 A very good evening aspirants. Welcome to Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankar Ayes Academy for the date 21st of February 2022. Displayed here are the list of articles that we are going to discuss today. The first article here it is an editorial article. It is about the budgetary allocation for the different sub-sectors of agriculture. See these kind of articles they are very important. I will tell you why. See displayed here is the main question that was asked in the year 2013. What does the question say? It says what are all the agricultural subsidies given to farmers at the national and state level and critically analyze the subsidy regime with reference to the distortions created by it. And this is exactly why I told you these kind of articles are important. See the different statistics and the schemes that we are going to see under this article discussion will help you enrich your mains answer. So pay close attention. Now moving on to the next article. It is about the Indus Water Treaty Commission's annual meet. See under this treaty the commission is required to meet at least once a year alternatively in India and Pakistan. So under this article discussion we are going to see Indus Water Treaty who are all the signatories and some of the provisions of the treaty. See this article is also important because a mains question has been asked in the year 2016 related to it. The question is present an account on Indus Water Treaty and examine its political, ecological, economic implications in the context of changing bilateral relations. So the first two articles they are very important. I am not saying the other articles are not important. I am just saying these two are very important and it comes to mains. So pay close attention to these two article discussions and moving on to the third article. It is about the synthetic biology. See under this article discussion we are going to see what is synthetic biology and the implications of it and we are going to end the discussion by seeing some of the pros and cons of synthetic biology. And the final article here it's quite a fascinating one of all the articles that we have taken today. See it is a pest management strategy. The article is about pheromone application technology. See what they are doing here is they are mimicking the female oops it's a spoiler alert. I don't want to break it to you now wait until you see what it is. So that's all about the brief of the articles given here. Without any delay let's get into our article discussion. Look at this editorial article. This article talks about the budgetary allocation to agriculture. See we know that our economy has not fully recovered from the covid induced lockdown. Covid induced lockdown has resulted in the decline of consumption expenditure. So everyone expected that the government in the budget would take measures to boost the consumption. But our government had other ideas. Instead of focusing on measures to increase the consumption expenditure the government gave more focus on capital expenditure. The next big surprise was that with the recent farm protest everyone expected that there would be some big ticket announcement in the farm sector. But this did not happen. There were no major announcements on agriculture or rural development. However the author of this editorial is of opinion that this move of the government is indeed a good thing. He says that though there was no big ticket announcements on agriculture and rural development the allocations made by the government appear to be in the right direction. He goes on to give various statistics to support this idea. And this is the cracks of the editorial given here. In this context we are going to discuss the budgetary allocation to the farm sector and the implications of it. But before that the syllabus regarding to this discussion is highlighted here for your reference please go through it. Now let us start our discussion. See while various sectors performed poorly during the pandemic agriculture was an exception. Agriculture grew at the rate of 4.3 percentage and 3.6 percentage during 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021. For the year 2021 to 2022 agriculture is expected to grow at the rate of 3.9 percentage. And this is a pretty decent performance. Now look at this graph from economic survey 2021 to 2022. See here in the graph in the year 2020 to 2021 the share of agriculture to the total GDP reached 20.2 percentage and this was the highest in the last 17 years. And the author of this editorial is of opinion that due to the good performance of the agriculture sector the government in its budget did not offer extra focus to it. See within agriculture livestock and fisheries are the two sub sectors that have shown an average annual growth rate of 8 percentage or more in the last five years. These two sub sectors roughly contribute about 33 percentage of the gross value added in agriculture. So according to the author of the editorial livestock and fisheries are important to achieve growth and increase the farmers income. So the government provided ample allocation towards livestock and fisheries. Now let us see the various schemes relating to livestock and fisheries where the government has made increased allocation. First is livestock health and disease control. Here the budgetary allocation has increased from 886 crore to 2000 crore. See this is a 126 percentage increase. The next one is National Livestock Mission. See this scheme is implemented by the Department of Animal Husbandry and Dayreen. The scheme aims at employment generation, entrepreneurship development and increase in per animal productivity. The mission also aims to develop back and forward linkages to create a link between the unorganized sector and the organized sector. The mission has also received an increased budgetary allocation of 100 crore which is a 42 percentage increase from the last year. The next one we are going to see is Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampadayojna. See the Department of Fisheries under the Ministry of Fisheries Animal Husbandry and Dayreen is the implementing agency. This scheme aims to bring about ecologically healthy, economically viable and socially inclusive development to the fisheries sector in India. This scheme also received an increased allocation of 679 crore and this is a 57 percentage increase from the last year. See in case of production linked incentive schemes for food processing, the scheme that aims to create global food manufacturing champions in India and to create off-farm employment opportunities, the budgetary allocation increased from 10 crore last year to 1022 crore this year and this is a 10,000 percentage increase in the allocation. Can you believe this? This shows that the government's commitment to increase the off-farm employment opportunities and making value addition in agricultural products a priority. See in addition to this for the micro food processing sector that includes enterprises such as pickle and jaggery making there is a 900 crore additional allocation compared to the last year. We know that the main focus of this budget is towards capital expenditure right. Budgetary allocation towards capital expenditure in agriculture also received increased allocation. Take Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana for example. The scheme was launched in the year 2007 which was later rebranded as remunerative approaches for agriculture and elite sector rejuvenation. Raftar. See the main objective of the scheme which is under the ministry of agriculture and farmer welfare is to incentivize the states to increase their investment in agriculture and elite sectors. The scheme also aims to provide flexibility and autonomy to the states in planning and executing programs for agriculture. See the scheme also gave a push to decentralized planning in the agricultural sector through the initiation of state agricultural plan and district agricultural plants. And now we'll see the budgetary allocation. The allocation for this scheme increased by 8000 crore compared to last year. This is a 400 percentage increase in allocation. In addition to this note here that Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayi Yojana the scheme that focuses on improving the farm productivity and the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana which is the scheme that focuses on increasing soil fertility and organic farm practices have been brought under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana. This increased allocation will help create infrastructure in the agricultural sector by the states based on the states requirement. See in addition to the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana that focuses on agricultural infrastructure the allocation to the agriculture infrastructure fund that is the AIF has been increased by 150 percentage that is 500 crore. See this fund aims at creating post harvest management infrastructure and community forming assets through incentives and financial support. Finally the central sector scheme that is the formation and promotion of 10,000 new farmer producer organizations received an allocation of 500 crore. Note that this is a 100 percentage increase compared to the last year. See till now we saw various areas where there was an extra focus by the government that is these are the areas that received increased budgetary allocations. Now let us see the areas that received reduced budgetary allocation. The first is Pradhan Mantri Anadattai Sandrakshan Abhyan that is PM Asha. See this PM Asha is an umbrella scheme aimed at ensuring remunerative prices to the farmers for their produce. The three components of the PM Asha includes the price support scheme, price deficiency payment scheme and the pilot of private procurement and stock list scheme that is the PSS, PDPS and PPPPS. These are the three components. This is a flagship scheme aimed at providing enhanced minimum support price. See the scheme that is the PM Asha received a total budgetary allocation of just 1 crore. But the author of the editorial he is of opinion that such a low allocation might be because while repealing the form laws our Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi announced that a committee would be formed to address the MSP issue. So the author says that the government might be waiting for the committee to be formed and its recommendations to be received before providing budgetary support to the output price support scheme like PM Asha. In addition to PM Asha other output price support schemes also received declined budgetary allocation. The allocation for the price support program of pulses and oil seeds has reduced by 58 percentage that is 1500 crore. Next the allocation for price stabilization fund meant to address the extreme volatility in the prices of perishables has also declined by 750 crore that is 33 percentage. See the budgetary allocation for fertilizer subsidy and food subsidy received a huge decline. In case of food subsidy the budget estimate shows a decline of 79,000 crore. This is a 28 percentage decline. Next in the case of fertilizer subsidy there was a decline of 35,000 crore which is 25 percentage decline. Finally there is a decreased allocation to Mahatma Gandhi national rural employment guarantee scheme. The allocation to MNREGA declined by 25,000 crore. This is a 25 percentage decline. See we all know the crucial role played by MNREGA in addressing the rural distress following the COVID induced lockdowns. But the author is of view that the decreased allocation to a MNREGA might be due to the decrease in severity in the pandemic. With the COVID receding and the agriculture posting a robust growth the need for MNREGA has declined and this may be the reason for decreased allocation in budget also. By this budgetary allocation we can clearly say that in this year's budget that is in 2022-23 budget more importance has been provided to agriculture sub sectors like livestock fisheries and food processing and also on improving infrastructure in the crop sector. In addition to this government recently has been focusing on technology adoption in agriculture. The recent announcement to promote Kisan drones and encourage startups to improve value chains of farm produce are welcome steps. The focus on technology and agriculture will break the image of agriculture being a laborious and drudgery laden sector. This coupled with increase in income from agriculture sector will also push the youth to consider agriculture as a career option. Finally the author concludes by saying that all the steps taken in the budget are steps in the right direction for the agriculture sector. But the implementation is the key here. Only with proper implementation the benefit from the policy change can be properly achieved. And with this we have come to the end of our discussion. Let's have a quick recap. What all we saw? We saw about the performance of agriculture sector during the pandemic which is it grew at the rate of 4.3 percentage during 2019 to 2020 and it grew at a rate of 3.6 percentage during 2020 to 2021. And we saw a graph from economic survey which shows that in the year 2020 to 2021 the share of agriculture to the total GDP has reached a percentage of 20.2 which is the highest in the last 17 years. And after that we saw about the sub-sectors of the agriculture which is the livestock and fisheries and we saw that the average annual growth rate of these sub-sectors is 8 percentage or more in the last five years. And after that we moved on to see about the various schemes relating to the livestock and fisheries where the government has increased the allocation in the budget. Under this firstly we saw about the livestock health and disease control which received a 126 percentage increase in budgetary allocation. And after that we saw about national livestock mission which received a 42 percentage increase. And after that we saw about the Pradhan Mandri Matsya Sampada Yojana Department of Fisheries which received 57 percentage more allocation than the last year. And after that we saw some production incentive schemes for food processing and the micro food processing sector that includes enterprises such as Pickle and Jaggery making. And after that we saw about the last year Krishi Vikas Yojana and Pradhan Mandri Krishi Sinsahi Yojana and Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana. And they received a 400 percentage increase in the budgetary allocation. And after that we saw about the central sector scheme which is the formation and promotion of 10,000 new farmer producer organizations which received a 100 percentage increase compared to the last year. And after this we moved on to see about the areas which received reduced budgetary allocation. One such area is PM Asha which aims at ensuring remunerative prices to the farmers for their produce. And after that reduced budgetary allocation was seen in fertilizer subsidy and food subsidy. And after that we saw that there was decreased allocation to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. And finally we ended our discussion by seeing the importance given to agricultural sub sectors like livestock and fisheries, food processing in the budget and also on improving infrastructure in the crop sector. See the government recently has been focusing on technology adoption in agriculture also. We saw that this will break the image of agriculture being a laborer sector and it will give the push to youth to consider agriculture as a career option also. With these points in mind let's move on to the next article discussion. See this news article here it talks about the annual meeting of permanent Indus commission. See at this meeting a 10 member Indian delegates will visit Pakistan from March 1 to 3. Also for the first time since the beginning of the Indus Water Treaty three women officers will be a part of the Indian delegation. So this is the crux of the article given here in this context let us learn about the Indus Water Treaty, its provisions and its issues. Before that the syllabus relevant to the article is given here for your reference please go through it. See at the time of independence the boundary line between the two newly created independent countries that is the Nanadadan Pakistan and India was drawn right across the Indus basin and here note that Pakistan is the lower riparian state. See riparian state is nothing but state located alongside of a river or water body and I will tell you what lower riparian is. See Indus River flows through India and it enters Pakistan. So here India is the upper riparian state and Pakistan is the lower riparian state. I'll give you another example. Take the case of river Brahmabutra. Here the Brahmabutra river flows through China and after that it enters India. Here China is the upper riparian state the state located alongside of the Brahmabutra river which is in the upper zone and India is the lower riparian state. I hope you understand. So here Pakistan is the lower riparian state with regards to Indus River and because of that a dispute arose between two countries regarding the utilization of irrigation water from existing facilities. See the negotiations were held under the offices of International Bank for Reconstruction and Development that is the World Bank. This as a result of this Indus Water Treaty was signed in the year 1960. The treaty was signed at Karachi by Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan then President of Pakistan and Sri Javahallal Neeru then Indian Prime Minister and Mr. W. A. B. Illif of the World Bank on 19th September 1960. The treaty however is effective from 1st April 1960. Now that we have seen a brief about the treaty let us move on to see some important provisions of the treaty. See the Indus system of rivers comprises of main stem of Indus River along with its five left bank tributaries namely the Ravi, the Bias, the Sattelaj, the Zilim and the Chenab rivers and also a right bank tributary namely the Kabul which does not flow through India. See the Ravi, the Bias and the Sattelaj are together called as Eastern Rivers while the Chenab, the Zilim and the Indus Main are called as Western Rivers. Firstly the treaty provides India an absolute control of all the waters of the eastern rivers while Pakistan shall receive for unrestricted use of all waters of western rivers which India is under obligation to let flow beyond the permitted uses. So what is that permitted uses we'll see it now. See India is permitted to use the waters of western rivers for domestic use, non-consumptive use, agricultural use, generation of hydro electric power. Secondly India is also permitted to constrict storage of water on western rivers up to 3.6 million acre feet for various purposes as specified in the treaty. Thirdly both India and Pakistan undertook to establish a permanent post of commissioner for the Indus waters. The two commissioners constitute the permanent Indus commission. Each commissioner will be the representative of her government for all matters arising out of this treaty. Now let us see the functions and purposes of the commission. The first one is to establish and promote cooperative arrangements for the treaty implementation. The second one is furnishing or exchange of information or data provided for in the treaty and to promote cooperation between the parties in the development of the waters of Indus system. And the third one is to examine and resolve by agreement any question that may arise between the parties concerning interpretation or implementation of the treaty. See the commission is required to meet regularly at least once a year alternatively in India and Pakistan and also when requested by either commissioner. The commission is also required to undertake tools of inspection of the rivers and works for ascertaining the facts connected with various developments on the rivers. To enable Pakistan to satisfy itself that India's planned projects are within the treaty provisions India is required to communicate to Pakistan in writing their information specified in the treaty. And after this Pakistan can raise objections within three months of the receipt of the information which are then resolved under Article 9. So what is this Article 9 of the treaty deals with? It deals with the settlement of differences and disputes. If the commission is unable to resolve a specific problem provisions have been made for reference to a neutral expert and a court of arbitration. Also note that Article 12 of the treaty provides for the provisions of the treaty to continue enforce until terminated by a duly ratified treaty between the two governments that is the Pakistan government and the Indian government. See numerous disputes were peacefully settled over the years through the Permanent Indus Commission. In a significant challenge to the treaty in 2017 India completed the building of Kishan Ganga Dam in Kashmir. Also India continued work on the rattle hydroelectric power station on the Chenab river. See this is despite Pakistan's objections and ongoing negotiations with the World Bank over whether the designs of those projects violated the terms of the treaty or not. A joint venture company is Incorporated and this is for the implementation of 850 megawatt rattle hydroelectric project. See these are some of the issues that are between India and Pakistan over the Indus Water Treaty and several such disputes or issues were peacefully settled over the years through the Indus Commission and that's all about the article and with this we have come to the end of our discussion. Now let's have a quick recap. What all we saw? We saw a brief about the Indus Water Treaty and we saw the signing parties between the two governments that is the Pakistan and India and after that we moved on to see the important provisions of the treaty which includes division of Indus river and its tributaries into western and eastern rivers. The eastern rivers include the Ravi, the Biaz and the Satellites. The western rivers include the Channab, the Zeelam and the Indus Main and we saw that India has an absolute control over the eastern rivers and Pakistan has control over western rivers and India has permitted to use the western rivers for domestic use, non-consumptive use, agricultural use and generation of hydroelectric power and India has permitted to even constrict storage of water on western rivers up to 3.6 million acre feet for various purposes specified in the treaty. And under the treaty, India and Pakistan undertook to establish a permanent post of Commissioner for Indus Waters and after that we saw some of the purpose and functions of the commission which is to establish and promote cooperative agreements, furnish or exchange information, promote cooperation between the parties in the development of waters, examine and resolve by agreement any question that may arise between the parties and after that we saw that the commission is required to meet regularly at least once a year alternatively in India and Pakistan and it is also required to undertake twos of inspection and we also saw that India is required to communicate to Pakistan about the planned projects and the Pakistan can raise objections within three months and we also saw that Article 9 deals with the settlements of differences and disputes and if the commission is unable to resolve a specific problem the references are made to a neutral expert and a court of arbitration and finally we saw some of the issues that were settled between India and Pakistan through the permanent Indus Commission. With these key takeaway points let's move on to the next article discussion. See this article here it says that the center is working on a national policy on synthetic biology which is an emerging science that deals with engineering life forms for a wide range of applications from making designer medicines to foods. See the article also says that as a part of 12th fire plan India had set up a task force on systems biology and synthetic biology research in the year 2011 and this body underlined the potential benefits from synthetic biotechnology in biofuels, bioremediation, biosensors, health and food. Also the task force made a strong case for a push for the technology and highlighted that India could serve as a world leader and as a protector and supporter of open source biological platforms. See the article also says that synthetic biology is seen as one of the top 10 breakthrough technologies as a part of the new industrial revolution that are most likely to change the world. So this is the cracks of the article given here in this context let us learn about synthetic biology what does it mean by that and the pros and cons of it. First of all let us see about synthetic biology. See the synthetic biology is a field of science that involves redesigning the organisms for useful purposes by engineering them to have new abilities. Synthetic biology researchers and companies around the world are harnessing the power of nature to solve problems in medicine, manufacturing and agriculture. See we understood that through synthetic biology organisms are redesigned to have new abilities but why why do they have to be redesigned at all in the first place. Don't worry now we'll see that aspect. See synthetic biology involves redesigning organisms so that they produce a substance such as a medicine or fuel or gain a new ability such as sensing something in the environment and know that these are the common goals of synthetic biology projects. Now we'll see some examples of what the scientists are producing with synthetic biology. The first one is microorganisms are harnessed for bioremediation that is to clean pollutants from the contaminated water, soil and air. The next one is rice is modified to produce the beta-carotene which is a nutrient usually associated with the carrots and also know that it prevents vitamin A deficiency. See this change that is brought in rice is really significant because vitamin A deficiency causes blindness in at least 2,50,000 to 5,000,000 children every year and greatly increases a child's risk of death from infectious diseases. Now we'll move on to the third example. See east is engineered to produce rose oil as an eco-friendly and sustainable substitute for real roses that the perfumers use to make luxury scent. So these are some of the examples of the synthetic biology now we will get this doubt what is that doubt whether this is similar to genome editing or not. See in some ways synthetic biology is similar to genome editing this is because both involve changing an organism's genetic code however the distinction is drawn between these two approaches based on how the change is made. In synthetic biology scientists typically stitch together long stretches of DNA and insert them into an organism's genome. These synthesized pieces of DNA could be genes that are found in other organisms or they could be even entirely novel that is entirely new. In genome editing scientists typically use tools to make smaller changes to the organism's own DNA such as deleting or adding small stretches of DNA in the genome. So this is the fundamental difference between the genome editing and the synthetic biology. Now we'll see the extent to which synthetic biology can be used. Do you think researchers can synthesize an organism's entire genome? The answer to this question is yes and what's more interesting is it has already been done. In the year 2002 scientists in the United States synthesized a viral genome for the first time. Viral genomes are much smaller compared to the genomes of most bacteria and microorganisms. Scientists showed that it was possible to create the polio virus from scratch. See this is a significant work in the field of scientific research and from this you can imagine the extent of the applications of synthetic biology. But also know that it is feared that synthetic biology could be used to develop biological weapons. Now that we have a basic understanding of what synthetic biology is, let us move on to see about the pros of synthetic biology. See synthetic biology has the potential to revolutionize a number of fields including medicine and energy production. See it can be used to detect and remove impurities from the air water which could eradicate a number of health problems. poorer countries could benefit from the advancements of synthetic biology by having fresher water to drink and food with more protein. See synthetic biology can also contribute in the farming industry by modifying crops to grow faster and healthier. Apart from these, synthetic biology applications could also be applied to diagnose and monitor diseases in humans and animals and even develop new drugs and vaccines that would be more effective. See we all know cancer is a disease that occurs within the cells of our body so it is possible that the cure for it lies within the synthetic biology. See synthetic biology can also be applied to find alternatives to fuels such as biofuels and these are some of the uses or applications of synthetic biology which can be termed as pros. Now let us see about the cons. Since it is all about manipulating or creating DNA, a little error can create the monstrous thing. Apart from this there are other projects that might seem perfect to work on with synthetic biology but in reality it can cause harm. An example of this is revive and restore. This involves bringing extinct species back to life. The idea of having the rarest and extinct species alive again sounds fascinating. However it would be harmful in many aspects. See synthetic biology is also said to be wrong since it can be used in very harmful ways. This includes creating drugs, weapons and construction on microorganisms that are lethal to human beings. Finally it leads to many questions such as are humans crossing moral boundaries by redesigning organisms with synthetic biological techniques or if synthetic biology yields new treatments and cure for diseases who in our society will have access to them and what are the environmental impacts of introducing modified organisms into the ecosystem. These are some of the questions that arise regarding the implications of synthetic biology and the worrying factor is that there are no answer to these questions yet. See according to the article synthetic biology is seen as a part of new industrial revolution and this makes it important for the international community to regulate both the benefits and the risks of synthetic biology. In India parliament is yet to clear the biotechnology regulatory authority of India Bill 2013. See the bill had provided for the creation of an independent regulator to adjudicate research around genetic engineering which could have included synthetic biology also. See it is imperative to have a regulatory framework to balance the anticipated benefits while guarding against the potential risks of synthetic biology. With this we have come to the end of our discussion now we'll have a quick recap. What all we saw we saw about synthetic biology which is a field of science that involves redesigning organisms for useful purposes by engineering them to have new abilities and after that we saw the redesigned organisms they produce a substance such as a medicine or a fuel or gain a new ability such as sensing something in the environment and after that we saw some examples which includes microorganisms harnessed for bioremediation, rice modified to produce beta carotene and yeast engineered to produce rose oil and after that we moved on to see the distinction between genome editing and synthetic biology which is in synthetic biology scientists typically stitch together long stretches of DNA and these synthesized piece of DNA could be genes of other organisms or they could be entirely new. But in genome editing scientists use tools to make smaller changes to the organism's own DNA such as deleting or adding small stretches of DNA and after that we saw about the pros of the synthetic biology which is it can revolutionize the fields of medicine energy production and it can be used to detect and remove impurities from air and water and the poor countries can benefit by having fresher water to drink and food with more protein and we saw that synthetic biology can contribute in the farming industry by modifying crops and we saw that it can be used to diagnose and monitor diseases in humans and animals and after that we saw that it can be applied to find alternatives to fuels such as the biofuels after we finished seeing the pros we moved on to see about the cons of the synthetic biology which is a little error can create disastrous things because it involves manipulating or creating new DNAs right and after that we saw that the adverse effects of bringing the rarest and extant species alive again and after that we saw that it includes creating drugs weapons and construction on microorganisms that are lethal to human beings and we ended our discussion by seeing the importance of a regulatory framework to balance the anticipated benefits of synthetic biology while guarding against the potential risks related to it with these key takeaway points let's move on to the next article discussion look at this news article here this article talks about pheromone application technology the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology IICT Hyderabad in association with National Rise Research Institute NRRI in Kuttec, Odisha has successfully implemented the pheromone technology in Odisha this was done to protect crops like maize, ground net, cooker bits and coal crops like cabbage, cauliflower and vegetables like brinjal and tomato in this context let us learn about the pheromone application technology its pros and cons now let us start our discussion so what is this pheromone application technology see basically this technology is a pest management strategy look at this image here this is a pheromone trap we know that pheromones or biochemicals that insects release to attract mates of opposite six so a pheromone trap is basically a cone shaped plastic bag containing pheromones these traps are mostly placed on the corner of the fields the pheromones used here are female sex hormone mimicking scent prepared in the lab the male pests are attracted to the scent that mimics the natural pheromones as insects communicate through smell the male pests get attracted only to get trapped in the bags once trapped they can't go out of the bag and they get killed this stops the natural mating process and the reproduction of the next generation of pests so this is what this pheromone application technology is with this now let us see the pros and cons of the technology see this technology helps farmers avoid the use of chemical insecticides which are harmful to crops soil health and environment at large and they help to avoid health issues faced by the farmers because of being continuously in contact with the chemicals so using this technology the usage of pesticides has been reduced by 50 to 60 percentage in cabbage cauliflower brinjal tomato cooker bits and ground nuts thus reducing expenditure on pesticides for farmers the reduction in expenditure on pesticide will help double the farmers income see the pheromones attract only a particular type of insect so only one pest can be targeted and eliminated this prevents the killing of insects that are friendly to farmers unlike the conventional chemical insecticides which kills even the useful ones and finally this technology helps increase the quality of the produce this will also help increase the crop yield and due to this advantages the Odisha government under the Rashtriya Krishivikas Yojana has sanctioned a project to NRRI for promoting pheromone traps to manage fall army warm and other pests so having seen the advantages now let us see some disadvantages associated with this technology firstly this technology cannot stop the crop damage due to caterpillars and larvae next it requires proper training to achieve effective use of this technology proper training is required which is time consuming and the next one is it can target only one pest so again other chemicals have to be used to control other pests in order to protect the crops right so this increases the expenditure and finally for the effective pest control a large number of traps has to be set up which is a very difficult process and with this we have come to the end of our discussion let's have a quick recap what all we saw we saw about the pheromone application technology which is a pest management strategy in this female sex hormone mimicking scent prepared in the lab are used to attract the male pests which will be trapped in the bags afterwards so this stops the natural mating process and the reproduction of the next generation of pests and after that we moved on to see the pros and cons of the technology the pros include it helps to avoid the use of chemical insecticides which are harmful to crop soil health and environment and it helps to avoid health issues faced by the farmers and because of this technology the use of pesticides has been reduced by 50 to 60 percentage which results in reduction in expenditure and in turn will help double the farmers income and we saw that this technology prevents the killing of insects that are friendly to farmers unlike the conventional chemical insecticides and after that we saw that the technology helps increase the quality of the produce and increase the crop yield and finally we saw some disadvantages which includes it cannot stop the crop damage due to caterpillars it requires proper training which is time consuming and it can target only one pest so again other chemicals have to be purchased to protect the crops which increases the cost and finally we saw that for the effective pest control a number of traps has to be set up which is a difficult process and with these key points in mind let's move on to the next part of our discussion which is the practice prelims questions see we have three prelims questions today the first question is a quiz question for you and I'll solve the remaining two questions let us see what the first question is consider the following statements with reference to Indus Water Treaty statement one it is signed between India and China statement two India has full control over the waters of western rivers and statement three under this treaty permanent Indus commission is set up so which of the following statements given above is or are incorrect so be careful while answering the question because the question has asked us to identify the incorrect statements so this is the quiz question for you try to solve this question and post your answer in the comment section moving on to the second question consider the following statements with reference to synthetic biology statement one it involves redesigning organisms for useful purposes by engineering them to have new abilities the statement is correct because we saw this in our discussion and this is the definition of synthetic biology moving on to the second statement it can be used to detect remove impurities from the air water and soil see try to recall our discussion we saw many uses or applications of synthetic biology one of them is it can be used to detect and remove impurities from air water which could eradicate a number of health problems and it has numerous applications in other fields also so going by this statement two here is also correct so the correct option here will be option C both one and two moving on to the third question here consider the following statements with reference to fall army worms statement one fall army worm is native to tropical and subtropical regions of Africa the statement is incorrect because fall army worm is native to tropical and subtropical regions of America moving on to the second statement fall army worm attacks a variety of crops that include maize, rice, surgam, sugarcane, cotton, apples and oranges see fall army worm is nothing but the larval stage of moth it is regarded as a pest and can damage and destroy a wide variety of crops which causes large economic damage see the first stage of a caterpillars life require very little food but the later stages require about 50 times more food because of this rapid change in food consumption the presence of larvay will not be noticed until they have destroyed almost everything in as little period as a night this makes the fall army worm very dangerous pest and it affects various economically important crops like maize, rice, surgam, cotton, apples and oranges so going by this statement two here is correct so what has the question asked the question asked is to find out the incorrect statements so what is the incorrect statement here statement one so the correct option here will be option a one only I've given a main question for your practice so interested aspirants write it and post it in the comment section if you have any queries related to the articles that we discussed today post that also in the comment section and with this we have come to the end of our discussion if you find the video useful like share and comment and do subscribe to Shankar Iyer's Academy's YouTube channel for further updates thank you