 Good evening viewers and aspirants. We have a small announcement for you. Shankara Ace Academy is going to start a new exclusive batch under the Prefit program. This new batch will start from 22nd March 2021. The new batch is because of the numerous requests received by us after the launch of first Prefit batch, which started from February 15th of 2021. This batch one will conclude by 16th May 2021. Now with respect to the new batch, Academy is conducting free entrance exam on 14th March 2021 that is on coming Sunday. The syllabus for this entrance exam will be the UPC Civil Services Problems syllabus for general studies and CSAT and it is a free entrance exam but registration is mandatory. Students who secure top 100 ranks in the entrance exam will be eligible for subsidized fee structure of Rs 800 plus GST per month. For other students that is for students who find it challenging to come in top 100 ranks and for direct admissions the fee structure will be 1600 plus GST per month and there is one important modification in this new batch which is the availability of longer daily test window. That is in this batch students can take daily tests in the four hour time frame from 7 am to 11 am. Numerous working professionals who are aspirants have requested for such extended window therefore to accommodate varied circumstances of the aspirants in taking daily tests this extended time window is provided under the new batch. The links for the detailed brochure of this new batch, the plan summary and schedule are available in the description box and in comment section. With this let us move on to today's Hindi News Analysis by Shankar Ayes Academy for the date 8th March 2021. These are the list of news articles chosen for today's analysis. It has been provided along with the page numbers of different editions of Hindu newspaper. So now let us start our first discussion with this editorial article. This editorial is about lateral surveillance. So in this discussion let us understand what is lateral surveillance and what are its advantages and disadvantages as discussed by author. The syllabus that is relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. First let us see what is lateral surveillance. See it is an act of watching over. Here it should be noted that lateral surveillance differs from the typical surveillance because the power dynamic between the one who is watching and the one who is being watched is structural or hierarchical. But this is not in the case of lateral surveillance because it is more decentralized and balanced. In a lateral surveillance the surveillance takes place between individuals themselves without the involvement of any organizational entity such as the government. In this regard you should know about certain initiatives which encourage lateral surveillance in the past. See this lateral surveillance originated in the form of neighborhood watch schemes and community policing initiatives in the United States. Here neighborhood watch is a program that unites the law enforcement agencies, private organizations and individual citizens to reduce crime and to improve local communities. So now what is community policing. It is also known as community police partnership. It is a collaboration between the police and the community and this collaboration identifies and solves community problems. And here in community policing police is no longer the sole guardian of law and order. Instead all members of the community become active allies in the effort to enhance the safety and quality of the neighborhood. So here community members are active participants in the process of problem solving. So in short we can say that these neighborhood watch schemes and community policing initiatives enabled individuals to become the eyes and ears of the law enforcement agencies. So along with the advancement of technologies these neighborhood watch and community policing initiatives have also transformed into an easily accessible mobile applications and these easily accessible mobile applications are operated by law enforcement agencies or even private entities and they mobilize citizens to monitor their surroundings or it also provides them with information sharing platforms which enables peer to peer communication or citizen communication. So that means with the help of technology lateral surveillance has achieved a new height. So in this regard there are some initiatives around the world that we should know. One such initiative is the citizen app of USA. This application provides real-time safety alerts and live video incidents happening near the user. Now this app is meant to protect the citizens and the application uses the location data of the user to send users the 911 alerts for crime happening nearby. Now the second is the next door app of USA. This application was created to detect the real-time crime and safety alerts from neighbors and local law enforcement. This app is linked to the home security system and its objective is to keep people informed about the crimes that is happening in their area and it allows the people to share updates in order to keep their neighborhood safe. Now in India also we have such initiatives. One among them is the C plan app which is implemented in Uttar Pradesh. This application was launched for keeping a tab on anti-social elements. It is designed to receive input from certain identified individuals in villages across the states and these individuals have been given the responsibility to solve local problems to provide information about the communal tensions or land disputes taking place in their respective villages and all these have to be done through this application. So the second such application is the Hawkeye app of Hyderabad. This application seeks to empower common man to become citizen police. It provides for the option to enroll for community policing. It also encourages immediate reporting of traffic violations, crimes, violations by the police and it improves access to the city police also. Then similarly recently the Indian cyber crime coordination center of ministry of home affairs has also launched a program in this regard which is the cyber crime volunteers program. It was launched with the aim to allow citizens to register themselves as cyber crime volunteers and they can register in the role of unlawful content flaggers and this is to help the law enforcement agencies in identifying and reporting illegal or unlawful online content and they remove of the same content. So based on these apps which we just now discussed we can say that all these apps gives us a feeling of continuously being watched. So what are the benefits of such apps or the benefits of lateral surveillance which is provided by these apps? See here you may think that surveillance of any kind is an imbalance of power between the person who is doing the surveillance and the person who is under the surveillance but here you should note that in lateral surveillance it specifically ensures that the imbalance of the power no longer exists. This is because the informal watching of communities by their members is viewed as an harmless activity and there are benefits in this regard. For example such lateral surveillance help in reducing the crime rates, it helps to improve the quality of life, it helps to build community pride and unity etc. This is because when we are aware of being watched by a member of our own community then we will be more thoughtful about our behavior in the society. So the chances of wrongful behavior from our side are very much reduced in this regard. So this is regarded as the main advantage of lateral surveillance including the community policing and neighborhood watch schemes. But in this editorial the author mainly discusses the disadvantages associated with lateral surveillance. So let us see these disadvantages one by one. The first disadvantage is the use of lateral surveillance tools or technology by ordinary citizens for observing and reporting threats in the neighborhood. Here author criticizes that this normalizes the culture of suspicion that is there exists a constant suspicion among the community and this can create potential social distrust. See the trust among citizens is based on a mutual understanding about the need to provide security protection and the need to respect rights like privacy in a democratic society. But this trust and social cohesion erodes when people start putting aside either privacy or security in favor of the other. See here we can agree that citizens become more aware of various types of criminal activities in their community. But at the same time they also sustain the practice of keeping an eye on another. For example if a neighbor is absent in a community gathering then this may create curiosity among other members as to why that particular neighbor is absent and sometimes it may also lead to reporting of suspicious persons to the police. So this keeping an eye on another is most often an issue and in this process citizens are sensitized to security threats whether there is any actual imminent danger or not. Thus the suspicion over neighbors creates an air of distrust and this suspicion is created by the lateral surveillance. Now the second problem or the second disadvantage is that the surveillance technologies act as tools for social control and social exclusion in shaping the socioeconomic relations in the society and also in shaping the relation between the state and its citizens. See here even though the stated goal of neighborhood watches is the unification of community there is also an inherent exclusionist intent of community crime prevention. This means the like-minded individuals of the neighborhood decide what qualifies as crime or what is a suspicious activity and their inherent bias may creep in and hence the neighborhood becomes a gated community with restricted access to anyone who is considered an outsider. Now this can result in exclusion of minority communities or exclusion of those who are considered not fit for protection of the community. Here to make us understand author takes the example of the LGBT community in South Korea who came under scanner after some COVID-19 cases were reported from a particular area that was inhabited by them in South Korea and this had resulted in large-scale circulation of homophobic content and comments against the patients who tested positive from the LGBT community. So that means thinking that we are doing the right thing this lateral surveillance may lead to the exclusion of a particular category of individuals. Now the next disadvantage is that lateral surveillance mechanisms prima facie threaten the two most fundamental rights of citizens that is at the first impression itself we can say that lateral surveillance is threatening our fundamental rights these are the rights of privacy and the freedom of speech and expression because from the discussion so far you can easily say that this keeping an eye on another or keeping an eye on the neighbor is nothing but intrusion of privacy and this is an intrusion of privacy only if checks and balances are not imposed further it also threatens those who express dissent to such kind of surveillance and the fourth disadvantage which is highlighted by the author is the problem that arises when lateral surveillance becomes organized and state sponsored it should be noted that state sponsored lateral surveillance can become harmful as it creates a culture of hate fear and constant suspicion against an enemy so here the state can deploy this mechanism anywhere it wishes and it can infringe the fundamental rights of the people so this ultimately creates a chance of increasing the intolerance prejudice xenophobia and casteism in our society here you can take the example of how certain cow vigilantes have resorted to lynching on the context that the cows are being slaughtered so now here a question arises as to how can we prevent such instances of loss of privacy how can we prevent stigmatization and how can we prevent rights violation that is associated with the lateral surveillance so here we can offer you some points which you can write in your mains answer when a question in this regard is asked you can say that the law enforcement agencies or the data collecting entity must remain accountable so that such negative impacts can be prevented also privacy principles should be implemented while surveillance applications are deployed then the collection of unnecessary information from individuals should be minimized because then only it will reduce the risk of excessive information being sought or being made available to the neighbor in the first place and most importantly there should be limited access to collected data there should be secured data storage practices and there should be promotion of transparency inclusiveness and openness and all these should be ensured this is because data protection is inherently automatically becomes important when technology is used so here since the prevention of the risks associated with lateral surveillance is a subjective context you can even think of your own points substantiating the risks which you list out in an mains answer writing so in this discussion we had a detailed understanding about lateral surveillance and the risks associated with it with this let's move on to the next discussion now this discussion is based on this news article which mentions that china is planning to construct dams on the lower reaches of yarlang zangpo river that is the brahmaputra river so in this context let us see about brahmaputra river and then the news the syllabus that is relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference first know that brahmaputra river is the main river of the brahmaputra valley and this brahmaputra valley has an average width of about 80 kilometers and as you know brahmaputra is one of the largest rivers in the world it is ranked at the fifth position with respect to its average water discharge and this brahmaputra river is also one of the major Himalayan rivers because it originates in the chemyang dung leisure of the kailash ranges in Tibet and it originates east of the mansor over lake at an elevation of 5300 meters so first it originates in Tibet then it flows through Tibet then after that it enters India through Arnachal Pradesh and then flows through Assam and then it also flows through Bangladesh and finally it reaches the bay of Bengal so that means it is clear that most of brahmaputra's course lies outside India especially in Tibet it flows eastwards parallel to the Himalayas then it reaches the namchabarva mountain where it takes a u-turn as you can see in this map this u-turn is known as the great bend here the river emerges from the foothills of namchabarva under the name of Siyang or the hung and then after this great bend brahmaputra enters India it enters in Arnachal Pradesh through a gorge and it is joined by other rivers of Dibang, Lohit and many other tributaries which forms the brahmaputra river in Assam but is it called brahmaputra throughout its course no it is not in different countries it is called by different name for example it is known as Yalung Zangpo or simply Sangpo in the Tibet and then it is called as brahmaputra in India as you know and then it is called as Jamuna in Bangladesh so the brahmaputra sub-base in extends an area of 580,000 square kilometers and this lies in the Tibet autonomous region of China Bhutan India and Bangladesh and on its each side it is surrounded by different kinds of hills such as it is bounded by the Himalayas on the north then it is bounded by the Pakta range of hills which runs along the Assam-Brahma border on the east then on the south it is bounded by the Assam range of hills and then on the west again it is bounded by Himalayas and also the ridge separating it from the Ganga sub-basin now particularly note that the sub-basin of brahmaputra river in India lies in the states of Arnachal Pradesh Assam Nagaland Meghalaya West Bengal and Sikkim and these are some of the important tributaries of brahmaputra river please take note of it so now coming to today's news article the news is that China has prepared a draft five-year plan for its country and this plan has given approval for dams that is to be built on the lower reaches of Yarlangzangpo river that is the brahmaputra river here what they mean is the dams will be constructed in the lower reaches of the sections of brahmaputra river which lies in Tibet and the part of the river before it flows into India so if it is built then this dam will be the first one on the lower reaches now one of the main reasons for this plan of China is the potential held by the Great Bend according to Chinese sources a simple 500 kilometer section at the Great Bend itself offers the potential of 70 million kilowatt hours and further for implementing this project China's state-owned hydropower company which is power China is said to have signed a strategy cooperation agreement with the Tibet Autonomous Region government so is it going to be the first dam built by China on the Yarlangzangpo river or the brahmaputra river no it is not in 2015 itself China operationalized its first hydropower project in brahmaputra known as the Zangmu dam in Tibet and there are also other important dams under development which are the Dago, Jake, Sho, and Jatcha and all these dams are on the upper reaches of the river or in the middle reaches of the river and because of this these dams are not of great concern to India and also because they do not greatly impact the quantity of brahmaputra's flow in India this is mainly due to the fact that brahmaputra is not entirely dependent on the upstream flows which are mainly in Tibet and also we have an estimated 35 percentage of river basin in India itself but China's new plan to construct dams on the lower reaches and at the Great Bend because Great Bend is also at the lower reaches of brahmaputra is a matter of concern for India because its location will be across the border from Anujal Pradesh and also this dam will have potential impact in the downstream of the river affecting the brahmaputra's flow in India so let us wait and see how Indian government responds to this plan of China so these are some of the points that I should take note about brahmaputra river now let's move on to the next discussion now this next discussion is based on this data point which talks about internet shutdowns across the world see what is an internet shutdown it is an intentional disruption of internet or electronic communications which makes it inaccessible or effectively unusable for a specific population or unusable within a specific location and this is often done to exert control over the flow of information so an internet shutdown happens when someone here usually it is the government intentionally disrupts the internet or mobile apps to control what people say or what people do now this data point is actually based on a report titled kipiton it is released by a digital watchdog called as access now now this kipiton is a campaign it unites and organizes the global effort to end internet shutdowns it has so for 243 organizations from 105 countries around the world and they have documented at least 155 internet shutdown incidents around the world in 29 countries and unfortunately majority of them are from india only now according to this report compared to 2018 and 2019 the internet shutdowns in 2020 are lower as you can see in this representation and even 2021 is also not free from internet shutdowns because in the beginning of the year itself uganda ordered internet shutdowns during its presidential election then we saw miyana's military using shutdowns in a coup attempt which we have discussed in our analysis last month then we have also been hearing internet shutdowns in india during the revocation of special status to jnk which happened in 2019 and 20 and then also now during the ongoing farmers protest so in this regard let us discuss india specific findings in this report as we already said according to the report india once again topped the list of internet shutdowns in 2020 india had at least 109 internet shutdowns it was followed by yemen which had at least six shutdowns and then comes ethiopia with four shutdowns and then jordan with three internet shutdowns and this report has named india yemen and ethiopia as the worst disruptors of internet but if you see the first worst that is india and the second worst which is yemen there is a huge difference from this it is clear that india imposed a lion's share that is huge number of internet shutdowns in 2020 and this was the same case in 2018 and 2019 also this report also particularly highlights internet shutdowns in jamma and keshmir that began in august 2019 and it notes that these kinds of shutdowns cuts people off from the internet during conflict when residents are in danger and when they are struggling to stay safe along with this it also expands the digital divide among people belonging to different classes and different income levels now in this regard you remember that in january 2020 supreme court ruled that internet shutdowns interfere with the fundamental right to freedom of expression and the right to life and liberty so what were the major reasons cited for shutdown in india the major reason as you can see here is political instability and there were also other reasons such as communal disharmony for example in west pungal to end communal disharmony internet shutdowns were imposed and then in rajasthan to control anti-reservation ban internet shutdowns were imposed and this representation gives you an idea about the important causes of internet shutdowns in india and in other countries so these are some of the important facts that you can use in your main sensor writing regarding restrictions imposed by the government for sharing of information and also in questions where you can talk about internet shutdowns so these are some of the points that you can take note of now let's move on to the next discussion this discussion is based on this news article which mentions that our prime minister has inaugurated the 7500th janavshadi kendra at shillong so in this function he has noted that the janavshadi scheme has relieved the poor from high medical expenses in this regard he has also stated that the poor and middle class families are saving about 3600 crores every year on expensive medicines due to this scheme and he has also noted that the scheme is becoming the medium of both service and employment in our country so in this regard let us see about the scheme the scheme we are talking about is the pradhan mantri bhartya janavshadi pariyojna here janavshadi means public medicine it is a campaign launched by the department of pharmaceuticals under the ministry of chemicals and fertilizers in association with the central pharma public sector undertaking this campaign was launched to provide quality medicines at affordable prices to the masses and this will be provided through dedicated outlets called as pradhan mantri bhartya janavshadi kendras so these janavshadi kendras or stores have been set up to provide generic drugs which are available at lesser prices but they are equivalent in quality and efficacy like the branded drugs which are quite expensive see here generic drugs means the drugs which are marketed under a non-proprietary name or approved name rather than a proprietary or a brand name and these are equally effective and also inexpensive compared to the branded medicines so here note that this pradhan mantri bhartya janavshadi pariyojna is being implemented by the bureau of pharma psus of india in short bppi it has been established under the department of pharmaceuticals for coordinating procurement supply and marketing of generic drugs through the pradhan mantri bhartya janavshadi kendras and this bppi is an independent society registered under the societies registration act of 1860 so now what are the objectives of this scheme first as we saw already it is to make available the quality medicines consumables and surgical items at affordable prices for all and thereby reducing the out-of-pocket expenditure of consumers or patients the next objective is to popularize generic medicines among the masses and along with this the scheme also aims to dispel the prevalent notion that low-price generic medicines are of inferior quality or they are less effective the next objective is to generate employment by engaging individual entrepreneurs in the opening of pradhan mantri bhartya janavshadi kendras so based on these objectives we can say that besides providing affordable quality medicines to the masses the scheme also aims to offer self-employment opportunities see even recently last year the department of pharmaceuticals has revised the incentive plan for the kendra owners so currently the incentive provided to the kendra owners has been enhanced to 5 lakh rupees further an additional one-time incentive of 2 lakh rupees has been approved for the stores that are opened in the specified areas such as in the northeastern states aspirational districts or in the himalayan states and this one-time incentive is also provided to specified categories of persons such as persons belonging to schedule cast and schedule tribe communities and to women etc so from the beginning we are saying that availing benefits under the scheme will reduce the out-of-pocket expenditure but how see a medicine under the scheme is priced on the principle of a maximum of 50 percentage of the average price of the top three branded medicines therefore the price of janavshadi medicines is cheaper at least by 50 percentage and in some cases it is also cheaper by 80 percentage to 90 of the market price of branded medicines so how many medicines and surgical items are provided under the scheme see the product basket of the scheme now covers more than 1400 medicines and 200 surgical items and consumables in all major therapeutic categories such as the anti-infective medicines anti-allergic medicines anti-diabetics cardiovascular medicines anti-cancer medicines gastrointestinal medicines etc but here the government aims to increase this so the target is set to enhance the product basket to include 2000 medicines and 300 surgical products by the end of 31st march of 2024 this is so that all the essential medicines covering the therapeutic categories are provided at lesser costs and similarly the janavshadi kendra's are to be increased to 10 500 by the end of march 2024 so the government has these important targets under the scheme and as a part of this only now the 7500th kendra has been inaugurated by the prime minister yesterday so these are some of the points that i should know about this Pradhan Mantri Bharati Janavshadi Pariyojna now let's move on to the next discussion now this discussion is based on this opiate article which is written by a former member staffer frivolibood in this article author discusses in detail about the financial distress and other fundamental organizational issues in railways so let us see these aspects now the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference as you know initially we had two budgets one was the union budget and then the railway budget but in the year 2017 central government merged the railway budget with the union budget now this merger gave more room for the finance ministry for better allocation of the resources and in the coming budgets several measures were also announced for the railways so this seems like a good measure but the author of this article mentions that the budget 2021-22 has not given enough importance to the railway sector see as you know railways is India's largest and most crucial transport organization so this sector needs enough financial attention to resolve the existing issues so what are the issues some of them are cited by the author the first issue is the reduced revenue generation for example the freight earnings of railways for the year 2020-21 is less than what was therefore 2018-19 but here you should note that the freight loading is comparatively higher even recently the chairman of railway board highlighted that freight loading in January 2021 was the highest ever so it was assumed that despite the pandemic the freight earnings in 2020-21 will be more than that of 2019-20 then the next issue is the operating ratio see broadly operating ratio represents the ratio of working expenses to revenues and according to the author this operating ratio has been artificially kept below 100% age for railways and this was done by making less than required provision for the pension payments during the periods 2019-20 and 2020-21 see the official figures are 98.36% age for 2019-20 and then the figures are 96.96% age for 2020-21 that is this is the official operating ratio but according to the author if the required provision is made for pension payments then the actual operating ratio for 2019-20 could be 114% age and for 2020-21 it could be 131% age so we can see that this is a much higher difference than the official figures so based on this author notes that for the first time ever Indian railways were unable to adequately provide for the pension fund in these two financial years but anyway pension has to be paid so later the railway ministry had to take loans to meet this shortfall but despite these revenue issues railways were not provided with enough financial resources in the last few years including the current budget as we said in the beginning see here one issue is not getting enough revenues to meet the expenses but the next issue is that when the revenues increase for a certain period along with them other costs also increase manifold for example during the period 2010-11 to 2019-20 the passenger and freight revenues increased by 84 percentage but at the same time staff and pension costs also increased but they increased by a whopping 157 percentage here we can see that the revenues are not enough to meet the costs so why this high levels of staff and pension costs this is mainly due to the implementation of the central pay commissions recommendations here note that this expenditure is expected to increase further when the eight pay commissions recommendations are announced in 2025-26 here we can conclude that even though there is increase in revenue meeting the staff and pension costs was always an issue to the railways so what is the need of the the first need is to give immediate focus on achieving more revenues especially from the freight so in this context we already have planned the India's dedicated freight corridors these are expected to be operational by the year 2022 so these dedicated freight corridors assumes great importance in the context of revenues also but even then there are some issues in this need which is that almost 50 percentage of India's freight earnings are contributed by transport of coal but the world including our country are shifting their focus to alternative sources of renewable energy so the dependence on coal is bound to come down in the future further India is also signatory to the 2015 Paris agreement so we are also bound to achieve the reductions in carbon emissions in a time-bound manner so this indicates that the dependence on coal will reduce in the future that means the need is that the railways has to diversify its freight here author also suggests one option which is the adoption of roll-on roll-off model of transporting see roll-on roll-off or in short RORO is an delivery model which can provide multimodal transport mix now under this roll-on roll-off loaded trucks would be moved on the flat rakes to avoid congestion on the roads as you can see in these images so this model can boost revenues and it can also reduce the overall carbon footprint now the next need is the drastic reduction in employees because we can see that railways has an expanding staff costs including pension so there is a need to reduce employees and this could be done based on the suggestions like privatization of a few units of railways then there is also a suggestion of merging all cadders to have a single Indian railways management cadre etc so these suggestions can be implemented but author has noted that these decisions shall be taken only after much deliberation thus as a conclusion apart from these suggestions author also suggests the need for an annual report that is the Indian railways report and there's the Indian railways report which is an annual report should be similar to the annual economic survey and it should be placed in parliament every year author opines that this will help to identify the challenges in the railway sector it will also enable us to scrutinize the performance of the railways and also ensure their better performance in the future so in this discussion we have seen some of the major issues in one of the important sectors of our country now let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this opiate article which talks about the impacts of rise and subsidized LPG prices so in this discussion we will see about LPG and also how the government can balance the LPG subsidies by ensuring clean fuel consumption also in the poorer households the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference first let us see about LPG it stands for liquefied petroleum gas it is used as a fuel in a range of applications and it is also used as a propellant and refrigerant see this LPG is a mixture of light hydrocarbons which may include propane isobutane normal butane butylenes etc they are primarily obtained as propane butane or as a mixture of both and note that these hydrocarbons are generally gaseous at normal temperature and normal atmospheric pressure but they can also be condensed into a liquid state at normal temperature by the application of pressure now since under pressure these gases liquefy they are termed as liquefied petroleum gas now one of the major advantages of LPG is that they have potentially lower amount of toxic carbon dioxide emissions carbon monoxide emissions and lower amounts of non-methane hydrocarbon emissions compared to other fuels so this makes LPG an ideal option to be used in a larger scale and here note that LPG is orderless so a powerful orderant is added so that they can be easily detected when there is a leak and also to reduce the risk of explosion now for the promotion of LPG our government has a scheme which is the Pradhan Mantri Ujjbala Yeojna it is a social welfare scheme that was launched in 2016 it is implemented by the ministry of petroleum and natural gas PMUI and it charges a smoke-free rural India and it aims to benefit families especially the women who are living below poverty line how does it help it helps by providing concessional LPG connections so the objectives of the scheme are promoting women empowerment providing a healthy cooking fuel and also preventing health hazards that are caused by fossil fuels that is fossil fuel burning some of the rural population so this scheme provides a financial support of rupees 1600 for each LPG connection to the eligible BPL households now the connections under the scheme are available in the name of the woman head of the household and it also provides EMA facility so this is the basic information that you should know about LPG and the scheme now today's article is with respect to the increase in LPG prices in the recent times we are continuously witnessing this increase and according to the author subsidized LPG prices have increased by 50 percentage in this financial year alone so author opines that it can be a threat in sustaining the gains under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjjbala Yeojna see so far 8 million poor households were provided LPG connections under this PMUI scheme and through the connection subsidy of rupees 1600 the LPG coverage was expanded to more than 85 percentage of households but even then the impact of the scheme is not much intense because many studies remark that though the access to LPG has increased the new beneficiaries were not consuming it in a sustained manner so what is this study see recently a survey by council on energy environment and water has found that the PMUI beneficiaries consume only about half the LPG in comparison to long-standing regular consumers so what is the reason for this limited usage there are two major reasons one is that the effective price of LPG is not affordable for such households despite the subsidy secondly many rural consumers have got the access to free available biomass so they opt for it since they need not pay any amount so on a whole the unsustained use of LPG not only leads to the failure of the scheme but it also contributes up to 30 percentage of ambient atmospheric particulate matter 2.5 at the national level and this percentage is more than the contribution made by transport crop residue or coal burning so what is the need of the hour that is a need to balance LPG subsidies and to ensure sustained clean fuel consumption and for this the government needs to focus on better targeting of subsidies at present the government is providing uniform or same subsidy per cylinder to all LPG consumers but this could change it is because many long-term users which most often includes middle and higher income households will definitely continue to use LPG even if it is available at higher unsubsidized price but this is not the case with respect to poor economic households and BPL households because they need more subsidy to afford even this subsidized LPG so here author suggests one way to address this problem which is by targeting the existing LPG consumption patterns of consumers see here author suggests that those households that recorded low consumption or those households that recorded a decline in LPG consumption can be given greater subsidy per cylinder another measure that could be adopted is the dynamic subsidy levels that is subsidy levels should be altered as per needs based on reflecting the previous year's consumption also more importance should be given to the deduplication efforts so that households with multiple LPG connections can be removed from the list and this will also avoid the leakages in subsidy so that means this will not only ensure continuous support to the economically poor for sustaining LPG it will also be a great social investment because it will free up the productive time of women and it will also reduce the burden on India's public health because air pollution related health issues especially health issues caused by indoor air pollution will be reduced so these are some of the points that you should take note from this opiate article now let's move to the next discussion the last news article discussion is based on this editorial article which talks about the International Women's Day and also about Savitri Bhai Phule so in this discussion let us see about International Women's Day first as you know it is celebrated today that is on March 8 of every year so I wish the female viewers and aspirants happy International Women's Day see initially this day was called as National Women's Day and this day has got its roots from the labor movement where female employees went on a strike protesting against the poor working conditions this day was first organized in 1911 by Clara Zetkin who is a early 20th century Marxist from Germany now this March 8 is chosen since it commemorates the day on which the women in Soviet Russia gained their right to vote and every year on this day a goal is set and the goal for this year is to create a gender equal world now while talking about empowering women we cannot forget Savitri Bhai Phule as an online tutor in Shankara Aceh's academic platform and as a female aspirant we both owe her a lot Savitri Bhai Phule was born in Maharashtra and she was married to Jyothira Phule who is a social reformer and for around 50 years that is from 1848 to 1897 Savitri Bhai worked tirelessly for people and succeeded in setting an extraordinary example of service and compassion she is also known as the colonial India's first woman teacher she tirelessly worked along with her husband against the caste-waste discrimination for instance they allowed the so-called untouchables at that period to make use of the well in their house Savitri Bhai also played a prominent role in the Satya Shodak Samaj which is also called as the Society for Truthseeking this Satya Shodak Samaj initiated the practice of Satya Shodak marriage that is a marriage without dowry or wedding at minimum cost and apart from these she made a major contribution for the empowerment of women especially in the field of education because she started the first school for girls and she also started the first native library in the country she started a home for widows she started home for prevention of infanticide and she also provided an exceptional service in nursing the patients during the bubonic plague epidemic and she died in the year 1863 while serving the sick during the plague epidemic so her exceptional and path-breaking work has left a legacy that will continue to enrich our lives forever so these are some of the points that you need to know about international women's day and also about Savitri Bhai Pule with this let's move on to the next discussion now we have come to the last session the practice questions discussion session look at this first question it asks which of the following statements is correct with reference to c-plan app sometimes seen in news and the correct answer to this question is option b it is an app developed by Uttar Pradesh government for keeping a tab on antisocial elements now look at this next question it is a pair based question first pair given is annie besant home rule movement this is a correct pair annie besant is a british social reformer theosophist and also an indian independence leader she was international president of the theosophical society until her death she was active in educational humanitarian work in india and became involved in the indian independence movement and she established the indian home rule league in 1916 now the second pair is Savitri Bhai Pule Satishodak Samaj this is also a correct pair we discussed this during the discussion now the third pair is kasturba gandhi women's satyagraha as you know kasturba gandhi is the wife of mohundas karamchand gandhi that is mahatma gandhi gandhi ji was working to improve the life of indigo farmers in champaran in bihar and at the same time kasturba gandhi was concerned with the welfare of the women there in 1922 she also participated in a non-violent civil disobedience movement in borsad of gujarat so this pair is also a correct pair and here the question asks for the correctly matched pair so the correct answer is option c 1 2 and 3 now this next question is based on pradham mantri ujbalayu jnok first statement is the applicant can either be a man or woman above the age of 18 years this statement is incorrect because the applicant should be a woman above the age of 18 years now the second statement is the applicant must be a rural inhabitant carrying a bpl card this statement is correct now the third statement is the applicant's household should not already own a lpg connection this statement is also correct and here the question asks for the incorrect statements so the correct answer is option a 1 only let us take two main questions this question is based on pradham mantri ujbalayu jnok and this is based on lateral surveillance you have to attend this question according to the award limits you can write the answer and post it in the comment section with this we come to the end of today's in the news analysis and practice questions discussion session if you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to shankar ice academy youtube channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation once again i wish all the female aspirants and viewers a happy women's day