. Since Aditya L1 is India's first space mission to observe the sun and the solar corona, you must know about it. So in this news article discussion, let us look into the details of the Aditya L1 mission. Let's start. The reason behind sun's corona getting heated to very high temperature is still a mystery to all the solar physicists. See here, corona is the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere. Sun's corona is made up of plasma. Sun's corona lies above the sun's chromo-sphere and extends millions of kilometers into outer space. Normally, we cannot observe sun's corona and we can observe sun's corona only during total solar eclipse. Okay, now coming back. See initially, the Aditya L1 mission was planned to observe only the corona of the sun. The mission involved placing a 400 kilogram satellite carrying one payload in 800 kilometer low-earth orbit. Later, ISRO planned to place the satellite in the halo orbit around the Lagrangian point. Here, halo orbit is the orbit that surrounds the sun. See, this Lagrangian point provides the advantage of observing the sun continuously without any disturbance. Hence, the mission was renamed as Aditya L1 mission. Okay, here comes the question. What is this Lagrangian point? These are sweet spots between Earth's orbit. Sweet spots are nothing but a place that is optimal for observing a certain desirable effect or result. And such a point is Lagrangian point. At the Lagrangian point the pull of the gravity from the Earth cancels out the pull of the gravity from the sun. Anything placed at these points will feel equally pulled towards Earth and the sun and will revolve with the Earth around the sun. So, we can say that Lagrangian points are specific locations where a satellite will stay stationary relative to the Earth as the satellite and the Earth revolves around the sun. Okay, there are five Lagrangian points in the Earth sun system. L1 is positioned above the day side of the Earth. L2 is positioned above the night side of the Earth. L3 is on the other side of the sun opposite to the Earth. L4 and L5 are 60 degrees ahead and behind the Earth in the same orbit. Okay, you can see all these details in the image given here. Of these five Lagrangian points, only two points that is L4 and L5 are very stable. A satellite that is placed in L4 and L5 requires minimum input to appear stable. Okay, but a satellite in the other three points, that is L1, L2 and L3 is like a ball balanced at the peak of a steep hill. Any slight disturbance will push the satellite out of the Lagrangian point. So a satellite placed at L1, L2 or L3 needs constant adjustment to stay balanced and to be in place. Remember this point. Okay, see by this factor, India has chosen to place the Aditya satellite in the Lagrangian point L1 of the Sun-Earth system. This is because L1 is about 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth and the satellite placed in the halo orbit around the L1 point has the major advantage of continually viewing the Sun without any disturbance like eclipse. This will provide a greater advantage of observing the solar activities and its effects on space in real time. Now coming back to the Arctic. The spacecraft carries seven payloads to absorb the photosphere, chromosphere and the outermost layer of the Sun, that is the corona using electromagnetic and magnetic field detectors. The payloads along with their capabilities are given here for your reference. You can go through it. Okay, see the Aditya L1 mission will help us understand the problem of coronal heating, coronal mass ejection, solar flare activities and characteristics, dynamics of space weather, propagation of particles and fields. Okay, that is all regarding this discussion. In this discussion we saw all the major points related to Aditya L1 mission and we also discussed about the Lagrangian points in space. Okay, with this let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. See this article here. This article is talking about the misconception between the term gaming and gambling. So in this discussion we are going to see why there is a misconception between the terms gambling and gaming. Then we will understand about the difference between gaming and gambling and finally we will see some issues associated with online gaming and online gambling. Now let's start with the basics. Online gaming can be broadly classified into two types. They are game of chance and games of luck. If you take games of chance, the outcome is mainly driven by luck. So one would engage in a game of chance by putting money on something with an intent to win a bigger sum. This is the exact reason why games of chance are otherwise termed as gambling. Now coming to games of skill. See in games of skill the success depends principally on the knowledge, training, expertise and experience of the player. Know that this games of skill is generally termed as gaming. Recently the Ministry of Information Technology has released the draft amendment to the IT intermediary guidelines and digital media ethics code rules 2021. This is to regulate online gaming. The draft amendment has a provision of KYC norms. Some video game companies that provide skill games are opposing these rules. They are of the opinion that a separate framework should be established for the skill based games and they must not be clubbed together with the games of chance. This is because there is no clear cut distinction between the terms gaming and gambling in the newly drafted IT rules. Some companies are saying that bringing all online games under a single framework might create misconsumption among the users. That is whether they should comply with KYC norms or not. Therefore some video game companies that provide skill games are demanding the government for a separate framework. As I mentioned earlier gaming are games of skill required knowledge and skill to play. That is the gameplay involves coming up with solution to the challenges posed by the developers of the game. For example we can take PUBG. For playing PUBG with our friends you need skills alone. You do not need money to play games with your friends. Whereas in gambling or games of chance the game mostly relies on probability and luck. So one has to stake money on the game of chance or to bet on sporting events. That is there is a monetary transaction where the winner is bound to gain financially. For example we can take DreamLover. Here the skill of the player does not matter. It is the luck of the player that matters. Okay this is the difference between gambling and gaming. Now we will see the issues associated with online gaming and online gambling. The first issue is addiction. Technological advancement also has its ill effects. See earlier to play online games we had to go to the internet center and it required lots of effort. Like we need to get money from our parents to pay to the internet center then we need to tell some lies to our parents to go play the game. But right now we do not have to go anywhere in order to have access to online gambling or online gaming. It is literally at our fingertips. This makes the users particularly the students more vulnerable as they spend more time playing the video games. This in turn affects the studies of the students. The first issue leads to our second issue which is lack of skills. As I already said because of online gaming students will tend to spend less time on other activities. So in the long run this will affect their skill development. Finally the third issue is monetary loss. See in case of online gambling the probability of users to win money is very low and in most cases users lose their hard earned money and this affects them mentally and sometimes it can even push people to suicide. So these are some of the issues associated with online gaming and online gambling. Now let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Now for our next discussion let us take up this text and context article here. It says that Japan is expected to start fleshing 1.25 million tons of waste water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific ocean this year and this is done as part of the 76 billion dollar project to decommission the facility. This is about the article given here in this context let us see the impacts of decommissioning the project and we will also see what can be done but before that the syllabus regarding this discussion is highlighted here you can go through it. First of all let us see little bit about Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. See in March 2011 an earthquake of 9 magnitude caused a tsunami to flood the Fukushima nuclear power plant and the tsunami water damaged the power plant's diesel generators. Due to the damage to the diesel generators there was loss of power and this suspended the coolant supply to the reactors at the facility. Know that the tsunami disabled backup systems also and because of these damages only radioactive materials leaked from the reactor pressure vessels and exploded in the facilities upper levels. This caused the exposure of radioactive materials to the ambient air, water, soil and local population. So subsequently the wind also carried the radioactive materials which was thrown up into the air and after these incidents the power plant and its surrounding area became uninhabitable. This is about the current condition of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Now the decommissioning project mentioned in the article involves discharging of the waste water of the nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. So what is the problem in this? The main problem is that the water that was used to cool the reactor contains radioactive isotopes from the damaged reactors. So the water itself is radioactive. Now Japan is saying that it will release this waste water into the Pacific Ocean over the next 30 years. Now you may think the water can be treated before letting into the Pacific Ocean. Yes it can be treated. As a matter of fact it has already been treated. According to the Tokyo Electric Power Company this TEPCO the water has been treated to remove most radioactive isotopes. See this company that is TEPCO is the company that operated the Fukushima facility. The company is saying that the water is according to the safety standards. But there are several problems in this waste water discharge despite the fact that it is treated. Now we will see the problems one by one. Firstly the safety limit is that the water should have 148th of as much as the permitted limit. Suppose let us assume the permitted limit of the TEPCO is 40%. Then the water should contain only 1% of the TEPCO to ensure that it is according to the safety limit. TEPCO has not removed the TEPCO from the water because the process is very difficult and costly. The problem here is that the TEPCO is easily absorbed by the bodies of living creatures and can be rapidly distributed via blood. This is the first issue. Secondly according to experts there is no known threshold below which radiations are considered safe. So any discharge of radioactive material will increase the risk of cancer and causes other known health impacts. Thirdly the affected water is expected to poison the fish. So people should avoid eating fish caught in the vicinity of the discharge point. Going by the proper prevention is better than cure of cancer. Thirdly, the TEPCO has already banned seafood imported from Fukushima in 2013 itself. And fourthly as per the Koyodo news report in 2018, other radionuclides are there in the water which are not removed by TEPCO's treatment process. These includes isotopes of ruthenium and plutonium. Know that these isotopes can persist for longer in the body of marine creature and on the sea floor. Fifthly Pacific Ocean is not just Japan's backyard. Other countries such as China, South Korea and Taiwan have also expressed concerns over the Japanese plan. Interestingly the US government has supported this plan of China and we don't know why they are thinking like that. Maybe US wants China to suffer by making Japan release the contaminated water in the Pacific Ocean. We don't know the exact rationale behind Japanese decision. This is the fifth problem. Now moving on sixthly, see all nuclear accidents have global repercussion. Particularly the Fukushima accident turned the public opinion against the nuclear power worldwide. In Japan itself the accident reduced the nuclear powers contribution to electricity generation from 30% before 2011 to 5% in 2022. This is very bad right? See currently near the major problem is climate change and climate change is caused due to emission of green host gases and as we all know nuclear power production does not emit any green host gases. So accidents like Fukushima by turning the public opinion against nuclear power is affecting our goal to combat climate change. Okay see considering the problems that we just discussed now the option of storage was considered by Japan. I already said that Japan has declared the area around Fukushima as uninhabitable right? So it was considered that the water can be stored in this region itself until it reaches its half-life. Here half-life is the time taken by the radioactive material to be halved through radioactive decay. So if the water is stored until the material reaches its half-life then it can be less radioactive right? But in the year 2020 exports from the International Energy Agency visited the Fukushima plant they said that the discharges technically a feasible option. Besides the TEPCO is also running out of room for water tanks. Lastly the action of discharging wastewater is justified by saying that nuclear plants all over the world regularly release water into large water bodies which contains trace amounts of radio nucleates. Okay so that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion we saw the problems associated with Japan's plan to release wastewater from Fukushima power plant. So with this let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Take a look at this editorial article. This article talks about the need for holocaust education in India. So in our discussion today let us see what is holocaust, the reasons that led to holocaust and finally the need for holocaust education in India. First what is holocaust? The word holocaust comes from the Greek word which means burnt offering. Even before the Second World War the word was sometimes used to describe a death of large group of people. But since 1945 it has become almost synonymous with the murder of European Jews during the Second World War. So the holocaust was a period in history in the time of World War II. During this period millions of Jews were murdered because of who they were. The killings were organized by Germans Nazi party under Adolf Hitler. Due to its nature we can tell that holocaust is an example of genocide. Here genocide means the act of killing a large group of people usually because of their nationality race or religion. A number of reasons led to holocaust. Let us see them one by one. The first such reason is Hitler's assumption that German race was superior. Under Hitler's rule the German people assumed that their race were superior because they considered themselves to the original inheritance of the Aryan race. So due to this superiority feeling they started indiscriminately killing the Jews. Secondly the Nazi party blamed the Jews for Germany's poor economic condition and Germany's loss in the World War I. The third reason is anti-semitism. See Jews in Europe were rich compared to the rest of the population. The Nazis were jealous of the Jewish people's financial success. The jealousy later turned into hostility against the Jewish people. This resulted in the feeling of anti-semitism and this anti-semitism only fueled the holocaust event. So these are the reasons that led to holocaust. Currently holocaust is in news because today is International holocaust remembrance day. See many years have passed since the holocaust event. Even today there are incidents that shows that anti-semitism is still prevalent all around the world. And this is why the author of this article says that educating people about holocaust is important. The author feels that we must educate people rather than trying to erase the past. Only by learning about the past people can empathize and prevent such things from happening in the future. See currently in India there is an increase in religious movement. By learning about holocaust the Indian youth can learn the importance of tolerance because it is the intolerance of one man by the name of Hitler that resulted in the catastrophe like holocaust. We have so much to learn from holocaust which will make our countrymen better global citizens. So that's all regarding this discussion. To know more about holocaust watch movies like Life is Beautiful and Schindler's List. I am very sure that after watching these movies we will surely turn into a better human being. With this we have come to the end of the video. If you like our video like, comment and share it with your friends. For more updates regarding UPSC preparation, subscribe to Shankara IS Academy's YouTube channel. Thank you for listening.