 A very good evening aspirants. Welcome to the Hindi news analysis brought to you by Shankara Ice Academy for the date 8th of February 2022. Here is the list of news articles that I have taken today for discussion and at the end we do also have a practice problems questions session. So now let us get to the first news article discussion. Now let us take up this data point. It talks about poor attendance in parliamentary committees. Particularly this data point focuses on the parliamentary committees called as departmentally related standing committees. In short DRSC. So let us first see a few facts about DRSCs and then we will see the data mentioned in this data point. So what is a DRSC or a departmentally related standing committees? As its name suggests it is a standing committee. So first of all in our parliament there are two kinds of parliamentary committees. The first kind is standing committees and the second kind is ad hoc committees. Now these standing committees work on a continuous basis but the ad hoc committees they cease to exist when the task assigned to them is completed. So in this regard the DRSC is a standing committee. Now the origin of DRSC can be traced back to 1993 when 17 DRSCs were formally constituted. So initially 17 DRSCs were constituted and then after analyzing the work of DRSC system for a decade the system was restructured in 2004. It was restructured in a manner that the number of DRSCs were actually increased. It was increased from 17 to 24 and that is why presently we have 24 DRSCs. So now how these DRSCs are constituted? See the procedure for the constitution is mentioned in both rules of procedure and conduct of business of the parliament that is the rules of procedure and conduct of business in the Lok Sabha as well as in the Rajya Sabha. In both these rules the constitution is mentioned. So I said there are totally 24 DRSCs right? These are the 24 DRSCs. Here you can see the DRSC and the minister under which it is constituted. For example if you take the first one the committee on commerce is constituted under the ministry of commerce and industry. So similarly we have 24 committees that is DRSCs under different ministries. So now what is the composition of DRSC? See actually the DRSC consists of a chairman and the maximum of 31 members. Now regarding chairman you should note that the DRSCs which were mentioned under part one here the chairman is appointed by the chairman of Rajya Sabha. This part one consists of first eight DRSCs. So the chairman is appointed by the chairman of Rajya Sabha. Now for the remaining that is for the DRSCs mentioned in part two it consists of 16 DRSCs. Here the chairman is appointed by the speaker of Lok Sabha. This is an important distinction. Take note of it. So you can take note of which are all the committees for which the chairman is appointed by presiding officer of Rajya Sabha and presiding officer of Lok Sabha. Now coming to the members as I said DRSCs can have a maximum of 31 members and out of these 31 200 members will be nominated by the speaker from amongst the member of the Lok Sabha and the remaining 10 members will be nominated by the chairman of Rajya Sabha from amongst the members of Rajya Sabha. So you can simply say that 21 are from Lok Sabha and the remaining 10 are from Rajya Sabha. But note that a minister cannot be a part of DRSC. Now coming to its tenure see these DRSCs are constituted on an annual basis that is they are constituted for a period of one year. So what functions do they carry out? See these DRSCs are concerned with the important functions as you can see here but they do not consider the day-to-day administration of its related ministries. So we saw that the committees are formed under each ministry but they do not deal with the day-to-day administration of these ministries rather they carry out these functions and as you can see here one of its most important function is examining the bills which are referred to them by the presiding officer of the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha. So these are some facts that you need to know about DRSCs. Now let us come to the data point. See the data point provides data under four important heads. Now under the first head we can see the number of bills referred to the DRSCs. For this let us take up this graph here WS means winter session, MS means monsoon session and BS stands for budget session and as you know the budget session is ongoing currently. Now this graph shows the total number of bills referred to the DRSCs and you can clearly witness here that there is a decline in the number of bills referred to the DRSCs in the recent years. Mainly if you take 2021 monsoon session no bills were referred to the DRSCs according to the data actually 15 bills were introduced but none of them were referred to DRSCs. For example it is said that a bill as important as the constitution amendment to enable the GST was passed by Lok Sabha without referring it to the DRSC. So this is the status of number of bills referred to the DRSCs. Now under the second head we have the attendance of members in the DRSCs that were constituted. Now the total attendance of the MPs in various sittings for DRSC is less than 50 percentage that is it is exactly 46 percentage this shows that the MPs are not properly attending the sittings or meetings of DRSCs and particularly if we take the house wise attendance which is mentioned in third head we can see that the attendance of members of Lok Sabha is 48 percentage only whereas the attendance of members of Rajasabha is much lesser it is just 41 percentage and lastly the data point also shows committee-wise attendance as you can see in this graph you can see the attendance data of 16 DRSCs and you can see here that the least attendance is registered in the committee on external affairs which is 38 percentage and overall also the attendance is 50 percentage or or less than 50 percentage only so it is nowhere near 100 percentage. So overall the conclusion from the data in this data point is that in the recent past the number of bills referred to the DRSCs has come down and additionally there is also a worrying trend regarding the attendance of MPs in various DRSCs because their attendance barely crossed 50 percentage so why we are talking about attendance of MPs in DRSCs why is it important for us see this shows that there is lower participation of MPs in standing committees this means the legislations are not deliberated and the suggestions are not provided see higher participation in standing committee meetings is essential for functioning of the parliament why because these standing committees act as backbone in scrutinizing the legislation by discussing the legislation at length and they even suggest improvements in such legislations given the recent times we had many legislations that triggered public uproar for example we had the farm bills and one of the main allegations regarding the farm bills was that it was not referred to any parliamentary committee so they were not deliberated and suggestions were not included so this is what happens when a bill is not referred to a parliamentary committee and that is why we need higher participation in standing committee meetings and secondly this helps the parliament to hold the government accountable because it helps them to monitor the functioning of the executive so these are the reasons why we are discussing about the participation in standing committees so these are some of the points that you can take note from this data point discussion in this discussion we saw about DRSEs we saw that they are standing committees and there are 24 DRSEs among them eight DRSEs chairmen's are appointed by the chairman of Rajasabha and for the remaining 16 DRSEs the chairman is appointed by the speaker of Rajasabha and totally the DRSEs have 31 members 21 belong to Lok Sabha and 10 belong to Rajasabha and we saw that minister cannot be a part of DRSE and then we saw that they carry out many important functions including the examining of bills so with these points in mind let us get to the next discussion so our next discussion is going to be based on this editorial article it talks about the e-commerce negotiations that is going on between the world trade organization members that is WTO members see actually the 12th ministerial conference of the WTO which was scheduled to happen in November 2021 was actually cancelled due to the pandemic but despite this the digital trade negotiations are moving forward at a rapid space and this is mainly happening due to the joint statement initiative on e-commerce which was held in December 2021 this joint statement initiative on e-commerce was co-convenient by Australia Japan and Singapore this initiative praised the significant process that was made in the talks over the last three years and it even anticipates that more issues would be resolved by the end of 2022 so on this backdrop author of this editorial has talked about the joint statement initiative on e-commerce what is India's stand on it and what are the issues in it so we'll discuss all these aspects today along with it we'll also understand what is the digital trade and the way forward suggested by the author before that the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see as you know WTO is the only global international organization that deals with the rules of trade between nations here rules of trade is in the sense that it even includes sectors like agriculture textiles and clothing banking telecommunications government purchases industrial standards product safety food sanitation regulations intellectual property etc etc so WTO covers all these sectors and its main function is to maintain smooth trade globally in these sectors along with it it also resolves issues or disputes that can affect the world trade in these sectors and as you know currently WTO has 164 members and 23 observer governments now what is the issue here see despite being the only global international organization that deals with rules of trade between nations WTO actually could not conclude any major negotiations in the past two decades on e-commerce and digital trade here first you should know the difference between e-commerce and digital trade see e-commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services over the internet it is conducted over computers tablets smartphones and other smart devices on the other hand digital trade is a broader concept it encompasses not just the sale of consumer products on the internet and the supply of online services but it also includes data flows that enable global value chains it includes services that enable smart manufacturing and it also includes a number of other platforms and applications so we can say that e-commerce is a subset of digital trade now as i said already WTO could not conclude any major negotiations in the past two decades on e-commerce and digital trade see basically you know that WTO emerged in 1994 and at that time it was largely an analog world that is it was a world where computer technology was at a nascent stage that is why only at the second ministerial conference that was held in 1998 the members of WTO agreed on core rules for e-commerce regulation so this one happened in 1998 and after that no such negotiations happened that is why we are saying for the past two decades there were no negotiations see even this particular 1998 agreement was actually a disadvantage to developing countries like India and South Africa why because a temporary moratorium was imposed on customs duties that were relating to electronic transmission of goods and services so it imposed moratorium on customs duties in the electronic transmission of goods and services this moratorium has been renewed continuously even when India and South Africa opposed its continuation see this moratorium was opposed because the developing countries felt that such a moratorium imposes significant costs on developing countries because they were losing on revenue as you know customs duties bring revenue to the government of the country so when there is a moratorium on imposing such customs duties the developing countries which rely on such duties get affected so this was one of the reasons why this moratorium was opposed apart from this even at the general council of WTO the members also agreed to set up a work program on e-commerce across four issue areas these four issue areas includes goods services intellectual property and development but all these lacked progress and after this WTO could not conclude any major negotiations in the past two decades on both e-commerce as well as digital trade so that is why an attempt was made to navigate the decision making deadlock in the way of joint statement initiatives see the like-minded members proposed an innovative approach known as joint statement initiative during the 11th ministerial conference that was held in Buenos Aires in 2017 see here you should understand that ministerial conference is the top most decision-making body of WTO so it meets every two years and it brings together all the members of WTO therefore the ministerial conference can take decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements and mainly as you know WTO follows the practice of decision-making by consensus through the ministerial conferences apart from this there is also another type of decision-making body in the WTO which is called as the general council this also includes all the WTO members but it is responsible for the WTO's day-to-day decision-making in between ministerial conferences so far only 11 ministerial conferences have been held and in the 11th ministerial conference only the joint statement initiatives on e-commerce was proposed actually the 12th ministerial conference should have been held in the November 2021 but it was cancelled due to pandemic but even after its cancellation Australia, Japan and Singapore co-convened a plurilateral joint statement initiative on e-commerce they even invited other WTO member countries to join the initiative and this is where they anticipated that more issues regarding e-commerce would be resolved by the end of 2022 so in this regard let us see what is this joint statement initiative on e-commerce is see basically joint statement initiative is a plurilateral negotiating tool here we need to understand the difference between plurilateral and multilateral negotiations see the WTO plurilateral initiatives are discussions in which only a subset of members are participating that is two or more members are participating so in these initiatives these countries aim to create new rules they secure mutual liberalization of tariffs they even create a new process or they can even launch a conversation so in this regard plurilateral initiatives cover areas such as electronic commerce that is e-commerce investment facilitation and the intersection of trade and gender now the major difference between such plurilateral initiatives and the multilateral negotiations is that the negotiations under the multilateral framework of WTO must involve all the members but this is not the case with plurilateral framework because I just said it only has a subset of members of WTO it could be two countries three countries four 10 20 countries but it need not include all the members therefore in such plurilateral platforms it is possible to discuss specific issues among specific countries while they are preparing for discussions under a broader framework in the future but note that even though such plurilateral negotiations could be started by few countries later other countries can also join and when they join the rules applicable to the plurilateral countries will applicable to those countries also so similarly when it came to e-commerce australia japan and singapore initiated the joint statement initiative on e-commerce because as I am saying from the beginning for the past two decades there was no major negotiation on this topic in the WTO now this particular jsi on e-commerce was started by these members who started negotiations on certain issues but without adhering to the rule of consensus decision-making of WTO see I said that in a plurilateral platform the countries can create new rules create new process also so like that they can even abandon the consensus decision making process of WTO now in this joint statement initiative on e-commerce there is some participation from the developing countries but majorly the negotiation is driven by like-minded developed country members only so overall the main purpose for initiation of jsi is to look for opportunities in the fields where WTO jurisprudence is limited for example in the e-commerce field investment field etc now I said that there is some participation from developing countries in the jsi on e-commerce but it does not include India or South Africa at present they are not part of this negotiation this is due to certain issues let us see these issues now now developing countries like India or South Africa oppose the jsi because they lack the consensus based decision making and secondly in principle WTOs follows a process where every member has a voice and vote regardless of their economic standing but this provision is also not present in the jsi and that is why developing countries are opposing this particularly india is opposing it so according to the author if the jsi process is to be legally valid then the initiative must either build a consensus or they should negotiate a plurilateral agreement outside the ages of WTO now before concluding this discussion we saw what is the issue with jsi actually but there are also certain issues between the developed and developing countries in the area of digital trade let us see two important issues in this regard because these issues are also a reason why developing countries are not willing to involve in a plurilateral jsi see first disagreement is the international rules relating to the free flow of data across borders as you know several countries that is both within and outside the jsi they have imposed data localization mandates such data localization mandates compel corporations to store and process data within territorial borders so in this regard data localization is an important policy goal for india as you know even recently we see several payment cards companies including master card and american express were prohibited from issuing new cards because they failed to comply with the 2018 financial data localization director from the rbi apart from this the indian joint parliamentary committee on data protection even recommended stringent localization measures this was recommended for protection of sensitive personal data and critical personal data under india's data protection legislation so india is actually willing for data localization but however for nations and industries in the developed world they are actually looking to access new digital markets so when developing countries like india impose data localization restrictions these developed countries feel that they have to bear the unnecessary compliance costs because they have to build infrastructure in that country to store the data locally because of this the developed countries say that data localization hampers innovation and it amounts to unfair protectionism so this is one major issue regarding the digital trade now secondly there is also similar disagreement regarding the domestic laws that mandate the disclosure of source codes what is the source code it is the line of code that is the computer code that lie behind every software product and service so countries have certain mandates in their legislations for disclosure of such source codes here the countries want the source code in the name of security economic development and they say they want to prevent anti-competitive practices and deceptive practices and they want to see whether such source codes disrupt indigenous innovation or not so for these purposes the countries demand the disclosure of source codes but on the other hand there are also countries which want to prohibit the governments and their agencies from requiring the transfer of source codes or access to the source codes say when there is a prohibition of accessing source code it will encourage the international trade because it will reassure the foreign software developers that they will not have to disclose the source code and to disclose the source code underlying their products and services but this hurts the governments because such a prohibition places limitations on the powers of the governments and their agencies to examine the source code and to look for any breaches of security so in this manner majorly the developed countries are against accessing source codes but the developing countries want the disclosure of source codes so the developing countries argue that disclosing source code will hamper innovation but developing countries argue that disclosure of source code is essential for algorithmic transparency and fairness so this is another issue in the digital trade so far we saw two main issues in the digital trade one is the data localization issue and the second one is the disclosure of source code so now what should be India's choice should India join JSA negotiations or not here you should remember that hastily signing a trade obligation could reduce the space available to frame appropriate policy but on the other hand if India refuses to participate in trade talks then the digital commerce will continue to boom indefinitely through other mega regional trade arrangements for example we already have RCEP and the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-specific partnership so these regional arrangements does not involve India and still they are continuing and the countries involved in it are reaping the benefits so on one hand India should not hastily sign any agreement but it should not also delay signing the agreements because in both cases India will become an unwitting standard taker see we call a country standard taker when such a country does not chair any international standards committee or does not involve in the formation of those standards whereas the standard takers adopt the standards built by other countries but do not participate in developing those standards so if India delays too much then it will not have any opportunity on shaping the e-commerce and digital trade rules so based on this fact author of this editorial is concluding that negotiations need not mean compromise so author is pointing out that any outcome from the JSA negotiation need not be an all-or-nothing arrangement instead here India can push for framework that allows countries to pick and choose whatever modules they want to comply with author is basing this argument based on the digital economy partnership agreement between Singapore, Chile and New Zealand where each country chose the modules they want to comply with so similarly author is suggesting India to push for a similar framework rather than staying away from the negotiations and losing out on the opportunity to shape those rules so that is all in this discussion we saw about how WTO works we saw about its ministerial conferences and its negotiations regarding digital trade then we saw about the joint statement initiative how is a plurilateral negotiation different from a multilateral negotiation then we saw what is the issue regarding JSA on e-commerce why India is opposing it then we saw two common issues between developed and developing countries regarding digital trade and finally we saw author's suggestion as to what should be India's choice with these points in mind now let us get to the next discussion now let us take up this news article it says that union government has released the central media accreditation guidelines 2022 yesterday see the significance of this guidelines is that for the first time journalists who are working for digital news publishers will be recognized under these guidelines so in this regard let us see some important provisions of the guidelines that will be relevant for the examination see mainly the guidelines will apply for the grant of accreditation to working journalists and other persons who are mentioned in the guidelines see basically accreditation means recognition of working journalists and other persons like freelance journalists veteran journalists camera persons and technicians and this recognition is given for the purpose of access to designated official sources of information from the government so those who have this accreditation they can get official information from the government so not only the working journalists the freelance journalists veteran journalists the camera persons and technicians they will have access to this information so in this regard let us see some provisions regarding accreditation first of all it will be given to those persons who reside in Delhi NCR region and this accreditation is only to recognize the working journalists and the other persons we just saw and note that this accreditation does not confer any official status or special status to the news media representatives therefore the guidelines mention that such accredited media persons should not use the words accredited to the government of India on any public or social media profile they should not use this in visiting cards letter heads or any other form or in any published work why because it is not official or special status now such an accreditation could also be withdrawn or suspended it could be withdrawn or suspended if a journalist acts in a manner that is prejudicial to the country security sovereignty and integrity and when it is prejudicial to the friendly relations with foreign states and when it is against public order or when the journalist is charged with a serious cognizable offense apart from this when the journalists actions are prejudicial to decency or morality or if it is in relation to contempt of court or if it is in relation to defamation or incitement of an offense then also the accreditation can be withdrawn or suspended now as I said in the beginning for the first time the journalists who are working for digital news publishers will be recognized but here note that the news aggregators will not be considered here so who are news aggregators news aggregator is a site that collects information from all over the web and they post it in one location for the visitors to access for example in shards or even google news is a news aggregator but on the other hand if you take scroll website or the news minute they will be called as digital news publishers so this guideline will apply to them also in addition to this the guidelines also say that no accreditation will be granted to freelance journalists who work for foreign news media organizations so these are the important provisions regarding accreditation and when it can be suspended or removed or when it will not be granted now apart from this there is another important provision in the guidelines which is the establishment of a committee this committee will be called central media accreditation committee this committee will have 25 members and they will be nominated by the government of India and this committee will be chaired by the principal director of PIB that is press information bureau and the tenure of this committee will be two years and the decisions taken in the committee will be on a majority basis and the functions of this committee will include those functions that are laid down in the guidelines but most importantly this committee will have the right to recommend or reject the grant of accreditation so that is all about the central media accreditation guidelines of 2022 today we understood what do you mean by accreditation then we saw who are eligible who are not eligible and when it will be suspended or withdrawn and finally we saw about the central media accreditation committee so with these points in mind let us get to the next discussion now let us take up this news article it talks about the recent update proposed by the government of India regarding Pradhan Mantri Matravandana Yojana as you know this is a maternity benefit scheme it provides financial incentives of rupees five thousand in three installments we have actually discussed the scheme in detail on jan third 2022 so viewers who want to know more about the scheme can view that analysis now on that day along with discussing the details of the scheme we also saw about the limitations and the underperformance of this scheme and as a part of its limitation I pointed out that the scheme covers only the first child so as a suggestion we suggested that the scheme should at least cover two children like other state schemes now in this regard only today's news is important because now government is planning to extend the scheme to the second child also so we can say that this is a welcome move but still this proposal has received criticism this is mainly due to the condition which is associated with this updation see the government has announced that it will extend the scheme to the second child but this will be extended only if the child born is a girl child now the reason given by the government for this particular condition is that this will discourage pre-birth sex selection see you know that it has one of the countries where before birth sex selection is prohibited and knowing it is also prohibited because it leads to female fetusite even today in many backward sections of our country people carry out this disheartening practice of female fetusite so government is arguing that if they say the scheme will be extended to the second girl child then this will discourage pre-birth sex selection and secondly government is also arguing that this will promote the girl child also but the activists are not convinced with the reasons given by the government let us see why see first the activists are arguing that providing maternity benefit only to the mother of the first born is actually illegal as per the national food security act of 2013 see if you look at the NFSA act under section 4 we can find a provision regarding nutritional support to pregnant women and lactating mothers now as you can see in this section there is no particular mentioning of the first child or the second child it simply mentions that the meal should be provided free of charge during pregnancy and after six months of the child birth and then it mentions that 1000 per month for a period of six months in accordance with the scheme should be provided to the pregnant woman and lactating mothers but it doesn't mention whether it should be given only to the first child or to the second child etc so that is why the activists are arguing that limiting the benefit to the first born itself is illegal under NFSA act so they say every pregnant woman and lactating mother is entitled to the benefit of this scheme now secondly they also point out that such a condition will add more constraints to the scheme that is it will lead to more bureaucratic red tape in availing the benefits and third most importantly this new announcement it actually implies that woman will be able to access the scheme only after the delivery why because you cannot know the sex of the child before delivery as you already said in our country knowing the sex of the child before delivery is illegal this means the condition itself says that the mother can avail the benefit only if the child born is a girl so the mother will be able to get the benefit only after delivery so this actually goes against one of the main goals of the scheme which is to improve health seeking behavior of women so due to this the pregnant woman will not be able to get the nutritional uptake during the course of their pregnancy so overall it goes against the objective of the scheme itself so these are the arguments put forward by the activists for the new proposal in the scheme of Pradhan Mantri Mataram Yajna so that is why they are proposing that the scheme should be universalized that is there should not be any restriction on whether the child born is male or female rather it should be universalized it should be applicable to the both child so that is all in this discussion we saw about the recent proposed update by the government to the scheme of Pradhan Mantri Mataram Yajna now let us get to the next discussion now our next discussion is going to be based on this news article it reports that the chief of Dera Satchasawada was released from jail on furlough for 21 days he was released on furlough to meet his family members see actually he was convicted of rape and murder and is imprisoned in jail since 2017 and now is released on furlough for 21 days so in this background we need to know the meaning of furlough and how it differs from parole and remission see previously we used to leave such kinds of topics thinking that this is too much into criminology but to our surprise in 2021 there were few law related questions in prelims 2021 paper and one of the questions was directly based on parole and that's why today we are going to see about furlough and how it differs from parole and remission let us start with parole parole is a temporary release of prisoner for a short period of time now this is given so that the prisoner can maintain social relations with his or her family and the community but note that the release on parole is conditional and it is usually subject to behavior and it requires periodic reporting to the authorities for a set period of time that is even though a person is on parole they have to report to the authorities for a set period of time now one can apply for parole after one year from the date of dismissal of appeal against a judgment of conviction that is after they receive the judgment of conviction if they have filed an appeal and if that appeal has been dismissed then after this dismissal they have to wait for one year and then they can apply for parole so basically parole is a system of releasing a prisoner and the point we noted is that this release is with suspension of the sentence during the specified period here the suspension would mean that only for that particular period of time the prisoners sentence will not be calculated which means that the days spent outside the prison during the period of parole is not counted as sentence undergone let us take an example here assume that a person is convicted for one year see i'm taking this time period only for making you understand now the person applies for a parole and he gets it and he goes on parole for two months now he'll go on parole for two months assume that he goes on parole in november to december period so when he goes on parole it will not mean that he has completed his sentence rather if he goes on parole before his sentence is completed that is before those 12 months then after he comes back he has to continue his sentence if he goes on parole after completion of his 10th month of imprisonment then he has to undergo imprisonment after he returns from parole that remaining two months he has to again come to prison and has to undergo imprisonment so this is parole now what about furlough so it is also released for a short period of time but this is given after a gap of certain qualified number of years of incarceration and it is mainly given for maintaining good contact and to remain disciplined in the prison so if a person has good conduct and has remained disciplined in the prison he can apply for furlough particularly the difference between this furlough and parole is that now here when a prisoner goes on furlough it will be considered as the period of sentence for example in today's case that chief was sent on furlough for 21 days so it will be calculated in his sentence time so when he comes back he has to just spend the remaining amount of time only it will not include these 21 days so in our previous example i said that if that person goes on parole after completing 10th month he has to complete that remaining two months after he comes back now in case of furlough if a person goes on furlough for one month then that means that one month will also be considered under the sentence time so then what about remission see in a remission the duration of the sentence itself is reduced that is here the sentence will be reduced without changing the nature of the sentence so the nature of the sentence remains untouched but the duration is reduced that is the rest of the sentence need not be undergone for example assume that a person is sentenced for a term of two years and now he has got a remission of one year that means the person now only has to undergo sentence only for one year after that in the eyes of the law that particular prisoner will be a free man but note that in case of any breach of the condition of remission it will be cancelled and the offender has to serve the entire town for which he was originally sentenced so this is the difference between a parole furlough and remission now in case of furlough and furlough there is no remission actually the sentence is not reduced so with these facts in mind now let us get to the last discussion for the day now our next discussion is based on this news article it talks about a letter written by the telangana minister to the union coal minister this letter is about the auctioning of coal blocks belonging to the singrani company limited see the singrani company limited is a major public sector enterprise in telangana which employs thousands of skilled and unskilled workers now here the telangana minister has asked the coal ministry to remove the singrani coal blocks from the auction list so today let us understand about coal auction and the need for it in India and also some details about commercial coal mining the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see first it is see few facts as to why we need reforms in the coal sector see India is having the fourth largest coal reserves in the world but even then India is the second largest importer of coal actually India meets a fifth of its annual coal requirements through imports only this is the scenario even when there is a recent increase in domestic coal production actually if you take 2019-20 India spent around 1.5 lakh crores of foreign exchange on coal imports this amount was spent for importing 250 million tons of coal so this was the scenario of coal sector in India but we know that our government is pushing towards atmanirbhar Bharat so there was a need for us to reduce our dependence on coal imports she has a part of this only in June 2020 the government of India opened the coal sector for commercial mining by private players so what is commercial mining see it allows the private sector to mine coal commercially without placing any end use restrictions see here end use restrictions means here the coal is only used for a particular purpose or a particular end use for example it could be used only for iron production or steel production and when a mine is involved in such end use restrictions it is known as captive mines so you can say that captive mines are the mines that are owned by the company and the coal produced from these mines is for the exclusive use of the owner of the company for using in a particular industry so in this case the company cannot sell coal outside but in this commercial mining there is no end use restriction so here the private firms have the option of either gasification of the coal or they can even export it so in this regard they can use the coal in their own end use plans or they can even sell them in the markets so as we already saw one of the major need for commercial mining was India's import dependence on coal this was a scenario because the coal India limited production was unable to meet the demand of non-captive industry see when we say non-captive it means the mines from which the produced coals could be used for its own consumption and they can also sell it so the coal India limited was unable to meet the demand of non-captive industries requirement of coal as a result of this only we were importing coal and every year its need was increasing so to meet this demand and to create a market for free trade of coal in the domestic industry the commercial auction of coal blocks was necessary for our country along with this we should also remember that it is estimated already that coal needs for the development of our country will increase rapidly if you take the draft national energy policy of Niti IO the demand for coal is expected to rise in the range of 1.3 to 1.5 billion tons by the year 2030 but simply the coal India limited and other government companies cannot meet this demand with their production alone and that is why we needed the involvement of private sector in coal mining apart from this there is also one more reason which is that China is the largest producer as well as largest to consumer of coal in the world and by extensive exploitation of its coal reserves China is giving a new momentum to its development and since India is also almost nearing China in terms of population and still India wants to raise ahead in terms of development with reference to China it was necessary for India to increase our coal production so it is expected that this will give a new momentum and edge to India's development so as a part of providing Philip to the coal production in our country several steps were taken or several reforms were brought in in the coal sector for example the process of approval for mining plan was simplified to 30 days earlier it was 90 days and for this purpose the mineral laws amendment act of 2020 was passed this amendment act amended mines and mineral development and regulation act of 1957 and the coal mines special provisions act of 2015 and particularly this amendment act formed the basic framework to liberalize the coal sector in India why because the earlier law excluded companies which did not have mining operations in India from participating in the auctions but this bar was removed in the 2020 amendment so this paved way for the local and foreign players to participate in the domestic coal sector apart from this the government also introduced a system of sharing of revenues so here the government moved away from fixed rates to an ad valorem system ad valorem system means the rate is according to the value so here the rates are much flexible so that means when the prices of coal goes up the miner shares more with the government and if the prices soften that is if the prices reduce then the sharing decreases so this particular measure was a game changer and it made the sector more attractive and dynamic for the companies to grow their businesses so overall note that the authority to allocate coal mines is vested with the union government and they allocate coal mines through auction process and the government adopted two stage electronic auction process and in this auction bids are received so once these bids are received they will be examined and their eligibility will be determined after proper technical scrutiny so once these bids are found qualified the entire auction will be conducted transparently on an online auction platform this is called as coal auction and as you already saw in 2020 a prime minister launched the auction of coal mines for commercial mining and here the theme was unleashing coal new hopes for Atmanirbhar Bharat so on this historic day Indian coal sector broke free from the shackles of restrictions located to the new growth of development the main aim behind this was to achieve self-sufficiency in meeting energy needs and also to boost industrial development so as a conclusion we can say that the coal mines auction process for commercial mining will lay a strong foundation for energy security in the country plus it will give a boost to the domestic coal production which in turn will boost large-scale employment generation and will provide huge opportunities for investment in the coal sector and in the future it is also envisioned that the auction process of coal mines for commercial mining will give a thrust to adopt newer and cleaner technologies in coal production for example coal gasification and coal liquefaction so these are few facts that you can take note from the discussion on coal auction and its importance now let us move on to the next session which is the practice questions discussion session now let us take up this first question it is a previous question that was asked in the year 2019 it asks in India which of the following review the independent regulators in sectors like telecommunications insurance electricity etc the options given are ad hoc committees set up by the parliament parliamentary department related standing committees finance commission financial sector legislative reforms commission nithya yog now we have to see which of these bodies reviews regulators in sectors like telecommunications insurance electricity etc see as you know ad hoc committees are temporary committees and they are established for a specific purpose now once the purpose is accomplished the committee stands dissolved so that means parliament may establish ad hoc committee which may examine the work of regulators also actually previously ad hoc committee have been set up for the scrutiny of working of sebi itself so that means one should be in answer by that we can eliminate options cnd now if you look at the second option given parliamentary department related standing committees we saw about this during discussion that is drsc's now we saw that drsc's are ministry related so as drsc are ministry specific they may review the working of regulators within their respective departments also or within their respective jurisdictions so two should also be in the answer so from this you can easily arrive at the correct answer which is option a one and two so from this you should note that only ad hoc and parliamentary department related standing committees can review the independent regulators and sectors like telecommunications insurance electricity etc but the other bodies mentioned in this question they have no role in reviewing the independent regulators so correct answer is option a now let us take up this next question it asks consider the following statements regarding the functions of principal director of pib that is press information bureau first statement principal director of pib convince the meetings of cmsc as the chairman of the committee cmsc stands for central media accreditation committee now the second statement is the procedure to apply for accreditation shall be laid down by the principal director of pib third statement principal director of pib will decide applications for grant of accreditation so now you would have known that this question is framed on the central media accreditation guidelines of 2022 which we discussed today actually all these three statements regarding the functions of principal director of pib is correct in addition to these functions the principal director also convince the meeting of subcommittees of cmsc and the director also decides on applications on grant of accreditation to eligible persons in matters of urgency and exigency so all the three are correct and here the question also asks for the correct statements therefore the correct answer to this question is option d 1 2 and 3 so today i have only two problems questions now let us take up the main questions for today there are two main questions interested aspirants can write answers to these questions and post them in the comment section and whenever we get time we'll review your answers i would suggest that aspirants should write regularly to develop the habit of writing so viewers with this we have come to the end of today's indian news analysis don't forget to like comment and share and also subscribe to our shankar eyes academy youtube channel for receiving regular updates thank you