 Good evening aspirants. Welcome to Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Ayes Academy for the date 18th May 2020. In today's discussion, we will see diverse topics based on international relations, geography, policy, economics etc. For that, these topics have been chosen and it has been provided along with the page numbers of different editions of Hindu newspaper. The link for the handwritten notes in the PDF format and the timestamping for the discussed articles is provided in the description and for the benefit of smartphone users it is also provided in the comment section. Let's move on to the first news article discussion which is based on these four news articles as these news articles are about the current hot topic in international relations regarding Afghanistan. A significant internal peace deal was arrived yesterday among the two major political leaders and their parties of Afghanistan and this news article is about this news only. Now this news article presents India's position or stance on the power sharing agreement that was agreed between the two political leaders of Afghanistan and this editorial article and the interview article deals with where India stands at the international level when it comes to ensuring peace in Afghanistan. These articles also present different suggestions to the Indian diplomatic circles in the context of Afghanistan which we will discuss in this discussion today. The syllabus that is relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. First let us begin our discussion with the yesterday's development in Afghanistan and before that let us see the background of the issue. See on September 2019 the presidential elections for Afghanistan took place and the results were to be announced in October 2019 but there were lots of allegations on the manner in which the electoral process was carried out and these allegations were mainly from the major opponent of President Ghani of Afghanistan who is Mr Abdullah Abdullah. After this in a surprise on December 22nd 2019 after 80 days from the date of election the election commission in Afghanistan released only the preliminary results but the preliminary results confirmed one fact that is the incumbent president who was the president Ashraf Ghani has won the elections after securing 50.64 of votes this meant that he has won a second term for the office of president but these results were contested by Mr Abdullah. Now after this in due course on February 18 2020 the election commission of Afghanistan declared the final results also and that also confirmed once again the presidency of Ghani but these final results were also not recognized and accepted by the opposition members of Ghani. In fact in the month of March 2020 on the same day that is on March 9th Mr Ghani and Mr Abdullah both sworn in as president in parallel inauguration ceremonies and there Mr Abdullah declared himself as president of Afghanistan. So this was the scale of disagreement in domestic politics in Afghanistan. Now these dates are important to understand the global politics which happened around Afghanistan this year and last year but before this declaration earlier on February 29 2020 a historic deal was arrived between the United States of America and the Taliban. This deal was signed in Doha by U.S. Special Envoy Zalmal Kalinsad and the Taliban political chief Mulal Abdul Ghani brother. Now we have discussed this deal and its implications in detail in our daily news analysis on March 1st of 2020 and March 2nd of 2020. You can have a look at it to have an elaborate picture about this deal. Now this deal provided that U.S. and its coalition partners will reduce their troops from Afghanistan in two phases. Initially the number of troops will be reduced within 135 days from February 29 and this comes in the month of July 2020. Then by the end of April 2021 all the military forces of United States its allies and coalition partners will withdraw from Afghanistan. Now to ensure this phased withdrawal of U.S. troops political stability in Afghanistan is important because the U.S. Taliban deal had provisions to achieve some kind of understanding and cooperation between the Taliban and the national government in Afghanistan. Here there are two sides one side is the Afghan government and the other side is Taliban. The provisions in the U.S. Taliban deal said that there will be release of combat and political prisoners from the Taliban side and from the Afghan government side also and up to 5000 prisoners of Taliban and up to 1000 prisoners of Afghan government where to be released by March 10th of 2020 and this March 10th of 2020 is to be considered as the first day of intra-Afghan negotiations under this deal. Now here you may connect why on the day before March 10th both Ghani and Abdullah sworn as presidents of Afghanistan and after this March 10th all the remaining prisoners were to be released by both the sides over the course of subsequent three months and even United States committed itself to completing this goal. Now this plan of expeditiously releasing the combat and political prisoners was put in place in the deal to act as a confidence building measure between the two sides. So far both sides have done limited progress in this regard that is in releasing the prisoners. In addition to this after the start of intra-Afghan negotiations the United States will initiate an administrative review of current U.S. sanctions and the rewards list against the members of Taliban and this will be achieved with the goal of removing these sanctions by August 27th of 2020. Then U.S. will also start diplomatic engagement with other members of the United Nations Security Council and Afghanistan and this is to remove the members of Taliban from the sanctions list and this is aimed to be achieved by May 29th of 2020. So we will know more about the updates regarding these conditions in the coming days. So you can understand there are two major challenges in ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan. One was the tussle between Taliban and Afghan government and the other was between President Ghani and Mr. Abdullah informing government in Afghanistan after the elections. Now among these two things one thing was settled yesterday that is on May 17th 2020. As a result we will see more news articles regarding Afghanistan in the following days. Now the issues between Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah and their followers are somehow settled by way of a power sharing agreement between the two and in this power sharing agreement between Ghani and Abdullah there are three main points. One is that Mr. Ashraf Ghani is to be the elected president of Afghanistan government. Secondly high council of national reconciliation is to be created for which the chair or the president is Mr. Abdullah and this high council is to represent the government in the intra-Afghan talks with the Taliban and thirdly political followers of Abdullah or some members of Abdullah team are to be inducted into the cabinet of president Ghani government. Now with this power sharing agreement one major internal tussle has come to an end finally. Now together they will deal with Taliban if they continue to work together. Now news reports are also saying that US was also a force behind the power sharing agreement because US had said that it will not release financial assistance of 1 billion US dollars if things did not work out between Mr. Ghani and Mr. Abdullah. Now what does India stand on this power sharing agreement or the political agreement between Mr. Ghani and Abdullah. See yesterday ministry of external affairs has released a press release titled as India welcomes the political agreement concluded by the political leadership in Kabul. This press release has stated that India hopes the political agreement and creation of the high council of national reconciliation will result in renewed efforts for establishing enduring peace and stability and it will put an end to externally sponsored terrorism and violence. Here though it is mentioned as externally sponsored terrorism we can infer that it may refer to the support of Pakistan to Taliban. Now in the press release India has also expressed its deep concern on the continuing and enhanced violence and terror in Afghanistan. Recently there were terror attacks in some places in Afghanistan you would have seen it in news as the attack was on a maternity ward in a hospital where more than 10 innocent persons including mothers and newborn babies died. Many reports were saying that though the attacks were carried out by Taliban but Taliban has denied its involvement in this attack. Now Taliban has denied it because it wants to attain legitimacy in the upcoming intra-Afghan talks with the Afghan government and if you see even the United States of America and even few others have put the blame on ISIS only and not on Taliban regarding this attack. So now coming back to our discussion on India's stand on power sharing agreement India has welcomed the political agreement between the two political leaders. Now this development of power sharing agreement was also connected to a meeting organized by United Nations secretariat in the month of April 2020. This meeting was on Afghanistan and the meeting was called as 6 plus 2 plus 1 meeting. The number 6 refers to the current physical neighbors of Afghanistan which are China, Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The author of the editorial did not include India as one of the current physical neighbors of Afghanistan because Pakistan has illegally occupied the border region that India shares with Afghanistan. Now in this 6 plus 2 plus 1, 2 refers to the two global players who are USA and Russia and the number 1 refers to Afghanistan. So you might be wondering throughout all these about discussions on Afghanistan we talked about Taliban, UN, US, Russia, Pakistan, Iran and few other countries but we did not discuss much about India and the reason for this is given by the author of the editorial who has mentioned that because of current Indian foreign policy on Afghanistan India does not have a place in the international diplomacy on Afghanistan or India is in the margins of international diplomacy on Afghanistan. India not having a place in international diplomacy on Afghanistan is not in the best interest of India remember it. This is because of the security reasons as developments in Afghanistan has security implications to India. If you see the present foreign policy of India on Afghanistan it is that India stands with the present Afghanistan government which is elected by its people. Therefore India seeks to avoid open contacts with Taliban. As a result the US special envoy on Afghanistan peace process has said that India has limited its international diplomatic efforts and regarding this the author of the editorial has mentioned that India has been playing a constructive role in Afghanistan for the last 18 years and it must be part of the international diplomatic efforts with reference to Afghanistan. The author even criticizes that neither US nor Afghanistan has reciprocated India's constructive role in Afghanistan. This is because both these countries did not lobby for India's inclusion in the international diplomatic efforts. So the author calls for necessary changes in India's approach by openly talking to the Taliban and all other political groups in Afghanistan. Even the US is also feeling the same its special envoy to Afghanistan states that India should talk directly to the Taliban and discuss terror concerns directly. Now these points mentioned by the author are important because this editorial has been authored by a former Indian ambassador to Afghanistan. Now let us see the concerns which are mentioned in the interview article. These are the concerns expressed by another former ambassador of India to Afghanistan. According to this former ambassador Taliban is a destructive force and India should not engage with it until it becomes a constructive political force. That is Taliban should openly live by example that it has no affair against India and other countries and Taliban should drop arms and it should have the only objective of serving Afghan people. So like this if Taliban becomes a constructive political force then India can engage in talks with Taliban according to this former ambassador. Apart from this the ambassador has also mentioned another condition which is that Taliban should deal with India as an independent entity as a nationalist Afghan entity and not as a proxy for other countries. Now one way to understand Taliban becoming political force is by dropping arms and by engaging constructively with the Afghan government in the intra-Afghan peace talks. Only then India can have an open contract and communication with the Taliban. Now this suggestion is actually a well calculated advice to the Indian diplomats regarding the Afghan issue. Now here you should note one point that if Taliban joins intra-Afghan talks constructively then India must be ready at least by that time to communicate with Taliban. Otherwise India might even move far away from its present presence in the margins of international diplomacy on Afghanistan. So that is all about the recent developments in Afghanistan. Whatever points we have discussed in this discussion is important from Mainz's perspective. In this analysis we saw about the recent power sharing agreement between the two political leaders in Afghanistan and also India stand on it. Then we saw the position of India on international diplomatic efforts on Afghanistan to ensure peace and security to Afghanistan and we also saw some divergent suggestions in this regard. Thus we can expect that the foreign policy changes on Afghanistan by India will be a carefully calibrated one. With this we come to the end of this discussion. The displayed practice questions will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next discussion based on this editorial, as we know the finance minister has announced a tranche of reform measures for the agriculture sector. These farm reforms which are part of the Atmanir Bhair Bharat Abhyan was elaborately discussed on 16th May in the news analysis. You can have a look at it for better understanding. Now this editorial is an analysis of these reform measures with specific focus on essential commodities act of 1955. The syllabus that is relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. First let us discuss in brief about the proposed reforms. The author of this editorial feels that the centerpiece among the reforms was the rupees one lakh crore fund that was announced to finance agricultural infrastructure projects at the farm gate and at the produce aggregation points. Now here farm gate is nothing but the gateway to a firm. See it represents the location for direct purchase of farm produce from the farmer itself. So this fund will finance the agricultural infrastructure projects at the farm gate and at the produce aggregation points and this finance will create the most needed infrastructure like cold storage facilities. So farmers will be able to realize higher price for their produce because forced harvest losses will be reduced especially the losses due to perishables will come down and this proposed infrastructure fund will be provided to the agricultural cooperatives, farmer producer organizations, rural entrepreneurs and startups. In other terms the owners of creating the appropriate infrastructure or logistics solution is on the principal beneficiaries that is the farmers themselves. Now this is one of the reforms which was announced. Now along with this a 10,000 crore scheme to promote the formalization of around 2 lakh micro-food enterprises was also announced. Now this promotion will be cluster based approach that is focused in different regions on signature produce like mango in UP and then chilli in Andhra Pradesh etc. So this will help in the long term because due to this promotion the unorganized enterprises will scale up or increase their food safety standards to earn the product certification and also to build the brand value. So this was the second reform. Now the third proposed changes is in the Essential Commodities Act of 1955. So first let us discuss some features of this act. See in a market economy like India this act empowers the center to intervene in the market and know that this act is administered by the Department of Consumer Affairs under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs. So how does this work? See as and when required the center declares a commodity as essential under this act. Then the center can regulate its production supply and distribution in order to make those commodities available to consumers and that too at fair prices and if you see the list of items which are listed as essential commodities under the act includes drugs, fertilizers, petroleum and petroleum products etc. Apart from this the center can also include new commodities and can also take the existing commodities out of the list based on the prevailing situation in the country. So when the center imposes stock holding limit on a commodity then the states or the union territory administration enforces it. So the wholesalers retailers or even the importers who are dealing with this commodity are prevented from stockpiling that commodity beyond a certain quantity. So in turn it prevents holding and black marketing and by this this act improves the supply of commodities but if you see all is not well with this act because if center announces two frequent stock limits then traders may not be interested to invest in better storage infrastructure which is actually essential for stocking and as we know food processing industries need to maintain large stocks to run their operation smoothly so the stock limits announced by the center curtail their operations. So large-scale private investments are unlikely to flow into the food processing facilities and cold storage facilities. Now based on this scenario only the union finance minister had said that the essential commodities act will be amended to deregulate agriculture food stuffs including cereals, edible oils, oil seeds, pulses, onions and potato. So stock limit will be imposed only under very exceptional circumstances like national calamities, famine with the surgeon prices etc. Along with this no stock limit will be applicable to processors but this condition is subject to their installed capacity and also there will be no stock limit applicable to any exporter subject to the export demand. Now this move of government is aimed at enabling a better price realization for the farmers by removing restrictions and by facilitating enhanced marketing freedom and here author feels that due to enhanced marketing freedom there may be inflationary food price spikes in the future. So these are some of the points mentioned in the editorial that you should take note of that is all about this discussion the displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next discussion which is based on this editorial in this editorial author has provided critical views on relaxation in the labor laws by the government amid this pandemic the syllabus that is relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference as you know for reviving the economy India is slowly lifting the nationwide lockdown at the same time many states have suspended its crucial labor laws for varying lengths of time now this strategy is adopted because it enables flexible labor laws and environmental laws now these flexible laws are key instruments through which India can improve its rank in the ease of doing business index as you know that India's rank has jumped from 130 in 2016 to 63 in 2019 in the ease of doing business index which is released by World Bank now improvement in this index is important because it attracts foreign direct investments and it also encourages domestic private capital apart from this the move also forms the core of make in India program now here in this picture you can see some important labor laws now to know about what are labor laws what are their objectives what are the recent changes made by various state governments you can also view our 12th May Hindi news analysis where we have discussed it in detail now in today's editorial discussion we'll discuss about the concerns raised by the author about the way in which the labor laws are suspended here the main problem noted by author is that these relaxations have been made without tripartite discussion between employers workers and government the ordinances by the state governments are promulgated and the rules are notified for suspending the labor laws without this discussion now this move is considered as undemocratic by the author that is why he notes that the novel coronavirus pandemic simply provides a window for the government to aggressively fulfill the long-term agenda of diluting labor rights because as you know in normal times if this would have happened then it would have led to widespread protests and massive strikes then the next problem is if you see most of the states have extended daily working hours from 8 hours to 12 hours and this is to address the problem of labor shortages but there is no provision for overtime pay in some states such as Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and similarly if you see the Uttar Pradesh government also passed an ordinance that exempts employers from complying with the minimum wages act of 1948 this was done on purpose because the minimum wage calculated by a government appointed committee in 2018 was rupees 375 per day but whereas the national floor wage under the codon wages 2019 which was calculated in the same year was a mere rupees 176 per day and now the state governments under the codon wages are directed to set their minimum wages only above the national floor wage this move is to encourage private investments and obviously the state would also essentially consider the national floor wage only and this in effect would dilute the idea of minimum wage because as we know minimum wage aims to ensure minimum living standards for workers across the country and now it is compromised now we just know that the codon wages of 2019 makes a distinction between national minimum wage and national floor wage now in addition to this the Uttar Pradesh ordinance also exempts employers from complying with the industrial disputes act of 1947 therefore employers can hire and fire workers at their own will hence here the firms or the industries hardly face any problem in adjusting their workforce and here again the workers interests are not considered then after that the Uttar Pradesh government also passed a notification on May 8th which diluted the provisions of factories act of 1948 and it also increased the work timings in manufacturing units from the existing eight hours to 12 hours however a petition was filed by the Uttar Pradesh workers front in the alhabad high court and after that the government has withdrawn its recent order then if we consider Madhya Pradesh the Madhya Pradesh ordinance exempted the factories which are employing less than 50 workers from regular inspections and it also allowed third party inspections now here the author notes that a similar thing has been proposed under codon wages because it also severely eroded the inspection mechanism as it snatched away the powers of inspectors to conduct surprise checks and the codon wages even states that even when violations in law are detected the inspectors are mandated to advise they are mandated to provide information and facilitate the employers to comply with the law and if you see in fact now the inspectors are called as inspector come facilitator only so you can see where Madhya Pradesh got its idea from not only this the Madhya Pradesh ordinance further states that for new establishments provisions guiding the industrial dispute resolution provisions regarding strikes lockouts and trade unions would cease to operate and it seems that this has been inspired by the industrial relations code of 2019 as it proposes to raise the membership threshold of a trade union from 15 percentage to 75 percentage of the workforce in an establishment and this has to be done for recognizing the union as a negotiating union so these provisions not only put the interests of workers at stake but they also pay a way for labour exploitation by the employers now why the labour laws are suspended in the first place it is because it is to reduce the labour cost which will thus enable stimulation of private investments and which in turn will revive the economy but here the author questions whether such move really stimulates private investments and the answer given by the author is no because in the past even rba designed policies that reduce the cost of borrowing capital to improve private participation and as you know in september 2019 also government reduced the corporate tax but all these moves made no impact in boosting private capital and it did not revive growth in the subsequent quarters so according to the author resorting to private investment for economic recovery is useless because private agents wait and watch for a predictable environment before they invest their money and therefore private players cannot be the principal agent for guiding an economy and deviving the economy thus as a conclusion author notes that suspension of labour laws is a violent attack on the fundamental rights of workers and this move also clearly exposes the authoritarian nature of the state hence he has finally asked every section of the society to come together and resist this relaxation of labour laws together to protect the rights of workers so that is all about this editorial in this editorial we saw the concerns raised by the author about the relaxed labour laws or the suspended labour laws in the states and finally he has also noted that the main reason for relaxing the labour laws is to revive the economy by stimulating the private investments but as we saw according to the author it is not going to happen so that is all about this discussion moving on to the next discussion which is based on this question this question has been framed on this news article which mentions that Punjab farmers are favouring the direct seeding of rice technique in this curry season and this is due to the imminent labour shortage that was caused by COVID-19 outbreak see as you know many migrant labourers who are working all over India and also in Punjab have left their place of work and they are returning their hometowns hence there is a shortage of labour this year and that is why Punjab farmers are favouring this DSR technique or the direct seeding of rice technique so what is this DSR see it is a rice sowing technique in which rice seed is sown and sprouted directly into the field as you know in conventional method rice is sprouted in a nursery and then these sprouted seedlings are then transplanted into the standing water now this conventional method is called as puddled transplanting system or in short PTR but if we consider direct seeding of rice technique in this technique rice seed is directly sown into the field and thus this technique saves irrigation water labour and power and this is why Punjab farmers are favouring DSR and also because it is less time consuming than the conventional or the traditional practice of sowing nursery and then transplanting it but there are some constraints associated with this technique as it includes high weed infestation evolution of VD rice it causes increase in soil bone pathogens then it also causes nutrient disorders there is also incidence of blast disease and rice etc but still why Punjab farmers are preferring DSR it is because a new DSR technique has been developed by Punjab Agricultural University and this new technique of DSR is called as tarvatar DSR in this new DSR technique the field is first laser leveled and then pre sowing irrigation is done and after that preparation of the field is done when it reaches the tarvatar condition that is good soil moisture condition after that rice is immediately sown and then the first irrigation is applied 21 days after the sowing and then the succeeding irrigations need to be scheduled as per the monsoon rains now the benefits of this new DSR technique is that as June month is very hot and evaporation is very high the delayed first irrigation under this new technique saves irrigation water not only that this delayed first irrigation also reduces weed problem thus this new DSR technique takes care of the weed associated issues which are tackled in a normal DSR technique then the third advantage is that the roots of rice plant go deeper due to delayed irrigation thus it reduces the incidence of nutrient deficiency especially the iron deficiency and then in this technique rice can be direct seeded in medium to heavy textured soils such as sandy loam soil loam clay loam silt loam soils actually if you see these types of soil textures accounts for 87 percentage of area of Punjab so that is why this technique is beneficial for them and also the profits from this new technique are at par with the rice transplanted in the puddle field according to the research studies and it is said that this technique also improves groundwater recharge and it also provides best yield and quality because it involves more precision in timing and greater accuracy in operations so this was about the direct seeding of rice technique and this new DSR technique now if you look at this question the question asks which of the following statements is correct regarding DSR technique first statement it requires large quantity of irrigation water for puddling this is incorrect because it does not require large quantity of irrigation water rather the conventional method requires this then option B says it is a labor intensive method of rice cultivation no it is the opposite rather it requires less labor intervention so this statement is also incorrect now the third one is in this technique rice is sprouted in a nursery and sprouted seedlings are then transplanted into standing water now this statement talks about the puddled transplanting system so this is also incorrect so the correct answer to this question is option D which is rice seed is sown and sprouted directly into the field in this technique which we already discussed now let us take the next question this question has been framed based on this news article which describes about sovereign gold bonds see a sovereign gold bond or STB is a bond denominated in gold and it acts as a substitute for holding physical gold these bonds are issued by reserve bank of india on behalf of central government and know that after consulting rba government of india issues sgb in several branches for a specific period now the bonds will be denominated in multiple grams of gold with a basic unit of one gram and know that the tenor of bond will be for a period of eight years but with an exit option after fifth year and know that these bonds are not sold to everyone it is restricted for sale to individuals hindu undivided families trusts universities and charitable institutions only and this is the minimum permissible investment and this is the maximum limit and these bonds will be sold through scheduled commercial banks except small finance banks and payment banks then it will also be sold by sscal and designated post office and they are also sold through recognized stock exchanges like bomb-based stock exchange limited so how are these bonds priced the bonds are priced in rupees on the basis of simple average of closing price of the gold which is of 999 purity this would be published for the last three working days of the week which is preceding the subscription period so what are the benefits of buying such sovereign gold bonds see the investors will get a holding certificate and the bonds can be converted into demat or the electronic form so investors who want to invest in gold can buy the sovereign gold bonds they don't have to worry about safekeeping of physical gold they don't have to worry about the locker charges making charges or even the purity issues apart from this these bonds offer an interest at the rate of 2.5 per annum and not only that know that these interests on gold bonds are taxable but there is one exemption which is the capital gains tax which is arising on the redemption of these sovereign gold bonds to an individual has been exempted see as you know capital gain refers to the profit which is earned by an individual on the sale of an asset like stocks bonds or real estate and capital gain happens when the selling price of an asset exceeds its purchase price and the tax imposed on this is known as capital gains tax and this has been exempted for the redemption of sgb now another advantage apart from this is that sgb can be used as collateral for loans from banks but know that sgbs are not risk free because we already discussed the pricing of these bonds and thus the redemption price is based on the average closing price of gold which is of 999 purity for the previous three working days so if gold prices fall in these working days then it will result in capital loss for the investor and that is why we are saying it is not risk free so based on this if you look at this question the question asks which of the following statements is incorrect regarding sovereign gold bonds so from the given options you can say that option c is incorrect because it mentions both the interest earned and capital gains at the time of redemption are exempted from paying tax no interest is not exempted from paying tax we already saw that the interest on gold bonds are taxable so that is why this statement is incorrect now let us take the next question this question has been framed on this news article which talks about national legal services authority that is nalsa see in march the supreme court of india observed that physical distancing would be difficult in prisons hence the apex court issued guidelines formed committees and asked the legal services authorities such as nalsa to work together and release undertrial prisoners and for releasing those who are on bail and parole so that they can bring down the prison population and based on this as per the recent nalsa report over 42 000 undertrial prisoners are released and around 16 000 convicts are freed on parole to decongest the prisons this is what is mentioned in this news article now know that the national legal services authority has been constituted under the legal services authorities act of 1987 and this act was enacted by the parliament to establish a nationwide uniform network for providing free and competent legal services to the weaker sections of the society now since it has been established under an act nalsa is a statutory body and know that the chief justice of india is the patron and chief of this authority and the senior most judge of the supreme court of india is the executive chairman of this authority and the principal objective of nalsa is to provide free and competent legal services to the weaker sections of the society and also to ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reasons of economic or other disabilities and based on this only nalsa provides free legal services which also includes free legal aid now know that nalsa lays down policies principles guidelines and it also frames effective and economical schemes for the state legal services authorities so that they can implement the legal services program throughout the country so yes there is a state legal services authority also which has been constituted to give effect to the policies and directions of nalsa and there is also a district legal services authority which has been constituted to implement legal services program in the district and primarily these are the functions delivered by the legal service authorities and now this question asks which of the persons given above are eligible for getting free legal services under national legal services authority now see the sections of society which are enlisted under section 12 of legal services authority act are entitled for free legal services and these are the sections of society who are eligible for it women and children members of schedule cast or schedule tribes disabled persons victims of mass disaster ethnic violence flood draw earthquake etc then persons in custody then victims of trafficking all are eligible to get free legal services under nalsa so that means one should be in answer two should be in answer three should be in answer and also five should be in answer but four should not be in answer because it mentions persons whose annual income does not exceed rupees six lakh see as of now know that the income ceiling fixed by the state governments ranges from rupees 15 000 to three lakhs to get the free legal services so that is why the persons whose annual income does not exceed rupees six lakh will not come as even in supreme court those persons whose annual income is less than five like they are only eligible to get free legal services hence the correct answer is option d one two three and five only now let us take the remaining questions which were displayed during the news article discussion sessions this question is based on Afghanistan the first statement mentions it is not a landlocked country see we say a country as a landlocked country when it does not have any maritime boundary so as you can see in this map Afghanistan does not have any maritime boundary because it shares borders with other countries such as India Pakistan Iran Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Tajikistan and China now the second statement mentions it shares border with Pakistan but not with Iran now the statement is incorrect because just now we saw it shares border with Iran as you can see here clearly and here the question asks for the correct statements and both the statements are incorrect so the correct answer is option d neither one nor two now this next question is based on essential commodities act of 1955 the first statement mentions the act empowers the central government to regulate the production supply and distribution of a commodity by declaring such commodity as essential now this statement is correct because it is one of the main objectives of this act and for declaring any commodity as an essential commodity it has to be listed under the schedule to this act now the second statement mentions the act is administered by the ministry of home affairs and is often used to prevent hoarding during national calamities now the statement is incorrect because this act is administered by the department of consumer affairs under the ministry of consumer affairs food and public distribution it is not administered by ministry of home affairs but the second half of this statement is correct but since first half is incorrect the whole statement is incorrect and here the question asks for the correct statements so the correct answer is option a one only now let us take one main question based on jsp2 the question asks discuss the possible factors that inhibit India from establishing diplomatic contact with the Taliban as part of ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan now while writing answer to this question you can mention the points like the association of Taliban with terrorism then it is continuously being a non-constructive force in Afghanistan then Taliban has association with Pakistan diligence and army and it is acting against the interests and security of India and you can also mention that there is lack of protection for India in the U.S. Taliban peace deal and also India was not included while arriving the U.S. Taliban peace deal so like this you can mention the points which we discussed during the news article discussions you can also add your own viewpoints which you think as factors that inhibit India from establishing a diplomatic contact with Taliban but be careful do not exceed the word limits beyond 250 words with this we have come to the end of today's in the news analysis if you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to Shankar IAS academy youtube channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation