 A very good evening aspirants, I have an announcement for you, see checking your progress and assessing it is as important as studying regularly for the UPSA civil services examination. And well, again Shankaray's academy is going to lend you a hand in this, yes, Shankaray's academy is going to help you in assessing your problems preparation for 2022 preliminary examination. And for this Shankaray's academy is conducting all India's problems mock test. It is a free mock test. It will be conducted in offline as well as online mode across 13 centres and note down the dates here. It will be conducted on 15, 22nd and 29th of May. So I request the viewers to register for the free all India problems mock test for assessing your preparation. So with this information, let us move on to the Indian news analysis dated 5th of May 2022. These are the articles that I have taken today for discussion and as you have noticed every day we are covering one previous year question from 2019 problems paper. And at the end I also have a quiz question for you so listen to all these discussions carefully. So now let's get to the previous year question discussion session. So as you know this question appeared in 2019 and it deals with the administration of Delhi Sultanate. So to answer this question, let us first know few facts about Delhi Sultanate. If you studied NCRT, you know that Delhi became the centre of administration with the foundation of the Delhi Sultanate in the beginning of the 13th century. Here Delhi Sultanate is nothing but the period of rule by sultans. Sultan's rule existed in substantial parts of the North India between AD 1200 to AD 1526. These rulers were of Turkish and Afghan origin and they established the rule in India after defeating the Indian ruling dynasties which are mainly the Rajputs in Northern India. So whose defeat actually led to the formation of Delhi Sultanate? It is the defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan from the Rajput dynasty in AD 1192. He was defeated by the invading Turk Mohammed Ghori. After that only the Delhi Sultanate was formed in AD 1206. But why AD 1206? Because Mohammed Ghori died in this year. So the control of his Indian positions was passed down to Kuthupuddin Aibak. Kuthupuddin Aibak was Ghori's slave general. So after getting the positions of Ghori, Aibak became the first independent Muslim ruler of Northern India and he founded the Delhi Sultanate. Therefore, the slave general Kuthupuddin Aibak became the first Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate. Remember this fact. So after that Sultan's ruled over for more than 300 years from around 1280 to 1526 AD. And during this period five different dynasties ruled Delhi. Or I can say that the Sultanate composed of five dynasties. First is the Mamluks, they are popularly known as the slave dynasties. Insat even mentions them as early Turkish rulers. Then came the Kaljis, then the Tuklaks, then the Saeeds. And finally Delhi Sultanate came to an end with the Lothis. Now all these dynasties are collectively referred to as the Delhi Sultanate. So as I said Lothi dynasties was the last in the Delhi Sultanate. So who was the ruler at that time? It was Ibrahim Lothi. He was defeated by Mughals under the leadership of Babur in AD 1526. And after this only Babur established the Mughal Empire in India. So this was the brief history about the Delhi Sultanate. We know that for any king or empire to rule we need an administrative system. Similarly the Sultanate also had an administrative system. Here don't forget that the sultans were aware of the fact that they had to rule over a population that was largely non-Islamic. Therefore this awareness led to the emergence of administrative institutions at different levels. That is at central level, provincial level and at the local level. Particularly here the local level administration was left mainly in the hands of village headmen. So overall the administrative apparatus was headed by the Sultan. Here Sultan was the head of the civil administration and he was the supreme commander of the army. And Sultan was helped by various nobles. Here nobles were the most important functionaries of the state and they enjoyed high social status. So under the central administrative setup there were important departments and offices. And among them the most important office was Divani Vizaret. It was the important office after Sultan's office. This Divani Vizaret was headed by a Vazir. It was a key position in the royal court. So Vazir's role was of a general supervisor over all departments. He was the chief advisor to the Sultan and he also looked after the financial organization of the state. So this Divani Vizaret was the finance department. Then there was also Divani Arz, then Divani Insha, Divani Rasalat. You can just go through this. Now if you come to the provincial administration, here the provinces were placed under the charge of governors who were responsible for the overall administration of the area. So this involved ensuring the collection of revenue, maintaining law and order and keeping the rebellious elements under control. So the governor was the deputy of the Sultan in the provinces. So some of the important officers in the provinces were Baridz, then Sahibi Divan. Here Baridz were the intelligence officers and reporters. And Sahibi Divan, they maintained the financial accounts of the provincial income and expenditure. Now before going forward and understanding about the local administration, you should know that Sultanate followed a system called Iqta system. It was mainly under the Khalji and Thukla Monarchs. Under this system, the army commanders and nobles were given territories to administer and to collect revenue from those territories. These territories were called Iqta and their holders are called as the Iqtadas or Mukti. So basically the duties of the Mukti's or Iqtadas was to lead military campaigns and maintain law and order in their Iqtas. And in exchange for that, that is in exchange for their military services, the Mukti's collected the revenues as salary. They also paid their soldiers from these revenues. So basically Iqta's a system of payment to the officers and maintenance of army by them. So remember this. Now let us come to the local administration. See local administration, it was the administration of village and note that a group of villages formed the Pargana. So here village and Pargana were independent units of administration and yet there were interrelated areas. So these term village and Pargana meant different things. So certain important village functionaries were Koot, Mukaddam and Patwari and some of the important Pargana officials were Chaudhary, Amil, Karkon. Now among these Koot, Mukaddam and Chaudhary, they collected land revenues which is called as Karaj from the peasants on behalf of the state. And after collecting these revenues, they deposited the same with the officials of the Divani Vizharat. That is the finance department. And then here the Patwari, they looked after the village revenue records. And here Amil, it refers to the revenue collector at the Pargana level and Karkon is the accountant at the Pargana level. Actually according to historians, Chaudhary might not have been directly involved in the collection of revenue because he was also the head of 100 villages, that is the Pargana. So in most cases, he was the leading zamindar of the locality. Therefore collecting revenues was one of the duties of the Chaudhary and he may not have been directly involved in it. As a conclusion, you should note that the Mughals who came after the sultans, they retained many features of this administrative system of the sultanate. For example, even during Mughal rule, Amil was the revenue collector but Amil was also called as Amil Guzar or Amil Guzar or Karori. So here the revenue collector's role was to assist and supervise the revenue collection. And he was also expected to increase the land under cultivation and induce the peasants to pay revenue willingly. So like that, many features of the sultanate administrative system were retained by the Mughals. So these are the few information that you need to know about Delhi sultanate and their administrative system. So let's come to the question. Read the first statement. In the revenue administration of Delhi sultanate, the insurance of revenue collection was known as Amil. Yes, correct. We just saw that Amil was the revenue collector at the Pargana level. So first statement is correct. Now second statement. The Iqta system of sultans of Delhi was an ancient indigenous institution. See, it is true that Iqta system existed during the period of sultans but it was not an ancient indigenous system. Rather, Iqta is an Arabic word and this institution had been in force in the early Islamic world as a form of reward for the services to the state. It was used in the Caliphate administration as a way of financing operations and to pay civil and military offices. Thus it was not an ancient one. That is why this statement is incorrect. Now come to the third statement. The office of Meer Bagshi came into existence during the reign of Kalgi sultans of Delhi. In this discussion, we did not see an office like this. That is the office of Meer Bagshi. It is because this office came into existence during the Mughal rule. So from this fact itself, you can say that the statement is incorrect because it says that it came into existence during the rule of sultans. See this Meer Bagshi, it was part of central administration of Mughals. Meer Bagshi headed the military department, nobility, information and intelligence agencies. He was the official who kept the army records and even paid the troops. Meer Bagshi was also the chief pay master in the central administration and note that there were subordinate Bagshis in the provincial level. So I'll tell you a trick here. See if there is a question in history and it talks about the offices during the Mughal period or Delhi sultanate and if the term Meer is present in that office then know that it existed during the Mughal period only. Because other than Meer Bagshi, there was also Meer Saman, Meer Munshi. Here Meer Saman was in charge of the imperial household and Khanas which is the royal workshop and Meer Munshi was in charge of royal correspondence. So there were many offices in the Mughal rule which started with the term Meer. So therefore the correct answer to this question is option A one only because here the question asks for the correct statements. So with this question, now let us move on to the articles discussion session. So today our first discussion is going to be based on this text and context article and this data point because both these are based on the recent release of an important index called as the World Press Freedom Index of 2022. See these kinds of indices are quite important from UPSC perspective. From the problems angle if you see it is important to know their objectives and on what parameters or indicators the index ranks, countries it is important to know India s position etc. And from the mains perspective it is important to know the reason for India s ranking. So we will see all these aspects today. And this is the syllabus that is relevant to this discussion. Take note of it. Now coming to the index, see as its name suggests the index is about press freedom. So what is press freedom? It is defined as the ability of journalists to select, produce and disseminate news in the public interest. See such an ability should be independent of political interference, economic interference, legal and social interference. And there should also be absence of threats to the physical and mental safety of the journalists. When all these criteria are satisfied we say a country has freedom of press. So on these lines only the index is released. It is released with an aim to compare the level of press freedom enjoyed by journalists and media in 180 countries and territories across the group. So who compiles it? It is compiled and released by RSF which stands for Reporters Sans Frontiers or Reporters Without Borders. It is a Paris based NGO. Now this index compares the level of press freedom. Now this level of freedom enjoyed by countries is known based on the ranks which they obtain in the index report. Now these rankings are based on a score which ranges from 0 to 100. So here a score of 100 means the best possible score. It means that the country or the territory enjoys the highest possible level of press freedom. And then obviously 0 means the worst. That is the country does not have press freedom. But what actually is scored in this index? They score five contextual indicators. These indicators reflect the press freedom situation in all of its complexity. So what are these indicators? They are political context, legal framework, economic context, socio-cultural context and finally safety. Here for example in the political context they look for the degree of support and respect for media autonomy with regard to political pressure from the state or political pressure from the political actors. Then under the legal framework they look into the legislative and regulatory environment for journalists like they see the degree to which journalists and media are free to work without censorship or judicial sanctions etc. Then under the economic context they look into the economic constraints such as the difficulty of creating a news media outlet, then the favoritism in the allocation of states subsidies and they also look into the corruption level. And then in the socio-cultural context the denigration and attacks on the press based on gender, class, ethnicity and religion is evaluated. Then finally the safety indicator covers the bodily harm such as the murder, arrest, detention etc. And it also includes psychological or emotional distress that could result from intimidation, coercion, harassment, surveillance etc. So all these aspects are covered under various indicators and these are the basics that you need to know about World Press Freedom Index. Now the recent report has been released. It is the World Press Freedom Index of 2022. It is the 20th report. So let us see its findings. First let us see the global findings. See globally the report reveals a two-fold increase in polarization and according to the report it is amplified by information chaos. That is as per the report media polarization is fueling divisions within countries and it also notes that there is polarization between countries at the international level. So actually they found that divisions are growing as a result of spread of opinion media and there is also spread of disinformation circuits that are amplified by the way in which social media functions. Why? Because social media holds a huge chunk of unregulated online information which encourages fake news and propaganda. So they say that at the international level democracies are being weakened by the asymmetry between open societies and autocratic regimes that control the media and online platform. At the same time these autocratic regimes are waging propaganda wars against democracies. So polarization on these two levels that is at the media level and at the country level is fueling increased tensions across the globe. So what do you mean by autocratic regimes here? See China is the best example because it is world's most repressive autocratic regime. It uses its legislative arsenal to confine its population and to cut its population from the rest of the world. We know that social media access is quite regulated by the Chinese government. So this is the overall analysis of the world press freedom index of 2022 at the global level. Now according to the report there are countries that have also done very well. See it includes the trio of Nordic countries. These are at the top of the index. These trio includes Norway, Denmark and Sweden and these three countries continues to serve as a democratic model where freedom of expression flourishes. So Norway is at the top as you can see here and this data from the data point you can see other important countries like South Africa, Nepal, Brazil and where they stand. And as you can see here here North Korea has been ranked at the 188th position. So along with North Korea there are 27 other countries that has been classified as very bad. So totally 28 countries have been classified as very bad and these countries have the worst press freedom. So some of the important countries in this 28 are Belarus and Russia. Belarus is at the 153rd position. Russia is in the 155th position. If you take the bottom 10 it includes Myanmar, China, Turkmenistan, Iran, Eritrea and finally at the end North Korea. So you can see that two of our important neighbors feature in this bottom 10. Now if you look at the regional analysis that is if you look at the Asia and Pacific region this region has been termed as the absolute and autocratic control of information. According to the report the region's press freedom has deteriorated due to two main incidents or due to two main countries in the last year. One is the military coup that happened in Myanmar or Burma in the year 2021. See this led to an extremely harsh repression of journalists in the country and due to this Myanmar has become one of the world's largest prisons for media professionals. And second country is of course Afghanistan it is at the 156th position and this position of Afghanistan is due to Taliban's seizure of power because this has further worsened the conditions for reporters and news organizations in Myanmar as they have become targets of all forms of intimidation and violence in the country. So these two countries and their positions have worsened the situation in the Asia and Pacific region but there are also certain historical reasons and countries that have performed worst for decades. Like if we take North Korea it has been among the worst performers for many years and this year it is at the last position as I already said and if we take China it also continues to extend its information control model not only within its borders but it is also exercising this beyond its borders. So these countries are also responsible for the worst position of Asia and Pacific region. Then what about the democratic countries in the region? So according to the report there also media face pressure from increasingly authoritarian governments or nationalist governments. This statement is true for India Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Among these three India's at the worst position it is at 150th position. So are there no good performers in Asia and Pacific region? Actually there are two main notable performers they are New Zealand and Bhutan. New Zealand is at the 11th position and it has been termed as the model in the region. This is because New Zealand has developed institutional safeguards against political and economic influence in the press freedom. And our neighbour Bhutan is at the 33rd position and as per the report there is free exercise of journalism in Bhutan. So let us come to India. As I said India has been ranked at 150th position. Actually India's ranking fell by 8 positions. It was in 142nd position in the 2021 index. Now it is at 150th position. And particularly the report is quite critical of India because India is the world's largest democracy. So it has given certain notable points. As per the report the worst press freedom in India has continued since 2014 that is when the current ruling government took power for the first time. It even says that India is one of the world's most dangerous countries for the media. So this is not a good tagline for the world's largest democracy, right? So let us see what are the reasons behind this worst press freedom in India. First reason is the violence against journalists. So Indian journalists who are too critical of the government are subjected to harassment and attack campaigns by the supporters of the ruling government. Apart from these harassment and attack, the journalists are also charged with defamation, sedition, contempt of court and they are being termed as endangering the national security. Overall they are being termed as being anti-national. So due to these reasons India's ranking is worst in the safety indicator. As you can see here India has just scored 20 points and among the 180 countries in the security or safety indicator India is at the 163rd position. So worst safety for the journalists is one of the main reasons. Second reason is the politically partisan media. See the report notes that the big families of India dominating the media and these big families are the friends of the top political leaders especially those who belong to the current ruling government. Actually if you read the report, it directly points to the Reliance Industries Group which owns 70 media outlets and they know that this group is supportive to the current ruling government and the union. So what the report says is these media outlets are quite biased. So these are the two main reasons noted by the report which has led to the India's worst performance regarding freedom of press. These are the important points that you have to note from this discussion. With these points in mind let us get to the next discussion. So our next discussion is going to be based on this news article. It is about the recent food poisoning episodes in Kerala's Kasaragot district. It is found that the cause of the recent food poisoning episode is Shijella bacteria. According to the article, preventive measures have been intensified in the district. So that is why today we are going to see about this Shijella bacteria. So as the name suggests Shijella is a germ and it includes a group of bacteria that causes severe diarrhea. This group has four species of Shijella which are Shijella sonae, Shijella flexionary, Shijella body, Shijella dysentery. And today we are going to focus on Shijella sonae because the food poisoning episodes in Kerala has been caused by this bacteria only. This Shijella sonae is a virulent pathogen and it has a very low infective dose which means only a small number of bacteria is sufficient to cause disease. So approximately 10 to 100 organisms is enough to cause a disease. And note that humans are the only known reservoir of this bacteria plus this bacteria including the other Shijella species, they develop antibiotic resistance. So now what is the disease which Shijella causes? It causes Shijellosis. Shijellosis is a bacterial infection of the lining of the intestines. So it affects the digestive systems. That is why the symptoms include diarrhea that are bloody, then fever, stomach pain, feeling the need to pass tool even when the bubbles are empty. So many of these symptoms as you can see are related to the digestive system and these symptoms usually start after 1 to 2 days of contact with the germ. You note that some people will not have any symptoms. In rare cases it may even take several months before getting the symptoms. But how can we get infected with Shijella? See the Shijella is found in the intestinal tract of infected people. So it is usually found in these tools of the people who are infected. Therefore it can be transmitted through the fecal oral route by person to person contact. It can also be transmitted when there is contact with feces from an infected person. It can also be transmitted through indirect contact such as by flies, formites, consumption of contaminated food or water. See actually many different foods can be contaminated. But Shijella is found typically in uncooked vegetables or uncooked shellfish. And note that it is also transmitted through sexual contact with infected person. Therefore asymptomatic carriers can also transmit this disease. But common pets, farm animals and wild animals cannot spread these germs. So what about the treatment available? As I already said often these Shijella bacteria develop antibiotic resistance. So if the bacteria is resistant then the first choice of antibiotics recommended to treat these infections may not work. So the antibiotics recommended for severe infections include fluoroquinolones, azithromycin and septriaxone. Now since this bacteria develops antibiotics resistance it is always better to avoid infections. It could be avoided by regularly washing your hands with soap and water and do this before eating and after eating. Wash your hands after using the bathroom and after changing diapers then you have to wash your hands before preparing foods and also definitely when you come into contact with an infected person. So take these measures so that you do not get infected with this Shijella bacteria and develop Shijellosis. So these are few facts that you need to know about Shijella bacteria and the disease caused by it. Now let us get to the next discussion. Now let us take up this news article and editorial for discussion. Both of these talk about the recent policy rate hike by the RBI. This news article talks about the various changes made by the RBI yesterday including the policy rate hike. And the reason for this is to curb accelerating inflation. And then this editorial article talks about the rationale behind these changes. So in this discussion let us focus on various economic terms mentioned in the article like the report rate, cash reserve ratio, standing deposit facility, marginal standing facility. See these terms are conceptually important from Plume's perspective. Along with this we will also see how an increase in the policy rate will help RBI in achieving inflation targeting or in curbing the inflation. Let us get to the discussion now. Before that this is the syllabus relevant to this discussion. Now first let us understand report rate. Report here stands for repurchasing option. It is also called as repurchasing agreement. To put it in simple words report rate is nothing but the rate at which RBI lends money to the commercial banks. Here what actually happens is RBI provides funds to the commercial banks after getting government securities as collateral. So here both the parties that is the RBI and the commercial bank sign an agreement of repurchasing of the government security at a specific date at a predetermined price. So here the commercial banks use the instrument of repo to address its short term liquidity requirements. Now you should also know that the inverse of repo happens during reverse repo. In case of reverse repo it is the interest rate provided by the RBI while it borrows money from the commercial banks. So it is the other way around. So here the RBI provides government securities as collateral to the commercial banks while it borrows. So currently what is the repo rate and the reverse repo rate? Repo rate is 4.40% and reverse repo rate is the 3.35%. Now the next important term is cash reserve ratio. See the banks in India are required to hold a certain proportion of their deposits that is the total deposits with the RBI in cash form. This total deposit is nothing but the net demand and time liabilities with the bank. So what is net demand and time liabilities? In short it is called as NDTL. Here demand liabilities include all liabilities which are payable on demand by the bank. So this includes savings bank deposits, current account deposits, demand drafts and even other unclaimed deposits. And then time liabilities are those which are not payable on demand. So this includes fixed deposits, cash certificates, etc. Now the sum of these demand liabilities and the time liabilities is the NDTL. So the percentage of the NDTL held by the banks with RBI in the cash form is called as the CRR that is cash reserve ratio. You note that RBI does not pay any interest to the banks for maintaining CRR. According to the news article, RBI is planning to raise the CRR by 50 base points. Currently it is 4% so it will be increased to 4.5% on 21st of May. Next term is the standing deposit facility. See RBI recently introduced the standing deposit facility as a part of its policy rate. This SDF rate, standing deposit facility rate is fixed at 25 base points below the report. So whatever the report rate is, it will be 25 base points below that. So currently we saw that report rate is 4.40 so SDF rate is 4.15%. So what is this SDF? It is a tool used by the RBI to flush out excess liquidity in the economy. See in a manner, this SDF is similar to the reverse report rate. That is here the banks will park their excess funds with the RBI. But there is a difference between reverse report and this SDF. In case of reverse report when the banks provide funds to the RBI, here RBI must provide the banks with government securities as collateral. We already saw this. But in case of SDF there is no collateral requirement. Here the banks can deposit their excess funds with RBI and earn interest but there is no need for collateral. But why this SDF is introduced? It was introduced to solve the problem with the collateral. See sometimes collateral became a constraining factor when the RBI runs out of securities to absorb liquidity under the reverse report window. So to solve this problem, a SDF was introduced. After this RBI can absorb surplus funds from banks without collateral. Now the final term we are going to see is the marginal standing facility in short MSF. This MSF is a window for scheduled banks to borrow overnight from the RBI in an emergency situation. Here you have to keep the term borrow overnight in mind. So this is also similar to repo. But the difference is that in case of repo, banks can use the government security that is held under SLR quota as collateral. What is this SLR quota? SLR is nothing but the statutory liquidity ratio. It refers to the percentage of the aggregate deposits that the commercial bank have to invest in liquid assets. This SLR is also maintained as a percentage of NDTL that is net demand and time liabilities. But how is this SLR is different from CRR? See the CRR must be maintained only in the cash form. Whereas this SLR can be maintained in cash, gold and even in government approved securities. These government approved securities will include data securities of the government that is the GSEX, Treasury bills and state development loans. So this government security which is held by the bank under the SLR quota cannot be used as a collateral in case of repo. But whereas under the MSF facility that is marginal standing facility, banks can use this government security which is held under SLR quota as collateral. Also know that in case of MSF, banks can maximum borrow up to two percentage of its NDTL. And currently the MSF is fixed at 4.65 percentage. So these are the basic terminologies that need to understand. Now let us see how by increasing these policy rate, central bank that is RBI controls inflation. First if you take CRR, when CRR is increased, the total amount of funds available with the bank to lend to the public actually decreases. We saw that RBI is planning to increase CRR to 4.5 percentage from 4 percentage. So this move will remove 85000 crore rupees of excess liquidity from the economy. That is the money supply will decrease. So this will reduce inflation. CCRR is the reserve that the bank has to maintain in cash. Let me take an example here. Assume that in your family there is a rule that you have to save 10 percentage of your salary. So if your salary is 10,000 rupees, so compulsorily you will be saving 1000 rupees from that. Now assume that suddenly yesterday your family decides that you should be start saving 20 percentage. So that means from then on you will have to keep aside 2000 as savings from your 10,000 salary. So similarly that 10 percentage is the CRR maintained by the banks. And now if this CRR is increased to 20 percentage, so the amount that will be in your hand is automatically reduced. That is what we mean here by saying money supply will decrease. Now if you take policy rates like repo rate, if there is an increase in repo rate it will increase the cost of funds for the banks. Cost of funds is nothing but the interest rate that the banks have to pay to the RBI. So in this case as the funds are getting costlier, the bank will increase the interest rate to the customers. That is the increase is transferred to the customers. And when the interest rates get higher, borrowing in the economy will come down automatically. So this in turn will reduce liquidity in the economy and in turn it will control inflation. So this is how RBI controls inflation by tweaking the policy rates and reserve rates. Along with this let us also see other reasons given by the RBI for policy rate hike. RBI noted that sustained inflation which our economy is facing will erode the purchasing power of people. So controlling inflation is important. Now this inflation is fueled by Russia, Ukraine war and western sanctions on Russia because this has pushed the global prices of many commodities like wheat, edible oil and crude oil to a very high price. And all these are essential for Indian households so it will invariably hurt the Indian households. And that is why RBI justifies that an increase in policy rate is necessary. And the second reason is sustained high inflation not only affects the purchasing power but it also affects the savings, investments, competitiveness and the overall output of the economy. Inflation also affects the financial stability. And according to RBI all these effects have more negative impact on the economic growth than the policy rate hike because the policy rate hike will only have a relative decrease in the availability of low cost credit. And final reason given by RBI is that the central banks of advanced economies are tightening their monetary policy. So this will invariably result in foreign investors pulling their funds from our capital markets that is the Indian capital markets. This means dollars will be moving out of India. So what will happen when this takes place? It will affect our exchange rate. When the exchange rate is affected our imports, mainly the crude oil imports will get costlier. And we know that increased crude oil prices will further increase inflation in the economy. And beyond all these reasons RBI also noted that presently unemployment rate is increasing and it has reached 7.83 percentage recently. So if inflation also increases along with rising unemployment then it will result in stark inflation conditions, right? What is stark inflation? It is a condition when an economy faces both high unemployment and high inflation. So it became necessary for RBI to control inflation at this point and that is why it took the option of policy rate hike so that it will help India in the long term. So these are few points that you have to note from this article and editorial discussion. We saw few important economic terms and then we saw how increasing their rate helps in controlling inflation and finally we also saw some of the reasons given by RBI for increasing the policy rate. With these points in mind, now let us get to the next discussion. Now let us take up this article here. It says that the Supreme Court has allowed the union government more time to file its counter reasons for banning the Kerala-based news channel called Media One. See here the government wanted the sealed cover jurisprudence. jurisprudence means the legal system. But the Supreme Court bench objected to this move saying that the company was entitled to know the particulars of the ban. We are not going to look into the issue. Rather we will know what is a sealed cover jurisprudence and we will also see the instances where it was used before. See basically this sealed cover jurisprudence is a practice used by the Supreme Court and sometimes it is even used by the lower courts. Under this practice, courts may ask for and accept sensitive and confidential information in sealed covers. These could be the sensitive and confidential information from government agencies or other persons. Such sealed covers or envelopes can be accessed only by the judges. The main fact to be noted here is that the contents of these sealed covers in any court proceedings are inaccessible to the other parties in the case. It is only accessed by the judges. So the practice of judges asking for evidence in sealed covers and making decisions based on such evidence is what is known as sealed cover jurisprudence. And in the media one case that is mentioned in the news article government wanted to pass the internal files regarding the ban in a sealed cover to the court. But the court rejected this and said that the company has the right to know the particulars of the ban. Now let us see what is the legality behind such jurisprudence. See actually there is no one specific law that defines the doctrine of sealed cover. But the Supreme Court derives its power to use the sealed cover jurisprudence from two important provisions. One is the rule 7 of order 13 of the Supreme Court rules and the other one is the section 13 of the Indian Evidence Act of 1872. See under the rule 7 of order 13 of Supreme Court rules if the Chief Justice or the court directs certain information to be kept under sealed cover or when it considers any information is of confidential nature then no party would be allowed access to the contents of such information. According to this rule an information can be kept confidential if its publication is not considered to be in the interest of public also. But there is an exception to this rule if the Chief Justice himself orders that the opposite party can access the information then the opposite party can have the copy of that information or an excerpt from that information. Now in the evidence act the section 123 deals with certain unpublished documents. See according to this section official unpublished documents relating to the state affairs are protected and the public officer cannot be compelled to disclose such documents. See there are also other instances where information may be sought in secrecy or in confidence. For example if there is information and its publication may impede an ongoing investigation then they may be sought in secrecy. For example the details which are part of the polices case diary these can be sought in secrecy and if any information even breaches the privacy of an individual they can also be sought in secrecy by the Supreme Court. But whether the sealed covers jurisprudence has been used before? Yes, it has been used many times. Let us take two examples today. Firstly if we take in the case pertaining to the controversial Rafale fight a jet deal it was used. Here a bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India in the 2018 asked the central government to submit details related to the deal such as the decision making and pricing in a sealed cover. This was done because the center contended that such details are confidential in nature and they were subject to the official secrets act and they are subject to secrecy clauses in the deal. And because of this Supreme Court went for the sealed cover jurisprudence. Then another instance if we take in the recent Bhima Kurekaun case if you know in this case the actives were arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. So in this case Supreme Court relied on information submitted by the Maharashtra Police in a sealed cover. So these are two instances where this jurisprudence was used by the court and these are the important information that you need to know about sealed cover jurisprudence. I hope you got a clarity on this matter. If you have this information in mind let us move on to the next discussion. Now let us take up this front page article for discussion. This article talks about the mercy plea by convict A.G. Perai Rivalan who was convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. So basically this news article talks about the pardoning power of president and governor and certain issues has been raised by the Supreme Court regarding the mercy plea and the role of governor in it. So first let us quickly go through the pardoning powers of president and the governor and then we will see the issue mentioned in the news article. See this is quite important from the problem's perspective. So pay attention and this is the syllabus relevant to this discussion. In this discussion we will be seeing the important constitutional provisions also. So note that the constitution of India conferred the pardoning powers to the president of India and the governors of the states based on article 72 and article 161 respectively. So what does pardon mean? Generally it means an act of mercy, forgiveness, and discrepancy. So in this way let us see the presidential pardon or the pardoning powers of president. As per article 72 president has the authority to give pardons, reprieves, respites, or remissions of penalty. President also has the authority to suspend a sentence or remit or commute the sentence of anyone who is guilty of a crime. So when can the president use her pardoning powers? As per the article it can be used when a person has been tried and convicted of an offence in three scenarios. First is when the punishment or sentence is for an offence against a union law. Second when the punishment or sentence is by a court martial that is by a military court. And third when the sentence awarded is a sentence of death that is death penalty. So in these instances the president can use her pardoning powers. But remember these pardoning powers of president is independent of judiciary so it is an executive power. Here you may have a doubt why such a power is given to the president. It is due to two main reasons. First is to keep the door open for correcting any judicial errors in the operation of law. And second reason is to afford relief from a sentence which the president regards as unduly harsh. So based on these two reasons such powers are interested upon the president by the constitution of India. So note that as per article 72 the president has pardoning powers which includes pardons, reprise, respites, remissions, suspending sentence, remitting sentence or commuting sentence. So generally all these are called as pardoning powers and in that there is also a separate power called as pardon. What this pardon means? See when this pardon is given it actually removes both the sentence and the conviction and it completely absolves the convict from all sentences, punishments and disqualifications. Now if we come to governor does a governor have the power to pardon? Yes. Under article 161 pardoning powers are interested to the governor also. The governor can grant pardons, reprise, respites and remissions and the governor also has the power to suspend a sentence, remit or commuter a sentence. But note that here the sentence can be suspended, remitted or commuted when a person is committed of any offence against a state law. If the offence is against a central law then the power lies with the president only. As an additional information remember that pardoning powers of governor differs from the pardoning powers of president because president can pardon sentences inflicted by military courts but the governor cannot. And also president can pardon death sentences but the governor cannot. Here you may ask what if the state law prescribes a death sentence. Even in that case the power to grant pardon lies with the president only. But other than this the governor can suspend, remit or commuter death sentence. Now coming to the article as you know in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case many were sentenced to life imprisonment by the court of law. Among them was A.G. Perarivalan, he was also granted life imprisonment and so far he has served 30 years of his life sentence. So he appealed to the state government to grant remission and taking that into account the council of ministers of Tamil Nadu decided to grant remission to A.G. Perarivalan and referred this to the governor of the state. But then what the governor did was the governor referred it to the president for his consideration. So based on this only now the supreme court has raised the issue supreme court asked the union government to trace the source of power exercised by the Tamil Nadu governor to refer a decision taken by the council of ministers to the president for his consideration. That is here the supreme court is itself confused that how the governor can refer a decision taken by the council of ministers to president. Because under article 163 the governor is bound by the aid and advice given by the council of ministers. So rather than taking a decision on the advice given by the council of ministers the governor of Tamil Nadu has referred it to the president and that is why now the supreme court has asked the union government to look into the provisional that provides for such a provision because the court is of the opinion that governor had no power to transfer the mercy request to the president. So now we have to wait for the reply from the union government and we will see what happens. So these are the few points that you have to know about the power powers of the president and the governor. Now let us move on to the next discussion. So now let us take up this news article here. It is regarding the Hippocratic oath issue that is making the headlines. See what happened was the union of Madurai medical college in Tamil Nadu asked the first year students of the medical college to take Maharishi Charak Shapat instead of the Hippocratic oath that is taken normally. So this was opposed by many. Here we are not going to discuss the issue. Rather we will see what is meant by this Hippocratic oath and we will also see what do you mean by the Maharishi Charak Shapat and why it is opposed. First let us see about the Hippocratic oath. See the Hippocratic on agreement made by the physicians when they become doctors. It is not a law but it is rather a guiding principle for doctors and it is one of the oldest binding documents in history. It has great symbolic importance for medical doctors. It is named Hippocratic oath because it was written by the Greek physician Hippocrates. He lived from 460 to 307 BC. As you know Hippocrates is considered to be the father of Western medicine. So what are the components of such an oath? See before being taught medicine the disciples of Hippocrates were made to swear an oath to the Greek gods of healing. These Greek gods include Apollo, Asclepius, Hygia and Panacea. He made them to take this oath to help those disciples to understand the gravity of their situation and to make them understand what is expected from their conduct as healers. So note that this oath has been in existence from 400 BC and as we know Hippocrates was a philosopher as much as he was a physician so he considered healing to be a scientific art and that is why the oath set the standards of conduct at a time when healers were considered near divine and no lawful litigations existed. So later this oath became universal but only towards the early 19th century but what you have to notice this oath has been rewritten multiple times and the medical schools use different versions of this oath. Some use the original Greek oath while others use the declaration of Geneva or the oath of Maimonides so many use different versions but whichever version is used virtually all medical schools use an oath of some kind. Now we saw that this oath became universal only towards the early 19th century so before that different cultures had their own oaths. For example if we take India we also had a physician oath and it was based on the Sanskrit text Charaka Samhita. See it is a text on Ayurveda and the oath is called Maharishi Charak Shapat. Shapat means oath. This Charaka Samhita is attributed to the first century sage Maharishi Charaka and this text is believed to be composed between 100 BC and 200 AD. See this Charaka Samhita is considered to be Wikipedia on Ayurveda and it is one of the two texts that lay foundation of the Ayurveda and Indian medical science. So which is the other one it is the Shushruta Samhita which is a treatise on medicine and surgery. So what are the features of this Maharishi Charaka Shapat? See it is also a set of instructions by a teacher to prospective students. Here the students must conditionally agree to these conditions in order to receive medical education. But then what is the issue now? The western world had their own oath and in India we had our own version. See because of this only recently the National Medical Commission recommended that the Maharishi Charaka Shapat should replace the Hippocratic oath and according to the new guidelines the modified Maharishi Charaka Shapat is recommended when a candidate is introduced to medical education. Even the UN Health Minister noted that this Shapat would be optional and will not be imposed on medical students. But still there were opposition to this Shapat mainly because this oath is discriminatory. First it highlights caste bias. How? See the instructions of the Shapat administration state that it must be pledged in the presence of sacred fire Brahmanas and physicians. And second it is discriminatory because a person who is hated of the king or who are haters of the king or who are hated of the public shall not receive treatment as per this oath. Plus it also endorses gender bias. It says that women who are unattended by their husbands or guardians shall not receive treatment. So because of these discriminatory natures this Maharishi Charaka Shapat has been opposed by many in the medical community. And that is why when the Dean of the Mother of Medical College suggested to take this oath it became an issue. So let us hope that a new version of Maharishi Charaka Shapat would be broadened which will be non-discriminatory in nature. Or they can continue with the Hippocratic oath itself. Let us wait and see what happens. These are the few points that you have to know about Hippocratic oath and the Maharishi Charaka Shapat. So with this news article discussion let us get to the next session of practice questions discussion. This is the first question. Which of the following statements is correct with reference to seal the cover jurisprudence recently seen in news. This is a direct question. First statement is refers to documents or information kept confidential by the center. Option B information that are categorized under official secrets act of 1923. Option C practice of judges asking for evidence in sealed covers and making decisions. Option D none of the above. And from our discussion you can easily say that the correct answer is option C. It is a practice of judges asking for evidence in sealed covers. Let us take up this next question. Consider the following statements with reference to Charaka Samhita. First statement. It is the earliest to codified document on Ayurveda. This statement is correct. It is one of the earliest to codified document on Ayurveda. Second statement. It is written in Pali. This statement is incorrect because it has been written in Sanskrit. So this Charaka Samhita is a Sanskrit text and here the question asks for the incorrect statement. So the correct answer is option B 2 only. Let us take up this third question. Consider the following statements with reference to Shijalosis. First statement. It is an allergic reaction caused by the consumption of shellfish. This statement is incorrect because Shijalosis is a bacterial infection of the lining of the intestines. So it affects the digestive systems and it causes bloody diarrhea. The first statement is incorrect. The second statement its symptoms include diarrhea, fever and stomach pain. This is correct. We saw this during discussion and here the question asks for the correct statements. Therefore the correct answer is option B 2 only. And now this is the quiz question. It is based on our World Press Freedom Index. Read these statements carefully and you can pose the answer in the comment section. I will tell you whether your answer is right or not. With this quiz question let us take up the main questions for today. I have given two main questions. Try to answer both the questions. You can pose those answers in the comment section. So with this we have come to the end of Hindi News Analysis for the date 5th of May 2022. I hope this was an informative session. If you like this video click the like button and also subscribe to our channel for receiving regular updates. Thank you.