 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Ayes Academy, displayed at the list of news articles taken up for today's analysis along with the page numbers of Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, and Thiruvananthapuram editions. The handwritten notes in PDF format and the timestamping of all the news articles taken up for today's analysis will be available in the description section and also in the comment section given below for the benefit of the smartphone news. Let us now start our analysis. The first news article talks about the recently released report of Niti Ayo that ranks the states based on their overall performance in health for the year 2017-18. The analysis of this article will be helpful in your problems preparation in current events of national importance and next under social development. In mains, it will be relevant in your general studies paper too under issues relating to development and management of social sector services relating to health. Niti Ayo has released the first edition of Healthy States Progressive India Report in the month of February 2018. Note that one of the mandates of Niti Ayoog is to bring outcome focus among central ministries and also among states. In the fulfillment of this mandate Niti Ayoog is carried out the task of performance assessment in the health sector which is among the states and union territories. If you see when the first edition was released they have released the performance in the states for the year 2015-16. The performance for this year 2015-16 was assessed with respect to the base year so they called 2015-16 as a reference year and the base year for the first edition is 2014-15. Yesterday that is 25th June 2019, Niti Ayoog has released the second edition of this report. The report states that the reference year as 2017-18 but actually they have examined the overall health performance and incremental improvement for a two year period that is 2016-17 and 2017-18. So this time the base year has been 2015-16. For the purpose of systematic measurement of annual performance across the states and union territories, Niti Ayoog has used a tool that tool is called as health index. For the first edition the health index was health index 2017 and for the second edition it is health index 2018. Now this health index is based on 23 indicators. These indicators are grouped into the domains of health outcomes, governance and information and key inputs and processes. These domains are the same in the first edition as well if you see. So we have almost confirmed that the domains of assessment are going to be same so it is better to remember it. If you see previously there was a question on global hunger index and also about the indicators. Here they may focus on domains because it is only three domains. One of the salient features of the health index which has been released by Niti Ayoog is that it compares among the likes. The 21 large states are considered as one group and comparison was made among themselves. Then eight smaller states were compared among themselves and then union territories were also compared among themselves. Two main things have been observed. One the health index core shows large disparities in overall performance across the states and union territories. Among the largest states it is found that the overall health index core of the best performing state is more than two and a half times of the overall score of the least performing state. That is the health index core of Kerala is 74.01 whereas the least performer in the largest states that is Uttar Pradesh it is just 28.61 so you can see a two and a half time increase. Kerala has been the best performing state within the largest states in both the editions and within the largest states Uttar Pradesh has been the least performer in both the editions. If you see among the smaller states Mizoram is the best performer and Nagaland is the least performer and among the union territories Chandigarh is the best performer and Damanandayu is the least performer. Secondly states vary in their progress towards achieving the sustainable development goals with respect to health. Note that in India Niti Ayoog is the nodal organization for monitoring the progress on the sustainable development goals. Sustainable development goal number three deals with health. It is stated that some states have achieved some targets of sustainable development goals even now. For example Kerala and Damanandayu have already reached the 2030 sustainable development goal target for neonatal mortality rate which is 12 neonatal deaths per thousand life births. The target is 12 neonatal deaths per thousand life births but we can find regional variations within a state if we go for the disaggregated data. So here the term disaggregated data means breaking up of a data at the state level to the district level at the level of cities and rural areas among diverse sections of populations. Imagine there are two districts in a state in one district the neonatal mortality is two deaths per thousand life births and in another district it is 22 deaths per thousand life births. If you take average for that particular state then it will come as 12 and the state administration will easily say that they have achieved the SDG target that is why we have to go for the disaggregated data to get the real picture the district wise picture. If we go by this course among all the states and union territories Mizoram with a score of 74.97 is the topper and Kerala stands second. Now major improvement is seen in the state of Andhra Pradesh as it has improved six places and the biggest fall is for the state of Tamil Nadu as it has fallen by six places. In the first edition if you see Andhra Pradesh was at the eighth position among the larger states and Tamil Nadu was at the third position. Now Tamil Nadu has dropped to the ninth position and Andhra Pradesh has climbed to the second position. The news article talks about eight states as empowered action group states it is stated that after the conduct of 2001 census it found that eight states were lagging in containing the population and few other demographic parameters. Therefore an empowered action group was constituted in ministry of health and family welfare for these states the eight states so are called as empowered action group states. These eight states are Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha. Now have a look at the practice problems question let us move on to the next news article. This news article is about the schedule meeting between the United States Secretary of State and various executives of the Indian government. The analysis of this news article will be relevant in your prelims preparation under current events of national and international importance. Next in your main preparation in your general studies paper two under bilateral agreements involving India and or affecting India's interests and also under effects of policies and politics of developed countries on India's interests. The news article tells that United States Secretary of State Mr. Mike Pompeo has arrived India yesterday and he will be meeting the various executives of Indian government like the external affairs minister of India, the prime minister and also the national security advisor. Also during the visit negotiations on two agreements will be carried out. The two agreements are the industrial security annex and the geospatial cooperation agreement which is called BECA. The agreement on industrial security annex would actually help India and USA to have a closer defense industry cooperation and collaboration. Next is the BECA agreement. BECA means the basic exchange and cooperation agreement. Now if this agreement is signed India and USA will share the geospatial information between themselves. They will share the information mainly for the civil and the difference of the military purposes. Geospatial means the data that is associated with a particular location. If you see satellites are used for collecting this geospatial data and the collected data will be shared between the countries who have signed the agreement. Then the United States Secretary of State will also have a meeting with the business fraternity of India and USA to discuss about United States withdrawal of India's generalized system of preferences status in short which is called as GSB. Now the main agenda for today's meeting will be regarding the trade issues between India and USA. Before seeing the trade issues, this picture has appeared in this news article today. If you see the Indian exports to the United States are on a growth path since year 2015. In 2018, India has exported goods worth 54.3 billion dollars which is approximately 3.8 lakh crores in Indian currency value. Similarly, if you see this picture the United States exports to India is also growing since year 2015. The United States has exported goods worth 33.5 billion US dollars which is approximately 2.35 lakh crores in Indian value. Also you can clearly see that India has a trade surplus with USA for the past 10 years from this picture. Here the trade surplus means the exports are greater than the imports. So India's exports are greater than imports in India-USA trade but it is the opposite for United States because if you see United States as a trade deficit with India in all these 10 years. In 2018 especially USA had a trade deficit worth 20.8 billion US dollars which is approximately 1.46 lakh crores in Indian value. So this trade deficit is also a reason why USA has a number of trade issues with India if you see. With regards to trade issues we have seen continuously in our previous news analysis like regarding the tariffs imposed by India and counter tariffs by USA on certain imports then withdrawal of GSP status to India by USA and so on. Now apart from the trade issues India will definitely ask for a waiver or relaxation of US sanctions from the S-400 tram missile deal which was signed with Russia. The senior US diplomats and officials have suggested that if India is going to go ahead with this S-400 deal then the United States will not offer India certain high technology platforms or US might also hold back or pause this fighter jet sales. The fighter jets are F-21 and F-35. If you see US has done the same with Turkey when Turkey went ahead to buy these S-400 missiles despite the sanctions by the United States. So United States held back the sale of these fighter jets to Turkey. Know that USA bans military purchases from three countries which are Russia, Iran and North Korea under an act called CATSA which is nothing but the countering America's adversaries through sanctions act. To this the Indian officials have quoted that United States must realize that India has defense ties with Russia already and it has to be honored. If you see Russia is one of the major supplier of defense arms to India since independence. Also the officials have said that India fulfills the requirements under the CATSA for a waiver or relaxation from purchasing S-400 missiles from Russia. We have discussed elaborately about GSP and S-400 missile deal in our 4th May and 1st June analysis respectively just have a look for more subject clarity. Then if you see US also put sanctions on Iran and Venezuela because of which India is not able to import oil from both these nations. Then USA had also put a demand to India that India must not allow Chinese telecom major Huawei to participate in the 5G network trials in India. India's external affairs minister is likely to tell the United States Secretary of State that Indian government will assess the implications or the effects of allowing this access to the Chinese firm by consulting with the Indian telecommunication companies and also by getting their feedbacks. The news article also tells that China has urged India to take an unbiased decision in this Huawei issue. Next there is a second news in connection with the United States Secretary of State visit to India which is with regards to the House Foreign Affairs panel. If you see the House Foreign Affairs panel of United States government as requested United States Secretary of State to a letter to strengthen the ties with India. The chairman of the panel has said that the present US administration under Trump is coercing. Coercing is nothing but threatening India on various issues rather than negotiating with India. There are two main issues discussed in this letter. One is regarding the United States withdrawal of GSP status to India. Next is a removal of waivers of sanctions on importing Iranian oil. Now regarding the United States withdrawal of GSP status the Foreign Affairs panel has accused the United States administration that it is seeing India's relationship as a transactional one meaning business-minded. If you see during the election time the United States announced its decision to withdraw GSP benefits for India. Hence the panel has commented that USA sees India's relationship as a transactional one because it was announced during the election time. Next on the United States decision to end waivers to India on importing oil from Iran after imposing sanctions on Iran the Foreign Affairs panel has said that India may not support US with respect to Iran-USA relations in the future. The panel has said that ending the waivers is like alienating India in this regard. If you see from May 2, 2019 the waivers given by USA to India on importing oil from Iran had expired. Now based on these two issues the Foreign Affairs panel has asked the United States Secretary of State to reaffirm that US puts strength in the United States-India strategic partnership. Now there is a third news article related to his visit in the same page. In this news article the External Affairs Minister of India has said that conflicts are natural when both India and USA work on their own interests on various issues. He has told that India will engage US in a very positive manner in order to find solutions or a common understanding on multiple issues. Now the multiple issues are like on bilateral trade then on Iran oil then on defense ties then terrorism and also on Afghanistan. So we shall see the updates of the United States Secretary of State visit in our tomorrow analysis. Let us move on to the next news article. This editorial talks about the state of Indian presence. The analysis of this editorial will be helpful in your prelims preparation under current events of national importance and then under Indian polity and governance particularly under rights issues. Then it can also be linked to main syllabus in your General Cities paper too particularly under important aspects of governance transparency and accountability. Now this editorial is there because of the release of prison statistics India report for the year 2016 which was released in April 2019 by the National Crime Records Bureau. See the report was for the year 2016 but it was published in April 2019. The National Crime Records Bureau was therefore criticized for the delay in publishing the report. Also the prison statistics for the year 2017 has not yet been released. The National Crime Records Bureau comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs and it releases three important publications which you have to know from exam point of view. One is the prison statistics India. The next one is the crime in India statistics and next one is the accidental deaths and suicides in India. The author states that the report published this year for the year 2016 omits certain important demographic data. For the year 2016 majority of the prisoners are not convicts. A convict is a person who was convicted of his offense and he has been undergoing sentence or punishment. Now about 68 percent that is the majority of Indian prisoners for the year 2016 are under trials. See in a criminal justice system a person is called as an under trial when the trial has begun in the court but the final judgment is not yet delivered. That is the person is not yet convicted. Trial begins in the court after the submission of chart sheet or final report by the police in the court. Before the completion of police investigation the person alleged to have committed a crime will be called as an accused and once the trial begins in the court the person will be called as an under trial. With 68 percentage of prisoners as under trials India's under trial population is among the highest in the world. This actually means two things according to the author of this editorial. One these are the result of unnecessary arrests and also because of ineffective legal aid during remand hearings. Generally for investigation purposes the police have to ask to the magistrate or a judge in order to keep an accused or an under trial in prison. Now these hearings are called as the remand hearings which the author refers to. The author says that such hearings are ineffective as he feels that majority of the under trials are in prison because of the result of ineffective decisions taken in such remand hearings. Usually the prison statistics that is released will have the details of number of prisoners of Muslim community and also from the scheduled cast and also from the scheduled tribes. So these statistics will help the human rights defenders to ask the state why people from a particular community are over represented in prisons but the prison statistics for the year 2016 did not have such details. The author states that in 2015 50 percent of the under trial prisoners were from this Muslim Dalits and Adivasi communities. By not providing this information it is viewed as a lack of transparency and accountability from the part of government in its democratic discourse. Then the report also failed to mention the number of prison visits made by official and non-official visitors. According to section 59 subsection 25 of the prisons act of 1894 number of official and non-official visitors are appointed based on the rules framed by the state governments. This board of visitors usually contain the collector, district and sessions judge, chief judicial magistrate, director of health services and various other top officials across various departments as official visitors. And social workers those who are interested in correctional work, psychiatrists and psychologists are usually appointed as non-official visitors. Now their function is to visit the prison periodically in order to attend to the request of inmates with respect to care and welfare then to help the administration in correctional matters and also to enter their observations in the visitors book about their visit to the prison. This mechanism is in place to undercover whether there are tortures, ill treatment to prisoners, their living conditions etc. The number of visits made will be the key to know whether these board of visitors did their duty or not. But the prison statistics does not mention about this number of visits. Normal understanding is that the more the number of visits the better would be the living conditions in prisons. Next the National Crime Records Bureau has not said anything related to the number of prisoners diagnosed with mental illness before entering the prison. But the report tells that about 6,013 individuals with mental illness were in the prison in 2016. The author doubts that since information about diagnosis was not given in the report these individuals could have become inflicted with mental illness because of prison conditions. Then the author states that certain information from the report and shares her opinion in 2016 there was only one mental health professional for every 21,650 prisoners. This is a very important matter because with such a low number of mental health professionals the prisons will not be able to focus in correctional and reformation work. Also there will not be enough care for them. We have been seeing increase in unnatural deaths and suicides of prisoners. The National Human Rights Commission has stated that a person is one-and-a-half times more likely to commit suicide in prison than outside. Most of the mental health prisoners were from the prisons of three states. There is no single psychologist in such states in their prisons. These are the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha. Then the author talks about one important addition in the 2016 prison statistics that is about the number of under trials who are eligible to be released and who are actually released under section 436A of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Now this section 436A deals with the maximum period for which an under trial prisoner can be detained in a prison setup. The maximum period is one-half of the maximum period of imprisonment. Also section 436A of Code of Criminal Procedure allows to release under trials on a personal bond if they have already undergone half of the maximum term of imprisonment. The author notes the prison officials are frequently unaware of this section and are not willing to apply to the under trial prisoners. Law Commission is recommended to release the under trial prisoners if they have completed one-third of their maximum sentence if you see. This recommendation is for the offenses attracting punishment up to seven years of imprisonment. The author also asked the National Crime Records Bureau to include the number of under trials who have completed one-third of their maximum punishment in the upcoming reports for policy level decisions. The author also finds disturbing to see the 300% increase in the number of people held under preventive detention in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in the year 2016. The author calls the preventive detention as administrative detention also. Preventive detention is arresting a person to prevent him from committing an offense. So this is called as preventive detention. But the author says that the authorities in Jammu and Kashmir are using this option to unfairly detain persons and also to bypass the regular criminal justice procedures. The author says that all the above discussed things are critical and important information for a citizen to know about the functioning of criminal justice system. Delaying the information or by withholding them without credible reason hampers the knowledge about the functioning. Also it hampers having effective dialogues and discussion for the improvement of prison policies. Now the reluctance of the National Crime Records Bureau to act quickly in publishing such reports and reluctance to be transparent is actually not fitting into the democratic discourse in India. With this the author concludes the article. Now have a look at the practice question. Let us move on to the next news article. Now this article is about the food and nutrition security in India. The analysis of this article will be relevant in your problems preparation under the area current events of national and international importance and next under social development. It will also be relevant in your main preparation in your general studies paper too under issues relating to health and also under issues relating to poverty and hunger. The article is in news because of a recent publication of a report which is titled Food and Nutrition Security Analysis India 2019. If you see this report was released by the United Nations World Food Program and the Ministry of Statistics and Program implementation of the Government of India. The report states that if we go by the current trend of progress in malnutrition India will be having around 31.4% of its children as stunted children by the year 2022. By saying stunting we actually mean that the particular individual as low height for is or are corresponding age. By saying child stunting we refer to the number of children who are under the age of 5 years and having low height for their age. Child stunting is a measure or reflection of chronic malnutrition. Here chronic malnutrition is a condition of having inadequate nutrition over long period of time. The article states that India has witnessed a very slow decline or reduction with respect to malnutrition over the years. This decline is also the slowest among the emerging economies if you see. It is about 1% reduction of malnutrition every year therefore the analysis states that if we go in this current trend of slowest decline we will have around 31.4% of our children who will be stunted by the year 2022. Therefore the article states that India must double the rate of progress to reach the target of 25% by the year 2022. According to National Family Health Survey of 2015-16 around 38.4% of the children in India are stunted. India has national nutrition mission under which India targets to achieve reduction in stunting from 38.4% to 25% by the year 2022. Now this target is also called as Mission 25 by 2022 by the Government of India. Next the news article talks about food security. It states that the food grain yields have increased by around 33% over the last 20 years or the last 2 decades. But the increase in yield is only half of the target under the sustainable development goals framework. The news article could be referring to the target given under goal number 2 that is to double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small scale food producers by the year 2030. Know that even though the food grain yields have increased 33% over the last 2 decades, the access of food grains such as rice, wheat and other cereals have not increased at the same rate for the consumers. Now this may be due to population growth, inequality, food wastage and losses and also because of exports. If you take the poorest 30% of Indian population, the average per capita consumption of energy is just 1811 kilocalories. This is much lower than the required number of calories which is 2155 kilocalories. And in the present scenario, the children in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are in an unfavorable situation. This is because almost 50% of the children in those states are stunted and with respect to better performing states that is Kerala and Goa, around 20% of the children are stunted. More than 40% of the children belonging to the schedule cast and schedule tribes are also stunted. The same situation, like we can see the same situation among the children born to uneducated mothers and also among the children belonging to the poorest 20% of Indian population. Now if you see the image given in the news article, you can find the word wasting. Now wasting or child wasting refers to the number of children who have low weight for their corresponding height. Child wasting reflects acute under nutrition and this acute under nutrition refers to starvation of food that leads to rapid loss of weight. Now have a look at the practice question. Let us move on to the next news article. Next we shall see the editorial which is titled lynching ridex. The analysis of this editorial will be relevant in your main preparation, in your general studies paper one under communalism and then in your general studies paper three under challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges. The term lynching means to kill an individual on the pretext that he or she has committed an offense and without any proper legal trials the individual will be beaten to death. If you see this act is generally committed by a group of people so you can call them as a mob. Now the editorial is titled lynching ridex. Here ridex means something which is revived or brought back or something which returns again. The recent news is that an incident of mob lynching has occurred in the state of Charkhand. This trend of mob lynching has started to occur again so the editorial is titled as lynching ridex. The author tells that the main motivations for lynching the victim was due to cow vigilantism which means suspected of transporting cattle for slaughter or for possessing the beef but it also had a communal angle where the victim was tortured on the basis of religion. This incident was shared across social media and there was a public outcry or anger due to this incident. So some of the villages were allegedly involved in mob lynching were arrested on suspicion of murder. The author tells that the conduct of police shows the lack of interest of the police in involving such matters and that mob justice is accepted as a way of life in some parts of the country. Also he tells that lynching is happening as a consequence of the following which are vigilantism communal bigotry and the dissemination of hate messages and rumors on social media. Now if your vigilantism means the act of taking the law into one's own hands and attempting to give justice as per their assumptions or justifications of what they consider right or wrong. Next communal bigotry means the intolerance towards those who hold different opinions from oneself. In India it is mostly on the religious lines like a person of majority religion will show intolerance towards the minority religion. Now because of vigilantism and bigotry the dissemination that is the spreading of hate messages and rumors are on the rise in the social media which is ultimately leading to mob lynching trends. He tells that it has become a preponderous or a superior social trend the author finds this lynching as very distressing. The author then quotes the supreme court judgment on mob lynching in July 2018 in the Tahseen Punawala versus Union of India case. The supreme court noted in its judgment that the intolerance towards other communities and polarization which means a division into two sharply contrasting groups of different opinions or beliefs have led to increased incidents of mob violence. The supreme court has told that mob violence cannot be permitted to become the normal way of life or the normal state of law and order. In its judgment the supreme court directed the states to take specific preventive punitive and remedial measures. Here preventive means to stop the mob violence in the future, punitive means punishment and remedial means to provide justice and care for those who have been affected by the mob violence or the mob lynching. The supreme court also asked the parliament to enact a special law to deal with lynching by establishing lynching as a separate offense with punishment. The supreme court also directed the states to appoint nodal officer in each district to combat the threat of mob lynching. But the author tells that none of these measures proposed by the supreme court in its judgment have been implemented yet. The author mentions organized vigilantism by cow protection groups was initially behind the continuous incidents of mob lynchings in the previous years then came the rumor mongering which is nothing but spreading of rumors through social media platforms which came next. Now the author tells that the political leadership is also a reason for the recent incident. He has told that some ruling party members have chanted religious statements in the parliament and as a result of this the same religious statements are being chanted by the people on streets as a means to enforce the citizens of other religion. Thus the authors of the view that the latest mob lynching incident must be thoroughly investigated and the accused should be punished accordingly. With this we come to the end of the analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion. Let us now move on to the practice questions discussion session. Let us see the first question which one of the following is not a domain of the Niti Ayoks health index and they have given four options health outcomes governance and information key inputs and processes and conservation. If you take this year's prelims question paper you can find a question like which one of the following is not a sub-index of the world bank's ease of doing business index. So such questions may come at the examination. We saw during our analysis that there are only three domains with a total of 23 indicators for the health index which has been developed by Niti Ayok. It has been the practice of Niti Ayok because in both editions of the index the domains were same the domains of health index are health outcomes governance and information and key inputs and processes. So conservation is no way related with health. So you can easily eliminate this conservation statement as well. In prelims question this year they gave maintenance of law and order as one of the option for world bank's ease of doing business index and that was the correct answer for that particular question. For this question the correct answer is option D conservation. Moving on to the second question consider the following statements about our prison statistics and prisons act. They have given two statements and have asked you to choose the correct answer. Here the first statement is incorrect. We have seen in our analysis that the prison statistics, the crime in India statistics and the statistics with respect to the accident and suicide deaths are released by National Crime Records Bureau. If you see this National Crime Records Bureau comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs. The National Institute of Social Defense is a central advisory body for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment of the Government of India. Though it develops tools, programs for correctional administration in prisons it is not releasing the official prison statistics of the country. If you see this institute also involves in training the authorities in prison and correctional administration. Now the second statement it is correct as the section 59 subsection 25 of the prisons act of 1894 makes way for the state government to provide rules for the appointment and guidance of visitors of prisons. These visitors are not the visitors of prisoners. They are a board of official and non-official visitors who make observations about the living conditions and care and welfare of prisoners by having frequent visits. Now we saw this list of official and non-official visitors during our analysis just have a look at it. So for this question Monday statement 2 is correct the correct answer is option B. Moving on to the third question which of the following refers to children under the age of 5 having low weight to their height and four options are child stunting chronic under nutrition child wasting and under nourishment. Now if you see this given statement is the definition of child wasting when we say child stunting it means children having low height to their corresponding age. It reflects chronic malnutrition or chronic under nutrition. We saw today that the stunting prevalence is higher in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh almost half of the children in these states are stunted and acute malnutrition is reflected by child wasting and under nourishment refers to having less calorie intake. We saw today that the average per capita consumption of poorest 30 percentage population of India is much lower than the required number of calories. So here the correct answer is option C child wasting which means the children under the age of 5 having low weight to their height. With this we come to the end of the analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion and also the practice question discussion session. Do like comment and share the video and do subscribe to Shankar Ayes Academy YouTube channel for latest videos and updates. Stay focused and motivated friends. Thank you.