 A very good evening aspirants. Welcome to Hindi newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankaray's Academy for the date 19th of December 2022. See before getting into the article discussion, I have an important announcement for you. If you are an UPSC civil service aspirant and if you are planning to give UPSC prelims 2023 then this announcement is for you. As we all know we only have five months to go for UPSC prelims 2023. And now we all tend to panic, right? But don't do that. You have Shankaray's Academy's prelims test series. See the next batch of pre-storming 2023 is going to start on 21st December 2022. And for you all, the registration is still open. So what are you waiting for? Get enrolled and use this opportunity. And the link for registration and other details are available in the description of this video. Now with this happy note, let us see the list of articles that we are going to discuss today. See these are the list of articles that we have taken today for our discussion. We'll discuss them one by one. And without any delay, let's get straight into the article discussion. Now look at this article here. This article reports about the skyrocketing military tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Here the tension is due to the unusual testing of weapons. See North Korea fired two medium-range ballistic missiles yesterday. And this happened after a successful test of a solid fuel motor for a new weapon system. And this is the background of this article given here. In this context, let us see about ballistic missiles and missiles in prelims perspective. First of all, let us see what is a missile? See a missile is a rocket propelled weapon designed to deliver an explosive warhead with great accuracy at high speed. So it is nothing but a rocket which has explosive warhead. Okay. And this rocket carries a payload with the aim of destroying the target. See there are different types of missiles. On the basis of launch mode, they are classified as surface to surface missiles. And this includes ballistic crews, anti-ship and anti-tank missiles, etc. The second one is air to surface missiles. This also includes ballistic crews, anti-ship and anti-tank missiles. And the third one is surface to air missiles. This includes anti-ballistic missiles. And the fourth one is air to air missiles and the anti-satellite weapons missiles. See for our today's discussion, we are going to stick to ballistic missiles alone. So what is this ballistic missile? See a ballistic missile or projectile is one which follows a ballistic trajectory. See here the ballistic trajectory is nothing but the path followed by the missile. See the missile follows the path after the thrust forces stop. So this means that the projectile is only acted upon by gravity and friction. So remember a ballistic missile is guided only in the initial phase that is during the lift off. After that the rest of the trajectory is dependent on gravity and it requires minimal guidance. See it can carry conventional high explosives as well as chemical, biological or even nuclear ammunitions. Now this is about the ballistic missile. See knowing about the advantages or benefits of the ballistic missile is as important as knowing about the ballistic missile itself. See only when you know the significance of ballistic missile you will understand why they are using it. So the first advantage of the ballistic missile is that they have a very long range. As they travel above the atmosphere they experience less drag and they use gravity and earth's rotation for attacking the target. And this is the first advantage. It has very long range. Secondly they are highly fuel efficient. This also we already saw. See only during the lift off that is during the initial phase fuel requirements are needed and it is also needed during course correction measures also. So throughout the journey it does not require fuel only during lift off and course correction. So this makes the ballistic missile a highly fuel efficient missile. Thirdly multiple independent targetable re-entry vehicles capability can be achieved in ballistic missiles. See this MIRV is something interesting to know. It is nothing but a re-entry vehicle that breaks up into several nuclear warheads and each one of them is capable of reaching a different target. Here a re-entry vehicle is nothing but reusable launch vehicle that is designed to return from earth's orbit or outer space to earth. Now this MIRV can be achieved in ballistic missiles. And this is shown in this image here. See how the missile is launched and how it is splitting into several warheads and how each one of them is attacking different target. And this is only known as multiple independent targetable re-entry vehicles capability MIRV. So this is one another advantage. And finally due to the fuel efficiency their payload carrying capacity is significantly more than the cruise missiles. Now these are all the advantages of ballistic missile. And that's all for this article discussion. In this article discussion we saw about a missile it is nothing but a rocket which delivers a explosive warhead with greater accuracy at high speed. And it destroys the target. And after that we saw different types of missiles on the basis of launch mode. Surface to surface missiles, air to surface missile, surface to air missile, air to air missile and anti-satellite weapons missiles. And after that we moved on to see about ballistic missile. It is nothing but a missile which follows a trajectory after the thrust forces stop. And the missile is guided after that by gravity and friction. And finally we ended our discussion by seeing some significances of ballistic missile. Now with these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion. This news article says that citizenship path for six minority groups from three nations would be east. And these six minority groups are Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians, Buddhists, Jains from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. So as per the article now the Home Ministry would accept expired passports and visas as supporting documents for these six minority groups from these three nations. We know that in the year 2015 the government legalized these stay of migrants from six communities. And this was done by exempting them from the provisions of the passport act and the foreigners act even if their passports had expired. And later in the year 2019 the Citizenship Amendment Act came into picture. And this amendment act intended to grant citizenship to undocumented migrants from these six non-Muslim communities from the three neighboring countries. But however this recent amendment act that is the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act has not come into force yet. And this is the background of the news article given here. And without any delay let's get into the discussion of this particular news article which is with respect to citizenship in India. But before that quickly go through the syllabus I have given here which is relevant to the news article. Now let's start with basics. Can you tell me what do you understand about citizenship? See citizenship is just a legal status. So when you have a citizenship status it simply means you have the right to live in that particular state. And the state it cannot refuse your entry or it cannot simply deport you without any reason. Now is this clear? This is what citizenship is. See in India there are certain constitutional provisions for citizenship. We'll see what they are. See constitution does not define the term citizen. So if a statement is given in your prelims saying that citizenship is well defined and the Indian constitution then that statement is incorrect. Now having said that so remember constitution does not define the term citizen. But it gives details of various categories of persons who are entitled to citizenship. And it is given in part 2 from articles 5 to 11. Okay. So article 5 provided for citizenship on commencement of the constitution to those who domiciled and were born in India. See here domicile is nothing but the country that a person treats as their permanent home or where someone lives permanently. So as per article 5 persons who permanently reside or stay in India or were born in India were provided citizenship on the commencement of the constitution. Now article 6 it provided that the rights of citizenship to certain persons who have migrated to India from Pakistan. We know that in 1947 partition took place right? So this article 6 provided citizenship for persons who migrated to India from Pakistan. Now coming to article 7. Article 7 provided the rights of citizenship to certain migrants who went to Pakistan from India but later returned back to India. See this is a different scenario. And then article 8 it provided the rights of citizenship to certain persons of Indian origin residing outside India. Yeah you heard me right citizenship is provided to certain persons of Indian origin but they are residing outside India. And this is what article 8 says. Now coming to article 9. See it is an important provision. It provides that if any person voluntarily acquired the citizenship of foreign state then he or she will no longer be a citizen of India. So this condition is also given in constitution. So these are some of the important constitutional provisions that govern citizenship and you have to know about it. So please make note of it and revise it again and again. See previously Indians were provisionally classified as British subjects without any citizenship under the British Nationality Act. And this was before we gained independence. Now we will try and understand how a person can acquire citizenship in India. For that you should understand a little bit about citizenship act 1955. See this act only provides for the acquisition and determination of citizenship in India. See this act it prescribes five ways of acquiring citizenship. One can acquire citizenship by birth, by descent, by registration, by naturalization or by incorporation of territory. And there is also a special provision of citizenship as covered by the Assam Accords. Know that this act does not provide for dual citizenship or dual nationality. See various amendments were made to this act and we will see about those amendments in the coming discussions. Now we are going to learn about two well-known principles for the grant of citizenship. One is juice solely and the other one is juice sanguines. See juice solely confers citizenship on the basis of place of birth. And juice sanguines it gives recognition to blood ties. See from the time of Motulal Nehru Kamati 1928 the Indian leadership was in favor of the enlightened concept of juice solely. And the radical idea of juice sanguines was rejected by the Constituent Assembly as it was against the Indian ethos. But with the later amendments this stance was changed towards juice sanguines. And this is one another fact you should know about citizenship. Now coming back to the amendments. Like I said we are not going to see each and everyone. I'll tell you some important ones which you have to remember. See the 2015 Amendment Act has modified the provisions pertaining to overseas citizen of India. It has introduced a new scheme called overseas citizen of India card holder. And it is done by merging the persons of Indian Arjun card scheme and the OCA card scheme. These two are merged and a new scheme was introduced which is called overseas citizen of India card holder. And this is about the 2015 amendment and an important fact. Now coming to 2019 amendment which is a recent one. See it is important because it holds a large significance. See this amendment proposes to permit members of six communities to continue to live in India if they entered India before December 31, 2014. And who are those six communities? Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Chains, Parsees and Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. So if they entered India before December 31 and 2014 they will be granted citizenship. And it also reduces the requirement of citizenship from 11 years to just 5 years. So this is one another important amendment that you have to know. Also remember like I already said the 2019 amendment act has not come to force it. This is because the rules are it to be notified for this amendment act. And that's all regarding this news article discussion. In this discussion we saw about citizenship. We saw the definition of it. We saw the constitutional provisions. We saw article 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. And after that we saw about different ways of acquisition of citizenship as per Citizenship Act 1955. We saw there are five ways by birth, by descent, by registration, by naturalization or by incorporation of territory. And we saw two well-known principles which includes Jews solely and Jews Sanguinis. And finally we ended our discussion by seeing two important amendment acts which is nothing but 2015 amendment act and 2019 amendment act. Now with these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion. Now for our next discussion we are going to take this editorial article. See this editorial is written to address a crucial issue in the court system. Yes it is about the pending cases. That is increasing case backlogs in the court system. See Arthur who is a senior advocate himself has provided some out of the box solutions to this issue. So we will see what are all the reforms that he is suggesting but before that we will cover the reasons behind the pending cases. Now before starting the discussion quickly note down the syllabus given here it will be very helpful for you to align your notes. Now first of all you should know that timely disposal of cases in courts depends on several factors. For example it depends on availability of adequate number of judges, judicial officers, supporting court staff and physical infrastructure, complexity of facts involved, nature of evidence and cooperation of stakeholders, investigating agencies, witnesses etc. So what does this mean? This means that any issue regarding any one of these factors will lead to delay in disposal of cases. That is it will lead to pending of cases. But the major reasons for it include vacancies of judges. See you can see that more than 335 judge positions are vacant in high courts as of November 2022 and then it majorly depends on lack of adequate infrastructure and human resources like insufficient number of court rooms, support staff etc. Thirdly the major reason is lack of adequate arrangement to monitor, track and bunch cases for hearing. Fourthly the reason for pending of cases is frequent adjournments and finally poor judicial quality is also a reason. See the quality of judges in lower courts is not as good as the quality of judges in the high courts and these are all the major reasons for pending of cases. See all these have already led to backlog of over 5.96 million cases in the high court itself. That is nearly 60 lakh cases are pending as of today and in Supreme Court also 69,598 cases are pending as of 1st December 2022. Now how this issue was handled before? There are some conventional ways that the courts follow to handle this. The first is increasing the number of judges and the second one is increasing the number of courts and thirdly increasing infrastructure and number of staff and fourthly it even introduced national mission for justice delivery and legal reforms in 2021. Know that one of its objectives was reducing delays and arrears in the judicial system. So this national mission provided many things which includes better infrastructure for courts including computerization, increase in strength of subordinate judiciary, policy and legislative measures in areas prone to excessive litigation, re-engineering of court procedure for quick disposal of cases, emphasis on human resource development. So these are all some of the conventional ways that the courts use to handle it but still these solutions did not yield results because of the eternal problems with these conventional ways. See you have to know one thing just filling the vacancies is not enough right? You have to have a good and efficient judge. The author even notes that finding a good high court material is very difficult. Now this is the first issue. Now the second issue is with regards to the filling of vacancies. See filling these vacancies means more cost to the exchequer. Why? It is because salaries of Supreme Court judges are charged upon the consolidated fund of India whereas salaries of high court judges are charged upon the consolidated fund of the states. And adding to this providing necessary office infrastructure and army of staff will add more cost to the exchequer. See since these problems are associated with the conventional ways of solution author provides some out-of-the-box solutions that is unconventional solutions. So now let us see those unconventional solutions one by one. The first solution is retaining the talented and experienced judges. We saw that finding good judges is an issue right? But when we find them and they do their job very effectively then also there is an issue. What is that issue? See when they attain the age of retirement they retire as per the rules. See for high court judges the age of retirement is 62 years as per article 217 of Indian constitution. Now do you know what is the retirement age of supreme court judges? If you do then comment it. Now coming back we saw that the age of retirement for high court judges is 62. When the high court judges attain this age whether they are talented or good or efficient or not they just retire. And according to author such retired judges can work even some more years. Here they can be retired by extending their retirement or they can be brought back. That is they can be appointed again. Here don't get confused appointing them again is not something new. Article 224A provides for the appointment of retired judges as judge of any high court. So we can assume that author is also asking to use this provision widely. So this is the first way and also remember that there is a similar provision for supreme court under article 128. So article 128 provides for the attendance of retired judges at the sittings of the supreme court. Now this is one unconventional way which involves appointment of retired judges. Now let us say they are retained or brought back. Now what kind of work that these retired judges should do? And that is the second suggestion. See with respect to retired supreme court judges they can hear the admission of special leave petition. See special leave petition or shortly referred as SLP is an appeal petition that provides the agreed party a special permission to be heard in the apex court against any judgement or order of any court or tribunal in the territory of India. So SLP holds a prime place in Indian judicial system and the power to grant special leave is vested to supreme court by the article 136 of Indian constitution. Now the issue is hundreds of SLPs that is appeals are filed in supreme court every week. So the SLPs form one of the major backlog cases. So according to author it takes half of time of senior most judges of supreme court. That means rather than hearing cases filed in supreme court they are spending majority of their time in hearing appeals against orders judgments of high court or tribunal. See we cannot say this provision is unnecessary because many unfair judgments of high courts have been overturned before. See there are many reasons why author suggests this work to the retired judges. One because by their experience the retired supreme court judges can easily decide on these special leave petitions. The second reason is that their working hours can be made flexible. And the third reason is that the sitting supreme court judge can focus on much more important cases and dispose them off which in turn will make the whole judicial process efficient because justice delayed is justice denied. Now this is for retired judges of supreme court. Now what about the retired high court judges? See author suggest them to hear matters from another states high court. Now you may ask here if the retired judges are brought back proper infrastructure needs to be provided for them right? And this is where the author's next suggestion comes in. Here he suggests to make use of technology that is to conduct hearings online rather than going for physical hearing. For this we already have a precedent. I am talking about COVID-19 pandemic. At that time the courts resorted to virtual hearing of cases right? And here the judiciary launched the virtual court concept. In this the cases are adjudicated online as it is mainly aimed at eliminating presence of litigant or the lawyer in the court. So it uses video conferencing for this. And through this supreme court even became the world leader in virtual hearings. See since COVID lockdown all levels of court used the video conferencing and heard many cases and the data is given in this table here. So now everyone in judiciary is trained in that and the same experience will help here also. See when we are saying video conferencing what does that mean? It means work from home. So if the work is from home then the judges need not require building infrastructure and they can work with minimum number of staffs also. So by this method we can easily cut back on the judicial expenses and also the litigants can save because it helps them to appear before the court from any location and this saves their time and money. So we can see that all these three solutions are interlinked and when implemented together they will solve all the problem associated with the conventional solutions. Now coming to the last suggestion. See it is a different one from the others. It is nothing but employing mediation. See it is one of the alternate dispute resolution mechanisms. In a mediation procedure a neutral intermediary helps the parties to reach a mutually satisfactory settlement of their dispute and that neutral intermediary is called the mediator. In India already we are using mediation for wide range of cases from personal and matrimonial to civil, commercial and property disputes. An additional fact here for you, Supreme Court in the Afghans infrastructure limited case listed which cases are suitable and unsuitable for the alternate dispute resolution system. So already lakhs of cases are handled using mediation. Adding to this mediation has many advantages over litigation. We know there is no loss of time in mediation, no financial investment is required in mediation. Apart from this mediation preserves ongoing businesses or personal relationships. By doing so they eliminate the appeals and after this it also allows control and participation of the disputing parties. So considering these advantages the author is suggesting to use mediation for many more cases and this will reduce half of the workload of judiciary and according to him few other steps will enhance the efficiency of mediation. One is proper policy and strategy that will encourage the litigants to use mediation and the other one is introducing Indian Mediation Service. It can be created on the lines of Indian Judicial Service and this will make mediation an attractive career option also and this will help address the unemployment issue that we are facing now and these are the suggestions given by the author. We can see that these suggestions are innovative right? They are reasonable and workable so it will be an important step in reforming the judiciary. Now with this we have come to the end of this particular article discussion. In this discussion we saw about a major issue in judiciary system which is the pending of cases. We saw the reasons for it. We saw the conventional ways of solution for addressing the pending of cases. We saw the issues in conventional ways of solutions and we saw what is the unconventional suggestions given by the author in this editorial. We saw the advantages of it and finally we ended our discussion by seeing an important alternate dispute resolution mechanism which is nothing but the mediation. Now with these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion. Now look at this text and context article. It is about the deep synthesis. See according to the article the cyberspace administration of China is implementing new regulations to restrict the use of deep synthesis technology and it is also implementing regulations to curb the disinformation and these regulations it will be effective from January 10. So in this news article discussion let us understand what is this deep synthesis and how to curb its proliferation. That is how to curb its spread. First of all let us start with deep synthesis. Do you have any idea what is this? If you don't don't worry I'll explain it to you. See deep synthesis is nothing but the use of technology to generate text, images, audio and video to create virtual scenes. Do you have any guesses as to which technology they are using? Exactly. These technologies include machine learning, deep learning, augmented reality, artificial intelligence etc. See here deep learning is nothing but machine learning technique. It teaches the computers to do what comes naturally to humans. For example let us say we are driving a car. What do you do when you see a stop sign? You automatically stop your car right? And this can be replicated by automated missions also. For example driverless cars. Have you heard about it? It uses deep learning which enables them to recognize a stop sign or if a pedestrian is crossing the road, this deep learning technique it helps to distinguish a pedestrian from a lamppost. And I think now you understand what is deep learning. It is nothing but teaching computers to do what is done by humans. And this is one of the technology that is used in deep synthesis. See one of the most dangerous applications of deep synthesis deep fake. See these deep fakes are synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else who has similar features. Now look at these images here. Now you understand. See in these two images the original picture and the deep fake. Can you differentiate between the original picture and the deep fake? It is very hard right? And this is how an existing image or video is changed. See deep fakes are nothing but a compilation of artificial images and audio which are put together with mission learning algorithms to spread misinformation and by doing this deep fakes can replace a real person's appearance voice or in some cases they can replace both. I said it is dangerous right? It is very dangerous because it can create people who do not exist and it can spread misinformation about real people. And how is it done? It is done by manipulating their voices and images. Now the issue here is that deep fakes are getting harder to detect with the advancement of technology. Now apart from spreading misinformation other dangerous wrong doings are also done by deep fakes. See you won't believe the deep fakes are now used to produce scams, celebrity pornography, fake news and it is even used to commit financial fraud, election manipulation, social engineering, automated disinformation attacks, identity theft and financial fraud. See other terms you know what it is. But what is social engineering? See social engineering is the art of manipulating people so that they give up their confidential information and this confidential information may include passwords, your bank information, your pan card number etc. So social engineering is nothing but psychological manipulation. If this psychological manipulation is done then people will disclose or give you their confidential information. Now what can be done to curb it? See considering all of these misuses of this technology China is implementing new regulations. Now let us see the China's way of tackling the misuse of deep synthesis. See under the guidelines of China's new rules deep synthesis service providers and users should ensure that any doctored content created with the technology is explicitly labeled and it should be traced back to its source and this is the recent guidelines of China. Here doctored content is nothing but content which is modified or false content. So the false content which is created with the deep synthesis technology should be explicitly labeled and it should be traced back to its source and this is the guidelines of China's new rules. See under the guidelines companies and platforms using the technology must first receive consent from the individuals before they edit their voice or image and while reposting news generated by the technology the source should be from the government approved list of news outlets and apart from these two rules deep synthesis service providers must also abide by the local laws and they should respect ethics and maintain the correct political direction and correct public opinion orientation and these are all the new rules given by China and this is what China is going to do. See in a country like China it is very easy to enforce new rules like this but in a country like India we need a new model to curb deep synthesis. See even though India does not have any legal rules against using deep fake technology we can make specific laws to address the misuse of technology. See this includes copyright violation, defamation and cyber felonies etc and that's all regarding this article discussion. In this discussion we saw about deep synthesis is nothing but use of technology to generate text image audio video to create a virtual scene and the technology used here is deep learning and augmented reality and after that we saw about the application of deep synthesis which is deep fake. It is nothing but a synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else who has similar features and after that we saw some of the issues created by deep fakes and finally we ended our discussion by seeing the new rules which are implemented by China. Now with these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion. Now look at this text and context article it is about the recently held 48th GST council meeting. See the GST council mainly discussed about decriminalizing certain offenses under central goods and services tax act 2017. See the article is written in this context only. So in this article discussion we'll discuss the major points given in this article but before that I have highlighted here the syllabus regarding this discussion you can go through it. Now let's start with the basics. First of all what is GST? It is expanded as goods and services tax. It is a value added tax levied on most goods and services sold for the domestic consumption and we all know it is an indirect tax and it is levied on every point of consumption. For example if a furniture manufacturer buys some raw materials he must pay GST and then if I buy furniture from the manufacturer then I also have to pay GST. So it is an indirect tax that is levied on every point of consumption. Can you get an idea what I'm trying to say? Okay now let's move on to what was the rationale behind the introduction of GST in India. See the first reason is the simplification of indirect tax regime. India earlier had various indirect taxes. It was difficult for the taxpayer to navigate through it. So GST was introduced as one nation, one tax to simplify the indirect tax regime and this is the first reason why GST was introduced. The second reason is tax compliance. See earlier people used to evade paying tax and GST was introduced to bring everyone under the tax fold. See GST tries to accomplish this by using three things. The first is through the introduction of input tax credit. For example let us consider Ramu is a retailer who diligently pays tax and Ramu has a choice of sourcing his material from Ravi and Kumar. See of these two people Ravi pays GST and Kumar does not pay GST and know that if Ramu wants to claim his input tax credit he has to buy from someone who pays GST. So Ramu will definitely choose Ravi only right and this will force Kumar to pay GST so that he stays relevant in the business ecosystem. Do you understand what happened here? This introduction of input tax credit brought everyone under the GST regime that is the indirect tax regime and the second one is through the incorporation of technology. See by the introduction of eva bill and online tax filing the GST regime tries to bring down the issue of tax evasion and this is the second thing and the last and most important aspect of the GST regime is that it prevents tax evasion by the imposition of punishment for evasion. Remember this because we will discuss exclusively regarding this aspect of GST regime in the later part. So these are the reasons behind the introduction of GST in India. Now moving forward we will see what are all the provisions in the CGST Act 2017 that curbs the evasion of GST. See CGST Act has provisions for imposition of penalty, starting criminal prosecution and settling for compounding. Know that sections 122 to 131 of CGST Act of 2017 contains provisions relating to penalties and in case of criminal prosecution and compounding they are provided under sections 132 to 138 of the CGST Act. See in case of criminal prosecution the CGST Act says that the length of the present term is determined by the amount of tax evaded, the amount of input tax credit improperly climbed or used or the amount of refund improperly claimed. So this is one important thing that you should know. If a prelim statement comes like in the CGST Act 2017 in case of criminal prosecution the present term is 11 years then you should know that the statement is incorrect because the length of present term is determined by the amount of tax evaded, amount of input tax credit improperly climbed or the amount of refund improperly climbed. So this is about the criminal prosecution. Did you notice I have been mentioning a term called compounding, right? So what does this compounding mean? Let me explain this with an example. Let us assume Mr Ravi is the CEO of an imaginary company ABC Private Limited and since Ravi is the hero of a story here and he is the person who is evading the GST. See government came to know about this and they found that Mr Ravi has cheated the government to an amount of rupees 5 lakh by tax evasion. See since this is a huge amount the government is starting criminal proceedings against Mr Ravi and now Mr Ravi is arrested and put behind bars. See while the criminal case against him is proceeding in the court he can get bail and he can come out. This we know. Now Mr Ravi has two options. The first option is he has to wait for the case to complete and if he is convicted he will face jail term and the second option is while the case is proceeding he can accept that he committed a mistake and he can propose for a compromise. Here the CGST Act says that the amount payable is minimum of 50 percentage of tax evaded to a maximum of 150 percentage of tax evaded. So how much did we see Mr Ravi has cheated the government? It is 5 lakhs right? So if Mr Ravi agrees to pay 7.5 lakhs which is 150 percentage of his total tax evasion as a compromise then the criminal proceeding against him will be dropped and this is only called as compounding of offence. So basically compounding of offence is a shortcut method to avoid litigation. In compounding the accused can avoid jail sentences and can be discharged on payment of a compounding fee and this is about the provisions in the CGST Act that curbs the tax evasion. The first one is penalty and the second one is criminal prosecution and the third one is settling for compounding. Now you may have a question why was a provision for penal or criminal proceedings added to the CGST Act 2017 even after the provision for penalty. Like we saw there are three provisions for curbing tax evasion. One is penalty, the other one is criminal prosecution and the third one is settling for compounding. We saw that there is penalty. But what is the need for criminal proceedings? See the parliament debated exhaustively regarding this while the GST Act was getting formulated. Some parliamentarians they were of opinion that provision for offence must be included in case of tax evasion and this provision of tax evasion must be treated as a civil case and this is opinion of one category of parliamentarians. But our former minister Mr. Arun Jaitley provided a scenario that convinced everyone for the inclusion of provision of arrest as a provision to curb tax evasion. Now let us see the scenario. Here also we are going to invite Mr. Ravi only again. For example say Mr. Ravi is involved in a tax fraud amounting to Rs. 3 crores and as a punishment the government is issuing a penalty of Rs. 4 crore. This seems reasonable right? But think about this no. We can issue Ravi a penalty. But he has to have money for paying the penalty right? Let us say Mr. Money does not have Rs. 4 crore. He is having only 1 crore. What will the government do for the shortfall? In such a scenario if there is no provision for arrest or criminal proceedings then the government will not have any power to punish Mr. Ravi and this is the reason behind the addition of criminal proceedings to curb the tax evasion. So what will be the scenario now? Now the government will get Rs. 1 crore from Mr. Ravi and also he will be behind bars for not paying the entire penalty. See another reason for the inclusion of criminal proceedings to curb tax evasion is to stop very big fraud cases which run in hundreds of crores. So because of these reasons the government thought that arrest will act as a better deterrent against big frauds and these are the two reasons for the addition of criminal proceedings to curb tax evasion in CGST Act 2017. See everything has its own advantages and disadvantages. So this penal provisions have some negatives associated with it. The first negative is that the criminal or the penal provision in the GST regime might spook the investors. See GST regime is still very young right? Only around five years old. It is still evolving and the government is still working to streamline the laws and the law already contains sufficient penalties that serve as a deterrent against tax evasion. If criminal provision is also added for trivial or petty issues then the investors may be discouraged engaging in the business activities and this is the first disadvantage. And the second disadvantage is that CGST Act does not need a criminal provision as it is already covered under IPC and CRPC. For example, CGST Act has a provision for penal action against criminal conspiracy but this is already covered under IPC and CRPC. Section 120A of IPC defines a criminal conspiracy and section 120B deals with the punishment for criminal conspiracy. And know that section 46 of criminal procedure code deals with how the arrest is made in the case of criminal conspiracy. Can you see it? All these are overlapping provisions. What we have in CGST is already in the IPC and CRPC. So this overlapping provision is the second disadvantage. So due to these issues the government in the recent GST council has decided to partially decriminalize GST Offences. Now let us see the decisions taken by the GST council in this regard. Firstly, the GST council decided to increase the threshold limit to launch the criminal prosecution. See earlier if tax evasion is over 1 crore criminal prosecution can be launched. Now this limit has been increased to 2 crores. So what does this mean? Now only if the tax evasion is over 2 crore then the criminal prosecution can be launched. And this is the first decision. Secondly, the GST council decided to decriminalize certain offences specified under section 132 of the CGST Act. And these offences include obstructing or preventing any officer from doing his duties, deliberate tempering of material evidence, and failure to supply information. So they are going to decriminalize all these offences specified under section 132. And the last major decision of GST council is regarding the compounding amount. See the GST council decided to reduce the compounding amount from the present range of 50 to 150 percentage to the range of 25 to 100 percentage. So these are all the important decisions taken in the recently held 48th GST council. If properly implemented it will increase the investor confidence and it will boost the business activity and it will increase the employment generation in our country. So that's all regarding this article discussion. In this discussion we saw many things. First of all we started with basics. We saw what is GST. We saw how it is levied. And we saw what is the rationale behind the introduction of GST. And we saw how GST prevents people from evading tax payment. And after that we saw some of the provisions in GST act that curbs the tax evasion. We saw three provisions right. What are they? Penalty, criminal prosecution and compounding. We saw in detail about what is compounding. And we saw the provisions for criminal prosecution and penalty. And after this we understood why criminal proceedings was added to GST act in addition to penalty. And after this we saw some of the negatives of adding criminal proceedings in the CGST act. And finally we ended our discussion by seeing the important decisions taken by GST council in its 48th meeting to partially decriminalize GST offences. Now with these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion. Now let us take this news article. It talks about the ongoing UN biodiversity conference in Canada's Montreal. See in the conference India said that there is an urgent need to create a new and dedicated fund. And this fund should be used to help developing countries successfully implement a post 2020 global framework to reverse the biodiversity loss. And this is the crux of the news article given here. In this backdrop let us understand some of the important terms mentioned in the news article. See in the conference India said that since climate change impacts nature conservation of biodiversity must also be based on common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Which is shortly referred as CBDR. So what is the CBDR? See it is a principle within United Nations framework convention on climate change. See it was enshrined in the Earth Summit 1992 which was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. See you have to remember this it is very important. You may expect a statement like this in prelims examination also. It may say like CBDR is a principle within UNFCCC which was enshrined in Earth Summit 1992. At that time you should be able to find out that that statement is correct. Remember this okay? See this principle acknowledges different capabilities and differing responsibilities of individual countries in addressing the climate change. See this is reasonable right? While taking actions against climate change you have to consider two factors. One thing is that particular country should have capabilities to take actions against climate change. The other one is it should be a polluting country right? If they don't have responsibility or if it is just a victim then it is unfair to them. So this common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities principle acknowledges these two factors and also know that this CBDR is based on two elements of responsibilities. One is the common responsibility of all the states to cater to the concerns of environmental protection and sustainable development. So this element is saying that everybody should be responsible to protect the environment and they should cater to sustainable development and the other element is of differentiated responsibility which enables the states to act for environment protection in their national capacity and as per their national priority. Like I explained before each and every state have different responsibilities and based on their national capacity and priority they have to act against climate change. See this principle of common but differentiated responsibility evolved from the notion of common heritage of mankind. See let me explain this if you are not able to understand. In earth summit states or countries acknowledged the disparity of economic development between developed countries and developing countries. We know that industrialization proceeded in the developed countries and this was much earlier than the industrialization proceeded in the developing countries right. So this CBDR was formed based on the relationship between industrialization and climate change. The more industrialized a country is the more likely that it has contributed to the climate change. Can you understand now since the developed countries become industrialized before they would have contributed more to the climate change. So consequently the states came to an agreement that developed countries contributed more to environmental degradation and because of this they should have greater responsibility for climate change mitigation than the developing countries. So we can even say that the CBDR principle is based on the polluter pays principle. It is nothing but polluter only should pay and in this CBDR principle historical contribution to climate change and individual capacity to mitigate it or use this indicate us of environmental protection responsibility. See these are all only two elements of CBDR. Historical contribution to climate change is nothing but developed countries degrading more than the developing countries and individual capacity it is nothing but the country should have capabilities to act against the climate change and these two are the indicators of environmental protection responsibility. And this is about CBDR. Now coming back to the news article see the 196 parties to the convention on biological diversity have finalized negotiations for a post 2020 global biodiversity framework. See this GBF is nothing but a new set of goals or targets to halt and reverse the biodiversity loss and to implement this framework there is no enough fund and for this only India had said that there is an urgent need for a new fund to implement this global biodiversity framework. See so far the global environment facility reminds the only source of funding for the biodiversity conservation but the issue with this global environment facility is that it caters not only to convention on biological diversity but also multiple conventions. It includes UNFCCC and UN convention to combat desertifications etc. So India is pushing for a new and dedicated fund to help the developing countries and it is asking for the inclusion of CBDR principle in finance related targets as well and this is what the news article here talks about. See I have taken this article for our discussion today because it is very important. It includes COP of convention on biological diversity. We saw an important negotiation happened in the COP which is nothing but post 2020 global biodiversity framework. We also saw about GEF that is global environment facility and more importantly we understood about CBDR which is nothing but common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. See these are all golden points. Each and every term that we discussed now is a keyword. You can use it in your mains answer wherever it is relevant. So take note of it and revise it again and again. Now with these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion. Now look at this article here. It says that Kerala has sought the expertise from IIT Roorkee for building cost effective small hydropower projects. See the draft national electricity plan has observed that Kerala is among the states with a huge potential for small hydropower projects. So the state is taking steps to enhance its potential. The Kala government it also looked at the possibility of renovation and modernization of small hydropower projects enhancing the capacity of already existing check dams and use of technology like rubber dams. And this is about the news article given here. In this context we are going to understand about the use of technology which is nothing but the rubber dams. So what are these rubber dams? To understand about rubber dams you need to know about weirs and look at these images they are only weirs. See weirs are basically an obstruction that is created along the flow of water to increase the water level. So it is like a small dam. It is very similar to check dams. See the difference between a check dam and a weir is that in case of check dams its main objective is water conservation and replenishing groundwater. But in the case of weir in addition to water conservation and groundwater replenishing weirs are sometimes constructed to rise the water level and divert the water into canal systems. And know that except the small difference weirs and check dams are similar in most of the cases. If you look at these images you can notice that the structure or the obstruction to water flow is built using brick and mortar. Now if you look at these images you can notice that the structure or the obstruction to water flow is built using brick and mortar right. Can you see these images? Here bricks and mortar are used. But what of the obstruction to water flow is made using tubes. These tubes may be either water filled or air filled. And such a structure is only called as rubber dams. Now look at this image for a better understanding. Here you can notice that water is dammed using a rubber tube. See the inflatable rubber tube is either filled with water or air and this is about the rubber dams. Now what are all the advantages of rubber dams over the conventional weir system? See the first advantage is the shorter construction time. Here all we need to do is have a huge inflatable rubber tube and voila we got a weir. And the second advantage is rubber dams are cheaper to build and maintain than a conventional brick and mortar weir. And the third advantage is rubber dams are more resilient to seismic activity. If there is an earthquake the conventional dams may crack which might lead to a disaster. And this will not be the case with the rubber dams. And the last and major advantage of rubber dams is that they are adjustable. See in case of normal weir or a check dam once they are constricted their height cannot be raised. But in case of rubber dams their height can be increased or decreased by inflating or deflating the rubber tubes. See inflating is nothing but filling the tube with air or water, deflating is nothing but removing air or water from the tubes. So by doing this rubber dams offer flexibility in water storage which is not possible with the conventional weirs or check dams. And this is all regarding this particular news article discussion. In this discussion we saw about rubber dams. To understand rubber dams we saw about weirs also which is basically an obstruction that is created along the flow of water to increase the water level. And after that we ended our discussion by seeing some of the advantages of rubber dams over the conventional weir system. Now with these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion. Now let us take this final article for our discussion. It mentions that Indian Navy has commissioned the Indian naval ship Ianus Mormugao. So we have to know about it right. Now let's see what is Ianus Mormugao. See it is a warship especially a missile destroyer. See there are many types of warships like aircraft carriers, frigates etc. And destroyer it is also a type. And this warship is quite large and fast. And if it has anti-missile capabilities then we call it as missile destroyer. Ianus Mormugao name is special. It is named after the historic port city of Goa called Mormugao and it is on the west coast and that is why it was commissioned on 60th anniversary of liberation of Goa. And know that 18th December 1961 was the date when Operation Vijay was launched to liberate Goa from Portuguese rule. See this warship has been built under project 15b and this project 15b is for constructing a class of ships which are the next generation stealth guided missile destroyers of the Indian Navy. See they are built at the Mazagon dock ship builders limited in Mumbai. And more importantly they are based on Kolkata class destroyers which are follow on class of weapon intensive P-15A destroyers. See under project 15b four destroyers were planned and they are named after four cities only. The first one is Vishakapatnam, Mormugao, Impal and Surat. And as you know Ianus Vishakapatnam was commissioned already in the year 2021. So Ianus Mormugao is the second out of the four stealth guided missile destroyers under this project 15b. So who designed it? See its design was developed in house by the directorate of naval design. But it was constructed by Mazagon dock ship builders limited MDL as we saw already. So it is an indigenously built warship. Now let us see its specifications. See it is 163 meter long warship which is 17 meter in breadth. It has 75 percentage indigenous content. So it shows India's excellence in design and development of warships. See the warship is propelled by four powerful gas turbines. So this helps the destroyer to achieve a speed in excess of 13 knots. See it has enhanced the stealth features because it has reduced the radar cross section. We all know what is stealth right? It means there are less probabilities of detection by enemies. And what is this radar cross section? It is the measure of target's ability to reflect the radar signals in the direction of radar receiver. So when the radar is reflected back then only the enemy will know where we are. See in an RCR reduction what happens is the radar signal is either observed or cancelled. So there will be no reflecting back and this prevents or delays the detection by radar. Also it makes the correct target classification difficult for the enemies and therefore it increases the survivability of the vessel and it enables us to remain in stealth condition. See this warship is more important because it is equipped with Brahmos cruise missile and long range surface to air missiles. So INS-Mormuga is one of the world's most technologically advanced missile carriers and other than this INS-Mormuga also carries major indigenized equipment and systems showing its anti-submarine warfare capabilities. And warfare capabilities like torpedo tubes and launchers, anti-submarine rocket launchers and super rapid gun mount combat management system, automated power management system etc. See it is also fitted with the modern surveillance radar and apart from this it is also said that the ship is equipped to fight under nuclear, biological and chemical warfare conditions. And because of these capabilities the warship is expected to meet the present and future needs of our country and this will enhance the country's maritime capabilities and it secures the national interests. So overall commissioning of INS-Mormuga highlights the growing indigenous defense production capabilities of India. Now that's all for this article discussion. In this discussion we saw about INS-Mormuga and how it got its name and we saw about Project 15b and finally we ended our discussion by seeing some of the specifications of INS-Mormuga. Now with these points in mind let us move on to the next part of the discussion that is the practice prelims question discussion. See aspirants today we have five questions for discussion. I'll solve four of them and one of them is a quiz question for you. Now let us take this first question which of the following is the first surface-to-surface ballistic missile of India, Agni, Trishul, Prithvi and Akash. See here the correct answer is Prithvi. Know that the Prithvi was India's first indigenously developed ballistic missile produced by integrated guided missile development program. It is a road mobile short-range ballistic missile powered by single stage two engines and liquid fuel. See development of Prithvi began in the year 1983 and it was first tested on February 25, 1988. So the correct answer to this question is option C, Prithvi. Now moving on to the second question it is a previous question which was asked in the year 2020. With the present state of development artificial intelligence can effectively do which of the following? Bring down electricity consumption in industrial units. Create meaningful short stories and songs. Disease diagnosis. Text-to-speech conversion. Wireless transmission of electrical energy. See as we know artificial intelligence helps in diagnosing diseases. AI is being tested and used in the healthcare industry for dosing drugs and different treatment in patients and for surgical procedures in the operating room. We know that statement three is correct and apart from this and android phones AI is used to convert the text to speech. So from this we know that statement four is also correct. See today AI written content has expanded beyond formulaic writing to create meaningful poetries and novels etc. So from this we know that statement two is correct and apart from this AI and data mining can reduce energy cost in the industrial sector and such type of technologies will come with AI in which wireless transmission of electrical energy will be there. So from this we know that statement one and five are also correct. So what is the correct answer to this question? It is option D, one, two, three, four and five. Now moving on to this question. Consider the following statements. The convention on biological diversity was adopted during Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. See the statement is correct. It was adopted during Earth Summit in the year 1992. See the objectives of CBD are conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of its components and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the use of genetic resources. So from this we know statement one is correct. Now coming to statement two, India enacted the Biological Diversity Act in the year 2002 to give effect to the provisions of this CBD convention. See this statement is also correct. India enacted the Biological Diversity Act to give effect to the provisions of convention on biological diversity and India also prepared a national biodiversity action plan in the year 2008 and an addendum to national biodiversity action plan in the year 2014 with 20 national targets on biodiversity. So from this we know that statement two is also correct. So the correct answer to this question is option C, both one and two. Now moving on to this question. Consider the following statements about small hydropower projects in India. See in India hydropower plans with capacity of 25 megawatts or below are classified as small hydro. See this statement is correct. This is only the official definition of small hydroprojects in India. Now coming to statement two, in India small hydropower projects are interested with the Ministry of Power. See this statement is incorrect. In India small hydropower projects are interested with the Ministry of New and Renewable Resources. So the correct answer to this question is option A, one only. Now moving on to this final question. See aspirants this is only the quiz question for you. Read the question carefully, think about it and post your answer in the comment section. And displayed here are the main questions for your practice. So interested aspirants write it and post your answer in the comment section. If you have any queries related to the articles that we discussed today, post that also in the comment section. And with this we have come to the end. If you find the video useful, like, share and comment and do subscribe to Shankar A's Academy's YouTube channel for further updates. Thank you.