 The first news article for today's analysis talks about India's gold reserves, which appeared on the page number 15 of Chennai edition and page 13 of Delhi edition. The aspects of this article can be covered under the UPSC civil service examination syllabus in preliminary examination, under the areas current events of national and international importance and in economic and social development. And in main examination it can be covered in GS paper 3 under the areas Indian economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization and government budgeting. Stepping into the main discussion, let us try to understand the balance of payments, which is a part of India's external sector. External sector deals with export of goods and services and financial capital between nations. The balance of payments is the systematic record of countries all economic transactions. Say for example, India's entire economic transactions with the outside world that is with other countries of the world in a particular year. All transactions include the transactions of the government and the private as well. It is a double entry bookkeeping, one with the credit entry which signifies the inflow that is the imports which are credited or purchased with money and the other with a debit entry which signifies the outflow that is the exports are debited with money for the goods and services rendered. The balance of payments includes the following items which is the format used in economic service of finance ministry that is tabled before the Indian parliament in the budget session of every financial year. This data is compiled from the Reserve Bank of India's balance of payments sheet that is released by RBI for every quarter in a financial year. You can have a look at it in RBI's official website. Let's see the table of balance of payments that was presented in economic survey of 2017-18. The subheads include current account, capital account, errors and omissions, overall balance and reserves change. Let us now focus on reserves change which is relevant to our topic of this news article. The reserve changes in general denote the monetary movements in and out of India. They are the foreign exchange reserves. The sum of the current and capital account balance is the balance of payment. The balance is added to the foreign exchange reserve if the balance of payment is surplus. The balance is deducted from the foreign exchange reserve if the balance of payment is in deficit. It means the payment is made out of the old balance of foreign exchange reserve. The foreign exchange reserves consist of foreign currency assets, gold reserves of RBI, special drawing rights that is SDR holdings of Indian government with IMF, the international monetary fund and reserve tranche. Let us focus on the gold reserve or gold stock of RBI. These gold reserves are maintained by RBI. It is used as a backup to issue currency. It is also utilized when an unexpected problem in the balance of payment happens in any financial year. The value of these gold reserves is expressed either in US dollars or INR. If you see the table published in today's news article, India is the 11th largest country in the world with gold reserves which also includes IMF. Since IMF also holds the third largest gold reserves if we see the table. Also USA is the country with the largest amount of gold reserves which is almost equal to the next three countries in the table combined that is Germany, IMF and Italy. The gold reserve data is released every month by World Gold Council. The news is that the gold reserve of India has increased marginally from February 2019 to 608.7 tons when compared to the previous month January 2019 where it was 607 tons. We need to know in brief about World Gold Council. It is headquartered at London in United Kingdom which is a market development organization for the gold industry that works across the entire supply chain of gold industry from mining to market. With this we come to the end of this discussion. The practice question displayed will be discussed later at the end of this. Moving on to the next article discussion which is based on the electronic voting machine and it is highly important today because two editorial articles were based on this topic which appeared on page number 10 of the Chennai edition and page 8 of the Delhi edition. The aspects of this article can be covered under the UPSC civil service examination syllabus in preliminary examination under the areas Indian polity and governance and in main examination under the area important aspects of governance transparency and accountability. Stepping into the main discussion the author focuses on the saga of the EVMs. Previously the paper ballot system was vulnerable in many ways like it was prone to boot capturing and there was a high proportion of invalid votes because many found it difficult to put this stamp in the allocated space. But in the era of EVMs the boot capturing has lost its possibility and value and it deleted the risk of invalidity of votes. But the political parties of India seem to have a continuous suspicion on the integrity of this EVM system. As a response to this suspicion the election commission of India linked the EVMs to the VVPAT that is the voter verified paper audit trail which the author refers to as the doubt removal machine. The major concern with the EVM system as pointed out by the author is that firstly a vigilant glance at the VVPAT provided slip and will it provide satisfaction to the people who have suspicion on the integrity of the EVM or not. Secondly the more advanced nations than us have not agreed to use EVMs for their elections and also long row of buttons in the EVM creates doubt in the voters whether the vote is recorded or whether it is cast to the intended person as the voter wanted. But it demands clarity of vision and precision in the fingers which may not be possible for elderly people. This problem was rectified by VVPAT attached to the EVM since it provides visual verification of the votes casted by the voter. In the context of technology we have narrowed our mind and convinced ourselves that digital machines are the only accepted technology and we have swept our other choices aside. Moreover this leads to other encounters with more science and technology. So what needs to be done first is to tackle this is to emulate the caution like the advanced nations and possess a quality as highest as theirs. Another step can be increasing the VVPAT physical verification. Coming to VVPAT verification the opposition political parties demanded for a 50% VVPAT count which could have amounted to 125 odd machines per constituency but would have addressed the remote possibility of inside or to return to paper ballot system. As a result the Supreme Court has provided a reasonable proportion of five random EVM per assembly constituency from one per assembly constituency which was provided by as a closure by the Supreme Court. This increase is made to reassure the integrity of EVM. But here the key technical issue for the election commission of India is not because in parliamentary by elections in UP Vihar and the assembly elections in Karnataka last year registered significant machine replacement rates. To rectify this problem technical fixes to the VVPAT were made to make them more resilient and available and the availability of replacement of machines and the ability to deploy them quickly in case of failure of VVPATs is essential. Under this context it is important to discuss about the EVM and VVPATs. The electronic voting machine is voting using electronic means to aid casting that is an electronic device for recording votes and counting votes. It has been developed to facilitate easy polling and counting. The use of this machine is to save cost of paper and printing etc and also to get the result within three to four hours thus saving a lot of manual exercise involved in conventional counting. The EVMs have been devised and designed by the technical experts committee of the election commission in collaboration with two public sector undertake Electronics Corporation of India Limited and Bharat Electronic Corporation of India Limited. These machines provide full safeguard for ensuring secrecy of ballot and against tampering of machines apart from ensuring rapidity of poll and instantaneous results. Voting machine consists of two units a control unit and a balloting unit joined by a five meter cable. The control unit is placed with the presiding officer or a polling officer and the balloting unit is placed inside the voting compartment. Instead of issuing a ballot paper the the polling officer in charge of the control unit will release a ballot paper by pressing the ballot button on the control unit. This will enable the voter to cast his vote by pressing the blue button on the balloting unit against the candidate and symbol of his choice. EVMs were first used in 70 Paroor Assembly Constituency of Kerala in the year 1982 and EVM being used by election commission of India can record a maximum of 2000 votes and during simultaneous elections two separate sets of EVMs are required one for parliamentary constituency and the other for the legislative assembly constituents and finally it completely eliminates the possibility of casting invalid vote. The detailed analysis of VVPATH was discussed by Ms Divya ma'am on 9th April 2019 video. The video is posted by the Shankar Isakirami YouTube channel. This practice film's question and main question which are displayed here will be discussed later in the end of this week. Moving on to the next news analysis which talks about Fame India 2 scheme which appeared on page number 16 of the Chennai edition and page 14 of the Delhi edition. The aspects of this article can be covered under the UPSE civil service examination syllabus in preliminary examination under the areas current events of national and international importance and economic and social development and it means examination under the areas in GS paper 2 government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation and in Indian economy and issues relating to planning mobilization of resources growth development and employment and in under the topic infrastructure energy ports roads airports railways etc. This article talks about the society of manufacturers of electric vehicles who has urged to de-link localization factor and X showroom prices of e-bikes from subsidy under Fame India 2 scheme. This news discusses about the execution part of the scheme which we need not focus for our preparation but we need to know about the general aspects of the Fame India 2 scheme. This scheme has been approved by the union cabinet in February 2019. It has come into effect since 1st of April 2019. This Fame India 2 scheme is the expanded version of Fame India 1 scheme that was launched in April 2015 and was in effect until Fame India 2 scheme was started. Fame India scheme in general is a part of national electric mobility mission plan. Fame stands for faster adoption and manufacturing of electric vehicles in India. This scheme was introduced to promote the electric mobility in India. Fame India 2 scheme has been allotted rupees 1000 crore and would be implemented for a period of 3 years till 2022. Let us see about the objectives of Fame India 2 scheme. It will support the electric vehicle industry with incentives which is nothing but subsidy benefits in order to promote their manufacturing and sales. The main criterion for subsidy allocation in Fame India 2 scheme is that the vehicles must use lithium ion batteries and any new technology batteries. The allocated fund will support 10,002 wheelers, 5,00,000 electric 3 wheelers, 55,000 electric 4 wheelers and 7,000 buses. The second objective of the scheme is to establish a charging infrastructure in the major cities of the country that includes metros, other million plus cities, smart cities and cities of hilly states across the country so that there will be availability of at least one charging station in a grid of 3 kilometer by 3 kilometer. The next objective is to establish charging stations on major highways of India for every 25 kilometers. This Fame India 2 scheme will be implemented by department of heavy industries under ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises. Moving on to our next article which talks about the economically weaker section criteria. This article appears on page 11 of the Chennai edition and on page 9 of the Delhi edition. The information given under this article is relevant under subtopics quality and governance in the preliminary examination syllabus and in Indian constitution and in government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of the design and implementation which comes under GS paper 2 under the main syllabus. Let us begin the discussion with what 10% quota is about in the first place. It provides 10% reservation in jobs and education institutions to the economically weaker sections in the general category. It has been introduced through constitution 103 amendment act 2019. The 10% reservation will be in addition to the existing cap of 50% reservation for the schedule cast, schedule tribes and other backward classes taking the total reservation to 60%. Let us move on to understand who all will be considered as economically weaker section. There is no fixed official criteria in this regard. However, center has mentioned that the following are the criteria and it can be changed by states according to their will. They include people who have an annual income of less than rupees 8 lakhs and people who own less than 5 acres of farmland and people who have a house lesser than 1000 square feet in a town or 100 square yard in a notified municipal area. However, there are several issues that hinder the implementation of this reservation. We can categorize them as legal, constitutional and others. The news article also mentions few issues regarding the same. Here are the legal issues. Firstly, it is in contravention of mandal verdict. In the landmark verdict of supreme court, in the mandal case, the supreme court had held the proposal to provide 10% reservation for other economically backward sections of the people who are not covered by any of the existing schemes of reservation. As constitutionally invalid, the supreme court had held that mere economic backwardness or mere educational backwardness, which is not the result of social backwardness, cannot be the criterion on backwardness in article 16, clause 4. Secondly, it is also in contravention of Indra Sahane case. The supreme court in this case has ruled that the share of jobs or educational or legislative seats reserved for different communities cannot together exceed 50%. So, the present order of the government to provide reservations violates some of the observations made by the supreme court in its previous judgments. Constitutionally, the article 15 and 16 enables the state to make special provisions for socially and educationally backward classes and those not adequately represented in services. The government plans to introduce a constitutional amendment to amend articles 15 and 16 of the constitution for providing reservations for economic backwardness. The news article discusses other hurdles that exist in its implementation. Author refers to the NIRF 2016 data on the representation of economically backward casts and socially backward casts, like schedule casts, schedule types, other backward classes in premier educational institutions, public and other private institutions. It can be seen that while representation of economically backward casts, premier institutions, it stands at 28%. And representation of SC or ST or OBC stands at 38%. Despite a 10% high, it is not proportionate as SC or ST or OBC together, which constitutes 70% of the population. Representation of SC or ST or OBC in public and other private institutes is also poor. Let us now see the way ahead to make this implementation much smoother. The one way to implement the current reservation proposal is to include the law of providing reservations under the ninth schedule of the constitution. An example of this can be Tamil Nadu backward classes, schedule casts and schedule tribes act of 1993, which placed in ninth schedule of the constitution to keep Tamil Nadu's reservation limit intact at 69%. Secondly, states decision is rational and non-arbitrary. The state has to show quantifiable data to satisfy the court as to inadequacy of representation of economically backward classes. Lastly, proper implementation of the existing reservation is needed. The practice question, which has been displayed here, will be discussed later at the end of this video. The next article for today's discussion appears on page number 14 of the Chennai edition and page 12 of the Delhi edition. The information given under this article is relevant under subtopic current events of national and international importance and in Indian economic and social development under preliminary examination syllabus. Stepping into the main discussion, let us first know about what the news article discusses. The International Monetary Fund in its World Economic Outlook 2019 has projected that global growth will be 3.3% in 2019, down from 3.6% in 2018. India's growth is projected to pick up from 7.1% in 2018 to 7.3% in 2019. It has stated the following reasons for a low global growth. Firstly, US-China trade tensions could reduce global GDP growth by 0.7% as a result of increased tariffs. Secondly, macroeconomic stress in Turkey and Argentina and issues like Brexit. Thirdly, low Chinese growth as it moves towards increasing private consumption and services and regulatory tightening. Lastly, normalization of monetary policy in advanced economies which is creating tighter financial. This news article also mentions IMF's suggestion for Indian economy. Like it called for a continued implementation of structural and financial sector reforms in order to lower public debt and aid growth. Specifically, it says a continued fiscal consolidation is needed to bring down public debt, strengthening goods and service taxes, complaints and lowering subsidies. In this context, it will also be helpful to have a basic understanding of IMF. It stands for International Monetary Fund and was formed in the year 1945. It is headquartered at Washington DC. IMF along with World Bank are called Bretton Woods twins as they were established during the Bretton Woods Conference. It consists of 189 countries working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty around the world. Now let us know about the quota system at IMF. A member's quota in the IMF determines the amount of its subscription, its voting weight, its access to IMF financing and its allocation of special drawing rights. A member state cannot unilaterally increase its quota. Increases must be approved by the Executive Board of IMF. If you see the below diagram, U.S. has the highest quota at IMF followed by Japan, China, Germany, France, UK, Italy. India stands at 8th place with a quota of 2.79%. The practice question which has been displayed here will be discussed at the end of this video. Moving on to the next and final article for today's discussion, which is based on the Right to Information and Central Information Commission's appointments which appeared on the page number 9 of this 10th edition and page 7 of the Delhi edition. The aspects of this article can be covered under the UPSC civil service examination syllabus in preliminary examination under the areas Indian polity and governance and in main examination GS paper 2 under the area Indian constitution, basic structure, statutory regulatory and various quasi-judicial bodies and important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability. Stepping into the main discussion, the article discusses about the RTA request regarding the appointments to Central Information Commission which was denied by the Center contradictory to the judgment of the Supreme Court. The judgment which came in February 2019 stated that center and states should proactively disclose all information regarding the recruitment advertisement, particulars of the applicants, the search and selection committees and the criteria shortlisting the candidates on their websites. In the context of this article it is crucial to know about the Right to Information Act of 2005. The main objective of this act is to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information under the control of public authorities and to secure access to information under the control of public authorities and to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority. It ensures a democracy with an informed citizenry which in turn helps in curbing corruption as this act holds governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed that is the people. This act was enacted in replacement with the erstwhile Freedom of Information Act of 2002. This act in particular empowers the citizens to seek information which should be provided by the public officials expeditiously or within 30 days and it allows them to inspect or demand copies of government documents in the form of information. It also relaxes the official secrets act and other special acts which restricts information disclosure. This act seeks for computerization of records by public authorities to have easy access to the information. The Supreme Court in a landmark judgment held that right to information is a fundamental right under the freedom of speech and expression under the article 19 clause 1 sub clause A. The scope of this act extends to the whole of India except Jammu and Kashmir. The constitutional authorities, institutions established by the act of parliament or state legislature and non-governmental organizations substantially financed directly or indirectly by funds provided by the government are covered under the ambit of public authorities who are entitled to provide information when a citizen asks for it. But not all information can be provided to the citizens as some are confidential. Hence, the act provides for the exceptions to the providing of information. When one asks for any information affecting the sovereignty and integrity of India, security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the state or any information received by the country in confidence from a foreign government and all information that breaches the privileges of the parliament. This act provides for the central information commission at the central level which is the highest appellate body under this act and at state level it provides for a state information commission. We have now come to the final part of our video that is practice questions discussion. The first question is as follows, which of the following form a part of foreign exchange reserves in India? First option, external commercial borrowings. Second, gold reserves of RBI. Third, foreign currency assets. Fourth, reserve tranche. Fifth, special drawing rights, holdings of Indian government with IMF. Choose the correct answer below. So, we have to choose the correct answer as we know from our discussion that option 1 is not included in the foreign exchange reserves in India. Hence our option D234 and 5 is the correct answer for this question. The second question is with reference to electronic voting machines, consider the following statements. First statement, it is voting using electronic means for recording and counting of votes. Second statement, voter verified paper audit trail attached with EVM was first introduced in the assembly election of Kerala. Third statement, the slip printed by VVPAT which consists of serial number, name and symbol of the candidate for whom the vote is casted. Which of the above statements is or are correct? So, we have to choose the correct statements from the above statements. As we know first statement is correct and we also know that third statement is also correct. The slip has the number and name and symbol of the candidate. So, third statement is also correct. But the second statement states, VVPAT was first introduced in the assembly election of Kerala. As we know from our discussion that it was not introduced in the assembly election of Kerala, but it was introduced in the assembly election of Nagaland. Hence, our statement 2 is incorrect. So, the correct option is option 1 and 3, which is option B. The next question states, fame India scheme, faster adoption and manufacturing of electric vehicles in India aims to promote electric mobility in the country. This scheme is implemented by which ministry? So, we have to know fame India scheme is implemented by which ministry? The options given are ministry of commerce and industry, ministry of new and renewable energy, ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises, option D ministry of road transport and highways. As we know from our discussion, option C is the correct answer that is ministry of heavy industries and public enterprises. The next question states, consider the following statements. First statement, right to criticize is an intrinsic part of right to life and personal liberty. Second statement, sedition is covered under section 124 A of Code of Criminal Procedure 1973. Select the correct code from below. So, we have to select the correct code. First statement is right to criticize is an intrinsic part of right to life and personal liberty. As we saw from our discussion that it is an intrinsic part of the fundamental right under freedom of speech and expression, not under right to life and personal liberty. Hence option one is wrong. And the statement one, statement second state, sedition is covered under section 124 A. Yes, we know it is covered under 124 A, but it has been given, it is covered under code of criminal procedure. We know that it is covered under section 124 A of Indian Penal Code. Hence option two is also wrong. So, the correct code is neither one nor two. The next question states with reference to international monetary fund, which of the following statements is incorrect? First option given is voting power at IMF is based on quota system. Second option, Indian quota stands at 2.7 in percent and is the third highest among all the nations. Third option, promoting sustainable economic growth is one of its objectives. And the last option, it releases world economic outlook report. As we know the last option is correct and we also know that option two is also correct. We have to now see the second option which states India, Indian quota stands at 2.79 percent. We know this part is correct. And the second part of the statement B says it is the third highest among all the nations. We know it is the eighth highest among all the nations. So, hence option B is the incorrect option. The next question is as per the right to information act 2005, consider the following statements. First statement is it provides for access to information under the control of public authorities to the citizens. Second statement, it replaces the erstwhile freedom of information act of 2003. Third statement, information pertaining to strategic and economic interests of India shall not be provided to any citizens. Which among the above statements is or are correct? So, we have to look for the correct statements. First statement as we know is correct and we also know that it was replaced by this act replaces the freedom of information act of 2002. So, hence our option two is incorrect. It is not 2003, it is 2002. And the third statement information pertaining to strategic and economic interests of India shall not be provided to any citizens. Hence, this option is also correct. So, option two is only incorrect. So, the correct option from the course given below are option one and three. So, option C is the correct answer to this question. Let us see the practice question under mains which appeared in civil service examination in 2018 under general studies two paper. In the light of recent controversy regarding the use of electronic voting machines, what are the challenges of election commission of India to ensure the trustworthiness of elections in India? Answer to this question we have already discussed the relevant points in our article discussion about EVM. Try to incorporate those points in this answer. And the next question is in the context of the recent 103rd constitutional amendment discuss the constitutional and legal issues with respect to the concept of affirmative action. For answering this question refer to the today's article discussion on 10% quota and incorporate those points in the answer.