 Very good evening aspirants welcome to the hindu news analysis by Shankar eyes academy for the date 13th of july 2021 Today we will be discussing these articles which are based on quality economics international relations and geography part of our syllabus So now let us start our analysis with this first news article So this first discussion is based on this news article It mentions about the ongoing Excavations at my laddum para in krishnagiri district of tamalladu and the news is about a Megalithic cyst burial monument in tamalladu where a full length sword with handle has been discovered And this is the first time where a full length sword with handle has been discovered So in this context let us discuss in brief about the megalithic culture in india See the excavations in tamalladu have testified the existence of paleolithic, mesolithic, neolithic and ionic cultures And the paleolithic culture was revealed from the excavations carried out at atirampakkam in tamalladu And during microlithic age there was extensive use of microlithic tools for fishing and because of that several microlithic tools were recovered from the Excavations at thirnal valley, my laddum para, etc, which are situated in tamalladu And even the remains of neolithic and ion age periods were discovered from darmaburi, velour and thiruvannamalai regions of tamalladu So these are some of the important regions in tamalladu where tools and remains belonging to different cultures were found Just take note of this but for today's focus will be on indian megalithic culture First we need to know about megalith a megalith is a stone Which is larger in size and it has been used to construct a monument or a structure The monument or the structure has been constructed either alone or even together with other stones And these megalith structures has been used to describe buildings built by people who lived in many different periods from many parts of the world And the construction of this type of structures took place mainly in the neolithic period and it even continued into the Calculatic age bronze age and ion age So because of this megaliths are spread across the indian subcontinent also and a bulk of them are found in peninsular India Mainly they are concentrated in the dharbha region of Maharashtra They are also concentrated in kanataka, tamalladu, kerala, andhra pradesh and telangana So from exam perspective you also need to know about the types of megalithic structures See the types can be divided into two categories. One is the polylithic type and other one is the monolithic type In polylithic type more than one stone is used to make the megalithic structure And in monolithic type the structure consists of a single stone because mono means single and poly means many Now important polylithic types are dolmen, cane, chrome lake and cyst For example, if you take dolmen it is made in single chambered stone and it usually consists of three or more upright stones Supporting a larger flat horizontal capstone as you can see in this image And these dolmens were usually covered with earth or smaller stones to form a barrel See barrel is nothing but an ancient burial mound But our today's focus is on the cyst which is also mentioned in the news article Because the full length sword was found in a cyst burial monument only See a cyst was used as encasements for dead bodies So it would not be uncommon to find several cysts close with each other in the cane or barrel See here cane means a prehistoric burial mound which is made of stones And since cyst is used as encasements for the dead bodies They are found here cane and a barrel and sometimes in the excavated cysts ornaments are also found Now when there is presence of ornaments within an excavated cyst It indicates the wealth or prominence of the interred individual So this was the polylithic type Next one is the monolithic types it consists of menhir and stone circle See a menhir is a stone monolithic Standing vertically as you can see in this image and it could also exist as part of a group of similar stones And a stone circle is a monument of standing stones arranged in a circle and usually dated to megalithic period And the arrangement of stones may be in a circle or in the form of an ellipse or sometimes We can also find a setting of four stones laid on an arc of a circle So these are some of the important facts that you need to know about megalithic culture Now let us move on to the next discussion This discussion is based on this editorial which is about a recent supreme court verdict See earlier this week supreme court of india had passed a verdict that can potentially wield more power on the ncr government That is the deli government and it is expected that this verdict will have bearing not just on ncr legislature But on any legislature in our country. So in this regard to understand the issue Let us first see about the governance of deli and then we'll see about the issue on which the verdict has been given The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference So first let us begin with knowing how our capital is being administered See our capital that is new deli is a small region which is sandwiched between uterpradesh and haryana But the nct deli or the national capital territory of deli it covers an area of 1500 square kilometers and it includes parts of the neighboring states of haryana uterpradesh and rajasthan And this is a wider area see after independence the states reorganization act of 1956 created the Union territory of deli and when it was created it was governed by a lieutenant governor And here the lieutenant governor acted on the advice of the central government and she was answerable to the president of india Then in the year 1966 the deli administration act was enacted which brought the deli metropolitan council into existence See this metropolitan council of deli consisted of 56 elected members and five nominated members And this council was headed by the lieutenant governor But this council had no legislative powers But it played only a advisory role in the government of deli and then in the year 1991 The constitution 69th amendment act was enacted and this amendment inserted articles 239 a and 239 a b to the constitution and after this amendment the advisory deli metropolitan council was replaced by a full fledged legislative assembly and then deli became a special union territory So from then on it came to be known as the national capital territory of deli But here one main aspect remained unchanged. It was the role of the lieutenant governor The lieutenant governor remained with huge powers vested on her if you recollect She is appointed by the president on the advice of the center So as a result of this deli's elected legislative assembly and its chief minister Ended up needing the approval of lieutenant governor to perform certain administrative functions Like transferring bureaucrats passing laws etc Apart from this three subjects were retained with the center These three subjects are land law and order and third one is police. These were retained in centers control So based on the constitutional provisions, the deli government has no control over the city's three primary bodies Which are based on these three subjects and these bodies fall under the reserved subjects list These three bodies are first one is the deli development authority This authority is responsible for housing infrastructure and commercial and leisure facilities Second one is the deli police. It has been designated under the union ministry of home affairs And the third one is the trifurcated municipal corporation of deli It is an autonomous body that provides civic services to the north south and east divisions of the city So these were the subjects in areas and the bodies on which the deli government has no control But on the other hand deli government has complete control over the public works department deli gel board That is the deli water board then state ministry of power of deli Then it has complete control over health and sanitation subjects and also on the transportation and education subject So here we can see the power distribution between the deli government and the central government And because of this the national capital region is a fertile ground for power struggle between the central government and the ncr government And because of the special status of deli the left wing governor was exercising more power compared to any other governors across india But this excessive power was kind of doused or extinguished by the supreme court judgment in the year 2018 In that judgment supreme court effectively reduced the powers of left wing governor to that of any state governors That is it was made similar to the powers of other state governors Or we can say that the left wing governor was made to act on the advice of elected government like other state governors But there is an exception to this also That is the left wing governor should act on the advice of the elected government except on the three reserve subjects of police public order and land In these three subjects left wing governor has discretion. So this is the basic administrative structure of deli So with this knowledge, let us understand the editorial better See the issue started when the committee of deli assembly summoned a senior official of facebook You may recollect the horrendous riots of last year that happened throughout deli So as a result of these riots the committee summoned the senior official of facebook for spreading fake news And thereby triggering the widespread violence in deli But the social media platform registered the summons on three grounds Now these grounds where first was that facebook argued that it is beyond the powers of legislature of deli And second it argued that the it act is a central law and therefore the deli legislature has no jurisdiction over the subject And thirdly it argued that law and order is a subject of center and deli legislature has no jurisdiction over it So these were the three grounds based on which facebook registered the summons by the committee of deli assembly As a result of this a case was filed and on this case only now the supreme court has delivered its verdict This verdict was delivered last week and it upheld the authority of a committee of deli assembly to summon the senior official of facebook And while noting this supreme court has laid down that the legislative assembly not only performs the functions of legislating But it also has inquisitorial and Recommendatory powers. So when you say inquisitorial powers, it means the examining powers So by this supreme court has emphasized that the inquisitorial and recommendation powers of a house can be used for better governance And this verdict has two important implications One implication is that the verdict has come at a time when the power struggle is extensive So this verdict can be seen as an emphasis on the importance of federalism and thereby Increasing the emphasis on the importance of elected government at the ncr level and second implication is that This judgment has come at a time when the social media platforms are fighting other provisions of information technology act So based on this judgment, the responsibility of social media platforms towards Legislatures will only become more heightened and this verdict also now opens the gates for scrutiny of social media platforms by other states Here you have to remember that unlike deli other states have significantly more powers with respect to law and order So in a sense, we can say that the scrutiny of social media for frivolous and mischievous news could be increased along with the Involvement of states that is it should be made sure that states will also have a say in the scrutiny of these social media And that is why the editorial article has been titled the power of scrutiny. So with this, let us move on to the next discussion Our next discussion is based on this news article from the business page It mentions that the national mineral development corporation that is the nmdc has cut the prices of iron ore And this is an indication of falling demand, especially for steel production But note that these prices are still about the prices in april So let us take up this opportunity to discuss about iron ores in india. First, let us have a basic understanding about iron ore See iron ore is a metallic mineral. They are also called as ferrous ores from which iron is extracted Now some of the principal iron ores are given in this table along with the formulas Please take note of it and this iron ore is a basic mineral and it is the backbone of industrial development And fortunately india has fairly abundant resources of iron ore and therefore india is rich in good quality iron ores Now in our country most of the iron ore found are of three types They are hematite, magnetite and limonite. In this hematite ore contains up to 68 percentage of iron It is red in color and it is often referred to as red ore Then hematite ore is also the most important industrial iron ore in terms of quantity used And next is the magnetite ore. It contains up to 60 percentage of iron and it is dark brown to blackish in color So it is often referred as the black ores and this magnetite ore has excellent magnetic qualities Especially it is valuable in the electrical industry But here you should note that the iron content in these two types that is in magnetite and hematite is contentious Because ncrt says that magnetite has higher concentration of iron But whereas other reliable resources say the other way around But after referring to other sources, we can say that magnetite has higher concentration of iron Now the third type of ore is the limonite. It has iron content of 35 to 50 percentage It is yellow in color and it is quite inferior quality ore Now since India has large resources of hematite and magnetite ores This inferior quality ore like limonite is rarely exploited You should also remember that some lowest concentration iron is also found in Siderite ores and iron pyrites ore. So now let us see about the iron ore distribution in India Now this graph indicates the distribution. As you can see Odisha has the largest reserves of iron ore And in this map you can see the iron ore belts. The shaded areas are the one we are interested in today Let us look at these one by one. First one is the Odisha Jharkhand belt. In Odisha high grade hematite ore is found It is found in Badampahar mines in the Mayur Bhange and Kirtujar districts And in the adjoining Singboom district of Jharkhand hematite iron ore is mined in Goa and Naumundi Now next comes the Durg Baster Chandrapur belt. It lies in Chathisgarh and Maharashtra And in this belt very high grade hematites are found in the famous Bylajila range of hills which is in the Baster district of Chathisgarh The range of hills comprise of about 14 deposits of super high grade hematite iron ore It has the best physical properties needed for steel making And also the iron ore from these mines are exported to Japan and South Korea via Vishagapatnam port Now next is the Ballari Chitradurga Chikmangaluru Tumukuru belt which is in Karnataka Now it has the large reserves of iron ore. The Kudremuk mines located in the western guards of Karnataka are a 100% export unit And the Kudremuk deposits are known to be one of the largest ones in the world And the ore is transported as slurry through a pipeline to a port near Mangaluru Next important belt is Maharashtra Goa belt. It includes the state of Goa and Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra See even though the ores are not of very high quality here yet they are efficiently exploited And the iron ore is exported through the Marmagao port So in this discussion we saw some crucial facts important from exam perspective about the iron ores And their reserves in India. Now let us move on to the next discussion This discussion is based on these two news articles Which talk about the recent ongoing crisis in Cuba This news article mentions that thousands of protesters have took to the street in Cuba And they are chanting freedom and they are also calling for their president to step down And on the other hand this news article talks about the reaction of Russia and Mexico to this protest So in this scenario let us see about the geography and quality of Cuba And we will also see what is the background for this protest The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for a reference See the ongoing protest is said as the biggest anti-government demonstration seen by Cuba in recent decades The reason is that Cuba is experiencing its worst economic crisis And there has also been a huge surge in coronavirus infections in addition to this economic crisis It is also experiencing a shortage of basic goods and the government of Cuba is curbing civil liberties So the people of Cuba are frustrated and now they have finally resorted to protests So what was the response to these protests? In response to this protest the president of Cuba, Miguel de Ayers-Canal, has given a televised speech on Sunday In this speech he said that the protesters were sincere but they are being manipulated by US orchestrated social media campaigns and the mercenaries on the ground He also warned that further provocations would not be tolerated And even the response of Russia and Mexico was similar to Mr. Miguel Russia and Mexico has warned against any outside interference in Cuba But if we take USA, the present administration led by Mr. Joe Biden has supported the protests And said that US stands with the people of Cuba in their call for freedom So these are the recent escalations with respect to Cuba So from example's perspective, now let us see some geographical details about Cuba Cuba is a country of the West Indies It is the largest single island of the West Indies archipelago And it is situated just south of Tropic of Cancer And this island country is at the intersection of Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea Atlantic Ocean is to its north and east, Gulf of Mexico is to its west And the Caribbean Sea is to its south And its nearest neighbouring country is Haiti Haiti is located to the east of Cuba And note that Cuba is separated from Haiti by the windward passage Then another country which lies near to Cuba is Jamaica It lies to its south Then we have the Bahamas archipelago also It lies to the north of Cuban islands And another major country which is in the proximity of Cuba is United States It is just about 150 kilometers to the north of Cuba And it is across the straits of Florida And note that Cuba comprises an archipelago of about 1600 islands and islets And these islands form an important segment of the Antilles island chain The island of Cuba is by far the largest in the Antilles island chain And coming to its other features Cuba is a multicultural urban nation Its major city is Havana Which is also its capital and the commercial hub of the country Then other important Cuban cities include Santiago, Camagüe, Holguin and Trinidad All these cities offer a rich legacy of colonial Spanish architecture and history And if you talk about the ethnic composition Diverse ethnic groups have been settling in Cuba since the time of European contact And these diverse ethnic groups include Spaniards, Africans, Chinese, Jews and you could take an Indians also All these groups have created a heterogeneous society And they have superimposed their culture and social characteristics on the early settlers of the island Also note that Spanish is the principal language of Cuba Now coming to its history See in there 1492 Cuba was claimed by Christopher Columbus for Spain And from there itself it became a Spanish empire And it was also the most important source of raw sugar for the Spanish empire in the 18th century And Spain ruled Cuba till 1898 And note that in 1898 Spain was defeated by the United States and Cuban forces in the Spanish-American War And after that Cuba gained formal independence See even though it gained formal independence it was still overshadowed by the nearby United States of America But on the New Year's Day of the year 1959 The revolutionary forces led by Fidel Castro over through the government of dictator Fulgencio Batista Castro even implemented the Marxist Leninist principles in Cuba So naturally Cuba became economically isolated from its northern neighbor United States And after that Cuba even developed close links to the Soviet Union However the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s made the situation terrible in Cuba And after the Soviet Union collapsed Cuba saw widespread shortages and financial uncertainty also So by the early 21st century Cuba loosened some of its more restrictive economic policies and social policies But the United States of America continued its decades-long economic embargo That is ban against the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba And this changed only in 2014 when U.S. resumed the diplomatic relations between the two countries And it even promised to remove the embargo So things were looking good for Cuba until Mr. Trump became the U.S. President You should know that Mr. Trump's presidency deterred the resumption of diplomatic relations of USA with Cuba So Cuba again suffered because of this backtracking of USA And in addition to all this we have the COVID-19 pandemic It made the situation even worse So people are now protesting in Cuba to get their basic necessities So let us wait and see whether the current president of Cuba steps down or not Or whether we are going to see another coup in the history of Cuba So that is all about Cuba and its history Now let us move on to the next discussion Our next discussion is based on this news article from the business page It talks about a recent scheme launched by Reserve Bank of India The scheme allows the retail investors to open retail direct-guilt accounts directly with the RBI And through these accounts, registered users could get access to primary issuance of government securities Therefore it facilitates individual investments in government securities In this context, let us brush up about government securities And we will also see about the scheme and other economic terms mentioned in the news article The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference First let us understand what is a government security or in short GSEC A government security is a tradable instrument issued by the central government or the state governments And such tradable instrument acknowledges the government's debt obligation In simple terms, these are the debt instruments which are issued by the government to borrow money Now these government securities can be short term or even long term And when they are short term securities, they are usually called as treasury bills And these treasury bills or the short term securities have original maturities of less than one year And the second type is the long term securities and they are usually called as the government bonds or the dated securities Now these long term securities have an original maturity of one year or more So if it is less than one year, it will be short term And if it is one year or more, then it is called as long term securities Now in India, the central government issues both these types of securities That is both long term and short term or in other words, it issues both the treasury bills and also the government bonds or dated securities But the state governments issue only bonds or the dated securities That means they only issue the short term ones and these are called as the state development loans Now one of the important features of a government security is that they practically carry no risk of default Because they are issued by the government and that is why they are called as risk free guilt edged instruments See here the term guilt edged is the one which denotes the stocks or securities which are regarded as extremely reliable investments So now let us briefly see about these securities First let us understand about the treasury bills or ensure the T bills As you already saw, they are the short term debt instruments issued by the government of India And they are presently issued in three tenors that is one for 91 days and then for 182 days and another for 364 days Another important feature of a treasury bill is that they are zero coupon securities See whenever we say coupon or coupon rate with respect to bonds or securities It means the annual interest payment or the annual interest rate And since the treasury bills are zero coupon securities It means that these are the securities with no coupon payments or with no annual interest payment And that is why the zero coupon bonds or securities or in this case the treasury bills pay no interest But there is one advantage that is they are issued at a discount and they are redeemed at the face value at maturity Let us take an example to understand this see for example There is a 91 day treasury bill and it has a face value of 100 rupees and it may be issued at 97 rupees That is here the discount is rupees 3 and this 97 rupees will be called as the issue price and the 100 rupees will be the face value So what would happen is this will be redeemed at the face value of rupees 100 And the return to the investors will be the difference between the maturity value or the face value and the issue price There is a profit will be the difference between these two values. That is the profit will be three rupees So even though it doesn't pay any interest it provides discount and from that we get some profit Now there is also another short term instrument of rba. It is called as the cash management bills in the 2010 government of india in consultation with rba introduced this new short term instrument And the intention here was to meet the temporary mismatches in the cash flow of government of india Just remember that these cash management bills have the generic character of treasury bills But these are issued for maturities less than 91 days But we saw that treasury bills will be issued in three tenors that is 482 days and even for 364 days Let us see about the long term security of dated government securities These are the securities which carry a fixed or floating interest rate This interest is paid on the face value on half yearly basis And generally the tenor of dated securities ranges from five years to 40 years because they are long term securities Now another common fact that you need to know about government securities is that the public debt office of the rbi is the registry of jsex That is it is the depository of government securities It deals with the issue interest payment and also the repayment of principal at maturity So this is the basic now let us come to today's news the news is about a new scheme of rba It is the rba retail direct scheme This scheme aims to improve the ease of access by retail investors through online access And this access will be provided to the government securities market And this can be both primary and secondary market Now some of the highlights of rba retail direct scheme is that retail investors or individuals Will have the facility to open and maintain the retail direct guild account with the rba This retail direct guild account or in short rdg account is the main feature of this scheme See when we say guild account it means an account which is opened and maintained for holding the government securities And these accounts are held by an entity or a person permitted by the reserve bank of india And as per the scheme the rdg account can be opened through an online portal provided for this purpose And this online portal will also give the registered users the access to primary issuance of government securities And it will provide the access to nds om web See here nds stands for negotiated dealing system om stands for order matching and this website is a screen based electronic anonymous order matching website or system for the secondary market trading in government securities And this is owned by reserve bank of india So these are some of the points that we need to know about government securities and the new scheme of rba regarding government securities Well, let us move on to the next discussion Our next discussion is based on this opiate article Which is another important topic from the international relations perspective as the title of this article hints This article throws light on the domestic conflict that is happening in ethiopia So in this context today, we will have a comprehensive analysis on ethiopia its geography political structure And also about the ethiopian political crisis mentioned in this article the syllabus relevant to this discussion has been highlighted here for your reference First, let us have a brief understanding of the geography and political structure of ethiopia See ethiopia is a country in the african continent and it is situated in the horn of africa That is the eastern africa Its capital is adis ababa and it lies completely within the tropical latitudes Know that ethiopia is a landlocked country. It is bounded by erythria to the north And jibouti is to its northeast and somalia is to its east and kenya is situated to its south and south sudan and sudan Are to its west and note that it has one of the most rugged topography in africa And this ethiopian country has a high central plateau with some mountains And the elevation is generally highest just before the point of descent to the great rift valley This valley splits the plateau diagonally as you can see in this picture And also many rivers cross this plateau and one of the notable rivers is the blue nile It flows from the lake tana and coming to its economy Know that ethiopian economy is based on agriculture and coffee is their major agricultural export crop Now apart from this the country has also got limited reserves of gold platinum, copper, potash, natural gas and hydropower And know that ethiopia's population is highly diverse And most of its people speak somatic or kushitic language And in fact there are more than 77 different ethnic groups with their own distinct languages within ethiopia And on a holistic perspective note that ethiopia is africa's oldest independent country And it is the second largest country of africa in terms of population And if you ask whether it was ever been colonized, yes it was colonized by italy during a muslimist term And it was colonized for five years and after that it has never been colonized now coming to its political structure See it is a federal republic under the 1994 constitution and according to its constitution It has a powerful prime minister as the head of the government and a nominal president is the head of the state And it has got bicameral And the prime minister of this country is designated by the ruling party in the house of people's representatives And they also nominate a candidate for the presidency who is then subject to a vote by both legislative houses Apart from this another notable feature in ethiopia is its local government The structure of ethiopia's federal system allows the country's 10 regions a significant amount of autonomy So these are the 10 regions and each regional state is headed by a president who is elected by the state council And the cities are headed by a chairman So in simple words these regions have their own parliaments own security forces and they write to a referendum for independent rule So this is the basic political structure of ethiopia. Now the news is about the tigre crisis As you can see in this map tigre is the northernmost region of ethiopia And the issue is the conflict between the party of the prime minister of ethiopia mr abhi ahmed and the tigre people's liberation front See you should note that tigre region is wealthier than other parts of the country And more importantly it has got a well trained army also and this tigre people's liberation front They are fighting for the autonomy of tigre and also for the reconstitution of ethiopia on the basis of ethnically autonomous regions And the issue between the prime minister's party and this liberation front started when mr abhi ahmed became the prime minister of ethiopia in 2018 It is because until then the tigre officials enjoyed authority over the region But it was considerably reduced since mr abhi took office and the ongoing conflict is a result of this battle Between the two different political ideologies for supremacy and control in the country Particularly this issue began when the tigre region held local elections and the ethiopian federal government considered it to be illegal And this issue further gained seriousness when the prime minister ordered troops to counter a tigre rebel attack That happened on federal army barracks And this attack led to the killing of several civilians and due to these issues ethiopia is being accused by the united nations and Amnesty international they are accusing it of war crimes ethnic cleansing and also resorting to rape and hunger as weapons of war So the ethiopian crisis is also gaining significance and let us hope it doesn't become another Syria So these are some of the facts that you need to know about ethiopia and its recent crisis Now let us move on to the next discussion. Okay. Now. Let us take up this news article It reports about the incident of deaths caused by lightning See the news is that with the emergence of monsoon There is a rise in lightning linked deaths and as per the news article 68 people were struck by lightning and they died on a single day in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh together To discuss about a rare topic of lightning. Let us see how it is formed So you all would have seen an electric spark on an electric pole or in a plug socket Now this lightning is also an electric spark only but it happens on a huge scale And this lightning is caused by accumulation of charges in the cloud Now to understand that you should remember first about thunderstorms See during the development of a thunderstorm the air currents move upward While the water droplets move downward and these vigorous movements cause separation of charges And this forms the basis for lightning. Let us try to understand this in detail See lightning initially begins as static charges in the rain cloud and generally the winds inside the cloud are very turbulent So due to this the water droplets in the bottom part of the cloud are caught in the upward air current Because we saw that during thunderstorms the air currents move upward and these water droplets are lifted to great heights And usually at such greater heights the atmosphere is extremely cold And this results in the freezing of the water droplets which came from the bottom part and at the same time Simultaneously the downward current of air in the cloud it pushes the ice and the hail down from the top of the cloud So during this the ice which is going down meets the water which is coming up And in this process the electrons are stripped of and as a result of this the cloud contains a negatively charged bottom And a positively charged top and there is also an accumulation of positive charges near the ground as well So at this scenario what happens is when the magnitude of accumulated charges becomes very large Then the air which is normally a poor conductor of electricity is no longer able to resist their flow See air is normally a poor conductor of electricity because the atmosphere acts as an insulator between them in the cloud So ultimately when the strength of the charge overpowers the insulating properties of the atmosphere Then the negative and positive charges meet and this results in the production of streaks of bright light and sound Which is what we refer to as lightning and the process involved is called as electric discharge So here also remember that the lightning looks for the closest and easiest path to release its charge And it can occur between two or more clouds or even between the clouds and the earth And when this happens at that time the ones on the ground that is the human beings life in property They are also damaged. So in this regard the news article mentions certain facts See as per home ministry's statistics lightning was consistently cited to be one of the biggest natural disaster linked killer in India It is because according to the most recent statistics from the national crime records bureau more than 8,000 deaths in India were attributable To the forces of nature and in that around 30 percentage of the deaths were reported due to lightning And among the states Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh have reported maximum number of victims So these are some of the points that we need to know about lightning and how it is formed Now let us move on to the next discussion Our last discussion for the day is going to be based on this editorial article Which talks about school closures its consequences and what should be the way forward See yesterday also we saw about school closures and some of its impacts And today we will have a elaborate discussion with some facts in hand See various regions around the world which have been worse hit by the novel coronavirus pandemic Then India have kept their schools mostly open. For example, if you take Portugal France and the Netherlands They have kept their schools open only whereas in India most schools have been closed since the first national lockdown Even though other businesses have opened after the first second third lockdowns Like how closing of businesses affects the economy closure of schools also affects the children and its consequences are immense Because even prior to the pandemic there was huge attainment gap across students, especially in higher grades So prolonged school closures has further widened this gap, which is worrying And this will push the next generation deeper into poverty Another consequence is that prolonged school closures will increase the school dropouts Yesterday we saw that how it affects the female students See as per recent estimations nearly two-thirds of children in rural India may drop out of school Due to prolonged school closure already Haryana has reported 42 percentage drop in student enrollment in private schools And also prolonged school shutdowns has severely set back India's fight against the ills such as child labour and child marriage Because in this pandemic both are increasing rapidly Other than that due to the shutdown of schools midday mail schemes have been disrupted across various states So children are not getting nourishment and it is feared that because of this disruption Eight lakh additional children would face underweight and wasting wasting means low weight for height And this happens due to malnourishment Then other than this extended school closures is also affecting the mental well-being of our children Yesterday we saw that children are pushed into anxiety and depression This is also the case with well-off urban India and in the developed nations Because there also extended school closures is having severe impact on children's mental health For example in last vegas there was a surge of students suicides due to prolonged school closures And even united kingdom has reported a 40 percentage rise in the number of children taking anti-depressants So since the consequences of school closures are more the authors of this editorial are suggesting for reopening of schools But you may ask what about the risk of covid-19 infection in children if the schools are reopened What if they get infected see the risk of Covid-19 for children is much lower than for adults and this conclusion is based on a study in the us and europe This study was among 137 million school age children According to the study covid-19 is less than half as risky as seasonal influenza in the children's age group And it is also 20 times less risky than death by unintentional injury Similarly a study among the nearly 2 million children in sweden has found that there was not a single child death due to covid-19 In other words school age children are at a negligibly lower risk from covid-19 when compared to other threats Which we consider normal. So this was the conclusion of the study and also based on many other studies done in us and europe It is observed that covid-19 spread in schools is minimal compared to other locations And that is why authors suggesting for reopening of schools. We can see that we have reopened businesses We have reopened religious places. So why can't we reopen our schools? Children are suffering due to the closure of schools. So based on these studies, it seems worthy to reopen schools See one of the reasons behind non reopening of schools as said by many governments including the indian government Is the lack of vaccination See we cannot wait for vaccination of children to reopen school because covid-19 vaccination in children is still in the trial phase We must know the complete risk benefit analysis before vaccinating children And it may take a longer time to get a effective vaccine that will have minimal side effects on the children And then only vaccination in children can begin. Otherwise it will create long term damages only So as a conclusion we can say that instead of relying on vaccines for children Our government should seriously consider reopening schools and safeguard the future generation So these are some of the points that you can take note from this editorial article Now let us move on to the next discussion, which is the practice questions discussion So let us take this first question It asks with reference to ancient india the terms dolman chrome lake and menhir refers to option a taxation during gupta period option b megalithic structures option c irrigation system during maurya period Option d trade related terms during indus valley civilization and the correct answer is option b megalithic structures We saw about dolman menhir during our discussion Now let us take this next question. It is a three statement question First statement is lightning begins as static charges in a rain cloud. This statement is correct It starts as static charges in a rain cloud, which is generally filled with turbulent winds Statement two lightning looks for the closest and easiest path to release its charge This statement is also correct. We saw this during discussion statement three We see the lightning before we hear the thunder This statement is also correct because light travels much faster than sound waves And that is why we could see lightning before we hear the thunder See in this question you can easily arrive at the correct answer even without knowing many facts Because here the question asks for the incorrect statements But if you know that the statement three is correct because it is based on a basic science principle Which is light travels much faster than sound waves. If you know this fact for sure You can easily say statement three is correct But here the question asks for the incorrect statements. That means three should not be in the answer But option a b and c all have three and that is why the correct answer is none of the above That is none of the above statements are incorrect or in other words all of these statements are correct So this is another way to arrive at the correct answer Now this next question is based on retail direct scheme of reserve bank of india First statement it aims to provide online access to retail investors to the primary and secondary government securities market Statement two under the scheme individuals can maintain a retail direct guilt account with rba. Both the statements are correct We saw a detailed discussion about g second also about the scheme and here the question asks for the correct statements only So the correct answer is option c both one and two So this next question asks which of the following are iron ores magnetite hematite bauxite cuprites limonite and from the discussion you can easily say that one two and five are iron ores So they should be in answer and only one option has one two and five which is option a and here note that Bauxite is a aluminum ore and cuprite is a copper ore So the correct answer is option a now let us take this next question It is a map based question. It asks which among the following is a landlocked country option a erythria option b Ethiopia option c egypt option d kenya See all of these countries are in the african continent three of these are in the eastern part of africa And egypt is in the northern part see kenya borders the indian ocean and if you take egypt It borders the mediterranean sea and the red sea in the last few days We saw about the suez canal which is managed by the egypt government So you should know this fact that egypt is not a landlocked country and if you take erythria It also borders the red sea. So the correct answer is option b Ethiopia which borders erythria and kenya and also sudan south sudan somalia Let us take two main questions. You have to answer these questions You can answer these questions and post the answers in the comment section for peer review So we have come to the end of today's indianis analysis and the practice questions discussion session If you like this video, don't forget to like comment and share and to subscribe to shankar is academy youtube channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation