 Good evening aspirants welcome to the hindi news analysis by Shankara Ace Academy for the date 13th of August 2021. These are the list of news articles that I have chosen today for discussion. These articles have been chosen keeping in mind that problems is nearing. So we are going to cover many of these articles from problems perspective as well. So if you look at these news articles you can find that in today's discussion we are going to discuss about missiles especially about ballistic missiles and then we are going to discuss a news article based on ancient history and in that discussion we will be seeing about Sangam age and then we also have a news article in which we are going to discuss about an alternative to the river sand. So don't miss today's discussion it is very important from the problems perspective. Now let us move on to the first discussion for today which is going to be based on this news article. This discussion is based on this news article which mentions about a ballistic missile launched by Pakistan. See this missile is named as Ghaznavi. So today let us first understand about important types of missiles in brief. We will see in detail about the ballistic missiles and then we will see the Ghaznavi missile of Pakistan along with certain other ballistic missiles of Pakistan. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. So first let us talk about the important types of missiles. So you should first understand that missiles are rocket propelled weapons. So what is the meaning of rocket propelled here? See this rocket propulsion it basically works on the principle of Newton's third law of motion. So what is this third law? It means to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and that means every forward acceleration or every charge in motion is a result of a reactive force which is acting in the opposing direction. So based on this underlying principle what happens in a jet propelled plane or what happens in a rocket is that a mass of gases emitted rearward at high speed that is the gases emitted at the back and then the forward motion of the plane is the reaction to this motion of gas. So the gases this words and the forward motion is a reaction opposite to this. So that is why the motion of the plane is in this direction. So we can also say that rockets are self-propelled. It means that the fuel and oxidant which is required for the propulsion is within the engine itself. So that means the missiles are basically rocket propelled weapons. Now they are designed to deliver an explosive overhead with great accuracy at high speed. So regarding missiles you have to remember that they are rocket propelled and then they carry an explosive overhead and they attack with great accuracy and also all of this happens at a high speed. So that is why missiles are strategically important for the defense of a country. So these missiles vary from small tactical weapons to much larger strategic weapons. Now these small tactical weapons have small ranges but these larger strategic weapons they have high ranges which could extend up to several thousand miles and also we have various classification of missiles and these classifications are based on type, launch mode, range, propulsion, overhead and even based on the guidance system on that missile. But generally you should understand that all these missiles contain some form of guidance and control mechanism. So missiles are generally referred as guided missiles only. So in this representation you can see the general classification of missiles. You can see they have been classified based on the operation type, range, launch mode, propulsion system etc. And our focus today is going to be based on the operation type classification. So based on its operations missiles are classified as cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. So briefly let us see about cruise missiles first. See these cruise missiles they are unmanned self-propelled guided vehicle and they sustain flight through aerodynamic lift for most of its flight path. So the primary mission of a cruise missile is to place an ordinance or a special payload on a target and these cruise missiles fly within the earth's atmosphere and they use jet engine technology. Another interesting fact about a cruise missile is that they also vary greatly in their speed and ability to penetrate defenses. Also note that these cruise missiles can be categorized by size, range and also whether they are launched from land, air, surface, ship or even submarine. Now depending on the speed we know that cruise missiles can be classified as subsonic cruise missile, supersonic cruise missile and even hypersonic cruise missile. For example the Brahmos missile is a supersonic cruise missile and as you know it is a joint venture between India and Russia. So now let us come to the ballistic missiles. Now these ballistic missiles are the missiles that has a ballistic trajectory. So what is a ballistic trajectory? It is the motion of an object under the influence of gravity and this motion is determined completely by the acceleration of the gravity, its launch speed and the launch angle etc. In other terms you can say that its path is defined by the speed of its launch and the force of gravity that is pulling it down. Let us take an example here. You all would have played cricket. So while throwing that cricket ball you would have observed that it attains this kind of trajectory. So the more the launch speed the farther the ball goes. So this is how a ballistic missile also works. It follows the ballistic trajectory which means the path of an unpowered object which moves only under the influence of gravity and even possibly based on atmospheric friction and additionally its surface provide no significant lift to alter the course of flight of that object. Now these ballistic missiles also have several categories and these categories are based on their range and maximum distance measured along the surface of earth that is from the point of launch to the point of impact of the last element of their payload and these ballistic missiles also they can be launched from ships and also from the land based facilities. So if you take the examples in India we have Prithvi 1, Prithvi 2, then Dhanush they are all ballistic missiles and even the Agni class of missiles which are the centerpiece of India's nuclear launch capability. They are also ballistic missiles. Actually the five missiles under the Agni class of missiles that is from Agni 1 to Agni 5 they belong to the family of medium to intercontinental range ballistic missiles. So from this you would have understand that ballistic missiles could also be divided based on their range. So generally there are four range classes. First is the intercontinental ballistic missiles. They generally have a range of over 5500 kilometers and then comes the intermediate range ballistic missiles IRBM. Now they have range from 3000 to 5500 kilometers and then we have the medium range ballistic missile. These have range from 1000 up to 3000 kilometers and finally comes the short range ballistic missiles which have a range up to 1000 kilometers. So these are the basics that you need to know about ballistic missiles and missiles in common. So now what about the ballistic missile which is launched by Pakistan as we already saw in the beginning. It has been named as Ghaznavi and this is a nuclear capable surface to surface ballistic missile and this missile is capable of delivering multiple types of warheads which means it is capable of delivering nuclear warheads and also conventional warheads and it has a range up to 290 kilometers which is less than 300. So that is why this Ghaznavi missile of Pakistan is a short range ballistic missile. So other than this you should also remember other ballistic missiles of Pakistan and many of these missiles were test fired in 2021. For example, we have the Shaheen class ballistic missiles in that Shaheen 1A is a medium range ballistic missile of Pakistan and then Shaheen 3 is a nuclear capable surface to surface ballistic missile and then we also have the Babur cruise missile than the Fatah 1 ballistic missiles. So in this representation which has been taken from Center for Strategic and International Studies in this representation you can see the different ballistic missiles and cruise missiles of Pakistan and how far these can go. Just take note of these missiles and their names and problems. A question can be asked based on the names of these missiles. So with this information, let us wind up this discussion on ballistic missiles. Today we saw about ballistic missiles about missiles in general. We saw about the rocket propulsion and we also saw about Pakistan's ballistic missile called as Ghaznavi. Now let us move to the next discussion. Our next discussion is going to be based on these two news articles. As you can see from the title of these news articles, they talk about CNG and PNG. The news is that the Chennai city is planning to expand its CNG and PNG outlets and this is mainly due to the economic and environmental benefits offered by CNG and PNG. So in this discussion, we are going to see about CNG and PNG. So it is going to be a factual discussion. Pay attention. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. See CNG is the acronym of compressed natural gas and PNG is the acronym of piped natural gas. So that means both are two different forms of natural gas and that is why first we are going to see about natural gas. See a natural gas is a mixture of gases like methane, nitrogen, carbon dioxide which are rich in hydrocarbon. Now these natural gas reserves are found deep inside the earth and they are found near other solid and liquid hydrocarbon beds like coal and crude oil. So how these gases exist deep under the earth? See here the high temperatures and pressures under the earth that is the earth surface plays a bigger role because these conditions convert the plants and animal remains that are buried under the earth into naturally occurring gas. And also note that this natural gas is odorless, colorless and it is lighter than air and it also produces very few emissions and it is also considered as the cleanest fossil fuel. It is because it has clean burning qualities that is it has complete combustion. So it produces mainly water vapor and carbon dioxide. This means burning of natural gas for energy results in fewer emissions of carbon dioxide. This is comparatively lower than burning of coal and petroleum products. So this natural gas is environment friendly and it is a safer fuel and a cheaper fuel. We will see why later in this discussion. So keeping these facts in mind let us move on to the discussion of compressed natural gas that is CNG. See it is a type or a form of natural gas only. So it is also a mixture of hydrocarbons and the CNG approximately consists of about 80 to 90 percentage methane in gaseous form. So CNG is not a liquid and therefore it is not a liquid fuel also. And this natural gas is compressed at very high pressure and that is why it is called as compressed natural gas. So why there is a need to compress this gas? See the sole reason behind this is to store an increased amount of this gas in a given space. This in turn helps us in using it for a longer period of time. So some of its characteristics are it is inflamable and it is lighter than air and it is also colorless and odorless. So where it is used? It is mainly used for power generation and it is also used as fuel in the place of gasoline, petrol, etc. But here you should note that CNG can be used for combustion only in the CNG based vehicles. So this was about CNG. Now let us look into piped natural gas that is PNG. See it is similar to CNG only except for the pressure. This PNG is compressed at a lower pressure when compared to the CNG and apart from this another difference between them is that the form in which they are delivered. That is CNG comes out of natural gas bottles. On the other hand PNG is supplied through pipelines for the purpose of household needs. That is unlike CNG which is stored at a single place PNG is not stored at one place rather it is continuously supplied through the pipeline from the source to the destination or the target. So this helps to provide uninterrupted supply of heat for cooking requirements. Here one fact to be noted is that the pressure of PNG depends on the type of burner which the customer is using. But however both the CNG and PNG are refined in natural gas with methane being their primary constituent. So keeping these basic facts about CNG and PNG in mind let us look into their advantages. See both are advantages to human health and environments health. So first if we take CNG it is lead free and sulphur free. So it is lead free means it is not harmful for the health of human beings. Why? Because lead is harmful to the health of human beings as it causes central nervous system damage and it also impairs neurological development in children. Notice also sulphur free as we already saw. So it is a advantage because sulphur has several undesirable properties when combined with the internal combustion engine. See this sulphur is acidic in nature so this results in the corrosion of constituent metal parts and apart from this it also reduces the catalytic activity of the vehicle. So it reduces the effectiveness of exhaust systems. Apart from this when burnt in air sulphur converts into sulphur dioxide. So when this is released into the atmosphere it can form an acidic solution and it dissolves in the rain to form acid rain. And as we know acid rain causes widespread damage to the environment. It affects lakes forests etc etc. So like this sulphur has many environmental concerns and since this CNG is sulphur free and lead free it is called as the green fuel and as we just saw it also reduces the harmful emissions. Then apart from this CNG is safer because they are stored in cylinders which are certified. That means there is so negligible chance of leakage but since they are lighter than air even if there is a leakage the gas just rises up and it disperses in the atmosphere and it mixes with the air easily and evenly. But if you take petrol or LPG petrol forms puddle if it leaks so both of these LPG and petrol are not safe. So this is why CNG is the safest fuel. Apart from this CNG is also non-toxic and non-carcinogenic. That means it doesn't cause cancer. Then it also has certain economic benefits. See CNG is economical and it is also one of the preferred alternative fuel sources for vehicles today. Why? Because it is cheaper when compared to petrol or diesel. Why is it cheaper? Because earth's natural gas reserves are found in abundance when compared to the fuels like petrol and diesel which are already depleting. Also methane which forms the main component of CNG is more sustainable since it can be created from biological waste and sludge also. Then the logistics requirement for CNG is comparatively lesser than petrol or diesel and we saw that it is cheaper. So it is more affordable because there is no cess attached to CNG like the petrol or diesel. And therefore the price of gas is likely to be more stable than oil. So these are some of the benefits of CNG. Now what about PNG? See it is also considered to be a cleaner and better cooking fuel. An additional advantage with PNG is that it doesn't need cylinders to store this fuel. So it saves a lot of space and also PNG is offered on pay after use basis with metering. That means you have to only pay after using this fuel not beforehand. Then apart from this it also ensures safe easy and secure handling because this PNG is transported through the pipeline. So it is constantly fed into the system so there are no hassles of handling refilling and changing of cylinders. So apart from providing safety comfort it also provides uninterrupted supply to the consumers. So that is all about PNG. In this discussion we had a detailed discussion about natural gas, compressed natural gas and piped natural gas. We saw about their benefits also. Now let us move on to the next discussion. Now let us take up this news article. It reports about the emergence of unlicensed m sand manufacturing units in the districts of Tamil Nadu. See it is alleged that the presence of such unlicensed manufacturing units they actually lead to substandard material of m sand reaching the markets. So because of this the licensed manufacturers are asking for strict regulatory measures by the government. So from example perspective now we are going to see about this m sand. See we all are well acquainted with the term sand. So what does it mean? In simple terms sand is defined as a mixture of small grains of rock and granular materials. Now these small grains of rock and granular materials they result from the disintegration of rocks. And one of the main advantages of sand is that it has multi purposes that is it is a multi-purpose resource. In fact sand is the world's second most consumed natural resource after water. So where it is used sands are used as fertilizer fillers. They are also used in paintings. They are used in cleaning oil spills. They are used in growing root crops etc. And one of the most popular uses of sand is in the field of construction. So earlier the main source of sand for constructional purposes was the river sand. But with the fast growing construction industry the demand for sand increased tremendously. So many started illegally mining the sand and this led to many environmental issues such as it destroyed habitats. See the excess extraction of sand from lakes, riverbeds, deltas and shores destroyed habitats. It changed the course of rivers. It eroded the banks of the rivers and it even followed up many villages in India and even worldwide. If you look at this representation which we have taken from the website Mongabay you can see that how sand mining has affected the course of this river. So such continued usage of river sand led to the depletion of suitable river sand and this resulted in the scarcity of sand on one hand and on the other hand the prices of river sand was rising. So this unprecedented hike in the cost of this raw material led to gradual shift towards an alternative to this natural sand or the river sand and then came the M sand. See here the letter M stands for manufactured. So this M sand is a manufactured sand and it is an artificial sand. It is produced from crushing hard stones, rocks and granites into small sand sized angular shaped particles and these are used as a substitute of river sand for the concrete construction. Here you should remember that the actual required property of sand is obtained in this M sand also and its manufacturing process is also synonymous with the natural process that is undergone by the river sand. So based on this let us see some important advantages associated with M sand. See these M sand particles are angular and they have a rougher surface texture so this enables better bonding and it provides improved strength and also compared to the natural sand this M sand has got a higher fineness so this in turn gives good workability for concrete and masonry. Then it also has denser particle packing and it is also free from impurities like clay dust and silt. So these two properties help the M sand in maintaining a better structure and apart from this it is readily available and it is also eco-friendly and it is also a sustainable resource for construction purposes. But beyond all these advantages it also has certain disadvantages such as this manufactured sand can be of a coarser and angular texture. So such textures require more water and cement to achieve the expected workability. So therefore this can actually result in increased costs of construction. So like this there are certain disadvantages to this M sand also. So that is all about this M sand. Today we saw what is sand, what is M sand, its benefits and also disadvantage. Now let us move to the next discussion. Okay now let us take up this editorial article. It has been authored by two experts. In this editorial authors have summarized the effects of strictest generalized and continuous closure of schools and colleges during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have already seen about this topic in our daily newspaper analysis that is we have seen how lockdowns and school closures have affected education in our country and authors also deal with the same issue in this long-winded editorial. But still let us quickly understand the crux of this editorial and then we will see about the index which is discussed by the authors and some of the way forwards suggested by the authors. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for reference. See the authors have referred to the continuous closure of educational institutions as the largest educational emergency in the world. So why are they calling this as an educational emergency? So we know that India experienced a continuous and longer period of lockdowns in the education sector. So for a longer period of time children were being taught and they are still being taught through the online classes only and this has severely affected the children's belonging to the vulnerable sections of our populations like the Dalits, tribals etc etc. Why? Because they do not have internet connectivity. Why they do not have internet connectivity? Because they do not even have access to electricity itself. Then how can they get internet connectivity and how can they attend online classes? So this is being cited as one of the main issues in the education sector in this pandemic era and apart from this many studies have also indicated that teachers are unprepared for remote teaching. So what is this remote teaching? It is nothing but the classes conducted outside of a physical classroom such as using the online mode. So when this remote teaching is happening children are expected to submit homework and assessments through WhatsApp or even through text and mails. So we can understand the difficulties that would be faced by the children. So to tackle this issue several state governments introduced good initiatives to deliver education at the doorstep of every household. For example if you take Kerala it provided basic access to remote learning to millions of students through its educational TV channel. This channel is named as kite victors and through this channel classes were broadcasted for all subjects in each grade but still according to the authors these digital classes are not seen as an alternative to the regular classes. They just acted as a bridge to the widening academic gap due to the pandemic and despite efforts from the states the online mode of education has proved quite challenging only. Then another observation that could be made in the education sector is regarding hybrid schooling models. See hybrid schooling models are nothing but a combination of in-person and remote teaching that is combination of classroom teaching and remote teaching and the observation that could be made is that even when hybrid schooling models were introduced in many countries to prioritize children with special needs India still failed in this regard. Now apart from this interruptions in child health services and interruptions in early nutrition have affected the growth in development of young children why because as schools were closed many children who depended on midday meals for their food and nutrition now they are unable to get the food and they are at the verge of malnutrition. So if you ask the government why still the schools are closed the main answer which is given by the government is that closed schools are a commitment to children's safety that is they say if the children attend regular schools they might contract the disease but what about the other scenarios in which the children are pushed where they can contract this disease for example there is higher risk of disease transmission by working children and as you already said school closures are also causing increase in malnutrition so both these aspects are being ignored by the government and this is not only prevalent in some states but it is prevalent at the national level so to explain these issues and their severity and to support their argument authors have used the findings of an index this index is called as the global stringency index see here the term stringency could mean the strict and precise regulation and conditions so let us see about this index in brief take note of this index it is important from the problems perspective and you can also mention this index to support your claims in the main sponsor see this global stringency index it was created by the oxford coronavirus government response tracker in short ox cgrt so this is a oxford product this index records the strictness of government policies that primarily restrict people's behavior so how it is calculated it is calculated by a composite measure of nine response metrics these are the nine metrics and it includes school closures workplace closures cancellation of public events restrictions on public gathering etc so the score of the index is calculated by the mean score of these nine metrics and each metric takes a value between zero to hundred so a higher score indicates a stricter response that is a score of hundred implies strictest response so that means if a country has a score nearer to hundred we can say that from the health perspective the country is doing everything to contain the spread of the virus but if you look at the economic perspective and the education perspective the score of hundred would imply that the countries are performing worse in these arenas so what is the score of india see since this is a tracker the scores of this index are dynamic so the last score which is available for india is july 19 2021 and as you can see the score is above 80 but if we compare india with other countries india still has high levels of workplace closures school closures and travel bans this representation gives you a comparison between india united states and united kingdom and as you can see the lockdowns started in march 2020 so india at that time also it is having a score of hundred that means it opted for the stringent measures that were available during that time we had the national lockdown everything was stopped and the lockdowns were relaxed in may only so after may we can see that the score literally comes down to 80 but even after a year and a half we are still in this 80 range only comparing to the other two countries of united states and united kingdom because in this map we can see their stringent measures were not that much strict and if you see this representation which is given in the map you can see that india is still in this dark red category and if you move this tracker from jan 2020 to august 2021 india's position does not change much it is only in the range of 7200 category that is it is represented in dark red only but if you see other countries such as usa it is already in the orange category that is between 40 to 50 so this shows the level of strictest measures taken by the indian government to curb the spread of coronavirus but as we already said it has affected the other spheres of our life so regarding education authors have suggested some remedies for example authors have suggested to focus on every child individually and they have also suggested to prepare a safe school opening for example already some countries have opened these schools and students are asked to maintain the social distancing criteria and they are asked to wear masks and then another suggestion is prioritizing vaccination for the teachers and then also developing tools to help the teachers for making a quick diagnosis of students learning gaps then another important suggestion by the authors is setting up an education emergency room and this is to be set up in every district to coordinate implement and monitor the local plans regarding education so according to their district needs they can plan either online classes or offline classes and apart from this authors have suggested to deploy technologies that will identify and respond to the needs of the children so these are some of the points that you can take note from this editorial discussion in this discussion we saw about the situation of education sector in our country and how children are getting affected due to the school closures and we also saw about the global stringency index and what is the score of India and where India stands notice more to the next discussion this discussion is based on this news article which is important from ancient history perspective the news article mentions that a small portion of a brick structure has been unearthed at an archaeological site in Tamil Nadu it has been unearthed in the Purpanay Koti which has situated in the Pudukoti district of Tamil Nadu see the excavation at this site was started after some pot sherds were found in this place and after these pot sherds were found it was speculated that this area might have a Sangam age fort and that is why archaeological survey of India sanctioned excavation at this place so in today's discussion let us have a detailed discussion about this Sangam age see Sangam age refers to the period of history of ancient Tamil Nadu and Kerala and it refers to the period from 5th century BCE to 3rd century CE and some sources even mentions that it is the period roughly between 3rd century BCE and 3rd century CE so basically it is in south India in the area lying to the south of river Krishna and river Tungabatra now this age is named after the Sangam academies or the intellectual congregation that were held during that period see these Sangam academies are the assemblies of poets that were held in the city of Madurai and these assemblies of poets in Tamil is known as Sangams and that is why this period is known as Sangam age so at this period obviously the Sangam literature also flourished according to the Tamil legend there were three Sangams held in the ancient south India and these were popularly called as Much Sangam this term can be split as Munra Sangam here Munra in Tamil means three and Sangam means Sangam as you already saw so this term is related to Sangam age so in this the first Sangam is believed to have been held at Madurai and according to the legend it was attended by gods and legendary sages but no literary work of this Sangam is available now the second Sangam was held at Kabadapuram and from this Sangam only Tulkapyam survives Tulkapyam is a Sangam literature so remember this term now the third Sangam it was also held at Madurai but a few of Tamil literary works from this Sangam have survived and they are valuable sources to reconstruct the history of Sangam period so you should remember that the literary products of Sangam age is a window into the ancient Tamil society and that is why this is very important from the preliminary point of view now this Sangam literature chiefly consists of Tulkapyam Etta Thogai and Padthu Patu see actually the Sangam literature was compiled in the 10th century into two categories and that was also based on the chronological order and these two categories were Padhinan male Kanak and Padhinan Kheel Kanak now in this Padhinan male Kanak it means 18 greater text series and it comprised of this Etta Thogai and Padthu Patu and the rest of the Sangam literature were under the Padhinan Kheel Kanak and this term Padhinan Kheel Kanak means the 18 lesser text series now apart from these Tulkapyam is also a part of the Sangam literature and it was the earliest then you should also remember about two epics they also belong to the post-Sangam period and these two epics are Silapadigaram and Manimegali so all these literatures help us to know the society economy and culture of the ancient Tamils so remember Tulkapyam Etta Thogai, Padthu Patu, Padhinan Kheel Kanak, Padhinan male Kanak, Silapadigaram Manimegali so these are texts in the Sangam literature so now what about the kingdoms that thrived during the Sangam period see there were three important kingdoms these were the Chera kingdom Chola kingdom and the Pandya kingdoms and these existed in the Tamil country during the Sangam age few days before we have seen about the Chola kingdom in detail now in addition to these three kingdoms there are also local chieftains and the most famous among the local chieftains were the seven patrons who are popularly known in Tamil as So remember Chera Chola Pandyas and then the now let us see the important social features of Sangam age these are also important from the prince perspective now in the Sangam age Tamil people had a common language and culture but they lived in five different natural landscapes these natural landscapes or geographical regions were known as Thinais and totally five Thinais are mentioned in the Sangam literature these are the Kurunji, Mullai, Marudam, Nehidal and Pali now you should remember that each of these Thinais was geographically distinct from the other so here the term Kurunji refers to the hilly tracks and the term Mullai refers to the pastoral geography and then the term Marudam refers to agricultural region and the term Nehidal refers to the coastal area and then the term Pali refers to the desert region in addition to this each of these regions reflected their own social characteristics as a reflection of the geographical and ecological needs and it is also important for us to know about the position of women during Sangam age see actually women had respect and they made intellectual pursuits during this age there were even famous women poets in this age they are the Abhayar, Natchalayar and then Kakey Pardiniyar these women poets flourished and contributed to Tamil literature apart from this women also chose their partners in this age but the life of widows was miserable and there is also a mention about the practice of Sati which was prevalent in the highest status of society during this Sangam age so these are some of the social features of the Sangam age in this discussion we saw about the Sangam age, about the Sangam literatures, their important kingdoms and also some social features now let us move to the next discussion now let us take up this news article it is regarding Al-Mohad Al-Hindi so what is this Al-Mohad Al-Hindi say it is the first bilateral naval exercise between India and Saudi Arabia and that is why the news article mentions it as a maiden exercise between India and Saudi Arabia and see this naval exercise will be conducted in various phases and recently the sea phase of this exercise has begun and this is the gist of this news article so you have to remember Al-Mohad Al-Hindi is the naval exercise between India and Saudi Arabia so in this context it is important from the problems as well as from the international relations perspective to know about other important naval exercises of India see generally we have bilateral as well as multilateral exercises so let us see some of them today when we say bilateral it means between two countries and multilateral means the exercise between more than two countries so first let us take Varuna see Varuna is a naval exercise between India and France and this exercise forms an integral part of France- India strategic relationship now this exercise is held annually and it is held either in the Indian Ocean or even in the Mediterranean Sea now the 19th edition of this exercise was concluded in April 2021 and it was called Varuna 2021 so now the next exercise that we should know is the Milan exercise see this is a multilateral naval exercise and it is a biennial exercise so it happens every two years now this exercise is hosted by the Indian Navy and it is hosted under the ages of Andaman and Nicobar Command and it is held at Andaman and Nicobar Islands only see as I already said this is a multilateral naval exercise so the navies from many countries participate in this exercise for example in 2018 17 foreign navies attended this Milan naval exercise but why we are taking the example of 2018 it is because the 2020 edition of Milan exercise got postponed due to the pandemic and if this exercise would have happened it would have been the largest edition of Milan exercise it was said that almost 30 foreign navies would have attended this edition but sadly it got postponed the next important exercise is the Indra exercise and this is a bilateral exercise it is between India and Russia so it is a joint biennial military exercise this exercise started in 2003 and the aim of this exercise is to boost cooperation and interoperability between the Russian and Indian navies now the latest edition of this exercise was called as Indra Navy it was held in the Baltic Sea it happened last month only that is in July 2021 and finally another important exercise that we should know from example spectrum is the Malabar exercise see this is also a multilateral exercise exactly we can say it is a trilateral naval exercise it is because this exercise involves the united states Japan and India as the permanent partners of this exercise and this exercise was not always trilateral initially it began as a bilateral exercise in the year 1992 and at that time only India and United States were the permanent partners in this exercise but it became trilateral when Japan joined this exercise in the year 2015 but now it has turned into a quadrilateral exercise it is because in its latest edition another important country participated in this Malabar exercise and the participation of this country made this naval exercise as a quad naval exercise yes you are guessing it correct the another country is Australian Navy as you know India, USA, Japan and Australia are the members of quad group so in the latest exercise which was held in 2020 Australian Navy also participated in the Malabar exercise and that is why I said it is becoming a quad naval exercise so let us wait and see what happens in the next edition of this exercise so in this discussion we saw about Varun exercise Indra exercise Milan and also about the important Malabar exercise now let us move to the next discussion okay aspirants with this news article discussion we have ended this first segment now we are moving to the next segment of practice questions discussion session now let us take up this first question it asks which of the following is not a characteristic feature of compressed natural gas so the question is about CNG first statement it is called a green fuel because of its lead sulfur free character this statement is correct we saw this characteristic feature of CNG during the discussion itself so this statement is actually correct it is called as green fuel statement two it is quite expensive when compared to petrol or diesel this statement is incorrect because during discussion we saw that it is quite cheaper compared to petrol or diesel and it is also affordable than petrol or diesel because of this so statement B is incorrect now statement C says it is non-toxic and non-carcinogenic this statement is also correct and because of this it is one of the safest fuels now if you look at option D it mentions both options A and B but we saw that option A is correct so that is why option D is also an incorrect option so the correct answer is option B only so before marking the correct answer pay attention to the question now this next question is a pair based question on one side reports or indices is given and on the other side the agencies which releases these reports is given now look at this first pair it is ease of doing business it has been paired with World Bank this is a correct pair this report is released by World Bank only now look at this second pair Human Development Report ILO that is International Labour Organization see this report is not released by ILO so this is an incorrect pair rather it is released by the United Nations Development Program so the moment you know this pair is incorrect you can arrive at the correct answer because if you look at the given options two has been mentioned in three of the options and the question actually asks for the correctly matched pairs only so you eliminate two from the options and you are left with only one option which is option A1 only so this means third pair is also incorrect today we saw about global stringency index and we said that it is an Oxford product so that is why this pair of global stringency index and UNDP is an incorrect pair now let us take up the next question now this is a direct question it asks Al-Mohad Al-Hindi that was in the news recently is a naval exercise of India with which of the following countries Oman, Saudi Arabia Indonesia, Qatar and as per the discussion we know that this is a naval exercise between India and Saudi Arabia and this is the maiden naval exercise between both the countries so the correct answer is option B, Saudi Arabia now this next question is based on ancient India question asks Mucchangam a term that you come across in ancient times refers to option A, a temple architecture option B, the guilds in the Vedic option C, the tax laws in Viznagar empire option D, the Sangam periods so based on our discussion itself we can easily say that the correct answer is the Sangam periods I told that Mucchangam is the short of Moundar Sangam and Moundar means three so there are three Sangams according to the Tamil legend and we saw that the first Sangam is believed to have been held at Madurai and the second Sangam was held at Kabada Puram and the third Sangam was again held at Madurai so remember these facts these are important from prelims perspective let us take up another prelims question this question is based on ballistic missiles the question asks which of the following missiles of India are ballistic missiles Nirbhai Agni Prime Dhanush Prithvi to Brahmos see among these Agni and Brahmos are quite common and if you look at the given options you can see that two is present in all the options and we also know that Agni Prime which was recently test fired by DRDO is a ballistic missile and if you look at Brahmos it is quite famous missile of India and you should definitely know that it is a cruise missile so you have to eliminate five from the given options that means A and B are eliminated now we are left with two options C and D and now you have 50 percentage probability of attending this question correctly so from the given options you can say that two three and four are definitely ballistic missiles now you have to discuss and consider only option one which is Nirbhai see this Nirbhai is also a cruise missile it is actually a long range subsonic cruise missile and it is capable of deep penetration into adversary territory and it can strike high value targets with precision so that is why one is incorrect so the correct answer to this question is option C two three and four only that is Agni Prime, Dhanush and Prithvi too are ballistic missiles of India now let us take up this last question for the day it is a two statement question first statement is manufacturer sand or M sand are produced by crushing rocks, quarry stones or larger aggregate pieces into sand sized particles this statement is correct we saw this during discussion now the second statement is plastering manufactured sand is used for wall plastering and brickwork purpose see this statement is also correct here this plastering manufactured sand is in short called as P sand actually we saw that the unprecedented hike in the cost of river sand led to the gradual shift towards certain alternatives and one of the alternative was the manufactured sand and this manufactured sand can be subdivided into two one is the M sand and the P sand and in this the P sand that is the plastering manufactured sand is a very fine grade of sand and it is used for wall plastering and brickwork purpose but note that proper selection of P sand provides plastering strength to the construction structure so that means this statement is also correct and here the question asks for the correct statements so the correct answer is option C both one and two so viewers and aspirants now we have come to the end of today's Hindi news analysis and practice questions discussion session today we do not have any mains question so don't worry practice these six films practice questions and you can assess how much you have understood from today's discussion so if you like this video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel for more updates related to civil services preparation thank you