 Very good evening to all our friends and welcome to the Hindu News Analysis of Shankar IAS Academy for the date 1st December 2020. Here is the list of the relevant news articles taken up for today's discussion from five different editions of the Hindu newspaper along with their page numbers. Also the handwritten notes in the PDF format and time stampings for all the news articles taken up for today's discussion is given in the description box and also in the comment section for the best interest of the viewers. Let us now begin our news analysis. First, let us take up this news article which states that the Indian vice president has launched a virtual exhibition on the shared Buddhist heritage of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. So this is the website of the virtual exhibition. You can access it through this link. So in this analysis, let us focus on Buddha teachings or doctrines of Buddha or Buddhism and also how Buddhism reached Central Asia and has become a shared heritage. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. First, let us talk about Buddha. See, Buddha was named at birth as Siddhartha and he was also known as Gautama. He was born about 2500 years ago in 563 BC at Lumbini in Nepal near Kapila Vastu. Buddha belonged to a small Gana called as Sake Gana and since his early childhood, he showed a meditative bent of mind. He was married early but married life did not interest him. He was moved by the misery of the people suffered in the world and looked for its solution. At the age of 29, he left the comforts of his home in search of knowledge. He wandered for seven years, during which he held meetings and discussions with other thinkers. Finally, he decided to find his own path to realization and meditated for a long period under a peepal tree at Bodh Gaya in Bihar. So it is here he attained enlightenment and knowledge at the age of 35. And after that, Siddhartha was known as Buddha or the vice one or the Enlightened. Then he went to Sarnath which is near Varanasi or Banaras. It is here he taught for the first time and he spent the rest of his life traveling on foot, going from place to place and teaching people. And finally, he passed away or had his last breath at Kushinagar. See Kushinagar is today a district in the state of Uttar Pradesh and know that the demise of Buddha is called as Mahaparinirvana. Now let us see the doctrines of Buddhism. See it is reported that the missionary activities of Buddha did not discriminate between the rich and the poor, the high and the low and the man and the woman. It is to be noted that Buddha addressed himself to the worldly problems. He said that world is full of sorrows and people suffer on account of desires. If desires are conquered Nirvana will be attained and a human will be free from the cycle of birth and death. Buddha recommended an eight-fold path also called as Ashtangika Marga for the elimination of human misery. It comprised of right observation, right determination, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right exercise, right memory and right meditation. A follower of this Marga will be able to reach the destination and she will not depend on the schemes suggested or claimed by the priests. The next teaching of Buddha is that a person should avoid the excess of both luxury and strictness or austerity. He prescribed a middle path. Buddha also laid down a code of conduct for his followers. The main items in this social conduct is given here for your reference. See it includes not coveting or having desire towards the property of others, then not committing violence, not using intoxicants, not speaking a lie or not indulging in correct practices. Just know that the rules made for Buddhist Sangha or Buddhist order were written down in a book called as Vinaya Pedaka and Buddhism does not recognize the existence of God and soul and this is taken as a kind of revolution in the history of Indian religions. It attacked the Varna system and therefore it won the support of people who were made to stay away from some kind of privileges and they are Vaishyas and Shudras. At that time the Brahmanas claimed the highest status in the society and while we could not find the reactions from the Vaishyas and Shudra community, the rulers who were Kshatriyas reacted strongly against the ritualistic domination of the Brahmanas which was based on birth and who knows those who were called as Vaishyas and Shudras could have been deliberately silenced. The history books record that Buddha was also a Kshatriya at the time of birth. The Kshatriya reaction is one of the reasons for the emergence of new religions such as Buddhism and Jainism. People were taken into Buddhist order without any consideration given to caste or sex. Women were admitted to the Sangha and brought on par with men. However, some patriarchal tendency did exist those days in Buddhism too as women had to get their husband's permission if they wished to join the Buddhist Sangha. So let us conclude the discussion by seeing how Buddhism reached Central Asia. Know that Buddha passed away at the age of 80 in 483 BC and 200 years after the death of Buddha, Ashoka who was the famous Maurya king embraced Buddhism and through his agents Ashoka spread Buddhism into Central Asia and as we have seen in the news today the Buddhist philosophy and art of Central Asia connects the member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to each other and we should also remember that Ashoka also played an instrumental role in spreading Buddhism to Sri Lanka and West Asia as well as in transforming Buddhism into a world religion. So in this discussion we saw about Buddha then the teachings or doctrines of Buddha or Buddhism and also on how Buddhism reached Central Asia and other parts of the world. So with this information let us move on to the next news. Now these articles are about the meetings associated with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS. Yesterday the 19th meeting of the Council of Heads of the Governments of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was held in a video conference format. The Indian side was represented by the Vice President of India and in an indirect reference to Pakistan the Vice President stated that the cross-border terrorism is the biggest challenge for the SEO region and from the side of the BRICS grouping the fifth BRICS media forum met yesterday via video conferencing. The forum called upon the five nations to combat virus of disinformation during the pandemic. So in this context let us see a few important information related to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS. See SEO is a permanent intergovernmental international organization whose creation was announced in June 2001 at Shanghai in China. So this is the reason why it is called as Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The announcement of SEO was made by six countries which are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. And know that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Charter is the fundamental statutory document which outlines the organization's goals and principles and its structure and core activities. It was signed during the St. Petersburg SEO Heads of State meeting which was held in June 2002 and it entered into force on 19th September 2003. And remember at the Astana Heads of State Council in June 2017 India and Pakistan were made as full members of SEO. SEO's main goals are given here for your reference please go through it. Know that the Heads of State Council is the supreme decision-making body in the SEO. It meets once a year and adopts decisions and guidelines on all the important matters of the organization. And also know that the SEO Heads of Government Council meets once a year to discuss the organization's multilateral cooperation strategy and priority areas and to resolve the current important economic and other cooperation issues and also to approve the organization's annual budget. And see the SEO's official languages are Russian and Chinese. Now let us see about BRICS. See BRICS consists of five major emerging countries which are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The acronym BRICS was coined by Goldman Sachs in 2001 in order to indicate that the four powers along with USA will be the five largest economic powers in the world in the 21st century. The beginning goes to the year 2006. In 2006 the BRICS countries started the dialogue. And since 2009 the meetings take place at annual meetings of the heads of the state and the heads of the government. The fifth member was South Africa which joined the group in 2011. And since the beginning of the dialogue in 2006 the countries have sought to establish the fairest international governance which should be more suitable to their national interests. The sectorial cooperation under the grouping has widened from about seven subject areas to about 30 areas at present. And the most prominent areas of cooperation are economy and finance, health, science, technology and innovation, security and business. A significant development happened at the Fortaleza Summit in 2014. At this summit two important institutions were created. One is the new development bank and the other is the contingent reserve arrangement. See the contingent reserve arrangement is an important financial stability mechanism for the countries affected by balance of payments crisis. Now BRICS also organized the heads of government meetings and around 100 annual meetings including meetings on ministerial levels, technical events, on culture, education and sports areas. And know that BRICS group has annually rotating chairship among its members. India served as the chair of the grouping in 2016. And during the chairship the chair country primarily decides on focus, priorities and the activities of the grouping. In 2019 it was chaired by Brazil and in the BRICS order in 2020 it was chaired by Russia. And the next year that is 2021 it will be chaired by India. So these are some of the informations with reference to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS. Now let us move on to the next news. Now let us take up this news article and this editorial. See the editorial is written in the wake of the recent protest by farmers against the three farm sector laws which is covered in this front page article. Know that the farmers want the three laws to be repealed. So the government has asked the farmer unions to participate in a dialogue to address the concerns of the farmers. See the concerns are based on the claims by the government on the three legislations and we have discussed about these legislations in many of our Hindu news analysis in October. So the claim is that under the legislations private markets will be established and also the middleman will not be able to play any role so that the farmers will be free to sell to any buyer and finally the farm gate prices would rise. We may think that the removal of middleman is beneficial only then why the farmers are protesting. So in order to understand the concerns of the farmers the author discusses the issues with these claims which are especially based on the farmers produce trade and commerce promotion and facilitation act of 2020 or simply FPTCA. So let us discuss this in detail. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. See FPTCA was enacted with these objectives that is to institute an ecosystem which enables freedom of choice in sale and purchase of farmers produce then to facilitate remunerative prices through competitive alternative trading channels and also to promote barrier free trade in agriculture. So in short FPTCA enables private participation in Mondays or we can call it private markets. See private participation is being promoted because of the assumptions that the Mondays controlled by the agricultural produce marketing committees or APMCs are the only buyers in the rural areas but is this the true scenario actually it is not. We have official data which suggests that a large proportion of harvest is also sold to the local private traders or input dealers. Some sources say that around 60 percentage of agricultural trade takes place outside the Mondays through these unregulated sales. So already the farmers are selling or forced to sell outside the Mondays. So what is the reason for this? See it is because there is less number of Mondays to sell the produce. See there is a recommendation from the National Commission on Agriculture or NCA which was established in 1970 that every Indian farmer should be able to reach a Monday in one hour by a cart and based on this requirement the author calculates that the average area served by every Monday should not be more than 80 km2 and if this is to happen then the number of Mondays should be at least 41,000 but in reality in 2019 there were only 6,630 Mondays. So according to the calculations they serve an average area of 463 km2 per Monday and another reason why the farmers are selling outside the Mondays is because in India the majority of farmers are small and marginal farmers. So they have comparatively less produce to sell and since the Mondays are far the transport cost for taking the harvest to Mondays is very costly and to avoid this cost they sell their harvest to village traders even at a comparatively lower price. So the author believes that even if private markets replace Mondays small and marginal farmers will continue to sell their produce to traders in the village itself. So considering APMCs as only the current buyers is the first issue. The second issue is that there is no significant private investment flow to establish private markets. See already in many states legislative changes were made to provide freedom to sell outside Mondays like in private markets but even then private markets did not become prominent even in those states and this is due to poor private investment. So why there is a reduced private investment? See it is because of the high transaction costs in produce collection and aggregation. See the private players have to open collection centers and has to spend on salaries for grading of produce, its storage and transportation. So all these incurs considerable cost and in addition to this retail chains face additional costs in urban sales and storage plus there is a risk of perishability and this is because of poor cold storage infrastructure and because of these reasons the retail chains prefer purchasing bulk quantities of produce from the Mondays rather than directly from the farmers. So they do not invest in private markets. The next issue is receiving higher price in private markets. See this is propagated based on the fact that the Monday tax will not be applicable in private markets even though it is true the transaction costs which we saw now will take place of Monday tax and the farmers will continue getting lower prices for the harvest and this situation will be worse if the transaction costs will exceed Monday tax and the next issue is with respect to minimum support prices. See the author notes that many of the policies point towards a strategic design to weaken the minimum support prices. For example MSPs are rising at a slower rate over the past five to six years even though the input cost and labor cost are rising sharply in agriculture. So we can say that MSPs are not in line with the increasing production costs. Further the commission for agriculture costs and prices or CSCP has been recommending to end the open-ended procurement of food grains. See the procurement at MSP is open-ended that is whatever food grains are offered by the farmers within the stipulated procurement period and which conforms to the quality specifications prescribed by the government of India. Those food grains are purchased at MSP by the government agencies for the central pool. So if this open-ended system ends it will be disadvantages to the farmers and they will not be able to get remunerative prices for their harvest. So these concerns in MSP related policies in addition to the three new farm laws has created panic among the farmers. Further weakening of Mondays and private markets create problems for farmers in all directions because private markets have no commitments to MSPs. Thus the expansion of private markets may lead to gradual erosion of farmers entitlement to a remunerative price. Plus if private markets do not sufficiently replace Mondays then the remaining produce will be purchased unscrupulous and unregulated traders. Thus first the government should address these issues to calm the protesting farmers. And for this the author provides suggestions on what needs to be done. See the author is of the opinion that the density of Mondays have to be increased and more investment in Monday infrastructure is needed and also the coverage of MSPs should be increased to more regions and more crops. And along with this Mondays have to be made better through internal reforms in APMCs for easing the entry of new players, then deduced trade collusion and linking them with the national E trading platforms then by introduction of unified national licenses for traders and finally by making single point levy of market fees. So it is suggestable to improve the existing APMC system rather than reducing its role. So this is all about this news article and this editorial with this we will move on to the next news. Now have a look at this question. It is based on this oped article which is about the Central Reserve Police Force or CRPF and the role played by them in controlling the Maoists. Recently the central government has decided to deploy more battalions of CRPF to Chhattisgarh in order to increase anti Maoist operations. So in this context let us understand about Maoists and CRPF. See Maoists is a form of communism which was developed by Mao Setu. It has a doctrine to capture state power through a combination of armed insurgency mass mobilization and strategic alliances. Thus the central theme of Maoist ideology is military line that is the use of violence and armed insurrections to capture power. It glorifies violence and they have the People's Liberation guerrilla army or PLGA cadres who are trained specifically in the worst forms of violence to evoke terror among the population under the domination. Maoism is also known as left wing extremism or LWE. And according to the government the largest and most violent Maoist formation in India is the Communist Party of India Maoist. Here note that the CPI Maoist and all its friend organizations formations are banned terrorist organizations under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act of 1967. Now which are the states considered to be left wing extremism affected? Know that the severely affected states are Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar and the partially affected states are West Bengal, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Also Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are considered slightly affected. Now here Chhattisgarh is important as its 14 districts are Maoist affected especially the South Buster and Abhujmat areas are the base areas of Maoists. See base areas provide occasions to Maoists to wage mobile war against the security forces and also enables their military formations to move freely. Know that mobile warfare is a war in which a regular army wages war by concentrating its forces in a vast area with fluid battle fronts and deployments and often changing from one place to another. It will have the mobility of attacking the enemy at his relatively vulnerable spots and withdrawing quickly and also the potential for changing tactics when the conditions change. So to control the Maoist since Chhattisgarh, already 45 central armed police force battalions are deployed along with the CRPFs specially trained Cobra units. See Cobra stands for Commander Battalions for Resolute Action and now the government has decided to deploy more battalions of CRPF. See more forces multiple advantages such as more area will be dominated by the security forces which in turn restricts the Maoist movement. Also they cannot easily retreat. It will also improve the intelligence network of the security forces. Now let us see about CRPF. See it is a premier central police force of Union of India for internal security. It came into existence in 1939 as Crown Representative's Police. It became CRPF on the enactment of CRPF Act of 1949. The force has 246 battalions including the Mahila or women battalions, Cobra battalions etc. Thus CRPF is the largest central armed police force. It is under the administrative control of Ministry of Home Affairs and its mission is to enable the government to maintain rule of law, public order and internal security effectively and efficiently. It also has a mission to preserve national integrity and promote social harmony and development by upholding the supremacy of the Constitution of India. And know that the CRPF is the main striking force of the country dealing with internal security duties which includes anti-nexal operations and counter insurgency duties in Jammu and Kashmir and northeast. Now these are the other broad duties performed by the CRPF. Please go through it. Now see this question which of the following are the duties of the Central Reserve Police Force. Here six duties are given. Know that the duties of the CRPF includes crowd control, re-out control, counter militancy or insurgency operations dealing with left-wing extremism, then overall coordination of large-scale security arrangements especially with regard to elections in the disturbed areas, then protection of VIPs and vital installations, then checking environmental degradation and protection of local flora and fauna, fighting aggression during wartime, participating in UN peacekeeping mission and rescue and relief operation at the time of natural calamities. So from this we can see that the border security and rescue of hostages are not the duties of CRPF. See border security is the duty of ASAM rifles, border security force, then the Indo-Tibetan border police, then the Sashastra seamable and rescue of hostages is done by NSG that is the National Security Guard. So the correct answer for this question is option C, 1, 2, 4 and 5 only. With this we will move on to the next news. Now have a look at this question. It is based on this news article which is regarding the changing reservation quota in the National Eligibility Commandance Test or NEAT. It seems that many medical seat aspirants have incorrectly mentioned their community status, that is they have wrongly claimed to be falling under the undeserved category in their online applications rather than mentioning as under the OBC category. So RIT petitions were filed before the Madras High Court asking the court to permit the aspirants to be considered under the OBC category. Now the High Court has noted that after the publication of the rank list, the NEAT aspirants cannot expect the court to do so. Thus the petitions have been dismissed by the High Court and it has asked the aspirants to be very careful at the time of filling the applications in the future. The High Court took this decision based on the arguments put forward by the National Testing Agency or NTA. Here NTA noted that candidates were given eight opportunities to make corrections to their applications which were not properly utilized by them. So this is the news. In this context let us discuss about the National Testing Agency. See it was established by the erstwhile ministry of human resource and development that is the present ministry of education. NTA has been established as a premier, specialist, autonomous and self-sustained testing organization. It conducts entrance examinations for the admissions or fellowship in higher educational institutions and know that it is registered under the Societies Registration Act of 1860. Now its objectives are to conduct efficient, transparent and international standards tests in order to assess the competency of candidates for admission and recruitment purposes. Then it aims to undertake research on educational, professional and testing systems to identify gaps in the knowledge systems and for taking steps to bridge those gaps. Then it identifies experts and institutions in setting examination questions and finally it aims to produce and disseminate information and research on education and professional development standards. Now let us see its functions. See it identifies partner institutions with educate infrastructure which would facilitate conduct of online examinations without adversely impacting their academic routine. Then it creates a question bank for all subjects using the modern techniques. Then it establishes a strong research and development culture and a pool of experts in different aspects of testing. Then it also helps in developing a state of the art culture of testing in India by using domestic and international expertise. And finally it undertakes any examination interested to it by the ministries or departments of the government of India or any state governments. Now with this information see this question. Consider the following statements with reference to national testing agency. The first statement reads it is an independent and autonomous premier testing organization that conducts intense examinations such as the graduate pharmacy aptitude test or GPAT. Yes this statement is correct. Now the second statement reads it also conducts assessments for fellowship including the national eligibility test. Yes this statement is also correct. But here we have to identify the incorrect statement or statements. Since both the statements are correct the correct answer is option D neither one nor two. So with this we have discussed all the relevant news articles from today's The Hindu newspaper. Now we will move on to the practice questions discussion section based on today's news analysis. See this first question. Consider the following statements with reference to the Gautama Siddhartha Buddha. The first statement reads Buddha recommended Ashtangika Marga for the elimination of human misery. Yes this statement is correct. The second statement reads Buddha was born in Lumbini which is in Nepal and died in Kushinagar which is in India. Yes this statement is also correct. So we have to identify the correct statement or statements. Here both the statements are correct. So the correct answer is option C both one and two. Now see the second question. Consider the following statements with reference to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS grouping. The first statement reads India is a founding member in both the groupings. See this statement is incorrect. We know that India is a founding member only in BRICS and not in Shanghai Cooperation Organization. See the creation of Shanghai Cooperation Organization was announced in June 2001 at Shanghai in China and it was announced by six countries which are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. And India and Pakistan were made full members of SEO at the Astana Heads of State Council which was held in June 2017. So India and Pakistan became full members in 2017. Now the second statement reads None of the Indian languages are included as an official language in SEO. Yes this statement is correct. So in this question we have to identify the correct statement or statements. Statement one is incorrect and statement two is correct. So the correct answer is option B two only. Now we have this main practice question. Please write your answers and post it in the comments section. Our feedbacks will be given in a reasonable time frame. So friends with this we have come to the end of analysis of all the news articles taken for today's discussion and also the discussion of practice questions. If you like this video please press the like button, comment, share and do subscribe to Shankar Iyer's Academy YouTube channel for more updates related to civil service preparation.