 a very good evening aspirants welcome to the hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by shankarae's academy for the date 17th of june 2022 so these are the list of news articles chosen for today's discussion we have five different news articles so now without wasting much time let's get into the news article discussion so our next discussion is going to be based on this text and context article this article elaborates on the recent decision of rba to link upi with credit cards so in this discussion let us see about upi the features of the decision and also benefits associated with it before that the syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference just go through it firstly let us start with upi as you know it stands for unified payment interface it is an instant payment system it was developed and launched in 2016 by the national payments corporation of india that is npci see upi provides a multitude of services into one hood like it powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application then it merges several banking features then it provides seamless fund routing and the merchant payments apart from this it also cut us to the peer-to-peer collect request here peer-to-peer request or p2p transactions or the ones that uses a website or app to transfer fund from one person to another over the internet or mobile networks so in upi transactions can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience so these are some of the multitude of services which are provided under a single door due to these services upi have many unique features we'll see them one by one firstly it provides immediate money transfer through mobile device around the clock it is because upi is built over the immediate payment service that is imps infrastructure here imps is a 24 by 7 system so similarly upi is also 24 by 7 system secondly upi is a single mobile application for accessing different bank accounts this is a unique feature thirdly it also has single click two factor authentication see single click is a process of transaction where the payment can be done with a single tap only for the first transaction you'll have to register with needed credentials like credit or debit card details bank account details etc after that no need to fill in details just you can pay using a single click but such transaction need to be secure and authentic that is why upi has two factor authentication this means the transaction is authenticated at two levels first is the mobile number or a virtual id offered by the provider and second is the mobile pin called mpin so apart from this it also uses virtual addresses of the customer for pull and push see in digital transactions push means crediting money or paying to others whereas pull means debiting money or collecting money this feature is what enables you to send and receive money in upi and for this upi uses a virtual address this provides incremental security as the customer is not required to enter the details such as card number account number ifc code etc apart from this it also has the quick response code or qr code feature so you can just have to scan the code to make the payment just like that most importantly for the transactions you can link bank accounts as well as ppi wallets here bank accounts means the savings and current accounts and they are linked with upi through the debit cards of users next ppi stands for prepaid payment instruments they are instruments that facilitate purchase of goods and services conduct of financial services etc against the value stored there ppis can be issued as cards wallets online vouchers and any other form or instrument these ppi wallets can be linked to upi and finally at present the upper limit per upi transaction is rupees 2 lakhs so based on these features let us also see some of the benefits of upi first of all as usual as i said earlier itself money transfer can be done anytime for 24 by 7 throughout 365 days secondly it is also the best answer to many problems associated with transactions using hard cash like the cash on delivery hustle etc that is when a service provider or item is bought you need not have exact amount of cash in hand or even need not have cash at all and there is no need for running to an ATM also apart from this it is a safer secured and innovative transaction method and finally you can make utility bills payments over the counter payments or you can donate money through upi so due to its features and benefits upi has been gaining popularity as per rba's data upi platforms have more than 26 crore unique users and five crore merchants the upi transaction value already crossed 81 lakh crore as of march you can see that in the table given here so now what is the news regarding upi see recently rba has decided to link upi with credit cards just now we saw that the bank accounts of users or linked using debit cards this was a scenario so far and now rba has allowed using credit cards also so what is our credit card see a credit card is a physical or virtual payment instrument it contains a means of identification and is issued with a pre-approved revolving credit limit this credit is used to purchase goods and services or even draw cash advances depending on the prescribed terms and conditions on the other hand debit card is linked to a savings bank account or current account which is used to withdraw cash make online payments fund transfer etc another important difference is in case of debit card when you use it or swipe it money gets detected from your bank account but in case of credit card the money is taken from the credit limit that is the customer borrow fund from that bank within a pre-approved credit limit note that such a credit limit is determined by the credit card issuer based on factors such as income and credit score of the user so in case of credit card you need not have ready cash in hand or in account for every transaction you only need to pay money when you get the credit card bill at the end of the month now each bank has their own credit card but as of now rba has decided to link only rupee credit card at the initial stages so you might be wondering why rba took this decision see the main objective with this linking arrangement is to enhance the scope of upi payments and convenience to the customers in making payments through the upi platform so what are the expected benefits of this move firstly it could be a boost for credit penetration because after the linking credit card transaction will be accepted at more merchant sites and more stores for example in kirana store that is provisions store we cannot use credit cards to make the payment right but this hurdle will be removed through the linking as they already accept upi payments secondly it will also help in maintaining your savings thirdly and most importantly it is essential as credit cards have been losing market some estimations note that the credit card market share dropped to 30 percentage in financial year 21 from 37 percentage in financial year 20 and is expected to further come down to 27 percentage in financial year 2022 so the linking will boost the credit card market apart from this more credit penetration means more spending by public this in turn will enable economy to grow second it will also enhance the scope of digital payments in India and thirdly it will have all the benefits of a normal upi transaction for example you need not swipe your credit card for a transaction rather you can just scan a QR code and make the payment see as you know after demonetization ptm became famous therefore even in rural areas they started using QR code based payments so upi credit card linking will help them more this is mainly because even now many tire 3 and tire 4 cities of the country does not have point of sale or pys infrastructure which is needed to swipe your credit or debit card another benefit is that it will largely benefit fintech platforms like ptm so these are the benefits now along with these certain issues are also cited with the linking we'll see them later as many of these will be resolved once rba issues guidelines for credit card payments through upi so these are some of the important points that you have to make note of and this news article discussion we saw about upi that is unified payment interface in very detailed manner we saw the services provided by the upi we saw its unique features then we saw about the benefits of upi then we saw what is the credit card so these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion look at this editorial article see our prime minister narendra moody on tuesday announced that his government would be recruiting 10 lakh personnel within the next 18 months on a mission mode in this regard this article states that the center's decision to recruit personnel is a nod to the festering unemployment issue in this context let us discuss about some important points mentioned in the editorial firstly let us start our discussion with demographic dividend so what is this demographic dividend see demographic dividend is nothing but the economic growth potential that can result from ships in a population's age structure here economic growth happens mainly because of the fact that the share of the working age population is larger than the non-working age share of the population know that the working age population is aged between 15 and 64 years and the non-working age share of the population indicates 14 years and anger and 65 and older okay now why are we discussing about demographic dividend is it that important this is because India has one of the youngest population in an ageing world and it is expected that India will add another 183 million people to the working age group of 15 to 64 years between 2020 to 50 so a whooping 22 percentage of the incremental global workforce over the next three decades will come from India that means finding productive employment for its youth was to be an imperative for India but in the last few years unemployment has remained a major concern in India the leaked periodic labour force survey that is PLFS in 2018 revealed that India's unemployment rate was the highest that is at 6.07 percentage in four decades the latest PLFS suggests that the overall unemployment rate at 4.2 percentage in 2020 to 21 compared to 4.8 percentage in 2019 to 20 the labour force participation rate that is LFPR increased to 41.6 percentage up from 40.1 percentage in 2019 to 20 you can see that in the image given here but the PLFS data will not bring much cheer to the government despite a decrease in unemployment this is because the decrease in unemployment has also coincided with the transfer of employment into lower productive and unpaid jobs away from salaried employment this means employment in lower productive and unpaid jobs is increasing and jobs in salaried employment is decreasing so worryingly industrial jobs have also decreased with more employment in agricultural and farm related jobs this trend was accelerated following the covid induced lockdown and has not reversed since then also the unemployment rates among the educator and the youth have declined only marginally here the educated people denotes those who have completed secondary education and the youth indicates those who are aged between 15 to 29 see wage rates have also continued to remain low for those employed in either salaried jobs or self-employed who compared to the pre-pandemic period it is clear that the government must simultaneously tackle unemployment and the quality of employment issue on a war footing in this regard prime minister narendra moody's announcement that the government will be recruiting 10 lakh personnel within the next 18 months should be seen as a step in the right direction and analysis of official government data shows that there were 8.72 lakh vacant post across 77 ministries or departments as on march 1 2020 of this just five ministries or departments namely defense railways home affairs post and revenue accounted for 90 percentage prime minister's announcement was not about the creation of a large chunk of new jobs but to fill up the existing vacancies but the author opinions that even this measure would not be sufficient in the economy like India that continues to remain distressed as a consequence of the government's mismanagement and the effects of the pandemic in the last few years but the push to provide jobs for those seeking to enter the labor force will help ease matter for the medium term see the country cannot afford to waste more years in its race to reap the benefits of its demographic dividend that is what the author is trying to convey through this editorial article so in this editorial article we saw about what is demographic dividend demographic dividend is nothing but the economic growth potential that can result from shifts in our population's age structure so here economic growth happens mainly because of the fact that the share of the working age population is larger than the non-working age share of the population then we saw about some of the significance of demographic dividend so with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion take a look at this news article it says that Tamil Nadu chief minister wrote to prime minister urging him to convene at least three meetings of the interstate council every year he also suggested that every bill of national importance which is likely to affect one or more states to be placed before the council and it should be placed before being introduced in parliament and the views of the council should be tabled in parliament at the time of introduction of such bills so this is the essence of the news article given here in this context let us understand more about interstate council or ISC see the constitution of India provides for a polity which clearly defines spears of authority between the union and the states to be exercised in the fields assigned to them consistent with this the constitution has made an elaborate distribution of powers between the union and the state in the areas of legislative administrative and financial powers and the subject of legislative powers have been classified into three lists like the union list state list and the concurrent list in the seventh schedule of the constitution we all know that residuary powers of legislation have been invested in parliament see the union government has from time to time taken steps to look into the contentious issues between the center and the states in the area of distribution of powers as one of the measures the union government constituted a commission in 1988 under the chairmanship of justice rs sarcaria to review the working of the existing arrangements between the union and the state and the sarcaria commission on the center and state relations recommended that a permanent interstate council called the intergovernmental council that is IGC should be set up under article 263 and this IGC should be charged with the duties set out in clause b and c of article 263 other than socioeconomic planning and development here we will say about what is article 263 is see it deals with the provisions with respect to an interstate council see according to the article the president can constitute a council which would serve the public interest better and the duties of the council includes inquiring into and advising upon disputes which may have arisen between states secondly investigating and discussing subjects in which some are all of the states or the union and one or more of the states have a common interest or they can make recommendations upon any such subjects and in particular recommendations for the better coordination of policy and action with respect to that subject and the article strictly says that it shall be lawful for the president by order to establish such a council and he can define the nature of the duties to be performed by it and its organization and procedure so based on this article only interstate council was established now coming back to the establishment of interstate council see the government of India accepted the recommendation of the sarcaria commission to set up an interstate council and notified the establishment of the interstate council presidential order dated 28 5 1990 so this information now let us see about the composition of the council see the council consists of a chairman here the prime minister is the chairman of the council then chief ministers of all states they are the members apart from this chief ministers of union territories having a legislative assembly and administrators of uts not having a legislative assembly they are also members of this council apart from this six ministers of cabinet rank in the union council of ministers who are nominated by the prime minister can be members of the council and know that the council provides for governor of a state under president's rule to attend the meeting of the council that is during president's rule the governor of the state can attend the meeting of the council see like we saw in the article 263 interstate council is a recommendationary body and it also deliberates upon such matters of general interest to the states as may be referred by the chairman to the council apart from this a standing committee of the interstate council is constituted for continuous consultation and processing of matters for the consideration of the council here you must make note of this point the standing committee comprises of union home minister as chairman so these are some of the points that you have to note about interstate council see it was constituted under the recommendation of r.s. sarkarya committee nanta state council is set up under article 263 president by his order establishes such a council and he defined the nature of the duties to be performed by it and its organization and procedure the most important point here to be noted is that this body is a recommendationary body and it consists of a chairman here prime minister is the chairman of this council apart from this members include chief ministers of all states chief ministers of union territories having a legislative assembly and administrators of uts not having a legislative assembly then six ministers of cabinet rank in the union council of ministers who are nominated by prime ministers or the members apart from this if a state is under president's rule the government of a state can attend the meetings of the council so that's all you have to know about this news article discussion with this learned points now let us move on to the next news article discussion take a look at this news article it says that environment social and governance that is esg analysis is becoming an important part of the investment process it was emphasized at the inaugural day of the research symposium on finance and economics that is rsfe 2022 the article also says that this is a revolution for the way asset markets work since there are investors who are potentially interested in different things one is cash flow and the other is esg and this is about the news article given here in this context let us learn about esg as we saw already esg stands for environmental social and governance these are non-financial factors investors use to measure and investment or companies sustainability let us see them one by one firstly let us take environmental factors see they include the contribution the company make to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions untreated wastewater and deforestation it also includes waste management and energy efficiency and efficient water usage so this factor weighs in both the positive and negative aspects now let us take the social factor they include human rights labor standards in the supply chain any exposure to illegal child labor and more routine issues such as adherence to workplace health and safety apart from this they also include employee gender diversity data security customer satisfaction company sexual harassment policies etc etc a social score also rises if a company is well integrated with its local community and therefore has a social license to operate with consent now finally the governance factor see this refers to a set of rules or principles defining rights responsibilities and expectations between different stakeholders in the governance of corporations and it also includes companies leadership executive pay diversity of board members internal controls etc see a well-defined corporate governance system can be used to balance or align interest between stakeholders and it can work as a tool to support a company's long-term strategy so this basic understanding let us see what is ESG investing see it is fairly simple ESG investing is a form of sustainable investing that considers environmental social and governance factors to judge an investment's financial returns and its overall impact an investment's ESG score means the sustainability of an investment ESG investing is also known as socially responsible investing impact investing and sustainable investing see this ESG factor is important because the environmental and social factors affects the returns gained by the investors for example BP's 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill and walls vegans emissions scandal rocked the company's stock prices and costed them billions of dollars so that's all you have to make note of this news article discussion so this is a new economic concept that you have to know you can use this in your main sansa writing as a value addition either in any economy related question or any infrastructure related question so these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion see this article here it says that a senior official from the project elephant division of the ministry has started a ground-truthing exercise in Tamil Nadu here ground-truthing means finding the information that is known to be real or true provided by direct observation and measurement and this exercise is a part of the ministry of environment forest and climate change that is MOE FCC's efforts to identify and protect elephant corridors across India and this is the crux of the article given here so in this discussion we are going to see what is an elephant corridor and we'll also see corridors mentioned in the news article first of all what is the elephant corridor see the national tiger conservation authority that is NTCA constituted under the wildlife protection act 1972 defines wildlife corridors as an inherent geological linkage through forest river courses or other habitat attributes which facilitate movement of wild animals from one source area to another so we can say that elephant corridors are linear narrow natural habitat linkages or connections that allow elephants to move between secure habitats without being disturbed by humans and this is the simplest explanation of an elephant corridor now coming to the corridors mentioned in the article the article mentions some of the corridors like color and anika tea north south corridors then tali bilikal and bilikal javala giri in hosur and kalhati sigur at glen koren so the article mentions some of the elephant corridors like these you can see some of the elephant corridors in this map given here see these elephant corridors are very important from prelims point of view these corridors might be given as pairs with their locations so at that time you should be able to answer them keep that in mind while reading such articles so that's all about this news article discussion in this news article discussion we saw what is a ground truthing exercise ground truthing is nothing but finding the information that is known to be real or true provided by direct observation and measurement then we saw about what is an elephant corridor it is a linear narrow natural habitat linkages or connections that allow elephants to move between secure habitats without being disturbed by humans so with these learnt points now let us move on to the next part of the news article discussion that is the preliminary practice questions now look at this first question this question is about interstate council which of the following states are correct about interstate council statement one interstate council is only a recommendationary body statement two home minister is the chairman of the council which of the above statements is or are correct option a one only option b2 only option c both one and two and option d neither one nor two see the correct answer for the question is option a one only statement one is correct this we saw in our discussion itself interstate council is a recommendationary body with duties to investigate and discuss the subjects of common interest between the center and the states or among the states it also makes recommendations particularly for better coordination of policy and actions on these subjects so the first statement is correct but the second statement is incorrect because in the discussion itself we saw this right prime minister serves as the chairman of the council home minister serves as the chairman of the standing committee so here the second statement is incorrect and the first statement is correct so the correct answer for the question is option a one only now moving on to the second question this question is about elephant corridor three pairs are given you have to choose the correct pair this is why i said you have to follow newspaper to answer these kinds of question on the left side elephant reserves are given and on the right side respective states are given pair one coming elephant reserve asam pair two mahanadi elephant reserve orisa pair three dihing patkai elephant reserve asam which of the above pairs given here is or are correct option a only one pair option b only two pair option c all three pairs and option d none of the above see the correct answer for the question is option b only two pairs here first pair is wrong because coming elephant reserve is located in arunachal pradesh and not asam other two pairs are correct here so the correct answer for the question is option b only two pairs now moving on to the third question you have to find the incorrect statement with reference to unified payments interface that is upi option a it is an instant payment system developed and launched by the national payments corporation of india npci option b it cartes to the peer-to-peer collect request using single click three factor authentication option c bank accounts and ppi ballots are linked to provide seamless fund routing and merchant payments and option d both a and c see the correct answer for the question is option b it has two factor authentication and not three factor authentication so this option is incorrect except that both option a and c we saw in our discussion itself so here both a and c are correct statement and the incorrect statement is option b only now moving on to the next question this question is the question for you today read out the question try to answer it in the comment section i'll tell you whether the answer is correct or not the main question for today's discussion is displayed here go through the question write an answer and post that also in the comment section so this we came to the end of the news article discussion if you like the video hit like do share and don't forget to subscribe to shankar eyes academy youtube channel thank you