 Good evening aspirants, I have an important announcement for you to know. Yes, it is about our pre-storming test series. Our batch 4 is going to start on 21st December 2022 and the application form is still open. Why are you waiting for? Just get enrolled and just pass the examination as soon as possible. So, this positive note let us move on to the news article Today's date is 18th December 2022. Displayed here are the list of news articles that we are going to discuss today. So, without much delay let us get into the first news article discussion. Now, this news article talks about the pendency of cases in the Supreme Court. Our Chief Justice of India recently said the very purpose of the Supreme Court is to hear every little cry for personal liberty and protection of fundamental rights. But the thing is that our law ministry recently presented data in the parliament that shows that there was a huge pendency of cases in the Supreme Court. So, this is about the news article given here. In this context let us understand the issue of pendency of cases in the upper judiciary and while doing that I will try to incorporate the data from the news article. Before that the syllabus relevant to this news article is highlighted here for your reference you can just go through it. Let me start this discussion with the court. Justice delayed is justice denied. But in India delayed justice has become a norm rather than an exception. For example, in India more than 40% of cases are decided after 3 years. What about other countries? In many other countries less than 1% of cases are decided after 3 years. You can clearly observe that in India judicial delay is significant. Now you may have a question. Why is ma'am talking about judicial delay when clearly today's discussion is about pendency of cases? See actually there is a link between the two. One of the main reason for judicial delay in India is the pendency of cases and judicial backlog. Now BIC is the problem of pendency of cases in India. Take a look at these graphs. The graph shows the pendency of cases in upper judiciary that is Supreme Court and High Court and also in the subordinate court. Just look at the mind boggling numbers here. Now look at this data from today's newspaper. There are 487 election related cases pending in the Supreme Court alone as of now. So in essence around 487 legislators in India are involved in the law making while the legitimacy of their election is still in question. Also 498 cases are pending before the constitutional bench also. So from this data we can conclude that the issue of pendency of case in India is indeed huge. So having understood about the scenario of pendency of cases in India, now let us see the impacts of pendency of cases. First let us look at the impact of pendency in criminal cases. See pendency leads to delay in justice delivery. Due to such a delay the accused person under trial is placed in prison which on one hand affects the personal liberty of the prisoner and on the other hand over burdens our prison system. According to the prison statistic India 2019 report released by the National Crime Records Bureau that is NCRB 69 percentage of the prison population or under trials who are not convicted yet. This is the major impact of pendency of cases in criminal trials. If you take the civil cases pendency of cases affects the constitutional rights of the citizen. High pendency and delays also have economic cost due to suspension of business. This is affecting India's investment climate. For example, if an infrastructure project is delayed due to a pending environment related judgment an investor might find it unattractive to invest in infrastructure project in India. Now this is a loss right. The third impact is in the judiciary itself. In some cases, pendency and the associated delay in judgment might affect the efficacy of the judgment. For example, in some cases due to the delay in judgment, witness and evidence might be tampered which will affect the quality of justice. The pendency of cases and the delay in judgment will increase the cost of justice. This results in people without proper economic means not being able to access the judiciary. In addition to this delay might tarnish the reputation of the judiciary among the public. So these are all some of the impacts of pendency of cases. Now let us see the reasons for such pendency. See the first reason for the issue of pendency of cases is that our higher judiciary is encouraging frivolous cases. According to the news article, our law minister reportedly said that the judiciary is stalled due to silly public interest litigation and bail applications. This acts as an extra burden for the judiciary. This has reduced the efficacy of justice administration. Thereby it is increasing the pending cases in India as well. The second reason is the issue of public interest litigation. See according to our CJI as our citizens are becoming increasingly aware of their rights and PIL is a tool for the citizens to protect their rights. So naturally the number of PILs that are filed have increased in recent years. Here the issue is not with respect to the PILs with good intention. A recent PIL seeking an independent and neutral mechanism for appointment of election commissioners is an example for a good PILs. This actually kick-started a much necessary conversation. But here the issue is with respect to unnecessary PIL. An example for this is the recent PIL that seek to remove the wrong historical facts about Taj Mahal from the books. It is PILs like these that are over burdening the judiciary which is slowing down the judicial process. This results in the increase of pendency of cases. The third reason is the issue of judicial vacancies. See at present there are 21 judges per million population in our country. This is very low. This can be increased by filling in the vacancies. This will reduce the burden of the judiciary which in turn will bring down the pendency of cases. Fourthly the frequent adjournment by the judiciary is also an important reason for the pendency of cases. And the last major reason is low budgetary allocation. See in India the budget allocated for the judiciary is around 0.08 and 0.09 percentage of the GDP. This is very low. The low budget allocation leads to lack of proper infrastructure and manpower that will aid in the fast delivery of justice. So these are all some of the reasons for the pendency of cases in India. If these issues are addressed then the pendency of cases in Indian judiciary can be addressed. This will bring down the delay in justice and this in turn will increase people's trust in the judiciary. So this is all you have to know about this new statistical discussion. You can make note of each and every point shortly so that you can use it in your main sansa writing. So in this new statistical discussion we saw about the connection between judicial delay and the pendency of cases. Then we saw about the impacts of pendency of cases and the reasons for such pendency. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now take a look at this tiny news article from today's newspaper. It reports about the 10 day winter session of the Karnataka legislature which is going to be held at Belagavi from Monday. See Belagavi or Belguam is a district of Karnataka which shares its border with the state of Maharashtra. Now the issue here is parts of the district is climbed by the state of Maharashtra citing that the people inhibiting these areas are predominantly Maratha speaking ones. So in this tense situation Home Ministry of India has advised both the governments of Karnataka and Maharashtra not to politicize the issue until Supreme Court issues a verdict. So this is the cracks of the news article given here. Despite this being an interstate border dispute this news actually remembers me about regionalism. See regionalism as mentioned in the syllabus of our UPSC main's GS paper one. So in this context let us learn about the issue of regionalism in India using this news article. Before that we will see about the ongoing border dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra. See during the British rule of India Belguam was originally part of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency. Also note that present district of Karnataka such as Vijayapura, Belagavi, Darwad and Uttara Karnataka were also used to be a part of the Bombay Presidency. After India's independence in 1947 Belguam came under the Bombay Presidency as whether 1881 census 64.39% people in Belguam were Kannada speakers while 26.04% speak Marathi. Subsequently the states reorganization act of 1956 made Belguam and 10 taluks of Bombay state apart of the newly formed Mysore state which was later renamed as Karnataka in the year 1973. As you all know this act divided states along linguistic and administrative lines. Since Belguam was given to the newly formed state the Bombay government lodged a protest with the center which led to the formation of the Mahajan Commission under former Chief Justice of India Meher Shant Mahajan in 1966. The commission in its report released in 1967 granted 264 villages in the disputed region to Maharashtra and 247 villages to Karnataka. However the commission ruled that the Belguam should continue with Karnataka while Maharashtra rejected the report Karnataka demanded status quo to be maintained. In 2006 the Maharashtra government filed a petition in the Supreme Court staking clients over Belguam city. Karnataka in response started holding the winter session of its legislature in Belagavi building a massive secretariat building in the district headquarters to reassert its climb. So this is what today's news article is also dealing with winter sessions of state legislative assembly of Karnataka for the year 2022 is planned to be held in Belguam from tomorrow onwards. The disputing climbs of both these states or now in the Supreme Court pending a verdict. So this is about the dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra over the territory of Belguam. So here it is very clear that the problem between these two states is due to a form of regional assertiveness by both the Marathi and Kannada speaking people of this region. This is what we call as regionalistic claims. So now let's shift our attention towards the term regionalism. See if the interest of one region or a state is pitted against another region or state in a holistic way and as a result of this conflict emerges between the two regions then it is called as regionalism. See the story so far we saw is a negative form of regionalism. There is also a positive dimension to regionalism in this type the claims of a region or mostly justified one which may arise due to the imbalance to growth of the region when compared to the territories adjacent to it. This positive dimension of regionalism will result in economic development of the neglected territory. So this is about the term regionalism. Now moving on we know that India is a country of diverse religion, language, culture. Since India is being like that there is always a huge scope for the development of regionalism. Regionalism has remained the most potent force in Indian politics ever since independence. The State Reorganization Act and the establishment of linguistic states based on it are examples of regionalism in India. Other than this spirally of political parties based on the regional aspirations are also due to regionalism. Now take the case of Tamil Nadu. It has been ruled only by the regional parties ever since the year 1967. So with this basic understanding now let us see some of the causes of regionalism. See as we already saw regionalism may arise due to poor economic growth of a particular region compared to the territories adjacent to it. Secondly it may arise also due to the political and administrative failure of the government in providing social sector schemes for the population of the territory. Maharashtra governments minister recently climbed that Marathi people's concern living in Belguam or neglected by the government of Karnataka. According to their version this is the reason why they are asking for the Marathi speaking territories to be united with Maharashtra. Thirdly sons of the soil theory will also be used by vested interest to fuel regionalism. Here sons of the soil refers to those who are living in a particular area for generations. Proponents of this theory will question the right to free movement and residence of other Indian citizens within the area what they consider theirs. This theory has been profounded by the native population to exclude migrants from accessing the job opportunities with within the contended area. So these are all some of the causes of regionalism in India. Now let us see some of the ways used by government of India to tackle the problem of regionalism in India. See firstly industrial policy of 1956 has asked the government to establish industries in those areas which are previously not industrialized. This has resulted in industries getting established in the states of Jakhand. Secondly, government of India established national integration council to promote a sense of integration among the population of India. Thirdly, grants under article 275 of the Indian constitution tries to help the states with tribal population to overcome the vicious cycle of poverty. And finally government of India recently implemented a new program called 8 Bharat and Sreshta Bharat. Using this initiative government is trying to promote a sense of cultural oneness between the population of India. The recently concluded Kashi Timail Sangamam is a shiny example of this initiative. There are still a lot of examples that are initiative by government of India to tackle regionalism. We will discuss about them later in our subsequent discussions. So with this we came to the end of the news article discussion. See in this news article discussion we saw in detail about the border dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra. Other than that we also learned about the term regionalism, its causes and the ways how the government is tackling it. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now this news article talks about Ulfa which is nothing but the united liberation front of Assam. The article says that Ulfa is recruiting youth by luring them through social media posts. Thus some chief minister said that due to better connectivity and rapid economic development Ulfa is losing its relevance presently. He even went on to say that the outfit was losing its members at a faster rate than before. So this is about the news article given here. In this context let us see some facts about Ulfa and we shall also see some of the steps taken by the government to tackle an organization like Ulfa. So you can even mention this as a case study in your main sansa writing that is why we are discussing this news article. Now coming back the united liberation front of Assam that is Ulfa is a militant outfit operating in Assam. Its main aim is to establish an independent state of socialist Assam. It is mainly involved in armed struggle. It was formed in 1979 by Paresh Barua. The government of India banned the organization in 1990 under the unlawful activities prevention act citing it as a terrorist organization. Military operations against the Ulfa by the Indian army began in 1990 and it still continue in the present. In 2013 there was split in the organization. Ulfa was divided into pro-talks group and anti-talks group. The pro-talks group want to begin negotiations with the Indian government and the anti-talks government headed by Paresh Barua wanted to maintain the military nature of the organization. The Paresh Barua headed anti-talks faction renamed itself the Ulfa I in 2013. So these are some of the major points that you have to know about Ulfa. So now let's focus on the efforts taken by the government to curb the influence of Ulfa. See the first step taken by the government is skill development. See one of the main reasons why youth are attracted to extremist organization like Ulfa is unemployment. The news article even says that youth who faced failure in police recruitment test are crossing over to Ulfa. So if proper skills are provided then the youth can seek employment which will curb the influence of Ulfa. In this regard Indian army is organizing various programs like providing training to teenagers to improve their chance of recruitment in the security forces. They also organize occasion education camps and they are providing coaching classes for students. So this will provide the youth with skill and make them employment ready. The second effort taken by the government is connectivity. See government is making efforts to provide connectivity through road and railways to all remote places. This will bring investment to the region and give a boost to employment opportunities. Also connectivity will improve people movement which will curb people's feeling of alienation. Now the third important effort is outreach. Government organizations including the Indian army is using the social media platform to educate and prevent the youth from falling into the trap of extremist organizations. Now the last major step taken by the government is rehabilitation of surrounded militants. As many as 8800 militants of Ulfa have laid down their arms and surrendered. Government is taking active steps by providing world skills and employment to better integrate them with mainstream society. So these are all some of the steps taken by government to reduce the influence of Ulfa. So this is all about the news article given here. In this news article we discussed about Ulfa. We saw that it is a militant outward operating in Assam and its main aim is to establish an independent state of socialist Assam. What does this mean? The organization is promoting regionalism. Since we talked about the regionalism also I chose this news article to be discussed. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now look at these two news articles here. These two news articles talks about eco sensitive zones. Now let us take up this first news article. See in June this year the Supreme Court sought to establish one kilometer eco sensitive zones around all protected areas like wildlife sanctuaries, national parks etc. So the Supreme Court directed the states and union territories to prepare list of subsisting structures that fall within eco sensitive zones. This move was to understand the extent of human activity in such areas. Following the Supreme Court's order the KALA government conducted the satellite survey of protected area in the state and this satellite survey report is going to be presented before the Supreme Court. And recently KALA government released the survey report in the public domain and the survey identified that around 50,000 structures have been falling within the eco sensitive zones. Opposing this survey the farmers and local residents are now protesting against the KALA government. They are saying that thousands of structures have been missed in the satellite survey and also the survey does not reflect the ground reality. The farmers are also saying that if the survey report is submitted in the Supreme Court even thickly populated areas would come within the purview of the eco sensitive zone. So they are demanding for ground survey to ascertain the extent of human life. This is the crux of the first news article given here. Now coming to the second news article the news is that earlier the Rajasthan state government has proposed to reduce the size of eco sensitive zone of Tullchapur Blackbuck Sanctuary. Then the Rajasthan High Court has intervened the government's proposal through Somoto public interest litigation. The government was sought to protect the Tullchapur Blackbuck Sanctuary and recently the court ordered the government to completely prohibit the action to reduce the wildlife sanctuary's area. So this is the crux of the second news article given here. Since both the news articles given here talks about eco sensitive zone today let us learn about eco sensitive zones. So what are these eco sensitive zones? See eco sensitive zone which is otherwise called as eco fragile zones or buffer or transition zones which are notified around highly protected areas like national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. So what would be the extent of eco sensitive zones? See the national wildlife action plan that is 2002 to 2016 says that the land within 10 kilometer of the boundaries of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries is to be notified as eco sensitive zones. Remember the width of the eco sensitive zones differs from one protected area to the other. However as a general principle the width of the eco sensitive zone is maintained at 10 kilometer around the protected areas. Now that if any particular place holds larger ecologically important sensitive corridors then the area beyond 10 kilometer can also be notified as eco sensitive zones. So this is the extent of eco sensitive zones. Now if you have a doubt about who notifies the areas as eco sensitive zones see the eco sensitive zones are notified by the union ministry of environment forest and climate change know that they are notified under section three of the environment protection act 1986. Note one point here despite the eco sensitive zones being notified under the environment protection act the act does not mention the term eco sensitive zones. So what is the purpose of these eco sensitive zones? See according to the guidelines issued by the environment ministry in February 2011 the eco sensitive zones were created as shock observers for the protected areas. The eco sensitive zones are meant to minimize the negative impact on the fragile ecosystems which are done by certain human activities. The guidelines further say that the eco sensitive zones would also act as a transition zone from areas of high protection to areas involving less protection. The guidelines also state that the eco sensitive zones are not meant to hamper the daily activities of people living in the vicinity of eco sensitive zones but they are meant to guard the protected areas and to refine the environment around them. So this is the main purpose of eco sensitive zones. Now we'll see some additional facts regarding 2011 guidelines. See that 2011 guidelines also listed the activities which are prohibited, regulated and permitted in eco sensitive zones. Now we'll see them one by one. Firstly let us take this prohibited activities. See according to the guidelines the activities including commercial mining then setting of sawmills and polluting industries then commercial use of firewood and major hydropower projects are prohibited in eco sensitive zones. The guidelines also prohibit certain tourism activity and prohibits the discharge of solid waste in natural water bodies or terrestrial areas. So this is about the prohibited activities. Now talking about the regulated activities see felling of trees then drastic change in agricultural system then commercial use of natural water resources and setting up of hotel or resorts. These are the activities which are regulated in eco sensitive zones. Now coming to the permitted activities see ongoing agriculture or horticulture practices by local communities then rainwater harvesting, organic farming then adoption of green technology and use of renewable energy sources all are permitted activities. So these are all some of the important points that you have to note about eco sensitive zones. In this news article discussion we saw what is the eco sensitive zone its purpose then we saw who notifies eco sensitive zone and then we saw some of the activities listed by the guidelines. So these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now take a look at this news article it talks about the recent attempts by many state governments to switch back to the old pension scheme. The article goes on by saying that the old pension scheme is becoming a new political battleground between the opposition ruled states and the center and now this has become a federal issue know that Himachal Pradesh is the latest state after Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jackend and Punjab to replace NPS with the OPS. So in this background we'll learn more about the old pension scheme the issues surrounding it and finally about the NPS. So what is a pension? A pension is basically a social security benefit for the old age population after their retirement. So this old pension scheme was a similar lifelong post retirement income given to the government employees until 2004. The government replaced the OPS with the NPS. Here NPS is nothing but national pension system. Remember this NPS is an exception for armed forces. Now the government replaced the OPS with this NPS based on the OAS's report. This report was submitted in January 2000. So this basic understanding let us understand why OPS was revoked in the first place and why now state governments are attempting to revive it again. See the old pension scheme was a fixed payment system. The employees get 50 percentage of their last drawn salary as the monthly pension. For example if your last drawn salary was 60,000 your monthly payment of pension would amount to 30,000. The employees also get the benefit of the revision of the DNS allowance twice a year. The payout is fixed and there was no detection from the salary. The OPS even had the provision of the general Provident Fund that is GPF. But here you might have a doubt why such a good scheme was discontinued by our government. See the only reason for the discontinuation of this scheme is because the scheme was very unsustainable from the economical perspective. See first of all there was no separate pension fund or there was no corpus that would continuously increase and be available for payments. In such scenario only the pension benefits increased every year and the pensioners gained from indexation or what is called as the DNS relief. So because of this the pension liabilities of the government increased. Apart from this we know that better health facilities will lead to increased life expectancy right and the increased longevity would mean extended payouts. That is as long as the person live the payouts will extend right. So these were the concerns that were associated with the OPS. This is why the NPS now came into picture. Remember the national pension system is being implemented and regulated by PFRDA that is Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority. The National Pension System Trust NPST established by PFRDA is the registered owner of all assets under NPS. This could be important from the problem's perspective so make a note of it. See this NPS works based on something called the all citizen model. That is the NPS covers not only government employees but also citizens including NRIs. The age range is between 18 to 70 years and this is a participatory scheme which means the employees contribute something around 10 percentage to their pension corpus from their salaries and a matching contribution is done by the government. When the employee retires they can withdraw 60 percentage of the corpus which is tax free and the remaining 40 percentage is invested in annuity which is taxed. Here the amount is not fixed and this scheme also requires the employees to make contribution unlike the OPS. This is why there has been a request to restore the OPS. Apart from this the article also mentions that the states are within their power to take a decision on the pension as per entry 42 on the state list. Now this is making a federal issue. So these are all some of the important points that you have to make note of from this news article discussion. In this news article discussion we saw in detail about what is this old pension scheme why it shifted to NPS. Then we saw how this NPS is working right now. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now this news article talks about the linking of rivers Godavari Krishna and Kaveri. Now suddenly it is in news because the Tamil Nadu government reiterated its demand to shift the terminal point of the proposed river linking. Here the Tamil Nadu government is asking to shift the terminal point from the Grand Anikat to Kattalei Barrage. So this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context let us understand what is this linking of rivers then some of the advantages and disadvantages associated with it. So what is interlinking of rivers? See it is nothing but a process in which water is transferred from the water excess basin to the water deficit basin. This is done by interlinking rivers. So what are the advantages associated with it? See firstly we saw that the excess water is transferred from the regions which receive a lot of rainfall to the areas that are drought prone right. So it can control both floods and droughts. This is the first advantage. Secondly it will help solve the water crisis in many parts of the country. Now thirdly it helps in hydropower generation. If you are asking how? See the excess water envisages the building of many dams and reservoirs. That by it helps in hydropower generation. Fourthly it will help in dry weather flow augmentation. That is when there is a dry season surplus water stored in the reservoirs can be released. This will enable a minimum amount of water flow in the rivers. So this will greatly help in the control of pollution, in navigation, forest, fisheries, wildlife protection etc. Okay and fifthly since Indian agriculture is primarily monsoon dependent. Sometimes this leads to problems in agricultural output when the monsoons behave unexpectedly. But this can be solved when irrigation facilities improve. Apart from this river linking will help commercially because of the betterment of the inland waterways transport system. However the rural areas will have an alternative source of income in the form of fishing farms okay. Now lastly it is expected to strengthen the security of the country by an additional water line of defence. Even though it has a lot of advantages it even has some of the disadvantages as well. Let us see them one by one. Firstly it has some environmental impacts because it will alter the entire ecosystem of the river right. So it might affect fisheries, flora and fauna, wetlands and other ecosystems. Secondly forest reserves and national parks will also be affected due to the construction of various links. Apart from this it will decrease the flow of fresh water into the sea. This in turn will affect marine life as well. Fourthly the building of dams and reservoirs will result in a displacement of a lot of people which cannot even be estimated currently. Now lastly since water is a state subject in Indian constitution there might be a lot of interstate disputes. So these are all some of the advantages and disadvantages of river linking. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now take a look at this news article. This news article talks about the GST council. The news is that the GST council meeting was held and it decided upon several tax provisions and reforms. So in this news article discussion let us briefly understand about GST council. Now before that what is this GST? See GST is an indirect tax which has replaced many indirect taxes in India. I hope you all remember that before GST Rajime we had a different indirect tax structure in our country. So to reduce the multiplicities of taxes being levied on the same supply chain GST was introduced. Remember GST replaced 17 indirect taxes or we can say that indirect taxes were consolidated into one GST. GST is levied on supply of goods or services or both since it is the conception tax based on the credit invoice method. Here only the value addition at each stage is taxed. So the GST reduced the ill effects of cascading taxation or double taxation in a major way. So this basic understanding now let us see about GST council. See GST council is a constitutional body okay. If a statement comes it is a statutory body then that statement is wrong it is a constitutional body. As you know GST was introduced by the one at first constitutional amendment act 2016. This amendment also made constitutional provisions for GST council and this is under article 279 A of Indian constitution. So who will be there in the council? See as per article 279 A clause 2 the council is chaired by the union finance minister then its members includes the union state minister of revenue or finance and ministers in charge of finance or taxation of all the states okay. So now moving on to the next question what does the council do? See it shall make recommendations to the union and state on certain issues. Let us see them one by one. Firstly it can make recommendations on the taxes, cesses and surcharges that is levied by the center state and local bodies which may be subsumed under GST. Then the goods and services that may be subjected to or exempted from the GST can also be recommended. Next it will also recommend model GST laws. Apart from this it can recommend the principles of a levy allocation of integrated GST then it also recommends the principle that governs the place of supply. See GST is a destination based tax that is the goods or services will be taxed at the place where they are consumed and not at the origin. So the state where they are consumed will have the right to collect GST this in turn makes the concept of place of supply crucial under GST. So remember place of supply of goods under GST defines whether the transaction will be counted as intrastate or interstate and accordingly the levy or imposition of S GST, C GST and I GST will be determined. Apart from this the council can make recommendations of threshold limit of aggregate turnover this limit determines which goods and services may be exempted from GST. Apart from this then the council can recommend on any special rate or rates for a specific period which is to raise additional resources during any natural calamity or disaster. And finally the council can also recommend on the special provisions with respect to the Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jamun Kashmir, Manipur, Mehalaya, Mizoram, Nahaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. So that's all you have to know about this news article discussion. See in this news article discussion we saw in detail about GST, its advantages then we saw about the GST council in detail. So these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now this news article talks about food and mouth disease vaccine then uses that the Tamil Nadu has been requesting the government of India to supply 90 lakh doses in a single installment since June 2022. See the timely availability of vaccines was essential to maintain herd immunity among the susceptible cattle population. Also to prevent the occurrence of FMD and subsequent economic losses to farmers these vaccines are required. So this is the crux of the news article given here. So in this context let us just revise about food and mouth disease briefly. See the food and mouth disease is a severe highly contagious viral disease of livestock and it has a significant economic impact. Remember the disease affects cattle, swine, sheep, goats and other cloven hoofed ruminants since it is a trans-boundary animal disease that is TAD it deeply affects the production of livestock and it disturbs regional and international trade in animals and animal products. The disease can spread both directly and indirectly. Now talking about the symptoms see the affected animals have a high temperature then there will be development of blisters chiefly in the mouth and on the feet. However in some species notably sheep and goats the disease is frequently less severe or occurs as a sub-clinical infection. Okay now remember the disease is not usually fatal in adult animals but many young animals may die. However it causes severe pain and distress especially in cattle and the animals may be left permanently lame and the productivity of recovered animals may be reduced. The disease may be suspected based on clinical science however FMD cannot be differentiated clinically from other vascular diseases like swine vesicular disease, vesicular stomatitis and vesicular exanthema. Now remember there is no specific treatment for FMD the conventional method of treating infected animals mainly involves the use of antibiotics, floonicsin, meglumin and mild disinfectants. So here you might have a doubt whether this disease can be prevented or not. Yes this disease can be prevented using the current FMD vaccine it is an inactive whole virus preparation that is formulated with adjuvant prior to use in the field. Okay for this purpose only the national animal disease control program that is NADCP was launched. It is a flagship scheme launched by prime minister in the year 2019. This is for control of foot and mouth disease and brucellosis. This is done by vaccinating 100 percentage cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat and pig population for FMD and 100 percentage bovine female calves of 4 to 8 months of age for brucellosis. This program is for 5 years that is from 2019 to 2020 to 2023 to 24. Here brucellosis is a reproductive disease of cattle and buffalo caused by bacterium brucella about us. So that's all regarding this news article discussion. In this news article discussion we saw in detail about FMD its causes symptoms prevention and vaccination. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now take a look at this news article it says that union home minister chaired the meeting of 25th eastern zonal council held at Kolkata. Issues related to illegal infiltration from the Bangladesh border and left wing extremism has been said to be discussed in the meeting. So this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context let us learn few facts about zonal council present in India. See zonal council or statutory bodies unlike the interstate councils which are established under article 263. They are established through the state reorganization act 1956. Here note that the act divided the country into five zones. They are national, central, eastern, southern and western. Now there are another zone called north eastern zone but this zone is established by the north eastern council act of 1971 and not by the state reorganization act 1956. So now coming to the members present in the zonal council all zonal councils present in India is headed by the union home minister. Members include the CM of all the states present in the zone other than CM's administrators of union territories present inside the zone or also members of the zonal councils. Other than this two ministers from every state present in the zone are also members of the zonal council. So this is about the members of zonal council. Now moving on to the aim of zonal council. See the zonal councils aim at promoting cooperation and coordination between state union territories and the center. They discuss and make recommendations regarding matters like economic and social planning, linguistic minorities, border disputes, interstate transport and so on. If you can recall the eastern zonal council meeting held in Kolkata which the news article reported about focused on border disputes. Here note that they are only deliberative and administrative bodies. The objectives or the functions of the zonal councils are firstly to achieve an emotional integration of the country then to help in arresting the growth of acute state consciousness, regionalism, linguism and particularistic trends then to help in removing the after effects of separation in some cases so that the process of reorganization, integration and economic advancement may synchronize. Then to enable the center and states to cooperate with each other in social and economic matters and exchange ideas and experience in order to evolve uniform policies. Apart from this to cooperate with each other in the successful and speedy execution of major development projects is also an aim of zonal council and finally to secure some kind of political equilibrium between different regions of the country is also aim of zonal council. So that's all you have to know about zonal councils. We saw that zonal council is a statutory body established through the state reorganization act 1956. Then we saw about the members of the zonal council and some of the aim and objective of zonal councils. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next part of the new statistical discussion which is the preliminary practice question discussion. Now look at this first question it is a two statement question and you have to find the incorrect statement. Statement one under the new pension scheme employees get 50% of their last drawn salary as the monthly pension. Statement two the old pension scheme is based on the all-citizen model. So you have to choose the incorrect statement. Here both the statements are incorrect so the correct answer for the question is option C both 1 and 2. Second statement is incorrect because NPS is based on all-citizens model and OPS is available for government employees only. We saw that in the discussion is of right. So this statement is incorrect. Now the first statement is also incorrect because under the OPS employees get 50% of their last drawn salary as monthly pension because under the OPS employees get 50% of their last drawn salary as monthly pension whereas in NPS the pension paid is market linked and it is not based on the last drawn salary. So the correct answer for this question is option C both 1 and 2. Now moving on this question asks you to find which of the following rivers drain into Bay of Bengal. First one is Mahi. Second one is Godavari, then Krishna and Kaveri is given here. Now look at this map you can see that Mahi is draining into Arabian Sea. Just by knowing this you can eliminate statement three and arrive at the answer which is except Mahi, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri they flow into Bay of Bengal. Now moving on this question is about bacterial diseases four diseases are given you have to choose which of the diseases or bacterial diseases. First one is Brucellosis, then Futen Mouth disease, Tuberculosis and Cholera. See here Futen Mouth disease is not caused by bacteria it is caused by a virus and it is a viral disease. So if you can eliminate Futen Mouth disease and if you know that Brucellosis, Tuberculosis and Cholera are caused by bacteria you can directly arrive at the answer which is option B 1 3 and 4 only. As we already saw in the discussion Brucellosis is a bacterial disease caused by bacterium Brucella abortus. Then Tuberculosis is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Cholera is caused by Vibrio Cholera bacteria. So the correct answer for this question is option B 1 3 and 4 only. Now moving on this question is about GST Council. Statement one it is a constitutional body see this statement is actually correct we saw that in the discussion itself right GST Council is a constitutional body under article 279 A class 1 it is headed by Union Finance Minister. Statement two says that it decides on various rate slabs of GST. Now this statement is also actually correct it decides on various rate slabs of GST. The GST Council reviews the rate slab for goods and services on a regular basis GST rates are typically high for luxury items and low for necessities. Now the third statement is incorrect it's recommendations it's not binding remember the recommendations of the GST Council or the product of a collaborative dialogue involving the union and states. Hence they are recommendatory in nature. But remember the government while exercising its rule making power under the provisions of the C GST Act and I GST Act is bound by the recommendation of the GST Council. However that does not mean that all the recommendations of the GST Council may be made by virtue of the power article 279 A class 4 or binding on the legislatures power to enact primary legislations. So the correct answer for this question is option A one and two only. Now moving on the question displayed here is the quiz question for you today just go through the question try to answer it in the comment section. So the main checklist questions are displayed here for your reference you can just go through the questions write an answer and post it in the comment section. You can just type the answer and post it in the comment section we'll definitely review your answer as well. So with this we came to the end of the news article discussion. If you like the video hit like do comment and don't forget to subscribe to Shankara Ease Academy YouTube channel. Now thank you for listening.