 A very good evening everyone. We have very small announcement to make. Our Shankara AIS Academy is organizing a live YouTube session tomorrow. This session is on why and how to prepare for mains in the next 60 days. The session will be led by Mr. Asaf Anwar, our academic head of New Delhi branch and it will begin at 5 p.m. and the session is aimed at giving you a clear path and to take you in the right direction of the mains preparation and it will also emphasize on the importance of the mains in the next 60 days. And at the end of the session would help you to decide on what to prepare, how to prepare and to improve your prospects in the mains 2021. So with this let's move on to our analysis. Here are the list of news articles chosen for discussion today. Today we will not be discussing the preliminary questions as we have exhausted the 2020 questions and we'll take a small break before we resume the discussion on the preliminary questions on the previous years. Now let's move on to the article discussion. Now have a look at this news article. This news article is about Mundeshwari temple in Bihar and the article reports that it is considered as the oldest functional temple in the country. And in this session let's see some important facts about this temple in Prilam's perspective. First let us see the location of the temple. In Bihar there is a hill called Pibhara hill and this hill is also called as Pavendra hill or Prabhara hill and this hill is an isolated hill in the Kaimur range and the Mundeshwari temple that we just saw is located on the summit of the Pibhara hill. Have a look at this picture. So historians and archaeologists have found an inscription which was made in 389 AD and some broken specimens of serpents indicate that the temple was a construction by rulers of Naga dynasty in the period of 110 BC to 315 AD and if you see that the Naga dynasty used serpents as their royal sign. So some say it was constructed back then itself. This and few other facts indicates the very ancient ancestry of the temple. See a royal seal of great Sri Lanka emperor Dutta Ghamani was also recovered from the temple in 2003. See the recovery of the seal established that a group of royal pilgrims of monks from Sri Lanka might have visited this place and sources say that these monks visited the place during their journey to Sarnath from Bodhgaya through the famous Dakshinapata route and this journey happened sometime between 110 BC to 77 BC. The pilgrims might have lost their royal seal here and note that the temple has stone carvings and these carvings are of Gupta period and some of the specimens in the temple are of Nagara style of the temple architecture. This is another fact and the specialty of the temple is that it has an octagonal structure that is made up of stone. If you see the octagonal structure is very rare in temple architecture right and in this temple the main attraction is the grand and the ancient idol of the goddess Mundeshwari. The idol of the goddess is placed in the eastern sector of the temple and there are four entrances in the temple and four faced Sivalinga is installed in the central part of this temple. Have a look at this. See this speciality of the Sivalinga is that it is made up of stone which reportedly changes color which change in the direction of the sun from dawn to dusk and some say the existence of Naga or the serpent on the four faced Sivalinga can also be detected and the statue of the Vishal Nandi is there on the west side of the main entrance. This is another notable feature of the temple and the uniqueness of this temple is the animal sacrifice which is called as the goat sacrifice. It's a little unfortunate but here the goat is sacrificed not by slaughter and the history record says that such type of sacrifice is found nowhere else and this is called as a bloodless sacrifice. See these goats apparently fall unconscious in the middle of chanting of mantras and during showering of flowers and sacred rise by the priest and historians say that this is a very famous practice even now in the temple. Apart from this another notable feature is that Chinese visitor Hugh Sangh has written about this shrine in his travel logs and the article describes that some recent scholars are of the opinion that the goddess installed in the Mundeshwari temple might well have been a deity worshipped originally by the aboriginal people and this population is described in the Vedic and the post Vedic texts as Asura and Daitya and they say that the goddess seems to have been assert or taken illegally by force and was made a part of the Hindu pantheon of the Hindu gods and this happened during the long drawn out struggles between the forces of invading Brahmanism and the indigenous population of the Kaimur range and these are the some of the topics associated with this temple. Now let's move on to the next part of the discussion. Now let us take up this editorial. See recently India experienced true cyclonic storms in short span of time right one is Cyclone Takte another one is Cyclone Yas and at this backdrop the author has written this editorial. Let us go into the details. Here is the syllabus pertaining to this subject. Now see according to the author these cyclonic storms are testing India's capacity to withstand multiple near simultaneous shocks. So in this context let us learn about tropical cyclones first. See tropical cyclones are violent storms that originate over the oceans in tropical areas and the tropical cyclones move over to the coastal areas bringing about large scale destruction caused by violent winds very heavy rainfalls and storm surges. So these are the three mechanisms by which the storms wreak havoc and tropical cyclones are one of the most devastating natural calamities and they are known by different names in different areas. We saw this very recently in our one of the previous discussion. So have it note on this. Now let us see about the conditions that are favorable for the formation and intensification of tropical storms. The first one is large sea surface with temperature higher than 27 degrees Celsius okay. So any open ocean is a favorable condition in the tropical area right. Now the presence of Coriolis force of course anything away from the equator small variation in the vertical wind speed and the next is a pre-existing weak low pressure area or a low level cyclonic circulation is a favorable condition and apart from that upper air divergence above the sea level system is another important prerequisite so which is very interlinked with the previous point and the energy that intensifies the storm comes from the condensation process in the towering cumulonimbus clouds which surrounds the storm. With continuous supply of moisture from the sea the storm is further strengthened okay and on reaching the land the moisture supply is cut off right so the storm also dissipates and the place where the tropical cyclone crosses the coast is called the landfall of the cyclone. Now have a look at this figure okay a mature tropical cyclone is characterized by a strong spiraling circulation wind around the center. See this center is called the eye and the diameter of the circulating system can vary between 150 to 250 kilometers and if you see the eye is the region of cum with subsiding air that is there is very minimal movement of winds in this region and it's relatively very cum and comes the ice wall around the eye is the eye wall where there is a strong spiraling ascent of the wind that is the wind is moving upward to greater heights reaching the tropopause so that is the level of wind movement up to tropopause right and the wind reaches maximum velocity in the eye walls the velocity could be as high as 250 kilometer per hour and in this area torrential rains occur and from the eye wall rain bands may radiate and the trains of cumulonimbus clouds may drift into the outer region imagine in a three-dimensional way okay and the diameter of the storm over the Bay of Bengal Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean is generally between 600 to 1200 kilometer see this diameter can vary from area to area across the globe okay and system in Indian Ocean Arabian Sea Bay of Bengal they all move very slowly at 300 to 500 kilometer per day and the cyclone creates storm surges as well and they inundate the coastal lowlands and the storm peters out on the land and this inundation storm surges is also a reason for all the losses caused by the storms now coming back to the editorial the yas cyclone which was categorized as very severe cyclonic storm wrecked havoc along the eastern coast of India all right and yas was accompanied with a severe tornado and rain which affected the Orisha coast areas significantly though the laws of lies were very limited thanks to the preparatory mass evacuation and all but lot of houses and properties were lost so which has an economic impact on the coastal community right and also this very severe cyclonic storm caused huge damages to the state of West Bengal in Jharkhand as well see the coastal states facing Bay of Bengal have always been in the path of severe cyclones so this is not something new but the frequency and the strength of Bay of Bengal cyclones have increased significantly in the recent years experts attributed to climate change but this has increased the vulnerability of the states whatever may be the reason and moreover India is facing the second wave of corona pandemic and this has to gather with the cyclone aggravated the misery and the author believes it is high time for a government to take necessary steps to improve the resilience of our coastal states according to the author governments are more sensitive to loss of life today and are raising the capacity of the disaster response force which is a very commendable step but that alone is not enough okay the author believes much more needs to be done when it comes to protecting assets and creating financial instruments to help people rebuild their lives what is creating financial instruments it's more like insurance ensuring the coastal community or coastal people against the losses okay he stresses this point by citing a report which is a very good example see according to the state of global climate 2020 report by the world meteorological organization cyclone ampan is the costly cyclone on record for the northern Indian Ocean in terms of economic losses and cyclone ampan hit West Bengal last year causing huge loss to life and property and rough economic losses caused by this cyclone amounts to 14 billion dollars according to this report also this cyclone displaced about 2.4 million people from their habitats so you can imagine the amount of burden that it has caused on the coastal people as well as on the government also according to the author this cyclone has exposed an important issue plaguing the disaster management it showed that there is a heavy corruption in the distribution of relief for the affected people there was this issue of layering up also if at all you remember so the benefits don't reach the victims of the cyclone so what can be done see the author suggests that the state governments when ensure people against the losses from catastrophes using a system of documentation all right and these documentation reliefs and rehabilitation measures should be made non-discretory that is it should be made mandatory right and citizens should be made a part of a social insurance model thereby spreading the cost of risk of disasters across the population okay and the author also suggests the rebuilding of habitations through green technology to minimize the impact of climate change on the tropical cyclones and the author finally concludes by saying that the management of cyclone is the need of the are otherwise it will damage the years of economic progress that has been achieved so that is the article in total so we saw what is a cyclonic star in this discussion and apart from that we saw author's views on what can be done in the future to minimize the effects of these cyclonic storms and the lives of the people so with this information let's move to the next segment of the discussion now let us take up this article it is about the central Vistra redevelopment project so let's look into central Vista redevelopment project from the exam perspective first what is central Vista see the central Vista nothing but a 3.2 kilometer stretch in Delhi which houses Rajsharpati Bhavan parliament house north and south block India gate and national archers and in 2019 the union ministry of housing and urban affairs proposed a central Vista redevelopment project and according to the government the parliament's building facility and infrastructure are inadequate to meet the central demands right also the offices of the central government are spread over different locations which affects the interdepartmental coordination and unnecessary travel leading to congestion and pollution and the government also believes that the most of the existing buildings have outlived their structural lives so it decided to revamp the central Vista and propose the central Vista redevelopment project this is the outline of this see the central Vista redevelopment plan as proposed to meet the present and the future needs of space for the parliament ministries and departments it also aims to provide better public facilities amenities parking facilities etc and the current building in the central Vista are plagued with file safety issues as well and apart from that it has acoustic concerns dilapidated conditions etc right and the central Vista redevelopment plan aims to overcome these kind of issues and under this ambitious project there will be a new parliament building by 2020 to July and common secretary by 2024 of March and once this project is completed the strength of the parliament has been expected to increase from 545 seats to about 900 seats and if you see the project also envisions to improve the beauty of the central Vista to make it as a world class tourist attraction and the estimate of this project is approximately rupees 971 crore and these are the components of the project first one is constructing a triangular parliament building next to the existing one and construction of a common secretary to accommodate the office of various ministries and we also have a component for revamping of the three kilometer long Rajput from Rajapati Bhavan to India gate and north and south block are to be repurposed as museums and there is also a component which aims to develop a central Vista avenue so in this discussion we just looked into the central Vista redevelopment plan which is making news in the recent times so with this information let's move on to the next segment so look at this article now this article says that Tamil Nadu's fiscal deficit was nearly 9 to 2 thousand crore for the fiscal 2020 and 2021 and in this context let's discuss in brief about certain economic terms that are important from the prelims perspective so first let us understand fiscal deficit that is mentioned in the article see when the government's non-borrowed receipts fall short of its entire expenditure it has to borrow money from the public to meet the shortfall this excess of total expenditure over the total non-borrowed receipts is called as fiscal deficit hence fiscal deficit is total expenditure minus total receipts except the borrowings and the liabilities okay so this is the formula and this deficit will be financed through borrowing from different sources that are within India outside India and from RBI so it has all the three components okay pay attention there so what causes fiscal deficit sometimes the government spends on aids and other assistance to weak and vulnerable section of the society or it can also spend on creation of certain assets like roads ports or something all these may lead to some gap between the expenditure and revenue so this reflects as fiscal deficit all right so know that certain level of fiscal deficit can be good for the economy why because when this happens the money spent goes into the creation of productive assets like the highways roads ports airports that boost the economic growth which internal resulted job creation which in turn will result in economic growth so some amount of fiscal deficit is desirable say some of the economic experts now let us see what primary deficit is see that is a very related and a tricky concept let's understand that see primary deficit is a fiscal deficit excluding the interest payments that is it tells us how much of the government's borrowings are going towards meeting expenses other than the interest payments if we have to put it in formula we can say that PD is equal to FD that is fiscal deficit minus interest payments so interest payments on the loans that were taken in the previous year all right see when government borrows okay its expenditure goes for creation of assets or to pay subsidies or for its day to day expenditure and it also goes for interest payments so primary deficit clubs all these things into one and it excludes the interest payments alone okay so a decrease in primary deficit shows the progress towards fiscal health like any other deficit okay the lower the primary deficit better is the fiscal health all right but look at this but when the primary deficit is zero that is when the fiscal deficit is equal to the interest payment the primary deficit will become zero according to the formula right so when the primary deficit becomes zero the fiscal deficit becomes equal to the interest payment correct so this means that the government has resorted to borrowing just to pay off the interest that is all the borrowings from the previous year has gone to the interest payment in the following year okay by this you can see that the government borrows from some source and it pays off the interest the loans keep growing just to service the interest and the loans that was previously taken right further nothing is added to the existing loan so a zero primary deficit indicates that the interest commitments on the earlier loans have forced the government to borrow so you can see that if there is zero primary deficit the government is kind of trapped in a vicious circle so a zero primary deficit is not desirable in an economy a low primary deficit is desirable whereas a zero primary deficit is not desirable in an economy all right now the next related concept is the revenue deficit see revenue deficit is the difference between the revenue expenditure and the revenue receipt all right the revenue deficit shows that the shortfall of government's current receipts over the current expenditure and know that certain expenditure is expenditure on goods and services consumed by the government within the year as you can see this does not involve any asset creation okay so when the government incurs a revenue deficit it simply implies that the government is this saving that is it is using up the savings from the other sectors of the economy to finance a part of its consumption expenditure so this is a very undesirable deficit that the government can have next is the effective revenue deficit this is a very new concept it was introduced in the union budget of 2011 and 12 see it excludes revenue expenditure or transfers in the form of grants or creation of capital assets to the states see the grants given to states come under the revenue expenditure so that is being excluded because that results in some form of asset creation so we are excluding that so effective revenue deficit becomes a more reliable parameter to assess the deficit of the government so in simple terms effective revenue deficit indicates the difference between revenue deficit and grants for the creation of capital assets so with this we have come to the end of discussion on this topic I believe this will be a revision of the important economic terms all right now let us look at this news article which is about the recent developments on the make a debt to issue so recently regarding this the national green tribunal the southern zone has ordered the appointment of a joint committee to look into the allegations of unauthorized construction activity along the make a debt to so the article says that the Karnataka has decided to challenge this decision and in this context let us understand in brief about the make a debt to issue and also about the NGT and I remember in our yesterday's news analysis we had covered the Kaveri and the NGT so today's discussion would focus more on the nature of the issue the substances of the issue for a better understanding of the students okay so this is the syllabus for your reference from the exam point of this discussion on the make a debt to is more for your understanding of that particular issue in itself see understand that make a debt to project is a continuation of the long existing Kaveri river water dispute between the two states that is Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and we know Kaveri is an interstate river with its upper hilly catchment lying in the Karnataka and Kerala states and the lower part is in the plains of the Tamil Nadu and it rises in the Brahmagiri range of the western Ghats in the Kurg district of Karnataka and here are the some of the major tributaries joining the river Kaveri in the Karnataka territory and Kabyani which drains the north Malabar of Kerala flows through Karnataka and joins Kaveri and Bhavani, Amaravati and Noel are the tributaries of the river in the TN and know that there are two interstate agreements about regarding Kaveri those two were signed in two years that is 1892 and 1924. This 1892 agreement is a general agreement relating to a number of interstate rivers and this 1924 agreement it was signed particularly for Kaveri alone mostly for irrigation development and if you notice the 1892 and 1924 agreements are permanent in nature and later the Karnataka government constructed four new dams across the tributaries of Kaveri which is Harangi, Kabyani, Hemavati and Suvarnavati okay and none of these constructions took the prior consent of Tamil Nadu all right so in 1969 the Tamil Nadu state appealed to the then prime minister of India to adjudicate on this action of the Karnataka state okay now later center used its power under the interstate river water disputes at 1956 to constitute the Kaveri water dispute tribunal in 1919 and the tribunal submitted the report in 2007 which was challenged again in the supreme court and based on the supreme court judgment of 2018 the center notified the Kaveri water management scheme and it constituted the Kaveri water management authority and Kaveri water regulation committee as two bodies to look into the water sharing between the states and it is estimated that after supplying about 192 TMC feet of water to Tamil Nadu as per the agreement between the two states and another 250 TMC of water flows into Tamil Nadu which further joins the sea what Karnataka envisages is that it wants to tap this additional water and use it for the drinking water needs of water-starved Bengaluru okay and it could either build one or two reservoirs with the two 25 TMC capacities each so for that it even invited international tenders and everything all right so this is one side but Tamil Nadu has displayed apprehensions that it may not get the water that it is promised if at all these reservoirs are built so this is the crux of the issue now let us know more about the make it into itself it is a place in Karnataka near Mysuru so this project aims to construct a balancing reservoir across the river Kaveri that is it is a multi-purpose project with several objectives see some of its objectives are to utilize the additional TMC of water that is being let out right and next is to store the flood waters that may escape into the sea to harness 400 megawatt of renewable energy so these are some of the objectives this project is to be built by Kaveri Niravari Nigam Limited which is a completely government-owned entity right and later Tamil Nadu has moved the Supreme Court regarding this apprehension and its main argument is that the project violates the final award of the Kaveri River Water Tribunal and also the construction of the two reservoirs would result in reduced water flow to the Tamil Nadu see this subject is still subjectizing the supreme court meanwhile NGT has taken slow motor cognizance of a newspaper report that talked about the illegal construction in this area so this is why make it a two has made noise again in the recent scenario and here is some information about national green tribunal yesterday's discussion covered national green tribunal very comprehensively so i'm not going to get into the details of it but here is a slide for your reference now let us take up this news article for discussion this is about vaccine hesitancy and the way forward okay so as we know COVID-19 vaccines have been developed at a record pace no other vaccine was recorded in such a short duration efficient vaccines would not just protect us from severe infection but also ensures herd immunity if done on a large scale see we saw about herd immunity few days ago right see vaccination is one of the most successful public health intervention and prevention it has led to elimination and control of lot of disease for example before vaccines many became severely ill and died from infectious disease such as smallpox polio diphtheria measles and etc these diseases hampered the quality of life also but vaccines prevented this disease and gave a better quality of life so vaccine is an important tool to herd immunity so herd immunity let's quickly refresh herd immunity is the indirect protection from the contagious infectious disease this happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection and in case of the new corona virus each infected person passes it on to an average of two to three new individuals and this means that the herd immunity can be achieved only when around 60 percentage of the population become immune to COVID-19 all right then this requires collective effort and this is threatened by vaccine hesitancy so what is this vaccine hesitancy the WHO defines a vaccine hesitancy as a delay in the acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite the availability of the vaccination services and the article gives us a recently published poll result in which almost one in three adults worldwide said they will not take the COVID-19 vaccine that is one third of the world is vaccine hesitant and in India this figure was 18% initially but it has gradually gone up due to largely overblown media reports of complications or even deaths following the vaccination the most influencing factor nowadays is the conspiracy theories and disinformation that is spread through the social media this goes on to spread like a rapid fire right hence the author classifies those who resist to take vaccine as one those who are completely against vaccines and two those who accept vaccines but are skeptical of their use like is it really effective you know that way and three those who do not want vaccines but wish to derive the benefits of herd immunity that is if one person does not get infected the people around him will also not get infected right that is what they mean by here see the decision making around the vaccination entails a complex mix of cultural psychological spiritual political and cognitive factors let us understand that the important reasons for vaccine hesitancy taking into account all these factors fit into three categories all right first one is lack of confidence in effectiveness safety system or the policy makers because this point says that the people just does not develop any trust okay and the second is complacency which is the perceived low risk of acquiring vaccine preventable disease that is the laxity that oh i may not get the infection you know that way and the third and the final one is the lack of convenience in the availability accessibility and appeal of immunization service including the time place language and cultural context basically the vaccine is not accessible to a person in a very easy way he has to go through a lot of hurdles to reach the vaccine making the person vaccine hesitant now let us see what are the consequences of this vaccine hesitancy first and foremost it will prevent achieving herd immunity right if herd immunity does not develop disease outbreaks will keep on happening then the pandemic will prevail for a longer period of time so we have no second way we will have third way fourth way fifth way like that and also when the vaccination rate is poor the spread of infection would be wide leading to more mutation and new variants see how does this happen see only when the virus has a host it tries to mutate and develop new variants when we all are vaccinated the virus actually will not have a host and it will have no chance of mutating and developing new variants right so this is the essence and next see the vaccine hesitant parents who are on the fence far outnumber the vaccine refuses that is people who want to vaccinate but they are really you know skeptical they are just watching the picture are far larger in number compared to the people who do not want to take vaccines at all right therefore counseling the people who are just waiting and watching would be much more effective so the need of the R is to build confidence in the COVID-19 vaccines and strong confidence in the vaccines within community leads to more people getting vaccinated which leads to fewer COVID-19 illnesses and in turn fewer hospitalizations and fewer deaths and the reason behind vaccine hesitancy is complex and encompasses more than knowledge deficit that's what we just saw right so we need to understand the reason behind the hesitancy and the anti-vax attitude and then provide an answer for this rather than just stressing on the scientific facts of the vaccines sometimes it just doesn't trickle at all right so some of the easy ways to build vaccine confidence are encouraging leaders in family community or organizations to be vaccine champions for example some celebrity or some community head can be roped in to you know convince the people to take vaccines a person may be better convinced when a person he or she likes is talking about the benefits of the vaccine then sharing the messages through multiple channels that people trust and that promote action so TV or radio or those kind of media channels can be preferred then apart from that educating people about COVID-19 vaccines and how they are developed and monitored for safety etc should also be done and apart from all these things government also needs to provide practical information through social media which can reach the people very quickly and from the administration of the government side they should ensure easy access to vaccine and take the help of well informed frontline workers to spread the real information on the vaccines so in this discussion we dealt in detail about vaccine hesitancy the reasons behind it as well as what can be done to prevent the vaccine hesitancy so with this information let's move on to the next segment so with that we have come to the last section of discussion today practice preliminary question we have five questions for discussion today of that five one is a past year preliminary question so let's go over it one by one the first question consider the following statement with reference to octagonal shaped Mata Mundeshwari temple located in Bihar it's a two statement question and we are asked to identify the correct statement so from the discussion we know the first statement is correct see here goats are sacrificed and not slaughtered which is a notable feature of this temple so the first statement is right now coming to the second statement the temple has some of the earliest specimens of nagara style of temple architecture we saw this in the discussion as well and what are these the chaitya windows the kirti mukhas the lotus medallions are some of these features which shows a clear influence of the nagara style so the correct option is option see both one and two so a very related past year question is this the nagara the dravidya and the vesara are what all right and they have described it in four different statements but the correct option is option see see these are the three main styles of indian temple architecture all right now let's move on to the next question so this is about the national green tribunal the authority of the national green tribunal extends over which of the following statutes this is one of the famous questions see ngt exercises its jurisdiction over those subjects mentioned in schedule one and statutes in schedule one are the water act the forest act the air act the environment protection act the public liability insurance act and the biological diversity act 2002 so the correct option is option d which is one two three and four including all the four statutes now with that question let's go on to the next question so which of the following is the correct definition of primary deficit so we have four statements to describe that the first statement however makes sense it is a definition of fiscal deficit all right and the statements b and c are quite hypothetical which do not have any real meaning and the fourth statement is the difference between fiscal deficit and the interest payment which is the right option which we saw in the discussion all right moving on to the next question the last preliminary question for the day this is about central vista redevelopment project and it's a two statement question we have been asked to identify the correct statement so the first statement is the central vista redevelopment project envisages constructing a triangular parliament building next to the existing parliament so from the article discussion we know the first statement is correct however the second statement is wrong why the second statement says that 2019 the union ministry of finance proposed the central vista redevelopment project to revamp the central vista but in 2019 in actuality the union ministry of housing and urban affairs proposed the same so the catch is in the ministry that is being asked so the correct option is option a one only so with that we have come to the end of preliminary question discussion so that's it for today's discussion we are wrapping up the session if you like the video like share comment and subscribe stay 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