 A very good evening aspirants welcome to Hindi newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankar Iyer's academy for the date 16th of July 2022 displayed here are the list of articles that we are going to discuss today without any delay let's get into the article discussion. We are going to start our discussion today with this friend page article see it mentions that the ranking of India's higher education institutions is out see the ranking is provided under India rankings 2022. So let us see few details about this ranking and also we will see where each institution stands under this ranking. First of all know that India rankings 2022 is released under national institutional ranking framework shortly referred as NIRF. See this is the 7th consecutive edition of NIRF and this is why the news article mentions it as NIRF rankings. See this NIRF ranking was launched in the year 2015 by the Ministry of Education which is the erstwhile Ministry of Human Resource Development. See this framework outlines a methodology for ranking higher educational institutions across the country especially it ranks them in different domains of knowledge and these domains of knowledge are engineering, management, pharmacy, medical, dental, law and architecture. Other than this the ranking is also provided for excelling under the overall category apart from this it also ranks the higher education institutions under the categories of universities, colleges and research institutions. See it is very simple the ranking is based on different domains of knowledge for example engineering, management, pharmacy etc and there is an overall category and it is also based on the category of higher education institutions such as universities, colleges and research institutions. So this is about the ranking and also note that the ranking is based on the performance under each parameter. So what are those parameters based on which the ranking is done? The parameters include teaching, learning and resources parameter which is shortly referred as TLR, research and professional practices, RP, graduation outcomes, GO, outreach and inclusivity, OI and finally perception PR. See among these the teaching and research parameters have the highest weightage. Now under these five parameters there are sub parameters or sub heads. I have given those sub parameters or sub heads here just go through it. Now before seeing the rankings let me tell you why such a ranking is needed. See the NIRF rankings are important as they act as a guide to students for selection of universities based on a set of criteria. See it helps them to choose the best of best institutions and be a part of them and apart from this it also helps the universities to improve their performance on various ranking parameters and identify the gaps in research and gaps in the areas of improvement. And finally such a ranking at the national level instills a competitive spirit among the institutions to perform better and secure a higher rank in international ranking. So in this way it will make India one of the preferred places for higher education globally and due to its importance the Union Education Minister has noted that all institutions will have to be a part of the NIRF ranking system and in the future the NIRF rank will also be a criteria to receive government funds. And with this information let us come to the ranking now. See the Indian Institute of Technology Madras tops the ranking again. This is the fourth consecutive year that the IIT Madras has been ranked the best higher education institution in the country. It means the IIT Madras has topped in the overall category. And like the other years IITs that is the Indian Institute of Technologies have dominated the overall ranking that is 7 IITs are in the top 10 positions. See the Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru was ranked second followed by the IITs and the AIMS that is the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Javaharlal Nehru University are at the 9th and 10th position. So these are about the top 10 positions in the overall category. Now among the universities the Indian Institute of Science Javaharlal Nehru University and Jamaya Miliya Islamya are in the top 3 positions. Now coming to colleges the top 5 colleges include 3 from Delhi and 2 from Chennai. Here I have also given the top higher education institutions in each category or knowledge domain. So next time when you or your siblings or cousin choose a college prefer the ones that has topped the NIRF rankings. So that's all about this article discussion. With these learnt points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion. Now let us take up this editorial article for our discussion. See this editorial is about the state of Indian economy. It says that the finance ministry is optimistic about India's economic recovery. Even though they are optimistic they are also cautious about this optimism due to various economic factors at play. So basically the editorial is about why the ministry is optimistic and it is also about why the ministry is cautious. To be precise the editorial focuses on the positive science for the Indian economy and some worrying factors. See here I would request you to read this editorial if time permits after listening to this discussion. See I am saying this because after reading this editorial you will understand how to not write a mains answer. See this editorial is filled with fantastic points but it is arranged poorly. It is like how director Christopher Nolan presents a non-linear screenplay in his movies to intentionally confuse the audience. See an evaluator should understand what you are trying to say while reading a mains answer. Your points must be presented in such a way that the evaluator could easily go through all the points in the shortest time. See if you write your answer in a non-structured and unorganized way then the evaluator will not be able to go through all the points. This might affect your marks in the other answers as well. So what I am trying to say here is that present your answer with a neat structure. Now moving on see the plan for this discussion is that I will say the points that the editorial is trying to convey and I will also explain the economic terms mentioned in this article. Now before getting into the discussion I have displayed the syllabus regarding this discussion for your reference. Please go through it. Now let's start our discussion. See firstly let us see the reason for the finance ministry's optimism. We all know inflation is bad for the economy right? Why is it bad? For you to understand why inflation is bad you must know about a famous statement said by American economist Milton Friedman. See he said that inflation is taxation without legislation. What he is trying to say with this statement? See due to inflation the purchasing power of the people will come down. Say for example you are a monthly income earner and you earn 10,000 per month. Let us assume that you are spending 4,000 for rent and 4,000 rupees for food and you are saving the remaining 2,000 rupees. Now let us say that after inflation you are spending 5,000 for rent and 5,000 for food. Now what has happened here? Due to inflation your saving rate has come down. It has come down to 0. It is the savings that you keep in the banks that gets converted into productive capital once it is given as loan by the banks to entrepreneurs. So due to inflation if your saving rate drops the banks ability to lend also comes down and this in turn brings down the investment made by the entrepreneurs. So all this results in the decreased economic growth and a slowing employment ratio. See it is due to this effect that governments all over the world deeply worry about increasing inflation and they try to address the inflation at all cost. Now why am I saying this here? See some events are happening in the world that will bring down price levels in our country and this is exactly why the finance ministry is being optimistic. Now let us see what are those events that are happening in the world that brings down the price levels in India. Firstly crude oil prices in the global market are expected to fall in the coming days. This is because there is a feeling in the global market that developed countries are about to face recession. So when they face recession demand in the global market will drop and the price of the crude oil will also come down and this will bring down the inflation. And secondly our government expects the global shale oil production to increase. Once the production increases the global oil supply will also increase. And once the supply increases the oil price will come down. And this factor here will also bring down the inflation in India. And thirdly the prices of the industrial metals are at a 16 month low. That means the price of the industrial metals are low. And in addition to this the food prices which were higher before will also come down. So these are the three factors that will bring down the inflation rate in India. And in addition to these factors the government and the RBI on their part have also taken steps to curtail inflation. Here the article talks about the recent policy rate hike by RBI. We all know that RBI recently hiked the repo rate by 50 base points. And the repo rate is currently at 4.90 percentage. I hope everyone knows what a repo rate is. For people who do not know repo rate is the rate at which the banks borrow money from the RBI. Once the repo rate is increased the cost funds for the bank will also increase. And what will happen afterwards? If the cost fund for the banks is increasing then it will bring down the bank's ability to lend. Once the bank's ability to lend comes down the money supply in the economy will also come down which in turn will bring down the inflation. And the next step is taken by our government. See our government on its part has cut down the excise duty on diesel and petrol. This news we have seen n number of times in our daily news analysis. So this cut in the excise duty will bring down the fuel prices. And this in turn will reduce the inflationary pressure. And finally the government has imposed a higher import duty on gold. See this will bring down gold imports in our country. This in turn will reduce the outflow of dollars from our economy. When the outflow of US dollars from our economy comes down the exchange rate between the US dollars and Indian rupees will stabilise. See this will also help bring down the inflation. See these are the steps taken by the RBI and the government to curtail inflation. And in addition to these another reason for optimism for the government is that the government finances currently are very sound. This means that the present financial status of the government is very good. Now let us see two factors that led to the present good financial status of the government. See government in its part has taken some steps to augment its finances. Here the government has recently introduced a windfall tax on oil marketing companies. See windfall tax is nothing but a tax levied on companies which have made unreasonably high profits. Normally due to unusually favourable market factors. See to know more about the windfall tax please refer to the 14th of July daily news analysis video. We are not going to discuss more about the windfall tax here. Just know that government has levied windfall tax on oil marketing companies. So this windfall tax is the first factor that has led to the good financial status of the government. Secondly the government has also received a bumper GST collection. See with the GST rate going to increase on some items in a few days the GST collection will also increase further. So all these things will increase the fiscal capability. That is as the government reverence increases due to the new windfall tax and the increased GST collection the fiscal deficit of the government will come down. Fiscal deficit here is nothing but the amount borrowed by the government to finance its expenditure. Having seen all the reasons for the optimism now let us see the reason why the government is still cautious. Before seeing the points mentioned in the editorial we must first understand what is current account deficit shortly referred as EAD. Then only you will be able to understand the points mentioned in the editorial better. See the current account actually measures the flow of goods and services in and out of the country. Basically CAD is said to have occurred when the value of imported goods and services exceeds the value of exported goods and services. See CAD includes nations, net, trade and products and services, its net earnings on, cross border investments including interest and dividends and its net transfer payments such as remittances and foreign aid. See like inflation all the governments worry about the current account deficit also. For a country like India which depends on imported crude to meet its fuel needs containing the current account deficit is very important. This is because the current account deficit is linked to the exchange rate. If the CAD increases India has to spend more dollars due to the increase in imports. And this will bring down the supply of US dollars in our economy. If the supply of US dollar comes down then the exchange rate between the US dollar and the Indian rupees increases. To stop this government have to bring down the imports. In the case of India we cannot bring down the imports. Why is this? This is because most of our imports are crude oil. See we need crude oil for our economy to function smoothly so we cannot bring it down. So what the editorial mentions is that this is a vicious cycle. See our current account deficit is increasing because the global crude oil prices are increasing. As a result of increased current account deficit the value of Indian rupee is depreciating and the US dollar is becoming costlier. And as the cost of the US dollar increases our import bill increases. And once our imports increase then again the current account deficit also increase. See it is a never ending cycle. So for a country like India similar to inflation the current account deficit must also be kept under check. Now with this information let us see the factors that are leading to increasing current account deficit in India. As we saw earlier due to the signs of recession in the developed countries the price of the crude oil will come down. But this will take effect only after sometime right you cannot see immediate results. So until then the current account deficit continues to increase due to high crude oil prices. Now secondly due to the ongoing war in Ukraine the price of the edible oil like the sunflower oil is still high. So here also the current account deficit increases. Since the cost of importing edible oil is high. And finally the US Federal Reserve that is the US central bank has tightened its policy stance due to inflation in the country. That is the US Federal Reserve has increased its policy rate and it continues to do so. So what is happening here? Due to the tight monetary policy there the global supply of US dollars has come down. In addition to this the foreign investors who had invested in Indian capital market are pulling their investments from India. And due to this also the supply of US dollars in the Indian economy has come down. See this in turn is increasing the exchange rate and increasing our import bill and the current account deficit. Like we saw earlier it is a vicious cycle. And these are the three main reasons why the finance ministry continues to stay cautious even though there are optimistic signs. See the editorial offers a solution to this problem. We already saw that due to the increased tax revenue fiscal deficit is no longer a concern for the government. Right? So the editorial suggests that the government can increase its spending in augmenting the growth and the RBI can tighten its policy stance and it can control the inflation. So on one hand the inflation can be controlled. On the other hand the economic growth can also be attained. And that's all regarding this editorial here. Now with these learnt points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion. See this news article here. It talks about a demand made by India to the World Trade Organization. Let us see what is the demand and the reason behind it. See the demand is to allow India to export food grains from its public stock holding. Especially to those nations which are facing food crisis. See the public stock holding is a type of policy instrument that the government uses to meet the food security of a country. Under the public stock holding programs some governments purchase stockpile and distribute food to people in need. But the problem is even though food security is a legitimate policy objective some public stock holding programs are considered to distort trade. See this is when they involve purchases from farmers at prices fixed by the government which are known as supported prices or administered prices. You take India the food corporation of India is responsible for procuring food grains such as wheat and rice. It is also responsible for stocking these food grains. See this stocking of food grains is called as buffer stock and this food procured by the FCI that is the buffer stock is distributed to people through public distribution system. See PDS is a program which provides food grains and other essential commodities at subsidized prices in rural and urban areas among the poorest sections of the society. It is distributed through government regulated ration shops called the fair price shops. So here the buffer stock is not only for helping the poor but also for food security that is for ensuring availability, accessibility and affordability of food. So the whole PDS system from the FCI procurement to the distribution of food grains through fair price shops is the public stock holding program of India. But remember the food grains are procured at a pre-announced subsidized price called the minimum support price. See procuring food grains at MSP is considered as distorting trade as it is said to be above the agreed limits for trade distorting domestic support. So the same has been challenged in the World Trade Organization. Similarly several public stock holding policies of other developing countries have also been challenged. But a final decision on such policies have not been arrived yet. Rather a relief measure was agreed at the 2013 Bali Ministerial Conference. It was agreed that the public stock holding programs can continue on an interim basis. That is the programs in developing countries would not be challenged legally even if a country's agreed limits for trade distorting domestic support were breached. See even though the programs are allowed as of now as per the WTO norms under the agreement on agriculture countries are not allowed to export food grains from the public stock holding programs commercially. See this is mainly because they are procured at subsidized rates. But now India has demanded to allow export from the public stock holdings. The reason are twofold. One is due to the pandemic and the Russian Ukraine war. See because of these two factors global supply chains have been affected greatly. And this has caused many nations to face food crisis. So to help such needy nations and to help in reducing hunger or food insecurity India wants to export grains from the public stock holdings. Now secondly it is because it is felt by India that world food program is not doing enough to handle food crisis. See the WFP is a UN entity and the world's largest humanitarian organization that works in over 120 countries and territories. It uses food assistance as a measure to save lives in emergencies, to combat hunger, to help people recovering from conflict, disasters etc. See it is obvious that for providing food assistance first WFP has to procure food. But due to WTO's export restrictions and prohibitions the WFP's food procurement efficiency has been affected. So the World Trade Organization and the World Food Program came to a consensus and thus an agreement was signed in the year 2021. As per this it was committed to not impose export prohibitions or restrictions on foodstuffs purchased for non-commercial humanitarian purposes by the World Food Program. And the same was again agreed in the 12th ministerial conference of WTO that was held in June 2022. So that means the countries are encouraged to sell to World Food Program if they want to assist in any humanitarian programs. But then why India wants a separate route? See it is because according to India the procurements made by the World Food Program is grossly inadequate to provide support during humanitarian crisis or food security related challenges faced by the countries. It is saying that in the year 2021 also the World Food Program could only procure 4.47 million tons at about 1.7 billion dollars. See this is grossly inadequate to handle the situation. So let us wait and see if India's demands are fulfilled. Now that's all for this article discussion. With these points in mind let us move on to the next article discussion. See this article here it is going to be our final article for today's discussion. See recently there was a question that was asked a part of the MA history examination conducted by Periyar University. And this question is the core of the problem. And due to this question Tamil Nadu SCST commission has taken Siyomoto cognizance of the issue. The commission also said that the said question was demeaning to the SC and ST communities. And this is about the news article given here. And in this context let us revise about the National Commission on SC and the National Commission on ST. See both these commissions are constitutional bodies. The original constitution under article 338 provided for a special officer for the SCs and STs. And this special officer is appointed by the President. See this special officer for SCs and STs was initially designated as the Commissioner for Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes. But in the year 1990 through the 65th Constitutional Amendment Act the parliament replaced this one member body with a multi-member body. So it was through the 65th Constitutional Amendment Act the National Commission for SCs and STs was created. See again in the year 2003 there was one more amendment and that amendment is the 89th Constitutional Amendment Act. See the 89th Constitutional Amendment Act amended article 338 and it introduced article 338 EA. So based on this amendment the National Commission for Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes was bifurcated into National Commission for Schedule Caste under article 338 and National Commission for Schedule Tribe under article 338 EA. See I have displayed here the major functions of the National Commission for SC and ST. You can pause the video and go through it. See from the function itself you can easily find out that most of the functions of SC Commission and ST Commission are overlapping. The only difference being the National Commission for Schedule Tribe deals with the Schedule Tribes and the National Commission for Schedule Caste deal with the Schedule Caste. And if you look carefully you can find that the National Commission for the Schedule Caste also discharges similar functions with regard to the Anglo-Indian community. Now let's come to the news article. See in the news article we saw that Tamil Nadu SC and ST Commission took CO motor action against the issue. Now you may ask a question does the National Commission of SC and ST have CO motor power? Yes both the commissions have CO motor powers and they can investigate and monitor all matters relating to the safeguards of SCs and STs. As we saw the National Commission of SC and ST they are constitutional bodies. But what about the State Commission for SC and ST? See the State Commission for the SC and ST are not constitutional bodies. In most cases they are created by an act of the state legislature. Now in the case of Tamil Nadu the SC and ST commission was set up in the year 2021 by the Tamil Nadu State Commission for Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes Act. But in some cases like Rajasthan State Commission for SC and ST and the State Schedule Caste Commission of Bihar they are not statutory bodies. That is they are not created by an act of state legislature instead they are created by executive action. We have to know these points. And that's all for this article discussion with these take away points. Now let us quickly go through what all we saw today. Firstly we discussed about the National Institutional Ranking Framework NIRF. In that we saw India rankings 2022. It is the 7th consecutive edition of NIRF. NIRF was launched in the year 2015 by Ministry of Education. We saw that this framework outlines a methodology for ranking higher educational institutions. And the rankings were based on different domains of knowledge. We saw different domains engineering management pharmacy medical dental law and architecture. And we saw the different categories of higher educational institutions. And at the different categories we saw universities colleges and research institutions. And we saw the overall category as well. And after this we moved on to see the parameters based on which the performance of higher educational institutions were ranked. The five parameters includes teaching learning resources research and professional practices graduation outcomes outreach and inclusivity perception. And we saw the highest weightages given to teaching and research parameters. And after this we saw the need for the ranking. It serves as a guide to students for the selection of universities. It helps the universities to improve their performance and identify the gaps in research and improvement. And it serves as a competitive spirit among the institutions to perform better. And it helps to secure higher rank in international ranking as well. And we saw the ranking of India rankings 2022. We saw that IIT Madras tops the ranking in overall category. And the top 10 institutions include seven IITs and Indian Institute of Science and Ames and Jawaharlal Nehru University. And we saw the top three positions in the universities. And after that we saw top position backed by the institutions in every domain. And after the NIRF we saw the editorial article. We saw why inflation is bad because the price rise will cause the saving rates to come down. See it is the savings that is kept in the banks gets converted into productive capital. And it is given as loans by the bank to an entrepreneur. So if the saving rates come down the bank's ability to lend also comes down. So this results in decreased economic growth and slowing employment ratio. And we saw the reasons for optimistic attitude of our finance ministry. The first one is crude oil prices are expected to fall because it is believed that developed countries are about to face recession. And the second reason is that it is expected that the shale oil production will increase which will bring down the prices. And third reason is that the price of industrial metals are low and the food prices are also expected to come down. And after this we saw the measurements taken by government and RBI to curtail inflation. See RBI recently hiked the policy rate by 50 base points. So the report rate is currently at 4.90 percentage. And the government has cut down excise duty on diesel and petrol. The government has also imposed a higher import duty on gold. So this will reduce the outflow of US dollars and in turn will stabilize the exchange rate between US dollars and Indian rupees. And after this we saw steps taken by the government to augment the finances of the government. See the government has recently introduced a windfall tax on the oil marketing companies. And it is also said that the government received a bumper GST collection. And after this we saw about current account deficit. See it is nothing but the situation where the value of imported goods and services exceeds the value of exported goods and services. We saw the vicious cycle. See if current account deficit increases India has to spend more dollars due to increased imports and this will bring down the supply of US dollars and this in turn will lead to depreciation of Indian currency. So what can be done here we have to bring down the imports. But in the case of India we cannot bring down the imports because most of our imports are crude oil. Crude oil is necessary for our economy to function smoothly. So we saw that it is a vicious cycle. And after that we saw some of the factors that led to increased current account deficit. See even though it is expected that the developed countries are going to face recession the prices of the crude oil will not immediately come down. It will take some time. And the second reason is that because of the ongoing war in Ukraine the price of the edible oil is still high. And this causes the current account deficit to increase. And finally because of the US central bank tight monetary policy foreign investors who had invested in Indian capital market are pulling their investments out of India. And this has reduced the supply of US dollars in Indian economy. And again this is also a vicious cycle. And finally we ended this editorial discussion by seeing some of the measures suggested in the editorial. It is said that the government can increase its spending in augmenting the growth and the RBI can tighten its policy stands and control inflation. Now moving on. Thirdly we saw about the World Trade Organisations provisions which prevents the export of food grains from public stock holdings. We saw what is public stock holding. Under these programs the government's purchase, stockpile and distribute food to people in need. See in India food corporation of India is responsible for procuring food grains such as wheat and rice. And it is distributed through public distribution system such as fair price shops. See it is considered as a measure to distort trade because they are procured at pre-announced subsidized price called the minimum support price. And it is above the agreed limits for trade distorting domestic support. In the year 2013 in the Bali ministerial conference it was agreed that public stock holding programs can continue on an interim basis and as per the WTO norms under the agreement on agriculture countries are not allowed to export food grains from the public stock holding programs commercially. Why is this? This is because they are procured at subsidized rates. But why has India demanded to allow the export from the public stock holdings? This is because of two reasons. One is due to pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war and because of these two factors global supply chains have affected and India wants to help needy nations and also wants to help to reduce hunger and food insecurity. And the second reason is that it is well by India that the world food program is not doing enough to handle the food crisis. That's all for this article. And finally we moved on to the article which is about the SCNST commission. Under this article we saw about the National Commission on SCNST. We saw that they are constitutional bodies under article 338 initially there was a special officer for SCNST but in the year 1990 through the 65th Amendment Act one member body was replaced with a multi-member body called as National Commission for SCNSTs. And again in the year 2003 as per the 89th Constitutional Amendment Act this one commission was bifurcated into National Commission for Schedule Caste under article 338 and National Commission for Schedule Tribe under 338A. We saw the functions of it and finally we ended that discussion by seeing that in some of the states the state commission for SCNST are created by an act and in some of the states the SCNST commission were created by an executive action. Now with these points in mind let us move on to the next part of the discussion that is the practice prelims question discussion. Today we have three prelims questions. I'll solve two of them and one of them is a quiz question for you. Now let us solve this first question. Consider the following statements with reference to India rankings 2022 under the National Institutional Ranking Framework. Statement one, an institution with a bad accreditation grade cannot get a good rank and vice versa. See accreditation is a certification of quality for a fixed period. It is a quality assurance process that helps educational institutions to attain their academic goals by meeting the guidelines on standards. These guidelines and standards were set by accreditation granting agencies such as National Assessment and Accreditation Council or National Board of Accreditation etc. See in the case of National Assessment and Accreditation Council the accreditation is for five years. So accreditation is a five-year comprehensive assessment of an institution as a whole. On the other hand ranking is an early affair that is it is like an annual report card. Accreditation gives absolute grade but ranking is related to other institutions which are similarly placed. So accredited institutions can slip in their early performance and this slip is reflected in their early ranking. So just because an institution has a good accreditation does not mean it will definitely have a good ranking. The converse is also true. Just because an institution did not get a good accreditation grade it doesn't mean that its early performance will not be improved. See early performance could be captured by the ranking and it helps in placing that particular institution at a higher level. So here the statement saying that an institution with a bad accreditation grade cannot get a good rank is incorrect. Now coming to statement two Indian Institute of Technology Medras has topped the list for the fourth consecutive year. This we saw in the discussion itself. The statement is correct. So the correct option here is option B2 only. Now moving on to the second question. See the question says that the World Food Program was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its effort to combat hunger. See the statement one is correct. World Food Program was awarded Nobel Peace Prize in the year 2020 for its effort to combat hunger and for its contribution to bettering the conditions for peas in conflict affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict. Now coming to statement two WTO members shall not impose export prohibitions or restrictions on food staffs purchased for non-commercial humanitarian purposes by the World Food Program. This also we saw in the discussion. This statement is also correct. What has the question asked? The question has asked for the incorrect statements. So the correct answer here is option D neither one nor two. Now coming to the final question. It is about the organizational setup of the National Commission for Schedule Caste. Read the question carefully. Try to attempt this question and post your answer in the comment section. I have given a main question for your practice. So I interested aspirants. Write it and post it 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. 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