 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankarayesh Akademi, the displayed articles have been chosen for today's analysis from Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Tiruvannanthapuram editions. Now let us start our discussion. This article mentions that the Gemini device was launched by the Ministry of Earth Sciences. Therefore, before understanding the system of Gemini, the syllabus linking of the topic is given here for your better understanding. Now that India already gives the weather forecast and issues weather advisories to fishermen, but this information is disseminated through multiple mobile modes and none of them could provide information like the disaster warnings when the fisherman move away from the coast beyond 10 to 12 kilometers and it was a major limitation in disseminating the information to fishermen who wenches into the sea beyond 15 nautical miles. Note that here one nautical mile is equal to about 1.8 kilometers and this limitation of no communication beyond 10 kilometers from the coast was particularly felt during the Cyclone Oki in 2017 which has affected the coast of Kerala. The fisherman went out for deep sea fishing before the onset of Cyclone and they could not be informed on real time basis. To overcome this difficulty, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services insured Inquoise collaborated with the 8th port authority of India to utilize the Gagan satellite system to transmit the disaster warnings to fishermen. Here note that Inquoise is an autonomous body located at Hyderabad under Ministry of Health Sciences. The mandate of Inquoise is to provide the ocean information and advisory services to society, industry, government agencies and also to the scientific community. This information is provided based on continuous ocean observations. Now before discussing Gemini system, now recollect about Gagan satellite system. One is the acronym for GPS Aided Geo Argumented Navigation Satellite System. This system consists of 3 geosynchronous satellites which are GSAT 8, GSAT 10 and GSAT 15 and this satellite system covers the entire Indian ocean on real time basis. Now in order to receive messages that are transmitted through the Gagan satellites Inquoise and 8th port authority of India together develop this Gagan system enable Gemini. Gemini is the acronym for Gagan Enabled Mariner's Instrument for Navigation and Information and it is a portable receiver that is linked to Gagan satellites. It is a box shaped receiver that has an antenna and inbuilt battery and this battery can last for 3 to 4 days. The Gemini device receives and transfers the data received from Gagan satellites to a mobile through Bluetooth communication. A mobile application has been developed by Inquoise and this mobile application will decode and display the information in 9 regional languages at present. Now let us look at the important benefits of using Gemini system. One is that it provides seamless and effective dissemination of emergency information and communication on disaster warnings. It will also provide information of potential fishing zones. It will provide the accurate state of the oceans also. It includes the forecast on the winds, waving pattern, ocean currents, water temperature and so forth and so on on real time basis. Further this news article mentions that the cost of one Gemini device is about 9000 rupees and it is relatively expensive for the fisherman and this article also mentions that plans are also available to subsidize the Gemini system or Gemini device in simple terms by as much as 90% so that it becomes very affordable to the fisherman. So with this information we end the discussion of this topic. Have a look at the practice question and this practice question would be discussed at the end of the session. Now let us move on to the next article. This is an editorial topic chosen for today's analysis. With respect to this article we will be discussing how the new indexation of NREGA wages that is National Rural Employment Guarantee Act wages is actually affecting the poor and how the reduction in the corporate tax rates is benefiting the rich. And we shall also see certain measures listed out by the authors for the government to address this situation. Without better understanding of this editorial the syllabus linking of the topic is given for your reference. The authors of this editorial is saying that the central government has made two recent announcements to mitigate the economic crisis. One is regarding the new indexation of NREGA wages which is meant to increase rural income. The second is that reduction in corporate tax rates and the authors have linked how the new indexation of NREGA wages is affecting and how the reduction in the corporate tax rates is benefiting the rich. The authors are telling that both these announcements made by the government are at the two ends of the spectrum. First let us see regarding the new indexation of NREGA wages. See there was an announcement by the central government about the linking of wages under MG NREGA that is Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in order to revise the inflation index associated with the payments of the wages of this act. It means that the wages should be fixed as per the current trends of inflation. Here note that the present national daily average NREGA wage is about 179 rupees. The authors of this editorial tell that NREGA daily wages are to be indexed with an updated inflation index called as consumer price index rural instead of older index which is consumer price index agriculture laborers that is CPI AL. The calculation of CPI AL involve more food items in the consumption basket while the calculation of CPI OR that is consumer price index rural involves more non-food items such as health care, education and such other measures. So CPI OR is more inclusive since it contains non-food items as well also. Therefore CPI Rural reflects the rural consumption basket better when compared to CPI AL that is consumer price index agricultural laborers. The authors are also telling that the linking of NREGA wages with CPI Rural will have some impact only if the base NREGA wages are high. So the authors suggest that a substantial increase in NREGA wages is required and also NREGA wages should be linked with consumer price index rural. The combined effect of these measures would have positive effect on rural people and also on the economy. But at the present situation is that only three states of India have the NREGA wages which is equal or more than the state minimum wages. In rest of the states NREGA wages are still lower than the state minimum wages. You know that as per the law enforcing minimum wages is a legal responsibility because they are fixed by calculating the minimal nutritional requirement and basic needs of an individual. But the present fact is that the current daily NREGA wages are quite low. The present NREGA wages are roughly a quarter of what has been fixed by the Seventh Pay Commission. And also let us see now that how the corporate tax rate cut would be affecting the economy. From the authors point of view the recent corporate tax cut will only widen economic inequality. They have cited that Oxfam inequality report 2018 as per this report in one year the wealth of the richest one percent in India grew by about 21 lakh crore rupees. This money is equivalent to the 2017-18 budget of India. And one more thing is that the budget allocation of NREGA gets exhausted by October of each financial year as per the authors of this article. This is one of the reasons for delayed payments of NREGA wages. Further the authors have mentioned an IMF report released in 2015 as per the report if the income share of the top 20 percent people that is the rich people increases then the GDP growth actually declines over the medium term. But at the same time an increase in the income share of the bottom 20 percent that is the poor people is associated with higher GDP growth. You know that in the current scenario the corporate tax cuts and lower interest rates would give some liquidity that is a money flow to the corporations. But the authors also mentions that this is not likely to increase the rural demand. But on other side authors tell that without a substantial increase in NREGA wages the wages would barely match inflation levels. So this would lead to a condition of wage stagnation in real terms. The authors finally tell that the present ruling party seems to support the super-rich by announcing measures like corporate tax rate cuts. They also mentions that it is the duty of the government to pay attention and give some kind of support to the poor on economic aspects, legal terms and also it is the ethical responsibility of the government to give more attention towards weaker sections of the country. Kindly note that the present scenario regarding the wages for agricultural laborers is also very less. They tell that if the wages remain unsustainable then the poor would be forced to become part of migrant labor force. So the poor will ultimately suffer because of this VC cycle of migration. So from this editorial the authors try to tell that the development should be focused on the poorer sections of the society instead of benefiting the rich sections who are already enjoying many benefits. So the minimum wages should be guaranteed which would help the workers and also the Indian economy in turn. So with this we end the discussion of this editorial. The displayed practice question would be discussed at the end of this session. This article says that India slips 10 places in global competitiveness index. To understand better about this index, first understand the syllabus linking of the topic given here. With respect to this news article, we will look at the global competitiveness index in UPIC dimension. The report says that India has slipped from 58 position in 2018 index to 68 position in 2019 ranking. Finally note that such kind of global indices, the organizations or the institutions releasing such kind of reports or indices is very important for your plumes exam. Here the mentioned index of this news article is released by the World Economic Forum that is WEF. The index attempts to quantify the impact of number of factors which contribute to create the conditions for competitiveness such as the macroeconomic environment, the quality of countries institutions and the state of countries technology and also supporting infrastructure. It is to be noted that this index is based on 12 major pillars of competitiveness. The important pillars are institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education and such other indicators. Now let us come back to the news article. It is to be noted that Singapore replaced the years as the world's most competitive economy. We have already discussed that India witnessed a fall in ranking in 2019. The article says that a major reason for this can be improvement witnessed by several other economies. According to the index, India is the worst performing BRICS nation except Brazil. Brazil is ranked 71st position in the index. Let us now discuss something about the indicators in which India has performed better and where it needs improvement. India ranks high in terms of macroeconomic stability on market size. The macroeconomic stability is based on factors like GDP, inflation rate and government debt. In the case of the market size, it measures both the foreign market size and also domestic market size. Here the article says that the financial sector in India is relatively deep and stable. This indicator is based on the efficiency, stability and trustworthiness of the financial and banking system. India has performed well in terms of corporate governance also. The news article says that India is well ahead of most of the emerging economies when it comes to innovation. India is also at par with several advanced economies in this indicator. It is based on the quality of scientific research institutions, spending on research and development, university industry collaboration and availability of scientists and engineers. Now let us discuss the shortcomings. India is ranked poor in adoption of information and communications technology. It comes under the pillar of technological readiness. It is based on availability of latest technologies, use of internet and broadband internet subscriptions. India is also performed poor in health indicators. It is based on healthy life expectancy, infant mortality rate. The article says that India's performance in this indicator is below the South Asian average. Now, the news article discusses the factors that pulls back India in terms of goods market efficiency and labour market efficiency. The goods market efficiency is undermined by lack of trade openness. It is based on factors such as tax rates, proceeds to start business and trade tariffs. The labour market efficiency suffers from lack of protection of workers' rights, insufficiently developed labour market policies and very low participation of women. So India needs to improve in all these areas for ensuring better competitiveness in the future. Now, let us discuss about the World Economic Forum. And this World Economic Forum was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and it is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It aims to improve the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of the society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. It releases reports such as global competitiveness index, global gender gap reports and such other reports. With this, we come to the end of the discussion of this topic. The displayed practice question will be discussed at the end of this session. Now let us move on to the next article. This article says that recently two children from the schedule caste community were beaten to death in Shivapuri district of Madhya Pradesh. So before going to discuss the topic in detail, just go through the syllabus linking of the topic given here for your better understanding. Now consider the article itself. The article says that the children were accused of defecating in open and were beaten to death. The two accused persons belonged to the Aadava community. After the incident, there were allegations of caste-based discrimination in the village school. According to the news article, a relative of the victims alleged that the students from Meher community, which is a scheduled caste community, were not allowed to sit with Aadava children in the school. This prompted the district authorities and the members of the National Commission for Scheduled Caste to inspect the village. The team has said that they did not find any signs of caste discrimination in the school. They said that all the students were sitting together in the class. You know that when there was a caste discrimination in such kind of schools, students belong to certain caste will be made to sit separately. Further, the team also said that all had equal access to public places. So in this context of the article mentioned, we will be discussing in detail about the National Commission for Scheduled Caste. The National Commission for Scheduled Caste is a constitutional body established under the Article 338 of the Constitution of India. You know that before 2003, there was only one commission for both scheduled cast as well as scheduled tribes. But after the 89th Constitutional Amendment Act 2003, it bifurcated into two separate bodies, one for National Commission for Scheduled Caste under the 338 article and one more separate constitutional commission that is National Commission for Scheduled Tribes under Article 338A. Now let us discuss the structure of the commission. The commission consists of a chave person, vice chave person and three other members. Note that they are appointed by the president and the conditions of the service and the tenure of the office are also determined by the president. Their tenure is about three years including for the chave person. The members shall not be eligible for, appointment for more than two terms. Now let us discuss the pros and cons regarding the resignation and the removal of the members. Any member can resign by addressing his or her resignation later to the president. In case of removal, the president shall remove the chave person or the members only on the grounds of proved misbehavior. This should be only after an inquiry made by the Supreme Court into that matter. Moreover, the president can also remove on the following grounds such as if he or she is a judge and insolvent or engaged during his term of office in any paid employment outside the duties of his office or unfit to continue in the office by reason of infirmity of mind or body or has so abused the position. Now let us discuss some of the functions of the commission. The commission can investigate and monitor all the maters related to the safeguards provided for the schedule cast under the constitution or under any order of the government and also can evaluate the working of such safeguards. The commission shall inquire into specific complaints with respect to the deprivation of the rights and the safeguards of the schedule cast and also the commission have to participate and advise on the planning process of socio-economic development of the schedule cast and to evaluate the process of the development under the union government or any such state governments also. Here note that the commission submits the report to the president but not to the respective ministries. Now let us discuss the post of the commission. The commission has all the posts of civil court while investigating into the complaints like it can summon and enforce the attendance of any person from any part of India. It can require the discovery and the production of any document, requisition of any public document or copy thereof from any court of the office. It is to be noted that according to article 338 class 10 the National Commission for Schedule Cast has to investigate all the matters relating to the constitutional or other legal safeguards for the other backward classes and also for Anglo-Indian community and the commission is expected to submit the report to the president. But the 102nd Constitutional Amendment Act says that the pros and related to other backward classes in class 10 shall be omitted and the amendment act establish separate national commission for backward classes. Now note that it applies only to Anglo-Indian communities. So with this we have come to the end of discussion of this topic. The displayed practice question will be discussed at the end of the session. This article is about the improper maintenance in pipeline associated with Copley hydroelectric project. It is alleged that as a result of the improper maintenance due to pipeline rupture four persons were missing. Many reports are saying that the persons might have died as they might have been washed away by the water flow. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this news article has been highlighted here for your reference. Recently we have been seeing damages to human lives and property from some of the power plants and power generation projects. On 8th October 2019 we discussed about the fly ash leak in NTPC power plant in Singarali district in Madhya Pradesh. Some two months ago in the same district there was a fly ash leak from the SR power plant. NIPCO was incorporated in 1976 as a central government owned public sector enterprise under the ministry of power. The purpose of establishing the CPSC is to carry out activities involving both hydro and thermal power stations for the development of hydroelectric potential in the northeastern region. NIPCO is mandated to construct, generate, operate and maintain both hydro and thermal power stations. The government sources say that NIPCO is the only central public sector undertaking that has both hydro and thermal power stations in operation. You know that it is a Mini Ratna Category 1 CPSC. Here you should know the eligibility criteria for Mini Ratna Category status. When we talk about Mini Ratna Category 1 we should know the criteria for the grant of the status. There are three main categories or criteria. One is that CPSC's should have made profit in the last three years continuously and then pre-tax profit should have been 30 crores or more in last at least one of the three years. Then they should have a positive net worth. There is one another category under the Mini Ratna status that is Mini Ratna Category 2. The one main difference in eligibility is that here for Category 2 there is no requirement for prescribed pre-tax profit. Note that for the CPSC's coming under schemes such as Mini Ratna, Navratna and Maharatna, the boards of these CPSC's will be given enhanced autonomy and financial powers. Now let us see about Kopili Hydro Power Project. This power project is located on River Kopili in the Assam. It is the first project of NIPCO. The total power generation capacity of the hydroelectric project is about 275 megawatts. The reservoir across Kopili River is called as Kopili Reservoir or Khan Dang Dam. Another reservoir is located on Umrang Stream which is a tributary of Kopili River. This reservoir is called as Umrang Reservoir. Note that River Kopili is a perennial river. It originates in Barail mountain range and has a total length of about 290 kilometers. And finally it confluences with Brahmaputra. As a result, River Kopili is also called as South Bank tributary of River Brahmaputra. Water from these reservoirs are taken to concerned power stations through appropriate huge pipelines. One of these pipelines have ruptured or broken and as a result of this rupture, a lot of water has leaked and entered a poor house of this hydroelectric project. Several news reports are saying that the water flow of about 2000 liters per second in the pipeline might have washed away the four persons working in the project. And these persons are the employees of NIPCO. And some other reports also saying that the persons were missing and untraceable and might have died. The news article mentions that only in the last year, the pipeline was repaired. There is an allegation that this repair if done properly, it would not have led to the burst and the tragedy. The affected people are questioning the authorities, who carried out the repair works and those who gave the certification after the completion of repair works. This will help in fixing the accountability in the government process for the tragedy. From the analysis of this news article, you know that there is a dedicated electric power corporation for northeastern region, which was established way back in 1976. Then know about the eligibility criteria to become Mini Ratna category one status and then about the Kopli Perennial River. So with this information, we end the discussion of this topic. The displayed practice question will be discussed at the end of the session. Now let us start discussion of practice questions. The question is about Gemini device and here two statements are given. First statement is about the benefit of the device and the second statement is about who has developed the device. So the first statement says that the device developed to provide seamless and effective dissemination of emergency information. And we have seen from our discussion and mentioned statement one is the objective of and also benefit of the Gemini device. Therefore statement one is correct. From our discussion, we have seen that the device has been jointly developed by Inquoise along with Airports Authority of India. Therefore statement second is also correct. So from the options given, option C that is both one and two is correct. Here the question is about which of the following can contribute to the increase in the rural consumption demand. They have given three reasons and we have to choose the correct answer from the course given below. Now consider the statement three. Here higher interest rate for loans by the banks. You know that higher interest rates may not increase the rural demand for consumption. Therefore the statement three is incorrect. So if statement three is incorrect, you can remove the option C and D. Now consider the second statement. The statement says that tax rate cuts by the government as a reason for increasing the rural consumption demand. So here the tax rate cut also increases the money in the hands of the people. Therefore the second statement is one of the reasons for creating the consumption demand in rural areas. Since the second statement is correct and third statement is incorrect, thus the correct option is option one and two only. That is option D. Now consider the question. Here the question is that which of the following is released by the World Economic Forum. So from our discussion we have clearly seen that the global competitiveness report is released by the World Economic Forum. And also you know that global financial stability report and ease of doing business index and rule of law index is not released by the World Economic Forum. But World Economic Forum also releases one of the important global general gap report. Therefore for this question option A that is global competitiveness report is correct option for this question. Now consider this question. Here the question is with reference to National Commission for Scheduled Caste. The question is based on how the members of the commission are appointed. From the topic analysis we have seen that the members of the commission including the chairperson are appointed by the president and there is no role of committee headed by prime minister. Therefore the statement one is incorrect because the statement one says that the members of the commission are appointed by the president on the recommendation of a committee headed by the prime minister. Now consider the second statement. It says that the commission has the power to investigate all matters relating to the constitutional and other legal safeguards for the other backward classes and the Anglo-Indian community. Note that one or two amendment act of the Indian constitution excluded OBCs from the National Commission for Scheduled Caste. Therefore at present the National Commission for Scheduled Caste is also having the same kind of power to investigate all the matters related to the Anglo-Indian community alone. Therefore the second statement is also incorrect. Thus the correct option for this question is option D neither one nor two. Now consider this question. This question is with respect to Kopili hydroelectric plant. From our analysis we have discussed that Kopili is a perennial river and is a tributary of Brahmaputra in the state of Assam. The both the statements are correct. The correct option is that option C both one and two are correct. You may think that this question is not relevant for the UPS exam. But look at the UPSC 2019 previous prelims question. They have asked the words like aliar, isapur and kanksabati and they ask that what is the common to these places. For this question option D is correct because the mention words are related to the places of water reservoirs. With this we come to the end of the practice questions discussion. Thank you.