 A very good evening aspirants. Welcome to the Hindi news analysis brought to you by Shankarai's Academy. Today we are going to cover the Hindi news edition dated 12th of June 2022. And I have taken these 6 news articles for discussion today. At the end I also have quiz questions for you. So pay attention to the discussions. Our first discussion today is going to be based on this news article. This one talks about a new park in the Irnakulam district of Kerala. See what is unique about this park is the art. The seating arrangement in this park is made with eco-bricks. So today we will be seeing what is the eco-brick, some of its benefits. And we will also see the disadvantages associated with eco-bricks. Basically eco-brick is nothing but a plastic bottle filled with used plastic. You can look at this image for having a better understanding. So the general premise of an eco-brick is very simple. You have to gather all of the materials which you cannot recycle at home that is found locally. And you have to pack them as tightly as you can into a plastic bottle. Now this tight tube of plastic becomes a building block. And then it can be used for a range of things from making sculptures to using it in construction projects. See the use of eco-brick is gaining popularity in those areas where there is lack of proper waste management. This is because in these areas the lack of efficient waste management systems solves the problem of excess plastic accumulation because eco-bricks could also be used in a construction technique. Now what are the major benefits of this eco-brick? As I just said first of all it is a very good construction material. Why? Because see generally one of the main issues associated with plastic waste management is due to the fact that plastic waste takes a long time to decompose. So it is difficult to dispose a plastic due to its toughness, longevity and water resistance. But these same qualities is what makes these plastics as a brilliant building material. And that is why they are a very good construction material. So this is the first benefit. The next benefit is that eco-brick can help address global warming. Why? Because in developing countries like India one of the cheapest ways of disposing plastic waste is incineration that is burning it. And when plastic is burnt it releases carbon dioxide. So this increases the carbon emissions and it leads to global warming. That means when the plastic is not burnt and when it is turned into eco-brick then through this global warming can be limited. And the final advantage of eco-bricks is that they take something that would have had a detrimental effect on the environment and then turn it into something that helps local communities. So rather than recycling plastic only a few times these eco-bricks create indefinitely reusable building blocks. These are the advantages of eco-bricks. Then what is the disadvantage? See despite its advantages some fear that making structures out of plastic might not be good for the earth in the long run. Why? Because these non-recyclable plastics are manufactured from inorganic chemicals like petroleum. So when the eco-bricks are exposed to the sunlight they can leach into the natural environment and this could cause immediate damage to the soil and it could ultimately hit the water table also. So that means due to this aquatic plants and animal life will also get adversely affected. Now this process of being exposed to the sunlight and leaching into the natural environment is called as photo degradation of plastics. Now such photo degradation also makes the plastics fragile and vulnerable to breakage. Now when it breaks and when it is fragile this becomes a micro-plastic and then this micro-plastic is released into the area. Micro-plastics are much harmful to both the animals and the human health. Even you would have heard recently that micro-plastics have been found in human blood. So therefore the main criticism of eco-brick is that it is not a permanent solution to the plastic crisis rather it is just postponing the issues for a few more years. So in this discussion we saw some of the advantages and the disadvantages of eco-bricks. Now let us get to the next discussion. Now let us take up this news article for discussion. It talks about the riots that are taking place in various parts of our country. See these riots are result of the derogatory comment made by a ruling party spokesperson in India about Prophet Muhammad. Now the Ministry of Home Affairs has cautioned the police force and asked them to wear proper riot gear to safeguard themselves. So this is what is mentioned in the news article. But from exam perspective what will you focus? You have to focus on few facts about Prophet Muhammad. So first let us start with the 6th century CE Arab. See in the 6th century CE the Arab culture was largely confined to the Arabian Peninsula and areas south of Syria and Mesopotamia. As you know Mesopotamia is the modern day Iraq. Now during this time the people in the Arabian Peninsula were divided into a number of Kabbalahs. Kabbalah is nothing but the tribe. Now each of these tribes was headed by a chief and each tribe had their own goddess or god and they were worshipped as a sanam in a shrine. Sanam means idol. So there was idol worship. Now coming to Prophet Muhammad, he was a part of a tribe called Quraish. And this tribe was from Mecca. Particularly the Quraish tribes controlled the Kaaba. What is this Kaaba? See it is this cube like structure as you can see in this image. This is the place where idols were placed. Actually even the tribes outside Mecca considered Kaaba as the holy place and they also installed their own idols at this shrine. Now because of this other tribes also made pilgrimage to the Kaaba. And note that because of this Mecca became a religious center and additionally Mecca was also a trading center. It is because Mecca was located on the crossroads of a trade route between Yemen and Syria. Now since most of the Arabic tribes were nomadic in nature, Mecca flourished as a commercial and business center because many Arab tribes visited Mecca often. This helped the nomadic Arab tribes to communicate with each other and share their customs and beliefs. Now what you have to focus is during this period Arab tribes were polytheistic and they were more attached to their idols and shrines. Polytheistic means they believed in more than one god. Now around this time only that is between 612 to 632 C Prophet Muhammad preached the worship of a single god called Allah. Along with this he also preached the membership of a single community of believers called the Ummah. According to sources around 612 C Prophet Muhammad declared himself to be the messenger of God. That is why he is called as the Rasool. Rasool means messenger of God. So what he preached was only Allah should be worshipped and such a worship involved simple rituals such as daily prayers which are called as Salat. He also preached moral principles along with them such as distributing arms and then abstaining from theft. Now due to these Prophet Muhammad's message particularly appealed to those Meccans that is the people from Mecca who felt deprived of the gains from trade and religion and who were looking for a new community identity. And after listening to the preaching of Prophet Muhammad they started worshipping Allah. And from then on those who accepted this doctrine were called as Muslims. So in this way the followers of Prophet Muhammad promised salvation on the Day of Judgment which is called as Kayama and they were also promised a share of resources of the community while they are on earth. But you should also focus that initially the affluent people of Mecca opposed Prophet Muhammad and his followers. Why? Because they used to worship idols and shines right and they were polytheistic. But now Prophet Muhammad is preaching that is only one God. So initially the affluent people of Mecca did not agree with this and they opposed Prophet Muhammad. Because of this in 622 CE Prophet Muhammad was forced to migrate with his followers from Mecca to Medina. See this journey from Mecca is called as Hijra because it was the turning point in the history of Islam. Now it was called as the Hijra because the year of Prophet Muhammad's arrival in Medina marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar. I don't think you are aware that what Muslim calendar is called as it is called as Hijri calendar. Now in this map you can see that Mecca and Medina both are in the present day Saudi Arabia. So at that time they were in the Arab region. But life in the Arab desert was harsh due to its weather. Now in such harsh conditions of the desert Arabs normally attached great value to strength and solidarity. And this was expressed by Prophet Muhammad and after being impressed by Muhammad's achievements many tribes joined the community by converting to Islam. And one of the major tribes was Bedouins. Note that these were the nomadic tribes of Arabian Peninsula. After that Prophet Muhammad's alliances began to spread until they embraced the whole of Arabia. So because of this later Mecca and Medina both became important in Islam. Because Medina became the administrative capital of the emerging Islamic state and Mecca became its religious center. Now what happened to the Kaaba? As you saw already it housed idols right? But after the spread of Prophet Muhammad's preaching and the spread of Islam the Kaaba which earlier housed the idols of Arab tribes were cleansed and they were made into a Muslim religious symbol. So know that even now Muslims all over the world face the Kaaba while offering prayer. And you should also know that Prophet Muhammad died in the year 1632 CE. So overall in a short span of time Prophet Muhammad was able to unite a large part of Arabia under a new faith called Islam. So this was about Prophet Muhammad. But what happened after Prophet Muhammad's death? After that no one could legitimately claim to be the next prophet of Islam. And this was what led to the creation of the institution called Caliphate. What is a Caliphate? It is the semi-religious political system of governance in Islam. That is it is a political religious state that comprised of Muslim community and it was ruled by a leader called as Caliph. And note that overall there were four Caliphs. These four Caliphs were the first four leaders of Islam who succeeded Prophet Muhammad. And note that they were the ones who learned about Islam directly from Prophet Muhammad. So the first Caliph was Abu Bakr and the fourth Caliph was Ali ibn Abi Talib. Now here you should understand that the two traditions of Islam differ in this regard. That is the Sunni tradition and the Shia tradition. According to the Sunni traditions, Prophet Muhammad left no successor. So the participants of the Saqifah event appointed Abu Bakr as the next in line. That is they appointed the first Caliph. So what is the Saqifah event? It is an event in which some of the companions of Islamic Prophet Muhammad gathered and they pledged their allegiance to Abu Bakr. On the other hand, Shia tradition has a different and contrasting view. According to the Shia view, Prophet Muhammad actually appointed a successor. He appointed his son-in-law and cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib as his successor. So this is one of the main points where the Sunni and Shia traditions differ in the Islam religion. So these are few points that you need to know about Prophet Muhammad and the faith he spread in Arabia. And today we can find Muslims in every new corner of the world following the traditions and rituals preached by Prophet Muhammad. For such was the reach of Prophet Muhammad. These are the few points you need to know about Prophet Muhammad. Now let us move on to the next discussion. Okay, now let us take up this FAQ article. It is about the India-West Asia relations. See, India's relation with West Asia is at a difficult position due to the controversy relating to comments on Prophet Muhammad as we saw in our last discussion. So due to this controversy, the OIC member states, the organization of Islamic Cooperation member states asked India to apologize. And to maintain the diplomacy, Indian government also reached out to individual OIC member states. And this was done as a way to reassure those member states on India's position that it will always have an inclusive approach to all communities. So here, without refusal to the demand by West Asian countries, India willingly took this measure. But why? What prompted government's response? This is because India has decades-long cultural, economic, and trade ties with the countries of West Asian region. Particularly, the economic ties are deep and abiding. And this controversy was going to disturb this tie. So keeping in mind the high economic stakes in West Asia, Indian government responded positively. Now this brings us to the discussion about India and West Asia relations Along with this, we'll also see what our high economic stakes for India and West Asia along with seeing India's reliance on West Asia. Before that, this is the syllabus that is relevant to this discussion. See, this is an important topic from the international relations perspective as Asia is one of the favorite topics for UPSC. If you can see here, in 2017 there were two questions from the Asian region. One was directly from West Asian countries and the other was regarding Southeast Asia. And if you take in 2011, there was a direct question about the Central Asian Republics and the question asked what was the economic importance of Central Asia to India. So questions like this often occur in the UPSC main examination. And that is why today we are going to see the points that you can use while answering such questions. Now let us come to the question of what is West Asia? It is the western part of Asia and it comprises of the Middle Eastern countries. See some sources will say there are 17 countries in West Asia some will say 18 countries in West Asia and I have given you here two different kinds of representation. One is a map and another is a separate representation. From this you can get an idea of which are all the countries that we term as West Asia. And definitely it includes those countries which we call as Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, etc. Now let us come to the India and the Asia relations in general. See till the middle of 20th century the British colonial era saw the rupee serving as a legal tender in several Gulf states. So when you say legal tender it means that money must be accepted if offered in payment of a debt. So rupee was the legal tender in several Gulf states till the middle of 20th century. But then gave the discovery of oil in the Gulf region during the colonial era. And this led to subsequent commercial exploitation of oil and this started to alter the importance of Gulf region. It even altered the balance of trade flows between India and the countries in the West Asian region. And today if you see the countries of West Asian region collectively account for over a sixth of India's total bilateral merchandise trade. This region also contributes to about three fifths of India's crude oil supplies. Now from this itself you would have got an idea of why India strongly relies on West Asia. Yes, it is because the first reason is crude oil. You can understand the in-depth dependency of India on West Asian countries regarding crude oil supplies through these charts. In this first one you can see the crude oil production and imports in 1994 to 2022. And you can see that there is a decline in the domestic crude production of India over the years. And even then from 1994 till 2022 India's domestic crude production has remained below 50 million tons only. So this makes it difficult for India to meet its oil requirements. And this forced India to make imports so as to fill the gaps of more than 80 percentage of this imports increased four times to 200 million tons in the year 2021 to 2022 as per these provisional estimates. See when we say imports it means we are getting oil from various countries. It just doesn't mean that we are getting oil from the West Asia. So if you take the top oil exporters to India 7 out of 10 are from West Asia or we can say they are the Gulf countries and out of them 4 are in the top 5 if we take Iran into account. So here point to be noted is as you can see in this representation the share of the station countries regarding India's oil imports has remained fairly steady. In this chart you can see what we used to import in 2009 to 2010 period and what we imported in 2021 to 22 period. And you can see that there was a drastic improvement in the imports from Iraq itself. So Iraq surpassed Saudi Arabia and based on the data from April 2021 to January 2022 Iraq, Saudi Arabia UAE are the top 3 oil exporting countries to India. So from these representations you can clearly see how India is reliant on the station countries like Iraq, Saudi Arabia UAE etc for its oil needs. But why this dependency? It is mainly because a large proportion of India's refineries have historically been predominantly configured to process these sulphur heavy, sour grades of crude. See these sour grades of crude are produced in the Gulf region and since we need these sour grades of crude we are dependent on the Gulf countries. Apart from this if we even take the sweeter crude it is costlier also. What is sweeter crude? See it refers to the crude oil that has low sulphur content. For example the Brent crude is a sweet crude and again Brent crude is produced in opaque countries in Europe, Africa and even in Middle East. So for this also we depend on Middle Eastern countries but this is costlier than the sour crude and therefore the dependency on the Gulf region is much more for India. So this shows the dependency of India on West Asian countries for crude oil supply. Now let us see about the other non crude oil supplies upon which India is dependent on West Asia. For example let us take the GCC countries. What is GCC? Gulf Cooperation Council it comprises of UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. From these countries itself India imports petroleum gas and diamonds other than the crude petroleum and as you can see here the import is far more than what we export to these countries it is about 72 percentage and if we separately take these countries UAE contributes in the lion share of 277 billion dollars which is almost 7 percentage of the imports. So therefore UAE is one of India's largest trading partners from the West Asian region. Then comes the Saudi Arabia which accounts to about 153 billion dollars. So don't think that India just imports from these countries India also exports that is this region that is this region is also India's key market for several international commodities like tea, basmati, electrical equipment apparel, machinery etc and because of this importance only if you remember India and UAE also signed the SEPA. SEPA means comprehensive economic partnership agreement and the aim of signing SEPA is first to increase the total value of bilateral trade in goods to more than 100 billion dollars in 5 years and second objective is to make the services trade to exceed 15 billion dollars over a year. So this SEPA serves as a framework and through this Indian government is also actively pursuing a broader FTA that is free trade agreement with the GCC as a whole. That means the SEPA and the FTA will further increase India's economic ties with the West Asian region particularly with the GCC countries. So these were the direct trade relation that India has with the West Asian region apart from this the West Asian region also served as a land trade bridge for India. See this bridge connected Greece, Rome and other early European empires with India. We have seen many times in history that there was a flourishing trade in spices cloth, silk and indigo in exchange for gold and silver between India and several European empires and this happened due to this land trade bridge only that was through the West Asian countries and not only this the West Asian region is also a major provider of jobs and economic opportunities to Indian workers, professionals and entrepreneurs. See the West Asian region provides among the largest number of overseas jobs for Indians and nearly 89 lakh Indians are living and working in the Gulf economies itself and particularly if you take UAE it accounts for the largest share of NRIs in the region. As you know UAE comprises of 7 Emirates Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Shahjajman, Umal Khwen, Fujairah and Rasul Khaymar. So all these together account for the largest share of NRIs in the region and it is home to more than 34 lakh Indians. Next if it takes Saudi Arabia it is home to 26 lakh Indians and Kuwait accounts to over 10 lakh Indians so all these countries are larger providers of jobs and economic opportunities for Indians that means the West Asian region is also important for India from the diaspora perspective. So these are some of the reasons why India is largely dependent on West Asian countries. I hope you got a good understanding of these reasons with these points in mind. Now let us get to the next discussion. Our next discussion is going to be based on the snippet article from the science page it states that the James Webb space telescope has been hit by a micro meteroid. This has hit one of the mirror segments of the telescope and NASA has confirmed that this will not affect the performance of the telescope. See actually the telescope was engineered to withstand such micro meteroid impacts. If you want to know about the James Webb space telescope and how it functions you can view over 29th December 2021 Hindi news analysis as we have covered it in detail on that day. But today let us see what is this micro meteroid. To understand that we need to know about the difference between a meteor, meteroid and a asteroid. See actually all these three are related to the flashes of light which we see sometimes across the sea. They are also called as shooting stars. So here we are calling the same object by different names depending on where it is. So basically meteroids are objects in space that range in size from a dust grain to a small asteroid. You can think of them as a space rock. Now when the meteroid enters Earth's atmosphere or at any planet it will be at a high speed so it burns up and it becomes a fireball. That is why it is called as shooting star. Now at this stage it is called as a meteor. Now when such a meteor or a meteroid survives a trip through the atmosphere and hits the ground we will call it a meteorite. So that means the meteroids that reach the Earth is called as meteorite. But while they pass through the atmosphere we call them as meteors. Now then what is this micrometeoroid? As its name suggests it is a tiny meteroid. See we know that our solar system is filled with finely divided particulate matter. These are called as solar system dust. And such solar system dust exists between the planets. These cosmic dust particles are what is often called as the micrometeoroids. Now the size of such micrometeoroid ranges from a few molecules to millimeter sized grains. Now one of the major issues with micrometeoroid is the micrometeoroid impact. We know that Earth's atmosphere is struck by millions of meteoroids. So it also consists of micrometeoroids. And most of these never reach Earth's surface because they are vaporized by the intense heat that is generated by the friction of passing through the atmosphere. But the problem is in space we do not have atmosphere like a blanket to a spacecraft or a space walker. And that is why the possibility of micrometeoroid impacting a spacecraft is high. And due to this almost all spacecrafts are designed to withstand possible micrometeoroid impact. So these are few facts that you should know about micrometeoroid. Let us get to the next discussion. Now let us take up this news article. See in the past few days you would have heard about an incident where a girl in Tamil Nadu was actually assaulted and was forced to sell her oocyte. Actually in the last 4 years she was forced to sell her oocyte 8 times to various assisted reproductive technology clinics functioning in Tamil Nadu. Finally the girl complained which led investigators to an illegal sale of oocyte functioning in the state that were used for fertility treatments. Now further investigations are going on to curtail such illegal sale. Now this article actually covers the event related to this issue. From an exam perspective what we are going to see is about India's fertility sector and about the laws that regulate them. This is the syllabus relevant to this discussion. Now let us start with the understanding of oocytes. You all know that in a female reproductive system there will be ovaries. Now these ovaries contain ovarian follicles. In this image you can see the ovarian follicles. Here we are not going to discuss these different types of follicles. Rather we will see why it is important. See these follicles they are basically a fluid filled sac and they contain immature egg. This immature egg inside the follicle is what is called as oocyte. In other words oocyte is a cell which is in an ovary and it may undergo meiotic division to form an ovum. What is an ovum? It is the mature female reproductive cell. Now what happens during ovulation is an immature egg is released from a follicle. So after this the maturation happens within the follicle and this is why follicle is needed. Therefore we can say that basically follicle plays a major role in the oocyte maturation and release. Now typically only one oocyte in each cycle will become a mature egg and they will be ovulated from its follicle. This process is what is called as ovulation and you should also know that a woman is born with all the oocytes she will ever have. Actually this number decreases naturally with age. Age also reduces the quality and genetic stability of these oocytes. And this is why in some cases it is harder to get pregnant after the age of 35. Now in such a scenario medications known as fertility drugs can stimulate the ovaries to release multiple oocytes during a menstrual cycle and other than that fertility treatments are also taken and in these fertility treatments the oocytes are taken to do an in vitro fertilization in short IVF. See this in vitro fertilization is a process where the fertilization is made by extracting eggs and retrieving a sperm sample from the couple. And then here the egg and sperm is manually combined in a laboratory dish to form an embryo. This embryo is then transferred to the uterus. These embryo are generally cultured or prepared in various IVF laboratories. So IVF is one such fertility treatment. This is some of the basics that you need to know about oocytes and IVF. Now let us come to the situation in India. See reports show that India is witnessing a high burden of infertility. According to an estimation 30 million couples in their reproductive age are suffering from lifetime infertility. So the TFR has also declined. What is TFR? It is the total fertility rate which refers to the average number of children that would be born to women if she experiences the current fertility pattern throughout her reproductive span. Now for Indian couples during 1990s the TFR was 3.9. But by 2020 it has fallen to just 2. Now what are the reasons behind such rising national infertility? It includes clinical factors, racial factors and even ethnicity factors. Then there are also issues like longer median age for family planning, then unhealthy lifestyle. All these are the biggest contributors to infertility. India the problem is not the reason but the solution to such fertility. One of the solution to this infertility is the assisted reproductive technology in short ART or ART. See this ART has grown rapidly in the last few years particularly in India it has seen highest growth. Many ART centers have mushroomed throughout the years and even there is also increase in the number of ART cycles performed every year in India. It is said that very soon India will become the leader in the world of art in terms of number of cycles performed every year. So what is this art or assisted reproductive technology? See it is a broader term. It includes various fertility related technologies and procedures like in vitro fertilization embryo transfer which we saw already that is IVF, then gamet intra-phallopian transfer then there is zygote intra-phallopian transfer there is also frozen transfer like this all these are ART procedures and among this the most common one is the IVF ET that is in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer. If you see in India IVF industry is a potential market worth of 12 billion US dollars further it is also growing at a steady rate of 20% each year on year. Overall our country currently sees about 3,37,000 IVF cycles every year. So you can see how much ART especially IVF is common in our country. Now here you should understand about egg donation that is oocyte donation it happens during advanced ART procedures such as IVF or intracytoplasmic sperm injection etc because in these procedures donation of X by a female and sperm donation by male actually constitute an essential part of the whole process. So from this you can say that egg donation brings a new life to this world. It also helps in ending the mental trauma which the infertile couple normally go through. So that means eggs that is more precisely oocyte can be donated by a woman who consensually contributes her genetic material that is oocyte to help in the reproduction process of another woman and when a woman donates oocyte they are called egg donors several conditions actually need to be met for egg donation. First the donor needs to be healthy woman. Second usually the donor should have at least one child of their own. Third they must also undergo a complete medical and psychological evaluation which includes screening for infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis. Then after that a screening process is also completed and then legal paperwork is done based on the guidelines given by the ICMR. So accordingly all the tests are performed before choosing a donor. Additionally there are also legal rules which mention that every donor must follow to prevent certain health hazards. For example like girls donating eggs at a younger age. So these conditions are followed for egg donation. Now what are all the acts that regulate such activities? In India we have two acts that govern ART procedures and surrogates in our country. They are the assisted reproductive technologies regulation act of 2021 then the surrogacy regulation act of 2021. Now first if you take the surrogacy act see this one involves regulating the practice and process of surrogacy. Actually on 7 June we had a detailed discussion about surrogacy. You can view that analysis for better understanding. Now the surrogacy act also constituted a national assisted reproductive technology and surrogacy board. This is in short called as the national board and there is also a state assisted reproductive technology and surrogacy board. This is called as the state board and provisions in this surrogacy act. First one is about the prohibition and regulation of surrogacy clinics. See as per the act no surrogacy clinic shall conduct or associated with or help in any manner in conducting activities relating to surrogacy and surrogacy procedures if they are not registered. So a surrogacy clinic needs to be registered to do any activities related to surrogacy and surrogacy procedures. In addition to this a surrogacy clinic, pediatrician, gynecologist, embryologist, registered medical practitioner or any person shall not conduct for undertake promote commercial surrogacy in any form. They are also prohibited from storing and human embryo or gamete for the purpose of surrogacy. Then the act also regulates surrogacy and surrogacy procedure. It lists under what purposes surrogacy and surrogacy procedures shall be conducted, undertaken, performed or availed. This includes when an intending couple has a physical condition or indication which necessitates gestational surrogacy. Only then they can avail or undertake surrogacy. But there is a condition that when the couple is of Indian origin, they have to obtain a certificate of recommendation from the National Board by making an application in a prescribed manner. The same application has to be made by a woman who intends to avail surrogacy. So that means a couple in India can avail surrogacy and also a woman who is a divorcee between the age of 35 to 40 years can avail surrogacy in our country. Then it also mentions that surrogacy and surrogacy procedures shall be conducted only when it is for altruistic surrogacy purposes. That means for commercial purposes or for commercialization of surrogacy, the procedures cannot be undertaken. Plus surrogacy and surrogacy procedures shall also not be conducted when it is for producing children for sale for prostitution or any other form of exploitation. In addition to this the act that is the surrogacy act also mandates a return informed consent of the surrogate mother. For this the woman who will undertake surrogacy should be informed about all known side effects and after effects of such fertility procedures. And then a return informed consent in the language which the surrogate woman understands is needed to be obtained as per the act. And finally it also establishes a registry called as the national assisted reproductive technology and surrogacy registry. It will deal with the purposes of registration of surrogacy clinics under this act. So these are all the regulations imposed by the act in the fertility sector. Now let us come to the second act which is the assisted reproductive technology regulation act of 2021. That is the ART act. See mainly this act seeks to regulate and supervise the ART clinics and ART banks. It also prevents misuse of ART technology. It also provides safe and ethical practice of ART services. So under the act, every assisted reproductive technology clinic and bank must be registered under the national registry of banks and clinics of India. This registry will maintain a central database for all the facilities which provide ART services in India. Also note that the registration must be renewed every five years and it may be cancelled or suspended if any entity contravenes with the provisions of the act. Plus the national board and the national registry they have the power to inspect any premises that is relating to assisted reproductive technology under this act. Then the act also lists certain duties that have to be followed by the clinics and the banks dealing with ART. See such clinics and banks should have to ensure that the commissioning couple and the women or the donors of gametes are eligible to avail the ART procedures subject to prescribed criteria. The clinics should also obtain donor gametes from the banks and such banks shall ensure that the donor has been medically tested for diseases. Then the clinics shall make the commissioning couple or the women aware of the rights of a child which is born through the use of ART technology. In addition to this every clinic and every bank should have a grievance cell. Most importantly the clinics should ensure discharge certificate to the commissioning couple or women. See such a certificate should state the details of the ART procedure performed on the commissioning couple or women. In addition to this the act prohibits a medical geneticist, gynecologist raised a medical practitioner or any person from doing certain activities. This includes abandoning a child born through ART procedure or disowning that child or exploiting that child in any form is prohibited. Then it also prohibits selling human embryos or gametes. It prohibits running an agency, a racket or an organization for selling purchasing or trading in human embryos or gametes. Plus import or helping in import of the human embryos or human gametes is also prohibited. Along with this exploiting the commissioning couple, women or the gamete donor in any form is also prohibited under the ART act. It also prohibits the selling of any human embryo or gamete for the purpose of research. Plus using any intermediaries to obtain gamete donors or purchasing gamete donors is also prohibited under the act. So from this you can easily say that selling of embryos or gametes is illegal. So that means selling of oocytes is also illegal. You can donate your oocyte but you cannot sell it. So these are few information that you need to know about the virality sector about the ART procedures IVF and the two acts that deal with surrogacy and ART. Now let us move on to the next discussion. Now our next discussion is going to be based on this news article. See it mainly talks about the transmission of monkeypox. A research has been conducted and according to it, most of the cases reported so far have been in men who have sex with men and bisexual men. But the research also notes that this does not mean that the virus is transmitted sexually. Because in these cases also the transmission might have been occurred through close skin to skin contact during sex like during the act itself or through kissing, touching etc. So basically this article tries to answer whether monkeypox is a sexually transmitted disease or not. But what is the sexually transmitted disease? It is also called as sexually transmitted infection. So as the name suggests, these are the diseases or infections that are generally acquired by sexual contact. So here the contact is usually when the person is having vaginal sex, oral or anal sex. Now such STDs can be caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites and these bacteria, viruses or parasites may pass from one person to another person through blood, semen or vaginal and other bodily fluids. So that means in STDs the major mode of transmission is through sexual contacts. But here you should not mistake that it will be transmitted only sexually. Because there are also instances where STDs are transmitted through other intimate physical contacts also. For example, if you take STDs like herpes and HPV they are spread by skin to skin contact also. And sometimes these infections can be transmitted non-sexually also. Such as from mothers to their infants during pregnancy or childbirth could also be transmitted through blood transfusions or through shared needles. But the fact to be noted is that majorly these infections or diseases will be transmitted sexually and that is why they are termed as sexually transmitted diseases. Now let us see some of the diseases that come under this category today. First if you take chlamydia it is a STD. This is a bacterial infection that could be easily cured with antibiotic medicine. Now it is one of the most common STDs and most people who have chlamydia do not even show symptoms. Now second if you take HPV it stands for human papillomavirus now this is also one of the most common sexually transmitted infection. HPV is usually harmless and goes away by itself. But some types can also lead to cancer or genital warts. Genital warts means a skin growth on the genital area or around the anal area. Now the third STD is herpes this is caused by herpes complex virus. It can cause sores on genital area or the rectal area, on the back and on thighs but there is no cure for this. And fifthly the most known one that is HIV it stands for human immunodeficiency virus. This virus harms the immune system by destroying a type of white blood cell which normally helps the body to fight infection. So HIV infection puts the infected person at risk for various other infections and even certain cancers also. Now often we associate HIV with AIDS which stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. Actually AIDS is the final stage of HIV and AIDS happen when the body's immune system is badly damaged because of the virus. So you should know that not everyone who has HIV develops AIDS and most importantly like the herpes HIV also does not have any cure. So these are some of the major STDs. I have also given some details about other STDs for your understanding. You can just go through them. But what you should understand is that these are called sexually transmitted diseases or sexually transmitted infections and they are called so because their main mode of transmission is through sexual contact or sex. So then what about other diseases? Do they not transmit sexually? See if we take Zika and Ebola they also spread sexually but they are more often spread through other ways and that is why they are not termed as STDs. So in case of monkey pox the researchers have concluded that it cannot be said that the virus is transmitted sexually even though when an infected person having sex with other person is also spreading the disease it could not be said that the virus is transmitted sexually because the main mode of transmission is through close face contact or skin contact with persons having monkey pox lesions. So we had a brief discussion about sexually transmitted diseases. So with this news article discussion we are moving to the last session of practice questions discussion. Let us take up the first question. Arrange the first four caliphs in chronological order. Ali ibn Abitalib, Umar ibn al-Khata Uttman, Abu Bakr. Now during discussion we saw about Ali ibn Abitalib and then Abu Bakr and we also discussed that Abu Bakr was the first caliph. Now from the given options you can easily choose that. Option A is correct because 4 is mentioned as first only in option A. So that means Abu Bakr was the first caliph. The second one was Umar ibn al-Khata and then Uttman and then Ali ibn Abitalib. Now let us take up this next question. Which of the following statement best describes eco-brick? Eco-bricks are made from agro-waste like wheat, straw, paddy, straw sugarcane, bagassee and cotton plant. This is incorrect. See actually this statement talks about bio-bricks not eco-bricks. Bio-bricks they are also called as agro-waste based bricks. They have good thermal and sound insulation. These are breathable and they help to maintain comfortable living condition during harsh summer or cold winters. And these bio-bricks were developed as an alternative and a sustainable building material to stubble burning. Now the second option eco-brick refers to the substance formed by the electro accumulation of minerals dissolved in seawater. Now here this statement is also incorrect because this option talks about bio-rock. This bio-rock technology uses low-voltage electrical currents which are passed through seawater and it causes dissolved minerals to crystallize on structures. They grow into white limestones similar to that which naturally makes up coral reefs. So here it talks about bio-rock. The first option talks about bio-bricks. Let us take up the third option. An eco-brick is a reusable building block comprising a plastic bottle filled with solid non-biodegradable waste. This statement is correct. This is what we saw about eco-brick. If you see fourth option, eco-brick is the rock formed due to ecological decomposition of plastic waste. It is incorrect. It does not define any kind of new technology. So the correct answer to option C. Now today I have two quiz questions for you. Read each of these questions carefully and you can mention the answers to these questions in the comments section. I will tell you whether your answer is right or not. So these were the two quiz questions for today. Along with this, I also have two main questions. By writing answers to these questions, you should develop the habit of writing first. So those who are interested can write answers to these questions and post that also in the comments section. Since we have come to the end of Hindino's analysis for the date 12th of June 2022, as usual if you like this video, click the like button. You can also share this with your friends and register your experience through a comment. Those who have not subscribed to our channel, please subscribe now for getting regular updates regarding UPSC Civil Services preparation. Thank you.