 Welcome to the Hindu news analysis for the date 24th February 2020. The list of news articles taken up for today's discussion is displayed here along with the page numbers of five different editions. The handwritten notes in PDF format and the time stamping of all the news articles is available in the description section and also in the comment section for the benefit of the smartphone users. Let us now start our analysis. This news article is about a recent report released on the state of children in the world. The report is titled as a future for the world's children. So in this context, let us see who has developed this report and then we shall see the important findings of this report which will be helpful for your mains preparation. The syllabus that is relevant to the analysis of this news article is given here for your reference. See, we know that the world is committed to achieve the ambitious sustainable development goals by the year 2030. Some of the important goals are to end poverty, to reduce inequality and to enable more peaceful and prosperous societies by the year 2030. Here it is to be noted that the sustainable development goals cannot be achieved without the realization of child rights. They can be achieved only if children around the globe can secure their right to good health, also quality education, a clean planet and more. Because children are the leaders of tomorrow, so their ability to protect the future depends on what we do to secure their rights today. So this report which is titled a future for the world's children provides an insight into our achievements in child development so far. Know that this report has been jointly developed by the World Health Organization, then UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund and the Lancet. Now let us discuss the important findings of the report. See this report is based on the status of children in 180 countries across the world. The numbers of these countries were monitored on factors such as child flourishing and future profile, then sustainability and then economic equity. It also covered the sustainable development goal indicators of the concerned country and the future threat to children from greenhouse gas emissions. The worst part is that not a single country performed well on all these three measures of child flourishing, sustainability and equity. This simply means that not even a single country in the world is adequately protecting children's health, the environment and their future. We know that over the last few decades there are many improvements in survival, nutrition and education of children but even then today's children face an uncertain future. So what are the major threats faced by children and adolescents across the world? According to this report children and adolescents are under immediate threat from ecological degradation, then climate change, then inequalities and then conflicts and also because of migration. So they are under threat from exploitative and predatory commercial and marketing practices that is being followed across the world because such practices heavily push the processed fast food, then sugary drinks, alcohol and even tobacco at the children and it ends up threatening their health. Next if you see another persisting issue is the so called double burden of malnutrition. It means that overweight and obesity can coexist with undernourishment and micronutrient deficiencies. Within a single population, here micronutrients referred vitamins and minerals. See the world health organization describes the rapid rise in childhood obesity as one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century because the number of obese children and adolescents has increased 11 times in the past four decades. It was 11 million in 1975, it has increased to 124 million in the year 2016. This has mainly happened due to rapid urbanization, which increased access to junk food and reduced access to play areas and safe exercise spaces. So more food intake but less physical activity has led to obesity. So these are some of the threats that are faced by children and adolescents across the world. Now let us know about the top performing and bottom performing countries mentioned in this report. The performance are indicated by the child flourishing index, we have already explained about the factors contributing to this index that is discussed in this report. As per this report, countries like Norway, South Korea, Netherlands, France and Ireland are the top performers. Here you have to note that all these countries are high income countries. As per World Bank definition, countries with a gross national income per capita of $12,376 or more are called as high income countries. This value is as of 2018. Now if you look at this report, it has mentioned the bottom performance of this child flourishing index, which are the countries of Central African Republic, then Chad, Somalia, Niger and Mali. Here you can see that all of them are African countries. Also they are low income countries. So as per World Bank definition, low income countries are those countries with gross national income per capita of $1025 or less as of 2018. Now let us discuss India specific findings. See India's rank 131 out of 180 countries. Also note that India is classified as a lower middle income country. As per World Bank definition, a lower middle income country has a gross national income per capita between $1026 and $3995. Now let us compare India's performance with its neighbors. See the country of Pakistan is ranked at 140, then China at 43, Afghanistan at 171, Nepal at 144, Bhutan at 113, Myanmar at 120, Sri Lanka at 68 and Bangladesh at 143 out of 180 countries. So from this data, we can see that many of India's neighbors are performing far better than India in several aspects, though India claims to be the leader of the region. Now let us compare India's position with BRICS grouping. See Brazil is ranked at 90th, Russia at 79th, China at 43rd as we just saw and South Africa at 127th. So even among BRICS grouping, India's rank is at the bottom. So as we always insist, try to know the ranks of India's immediate neighbors and also with certain groupings like BRICS, SARC, etc. whenever you are studying about any indices. Now let us get back to the report. Earlier we have said that most of the high income countries are topping the list, but all is not well with them as well because many of the high income countries are high emission countries. Also they have a very high per capita carbon dioxide emission rates. That is, they are polluting a lot. So based on this, this report has ranked 180 countries. That is based on carbon dioxide per capita and carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal targets. And this is called the Sustainability Index. In this list, we can see a flip-flop. That is, in the sustainability ranking, low income countries like Burundi, Chad, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic are the top performers. The bottom performers are high income countries like Qatar, Trinidad and Tobago, then Kuwait, then United Arab Emirates, then Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. You can note that majority of these countries are oil producing countries. In this index, India's ranked at 77 out of 180 countries. There are some countries which is on track to beat the carbon dioxide emission targets by the year 2030. And they also perform fairly on child flourishing measures. They are the countries of Albania, Armenia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Uruguay, Vietnam, etc. We know that over the past two decades, the world countries have improved a lot in child and adolescent health. But the progress is stalled and it is set to reverse. The report says that an estimated 250 million children who are younger than five years old in low and middle income countries are at risk of not reaching their development potential. So what can be the solution? We are well aware of certain common solutions. Like we need our governments to make decisions and policies which will protect today's children and youth, their health, their rights and above all, this planet. But if you see this report has suggested certain solutions which is different for different countries, it tells that the wealthier countries need to focus on cutting the carbon dioxide emissions because we just saw that as per the Sustainability Index, the high income countries, that is the wealthier countries are high in carbon dioxide emissions. So if they're not going to reduce the emissions, then these carbon dioxide emissions will affect the future of all children across the world. Then this report suggests that the low and middle income countries need to achieve more development, more equitable distribution of benefits with special focus on children and adolescents. So where they need to focus is on health, education and other social sectors within their budgets. Here we know that India spending less than 2% of its GDP on health sector. This report suggests that if India can spend 5% of its GDP on health, then that would be a fourfold increase in government spending on health. Likewise, this report has suggested different solutions for different countries. Apart from this, this report has also given certain recommendations for placing children at the center of the Sustainable Development Goals. As you can see in this picture, now we can make use of one or two recommendations from this picture for your main exam. Here you can see that most of the recommendations are policy level recommendations at the international level. This is all about the discussion of this news article. In this news article, we have seen a report which has been developed by the World Health Organization UNICEF and Lancet together, which is titled, A Future for the World's Children. This report focuses on securing the rights of the children so that they would protect the future better. In this context, we saw the important findings of the report and two indices which are a part of this report. One is the Flourishing Index and the other is the Sustainability Index. And finally, we saw the suggestions given in this report, which is different for different countries and the recommendations given by this report for placing children at the center of the Sustainable Development Goals. Let us move on to the next news article. This editorial is about the demographic dividend of India. The author of this editorial, who is a former secretary to the government of India, lists what needs to be done to make use of the available demographic dividend. So first, let us see the definition of demographic dividend and then let us move on to the editorial. The syllabus that is relevant to the analysis of this editorial is given here for your reference. So what is the definition of demographic dividend? See, when the working-edge population is growing faster than the other age groups, then these conditions can yield an opportunity for accelerated economic growth. So this is what we call it as demographic dividend. In other words, demographic dividend is the economic growth potential that can result from shifts in a population's age structure, mainly when the share of the working-edge population is larger than the non-working-edge share of population. According to United Nations, the working-edge population is 15 to 64 years. And the non-working-edge population is 14 years and younger and 65 years and older. Now if you see with respect to India, India has an advantage of demographic dividend like no other country in the world. It is because India has over 60% of its population in the working-edge group at present. Especially if you see, 35% of India's population is between 15 and 29 years of age. Hence, India's population is among the youngest in an aging world according to the author. In addition to this, the author even notes by the year 2022, the median age in India will be 28 years. See, median age is nothing but the age that divides the population into two parts of equal size. On one side, there will be persons with ages above the median. So this number will be equal to the number of that population with ages below the median age. Here it is 28 years. So we can say that India is having a favorable median age also if you compare with other countries. According to the author, for China and United States, it will be 37. For Western European countries, it will be 45. And for Japan, it will be 49. But if you see in case of India, it's just 28 years. So India has a favorable median age. Then the author adds that the demographic dividend of India started in the early 2000s. And it is available for close to the next five decades, that is from 2000s till 2050s. So this is an extraordinary opportunity for India to use its young population to attain the economic growth. This is why the name of this editorial is titled as Youth Can Be a Clear Advantage for India. But if you see, there are two limitations in this advantage for India, which the author has discussed in this editorial. The first limitation is India has population heterogeneity. That is, population of different age groups are scattered across India. So this ensures that the demographic dividend becomes available at different times in different states. For example, Kerala's population is already aging. But in Bihar, the working age group is predicted to continue increasing till 2051. So according to the author, by the year 2031, the overall size of our vast working age population would have declined in 11 major states. The second limitation is how we are going to harness the demographic dividend. Because harnessing the demographic dividend will depend upon the employability of the working age population, then their health, education, vocational training and skills, and also appropriate land and labour policies as well as good governance. So all these factors are required to harness the demographic dividend of India. But for this, we need policies and programs which are aligned to the demographic shift that we just discussed. Then only India will gain from its demographic opportunity. So using the available demographic dividend is quite important for India. It is because this will lead to economic growth. According to the author, even countries like Japan, China and South Korea have attained spectacular growth due to their demographic dividend and due to the factors that we just saw. Now what could be learned from these countries is that the countries will benefit from the economic potential of their increasing number of youth when that country succeeds in providing good health, quality education and decent employment to their entire population. So these three are the prerequisites, good health, quality education and decent employment. It should be provided to the entire population, not just to certain segments that are defined by socioeconomic status, geography or historical legacy. So how to provide good health, quality education and decent employment? First, let us look at employment. For employment, government should have appropriate policies that could create additional jobs which can keep pace with the projected annual increases in the working age population. The next important point in decent employment is that it can be provided if the workforce is well educated and appropriately skilled. But the necessary skill set and education level is not available in India. According to UNICEF 2019 reports, at least 47% of Indian youth are not on track to have the education and skills that are necessary for employment by the year 2030. So if the required education and skill set is not available to the youth, then the projected demographic dividend would turn into a demographic disaster because there will be unskilled, underutilized and frustrated young population by then. Now what is the reason for this poor education and skill set? Firstly, according to the National Family Health Service, the poor infrastructure in government schools, the malnutrition of children, the scarcity of trained teachers all together has led to poor learning outcomes of the children. And these children have become today's youth. So this is one reason. Here the need of the RIS is high quality education as it achieves gender parity and it motivates people forward for a more productive life. So to provide high quality education in India, a coordinator incentive structure is required and this structure should stimulate the states to adopt a broadly uniform public school system. And these public school systems should focus on equity and quality so that it will yield a knowledge society. And they should also ensure that geography does not surpass the demography. That is for those children who are living in remote locations must also have access to public school system. So geography shall not surpass demography. Then such public school systems should also ensure that the child completes high school education and the child is pushed to appropriate skilling, training and vocational education in line with what the market wants. As we just told, this has to be ensured irrespective of rural or urban setting. According to the author, this kind of structure will achieve the required goal faster than privatizing of school education, which is happening at a large scale at present. See this kind of public school system can be achieved as today, most districts have excellent broadband connectivity. So there is an opportunity that school curricula can be modernized. More investment can be made in teacher training. Then new technology can be deployed to put in place virtual classrooms together with massive open online courses in short MOOCs. So this will help to prepare the huge workforce for the next generation jobs. And then if you see the investments in open digital universities can be done, which would further help to yield a higher educated book. The second reason is that even though female literacy is growing, it is not translating into relevant and marketable skills. So focus on this area is required. A comprehensive approach is required to improve women's likelihood to end up in gainful employment. For this, we need to have flexible classrooms with flexible entry and exit policies for women. Such policies should be available in virtual classrooms, even in modules for open digital training and also in vocational education. Next, with respect to women workforce, nowadays job portals and organizations are providing employment for trained women, even from home. So if they are paid equal pay, then it will make them to stay longer in the workforce. So this is all about education and employment, which the author has discussed. Next in line is good health. According to the author in India, the health of the population, that is the health of Indian population, is caught between two things. One is the rising demand for health services. And on the other side, competition for scarce resources. See, as per the National Samples Survey Office data of 2018 on health, there is a deep rooted downturn in rural economy. It means that quality healthcare is not affordable for the rural people. So now what people are actually doing in rural areas is that they're moving more towards public healthcare systems and their dependency on private hospitals has reduced. So this is the present scenario, but if you look at the recently table union budget for the financial year 2020-2021, it lays emphasis on private provisioning of healthcare. So what the author tries to convey is that instead of investing on public health infrastructure, this move of the government will divert the public investment away from the public health infrastructure to the private infrastructure. And this is going to only promote the earnings of underutilized private hospitals. Instead of modernizing and upgrading, the most required public health systems in each district. So what the author suggests is that 70% of health sector budgets should be assigned to integrate and strengthen primary and integrated public healthcare services. So this is what the author suggests. As a conclusion, from the above discussion, we can say that the policies that we adopt and the effective implementations of those policies will ensure that India's demographic dividend will be a boom for India. This is all about the discussion of this editorial. In this editorial, we saw the definition of demographic dividend and the suggestions given by the author in order to make use of India's demographic dividend, which will be available till 2050s. So far, we have seen a news article on Lancet report and an editorial on India's demographic dividend. See the children of today are also the future demographic dividend of India. So in this respect, the suggestions that we saw in both these articles will be helpful from your mains preparation. So try to have an idea. Now have a look at the practice question. Let us move on to the next news article. Now we are going to see three news articles which discuss about the tiger reserves. So the common theme here is tiger reserves. Let us see all these three news articles one by one now. The common syllabus that is relevant to the analysis of all these three news articles is given here for your reference. First, let us look at a news article on MM Hills Wildlife Sanctuary. The news is that the Malay Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Sanctuary in the state of Karnataka will soon be declared as a tiger reserve in the near future. So in this context, let us see in brief about this Malay Mahadeshwara Wildlife Sanctuary and then we'll see about the other tiger reserves that are present in the state of Karnataka. Know that there are several previous equations asked in UPSC prelims which are directly or indirectly related to the tiger reserves in India which I'll look at them at the end of the analysis of all these three news articles. Now let us discuss in brief about this Malay Mahadeshwara Wildlife Sanctuary. See the Malay Mahadeshwara Hills Wildlife Division is located in Chamrajnagar district in southern Karnataka. It was declared as a wildlife sanctuary in 2013. It covers an extent of about 906 square kilometers across Kullegal, Hanoor and Malay Mahadeshwara Hills subdivisions in the state of Karnataka. So just have an idea that it is present in the state of Karnataka. Now let us understand the flora of this region. See the forests of this wildlife sanctuary are principally of dry deciduous type. It degrades to scrub forest in the fringe areas. Also if you see there are patches of moist deciduous then semi-ebergreen, then evergreen and shola forests that are interspersed at varying altitudes. Now let us look at the fauna of the region. You can find animals like tiger, elephant, leopard, wild dog, bison, sambar, sputter deer, then barking deer, sloth bear, wild boar, foran antelope. Also you can find varieties of reptiles, birds in this wildlife sanctuary. Now let us come to the news article. The news article says that the Malay Mahadeshwara Hills wildlife sanctuary is likely to be declared as a tiger reserve. So once this wildlife sanctuary is declared as a tiger reserve, then the Chamrajnagar district in which this wildlife sanctuary is located will have a rare distinction in the country. So what is the distinction? This district is going to have three tiger reserves. The other two are Bandipur Tiger Reserve and next the Biligiri Ranganada Temple Tiger Reserve. So the portion of all these three tiger reserves will be within the territorial limits of this Chamrajnagar district. Now what is the significance of declaring this MM Hills Wildlife Sanctuary as a tiger reserve? We already said that it covers an extent of about 906 square kilometers. According to this news article, this tiger reserve will have a core area of around 670 square kilometers. Also at present it has 20 tigers. Now this wildlife sanctuary is contiguous to Biligiri Ranganada Temple Tiger Reserve on one side and Satyamangalam Tiger Reserve on the other side. As you can see here, also if you see the Kaabheri Wildlife Sanctuary borders it. So together all these will be providing a contiguous forest cover of over 3,500 square kilometer. This is the reason why this announcement of declaring MM Hills Wildlife Sanctuary as a tiger reserve is significant. So this contiguous forest cover will act as a sink to absorb the surplus tiger population and it will help increase your numbers. So we can expect that it will be a potential rival for the already contiguous landscape which is located in the state of Karnatakan, Tamil Nadu and Kerala which is the Bandipur Nagarhole Vayanad Mudumalai landscape. Finally let us see the existing five tiger reserves in the state of Karnataka. They are Badra, Dandali, Anshi, Bandipur, Nagarhole and Biligiri Ranganada Temple as you can see in this table. This is all about the discussion of this news article. Now let us see one more news article which mentions about Mudumalai Tiger Reserve is about a temporary bridge that is constructed across Moya River in the state of Tamil Nadu. This area comes within this Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. The article says that this temporary stone bridge has been constructed illegally and it will have an impact on the ecosystem because the bridge will block the natural flow of water along the Moya River. So this is likely to impact the river and ecosystem because this river is home to otters, marsh crocodiles, the unique species of fish and other aquatic life. Also, this bridge is likely to promote illegal tourism in this region so the ecosystem of this region is likely to face destruction. So this is about the news. Now what you need to know from this news article from Prillam's perspective is that Moya River is a tributary of river Bhavani and this river Bhavani is a tributary of river Kaveri. This is one thing which you need to know. Now let us look at the other tiger reserves which are located in the state of Tamil Nadu. We just saw Mudumalai is located in the state of Tamil Nadu. Then Anamalai Tiger Reserve, then Kalakkad-Mundandurai Tiger Reserve and then Satyamangalam Tiger Reserve are all located in the state of Tamil Nadu. So this is all about the discussion of this news article. Now let us look at this news article where three more tiger reserves are mentioned which are present in the Northeastern part of India. This news article mentions that a new highway has been planned to construct within the Pakke Tiger Reserve in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. It has also mentioned about Namdafa Tiger Reserve which is the easternmost tiger reserve in India which is also located in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. And apart from this, if you see this news article Nameri Tiger Reserve from the state of Assam is also mentioned. So just have an idea of all these three tiger reserves which are located in Northeastern part of India. Now if you see there were two previous prelims questions on two of these reserves. One was on Pakke Tiger Reserve. See initially it was Pakkui Well Life Sanctuary. Now this Pakkui Well Life Sanctuary was designated as a Tiger Reserve. So a question was asked on this in 2018 prelims question. And then if you see in 2015 there was a question about Namdafa National Park. But the question was in a bit different perspective. The question was that which of the following national parks as a climate that varies from tropical to subtropical temperate and arctic. Here Namdafa National Park is the correct answer because it experiences all these four climates. And know that it is the eastern most tiger reserve in India. This is all about the discussion of all these three news articles which are related to the tiger reserves. In this context we saw about the tiger reserves which are located in the state of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and few of the tiger reserves that are located in the Northeastern part of India. With this we come to the end of the discussion. Now let us move on to the next news article. In this news article, the former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Mr. Ranil Vikram Singh as stressed for the revival of the regional grouping SARC which is the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. In this context let us see the comments made by the former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. And then we shall revise about two regional groupings. One is SARC and BeamStick. The syllabus that is relevant to the analysis of this news article is given here for your reference. See the former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka as called for successful regional integration both in economic sphere as well as security sphere in the South Asian region. For this he has stressed the fact that full functionality of SARC is required. As you know SARC is in a kind of standstill since the year 2016. It is because in the year 2016, the 19th summit of SARC which was to be held at Pakistan was suspended for an indefinite period since the member countries declined to participate. They refused to attend the meeting citing the absence of a conducive regional environment and they cited the deterioration of peace and stability in the South Asian region due to the rise in terrorism activities. See the former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka has also noted that BeamStick is not a substitute for SARC but still it is a starting point for integration in the South Asian region. Therefore he has called for the revival of SARC. Also if you see the ex-Prime Minister called to conceptualize a sub-region. He told that the sub-region should consist of the five southern states of India and the country of Sri Lanka. For this he has proposed an economic integration roadmap in order to tap the population of around 300 million people and a combined GDP of over 500 billion US dollars. Then for the successful regional integration, the ex-Prime Minister wanted the countries to address the para-tariffs and non-tariff barriers. Here you need to know what is meant by para-tariff. It is an extra fee or tax that is imposed on a good in addition to the tariff that is stated on the country's tariff schedule. In other words, it is the charge on imports that act as a tariff but they are not included in countries' tariff schedule. For example, we have statistical tax, stamp fees, et cetera. Next if you look at the tariff barrier it means imposing tariffs or duties for the imports and a non-tariff barrier means other than the tariffs or duties like by means of policy regulations or quantity restrictions. For example, like the e-commerce policy of India that favors the domestic Indian companies instead of foreign companies. So this is all about non-tariff barrier. So if these tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers are removed then it will open up the markets and it will create export opportunities. Then the ex-Prime Minister has also called for enhancing tourism in the region. So this is all about this news article. Now what you need to focus on this news article is that we need to know the facts related to Sark and Bimstek. Now since prelims examination is near let us revise the facts related to Sark and Bimstek. First let us see about Sark which is the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. It was established in 1985. It was established after a Sark charter was signed in Dhaka in the country of Bangladesh. See the Sark comprises of eight member states which are the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. And the secretariat of the Sark is located at Kathmandu which is the capital of Nepal. See the objectives of this Sark is outlined in the charter. One is to promote the welfare of the people of South Asia and to improve the quality of life. The next is to accelerate the economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region and to provide opportunity to all individuals so that they live in dignity and they realize their full potentials. And the next objective is to promote and strengthen collective self-reliance among the countries of South Asia. The next objective is to contribute to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another's problems. And the next objective is to promote active collaboration and mutual assistance across many fields like economic, social, cultural, technical and scientific fields. Also, it aims to strengthen the cooperation with other developing countries. Apart from this, there are many objectives. So try to know some important objectives of Sark. See in Sark, the decisions at all levels are to be taken on the basis of unanimity. Further bilateral and contentious issues are excluded from the deliberations of the association. Know that the meetings of the heads of state or the government of member states is the highest decision-making authority under Sark. So this is all that you need to know about Sark from prelims point of view. Now, let us look at BIMSTEC. What is BIMSTEC? It is the acronym for the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral, Technical and Economic Cooperation. See, this is also a regional organization. It came into existence on the month of June 1997 through the Bangkok Declaration. See, BIMSTEC comprises of seven member states that are lying in the littoral and adjacent areas of the Bay of Bengal and it constitutes a contiguous regional unity. Here, the word littoral means a region that is lying along a shore. So in BIMSTEC's context, its members are the region or countries that are lying along the shore of Bay of Bengal. As you can see in this map, the seven member states include five countries from South Asia, that is the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka and two countries from Southeast Asia that are the countries of Myanmar and Thailand. See, BIMSTEC was first conceived as a sub-regional forum bringing South Asia and Southeast Asian regions. It is one of the forums to give India's Act East policy a different orientation to the development process of the North Eastern region of India. So this regional group constitutes a bridge between the South Asia and the Southeast Asia and it also emphasizes the relations between these countries. Also, if you see, BIMSTEC has established a platform for intra-regional cooperation between Sarkand Asian members. Now, let us see some facts about BIMSTEC region which will be helpful for you in your main exam. Know that BIMSTEC region is home to around 1.5 billion people which constitutes around 22% of the global population. And also, if you look in the last five years, the BIMSTEC member states have been able to sustain an average 6.5% economic growth trajectory despite global financial meltdown. Now, the purpose behind this BIMSTEC is to make use of the shared and accelerated growth through mutual cooperation between the member states. So the member states will collaborate in different areas of common interests and they will make use of the regional resources and geographical advantages. See, BIMSTEC is not like many other regional groupings. It is a sector-driven cooperative organization. If you look, BIMSTEC started with six sectors for sectoral cooperation around 1997. This included trade, technology, energy, transport, tourism and fisheries. Then in the year 2008, BIMSTEC expanded to embrace nine more sectors which includes sectors like agriculture, public health, poverty alleviation, counter-terrorism, environment, culture, people-to-people contact and climate change. So you can see that BIMSTEC is a sector-driven cooperative organization. Next, the chairmanship of BIMSTEC rotates among the member states. If you look, the present chair is the country of Sri Lanka. India was the chair in 2000 and then between 2006 and 2008. The permanent secretary of BIMSTEC is at Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. So remember for Sarkates, Kathmandu for BIMSTEC, it is Dhaka. Next, the BIMSTEC summit is the highest policy-making body in BIMSTEC. See, the first summit meeting was held at Bangkok in Thailand. The second summit was held in New Delhi in the year 2008. Now, this is important to us. So remember this fact. And if you see the recent and the fourth summit was held at Kathmandu in Nepal in August, 2018. So this is all about BIMSTEC that you need to know from prelims point of view. So far, we have seen about Sark and BIMSTEC. Now, from this picture, also try to know the member states of one more grouping, which is called the SASEK, that is the South Asia Subregional Economic Corporation. Try to identify the common member states in all these three groupings. This is all about the discussion of this news article. In this news article, we have seen about Sark and BIMSTEC from prelims point of view and about the need to revive the Sark as emphasized by the ex-prime minister of Sri Lanka, Mr. Ranil Vikram Singh. Now, have a look at the practice question. Let us move on to the next news article. Now, let us look at this editorial, which is about the recent announcement of the government to have a public private funding for investments in research and development in India. See, yesterday we discussed about this announcement by the government in detail. Whatever we have analyzed yesterday has been discussed at length in this editorial as well. Here, the author tells that the funding as well as the expenditure for research and development is mostly done by the government. So the government share is high and the private share is low, but an increase in private sector spending on research has been noticed in the last decade. In 2004, 5% was 28% whereas in 2016, 17%, it was 40%. And now the government has decided to have a public private R&D fund with a target of 40 crores. So the author is telling that this is not the first time that the government is trying to get private sector money into research and development because when startup India and making India schemes were announced, the government tried to pull venture capitalists as well as some of the government departments who are involved in scientific research to pull some money and invest in the startups similar to yesterday's announcement. But if you see that initiative did not materialize, now what the author tells is that too much of India's investment in research and development is focused on a small pool of scientists in a limited number of institutions. Also, if we see the private sector scenario in India, it has less capacity to absorb the scientists as well as not much focus on research and development is there in the private sector. Usually, if you see the private research funding materializes more by partnerships between the companies rather than having a tie up with the government through centrally funded research programs. We just saw that the private funding is increasing but still the impact of the funding by the government to the private sector is not visible in India because there are many operational and technical issues like who will have the intellectual property rights and who will share the license fees and certain other operational difficulties. So what the author suggests is that there should be greater participation and cooperation at smaller levels between the companies and the government that is between the private and the public. So one way if there is cooperation at smaller levels between public and private, whatever schemes that the central government announces towards boosting research and development in India will become a success. So just announcements are not going to work but more participation and cooperation is required at macro levels between the public and the private. So the private has to move from this partnership between the company's model to public-private partnership model so that India can compete with other developing countries in terms of more investments in research and development. So this is all that you need to know from this editorial to know more about the government's announcement. We request the viewers to have a look at our yesterday's analysis. With this we come to the end of the analysis session. Now let us move on to the practice questions discussion session. Look at this question, four pairs are given, tiger reserves and states and you need to choose the correct pairs. Look at the first pair, Nameri tiger reserve, Assam, second pair, Anamalai tiger reserve, Kerala, third pair, Dandeli Anshi tiger reserve, Maharashtra and fourth pair, Bhadra tiger reserve, Karnataka. From this map given here, you can see that Anamalai tiger reserve is located in the state of Tamil Nadu, not in the state of Kerala and Dandeli Anshi tiger reserve is located in the state of Karnataka, not in the state of Maharashtra. So if two and three are incorrect, then the correct answer is option D, one and four only. Make use of this map. This is the official map of the list of tiger reserves in India. Now look at this question, the question is with reference to SARC and BIMSTEC, which of the following statements is incorrect. Look at the first statement, it tells that India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka are members of both the organizations. From this map you can see that Myanmar is a member state of only BIMSTEC, but not SARC because it is an observer country in SARC grouping. So the first statement is incorrect. Now look at the second statement, it tells that 2010 to 2020 is the SARC decade of intraragional connectivity in SARC. Yes, this statement is correct. From this table, you can see that the theme for 2010 to 2020 is decade of intraragional connectivity in SARC. So this statement is correct. Now look at the third statement, it tells that secretariat of SARC and BIMSTEC is at Kathmandu and Dhaka respectively. This statement is also correct. The secretariat of SARC is located at Kathmandu, Nepal and the secretariat of BIMSTEC is located at Dhaka, which is the capital of Bangladesh. Here you need to choose the incorrect statement or statements. The correct answer here is option D, one only. Now look at this main question. This question was asked in 2016. The question is demographic dividend in India will remain only theoretical unless a manpower becomes more educated, aware, skilled and creative. What measures have been taken by the government to enhance the capacity of our population to be more productive and employable? Try to answer this question in 250 words. It is a 15 marks question. Please post your answers in the comment section. We shall review and give suitable suggestions and feedback within a reasonable timeframe. With this, we come to the end of the analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion and also the practice questions discussion session. If you like the video, press the like button, comment and share and do subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel for latest videos and updates. Stay focused and motivated friends. Thank you.