 A very good evening aspirants. Welcome to the Hindi news analysis brought to you by Shankar Ice Academy. Today I'll be covering Hindi news editions for two days that is for yesterday and today and these are the news articles I have taken for discussion from these two editions. So without wasting much time, now let us get to the news articles discussion. So let us start our news article discussion session with this news article which appeared yesterday in the Science and Tech page. This particular article talks about compound extreme events. See extreme event is an unexpected or unseasonal weather event and when two extreme events happen together we call it as compound extreme event and this article talks about one such compound extreme event that happened in May 2020 in the Bay of Bengal. Here the article is talking about the co-occurrence of super cyclone amphon along with marine heatwave. Especially the article looks at how marine heatwave amplified a tropical cyclone into a super cyclone. So we can say that marine heatwave was one of the reasons for super cyclone amphon. So in this context let us see few facts about marine heat waves. We have all heard about heat waves right. Normally heat waves are associated with extended periods of hot weather conditions but the heat waves which we normally discuss are the ones that occur in the atmosphere but the same heat waves can also occur in the ocean and then they occur in the ocean we call it as marine heat waves or in short MHWs. Particularly it is called as a marine heatwave when the seawater temperatures exceed a seasonally varying threshold for at least five consecutive days. For example if on the normal conditions assume that marine surface temperature in a particular area is around 20 degree Celsius. This is the seawater temperature under normal conditions. Now when this temperature hovers about 23 degree Celsius for over five consecutive days then we call it as marine heatwave or we say that marine heatwave has occurred. Here you should also remember that marine heat waves do not just occur during summer but they also occur during winter. Now in this image you can see various marine heatwave incidents that have occurred globally but what causes marine heat waves? The most important cause is anthropogenic climate change. We humans release a lot of greenhouse gases it is a known fact. Now such greenhouse gases are the major contributor to global warming. Now this also means that the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb the heat is very less. Now what this has led to is more than 90 percentage of the extra heat that has been trapped in the climate system due to the climate change has been absorbed by the oceans. This was found by various IPCC reports that is Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Reports. So here the inference is that due to the greenhouse gases global warming is happening. Now this is warming the ocean water from its surface to the higher depths. Apart from climate change there are also other reasons. For example ocean currents are also one of the reasons. Some ocean currents can result in buildup of warm water in a particular area. Then events like El Nino might also trigger marine heat waves in specific areas. Along with that winds also have potential to trigger marine heat waves in some areas. But also remember that on some occasions these winds also help in dissipating marine heat waves. So overall the causes of marine heat waves are anthropogenic climate change, ocean currents, climatic events like El Nino and then winds. Now the news article talks about the marine heat wave study but why that study is important for India. See various studies have shown that due to global warming the surface of tropical Indian ocean is warming at a faster rate as compared to the rest of the global ocean. And we also know that Bay of Bengal is prone to tropical cyclones. Actually around 5 to 7 percentage of the total number of tropical cyclones that occur globally each year happens in Bay of Bengal. It is because Bay of Bengal provides certain favorable conditions for the formation of tropical cyclones. Now when these favorable conditions combined with marine heat waves the studies say that it might trigger compound extreme events. Now this is an issue because the areas that surround Bay of Bengal are densely populated and therefore the impact of such compound extreme events will be devastating. And this is why marine heat wave studies are important for India. So in this discussion we saw what are marine heat waves. Initially we saw that marine heat waves led to the building of a tropical cyclone amphon into a super cyclone amphon and then we also saw the causes behind the marine heat waves. With these points in mind now let us get to the next discussion. So now let us take up this FAQ article. This one appeared in yesterday's newspaper. This FAQ has been written based on the recently released periodic labour force survey annual report. See the problem was this report has been criticized by experts who have raised questions over the approach and methodology used in this survey. So today let us see certain crucial findings of this annual report and we'll also see what were the issues cited. Before that the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here. Now let us start with knowing some basic facts about PLFS periodic labour force survey. See it is released by the National Statistical Office. As you know this one functions under the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. Now this PLFS survey report gives data on the key employment and unemployment indicators such as unemployment rate, labour force, participation rates, worker population ratio, etc. And the recently released report is the annual report for period July 2020 to June 2021. So we can say it mainly captures the scenario during the main period of pandemic. So let us start with some key findings of this annual report. First let us take unemployment rate. What is this rate? It is defined as the percentage of unemployed persons in the labour force. But then what is labour force? See it is not only the number of persons who are employed but it also includes the number of persons who are unemployed. And this value is the average in a week preceding the date of survey. So what was the finding for the period July 2020 to June 2021? The report shows that unemployment rate reduced. It fell to 4.2% in 2020-21 period compared to the previous one. It was 4.8% in 2019-20. Additionally, the report also found that in rural areas the unemployment rate was 3.3% much lower than what was in the urban areas because in urban areas it was 6.7%. So these are the crucial unemployment rate data given by the report. Now what can we infer from this data? This is where you should remember what John Maynard Keynes told about unemployment. According to Keynes in terms, any rate of unemployment below 5% is not considered as unemployment. So from this, what the government may claim is that there is no unemployment in our country. So this is the data as per the report. Now let us take up the next indicator which is labour force participation rate, LFPR. See this rate is the number of persons in the labour force as a percentage of the working age population. And here remember again, labour force is the sum of number of persons employed and the number of persons unemployed. So what is the data for the period July 2020 to June 2021? LFPR in this period has increased according to the report. It was 40.1% in the previous year, but for the period 2020 to 21, it has increased to 41.6%. Now in this representation, you can also see the improving LFPR from the period 2017 to 18 when it was 36.9. So according to the report, LFPR rate has been increasing over the years. Now let us take up the third indicator. It is the worker population ratio. This ratio is defined as the percentage of employed persons in the population. And as per the report, this has also increased. It has increased from 38.2% in the previous year to 39.8% for the survey period. So these are the few employment and unemployment data according to the PLF survey. See these data will help you to substantiate your answer in the main answer writing whenever we talk about employment, which is an important economics topic. So with these findings, let us see two crucial issues cited by the experts. The first issue is raised against the method used in the PLFS report. It is the comparison method. Experts are arguing that comparing a normal year with an abnormal year like a pandemic hit year is irrelevant. Because the previous year 2019 to 2020 was a normal year, but everything changed in 2020, especially pandemic would have affected the data collection process. And this leads to the second issue cited by the experts. According to them, there is an absence of second visit to the rural households. See, generally a second visit is conducted to have a bigger and larger picture of unemployment. But PLFS did not capture this properly. And we know the main reason because there were lockdowns due to the pandemic. Now here, experts are not generally criticizing the data, but they are basing their criticism on facts. They are mainly comparing it with the economic growth. See, we know that government already recorded a lower rate of economic growth during 2020-21, because India's GDP growth fell over 7.3% during that period, right? According to the data from Central Statistics Office. So if you compare this data with the PLFS report, especially the report on unemployment, we can see that both the data are contradicting because how unemployment rate could have been reduced when there was no growth at all. This is the main question asked by the experts. And based on this, experts are criticizing that reality is not reflected in the PLFS survey. See, you should understand that this report is important as it is used basically for planning governmental intervention in various sectors such as agriculture, infrastructure, etc. Mainly it is used for drafting any policy including the unemployment related policies. So when we have incorrect data in hand, that means appropriate policies would not be framed, right? And that is why the survey is criticized. So these are a few points that you can take from this FAQ discussion. In this discussion, we saw a few facts and findings from the PLFS report for the period July 2020 to June 2021. And we also saw two main criticisms of this report. With these points in mind, now let us get to the next discussion. Now let us take up the next news article for a discussion. This article states that the Center has asked the Ministry of Railways and National Highway Authority of India to use the soil or silt that is excavated from ponds and tanks in all districts under the Amritsarovar mission for their infrastructure projects. This move is expected to expedite the implementation of railway and highway projects across the country. Now we have not seen about Amritsarovar mission. Today we are going to cover it. This mission was launched by our Prime Minister on 24th April 2022 with a view to conserve water for the future. The mission's aim is to develop and rejuvenate 75 water bodies in each district of the country. So in total, it will lead to creation of 50,000 water bodies of a size of about an acre or more. And note that each Amritsarovar will have a bondage area of minimum one acre with water holding capacity of about 10,000 cubic meter. We know that even though two-third of the earth is covered with water, only two to three percentage of it is available to use. And many countries including India are facing acute water crisis. So to address this problem, Indian government has launched the mission Amritsarovar. Now in this mission, five ministries will be involved along with an organization called as Bhaskara Charya National Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics. Now this Institute will generate a list of hundred potential sites for every district. Now such sites will be selected on the basis of availability of wastelands and rainwater on the basis of topography, soil depth, soil type geology, etc. It should also be noted that the mission activities or its progress will be regularly reviewed and monitored at various levels. And people's participation is the mission's focal point because this mission aims to evoke collective spirits of the community. So people's participation is required at all levels of Amritsarovar execution. If you take at the local level, grand panchayats will decide for a fair disposal of silt that is coming out of this Amritsarovar construction or renovation. Along with that, the site of Amritsarovar will be approved by special Gram Sabha and this Gram Sabha will also name a panchayat Pratniti who will act as a citizen supervisor and that citizen supervisor will be supervising the Amritsarovars. Along with that, all the constructed or rejuvenated water bodies under this mission will be geotagged at three different phases. That is, it would be geotagged before the construction then during the construction and then after the completion of the asset creation, it will be geotagged using Geomandriga app. Now this mission is being implemented at Godspeed. Actually already India's first Amritsarovar was inaugurated last month. It was inaugurated at Rampur in Uttar Pradesh. So these are a few points that you have to note about Amritsarovar mission. Now let us get to the next discussion. So now let us take up this article for discussion. It is about CNPN, captive non-public networks. If you remember recently, Union Cabinet has approved new captive private networks. And regarding this, the Cellular Operators Association of India has urged the government to ensure that these new captive private networks are made to conform to the same license fee and GST payment requirements like the existing telecom providers. Along with that, the Association also wants the Union Cabinet to enforce necessary technical and regulatory safeguards for ensuring that such networks remain truly private and isolated. This is the crux of the news article. We are often seeing about these CNPN. So let us see what are they. See as their name suggests, they are non-public private 5G networks. Important point to note here is that these networks will not be accessible to the general public. So these networks are built specifically for individual enterprises. And these networks are often deployed at a single unit, for example, a factory. They can also be used in a wide area setting. For instance, they could be used to monitor a mine in real time. So in this way, ad ports and ports can also have their own private 5G cellular network to process imaging data that is coming from surveillance cameras to manage the facility. So in this way, several enterprises around the world are working on setting up private 5G networks because they are reliable, fast and secure wireless communication. Along with that, the big tech firms can also use the CNPN to test and build applications such as machine to machine communications, internet of things and artificial intelligence. Already companies like TCS have expressed interest in building these non-public 5G networks to develop such solutions. Mainly these big tech firms claim that the CNPN private network would further provide an additional source of revenue for the government because they will be paying license fees and they'll be paying administrative costs for the spectrum allocated to them. Here, mainly the fact to be noted is that the true benefits of 5G largely apply to industrial enterprises rather than individual users because 5G would be crucial for enterprises to augment efficiencies to enhance their productivity and even to march towards another industrial revolution that is industry 4.0. So in this way, 5G will help India become a global manufacturing and supply chain hub. But why telecom companies are opposing the CNPN? As you already saw, 5G technology has more industry use cases than individual customers. So now the telecom companies are worried that providing the industry's 5G spectrum allocation to set up private networks will demolish their own revenue from the 5G cellular services. So the association has argued that CNPN must be restricted to machine to machine communication inside the CNPN's premises only. And it should also be ensured that the CNPN do not cause any interference with public networks. These are the demands of telcos. Okay, with this we are finishing this discussion. Now let us get to the next one. So now let us take up this article. This one talks about India-Bangladesh River Management. See, recently the seventh round of India-Bangladesh Joint Consultative Commission happened. And in that it was noted that Indian-Bangladesh should work together for comprehensive management of rivers. Along with this, Bangladesh also emphasized on receiving a fair share from Tista River. So majorly they talked about the India-Bangladesh River disputes and management. In this manner, today we are going to see the two river disputes or management between India and Bangladesh. But before that if you know that this problem arises due to the presence of trans-boundary river between India and Bangladesh. What is a trans-boundary river? It is the one that crosses at least one political border. And such a border could be within a nation or it could be an international boundary also, like in the case of India and Bangladesh. Particularly Bangladesh has a great number of trans-boundary rivers and many are trans-international also. Some sources say that there are 58 major rivers of Bangladesh that enter their country either from India side or from Myanmar. And out of these 58 also, 54 common rivers are there between India and Bangladesh. But you should note that a proper bilateral agreement has been reached only in the case of sharing of waters of river Ganga. So that is why we are going to first see about Ganga water sharing between India and Bangladesh. In case of India, you know that West Bengal is the last Indian state that the Ganga river enters and then it goes into Bangladesh. Now when Ganges passes from West Bengal into Bangladesh, a number of distributory branch, they go to the south into the reverse vast delta. Now after they enter Bangladesh, Ganges is also joined by the mighty Brahmaputra near a place called Golundoghat. But remember that in Bangladesh, Brahmaputra river is called as Jamuna river. Now when Bangladesh and Ganga combine, this stream is called as Padma. Now as he said, sharing of Ganga waters was finalized through an agreement or a treaty. This treaty is called as India-Bangladesh Treaty on the sharing of Ganga waters. It was signed in the year 1996. Now this treaty regulates water distribution from Farakka Barrage over a 30 year period. This Farakka Barrage is in the Indian side. Now the sharing is based on the formula of the flows that is measured at Farakka and this measurement is done during the lean season each year that is from the 1st January to 31st of May. And note that this 30 year treaty is also renewable by mutual consent. But the problem is since the agreement was signed, several factors have affected the distribution of water according to the requirements of this treaty. Such factors include climate change impacts on rainfall. Along with this there is also increased use of water for agriculture and hydropower in the upper Ganges in Nepal. All these have changed the water levels. So this has substantially reduced the share of Ganga waters to Bangladesh. So this problem is being discussed between India and Bangladesh. Along with this, whenever we talk about India-Bangladesh river management or dispute, we should never forget about See this Tista river originates from Pahunri glacier. This one is also called as Tista Kangse glacier. After originating from this glacier, the river flows southward through gorges and rapids in the Sikkim Himalaya. After that the river even merges with Brahmaputra river and then it flows in Bangladesh. See the Tista river drains into Brahmaputra at the Tista Mughat in Kamarjani, Bahadurabad which is situated in Bangladesh. Now when you take the Tista basin in India, it lies in the states of Sikkim and West Bengal. Overall, Tista is a 414 kilometer long river. It has a total drainage area of 12,540 square kilometers. And note that the Tista basin receives major part of its rainfall during southwest monsoon period. Now the water availability in Tista basin in India is estimated to be 22.73 BCM that is billion cubic meter. So does India and Bangladesh have a water sharing agreement regarding this Tista river? As I said in the beginning, only we have an agreement regarding Ganga river. But there is an ad hoc arrangement for this Tista river. This ad hoc arrangement was arrived through the India-Bangladesh Joint Reverse Commission and this arrangement was made in 1983. And in that arrangement it was decided that India will receive 39 percentage of the water and Bangladesh will receive 36 percentage of the water. But the problem is Bangladesh demands more water sharing. It wants to increase this percentage. This has been a long-standing demand of Bangladesh to India. Why? Because the livelihoods of millions of people in Bangladesh is dependent on this river water. See in both the cases of Ganga and Tista river, you should understand that Bangladesh is at the receiving end as it is the lower riparian country. So when we say upper riparian country, it means that it is the upstream part of the river. And when we say lower riparian, it means the state that is in the downstream part of that river. So if you are the upper riparian state, then you can construct a dam and you can stop the flow of that river. So like this, the upper riparian states have major advantages regarding a river. This is why Bangladesh, which is a lower riparian country, is seeking the help of India and signing agreements and especially demanding more sharing in case of Tista river. Experts also say that the sharing of Tista waters is an important part of India-Bangladesh relations. So you can understand how river sharing helps in bilateral relations. And these are some of the points that you can note regarding India-Bangladesh river management or river disputes. Now let us move on to the next discussion. Okay, now let us take up this text and context article for discussion. See this article is based on the recently held WTO ministerial conference. If you remember a few days ago, we saw that WTO ministerial conference has not happened since the pandemic and recently the 12th ministerial conference happened. As a result of it, the member country signed Geneva package. This package includes agreements on relaxing patent regulations, ensuring food security, allocating subsidies to fisheries sector, etc. And majorly, India saw successes relating to the agreements on ensuring food security and fisheries sector in this conference. So let us see what was achieved by India. Before that, this is the syllabus relevant to this discussion. Now you should note that WTO's ministerial conference is the topmost decision-making body of WTO. It meets every two years and can take decisions on all matters under any multilateral trade agreement. And this year's conference took place in Geneva, in Switzerland. And in this conference, India presented and promoted its interests particularly in two areas. One is in fisheries and another one is agriculture. First, let us take agriculture. See here, India was particularly interested in the agreements relating to export bans and food security measures. Basically, what the negotiators agreed was the member countries need not impose export bans or limitations on goods that are obtained for humanitarian purposes by the World Food Program. This was what agreed by the member countries. See here, World Food Program is a food assistance branch of United Nations and it is world's largest humanitarian organization that is focused on hunger and food security. And India is also one among the largest to contribute to WFP. For example, if you take with respect to an MOU with WFP, India even contributed 50,000 million tons of wheat to Afghanistan as part of a humanitarian assistance. So in this way, India has never imposed export limits for WFP procurement. But the issue here is if India explicitly mentions that India will never place any export limit, then it would stifle India's efforts to ensure food security at home. Particularly if you take in case of wheat, already there is a wheat crisis and wheat is a staple in India. So this will create a food security crisis in India. So in such a situation, under the agreement, India will not be able to impose any ban or limitations. So it will be forced to keep its WFP obligations regardless of our own needs. And this is a problem. But what India did was India negotiated and tipped the scales in its favors. What India actually achieved then? An exception was provided with the agreements. The exception was the decision to not impose export bans will not bar member countries from enacting domestic food security measures. And this is a success for India. That means as part of food security measures, India can regulate its export. It may not ban it, but it can regulate it. So this is a success for India. Now apart from this, the central premise of the agreements was also to ensure availability, accessibility, and affordability of food to those who in need, especially who are in humanitarian emergencies. So in this way, the agreement has encouraged the surplus holding member countries to release food commodities on international markets in compliance with WTO regulations. Moreover, it also instituted a work program to come up with measures to help the LDC countries and NFIDC countries. What are LDCs? Lease developed countries. NFIDC means non food importing developing countries. Now the measure that has been instituted will enhance the domestic food security in these countries and it will boost agricultural production also. So under the agricultural agreements, these were the achievements overall and we also saw the achievement of India. But you should know that negotiators could not reach agreements on issues such as permissible public stock holding, threshold for domestic food security, domestic support to agriculture, etc. On these issues, agreements were not reached. So this was about agriculture. Now let us come to the fisheries related agreement. See here, India successfully managed to carve out an agreement on eliminating subsidies to those who are engaged in IUU fishing. What is IUU fishing? Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. So that means subsidies will not be provided to those who support or engage in IUU fishing. But there is an exception to this clause. Subsidies could be continued for overfished stock when they are deemed essential to rebuild them to a biologically sustainable level. See here overfishing means exploiting fishers at a pace faster than they could replenish themselves. And currently overfishing stands at 34 percentage as per food and agricultural organizations data. When there is overfishing, that means fish stock is declining. And this declining fish stock threatens and worsens poverty and it even endangers those communities that rely on aquatic creatures for their livelihood and food security. And one of the impacts of IUU fishing is this overfishing. But still, when such overfishing is deemed essential to rebuild the fishing stock to a biologically sustainable level, then at that time subsidies will be allowed. Other than that, subsidies are eliminated as per the fisheries agreement. Along with this, there is no limitation on subsidies that are granted or maintained by developing or least developed countries for fishing within their own EEZs, that is exclusive economic zones. So these were the two main achievements of India in agriculture and fisheries that has been discussed in this text and context article. In the coming days, we may see many other important provisions in the Geneva package. When that comes, we'll discuss them. So these points in mind, now let us get to the next discussion. Now this news article says that the Indian government has recommended disciplinary action against 400 chartered accountants and company secretaries. See disciplinary action has been initiated against these people because they helped to incorporate a large number of Chinese owned or Chinese run shell companies without following the rules and the law. So today, we are going to understand what are these shell companies, which we often see in the news. A shell company is also called as a shell corporation. It is a company that exists only on paper. That is, these companies will not have any employees or even an office. The shell companies will not have active business operations or even significant assets also. But you should note that these shell companies are not always illegal. But why these shell companies are incorporated, it is mainly established for tax evasion, tax avoidance, money laundering, and even to ensure anonymity. Here by anonymity, they would want to disguise business ownership from the law enforcement or the public. Now apart from this, there is another major problem with shell companies, which is they play a major role in money laundering. So you know that money laundering is a way to conceal illegally obtained wealth and the money that is obtained from illegal sources is considered as dirty money or black money. And through the money laundering process, the launders convert this dirty money or black money into legitimate white money. And the shell companies help in this process. Now through an example, let us see how the shell companies play a role here. Imagine that there is a company ABC Private Limited. Now this company wants some cash to pay the local politician. Now what the ABC Private Limited will do is it will create a check to a shell company X. So in the books of ABC Private Limited, it will be written as paying company X for offering some services. But what actually happens is company X has not provided any service or it will not do any service. Rather what happens is after receiving the check from the ABC Private Limited, this company X will send cash to that company. But before sending that cash, it will take its share of money. That is for example, if the ABC Private Limited writes a check for one crore rupees, then the shell company will send 80 lakhs in cash. So here 20% each will be the share of this shell company. Now by using this cash, the ABC Private Limited will pay the local politician. Now in this transaction, the white money is converted into black money. Now next, what the shell company X will do is it will route the one crore check, which it has in its books to other shell companies. For example, to shell companies Y and Z. What you should remember is no actual money flow is happening here. Rather everything is notional only. The transactions only happen in the books of these shell companies X, Y and Z. Now again, these shell companies of Y and Z, they also will appear legitimate. But already that one crore rupees check has been routed to these two companies, right? Now these two shell companies will be sold off to people who wish to convert their black money to white money. Now when these companies are sold off, their shares are sold at a huge discount. That is, if the book value of company Y is rupees 50, then the people who want to convert black money to white money will pay rupees 1 and get the shares of this company instead of paying rupees 50. And this one rupee will only be paid in white money. And the remaining 49 rupees will be paid under the table transaction that is through black money. Now if you look closely at this, the person who is trying to launder this money through this transaction has gained control of a company whose assets are clean and he has got that asset by only paying a fraction of the cost. You would have heard about a similar situation in the real estate also, where people, you know, buy real estate property by paying a part of the value in black money and part in white money. Now in case of our shell companies Y and Z, the launderer finally sells the shell companies at their actual cost. Now in the books he will show that he has bought the company at high discount. So he will make profit. So he will accept this white money for selling companies Y and Z. And for the profits also he will be paying taxes. And this is how shell companies help in money laundering. So to summarize, in the first step, ABC Private Limited converted its white money into black money to do some illegal activity. Now in our case, they wanted to pay off a politician. And in the last step, what happened? The money launderer converted his black money into white money. So in this way, the shell companies act as brokers or intermediaries in between these two players. So with this example, I hope that you would have understood how shell companies help in money laundering. Now let us get to the next discussion. So now let us take up this editorial article for discussion. It has been written with reference to the recent index that was published. It is the Environmental Performance Index of 2022. Now this index placed India in the last position. And because of this, the report has become controversial. It has also been criticized for prioritizing certain indicators than others, like it prioritizes the flow of greenhouse gases from countries. But on the other hand, it has reduced the emphasis on the stock of carbon dioxide from industrialized countries that is warming the globe. So based on these controversies and India's ranking, Indian Union government has rejected the ranking and scores. Particularly, the Environment Ministry has stated that some of the indicators that are used for assessing the performance are over generalized and they are based on guesses and scientific methods. So in this context, let us see about the Environment Performance Index and the issues associated with it. Now this is the syllabus. Rather than for this discussion, you can take note of it. Let us know about EPI, Environmental Performance Index. See it is an international ranking system of countries based on their environmental health. This is a biennial index that is it is published every two years. See previously, this index was called as Environment Sustainability Index, which was started in the year 2002 by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Yale Center and Columbia University. But now note that the EPI, that is Environmental Performance Index is published by Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, which is under Yale University, in collaboration with Center for International Earth Science Information Network, which is under Columbia University. And they also get support from the McCall McBain Foundation. So from this, we can say that World Economic Forum is not involved in this report anymore. Now what this index does is it quantifies and numerically marks the environmental performance of the policies of a state. So based on this, the 2022 index has provided a data-driven summary of the state of sustainability around the world. Now let us come to its indicators. This index uses 40 performance indicators under 11 issue categories. Here you can see that the 11 issue categories are climate change, mitigation, air quality, waste management, water and sanitation, heavy metals, biodiversity and habitat, ecosystem services, fisheries, agriculture, acid drain, water resources. Now under these, there are 40 indicators. And all these 11 issue categories are under three policy objectives. They are climate, environmental health, and then ecosystem vitality. Now in this pie chart, the weightage of each of the indicators is given. You can just go through it. See, overall, these indicators provide a measurement at a national scale of how close the countries are in achieving the environmental policy targets. So how many countries are ranked in this? Totally 180 countries are ranked based on their climate change performance, environmental health, and ecosystem vitality. So based on the performance, the EPA has offered a scorecard which ranks the countries and there are leaders and also laggards. Laggards means the worst performance, those who are lagging behind. Now it not only ranks the countries, along with this, EPA also provides practical guidance for countries that aspire to move toward a sustainable future. It also provides a way to spot problems, set targets, track trends, understand outcomes and identify best policy practices. See, this index provides data-based and fact-based analysis. So it helps government officials to refine their policy agendas. They can also facilitate communications with key stakeholders and maximize their return on environmental investments. In this way, EPA offers a powerful policy tool in support of efforts to meet the targets under UN SDG and it helps the society to move towards a sustainable future. Now let us come to the 2022 rankings. See, as usual, Denmark has topped this ranking also. It is followed by United Kingdom and Finland. In many indices, we have seen that Nordic countries like Denmark, Sweden are in the top always. Now let us come to India. See, as I said in the beginning, India is at the last position of 180 countries. That is, it has got the 180th rank. It has a score of 18.9. So according to the index, India's performance is even worse than our neighbors like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Myanmar. But as I already said, the EPA ranking and scores have been rejected by the UN government. So let us see what were the issues cited by the UN government and what are the reasons provided by the Environment Ministry for rejecting the report. The first issue cited is with respect to the projected GHG emissions level in 2050. You can see that it comes under the climate change mitigation. Now this indicator is computed based on just the average rate of change in emission of the last 10 years. This is where the ministry differs. The ministries of the opinion that the indicator should take into account a larger time period. Along with this, the extent of renewable energy capacity and its use, additional carbon sinks, energy efficiency all should be taken into account to calculate average rate of change in emission. In addition to this, it should also be noted that forests and wetlands of our country are crucial carbon sinks. But they have not been included while computing the projected GHG emissions trajectory up to 2050. Along with this historical data on the lowest emissions trajectory has also been ignored in the computation. So overall, the important factors that should have been included while calculating average rate of change in emission has been totally ignored according to the UN government. Now with respect to the projected GHG emissions, the government has also noted that India's score in this indicator should not be low because India has set a net zero target for 2070 only, whereas developed countries have set the target for 2050 itself. So citing this reason also, government is arguing that India's score should have been adjusted according to it. Let us come to the second reason. It is about the ecosystems. See the index computes the extent of ecosystems, but it does not include the condition or productivity of such ecosystems. For example, it does not include indicators like agrobiodiversity, soil health, food loss and waste. These are all important for developing countries with large agrarian populations like India. So just having ecosystems is not important, but how good is their condition and their productivity is also important according to Indian government and these are not included in the index and that is why India is rejecting these scores. Now next problem is directly with the indicators itself, especially with their weightage. According to the ministry, the weight of the indicators in which India performed well has been reduced in this year and even the reason for such a change has not been explained in the report. Along with this, there is also no explanation for weightages assigned to certain indicators. That is why a particular weightage has been given to one indicator. It's not also explained. Here the Indian government is arguing that comparing countries without knowing the explanation for weightages will be like comparing apples to oranges rather than comparing apples to apples. So mainly the shift in weightage of many indicators has resulted in India's low ranking according to the Indian government. For example, if you take black carbon growth, India's score actually improved in the year 2022. It was 32 in the year 2020 but now our score is 100 in 2022. That is we have achieved the top score but still India's ranking is low because the weightage of this indicator has been reduced from 0.018 to 0.0038. Like this, the weightage of many indicators have been changed and no reasons have been given for such change. So this has affected the India's ranking. Now finally, the government is also objected to the index emphasis on extent of protected areas rather than the quality of protection that they afford. That is, the government is arguing that the computation of biodiversity indices does not consider the management effectiveness of the protected areas in our country rather it just considers the extent of ecosystems. See, offering good protection to the protected areas and management effectiveness is important in the long run because they only help in conserving that biodiversity but this has not been factored in while computing the biodiversity indices. So this is also cited by the Indian government. Overall, India has cited three to four problems in the indices. Now despite these issues, experts have noted that the environmental concerns that have been flagged in this index are very much real. This is because we should remember that India was at 168th rank in 2020 and now we are at 180th rank. So this shows that even though India's rank has worsened, it has never been in the top ranking countries. Actually, India has never been in the top 150 itself. So based on this, author has provided certain suggestion like we have to accept that there is a need for a greater attention on critical issues such as air and water quality, biodiversity and climate change. We should also immediately reduce the carbon intensity of our economy. India should also go for large scale and long term science based ecological restoration of all our diverse ecosystems. So if India worked towards its listed out targets, it will help India to get a better score next year. So these are some of the points that you have to note from this discussion on environmental performance index. So with this news article discussion, we are going to the last session for the day, which is the practice questions discussion session. Let us take up the first question. Which of the following are the impacts of marine heat waves? The options given are coral bleaching, mass mortality of marine organisms, increased frequency of extreme weather events, food web disruptions. See, marine heat waves means higher water temperatures. Now these higher water temperatures cause extreme weather events such as tropical storms and hurricanes. We saw this during the discussion itself and they also disrupt the water cycle. They cause floods, droughts and even wildfires. Other than that, they also have other socio-economic impacts for coastal communities. For example, it affects aquaculture because it requires water temperature to remain suitable for farmed species and especially in this way, the marine heat waves have been shown to kill or reduce the productivity of economically important marine species. They have been especially associated with the mass mortality of marine invertebrates and it even forces the species to change their behavior in a way that puts wildlife at increased risk of harm. And these changing conditions also help the invasive alien species to spread. So in this way, it also affects the marine food webs. Along with that, you should know that there are certain species which are sensitive to marine heat waves and mainly it includes marine ecosystems like seagrass meadows and coral reefs. So coral reefs are affected by it as these high temperatures cause coral bleaching. Another problem with the marine heat waves is that they occur alongside with other stressors such as ocean acidification, deoxygenation and overfishing. So in such cases, when marine heat waves also occur, they increase the risks of deoxygenation and acidification. So in this way also, marine species and animals are highly affected. So if you look at the given options, all these are impacts of marine heat waves and that is why the correct answer is option A, all of the above. Let us take up the next question. Which of the following states are drained by Riva Ganga? Uttarakhand, Chattisgarh, Haryana, Punjab. Now the states that are drained by Ganga are Uttarakhand, UP, MP, Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Delhi. But Punjab is not in the list. Punjab has only two rivers. One is Satellite and other one is BS. So if you know that Punjab should not be in the answer, you can easily arrive at the correct answer because you can eliminate options A, C and D. So the correct answer is 1, 2 and 3, option B, which includes Uttarakhand, Chattisgarh and Haryana. Now let us take up the next question. It is a two-statement question. First statement, Ministerial Conference is the top most decision-making body of WTO. This is correct. We saw this during discussion. Statement 2, WTO delegates decision-making powers to a board of directors. This statement is incorrect because in WTO, all the decisions are made collectively and through consensus among member countries. It does not have a board of directors like other organizations. So here the question asks for correct statements. So the correct answer is option A, 1 only. Now the next question, which of the following are the global efforts to prevent money laundering? Vienna Convention, the Financial Action Task Force, the International Organization of Securities Commission. Actually the answer is option D, all of the above. All these are taking efforts to prevent money laundering. We often see about FATF, which has put Pakistan in the gray list because of its terror financing and this terror financing happens through money laundering only. Now in this Vienna Convention is the one that creates an obligation for signatory countries to criminalize the laundering of money from drug trafficking. Then FATF, it monitors member countries progress in applying measures to counter money laundering. And then this IOSCO organization, it encourages members to take necessary steps to combat money laundering in securities and futures markets. So they deal money laundering in different areas. Correct answer is option D. Along with this, I also have the quiz question for today. Read both the statements carefully and write your answer in the comment section. I'll tell you whether your answer is right or not. Along with this, I also have the mains practice questions. Interest or aspirants can write answers to these questions and post the answer in the comment section. So with this, we have come to the end of Hindi News Analysis. If you like this video, don't forget to like, comment and share. And also subscribe to Shankar Ayes Academy YouTube channel for receiving regular updates regarding civil services preparation. Thank you.