 Good evening aspirants welcome to the hindi news analysis by Shankara Ace Academy for the date 17th of June 2021. The list of news articles chosen for today's analysis is given here along with the page numbers of these articles in different editions of hindi newspaper and as you can see today we are going to discuss many important news articles so this is going to be a lengthy session. I request the viewers to patiently watch the analysis. Now let us start our discussion with this first news article which talks about deep ocean mission. See the news is that Union Cabinet has given approval to the deep ocean mission of India. So in this discussion we will first see what is deep ocean then we will see about the mission objectives and its components. See the first 200 meters of the ocean are referred as open ocean and much of the marine life which we know lives here only. Now this part of the ocean has light that is the light from the sun reaches here. So it is also known as the sunlight zone or the euphoric zone because at these depths plants convert the sun's energy into food via photosynthesis and by this they form the basis of the food chain but below these 200 meters there is little light left and once we pass 1000 meters the water is completely devoid of light and at this point we have reached the deep ocean and in these places photosynthesis does not take place. So generally deep ocean is defined as the depth at which light begins to dwindle that is it begins to reduce typically around 200 meters or 656 feet. Now in this region temperature reduces to 4 degrees Celsius or 39 degrees Fahrenheit and constantly this region stays near freezing it is because there is no sunlight to heat the water and even the pressures at these depths range from about 40 times to over 110 times the pressure of earth's atmosphere that means the deep part of our ocean is the dark cold food poor and it is subjected to intense pressure and it is typically deeper than 200 meters but surprisingly despite these extreme conditions many creatures exist such as there are microorganisms in hydrothermal vents there are deep sea corals fishes also exist along with many other bizarre creatures but unfortunately these harsh conditions make it difficult to explore the deep oceans and because of this around 95 percentage of the ocean is unexplored and unutilized. Now in this regard many countries have already begun to explore the deep ocean and these countries include China, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Russia so that is only a handful of countries. Now India is also joining this group with its deep ocean mission and note that this mission is in line with the Government of India's vision of New India by 2030 because this vision has highlighted the blue economy as one of 10 core dimensions of growth. So now let us see about this deep ocean mission it is a multi ministerial multi disciplinary program its objective is to first explore the deep ocean for resources and second to develop deep sea technologies for sustainable use of ocean resources and this mission will be implemented in a phase-wise manner for a period of five years and its first phase is for the three years from 2021 to 2024 and the whole estimated cost of this mission is around 4000 crores and as we already saw this mission will be a mission mode project to support the blue economy initiatives of Government of India and note that Ministry of Earth Sciences is the nodal ministry for implementing this mission. Now this mission consists of six major components let us see them one by one first component is development of technologies for deep sea mining and manned submersible now under this component a manned submersible will be developed here submersible means submersible boat or other craft which is designed for research and exploration and these pictures represent some of these submersibles so this proposed manned submersible under this mission will carry three people to a depth of 6000 meters in the ocean and these submersibles will also carry scientific sensors and tools now along with this an integrated mining system will also be developed for mining polymetallic nodules from 6000 meter depth in the central Indian Ocean. So here you have to focus on the polymetallic nodules it is also known as manganese nodules or ferromagnese nodules they are potato shaped largely porous nodules they are found in abundance carpeting the sea floor of the world oceans in deep sea that is they are found on the sea floor now these modules consist of manganese and iron and they also contain nickel copper cobalt lead molybdenum cadmium vanadium titanium and note that among these nickel cobalt manganese and copper are considered to be of economic importance and strategic importance now because of this india has already signed the 15-year contract for exploration of polymetallic nodules in the central indian ocean basin and this contract has been signed with the international seabed authority as you know this authority is an institution set up under the convention on law of the sea that is UN clause and it was signed in the year 2002 but note that this contract has been further extended to five more years from 2017 to 2022 and note that under this contract india has presently allocated an area of 75,000 square kilometer and this area is located about 2000 kilometers away from the southern tip of india so this is the place where india can do the exploration of polymetallic nodules now in this area it is estimated that the polymetallic nodule resource potential is around 380 million tons and it contains 4.7 million tons of nickel 4 million tons of copper around 0.55 million tons of cobalt and also around 92 million tons of manganese so that means exploration of polymetallic nodules is of greater economic and strategic importance to india so based on this only this component will enable future commercial exploitation of minerals in deep ocean and note that this component will help the blue economy priority area of exploring and harnessing of deep sea minerals and energy so every component has a blue economy priority area and the first component is with respect to the deep sea minerals and energy area now the second component is development of ocean climate change advisory services under this observations and models will be developed to understand and provide future projections of important climate variables on seasonal timescales to decadal timescales and this component will support the blue economy priority area of coastal tourism now the third component is technological interventions for exploration and conservation of deep sea biodiversity this includes bioprospecting of deep sea flora and fauna including microbes here note that bioprospecting means the search for plant and animal species from which medicinal drugs biochemicals and other commercially valuable materials can be obtained so that means studies on sustainable utilization of deep sea bio resources will be the main focus of this third component and this component supports the blue economy priority area of marine fisheries and allied services now the next component is deep ocean survey and exploration now the primary objective of this component is to explore and identify the potential sites of multi-metal hydro thermal sulphides mineralization and these sites will be identified along the Indian Ocean mid-oceanic ridges here you should note that these hydro thermal sulphides are also known as sea floor massive sulphides and they are the only metal bearing deposits of current commercial significance that form at active plate boundaries so remember that they form at active plate boundaries so they are mostly located in association with the oceanic ridges and they are also found near volcanic island sites and in the island arc systems at the depths ranging from 800 meters to 5000 meters and these hydro thermal sulphides are the deposits which contain high concentration of copper zinc lead arsenic cobalt silver and gold and even other metals depending on their tectonic context so this deep ocean mission has also a component to explore and identify the potential sites of these deposits so this component will support the blue economy priority area of deep sea exploration of ocean resources now two more components are left next component is energy and freshwater from the ocean this component includes the studies and detailed engineering design for offshore ocean thermal energy conversion powered desalination plant that is OTC powered desalination plant this component will support the priority area of offshore energy development now the last component is advanced marine station for ocean biology this component is aimed at the development of human capacity and enterprise in ocean biology and engineering so this component will translate research into industrial application and product development through on-site business incubator facilities therefore it is related to the priority area of marine biology blue trade and blue manufacturing so that is all about deep ocean mission now as a conclusion let us see some of the benefits of this mission see under this mission attempts will be made to indigenize technologies by collaborating with leading industries and private industries because the technologies that is required for deep sea mining have strategic implications but they are not commercially available so there is a need for developing design development and fabrication of specialized equipment ships and there is a need for setting up of required infrastructure so it is expected that these needs will spur the growth of indian industry especially the msme and the startups now second major benefit is that it will generate employment because under this mission a research vessel for deep ocean exploration is to be built in an indian shipyard so this will create employment opportunities along with this capacity development in marine biology will also provide job opportunities in indian industries so these are two important benefits of this mission in this discussion we saw about deep ocean and what is the deep ocean mission of india and some of its benefits also now let us move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on an important and interesting topic which is right to be forgotten and this open article is based on this area only mainly this open article focuses on the recent interim order passed by the delhi high court in its order delhi high court has recognized this concept of right to be forgotten so to better understand this concept let us first understand the background of this case where the order has been passed see a few years back a case under the narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances act of 1985 was charged against an american citizen of indian origin but later that person was acquitted by the delhi high court in their 2013 but the details of that case are available in google and in the india kanun see this india kanun is a website which provides the general public access to court judgments and legislations now the person who was acquitted by the delhi high court had approached the high court claiming that this publicly available judgment has adversely affected his efforts to get a job so in this regard only the delhi high court has recognized that the petitioner may have the right to be forgotten and based on this high court has also directed google and the india kanun website to remove that particular judgment so what is this right to be forgotten see it is the right to have removed the publicly available personal information from the internet databases websites or any other public platforms it is also known as the right to erasure and this right to erasure or the right to be forgotten is a statically right not in our country but in european union under their general data protection regulation see as per this regulation of european union the data subject that is the person involved shall have the right to obtain erasure of personal data from the controller who is concerned with this without any undue delay and even in several instances this right has been upheld by the courts in europe but as i already said india doesn't have this right that is there is no law that specifically provides for the right to be forgotten however a law is underway which can provide this right and this law is the personal data protection bill of 2019 it recognizes this right to be forgotten as per this bill it says that the data principle that is the person shall have the right to restrict or prevent the continuing disclosure of her personal data and this will be applicable under this bill only when the data disclosure has served the purpose for which it was collected or when such data is no longer necessary for that purpose so once this bill becomes an act then in india also this right to be forgotten will be a statutory right now here you should note that this right to be forgotten has been declared as an essential part of right to privacy by the supreme court and this was done in the famous judgment with respect to right to privacy it is the 2017 judgment of justice put as for me versus new unit of india case law in this judgment the apex court held that the right to be forgotten is an essential part of the right to privacy specifically informational privacy of the individual and recently also in 2020 the orisa high court emphasized the importance of an individuals right to be forgotten so now here a question arises that is how to balance the right to be forgotten with the right to information or the right to public access to court's record for example most of us think that the individual shall be allowed to modify information uploaded by themselves but can a public figure have the right to remove an article reporting an alleged sexual harassment against the person can this be allowed as a right to be forgotten it is a topic to be debated so as a conclusion we can say that our legislators shall look forward to frame a comprehensive data protection law which balances the right to information and the right to be forgotten so that none of these rights are compromised for the other so these are some of the points that we need to know about the right to be forgotten or the right to erasure well let us move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this editorial article which discusses in detail about the need for energy efficiency in India with respect to cooling requirement across sectors so in this discussion we will see about India cooling action plan we'll also see about energy efficiency and the standards and labeling program of bureau of energy efficiency the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see the cooling requirement is a cross sectoral and an essential part of economic growth and the cooling demand in India is expected to increase exponentially this is due to the global rise in temperature so there is more frequency of heat waves so this necessitates the need for cooling requirement and in this regard you should note that India is one of the first countries in the world to develop a comprehensive cooling action plan and this action plan is known as India cooling action plan or in short iCAP it was launched in the year 2019 by the ministry of environment forest and climate change this action plan provides a 20 year perspective and it outlines actions that are needed to provide access to sustainable cooling so in this regard this plan has set certain targets let us see these targets one by one first the plan seeks to reduce cooling demand across sectors by 20 percentage to 25 percentage and this has to be done by the year 2037 to 38 then second target is reducing refrigerant demand by 25 percentage to 30 percentage and this has also to be achieved by the year 2037 to 38 the next target is reducing cooling energy requirements by 25 percentage to 40 percentage by the year 2037 to 38 in addition to these targets this action plan also seeks to recognize cooling and related areas as a thrust area of research under the national science and technology program in addition to this by synergizing with the skill india mission this action plan aims at training and certification of 1 lakh servicing sector technicians by the year 2022 to 23 so these are some of the targets and objectives under this action plan so on a whole we can say that the overarching goal of iCAP is to provide sustainable cooling and thermal comfort for all but this has to be achieved while securing environmental benefits and socio-economic benefits for the society it means these actions shall also help in reducing both direct emissions and indirect emissions but what normally happens is the cooling demands are being met with inefficient air conditioners and if this trend continues it would adversely affect India's temperature mitigation efforts so in this regard author of this editorial notes that the area of future cooling demand and energy efficiency remains relatively under explored in our country author is stating this based on household survey conducted in Delhi as per this survey it was found that even among relatively homogeneous communities the desired levels of cooling greatly vary and the similar variation can also be found in the usage pattern and preferred AC temperature all these factors determine the energy demand now these factors are important because all these factors determine the energy demand requirements see even among us if you ask your friends they will say someone prefers a 22 degree Celsius and someone will prefer the AC at 27 so there are varied number of preference among the people so that means here the need is to provide essential cooling in a low carbon manner so for that we have to ensure energy efficiency of cooling appliances but unfortunately energy efficiency is not a priority of most of the Indian customers so what is the energy efficiency which we are talking about see energy efficiency means using less energy to perform the same task that is eliminating the energy waste and this energy efficiency brings a variety of benefits such as it reduces greenhouse gas emissions it reduces demand for energy imports and it lowers our economic costs so what needs to be done to ensure energy efficiency of cooling appliances see here as a consumer we can do one thing which is buying the products which are energy efficient and now how to ensure whether a product is an energy efficient product or not this can be identified by the standards and labeling program of Bureau of Energy Efficiency see this bureau is an agency under ministry of power now this program of Bureau of Energy Efficiency or BEE aims to provide the consumer an informed choice about energy saving and cost saving potential of the marketed equipment and such informed choice is expected to impact the energy savings in the long run at the same time this will also ensure competition in domestic industry for energy efficiency see here energy labeling is one of the most cost effective tools for improving energy efficiency and for lowering energy cost of appliances for the consumers so under this program the standards prescribe limits on the energy consumption or minimum levels of energy efficiency of manufactured products and these labels mainly give consumers the necessary information to make the informed purchase and there are two types of labels one is comparative label it allows consumers to compare the energy consumption of similar products and also it allows comparison of lifetime running cost and the second type is the endorsement label it provides a certification to inform the prospective purchasers that the product is highly energy efficient for its category so based on this BEE provides star rating from 1 to 5 in the ascending order of energy efficiency that means five is most efficient and one is less energy efficient so in this regard you should note that the appliances which are covered under the ambit of star labeling are room air conditioners frost free refrigerators tubular fluorescent lap color tv electric geysers etc so what we can do is while purchasing an appliance you can ask for an energy efficient product or you can simply ask what is this star rating of this product and if you are given a choice of two products having one star energy efficiency or five star energy efficiency it is advisable to go for the five star one because it will not only conserve energy for you in the long run but it will also lead to reduced carbon emissions so these are some of the points that you can take note from this editorial discussion now let us move to the next discussion our next discussion is based on these three news articles and these articles talk about the usage of drones for effective governance now these two news articles mentions about government's plan to use drones for delivering covid-19 vaccines in the remote and hard to reach areas in our country so to implement this plan the Indian council of medical research that is ICMR has invited expression of interest from the drone operators for developing a delivery model now this small snippet talks about the usage of drones in the national highway projects it mentions that now it has been made mandatory in the national highway projects to use drones for video recording the different stages of development construction operation and maintenance so we can see that drones are being used in every aspect of our life so in this discussion let us see some relevant facts about drones and its applications and we'll also see important points from these news articles the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for reference first note that a drone is also known as an unmanned aerial vehicle or unmanned aircraft system these refer to a flying robot that is navigated from the ground using a gps tracking system so that means these drones are being operated remotely or they are controlled remotely apart from that these drones can also fly autonomously through a software controlled flight plan that is they can also fly on autopilot now remember drones have the capability of reaching the most remote areas with little manpower or no manpower along with the least amount of effort time and energy and this is one of the greatest reasons why they are being adopted worldwide especially in the military sector commercial sectors and in the personal and future technology sectors now let us see in brief about how these drones operate see these drones are equipped with different state of the art technology such as infrared cameras gps and laser and they are controlled by remote ground control systems here you should note that an unmanned aerial vehicle system has two parts one is the drone itself and second one is the control system and in this the nose of the unmanned aerial vehicle is the part where all these sensors and navigational systems are present and the rest of the body is full of drone technology systems because there is no space required to accommodate humans so the available space is totally used for the drone technology systems and also note that the engineering materials employed in the drones are very lightweight and they are highly complex composites which are designed to absorb vibration so this decreases the sound produced by these drones or UAVs so in this regard let us see the application of these drones in various fields if you remember in 2020 problems also we had a question based on the application of drones so whenever you see a technology related topic you have to know what it is and then you have to know its applications because in problems mainly UPC focuses on application based questions so in this regard you should note that drones can be categorized into three first is the attack drones these are used only by the military and they are equipped with weapons so these attack drones can be used for controlled airstrikes then next comes the delivery drones these are being employed as a new way of delivering items to the customers and currently they are used by some of the big shipping companies such as amazon and based on this only now the government of India is also planning to deliver vaccines now the next type is the surveillance drones these are equipped with cameras and they are used across a number of industries such as in the law enforcement sports forestry and farming apart from this due to the greater efficiency of drones they are also used in agriculture these agricultural drones are used for carrying out field surveys for estimating crop yield and also for keeping track of livestock apart from this they are also used for search and rescue operations for geographic mapping of inaccessible terrain and locations and for building safety inspections and they are also used for storm tracking and as well as obviously they're used in photography and videography so this is the basic that you need to know about drones now keeping these in mind now let us come to the news article the news is that ICMR has invented expression of interest from the drone operators to develop a delivery model and in its tender document ICMR has also laid down technical specifications for the drones to be used and according to this the drones should possess the ability to fly beyond visual line of sight and they should carry a payload of up to 4 kilograms and they should cover a distance of up to 35 kilometers see here the term beyond visual line of sight or in short BVLOS it refers to the flying of drones or operation of drones at distances outside the normal visible range of the pilot and these BVLOS are contrary to the visual line of sight flights that is VLOS flights because these VLOS flights are operated within the pilot line of sight so in this regard experimental flights are expected to start soon which will be using BVLOS and based on the learnings from these test flights government will also frame guidelines for the BVLOS operations within a year time and these guidelines will include ensuring that the drones stick to the assigned flight path they maintain robust communication and they control the link and they are able to withstand the vagaries of nature here remember that at present government only permits those drone operations that are within visual range and only recently that too only for trial purposes now the ministry of aviation has allowed 20 entities to conduct trials for long range or beyond visual line of sight drone flights and from example's perspective also know that the unmanned aircraft system rules of 2021 mentions that a drone cannot be operated within five kilometers of international airports at Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad and they cannot be operated at a distance of three kilometer from the perimeter of any civil private or defense airport also these drones cannot be flown within a distance of 25 kilometer from the international borders so these includes line of control line of actual control that is a low CA LAC then AGPL that is actual ground position line apart from this areas around military installations or where the military activities take place are also prohibited to fly a drone unless clearance is obtained from the local military facility so we had a comprehensive discussion on the drones and their application and we also saw about beyond visual line of sight flight now let us move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article which is based on the recent decision of Tamil Nadu government to allow women for the post of temple priests so in this context now the state government has said that even the woman priest should undergo Agama training so in this context let us know about the Agamas see Agamas come under the Agama Shastra is a collection of ideas that lays down the rules for worship temple building spirituality and rituals and for a long time this Agama Shastra has been a guideline for many people of the Hindu faith so in short this Agama Shastra is a collection of Sanskrit and Tamil scriptures that contains methods of temple construction, idol creation, philosophical doctrines and meditative practices so this is a sort of compendium or collection and note that this Agama Shastra came into being after years of assimilation and that too from variety of sources and that is why this Agama Shastra as a whole cannot be dated but it can be said that some of its parts are pre Vedic while the others are post Vedic now here the rule is that the institution of temple should be in conformity with the Agamas coexisting with the institution of temple worship it is because the temples are constructed according to the Agama Shastra only and as per this Agama Shastra Archaka is the professional man who attends on the idols in the temple and this Archaka is considered to be associated with the existence of temple over centuries and the Archaka is a part of a temple's establishment so the Agamas in these Agama Shastra are the treaties of ceremonial law dealing with the matters such as construction of temples, installation of idols therein and also conducting worship of the deity and based on this only now the state government of Tamil Nadu has said that women priests should also undergo Agama training and note that there are two types of Agamas first type consists of 28 Agamas and they relate to Shiva temples and the second one is the Agamas of Vaishnavas they are called the Pancharatra Agamas and they contain elaborate rules regulating how the temple should be constructed and where the principal deity of the temple should be consecrated and where the other idols or devatas of the temple are to be installed so on a whole these Agamas say that the consecration of idols should be done by the priest that is the Archaka according to elaborate and complicated rituals accompanied by chanting of mantras and devotional songs appropriate to the deity apart from this the rules have been provided to conduct a periodical or daily worship as well now with respect to Agamas the supreme court has observed that Agamas prescribed class discriminatory placement for worship in the temples but this has become obsolete after the advent of construction of India because as we know that articles 14 15 17 21 25 and 26 of construction of India prohibits discrimination on the grounds only of caste class sect etc and legally remember that the authority of Agama is judicially recognized in several precedents of various courts including the supreme court so these are some of the points that you should know about Agamas and Agama Shastra now let us move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about oil and gas exploration see the news is that the oil and natural gas corporation that is ONGC has sought environmental clearance for drilling exploratory wells at 15 places in Tamil Nadu and this move of ONGC has evoked strong opposition from the environmental activists and farmers so in this regard in today's discussion we will see what are these exploratory wells which we often see in news then we will see the impacts of hydrocarbon exploration and finally we will also see about environment impact assessment the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference first what is this exploratory well see it is a deep test hole which is drilled by a oil and gas exploration company they are drilled to locate valuable reserves of recoverable gas and oil and they are drilled both onshore and offshore so usually areas that might contain oil and gas reserves are first identified using information like seismic data gravity survey information from magnetic survey and passive survey and after identification of such areas the company has to evaluate the likely impacts on the safety health and security of living things around this area and the company also has to evaluate the impacts such as environmental impact social and human rights impacts etc so after conducting these assessments the exploratory wells are drilled to gather more detailed geological data on the rock and fluid properties as well as the initial reservoir pressure and productivity so in this process if oil or gas is discovered then a development well will eventually be drilled to extract the oil but this drilling of an exploration well poses a risk to the company as it is uncertain that how much the company will eventually reap from this new source of oil so in this regard the most often discussed issue in India especially in the southern part of a country is the hydrocarbon exploration which has received a strong opposition from the environmental activists and farmers in the recent times so what is this hydrocarbon exploration it is nothing but the search for deposits of hydrocarbons particularly petroleum and natural gas and why it is receiving strong opposition it is mainly because of the impacts of hydrocarbon exploration see many environmental activists and farmers believe that hydrocarbon exploration would pose severe environmental problems and it will adversely affect the livelihood of farmers so let us discuss how see first the drilling in the hydrocarbon exploration disrupts the wildlife habitat and we know that oil and gas extraction is a known menace to wildlife it is because the loud noises human movement and the vehicle traffic from drilling operations can disrupt avian species communication their breeding and nesting apart from this the infrastructure which is built for this energy development can also get in the way of the life of many wildlife species so this is one of the major impacts and secondly oil spills are also a common occurrence during these projects see we know that oil spills can be very deadly to animals these spills can have long-term environmental impacts and they especially have devastating effects on the animals it is because these animals come in contact with the oil spills either directly or through inhalation or sometimes they even ingest the toxic chemicals which are present in these oil spills so when this happens these oil and chemical spills damages animals rivers kidneys spleen brain and even other organs sometimes this can also can cause cancer it can cause immune system suppression and reproductive failure such oil spills can also trigger long-term ecological changes by damaging animals nesting or breeding grounds so this is another impact thirdly these oil spills also cause water pollution other than that the other processes involved in hydrocarbon exploration can also cause air and water pollution and these can hurt local communities see toxic gases are emitted during the drilling process and they can cause severe air contamination also these projects can contaminate drinking water sources with chemicals that lead to cancer both defects and liver damage so this is another impact now the next impact is that these explorations can also ruin the pristine landscapes for example the construction of roads facilities and the drilling sites can destroy big chunks of pristine wilderness they lead to removal of vegetation in the environment and they can obviously fragment the unspoiled wildlife habitats so this is one of the impacts the next impact that is feared by farmers is that these projects would affect the fertility of the land see there is also a prehension regarding the lowering of groundwater level due to these explorations along with this it is also feared that these hydrocarbon exploration projects may disturb the interface of seawater and groundwater and that may later result in the intrusion of saline water to the freshwater sources so this will also affect the groundwater resources so because of this agricultural activity will be affected apart from this no agricultural activity can be carried on while the hydrocarbon exploration is going on so this also affects the farmers and that is why they are against this other than that such exploration projects leads to displacement of the habitation of people so this is also an impact and finally these drilling sites are also known to cause severe light pollution which severely impacts wildlife and the wilderness see some of the glares from these oil and gas sites are so strong that it is even visible from space so in this regard scientists have found that the bright glow hurts pollinators such as bees now these insects have a very important job of moving pollen around to generate new fruits and plants but the luminosity or this light pollution disrupts their sleep their feeding cycle and reproductive cycle so that means it will lead to the disruption of activities of these species which in turn will reduce the plant species in that area apart from that such brightness caused by the light pollution is also changing the uniquely beautiful landscapes so these are some of the issues associated with the hydrocarbon exploration and extraction and this is and these are the reasons why environmentalists and farmers are mostly against these explorations but you may ask that before conducting such explorations government needs to provide approval and this approval and this approval is provided through the environmental impact assessment see as you know environmental impact assessment or EIA is a tool used to identify the environmental social and economic impacts of a project prior to decision making so this EIA aims to predict the environmental impacts at an early stage in the project planning and design and it finds ways and means to reduce such adverse impacts and through this it shapes the projects to suit the local environment and it presents the predictions and options to the decision makers and in our country this EIA is statutorily backed by the Environment Protection Act of 1986 which contains various provisions on EIA methodology and process in this regard note that the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has published the draft EIA notification 2020 last year and this draft was published with the intention of replacing the existing EIA notification of 2006 which was published previously under the Environment Protection Act of 1996 so in this regard only now the ONGC has sought environmental clearance from the state environmental impact assessment authority but here there is another issue that we should take note of we know that the environmental impact assessment 2020 draft notification has many issues because of which it has been opposed by environmentalists and one of the issues that it provides exemption to certain projects see the exemption is also provided under the current EIA notification of 2006 also like the projects are classified into A and B and the B projects are further divided into B1 and B2 and as per the existing norm category B2 will not require environment impact assessment report but the category A projects and activities requires prior environmental clearance from the central government as per the existing norm and as of now the oil and gas exploration projects and activities all are categorized under category A only so based on this only now ONGC has sought environmental clearance but this scenario will change once the draft EIA 2020 is implemented it is because under this notification also category B2 projects do not require mandatory environmental clearance and according to the 2020 draft the offshore and onshore oil gas and shale exploration all are clubbed as B2 projects which means they do not require mandatory environmental clearance along with this area hydroelectric projects up to 25 megawatt irrigation projects between 2000 and 10000 hectares of command area then small and medium mineral beneficiation units etc etc are categorized under B2 category meaning that they do not need mandatory environmental clearance so this is a point that you should keep note with respect to oil and gas exploration now as a conclusion let us also see some facts about ONGC ONGC stands for Oil and Natural Gas Corporation it is a government owned crude oil and natural gas corporation it is a registered office in New Delhi and it is under the ownership of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas under the government of India note that it is the largest oil and gas exploration and production company in our country so that is all in this news discussion now let us move to the next one our next discussion is based on this data point which provides an analysis of the important findings of NFHS 5 so in this context it is see about NFHS and then we will also see about some of the important findings see here NFHS stands for the National Family Health Survey it is a survey carried out on a massive scale across the country to collect information on many parameters and this collected information would ultimately help the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to frame policies and programs to help in the upliftment of vulnerable groups in our country now the first round of this NFHS was conducted in the year 1992 and subsequently four of the rounds have taken place now the last round was NFHS 5 which started in 2018 to 19 however due to the pandemic the NFHS 5 has been installed in various states here note that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has designated the International Institute of Population Sciences which is situated at Mumbai as the nodal agency for providing coordination and technical guidance for the survey this IAPS collaborates with number of field organizations for survey implementation another point to be noted is that the funding for this survey has been provided by the United States Agency for International Development then the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and then the United Nations Children's Fund then United Nations Population Fund and then by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare so this is the background about NFHS now let us see some of the data based on the findings of NFHS 5 see as we saw NFHS collects information on many parameters and these parameters are based on many areas and our today's data point is based on the education sector so according to this NFHS 5 in the year 2019 to 20 only 29 percentage of the girls students attended high secondary school in rural Gujarat but if you take in rural Kerala around 93.6 percentage of girls students attended high secondary schools and similarly only 45 percentage of male students attended high secondary school in rural Gujarat whereas in the rural Kerala the percentage was around 90 percentage and in total it is said that school attendance has dropped as the education level increased specifically the fall was more pronounced when the students reach the highest secondary level here also the drop in attendance was much lower in rural Kerala but it was the highest in the rural Gujarat so we can say that this is one of the greatest examples of Kerala model and Gujarat model other than that the findings also note that in Vihar the attendance levels were relatively poor right from the primary level of education the attendance levels were also poor in the states of Meghalaya and Nagaland then another finding is that in around 10 states less than 70 percentage of rural girl students attended higher secondary school and in nine states the same poor levels were observed among rural boys and here also rural Gujarat recorded the highest fall in attendance levels as the students progressed from lower to higher education but the attendance levels did not drop much in rural Kerala with the increase in education levels so these are some of the crucial points that we can take from this data point see since this is a government funded survey it is important for us to note these findings as we may expect questions based on these findings in the preliminary examination so that is all in this discussion now let us move on to the next one our next discussion is based on this front page article it reports about the government's nod for additional fertilizer subsidy see the price of fertilizers is undergoing an increase due to the rising prices of phosphoric acid and ammonia at the international level so recently the cabinet committee of economic affairs has approved the proposal which sought for an increase in the subsidy rates for phosphorus and potassium based fertilizers so based on this approved subsidy the estimated additional subsidy burden on the government is said to be around 14,775 crores and as per the government this is a one-time measure as part of COVID-19 package to reduce the hardship of farmers so in this slide let us have a comprehensive and broad discussion on fertilizer sector and fertilizer subsidies in our country see the Indian fertilizer industry is regulated and monitored by the ministry of chemicals and fertilizers and under this functions the department of fertilizers which implements different fertilizer subsidy schemes with different subsidy components from time to time this is done in order to ensure timely and easily availability of different fertilizers at affordable prices see the fertilizer subsidies refers to the purchase of fertilizers by the farmer at a price below the maximum retail price or MRP that is below the usual demand and supply rate or the regular production and import cost here note that this fertilizer subsidy ultimately goes to the fertilizer company only even though the benefit is for the farmer and also remember that fertilizer subsidy plays an important role in the growth of agricultural productivity which is necessary for food security of the huge population of our nation however it is also important to remember the negative effects associated with such subsidy because it leads to overuse of fertilizers and it also leads to imbalance use of fertilizers and all these internal results in the soil degradation so coming to the subsidy offered you should note that when you take the selling price of fertilizers urea is the only fertilizer with statutory controlled price and movement that is it is provided to the farmers at a statutorily notified maximum retail price or MRP so the difference between the delivered cost of fertilizers at the farm gate and the net market realization by the urea units is given as the subsidy to the urea manufacturer or importer by the government of India now coming to the phosphatic and potastic fertilizers or in short p and k fertilizers which also includes a di ammonium phosphate which we in short call as DAP fertilizers air prices are decontrolled or in other words the government is implementing nutrient based subsidy scheme to fix their rates and the news is also regarding DAP fertilizer only now as per this nutrient based subsidy scheme a fixed amount of subsidy is decided on annual basis and it is provided on each grade of subsidized fertilizers depending upon its nutrient content and this subsidy is given by government of India to the fertilizer companies which are therefore able to provide fertilizers to the farmers at a subsidized MRP and here this MRP is lower than what it would have been before the subsidy now as per the recent development that is based on the today's article the subsidy for DAP fertilizer was raised from rupees 500 per bag to rupees 12,000 per bag so we can see that here the subsidy amount has been increased more than the double it is an increase of 140 percentage see last year the actual price of this fertilizer was around 1700 per bag and at that time the government subsidy was rupees 500 per bag so the farmers were getting the fertilizers at rupees 1200 per bag but this year what happened was the international prices of phosphoric acid ammonia and other components which are used in the production of DAP fertilizer has gone up by around 60 percentage to 70 percentage so this has in turn led to the increase in the price of DAP fertilizer as a whole it is said that it has increased to around 2400 per bag now since the government wants to reduce the burden on the farmers during this pandemic government has increased the subsidy to 1200 so that the farmers will continue to get the DAP fertilizer bag for rupees 1200 because if you reduce 1200 from 2400 the remaining will be 1200 which will be paid by the farmers and this will be same as what they used to pay before the increase in subsidy so these are some of the points that you can take note from this discussion well let us move on to the next discussion so with this we have come to the end of news articles discussion session now let us move on to the practice questions discussion these questions have been framed based on the discussions on the news articles now this first question is about polymetallic nodules it asks consider the following statements with reference to polymetallic nodules recently seen in news first statement they are found in the plant and animal cells now this statement is incorrect because it is not at all related to this area rather they are found in abundance carpeting the seafloor of the world oceans in the deep sea so they are found in the deep sea and they are known as manganese nodules or ferromagnese nodules so that means they contain manganese and iron and they also sometimes contain nickel copper cobalt lead molybdenum cadmium vanadium titanium we saw this during the discussion so that means statement one is incorrect but statement two is correct because it states that it consists of manganese and iron now remember that India has a polymetallic nodules program which is oriented towards exploration and development of technologies for eventual extraction of nodules from the central indian ocean basin which is allocated to india and under the contract with the international seabed authority india is having an area of 75 000 square kilometer for the exploration and here be careful the question asks for the incorrect statements so the correct answer is option a one only now this next question asks agama shastra often seen in news nowadays is related to option a temple construction and management option b perfections whose attainment led to bodhisattva path option c rituals performed during coming of king option d none of the above and the correct answer is option a temple construction and management now here option b is talking about paramitas if you remember there was a question regarding this in the prelims 2020 and we have discussed about paramitas in the previous prelims questions discussion session on 8th may 2021 so interested aspirants can view that analysis to know about paramitas well this next question asks the ministry of health and family welfare has designated the international institute for population sciences as the nodal agency responsible for providing coordination and technical guidance for the national family health survey this is a correct statement we saw this during discussion second statement is the funding for different rounds of NFHS has been provided only by ministry of health and family welfare government of india now this statement is incorrect because during discussion itself we saw that the funding has been received from many international agencies such as us aid then the bill and melinda gates foundation unicef UNFPA and also the ministry of health and family welfare so second statement is incorrect because it mentions only here the question asks to identify the correct statements so the correct answer is option a one only now this next question asks which of the following statements is or are correct regarding the india cooling action plan first statement is launched by the ministry of power it provides an integrated vision towards cooling across sectors with a 20 year time horizon see here this statement is incorrect because you have to split this statement into two this is first part this is second part and the second part of this statement is correct but the first part is incorrect because this action plan was launched by the ministry of environment forest and climate change now let us come to the second statement it seeks to reduce cooling demand across sectors by 20 percentage to 25 by the year 2037 to 38 now this statement is correct this is one of the targets under this action plan so the correct answer to this question is option b two only now let us take two main questions this question is based on gs paper two and here the question asks to explain about right to be forgotten and here you have to provide your opinion on whether you think it negates fundamental right to information or not you have to express your own viewpoints now this next question is based on unmanned area vehicle or don't get confused based on the statement the question is actually talking about drones so here question asks that how drones are gaining significance as an effective tool towards better governance so here you can list out the initiatives of the government where it uses drones for certain service delivery like now it is planning to use it for vaccine deliveries then how it is used in agricultural sectors like that you can mention some of its applications so with this we have come to the end of today's hindi news analysis if you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to shankar is academy youtube channel for more updates related to service examination preparation