 Good evening aspirants, before moving on to the discussion we have two important announcements on Wednesday that is on 11th of August 2021 we are live streaming science and technology current affairs for prelims 2021 and this session will be live from 2.30 to 5.00 p.m. and we also have another live current affairs session on Indian polity upto fundamental rights on Friday which is on 13th of August 2021 and the timing for that session will also be from 2.30 p.m. to 5.00 p.m. so please take note of the timing and make good use of the sessions for your prelims preparation so with this let us move on to today's hinder news analysis the list of news articles chosen for today's discussion has given below and they are provided with a page numbers of different editions and also the link for handwritten notes in pedia format and the time stamping of the discussed articles will be provided in the comments section for the benefit of mobile phone viewers so come let us move in to the first news article now look at this news article the intergovernmental panel on climate change or this IPCC's sixth assessment report titled the climate change 2021 the physical science basis has been released and this report throws light on the alarming adverse effects on the climate change so in this part of the discussion we shall be looking into what is this IPCC or the intergovernmental panel on climate change and also the highlights of the report we are actually discussing the highlights of the report because these highlights can be quoted in your mains answer as a value edition so come let us move into the discussion the syllabus covered by this article is given below see first let us begin by knowing about this IPCC or the intergovernmental panel on climate change see this IPCC is the body that was first formed in 1988 by the united nations environment program and the world meteorological organization see its first report was released in 1990 and it warned of the potential consequences of the rising greenhouse gas emissions and in fact this report later proved to be the key to forging of the UN framework convention on climate change two years later and as we know this united nations framework convention on climate change or the UN FCC is a parent treaty to the 2015 paris agreement so since then reports have been produced roughly every seven years and the latest one is its sixth report see the IPCC reports are also called as synthesis reports and these reports are a comprehensive assessment reports about the state of scientific technical as well as socioeconomic knowledge on climate change and these reports also cover the impacts and future risks and also the options for reducing the rate at which climate changes taking place so apart from this the IPCC also produces special reports on topics that are agreed to by its member countries and even methodology reports are also prepared and it provides guidelines for the preparation of greenhouse gas inventories and remember this IPCC has got around 195 member countries thereby making it a well represented body so by now we have a brief understanding on what this IPCC is so now let us look into the important findings of the report see the findings of the report have not been present and in fact it has set alarm bells ringing see the first and the India specific finding in the report is that the Indian ocean is warming at a higher rate when compared to other oceans see this phenomenon has got two implications one is through this scientists have warned that India will witness increased heat waves and flooding that is more rains with more severe rain can be expected in India especially over southern India according to the report and more worryingly these will be the irreversible effects of climate change now coming to the second implication see the second implication of the warming of Indian ocean is this that is a report says that the warming of the ocean would lead to a rise in sea levels which leads to frequent and severe coastal flooding in low level areas in India so with a 7517 kilometer coastline India would face significant threats from the rising seas and across the port cities of Chennai, Kochi, Kolkatta, Mumbai, Surat and Vishakapatnam 28.6 million people would be potentially exposed to this coastal flooding if at all the sea level rises by 50 centimeter so this is an alarming finding in the report so before we proceed let us quickly understand about the concept of sea level rise see what happens is when the temperature increases any substance happened to expand that is with an increase in temperature the molecules will move far away from each other and the same happens with ocean water also that is when the atmospheric temperature increases the sea water will expand so therefore this is the major factor that causes the sea level rise now apart from this another minor factor also plays a role in it that is the melting glaciers see in a global warming situation highs melts at a faster rate than usual and this melted water will eventually discharge itself into the sea so this also leads to the rising sea level so what happens is when sea level rises the coastal areas and the islands will get affected adversely so this is the underlying concept here and this report has brought this to our notice see apart from these findings it is also found that the monsoon extremes are apparently going to increase over India and South Asia and the models indicate a lengthening of the monsoon over India by the end of the 21st century so to conclude the report reminds us that unless extremely deep emission cuts are undertaken by all countries that too immediately the Paris goals are unlikely to be met so the report recommended that countries should strive to achieve net zero emissions that is to make sure that no additional greenhouse gases are emitted by 2050 so these are some of the takeaway points or the points that we need to have in mind in relation to this news article so now let's move on to the next news discussion our next news discussion is going to be based on this editorial article in this editorial article the author has discussed about the evolving nature of the Iran-Saudi relationship and the term detente in the title means the easing of strained relations between countries so the author here also describes on how there is a chance of easing the tensions between Iran and Saudi so in this discussion we are going to explore the evolving nature of the Iran-Saudi relationship especially since the time the British left the Persian Gulf in the 1970s and we will also discuss on the recent issues and development in this regard and then we will explore on how a stable Iran-Saudi relationship will ensure a stable middle east and we will also focus on how this in turn will ensure a stable global economy so the syllabus covered by this editorial article is highlighted below for your reference so let us start with understanding the geography and significance of the Persian Gulf see the Persian Gulf is a shallow marginal area of the Indian Ocean and this area lies between the Arabian Peninsula and the southwestern Iran and as you can see in the map it borders several important countries of the Middle East which includes Iran, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq and most importantly it also joins the strait of Hormuz see this strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and for your additional information see a strait is a naturally formed narrow and typically navigable waterway and it connects two larger bodies of water so coming back the strait of Hormuz is only 54 kilometer wide at its narrowest point and the main shipping channels that pass through this are 30 to 35 kilometer wide and they are around 8 to 12 kilometer wide see this strait of Hormuz is important because it is critical to the transportation of crude oil and also the liquefied natural gas to various global markets now coming back to the Persian Gulf first let us understand the history of this Gulf see under the 1970s Persian Gulf was a British lake and after the British left the United States of America they came in as the guarantor of the region see this USA they came with its twin pillar policy that is the Iran-Saudi Arabia policy the time period then was the Cold War period and USA wanted to contain the Soviet Union's influence in the Persian Gulf so oil and regional security became the main drivers of the US policy in the Gulf but instead of directly intervening in the region like Britain what USA did is they opted for the twin pillar policy that is under this policy USA decided to build up its two regional allies and they were the Iran and Saudi Arabia see they chose Iran and Saudi Arabia because these two countries were local powers and on doing that USA believed that they could protect the region from the spread of Soviet influence so therefore as a part of the policy the United States of America they encouraged both the countries to acquire billions of dollars of the most advanced arms during the 1970 and it is said that Iran embraced the twin pillar policy more enthusiastically than Saudi Arabia and therefore Iran even started to intervene militarily in Iraq and Oman but this policy got collapsed suddenly in the 1979 and it happened when the Shah that is a king of Iran was overthrown in a revolution and that revolution brought a republican regime to power as opposed to USA's influence in the region so this is in brief the history of the Persian Gulf so now let us focus on the relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran themselves see many bilateral efforts were made by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and the Shah of Iran for example King Faisal initiated his Islamic solidarity policy in 1964 and he even visited Iran in 1965 and then further in 1966 Saudis defense minister even described the Iranian-Saudi friendship as a perfect example of Islamic brotherhood and also the neighborly relations and apart from this the two states were also active members of the five power safari club for intelligence sharing and for your additional information this safari club was a covert alliance of intelligent services and it was formed in 1976 and this club ran clandestine operations around Africa at a time when the United States Congress had limited the power of the CIA and the formal members of this safari club were the pre-revolution Iran Egypt Saudi Arabia Morocco and France and the club maintained informal connections with the United States South Africa Rhodesia and Israel so in spite of being described as a perfect example of Islamic brotherhood and neighborly relations the relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia did not remain the same and even we saw that in the 1979 revolution that happened in Iran see it was a cultural revolution which disturbed the strategic balance of the region and one of the ground reasons for this is that the Gulf monarchies and the western allies have been aiming to destabilize the revolutionary government in Iran so this led to the creation of the Gulf Cooperation Council in the year 1981 and the main aim of this council was to tilt the balance of power in the Persian Gulf region to Saudi's favor and as you know the Gulf Cooperation Council is a regional inter-governmental political and economic union that consists of Bahrain Kuwait Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and then we also saw that Iran started military interventions in Iraq see this happened with the approval of United States of America so this led to the Iran Iraqi war which continued from 1980 to 1988 but however after the war the tensions in the region began to subside after that Iran-Saudi relations started flourishing for example in 1996 Iranian president told the Saudi defense minister that a defense pact would be mutually beneficial for both countries and then in 1997 the crown prince of Saudi he even attended an Islamic summit conference in Tehran Tehran is the capital of Iran and this act of the crown prince of Saudi was seen in Tehran as a good beginning for removing misunderstandings between the two countries but then once again the relationship started starring after the Arab Spring of 2011 because at this time both Saudi as well as Iran were aiming for regional dominance so they exploited the upheavals that were caused due to Arab Spring in order to expand their influence and notably they started locking horns in the caves of Syria and Yemen say for example in Syria Iran supported Syrian president Balshar al-Assad and he enabled his forces to largely route the rebel groups in the country and the rebel groups were backed by the Saudi Arabia and above all these there exists a religious schism between the countries which is they follow one of the two main branches of Islam that is Iran is largely Shia Muslim while Saudi Arabia sees itself as a leading Sani Muslim power so the issues between these countries influenced the geopolitics of the region but however in recent times the things are changing and mainly since the pandemic hit the COVID-19 lockdowns and temporary export import embargoes resulted in the drop in oil prices and before this itself Saudi boycotted Qatar from the Gulf Cooperation Council so this made the organization inoperative and then with the end of the Donald Trump era in the United States of America Saudi also doesn't enjoy the influence in Washington like it used to do so further the Abraham Accords between the Israel United Arab Emirates and the Bahrain has also given new dimension to the geopolitics of the region and finally the United States of America's decision to pull out its troops from the Afghanistan and to reduce its commitment to Iraq has also added a new security dimension to the region so this is the existing or the prevailing scenario so having done with the existing scenario now we are going to see on how important is this Persian Gulf and its stability to India see the Persian Gulf and its stability is quite important to India because India has a third largest crude oil importing country so therefore the stability in the region and a stable price is of foremost importance to India secondly India has a huge expatriate population in the Gulf region so this means the stability in the region ensures the safety of the Indian population there and thirdly the Gulf region is diversifying its economy so India with its expertise in renewable energy can view the region as a potential investment option and apart from these reasons see in the recent past Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates they have not adopted hostile posture to India's domestic developments such as removing the special status for Jammu and Kashmir under article 370 so this brings to light that the Gulf countries are eager to build a strong and independent political ties with India without getting affected by the India Pakistan relations so what is the way forward for the region owing to its strategic importance see the first and foremost comes the stability in the region see the stability in the region is critical or it is important to the economic health of the world so therefore measures should be taken to ensure that secondly Iran Saudi back channel talks that began in April are now an open secret so therefore they are poised to produce a symbolic breakthrough in the coming days and then efforts should be made to ensure freedom of access to and outlet from the Gulf waters through the straight of hormones and there should be freedom of commercial shipping in international waters in the Persian Gulf etc and apart from these efforts should also be made to reduce the external influence that stands detrimental to peace building measures in the region so to conclude with the U.S. shifting focus to Indo-Pacific and with the possible new stable relationship between Iran and Saudi the geopolitics of this region might be a focused region for UPSC exam both in prelims as well as in mains so in relation to prelims the focus might be on the map making part and with respect to mains the focus might be on how India balances between Iran and U.S. and it can also be in the light of India's role in the Middle East with the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan so with this we have come to the end of this editorial discussion now let's move on to the next news article let us take up this news article the news article reports that talasemia patients are not getting the drug they need so in this context we are going to see about this talasemia see the talasemia is a blood disorder that is passed down through families or in other words you can also say that it is an inherited disorder know that this disorder is the most common inherited blood condition in the world and this condition is caused by the changes to the genes for hemoglobin and for those who are not aware see hemoglobin is a protein in the red blood cells and this carries oxygen around the body now this oxygen is important because it is a sort of food that is used by the cells to function so now what happens is in talasemia the body makes an abnormal form of hemoglobin or a kind of inadequate amount of hemoglobin so when there isn't enough hemoglobin what happens is the body's red blood cells will not function properly and they will only last for shorter periods of time so therefore due to this there are only fewer healthy red blood cells traveling in the bloodstream now when there are not enough healthy red blood cells then there is also not enough oxygen delivered to all the other cells of the body and if that happens then it causes a person a feeling of tiredness weakness or shortage of breath to the person and this condition is called as anemia so this means that talasemia leads to mild or severe anemia note that severe anemia can damage organs and it can also lead to death so by now we have an understanding about the disorder so now let us move on to see as to who gets affected with this talasemia disorder see this condition can affect people of any nationality and ethnicity but it is particularly common in people of mediterranean ancestry and it is also found in people from middle east asia including india and latin america know that talasemia is usually diagnosed within the first six months of life and without ongoing treatment it can also happen to be fatal in early childhood note that there are different types of talasemia as hemoglobin is made of two proteins namely alpha globin and beta globin know that this talasemia generally occurs when there is a defect in a gene that helps to control the production of one of these proteins so based on this the types are alpha and beta remember alpha talasemia occurs when a gene or genes related to the alpha globin protein are missing or changed or in simple terms when it is mutated and when you take beta talasemia it occurs when similar gene defects affect the production of the beta globin protein so these are the types see know that there are also many other forms of talasemia and both alpha and beta talasemia includes two forms and they are the talasemia major and the talasemia minor so as we already saw talasemia is an inherited disorder so to develop talasemia major one must inherit the gene defect from both parents and to develop talasemia minor it is enough if they receive the faulty gene from only one parent so note that people with talasemia minor are the carriers of the disease and most of the time they do not have symptoms and in fact according to the WHO around 5 to 7 percent of the world's population have this talasemia minor see one good thing about this disorder is that fortunately treatment exists for this disorder and the treatment for talasemia major often involves regular blood transfusions and folate supplements and for your information a folate is a nutrient in the vitamin b complex that the body needs in small amount in order to function and stay healthy and this folate actually helps to make the red blood cells know that those people who receive a lot of blood transfusions they need a treatment called chelation therapy and this chelation therapy is done in order to remove the excess iron from the body see when blood transfusions are done it can actually lead to a buildup of iron and this can cause serious side effects including diabetes, heart failure and also liver disease so therefore medications called iron chelators are provided in order to remove this excess iron from the body and note that these iron chelation drugs are provided free of cost in India at the designated government hospitals and today's news is something related to this see the news says that the non availability of these drugs is an issue coming back please remember there is no cure for this talasemia major which means the treatment must continue for life so and other than this the bone marrow transplant is also a treatment that is used in some people especially children so these are some of the problems related facts that you need to have in mind whenever you read about talasemia so now with these points in our mind let's move on to the next discussion now look at this news article the news is that nabad has been supporting the weavers of karnataka and on that line it is joining hands with the state government and in those lines weaver clusters are being set up and it is also hosting a marketing initiative in north america for the weavers so through this article let us quickly refresh our learnings about nabad see nabad is an important aspect for the preliminary exam so pay attention see the importance of institutional credit in boosting rural economy has been clear to the government of india right from its early stages of planning so to understand this see farmers resort to borrowing from local money lenders and what these local money lenders do is they charge them with exorbitant interest so even the transactions are not made transparent so the farmers and the rural borrowers fall into a debt trap and this adversely impacts the rural economy and livelihood so therefore in order to mainstream and formalize the credit disposal the reserve bank of india they constituted a committee and it was a committee to review the arrangements for institutional credit for agriculture and rural development see this particular committee was formed in the year 1979 and it was formed under the chairmanship of shri b sivaraman and in its recommendations the committee recommended for the formation of a unique development financial institution which is designed in a way to address the credit needs of rural farmers and others so on those lines the national bank for agriculture and rural development which is shortly known as nabad was established in 1982 by an act of the parliament see this nabad it came into existence by transferring the agricultural credit functions of the reserve bank of india and it was also vested with the refinance functions of the then agricultural refinance and development corporation and remember that nabad was set up with an initial capital of just rupees hundred crores but its paid capital was around 14 000 crore as on march 31st 2020 so with this you can imagine the growth of this financial institution over years see initially and all it was in fully government owned but after the revision in the composition of share capital between the government of india and the reserve bank of india the nabad today is fully owned by the government of india know that this nabad is a development bank that is it is specific functions to bring about some perceptible development to certain sections in the society so this is mandated for providing and regulating credit and other facilities for the promotion and development of agriculture small-scale industries cottage and handicrafts and it will also be extended to other rural crafts and other elite economic activities in rural areas so basically the aim of nabad is to promote integral rural development and also to secure prosperity of rural areas and for your information one of the most important function that nabad has been performing is this see this nabad in order to address the impact of climate change it created the climate change fund out of the profit of nabad during the year 2016 to 2017 and since then nabad contributes annually from its profits towards the corpus of this fund and know that this institution of the climate change fund is an unique initiative of nabad as a development financial institution to foster sustainable development and apart from this some of the farm sector scheme in which nabad is a partner is the daily entrepreneurship development scheme and then we have the commercial production units of organic inputs and next the agri-clinic and agribusiness the national livestock mission etc apart from these the other schemes in which nabad is a partner are the interest subvention scheme and the new agricultural marketing infrastructure scheme see in addition to these nabad is also a developmental partner in several of farm sector schemes as well and examples for them are the credit linked capital subsidy scheme for technology upgradation of micro and small enterprises then the dindayal anthiyodaya yochana the national rural livelihoods mission and also the comprehensive and looms development scheme etc just roughly go through the scheme so that you can identify them from the prelims paper now we are going to discuss this news article the article reports about the death of Commodore Gopal Rao who was a 1971 war hero and also a recipient of the Mahavir chakra which is India's second highest military declaration see he was also the commander of two Arnala class anti-submarine corvettes namely the INS Kiltan and the INS Kachal see these two are important because they were a part of the task group that attacked Karachi harbor during the operation Trident on December 4 in the year 1971 and note that this date that is December 4 1971 is now marked as the navy day so in this context let us discuss in brief about the Indo-Pakistani war of the year 1971 and also about the operation Trident see see after the partition in 1947 Pakistan had two parts one in the east and one in the west and the capital of Pakistan was at Karachi in west Pakistan and it was later moved to Islamabad in the year 1958 see despite east Pakistan having the largest population among all the provinces he did comparatively less economic growth and also political power so what happened is Sheikh Mujabi Rahman who was a leader of the awami league in east Pakistan they demanded more economic and political powers and also there was a language issue prevailing among them so in 1948 Muhammad Ali Jinnah stated that Urdu was the official language for Pakistan so this resulted in a protest that erupted in Bangladesh speaking east Pakistan and it resulted in the killing of several students in the year 1952 so later in 1971 the awami league they won a landslide victory in the national elections in the national assembly Sheikh Mujabi Rahman who was the leader of the awami league in east Pakistan was not made the prime minister of Pakistan so what happened on March 26 in 1971 the people of east Pakistan that was led by Sheikh Mujabi Rahman they declared independence and the war between the Pakistan army and the Bengali freedom fighters called the Mukti Bahini was a part of this so during the war India gave shelter to the refugees and they also trained the Mukti Bahini and following that finally on 16th of December in the year 1971 Dhaka fell into the hands of Mitro Bahini who were the elite forces of the Mukti Bahini and the Indian army and following this the agreement was signed by Prime Minister Indra Gandhi and the President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan in the year 1972 in order to reverse the consequences of the 1971 war so this is a brief description or a brief account of the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war so having done that finally let us discuss about the Operation Trident see every year India celebrates December 4 as Navy Day in order to commemorate Operation Trident see Operation Trident was a key offensive during the 1971 India-Pakistan war wherein the Indian Navy inflicted heavy damage on Pakistani vessels than the Karachi harbour see the India-Pakistan war of 1971 had begun on December 3 and it started when the Pakistan Air Force launched pre-emptive strikes on airfields in western India and India responded to it through this Operation Trident and under this the Indian Navy sank around three vessels near the Pakistani port city of Karachi and the stars of the mission whether than recently acquired Soviet OSHA missile boats and the Indian Air Force also played a crucial role during the Operation Trident when Karachi's Kimari oil tanks were destroyed by the Indian Air Force so this is a brief description or a brief background which the news article demands us to know so by now we have come to the end of today's article discussion now let us move on to the next segment of our inter-news analysis that is the prelims practice question discussion look at this prelims practice question which of the following statements is incorrect with reference to thalassemia statement one it is an inherited blood disorder common in people of Mediterranean ancestry statement b it causes mild or severe anemia and statement c there is no treatment or cure exist for thalassemia major and statement d signifies both a and b see statement a is correct because thalassemia is particularly common in people of Mediterranean ancestry but now what happened is due to migration it is spread throughout the world and can be majorly found in Middle East Asia and Latin America and coming to the second statement as we saw in a discussion thalassemia causes mild or severe anemia so statement b is correct now moving on to the third statement or the statement c see this statement is incorrect because treatment do exist for thalassemia and as we saw the blood transfusion and chelation therapy are some of the treatments in this regard but the only concern here is in spite of having treatments there is no cure so this statement is partially true and partially false so since the question wants us to find only the false statement the correct answer here is option c which says that there is no treatment of cure exist for thalassemia major now look at this question consider the following statements regarding the climate change fund statement one says that the climate change fund was created out of the profit of nabad and statement two says that nabad contributes annually from its profit towards the corpus of the fund so which of the statements given above is or are correct see from our discussion it is clear that statement one is correct and yes it is created out of the profit of nabad now coming to the second statement so based on our discussion we can infer that this statement is also correct see these two statements are a direct pick from the website of nabad usually such direct picks are a common trend in UPSC so keep that in mind while starting our revising so the right answer here is option c that is both 1 and 2 now coming to this question operation trident a military offensive recently seen in news is related to india and pakistan afghanistan and pakistan india and china israel and saudi arabia so from our discussion it is very clear that the correct answer here is option a that is india and pakistan see under operation trident indian navy vessels fired anti ship missiles heavily damaging the pakistan's karachi port and the pakistan navy suffered huge gas as a result of the operations by the indian navy in the early hearts of the 1971 war and this event was followed by the operation python see the list of main's practice question is given below so interested candidates can write your answers and post them in the comment section so with this we have come to the end of today's hinder news analysis and if you've liked the video then don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to shankar eyes academy youtube channel for more updates regarding UPSC civil services preparation