 Good evening aspirants. Happy to meet you all in the daily hindi news analysis brought to you by Shankar Aiz academy. Today I'll be covering the hindi news edition dated 7th of august 2022. I have chosen these articles for discussion today. In today's discussions we'll be covering about Bishnoy movement, defense offset, China-Taiwan issue and its implications, CRISPR-Cas9 technology and also a new herbarium launched by the Indian government. And at the end we have a practice questions discussion session based on these discussions. Pay attention to the discussion because I'll be posting a poll question along with this video. So after viewing the analysis don't forget to attend the poll. So let's start the session. This discussion is going to be an interesting one. In this discussion we are going to see about a community. But before that let us understand what this news article says. This article gives us information about traditional water harvesting structures in western Rajasthan. See these water harvesting structures are called as nadis or talabs. This is a nadi and this is a talab. As you can see they are shallow depressions and they are used to store rainwater. The rural communities in the western Rajasthan use these shallow depressions because the state has highly fluctuating and scanty rainfall. So to solve the problem of water scarcity they build nadis and talabs. Now according to the news article the nadis which are in the areas of orens perform well. Here oren is nothing but a sacred groove or sacred space which is rich in biodiversity and it usually has a water body. So according to the article the nadis in the areas of orens they are performing because these orens have trees and they slow the water runoff. So this in turn prevents flash floods and it also aids in percolation of water to the ground. So that means orens play a crucial role in the water conservation of the area. Here we have seen three different terms nadis talabs and orens. While writing a main answer try to incorporate these terminologies so that your answer will stand out from others. Now in addition to these points the article also mentions that the local Bishnoy community has worked hard to ensure the maintenance and functioning of orens and nadis and that is where we are going to see about this Bishnoy community today. See these Bishnoys are people belonging to the Bishnoy sector Bishnoy faith. This faith is a religious offshoot of Hinduism and we can find this community in the western Rajasthan especially they reside on the fringes of Thar desert. The point to be noted is for many centuries the main purpose of this community is to conserve the flora and fauna to protect the environment. See they have fulfilled this purpose to the extent that many of them have sacrificed their lives to protect the environment. We will see how in the later part of the discussion. So conserving the environment including the flora and fauna that is the biodiversity is a part and parcel of the sacred traditions of Bishnoys. Now the basic philosophy of this religion is all living things have a right to survive and share all resources. Now let us see briefly how this faith came into being. It is said that in the 15th century Jhamboji who was a resident of a village near Jodhpur had a vision that the cause of drought and hardship was mainly because of people's interference with nature. So after that he became a sannyasi that is a holy man and he came to be known as Swami Jambeshwar Maharaj. So it is said that from then on the Bishnoy sect began. Swami Jambeshwar Maharaj has laid down 29 tenets for his followers and these tenets include ban on killing of animals, a ban to the felling of trees especially felling of the KJD tree is totally banned. This KJD tree grows extensively in the western Rajasthan area so they not only banned the felling of this tree but in general also felling of tree was banned in the Bishnoy sect and they were even asked to avoid using of wood for cremation. This is because nature's conservation was given utmost importance by this community. Now this is where you need to understand about the Bishnoy movement. This movement has helped a lot in the conservation of biodiversity in Rajasthan. Here we have to know about the sacrifice of Amrita Devi many of you have heard about this name through a story let me tell you what happened. See it was 1730s at that time the Maharaja of Jodhpur wanted to build a new palace so wood was required for it. Now to procure the wood his men went to the area around the village of Jalnadhi to fell the trees but when Amrita Devi who was the resident of that village saw this that is when she saw men coming to fell the trees she immediately rushed to prevent the men and hugged the first tree but unfortunately the axe that was intended to fell the tree actually fell on her and she died on spot and before dying she uttered the famous couplet or the verse of Bishnois. This famous verse is this means a chopped head is cheaper than a felled tree so through this verse she gave more importance to the tree than to a human life and from this you can understand the importance the Bishnoi community members give to the environment. Now after this incident people from surrounding villages rushed to prevent the men from felling the trees and it is said that by the end of the day more than 350 villagers lost their lives. Now this incident was informed to the king and when he heard about this he felt sorry for the people and even came to the village to personally apologize and in that moment he promised the Bishnoi community that they would never again be asked to provide timber to the ruler. He also promised that KJD tree would not be cut and also hunting will be banned near the Bishnoi villages so these promises were made by the Maharaja of Jodhpur to the Bishnoi villagers and from then on this village came to be known as the KJD. So the heartland of Bishnois which is the forest near Jodhpur is abundant with trees and wildlife because of these sacrificed by the Bishnoi community people and from then on the landscape has become greener and it even houses many important animals like antelopes, blackbugs, chinkara etc. All these animals are not afraid of humans often they roam near the villages eating out of the villagers hands. So from this story you can understand that the Bishnois believe that human lives are a small price to pay to protect the wildlife and the forest around them. You would have heard about this community when Salman Khan case was in the news because this was the community which was engaged in a legal battle with the actor. So the efforts of the Bishnoi community to conserve the environment particularly the flora and fauna is what is termed as Bishnoi movement and it happened in the 1730s. Now remember this was the particular environmental conservation movement which paved way for many other movements thereafter and we learn about one such movement that happened in 1970s. Yes it is the Chipko movement so hugging of trees first started with the Bishnoi movement and continued even after the Chipko movement. So in this discussion we saw about the Bishnois and the relationship they have with their environment and biodiversity and how all this is imbibed in their religion itself. We saw about the sacrifice of Amrita Devi and remember the famous verse a chopped head is cheaper than a felled tree. You can even start your mains answer writing with this couplet. Okay with these points in mind now let us move on to the next discussion. Well China Taiwan issue is again in the spotlight and this is mainly because of a recent visit of a top US official to Taiwan. You would have heard that Ms Nancy Pelosi who is the Speaker of United States House of Representatives visited Taiwan recently and her visit has caused turbulence in the China and Taiwan. Actually China opposed her visit and this FAQ article along with this profile article deals with these matters particularly the FAQ talks about the recent visit of Ms Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. It also discusses why it is opposed by China and what was the response of China and it also analyzes how this visit will be impacting US-China relations. But to understand these points we need to have a basic knowledge about one China policy and also the significance of Taiwan. That is why today our discussion is going to be structured in this manner first one China policy then impact of Ms Pelosi's visit then USA support to independent democratic Taiwan and finally we will be ending with the implications of the visit on US-China relations. Okay now those are the syllabus that you can link with this discussion we are going to start with one China policy. See if you remember few days before we had a discussion about Taiwan issue and there we saw Chinese Civil War. We saw this topic on 3rd August and there we saw the result of the civil war. What was the result? There Chinese Communist Party defeated the Chinese Nationalist Party. Okay two parties are there Chinese Communist Party and Chinese Nationalist Party. Here this CNP is also called as Kuomintang. So after this defeat that is after this civil war the political leaders of this Chinese Nationalist Party shifted their base to Taiwan and finally the Chinese Communist Party the other party took control of the mainland China whereas the Kuomintang took control of Taiwan and because of this the mainland China sees Taiwan as a breakaway territory of China and it considers Taiwan as an inalienable part of mainland China. Because of this Chinese government even believes that one day it will integrate Taiwan along with the Chinese mainland and after that there will be only one Chinese government. This is the one China principle. Pay attention here it is one China principle it is actually different from the one China policy. See this one China principle is the official position of Chinese government but on the other hand one China policy is a diplomatic acknowledgement of USA. To be specific one China policy mainly concerns the acknowledgement by USA that there is only one Chinese government okay and according to this policy of USA the US government will be maintaining cultural commercial and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan. That is while the US government will be engaging in trade and other activities it will not be having any political ties with the Taiwanese government and this has been the status quo for some time now but this status quo has been affected by Miss Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. So I hope you had a better understanding of one China principle and one China policy. Now let us come to the significance of Taiwan. You may ask whether China is aiming to incorporate Taiwan into its mainland only because of one China policy or even other reasons are present. The answer is both that is China has other interests also especially due to the strategic position of Taiwan. See we have elaborately discussed the strategic position and importance of Taiwan on 3rd August itself. Today I am just going to discuss the highlights. See control of Taiwan is important for China because it will increase Chinese legitimacy in the South China Sea because after incorporating Taiwan China can easily enforce the nine dashed line and it can even realize its dream of making the South China Sea as the Chinese lake. Once again I am telling you we have discussed all these points elaborately on 3rd August so if you have any doubt you can visit that analysis. Now along with this there is also another reason for ensuring control over Taiwan by China. This reason is it will help China to breach the first island line. This first island line includes the islands of Indonesia, Philippines and Japan. See these islands are tilted towards USA especially Japan is a US ally and they are acting as a choke point in the Pacific. So indirectly their support to USA curtail the movement of Chinese navy freely in the Pacific Ocean. That is why taking control of Taiwan will help China to breach this first island line. And there is also one other major reason which is when China takes control of Taiwan it will get access to the deep water ports of Taiwan. So due to these reasons China is pursuing Taiwan. But you have to remember here that even though USA officially has the one China policy in the recent times it seems like USA is supporting Taiwan through back channel. Even this visit of Ms Pelosi is proving this point. So let us understand why US might support or is supporting an independent democratic Taiwan. The first reason is the obvious one because US favors democracy but we know that the polluting China is different from that of USA. Even then China's global standing both in the economic sphere and political sphere has increased in the last few decades and is now enormous. So this rise of China shows that democratic processes and open markets are not prerequisites for economic growth. That is this success of China threatens the western model of democracy and this is where Taiwan comes in. Because Taiwan has a vibrant democracy so if China recaptures Taiwan and it starts imposing its one-party government there also then this will be a major setback to the liberal world order and USA doesn't want this. This is why USA is favoring an independent democratic Taiwan through its back channel to counter Chinese ideology. There is also another reason for USA support to Taiwan. This is to contain China militarily. See if China captures Taiwan then Taiwan will be acting as a forward base for China. This will increase Chinese aircraft and missile ranges to another 150 nautical miles to the east. This is a problem for US because this increase in range will give the Chinese upper hand in the region and this will be detrimental to US specific island territory which is Guam and it will be also detrimental to the US ally which is Japan and USA doesn't want this also. And next comes the economic reason. We all know China is a global manufacturing giant. Even then China lacks several latest technologies especially in the area of semiconductors. In the semiconductor sector China is dependent on Taiwan. So that means if China captures Taiwan then it will also get hold of these technologies and this will give a much needed boost to the Chinese economy and then it will lead to toppling of USA from being the global economic superpower. And obviously USA doesn't want this also. So due to these reasons USA wants Taiwan to remain independent and democratic and not under the control of China. But officially still their stand is one China policy only but the visit of Miss Pelosi to Taiwan may have made a crack in this official stand. So now let us see the impacts of Miss Pelosi's visit. So on one hand the Taiwanese officials welcomed her visit because it will give a boost to their global standing. But the Chinese government was furious. Actually even during the planning stages of this visit Chinese government opposed it and even gave out a stern warning message. Why because China sees this visit by the speaker of House of Representatives of USA as a political move. But we said that under the one China policy USA has already promised it will not engage in any official relations with Taiwan. So now China feels that USA is backtracking on its promise and it is trying to change the status quo. So China just did not give out a stern warning rather it also responded militarily politically and economically. So militarily China responded by conducting live drills around Taiwan. Yes around Taiwan. Take a look at this map. Here you can see the Taiwan's maritime border in the dotted line and the green one is the Taiwan's territorial waters. Now the pink markings are the regions where China conducted live military drills. You can clearly see that it is around Taiwan. China even fired conventional missiles over the island of Taiwan into the waters to the east. So what China was aiming to achieve through this it wanted to show Taiwan what will happen in the future and how it can create an economic blockage. Along with this China also announced that it will cancel or suspend eight key dialogue mechanisms with the USA and this included three important bilateral military dialogues also. So this was the military response of China. Now politically China took some steps to censure the US action. Here China suspended bilateral talks on key matters such as climate change, repatriation of illegal immigrants, legal assistance in criminal matters, transnational crimes etc. But if you see economically the response was minimal it just imposed some curbs on Taiwanese exports. Why? Because as I already said China is the one which is heavily dependent on Taiwanese semiconductors. So it just cannot impose curbs on all the exports from Taiwan. It will be affecting Chinese economy also. So these were the major impacts of Miss Nancy Pelosi's visit and China's response. But remember here both the Chinese actions and the action by USA are mainly due to the domestic political developments. See on 3rd August itself we saw the domestic reasons that fueled the Chinese actions and today we will be focusing on the domestic reasons that fueled USA's actions. Here you should understand that USA's polity is different from India. In India the executive is a part of the legislature but in the USA executive and the legislature are distinct. So President Biden and the White House represent the executive whereas Miss Pelosi and the House of Representatives will be denoting the legislature. This shows that White House has a minimal control over the House of Representatives and this is why Mr Joe Biden distanced himself and also the White House from Ms Pelosi's visit. He even advised Ms Pelosi to not make the visit but even then the visit happened and this is due to the local politics of USA. Let me tell you briefly why. See in the recent times anti-China sentiment has been growing among Americans. Some recent polls even suggest that 82 percentage of Americans have a negative view of China and some of them even want to recognize Taiwan as an independent nation. Now these points are relevant in the local politics of USA because the current party which is in power has failed to deliver on its promise. It has failed to pass Medicare for all ad. It even is dealing with inflation and high gasoline prices. So at this juncture the midterm elections for the House of Representatives is coming so they fear that they will not be winning this election if the current situation goes on and that is why at this moment it is easier for the government to project toughness against China and they are aiming to get brownie points from the people that are actually delivering on the promises it made during the election. So the visit of Ms Nancy Pelosi is mainly aimed at exploiting the anti-Chinese sentiments of the US citizens so that her party can continue to hold majority in the House of Representatives. So in short the entire saga of both China and USA acting on the Taiwan issue is just their own selfish domestic needs. That is why even in the International Relations video that was published today in our channel which is taken by T.P. Srinivasan sir he said that Taiwan issue will not develop into a full blown war because war will be detrimental to both the countries of China as well as USA but we cannot also deny the fact that this episode will definitely weaken the Sino-US relationship okay because as I already said the visit of Ms Nancy Pelosi shows a crack in the one China policy of USA so I hope you understood what is happening in the world politics and how they are exploiting the situation for their own personal gains with these points in mind now let us get to the next discussion. This discussion is going to be based on this snippet article from the science page it says that a pioneering gene therapy has used CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing see this therapy has used this genome editing to target the root cause of sickle cell disease as you know sickle cell disease is caused by a flaw in the body's oxygen carrying protein you know which one is the oxygen carrying protein yes it is hemoglobin so flaw in hemoglobin causes the sickle cell disease and through genome editing the therapy has targeted the root cause of this disease see actually in the recent years genomics and research and development in this field is one of the favorites of UPSC especially in the preliminary examination and that is why we'll be focusing on CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing but before seeing about this tool we'll be seeing about what is genome editing it is also called as gene editing it involves a group of technology that gives the ability to change an organism's DNA that is it allows us to edit the DNA of an organism now when you say edit it means you can add something you can remove something you can alter something like that using the genome editing technologies genetic material can be added removed or altered at particular locations in the genome so several approaches have been developed in genome editing and a well-known one is the CRISPR-Cas9 approach so CRISPR-Cas9 is an approach or a tool that is used in gene editing here CRISPR stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and then Cas9 stands for CRISPR associated protein 9 now in the recent times many of the genome editing involves CRISPR-Cas9 approach why because it is faster cheaper more accurate and it is also more efficient than other genome editing methods but why do we need such genome editing it is because genome editing allows for the targeted intervention at the genomic sequence now what is this targeted intervention it means you can insert remove or even alter a particular gene in the entire sequence so the genome editing tools have opened various possibilities especially in the plant breeding and nowadays using this tool agricultural scientists are able to insert specific traits in the gene sequence and this could involve you know drought resistant genes genes showing insect repellent traits etc here you may think that we already know about genetically modified organisms GMOs see this GMO is different from the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing let me tell you how GMOs involve modification of genetic material of the host by introduction of a foreign genetic material here focus on the term foreign genetic material that is the genetic material from a foreign organism is introduced into the genetic material of the host with the help of cotton let us understand how this happens see cotton is affected by one of the most destructive pests called as pink bollworm so to solve this problem scientists introduced genes CRY1 AC and CRY2 AB into the genes of cotton plant see these two genes are mined from the soil bacterium which is the soil bacterium here it is the bacillus thuringiensis in short BT that is why we call this as BT cotton now the introduction of these genes allows the native cotton plant to generate endotoxins this endotoxin helps the cotton plant to fight the pink bollworm naturally so in this way a modification in the gene of the cotton plant has helped it to survive but understand here BT is a different organism and cotton plant is a different species so two genes from BT has been transferred to the cotton plant so these two genes are the genes from a foreign organism and this is called as the genetic engineering so the basic difference between CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing and genetic engineering is that CRISPR-Cas9 does not involve the introduction of a foreign genetic material into the host but on the other hand as we just saw genetic engineering involves the introduction of foreign genetic material into the host okay but what you have to remember is both these techniques involves editing of genes and both of them aim to generate variants in such a way that such a variant will be providing a better yield and will be more resistant to biotic and abiotic stress now even before gene editing there were other methods through which crop damages were prevented like they were doing the selective breeding and all see the selective breeding involved carefully crossing the plants that had these specific traits to produce the decided trait in the offspring for example if a particular plant is resistant to a pest then that plant will be crossed with a similar variety of the same species so from this they obtained other plants that were resistant to that pest but the problem is you cannot be sure about the result here you cannot ensure that all the offsprings that we get from this crossing will be resistant to pests some of them will not be showing the resistance and that is why now the genome editing and genetic engineering has gained prominence because these processors have become more accurate and they have also allowed the scientists to have greater control on trait development because they can choose the particular trait which they want to modify now let us come to the CRISPR Cas9 this CRISPR Cas9 was adapted from a naturally occurring genome editing system that is present in bacteria the bacteria uses this natural genome editing system as an immune defense what happens is when bacteria gets infected with viruses it captures small pieces of the viruses DNA and then they insert them into their own DNA in a particular pattern to create segments known as CRISPR arrays now these CRISPR arrays allows the bacteria to remember the viruses they remember it because if the virus attacks again then the bacteria will be producing RNA segments from the CRISPR arrays that recognize and attach to specific regions of the viruses DNA then the bacteria uses Cas9 or a similar kind of enzyme to cut the DNA apart and through this it disables the virus so after knowing this process researchers also adapted this immune defense system to edit DNAs here what they do is they create a small piece of RNA for guidance this is similar to RNA segments that the bacteria produced from the CRISPR arrays now when these are introduced into the cells the guide RNA recognizes the intended DNA sequence and then it attaches itself to a specific target sequence in a cells DNA and it also attaches to the Cas9 enzyme and here the Cas9 enzyme cuts the DNA at the targeted location like what happened in the bacteria case here also remember that even other enzymes other than Cas9 can also be used in this process now once the DNA is cut here researchers use the cells own DNA repair machinery to add pieces of genetic material or even to delete them they can also use the same to make changes to the DNA by replacing an existing segment with a customized DNA sequence so here whatever they are doing is with the existing DNA of the host a foreign gene is not introduced here okay so this is how the CRISPR Cas9 technology works so with these points in mind let us get to the next discussion let us check up this news article what it says out of the total offset commitment to be fulfilled by foreign defense companies only 82.13 percentage has been fulfilled so that means more than 17 percentage of offset commitment remains unfulfilled and because of this now the minister of state for defense has said that the penalty for this will be levied on the defaulters according to the defense offset guidelines so to understand what is this defense offset and what is this policy regarding this we need to know about defense procurement procedure also first let us start with defense offset see as you know India imports defense equipment from a foreign country that means a foreign firm is exporting its defense equipment now while doing so that foreign firm is obligated to boost India's domestic defense industry now here this obligation is what we call as the defense offset now this obligation is in terms of percentage of the total imports okay but why this is done is because defense contracts are costly so for a country like India which heavily depends on imports for most of its military hardware defense imports can strain its foreign exchange reserves that is why defense offset has been proposed and it has three main objectives first is to partially compensate for the significant outflow of forex reserves second is to facilitate technology transfers third is to add capacities and capabilities of domestic industry so that means through defense offsets forex reserves are saved we get technology transfer and our domestic industry is developed and note that this defense offset policy in India is implemented through the defense procurement procedure ensure DPP see this DPP contains policies and procedures for military hardware procurement and acquisition now the main aim of such DPP is to ensure the time-bound defense procurement process and faster decision-making like I said this DPP enforces the defense offset policy also so the main aim of defense procurement procedure is to make India a global defense manufacturing hub now according to the DPP of 2005 if the defense procurements are over 300 crores then 30 percentage of it will result in offsets and this will be implemented through the Indian offset partners here the offset partners are mostly the Indian micro small and medium enterprises that is MSMEs but remember this DPP was revised in 2016 and this limit of 300 crores was also increased it was increased to 2000 crores and then later in the year 2020 the DPP was recrecent it is now called as the defense acquisition procedure of 2020 now this DPP or defense acquisition procedure brought a major change to the offset policy this change was now there is no need for the defense offset in case of certain procurements these includes government to government procurement single vendor procurements and defense procurements under intergovernmental agreements so that means deals like Rafale need not adhere to the offset clause so from this discussion you would have got an idea like this defense offset is similar to the CSR that is corporate social responsibility of Indian companies like they are also the companies are by law required to voluntarily contribute a percentage of their profits for social development so like this the foreign defense firms who are exporting defense equipment to India are required to spend to boost Indian domestic defense sector this is the point that you have to remember so with these points in mind we are going to the next discussion we have come to the last discussion for today which is based on this news article it says that Indian virtual herbarium was established with details of about 1 lakh plant specimens so regarding this herbarium even our prime minister has noted that it is an example of how digital tools can help us connect to our roots so this topic becomes important from the problems angle that is why we are going to cover Indian virtual herbarium today so it is the country's largest online herbarium database and it is a web portal it was inaugurated by the union environment minister on first of july so what is this herbarium is actually a collection of plant samples with associated data for long-term study these materials may include pressed and mounted plants seeds dry fruits wood sections pollen microscope slides silica stored materials frozen dna extractions fluid preserved flowers or fruits etc so all these materials are generally referred as herbarium specimens now this portal of Indian virtual herbarium has been developed by the botanical survey of India under the framework of azadika amrat mahotso and digital India it is actually a database of dried plants it contains digital images of herbarium specimens apart from this the label on the data of each species includes the crucial informations about these specimens such as their family genus species or the citation subspecies etc and as I said in the beginning this herbarium contains more than 1 lakh specimens and scientific information about the plants it also includes details about medicinal plants and herbs but why it is important see this portal aims to provide complete information on herbarium specimens about floral diversity of India through online access so this will aid in the research studies of Indian flora and it will provide valuable insight for global plant research and also know that this IVH is deeply linked with the botanical history of our country because the portal provides most valuable historical collections of certain botanists who are considered to be the founding fathers of botany in India who are they they are the William Roxborough Nathaniel Wollick and Joseph Dalton Hooker other than this the digital herbarium also includes features to extract the data statewide so that means users can search plants of their own states it will help them to identify regional plants and they can build regional checklists so it is one of the crucial development under digital India platform and it will be providing boost to the global plant research so these are the few facts that you have to know about Indian virtual herbarium this topic was quite factual you have to remember the meaning of herbarium and what this database is about and what collections it has and its significance so with these crucial points we are moving to the last session of the day which is the practice questions discussion session this is the first question it is a three statement question consider the following statements regarding Chipko movement first statement is it is a violent movement of 1973 to conserve trees in the Himalayan districts of Uttar Pradesh now from the school days you would have heard about Chipko movement and you know that it is a movement to conserve trees but note that it was not a violent movement rather it is a nonviolent agitation this Chipko movement which was a nonviolent agitation happened in 1973 it was aimed at protection and conservation of trees see the uprising was against the felling of trees and to maintain the ecological balance and this movement originated in Uttar Pradesh's Chamoli district in 1973 and soon after it also spread to other states in north India actually here the term Chipko means embrace so the villagers hugged the trees and encircled them to prevent them from being felt so first statement is incorrect come to the second statement during the movement the villagers embraced the trees to prevent them from being cutting down this is correct just now I told that in the Chipko movement the villagers embraced the trees come to the third statement Bishnoi movement is based on Chipko movement see for a movement to be based on another movement first it has to be happened before that right but we know that Chipko happened in 1973 but Bishnoi movement happened in 1730s itself so we can say Chipko movement was based on Bishnoi not the other way around so this statement is also incorrect and here the question asks you to choose the correct statements therefore the correct answer is option B 2 only now let me take the second question consider the following statements regarding genome editing two statements are given first statement changes introduced to germline cells through genome editing are passed on to the next generation see germline cells are the egg cells or sperm cells okay now it says through genome editing the changes will be passed on to next generation this statement is actually correct you have to understand that most of the changes which are introduced with genome editing are limited to somatic cells the somatic cells are the cells other than the germline cells so the changes are isolated to only certain issues and they are not passed from one generation to the next generation in case of somatic cells but the changes which are made to the germline cells which are the egg cells or sperm cells or to the genes of an embryo this could be passed to future generations you should note that the germline cell editing and embryo genome editing bring up a number of ethical changes it is still a question whether it would be permissible to use this technology to enhance normal human traits or not because the changes will be passed on to the next generation so as of now changes to the somatic cells are permitted so statement one is correct statement genome editing holds promise for the treatment of disorders such as cystic fibrosis hemophilia sickle cell disease this is also correct see this is the actual application of genome editing currently genome editing is used in cells and animal models in research labs to understand diseases and it is also being explored in research and clinical trials for a wide variety of diseases this includes single gene disorders such as cystic fibrosis hemophilia and sickle cell disease also note that it also holds promise for the treatment and prevention of more complex diseases such as cancer heart disease hiv infection etc so here both the statements are correct and the question also asks you to choose the correct statements so the correct answer is option see both one and two now come to the next question it is a two statement question first statement central national herbarium located at haura is the only herbarium in the country this is incorrect because there are also other major herbaria in india first if you see the central national herbarium it is located in kolkata it was established in 1795 and it comprises about 2 million specimens and this is the first herbarium in the country and one of the most important asian herbaria next we also have the forest research institute it is situated in daradun it contains more than 350,000 specimens and next comes the national botanic gardens and then we have the bladder herbarium and we also have the botanical survey of india because it also has a herbaria attached to their regional centers so cnh is not the only herbarium in the country first statement is incorrect second statement botanical survey of india functions under the ministry of environment forest and climate change this statement is correct actually botanical survey of india is an attached office of this ministry it was established in 1890 now here be careful the question asks you to choose the incorrect statements so the correct answer is option a one only let me take the next question consider the following statements about defense acquisition council first statement it is headed by the prime minister it is incorrect because the DAC is headed by the union defense minister not the prime minister keep this fact in mind you may get confused in the problems examination second statement the council decides on new policies and capital acquisitions for the three services and the indian coast guard now you will be sure that it decides new policies and capital acquisitions for the three services but you will be doubtful about indian coast guard actually the statement is correct it also decides on these matters regarding indian coast guard also see actually during discussion we saw about defense offset right now this percentage of defense offset will also be decided by this council only now the 30 percentage offset limit provided in dpp is just the lower limit whereas the council has the powers to set a higher offset also if it finds there is a need for it so here statement one is incorrect statement two is correct and the question asks you to choose the correct statements only so the correct answer is option b 2 only now the quiz question for today will be published as a poll i think after listening to this video you can easily attend the poll the answer for the poll question will be published in tomorrow's video now let me take the main question in the context of recent visit by miss nancy pelosi to taiwan elaborate on why taiwan is significant for both china and usa now you need not focus on the visit majorly because the question is about the significance of taiwan to china and usa you can just mention about the visit in two lines two to three lines because it signifies a political visit from the side of usa to taiwan now why taiwan is significant for china was discussed on third august also and we discussed some of the points today also along with that why it is significant for us was also discussed in today's discussion and the major point is to counter china militarily economically and politically okay you can use the points that we discussed in the discussion and if you find any other points relevant to this question don't forget to add that also but remember you have to answer it in 150 words so be precise and accurate interested aspirants can write answer to this question and post it in the comment section so with this question we have come to the end of hindi news analysis for 7th of august if you like this video don't forget 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