 A very good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought you by Shankar IA's academy for the date 6th of April 2022. See displayed here are the list of news articles that I have chosen for today's discussion. See today's discussion is really going to be very useful for both your problems as well as mains and as I always assure you I have an economic topic today also it is regarding the concept of fiscal consolidation then in that itself I had covered about fiscal deficit and how to address the fiscal deficit okay and the first news article that I have chosen for today's discussion is very much important for both your problems and mains keeping in mind that problems is fast approaching I had made a point to cover all important points that can be put in your problems questions okay and in the other two articles also I had made a point to give more importance for your problems so without wasting much time now let's get into the first news article discussion now take a look at this editorial article see this editorial article talks about secularism I hope you all remember the recent hijab issue that was raised in the state of Karnataka and when the issue was taken to the Karnataka High Court it could not settle the issue the judgment of the High Court was very technical it nearly read like a petition and it revealed an excessive desire to disprove the opposing viewpoint hence it's judgment for the provoked the hijab hearing college students in Udupi as a result no they have now approached the Supreme Court of India to contest the order so this is the crux of the article given here see you very well know that this topic secularism is very much important for your mains but note that the philosophy of secularism is very much important for your problems also because questions based on that is coming nowadays and also the constitutional provisions regarding secularism can be asked as a preliminary question so this topic is going to be relevant for both your problems as well as means kindly pay attention and make note of each and every point that is going to be mentioned in this discussion okay before that the syllabus relevant to this news article is highlighted here for your reference just go through it see to begin with what is secularism secularism in simple term refers to separation of religion from the state or you can say it is a normative doctrine which seeks to realize a secular society that is a society that is devoid of either interreligious or intra-religious dominations see to put positively it promotes freedom within religions and equality between as well as within religions now what kind of state is necessary to realize these goals the answer is very simple to realize secularism we need a secular state now when you look at the constitution of India it stands for a secular state hence it does not uphold any particular religion as the official religion of the Indian state now we are going to see some of the provisions of the Indian constitution that reveals the secular character of the Indian state firstly as you know originally the constitution provided for seven fundamental rights and a part three of the Indian constitution from articles 12 to 35 one among the fundamental rights is the right to freedom of religion which includes articles from 25 to article 28 remember this fundamental right is available not only for citizens of India but also for the foreigners see all persons are equally entitled to freedom of consigns and the right to freely profess practice and propagate any religion this is under article 25 then when you take article 26 it says every religious denominations or any of its section shall have the right to manage its religious affairs then if you take article 27 it says no person shall be compelled to pay any tax for the promotion of a particular religion and lastly when you take article 28 it says no religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution maintained by the state here you must note one thing the constitution originally or even under fundamental rights does not explicitly mentions the term secularism or secular state there is no doubt that constitution makers wanted to establish such a state under article 25 to 28 which is guaranteeing the fundamental right that is freedom of religion but still the constitution does not explicitly mention that India is a secular state see wait wait it is for this reason only the 42nd constitutional amendment act was made so according to this 42nd constitutional amendment act the term secular was added to the preamble of the Indian constitution itself okay so far we specifically saw about the provisions of the Indian constitution which are explicitly projecting India as a secular state see apart from this there are many other provisions of the Indian constitution which are implicitly projecting India as a secular state now let us see them on by one see in preamble in addition to the term secular state there is also liberty of belief faith and worship this is implicitly mentioning that India is a secular state and when you take article 14 it says the state shall not deny to any person equality before law and equal protection of the laws see here they are meaning to say that a person from a particular religion is not given high status he is treated equally before law okay now when you take article 15 it says that the state shall not discriminate against any citizen on the ground of religion and when you take article 16 it says equality of opportunity for all citizens the matters of public employment should be provided and when you take article 29 it says any section of the citizen shall have the right to conserve its distinct language script or culture then when you take article 30 all the minority shall have the right to establish and administer the educational institution of their choice lastly when you take article 44 as you are right it is regarding DPSP it has also made a provision like that the state shall endeavor to secure for all the citizens a uniform civil code so having seen the provisions of the Indian constitution now let us move on to the important part of the discussion that is the Indian philosophy of secularism see the Indian concept of secularism differs from the western concept of secularism this is because the western concept of secularism connotes a complete separation between the religion and the state see this is reflecting a negative concept of secularism and it is in applicable in the Indian situation because the society here is multi-religious hence the Indian constitution embodies the positive concept of secularism that is giving equal respect to all religions or protecting all religions equally to put it in simple words India as a secular state do not interfere with religion or religious activities and faith also note that any religion or religious activities or faith does not play any role in law and policy making decisions but still India respects all religion and protects all religion equally okay now coming back to the news article see according to the author the issue of the hijab is political as well as constitutional the top court that is a Supreme Court might examine the constitutional aspect and his judgment will hopefully settle the issue but the political dimension of the hijab issue will continue to trouble the Indian society for a long time see the author says so because according to him the sudden eruption of the issue is nothing but a reflection of a widespread intolerance among the people this is true because as a matter of fact Hindu and Sikh women in northern India cover their heads on all important occasions such as marriage or funeral or religious ceremonies etc etc but still wearing hijab and school primers became an issue the fact that a piece of cloth is enough to provoke people to rush out on to the street and fight each other is a witness to the transformation that has occurred in the Indian society see the transformation that I'm mentioning here is an environment of intolerance okay see in the situation the claims of traditional tolerance pluralism seems like a bad joke now the threat here is there is too much religiosity in public life in India so we have conveniently changed the meaning of secularism into Sarva Dharma Sambhav which would only lead to majoritarianism and ultimately to the establishment of a theocratic state see what is this theocratic state a state governed directly by a priestly order is called a theocratic state see if such a thing happens theocracy will ensure that disintegration of the country in the Indian context a theocratic state based on the religious scriptures would be fundamentally unstable since it would deny the subaltern class equality before the law and equal protection the law not only this they also lead to discrimination against them on the basis of caste see this may lead to long-lasting conflicts in the eventual disintegration of the society will happen so by now you would have understood that disturbing the secularism of India is equal to threatening the very base of the society so this moves us to the question of way forward now what should be done we must come to the obvious conclusion that India as a nation can only survive as a secular state that is there should be no religious promotion by the state see according to the author the fact that educated Indians mock secularism and have come to endorse the idea of theocratic state based on the dominant religion is an indication of people's thoughtlessness see this educated Indians mood is being shaped by the confusing religion or political campaigns see remember why secularism was chosen by Indian leaders see secularism was chosen as the foundational principle of the Republic to keep the nation united hence enlightened citizen should understand that if secularism is abandoned the country's hard one unity will be endangered so as a citizen of India every citizen has a patriotic duty to strengthen secularism and thereby safeguard the nation so that's all about this news article we discussed about what is secularism especially we discussed about the Indian philosophy of secularism then we saw about the constitutional provisions which talks about the secularism we saw both explicit mentioning and implicit mentioning okay then we saw the threat to secularism and what will be the cause of that threat lastly we saw what should be done as a citizen of India to protect secularism so these key points and nine now let's move on to the next news article discussion look at this article here it is about the purchase of bramos missiles by philippines from india see we all know that bramos supersonic cruise missile was a joint development between india and russia but the purchase of the cruise missile by philippines from india is notable here this is because india would be able to move ahead on a bilateral basis with philippines so this is the essence of the news article given here in this context let us learn more about missiles from prilim's perspective here i'll be covering about the types of missiles then i'll also cover about bramos missile in prilim's perspective okay first of all let us see what is a missile see a missile is nothing but an object such as a weapon thrown or projected this is thrown or projected in order to strike something at a distance which is a target okay see it is usually a rocket which carries a payload with the aim of destroying the target there are different types of missiles on the basis of launch mode no they are classified as surface to surface add to surface then surface to air missiles then add to air missiles then you can also say anti-satellite weapons missiles okay see as far as the types are concerned they are very easy because you can understand from the name itself what is the type and what is its mechanism okay now for example take the surface to surface missile it means the rocket is propelled from the ground and it hits a target on the ground okay likewise you take the add to air missile it means it is propelled from a jet and it will hit the target which is in the air see the target might be another jet or something else okay now when you take the add to surface missile it means they are propelled from a jet and it hits a target on the ground can you understand from the name itself you can understand the mechanism of their launch am i right that is why this is a very easy classification and when you take the surface to air now you say what happens here it is just opposite to add to surface that is the missile is propelled from the surface and it hits the target in the air okay then you may ask what are ballistic missile cruise missile anti-ship or anti-tank missiles wait let us discuss about each of these one by one first let us see about the ballistic missile see the ballistic missile is targeted as a projectile from a single launch force see here not much guidance is added okay and it is launched directly into the high layers of the earth's atmosphere it travels well outside the atmosphere and then the warhead detaches and falls back to earth see the ballistic missile follows the path of a ball thrown upwards which falls down see when you throw a ball how does it go do you remember that path in a similar way the ballistic missile will travel okay since it depends on gravity to reach its target it is called as ballistic missile see ballistic missiles can travel extremely quick along their flight path with the terminal speeds of over 5000 meter per second the ballistic missiles are much harder to intercept than the cruise missile see this is due to the much shorter time available okay see these ballistic missiles are some of the most feared weapons that are available and it can be launched from ships and they can also be land based facilities okay now based on the range no we can classify this ballistic missile as short range medium range then intermediate range and lastly you can also go for intercontinental ballistic missile these are all the types of ballistic missile based on range okay some examples of ballistic missiles in India are Agni 1 Agni 2 then Prithvi 1 Prithvi 2 and Dhanush okay now let's see about the cruise missiles a cruise missile is a guided missile that means the target has to be preset it is used against terrestrial targets see here when you take the cruise missiles they are generally consisting of a guidance system in addition to the payload an aircraft propulsion system and note that this cruise missiles are housed in an airframe with small wings and appendage see appendage is nothing but an arrangement of stabilizing the surface at the tail of an aircraft this is mainly for flight control okay now when you take the cruise missiles they can be launched from various platforms that means they can be landed from land or sea see here means they can be submarine launch or ship launch then they can be launched from air also okay see these cruise missiles are characterized by having different forms of guidance such as satellite GPS guidance then they are known specifically for the low level flight which is staying relatively close to the surface of the earth this is mainly known to avoid the detection from anti-missile systems and they are designed to carry large payloads with high precision okay see the key is that the missile is guided entirely to the target under its own power okay the cruise missiles can be categorized by size speed when you talk about speed no you can call them as supersonic subsonic or hypersonic cruise missiles and it can also be classified based on range and from where it can be launched that is from land or air or surface or ship or submarine whatever it may be okay see when you take the land attack missiles they are the cruise missiles which are designed to hit stationary or moving targets on land okay now let me tell you about the anti-tank missile see anti-tank guided missile anti-tank missile anti-tank guided weapon or anti armor guided weapon all these are guided missile primarily designed to hit and destroy heavily armored military vehicles okay when you ask me a few examples i can tell you to Nag and Helena which are the examples of anti-tank missiles in India okay and now let me tell you about the anti-ship missile see these are a guided missile that is designed for use against ships and large boats see all these ballistic cruise anti-ship and anti-tank missiles are under the broad category which is surface to surface surface to air or air to air or air to surface it means all ballistic cruise anti-ship anti-tank missiles all these can be launched from surface okay now coming back to the article see the article is about the missile bramos so let us see a few important facts about the bramos missile which are very much important for your preliminary examination see the missile has been developed as a joint venture between the DRDO and the federal state unitary enterprise NPO machino stroinya see if you find it difficult to remember this enterprise name just have in mind that it is a Russian-based enterprise and remember this bramos is the first supersonic missile known to be in service bramos is a two-stage supersonic cruise missile which is a solid propellant booster engine as its first stage which brings it to the supersonic speed and then gets separated so remember its first stage is a solid propellant okay then the liquid ramjet or the second stage no then takes the missile closer to three max speed see the missile is fitted with stealth technology and guidance systems with advanced embedded software which provides the missiles with special features now what is the stealth technology see it is very simple a stealth technology is intended to make vehicles or missiles nearly invisible to the enemy radar or other electronic detection so you can call the stealth technology as a invisible technology okay see the missile maintains supersonic speed all through the flight leading to a shorter flight time see it is capable of being launched from submarine ships fighter jets or land and it operates on fire and forget principle adopting varieties of flights on its way to the target what is this fire and forget principle see the fire and forget principle of operation means the missile guidance does not require further guidance that is once it is launched and until it hits the target it doesn't require any guiding system and note that the launcher need not be in the line of sight of the target understood so this bramos is performing under this fire and forget principle of operation okay see the destructive power of bramos is enhanced due to large kinetic energy on impact and that's all about this news article we saw everything about the types of missile and what is a missile then how from the name itself you can understand what is the mechanism of the missile then lastly we saw about the bramos missile see this topic is very much important for your problems because you can expect this kind of questions so with these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion now look at this news article see this article is from the business page in the hindu paper and you know it's hard to miss this kind of article see this article is about borrowing the article says that according to s&p global ratings global sovereign borrowing will reach 10.4 trillion dollar in 2022 that is almost a third above average before the COVID-19 pandemic and the rating agency said that despite an economic recovery borrowing will stay elevated because of high depth rollover requirements and the war in Ukraine see the conditions that are prevailing globally is spoken in this news article when we talk about borrowing know we should always think of fiscal consolidation because when the borrowing increases the country's depth is increasing thus to prevent this from happening fiscal consolidation must be done so now comes the question here what is fiscal consolidation see to know about fiscal consolidation you should know about fiscal deficit the word fiscal refers to annual government account statements and the word deficit stands for shortage therefore fiscal deficit is a term used to define the difference between what a government spends and what it collects as revenue now you may wonder how can government spend beyond its revenue it is by means of borrowing so in simple words a fiscal deficit situation occurs when the government spends more than what it earns this deficit is calculated in absolute terms and also as a percentage of gross domestic product or GDP of the country for example if the GDP of a country is 100 lakh crore and the difference between total income and expenditure is 10 lakh crore then the fiscal deficit is 10 percentage see if a country has a large and recurring fiscal deficit it shows that the government has been spending beyond what it gets as revenue when you talk about India the fiscal deficit is the king indicator to show the fiscal health of the government effectively fiscal deficit indicates the amount of government borrowing for that particular year am i right excess fiscal deficit produces some adverse effects for the government it causes interest payment burden and for the economy it causes inflationary effect and rising interest rate in the economy so by this time you'd have understood what is this fiscal deficit and what are all the troubles that it is causing and how it is managed it is managed through borrowing so what can be done to control all these problems here comes the answer fiscal consolidation see fiscal consolidation refers to the ways and means of narrowing the fiscal deficit see a government typically borrows to bridge the deficit it will then have to allocate a part of its earning to serve as the debt am i right so the interest burden will increase as the debt increases see when you take the budget for the financial year 2022 of the total government expenditure of over 34.83 lakh crore more than 8.09 lakh crore that is around 20 percent went towards interest payments alone see this depth is one liability that is difficult to defer and at the end of the day the government struggles to find more resources not just for capital expenditure but also for revenue expenditure so in the long run uncontrolled fiscal deficit will hurt economic growth now let us see the measures from the expenditure side and the revenue side that are envisaged by the government to achieve this fiscal consolidation or what we call it as narrowing the fiscal deficit firstly there should be improvement in the tax revenue realization for this increasing efficiency of tax administration by reducing tax avoidance then eliminating tax evasion then enhancing tax compliances etc etc are to be made secondly there should be enhancement in the tax GDP ratio this is done by widening the tax base and minimizing the tax concessions and exemptions see all these will improve tax revenue am i right so now the third measure is better targeting of government subsidies and extending the direct benefit transfer scheme for more subsidies see when the government makes the target for subsidies specific and efficient then definitely the income from the particular sector will enhance the country's economy else it is only going to increase the deficit of the country okay see the higher economic growth rate will help government to get higher tax revenues as well so augmentation of tax revenue is necessary to bring fiscal consolidation as there are limitations for reducing government expenditure in India note that announcing fiscal consolidation plans and measures is a prerequisite to restore public finances also it helps to maintain market confidence see when a country is having more and more percentage of fiscal deficit then who will be confident enough to invest in the country no countries or no companies will be ready to invest right so in order to maintain market confidence also a country should be fiscal deficit free or at least it should be reduced to certain level that is why this fiscal consolidation is very much important see it aims at reducing the government deficit and debt accumulation okay so that's all about this news article i hope you'd have understood about the term fiscal deficit then what are all the causes then what are all the troubles it is causing then how it is managed and finally i hope you'd have understood about the term fiscal consolidation so with these key points in mind now let's move on to the next news article discussion have a look at this news article see this news article talks about a report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that is shortly called as IPCC report as you know IPCC is the United Nations body in charge of evaluating the science related to climate change this news article is more significant in that manner so in this background let us quickly go through the findings of the report before that have this basic understanding see recently released report is nothing but a summary report this summary for policy makers summarizes major conclusions from the working group 2's contribution to the IPCC's sixth assessment report okay the report actually highlights the connection of climate ecosystem and biodiversity as well as human societies and integrates knowledge more strongly across the natural ecological social and economic sciences this is more efficient than the previous IPCC's assessment you can see it in the image given here see from this image itself you can understand how efficiently the report is getting transformed see the climate change causes impacts and risk is on one side and the future climate change limiting the global warming is on the other side so what are all the timely action required can be listed out by each and every government across the globe and thus the global warming can be addressed or in simple words this report evaluates the physical science of climate change looking at the past present and future climate it reveals how human caused emissions are altering our planet and what that means for our collective future talking about the highlights of the report see the latest report has for the first time made an assessment of regional and sectoral impacts of the climate change it has included risk to and vulnerabilities of megacities around the world for example it has said Mumbai is at high risk of sea level rays and flooding well Ahamadabad faces a serious danger of heat waves for the first time the IPCC report has looked at the health impacts of climate change for example it has found that the climate change is increasing vector-borne and water-borne diseases such as malaria or dengue particularly in subtropical regions of Asia and secondly if you take it has also said deaths related to circulatory respiratory diabetic and infectious diseases as well as infant mortality are likely to increase with the rise in temperature then thirdly the increasing frequency of extreme weather events like heat waves flooding and rot and even air pollution was contributing to under nutrition allergic diseases and even mental disorders so talking about India specific study see the report identifies India as one of the vulnerable hotspots with several regions and important cities facing very high risk of climate disasters for example the climate disaster such as flooding sea level rise and heat waves are getting more and more see i already mentioned that Mumbai is at high risk of sea level rise and flooding and Ahmedabad is facing serious danger of heat waves okay then several cities including Chennai Bhuneshwar partner and Lucknow are approaching dangerous levels of heat and humidity see infrastructure including transportation water and sanitation and energy systems has been compromised by extreme and slow onset events this further results in economic losses disruption of services and impacts the well-being of the humans see we know that urban India is at greater risk than other areas with a projected population of 877 million by 2050 see this is nearly double or 480 million in the year 2020 okay so that's all about this news article so we had discussed about the IPCC report which is very much important for your problems and i had given the key findings of the recent report just keep those key points in mind it will be very much useful in addressing your problems based questions okay so with these key points in mind now let's move on to the next part of the news article discussion which is the preliminary practice question discussion now look at this first question it is regarding the Brahmos missile that we discussed today see it is a two statement question so we have to go through both these statements before answering this question okay now look at the first statement it is absolutely incorrect because we saw that the Brahmos is a two-stage supersonic cruise missile with a solid propellant booster engine as its first stage so why is this statement wrong it says that Brahmos is an intercontinental ballistic missile so it is absolutely incorrect okay and the second part no which is talking about the range it is also incorrect because the liquid ramjet or the second stage of this Brahmos cruise missile takes the missile closer to three max speed in cruise phase okay so the first statement here is incorrect now take the second statement it is correct because this we saw in a discussion itself that the missile has been developed as a joint windshield between the DRDO and I said one enterprise name right federal state unitary enterprise NPO machinous tyrannia simply you can remember that it is a russian enterprise okay so this is the first supersonic missile known to be in service okay and see now read the complete question it is asking for correct statement so your answer here will be option B to unleash the correct statement okay now look at this second question see consider the following statement with reference to the type of deficits so three statements are given see whenever you have more than two statements you can opt for elimination technique whenever I get this kind of questions no I always go in for third statement or second statement so let me take the third statement today see the primary deficit is the difference between revenue deficit and grants for creation of capital asset this statement is absolutely incorrect because the definition given there is the definition of effective revenue deficit yes effective revenue deficit is the difference between revenue deficits and grants for the creation of capital assets okay and what is the definition of primary deficit see primary deficit is nothing but the difference between the fiscal deficit of the current year and the interest paid by the government on loans obtained in the past okay so now you know that statement three is incorrect you can eliminate three options that is B, C, D and you can easily find the answer as option A one and two only but always read the other statements also before confirming the answer now look at the first statement fiscal deficit is the difference between the total income of the government and its total expenditure yes it is correct now look at the second statement revenue deficit arises when the government's revenue expenditure exceeds the total revenue receipts yes absolutely correct okay so your answer for this question is option A one and two only is the correct statement okay now look at the third question see it is regarding our IPCC report discussion okay it is a two statement question so we are going to go through both these statements before answering this question look at the first statement it is correct because we saw in a discussion itself that IPCC is a united nation body in charge of evaluating the science related to climate change okay so statement one is correct now look at the second statement see it says that it was established by united nation general assembly and the world meteorological organization in 1988 this statement is incorrect because it was established by UNAP that is united nation environment program and world meteorological organization in the year 1988 it was only endorsed by the UN general assembly okay so the question is demanding for the correct statements your answer will be option A one only is a correct statement okay now I have displayed here a mains question please go through the question and write your answers and post it in the comment section and if you have any doubts regarding the discussion you can post all your doubts in the comment section and it will be clarified as soon as possible if you like this video do like share and comment and don't forget to subscribe to the Shankar IAS Academy's YouTube channel thank you for listening