 Good evening aspirants. Welcome to the Hindu news analysis by Shankar A. Sakrami for the date 3rd of August 2022. Displayed here are the list of news articles you will be discussing today. Now let us start our discussion. Today let us start our discussion by looking at these two articles. See this news article says that US House Speaker, Ms Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan and this editorial also deals with the same matter. Ok. So in our discussion first we will see about the news article and we will see the importance of Taiwan. After that we will see why China is taking its claim on Taiwan. After that let us see the points mentioned in the editorial article. This is the plan for this discussion. Now let us start our discussion. As the news article says US House Speaker, Ms Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taipei and this marks the most high level political visit from United States to Taiwan in 25 years. And as usual China condemned the visit as a major political provocation and China said it would launch targeted military operations as counter measures. This is about the news article and as I said now let us start by looking at the importance of Taiwan. To understand the importance of Taiwan let me give you a historic example. See Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December 7, 1941. It also simultaneously attacked Philippines triggering World War II in the Pacific region. It was the opening act of Japanese campaign to invade and subjugate South Asia in pursuit of Japan's greater East Asia co-prosperity spear. The relevant fact for us here is that the bombers were launched from the island of Taiwan which was under Japanese military control. Taiwan acted as a jumping off point for Japanese attacks on both Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. Here Dutch East Indies is nothing but the present day Indonesia. Know that throughout the war Taiwan served as the staging area and major supply base and this sustained Japanese armies in the South Asia region. By controlling Taiwan, Japan also controlled all the shipping that happened through the Taiwan State. Such is the significance of Taiwan. In addition to this Taiwan's location makes it a significant geopolitical asset. Why? See Taiwan is situated at the edge of South China Sea's shipping lane. Taiwan is located 100 miles east of China. It is located 200 miles north of Philippines and 900 miles north of Vietnam and the Spartley Islands. Taiwan is linked to the north with the Reoku Island and lies 700 miles from Japan's home islands. So this is why China is so keen on controlling Taiwan. So like I already said Taiwan historically served as a major pivotal location and in the contemporary era also Taiwan remains geographically at the intersection of most of East Asia's danger points including North Korea and China. So like I already said China is taking its claim on Taiwan. Here China's argument is that Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory. To understand this statement we have to go back to the Chinese civil war that happened between 1927 and 1949. Here the war was between two factions. One faction was led by the Chinese national party which is also called as Kuomintang and the other faction is led by the Chinese communist party. These two parties clashed for the control of China. The Chinese national party supported capitalism and was basically anti-communism and as the name suggests the Chinese communist party fought for the communist ideals. So it was basically a clash of ideology. In the end in 1949 the Chinese communist party came into power. It defeated the Chinese national party. So after the defeat the Republic of China was renamed in 1949 as the People's Republic of China. So after the defeat the Chinese national party leaders that is the Kuomintang leaders shifted their base to Taiwan. So even though the Chinese mainland came under the Chinese communist party Taiwan was under the control of the Chinese nationalist party and the Taiwan Strait which is located between Taiwan and China acted as a stalemate and as a boundary. So with China's rise in the global stage and China becoming an economic powerhouse China is aiming to establish its one China policy. That is China claims both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan comes under the Chinese control. This is China's claim. So this is the reason even in Olympics when Taiwan is competing the name given is Chinese Taipei and not Taiwan. See this is like India's taking claim over Akshay Chin. See although right now Akshay Chin is under Chinese control India is taking claim right. Likewise even though Taiwan exists as an independent entity China is taking control over Taiwan due to its own China policy. So enough with the background like I said this is the reason why China claims that Taiwan is the integral part of Chinese territory but this is not the whole truth. China is trying to control Taiwan due to its geopolitical significance. Now let us see the real intention behind China's move to stake control over Taiwan. See first is controlling Taiwan will facilitate Chinese operation in the South China Sea and more importantly it will enable China to assert its territorial and maritime claim even more aggressively against Philippines Vietnam Malaysia and Brunei. This is the first reason the other significant point is China's Nayan dashed line. See China's Nayan dashed line will become even more real and easily infosable once Taiwan comes under complete Chinese control. I hope you know what the Nayan dashed line means see Nayan dashed line encompasses approximately 90% of the South China Sea. Within this area China makes maritime claims see the image here then you will understand the red line is only called as Nayan dashed line and within this line there are many disputed islands as you can see here and see how much China is claiming. If possible China will even claim the entire South China Sea as Chinese lake. So if China controls Taiwan then China would be in an advantageous position to make the Chinese lake a reality. This is the next important point. The third important point is as per China Taiwan is one of the critical links in the first island chain and this chain includes Japan, the Ryoko Islands, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia and if you see this image you will understand why China thinks like that. See here China sees other countries and their lands as joke points and China thinks that this will constrain China's naval access to the second island chain. Here the second island chain would include Guam, the Marianas, the Palau Island Group and other small island groups in Central Pacific and from there into the open oceans far from China's shore. So if China controls Taiwan then nothing can stop China from asserting its dominance in these far away lands also. So this is why Taiwan is important for China. This is the third important reason. The last important reason is ensuring that Taiwan stays in Chinese control will give China access to Taiwan's deep seaports. See presently Chinese coastline in East China Sea lacks deep seaport. This is some major disadvantage for China. See China has a huge fleet of submarines but due to the lack of deep seaports these submarines has to remain above water until they reach the Riaco Islands. But once China gets access to the Taiwan's deep seaports submarine can enter the deep water and act in a stealth mode in the Riaco region. Once China ensures that it will have a significant say against Japan and South Korea. See in this area that is in the East Asian region Japan and South Korea are important US allies. And these countries that is South Korea and Japan are energy deficient. They get most of their crude oil supply from the Middle East only through East China Sea. Once China establishes greater control over East China Sea after taking claim over Taiwan it will control Japan and South Korea's energy supply. So through this China will act as a bigger player and can easily bring China and South Korea to the negotiation table and reduce the influence of USA in these two nations. So these are the four important reasons and the real reasons why China is trying to control Taiwan. See till now we saw about the news article and then we saw about the strategic significance of Taiwan and also the reasons why China is pursuing Taiwan. Now let us see about the editorial. See the editorial says that the visit of Ms Nancy Pelosi might trigger the fourth Taiwan straight crisis. See the last Taiwan straight crisis that is the third Taiwan straight crisis happened in 1997 when Taiwan president visited USA. After the visit of Taiwan president to USA what China did was it started launching missiles in the Taiwan straight. But after sometime the situation cooled down. But now after the visit of Ms Pelosi the fourth Taiwan straight crisis might happen. The article also talks about the evolving relation between China and United States. See during the Trump era itself the relation between China and the United States worsened. I guess you guys remember about the trade war between US and China during the Trump era right. But in the Biden era also the condition did not improve further and the visit of Ms Nancy Pelosi just worsened the relation between China and United States. But the editorial also says that this condition will not escalate further because both these countries now they are doing this only to increase the political mileage in their domestic politics. See in case of China Mr. Xi Jinping is due to face a major election in three months. By projecting strength in this event he can gain some political traction and by gaining political traction Mr. Xi Jinping can even stake control and remain in power for the third term also. In US also this visit is triggered by political events. Before the visit of Ms Nancy Pelosi people both in Biden administration and in the military advised her to not make the visit. But what happened was once the plan of her visit was made available China made some triggering statement. Mr. Xi Jinping said those who play with fire will perish by it. So this trigger Ms Pelosi to ensure that she visited Taiwan. So in both cases that is in Chinese case and in the United States case this event is mainly to show their strength in the domestic politics. So what the editorial basically says that this will not escalate further that is both countries that is China and the United States cannot afford a military confrontation right though. So this event will eventually fade away and this will not escalate into a military confrontation. But what this event basically shows us is that the two big economies in the world right now that is the China and the United States their bilateral relations are at a all time low. So this is about the editorial article. So with this let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Look at this news article. See we all know currently the monsoon session of the parliament is going on. So so many bills are getting passed. See in our discussion itself few days ago we saw about the electricity bill. So in today's discussion we will see another amendment that is recently passed by the Lokshaba. The amendment is nothing but the Wildlife Protection Amendment Bill 2021. See the primary objective of this bill is to make our Indian law compatible with the sites. Sites is nothing but convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora. This bill proposed 50 amendments. In that we will discuss two major amendments in our discussion because these two amendments are important for our examination. This amendment bill that is the Wildlife Protection Amendment Bill 2021 amends the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. As you all know this act regulates the protection of wild animals, birds and plants. Through this amendment the number of species that are protected under the law is set to increase and as I already said the amendment will make Indian law in compliant with the sites provisions. I think this introduction is enough. Let us segue into sites. Sites is an international agreement between governments. It aims to ensure international trade in specimen of wild animals and plants that does not threaten the survival of the species. That is in case some wild species are traded the sites tries to ensure that this trade does not affect the survival of the species. See under sites plants and animal specimens are classified into three categories. This categorization is based on the threat to their extension and it is classified as appendix 2 and appendix 3. See the countries that are participating in this convention or the countries that are signatories to this convention has to regulate the trade of wild species. Here what I am trying to say is through sites the trade of a specimen that is listed in the appendix can be only be carried out through a permit. So additionally what sites aims to convey is that it aims to regulate the possession of live animal specimens. So basically it aims to do two things. One is to ensure that the trade in wild species does not affect their survival. The next thing is it aims to regulate the possession of live animal specimens. Here you have to note an important point. Sites is legally binding. Although it is legally binding it is not self executing. This means sites cannot be fully implemented until specific domestic measures have been adopted for the purpose. So national laws for implementing sites are crucial and critical to ensure that trade in protected species is legal, sustainable and traceable that is transparent. This is why this amendment bill is important. Only by making our law compliant with sites, sites can be made fully enforceable and binding. So this is about the sites. Now let's move on. See through this amendment two authorities are created. The first one is management authority. The next one is the scientific authority. The role of the management authority is two. First is it will grant the important export permit for trade of specimens. The second is every person possessing live specimens of scheduled animals must obtain the registration certificate from the management authority. So these are the two roles played by the management authority. Now moving on to the scientific authority. See it is basically an advisory body. It gives scientifically researched advice about whether the trade in wild specimens affect the survival of the species in the wild. So these are the two bodies introduced by the amendment. This is the first major amendment. The second major amendment is about the rationalizing the schedules in wildlife protection act. See currently under the wildlife protection act 1972 there are six schedules. One is specifically for protected plants. Four are for protected animals and one for vermin. Here when I say vermin, vermin are nothing but animals that carry disease and destroy food. The common examples are rat, crow and in some cases blue bull and wild hog are even classified as vermin. So basically in the present scenario there are six schedules. Through this amendment the government is planning to rationalize them. So the bill proposes reducing the number of schedules from 6 to 4. Here the one schedule that is reserved for specifically protected plants will remain. But in case of animals earlier we used to have four schedules right. This will be reduced to only two schedules. In that one schedule will have animals that will have maximum protection. So plant will have one schedule, animals will have two schedules and the bill inserts a new schedule that is regarding the species or the specimens listed in the appendices under sites. That is the scheduled specimens under sites. So protected plants will have one schedule, protected animals will have two schedules and as I said the bill also planned to introduce a new schedule to include the scheduled animals in sites and the bill also aims to remove the schedule containing the vermin species. So this is the second major amendment. So that's all regarding this discussion. See in this discussion we saw about the wildlife protection amendment bill 2021. In that we discussed about two major amendments. The first major amendment is in regards to making our Indian law compliant with sites and the second major amendment is rationalizing the schedules in Indian wildlife protection act. So that's all regarding this discussion. Now let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. See this news article here. The article says that Russia is ready to talk with the US regarding nuclear arms control. See last year that is on February 2021 the new start treaty expired. So Russia and the United States agree to extend it for another five years. So the next cutoff date is in 2026. So what Russia is proposing here is in the meantime that is before the expiry of the extension that will happen in 2026 they are asking to talk with USA regarding a new arms control deal. So this is about the news article. So in this context in our discussion let us see about the new start treaty. See this is important for our exam. It is important in both the problems and in the mains perspective. See in the problems they can directly ask what is the new start treaty. In the mains if there is a question about what are the efforts taken by the world nations to prevent nuclear proliferation you can write about the new start treaty. So it is important listen to the discussion carefully. Before getting into the new start treaty let us see the background of it. See before the new start treaty there was the start one treaty. Start here is nothing but strategic arms reduction treaty. It was signed in 1991 and expired in December 2009. While the start treaty was in progress in 2002 and another treaty was signed it was the short treaty. Here short means strategic offensive reduction treaty. I already said the start one treaty expired in 2009 right. So in 2010 in Prague the United States and Russia signed the new start treaty. This new start treaty replaced both the start one treaty and the short treaty. So this is how the new start treaty came into force and like I said it expired in 2026. So before getting into a new deal both the countries that is Russia and the United States agreed to extend the treaty till February 2026. Now let us see the important provisions about the new start treaty. See under this treaty the United States and the Russian Federation has set a 7 year time limit and within that 7 year time limit they have decided to reduce their nuclear warheads to a certain limit. So both countries through this treaty decided to reduce their nuclear stockpile to the limit mentioned in the treaty. Now you may ask a question what should be the limit and how it should be maintained. See I have displayed here the limits that is set by the new start treaty. The limits are given for the deployed ICBMs nuclear warheads and the non-deployed ICBMs. See these values are not very important for your exam perspective but you can make a interesting comparison here. See here in case of nuclear warheads the limit set is 1550. But according to the CIPRI report US alone has 5,428 warheads. In case of Russia it has 5,977 nuclear warheads. The next big nuclear nation is China which has only 350 nuclear warheads and in case of India we have only 160. So see the difference between US and Russia compared to the other nuclear nations the difference is very huge. So only they have decided to reduce their limit using this new start treaty. Okay and I have displayed a graph here that shows that in the seven year period after the new start treaty came into force both the countries that is the United States and Russia has taken efforts to reduce their nuclear stockpile and the evidence also shows that they have actually sticked with the limit set by the new start treaty. Okay so that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion we saw some of the basic facts about the new start treaty and the background about the origin of the new start treaty. With this let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. This is the last news article we will be discussing today. See every year first week of August is celebrated as World Breastfeeding Week. So to mark this occasion a medical college in Chennai has launched an awareness campaign to enhance the breastfeeding activity. This is about the news article. In this context let us learn about the importance of breastfeeding and about a scheme launched by the government to enhance the practice of breast feeding. See breastfeeding is one of the most effective ways to ensure child health and survival. Breast milk is the ideal food for infants. It is safe, clean and contains antibodies which help protect against many common childhood illness. Breast milk provides all the energy and nutrients that the infant needs for the first months of life and it continues to provide up to half of the child's nutritional needs during the second half of the first year and up to one third during the second year of life. The nutritional need is important because undernutrition is estimated to be associated with 2.7 million child deaths annually or 45 percent of all child deaths. Breastfeeding is important for other aspects also. Breastfed children's perform better on intelligence tests and they are less likely to be overweight or obese and less prone to diabetes later in life. This is because the first two years of a child's life are particularly important. So if they get optimal nutrition during this period then it will lower morbidity and mortality. It will also reduce risk of chronic disease and finally it will faster better development. See women who are breastfed also have a reduced risk of breast and ovarian cancers. So with this information about the importance of breastfeeding let us see about the recommendations made by the world health organization and the UNICEF. See WHO and UNICEF recommends early initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth. Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life and they also recommends the introduction of nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods for six months together with continued breastfeeding up to two years of age. However many infants and children do not receive optimal feeding. Example only 44 percent of infants aged 0 to 6 months worldwide were exclusively breastfed over the period of 2015 and 2020. So you may have a question what has the government of India done regarding this. Here MAA that is MA is relevant. MA is expanded as mother's absolute affection. It was launched at the national level in August 2016. The goal of MA program is to revitalize efforts towards promotion protection and support of breastfeeding practices through health system to achieve higher breastfeeding rates. I have given here the objectives of the program now you can go through it. I hope you have gone through the objectives so now let's move on to the components of the program. As you can see here it involves four components first one is awareness generation then community level intervention then health facility strengthening and finally monitoring. So this is about the MA program. So in this discussion we saw about breastfeeding importance of breastfeeding and the MA program launched by government. With this let us conclude the news analysis session and take up the practice prelims questions. We have four practice prelims questions today let us see them one by one. Let us take up the first question. This is a previous year question it appeared in the 2015 prelims paper. Let me read out the question with reference to international union for conservation of nature and natural resources that is IUCN and the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild flora and fauna which of the following statements are correct. See three statements are given. First statement IUCN is an organ of united nations and sides is an international agreement between governments. Statement two IUCN runs thousands of field projects around the world to better manage natural environments. Statement three sides is legally binding on the states that have joined it but this convention does not take the place of national laws. See from our discussion you can say that statement three is correct because in our discussion itself we clearly saw that sides is legally binding. So you can eliminate option A from the given options because option A does not contain third statement. Now look at statement one. This statement is only partially correct because sides is of course an international agreement between governments but IUCN is not an organ of united nations. It is a membership union of government and civil society organization. So you can surely say option B is the correct answer here. So statement one is wrong. So by eliminating statement one we can eliminate option C and D. So the correct answer here is option B 213 only. Let us take up the second question. This question is about the mothers absolute affection program. Two statements are given. We have to find the correct statement. Let us take up the first statement. It is a nation wide program of ministry of human and child development. See this statement is incorrect because MA that is mothers absolute affection program is a nation wide program of ministry of health and family officer. The main aim of this program is to promote breastfeeding. Now coming to statement two. It involves capacity building of axillary nurse midwives, nurses and doctors on lactation support and management at health care facilities. See this statement is correct. This program that is MA program is implemented at three levels. In the macro level it is implemented through mass media. In the meso level it is implemented through awareness generation in health care facilities and at the micro level it is implemented through awareness generation in the community level. This we saw in our discussion while we are discussing about the components also. So the program like the statement says also involves capacity building of axillary nurses, nurses, midwives and doctors. So statement two is correct. So since statement one is incorrect and statement two is correct, the correct answer here is option B two only. Let us take up the third question. This question is regarding the new start treaty. It is a two statement question. We have to find the correct statement. Let us take up the first statement. The treaty is the first nuclear arms control treaty between United States and Russia. This statement is incorrect. In our discussion itself we saw two more treaty that preceded new start. The first one is start one and the second one is sort. So the first statement is incorrect. Let us take up the second statement. New start places limit on the number of non-deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine launch to ballistic missiles. This statement is incorrect because new start does not limit the number of non-deployed ICBMs and submarine launch to ballistic missiles. But it does monitor them and provide for continuous information on their location and onsite inspection to confirm that they are not added to the deployed force. So in this question both statements that is statement one and statement two are incorrect. So the correct answer is option D neither one nor two. This is the last question. This is a map based question. So take your time find the answer and post the answers in the comment comment. This is the quiz question for today. With this we have come to the end of the discussion. If you like today's video like comment and share it with your friends. For more updates regarding UPSC preparation subscribe to Shankara AS Academy YouTube channel. Thank you for listening.