 A very good evening aspirants welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankarai's Academy for the date 15th of December 2021. So these are the list of news articles chosen for today's discussion. Firstly, we will be discussing about zero budget national forming followed by that we will be discussing about an data point which is released by CMIE and thirdly we will be discussing about an editorial article about the national monetization pipeline and followed by that we will be seeing an important article regarding the MSANs. Finally, we will end our discussion by discussing about an article regarding Kodavas. So without wasting much time now let us move on to the first news article discussion. Now look at this article see our Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi is bringing back zero budget national forming as a top government agenda as he prepares to highlight it at a national gathering in later this week. So in this context let us learn about what is zero budget natural forming who introduced it what are the shortcomings in the method and some of the way forwards. The syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for a reference please go through it. See there are many methods of cultivation of crops right? One such method is this zero budget natural forming as the name itself hints zero budget natural forming is nothing but a forming technique that tries to reduce input cost by encouraging farmers to use natural inputs rather than agricultural chemicals like insecticides and fertilizers. So instead of using insecticides and fertilizers the zero budget natural forming it actually encourages use of natural inputs. So in other words the zero budget natural forming is a chemical free forming method which tries to reduce input cost based on traditional Indian practices. Now we shall see who actually introduced it see it was originally promoted by a Maharashtrian agriculturalist Mr. Subash Palekar. See he created this method in the mid 1990s as an alternative to the green revolution which insisted on chemical fertilizers and pesticide based approaches as well as extensive irrigation. So as an alternative to the green revolution approaches he promoted this zero budget natural forming. So according to him the rising expenses of these external inputs was a leading source of farmers in-depthness and suicide. But from this the impact of the chemicals on the environment and long term fertility was also devastating. So according to him if the cost of production is reduced farming might be turned into a zero budget activity. This will also aid in breaking the depth cycle for many small farmers. So as a result of this thought process a new forming approach known as the zero budget natural forming was introduced by him. Now let us discuss what techniques are actually involved in this zero budget natural forming. See according to Mr. Palekar soil has all the nutrients plant need. To make these nutrients available to plant we need the intermediation of microorganisms. For this he recommends the four wheels of zero budget natural forming. The four wheels of zero budget natural forming are bijamrit, jivamrit, mulching and vapasa. We shall see what each wheel of zero budget natural forming means. See the first wheel which is the bijamrit is the microbial coating of seeds. So in this process the seeds are coated by a formulation of cow urine and cow dunk. So this is the first wheel. Now coming to the second wheel which is jivamrit it is the enhancing of soil microbes. This enhancement is done by inoculating or immunizing with cow dunk, cow urine and jaggery. Now the third wheel which is the mulching is the covering of soil with crops or crop residues. The fourth wheel is vapasa which is building up of soil humus to increase soil aeration. So these are the four wheels. The first one is to coat the seeds with cow urine and cow dunk. Second is the enrichment of soil microbes by inoculating the soil with cow dunk, cow urine and jaggery. Third is the mulching process in which the top soil is covered with crops or crop residues. Fourthly for building of the soil humus soil aeration is used. Apart from these four wheels zero budget natural forming also includes three methods of insect and pest management which includes Agniastra, Brahmastra and Neemastra. All are different preparations using cow urine, cow dunk, tobacco, fruits, green chili, garlic and neem. So these are the techniques which are actually recommended by him. Now let us see some of the flaws in this technique which are discussed by the author in this article. See according to the author the first flaw is the name given to the technique. See zero budget natural forming is far away from being a zero budget project. This is because many of Mr. Palekar's formulation ingredients must be purchased. Then how it can be a zero budget project right? Apart from this zero budget natural forming proponents simply omit the expense of hired labour, assumed value of family labour, imputed rent on owned property, cost of rearing cow and paid out cast on power and pump sets. So it seems like all these are omitted and hence the author says that the naming itself is a flaw in this technique. Secondly there is no independent studies to validate the clients that zero budget natural forming plots have a higher yield than non-zero budget natural forming plots. For example one field trial is going on at the GB Punt University of Agriculture and Technology but its full result will be available only after five years. But still according to reliable sources preliminary observation of these field trials have recorded a yield shortfall of about 30% in zero budget natural forming plots when compared with non-zero budget natural forming plots. Thirdly most of Mr. Palekar's claims stand against agricultural science on its head. This is because organic matter content in Indian soil is low. See about 59% of soil have low nitrogen availability, 49% have low phosphorus availability and 48% have low or medium potassium availability. Apart from this micronutrients such as zinc, iron, magnesium, copper, molybdenum and boron are all in short supply in Indian soil. See as we all aware micronutrient deficient not only reduce output they also prevent the full expression of other nutrients in the soil which will ultimately result in a decrease in total fertility. Apart from this soils in some areas are saline. Soils in other areas are acidic as a result of nutrient deficit or aluminium magnesium and iron toxicity, heavy metal pollution from industrial and municipal waste as well as overuse of fertilizers and pesticides have made soil poisonous in other areas. And all these be in one side. On the other hand what the agricultural scientist they say is see according to them improper or imbalanced fertilizer use especially without an emphasis on micronutrients is the cause for concern. So what they suggest is site specific option for promoting soil health and sustaining gain in soil fertility. Apart from this they recommend soil testing based balanced fertilization and integrated nutrient management strategies that combine organic manure and chemical fertilizers. So considering all these factors zero budget natural forming practitioners appear to insist on one blanket solution for all the problems of Indian soils. So this is the third problem. Fourthly Mr. Palakar has a totally irrational position on nutrient requirements of plants. See according to him 98.5% of the nutrients that plants need is obtained from air, water and sunlight only 1.5% is from the soil. But in reality all nutrients are present in adequate quantities in all type of soil. However they are not in a usable form. But he Mr. Palakar he believes Jeevam 3 makes these nutrients available to the plant by increasing the population of soil microorganisms. See this is a baseless claim because the Jeevam 3 perception is essentially the application of cow dung and cow urine per acre per month. For example take application of 10 kg of cow dung and 10 litres of cow urine per acre per month. For a 5 month season this means 50 kg of cow dung and 50 litres of cow urine. If the nitrogen content in cow dung is 0.5% and in cow urine is 1% this will translate to just about 750 grams of nitrogen per acre per season. This is totally inadequate considering the nitrogen requirement of Indian soils. So this is the fourth flaw which is mentioned by the author in this article. So now what can be done? See undoubtedly improvement of soil health should be a primary agenda in India's agricultural policy. But what we should do is firstly we need steps to check wind and water erosion of soils. Secondly we need innovative technologies to minimize physical degradation of soils due to water logging, flooding and crusting. Thirdly we need to improve the fertility of saline, acidic, alkaline and toxic soils by reclimbing them. Fourthly we need location specific interventions towards balancing fertilization and integrated nutrient management. Apart from this while we try to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers in some locations we should be open to increasing their use in other locations. However such a broad approach necessitates a strong commitment to scientific temper and a clear rejection of anti-science position is what the author suggests. So this is all we have to know from the article. So in this article we saw what is a zero budget natural forming, we saw some of its components and we saw who formulated the technique and we saw some of the short faults or the flaws in the technique and finally we saw what can be done. So with these points in mind now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Our next discussion is based on this data point which focuses on the employment status in our country. See the data is based on the survey by Center for Monitoring Indian Economy that is the CMIE and mainly it focuses on the unemployment rate, labour force participation rate which is also known as LFPR, then rural and urban employment etc. So let us see these aspects now. The syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. First know that the CMIE is a leading business information company. Actually it was established in 1976 primarily as an independent think tank. It is a privately owned company headquartered at Mumbai. So it actually produces economic and business databases and it also develops specialized analytical tools to deliver these data to its customers for decision making and for research. So by analyzing such data it also decifers the trends in the economy. Remember CMIE provides services to the government, academia, financial markets, business enterprises, professionals and media. So to sum up CMIE is a leading business information company which was established in 1976 primarily as an independent think tank. So it is a privately owned company headquartered at Mumbai and it produces economic and business database which can be analyzed to decipher the trends in the economy and we also saw that CMIE provides services to the government, academia, financial markets, business enterprises, professionals and media. So in this manner CMIE actually releases economic outlook for several economic indicators and now it has released economic outlook for unemployment and related indicators. First it talks about the unemployment rate. First we shall understand what is unemployment and then we shall see about the unemployment rate. See unemployed or the people of working age who are without work but they are available for work and they have taken specific steps to find work. So to put it in simple words unemployed or the people of working age who are without work but they are available for work. These people they are available for work but they did not get an opportunity to work. So those kinds of population is known as unemployed population. Therefore unemployed rate is defined as the number of unemployed people as percentage of the labour force. Just remember the unemployment rate is seasonally adjusted. For those who are not aware remember labour force includes the total number of unemployed people plus those in employment. To put it in simple words labour force consists of persons who are of 15 years of age or more and or either of the following categories which includes employed or unemployed who are willing to work and are actively looking for a work. The number of unemployed people as a percentage of the labour force can be defined as unemployment rate. Now according to CMIE the unemployment rate of India has decreased in November 2021 when compared to October 2021. While this is a good news but still the trends are worrying because India's overall unemployment rate decreased but the urban unemployment had actually increased in November 2021. See in urban area there was employment fall by 9 lakhs. It increased to 10.5 percentage in November and 9.3 percentage in October. But overall India generated 14 lakh additional jobs and according to the data employment is falling in urban areas at a faster pace than in rural areas. So the interference here is that overall quality of jobs in India have declined. Why because urban jobs arguably provide better wages and have a greater share of organized sectors. So the falling in the employment in urban area at a faster pace actually implies that the overall quality of jobs in India have been declined. Secondly we have the data on labour force participation rate that is the LFPR. See according to India LFPR is the percentage of persons in the labour force in the population. But as for international labour organization that is ILO LFPR is defined as the number of persons in the labour force as a percentage of the working age population. See the working age population is the population which are either working or looking for work. So to put it in simple words labour force participation rate is the number of persons in the labour force as a percentage of the working age population. So according to the data that is the decrease in LFPR in November 2021. India's LFPR was 40.2 percentage in November and 40.4 percentage in October 2021. Point to be noted here is LFPR is lower than the pre-pandemic figure of around 43 percentage. You can see that in the graph given here. Now finally it provides data as per the type of jobs. See the type classified in CMI analysis or salary jobs, entrepreneurship or business, daily wage labour and small traders or farmers. As per the data there is a decline in salaried person and the number of entrepreneurs. Salaried jobs declined by 68 lakh and it was 9.7 percentage lower in November 2021 when compared to November 2019. So this shows that there is a decline in quality of employment because salaried jobs are considered better quality of employment. Also there was a decline of 35 lakh in the number of entrepreneurs. But on the other hand there is an increase in daily wage labourers and small traders from October 2021 to November 2021. There was increase of about 1.12 crore. So this is all you have to know about this data point. So in this discussion we saw about the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy that is the CMIE. We saw about what is unemployment and we saw about unemployment rate. We also saw about labour force participation rate. And apart from that we saw the rural and urban unemployment rate. Apart from that finally we saw about the types of jobs. So with these insights let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now let us take up this editorial article for our discussion. See this article here is about NMP. See NMP stands for National Monetization Pipeline. So in this article the author is explaining about the impacts of NMP and the essential steps to be taken to strengthen the public sector businesses. So this is the crux of the article. We will see everything discussed by the author in this article. The syllabus relevant to this article is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. First of all let us see what is this NMP. See it is nothing but an asset monetization initiative. I will explain what it means. See asset monetization which is also commonly referred to as asset or capital recycling is a globally used business practice. It actually consists of limited period transfer of performing assets or disposing of non-strategic or underperforming assets. So to put it in simple words it actually refers to asset or capital recycling in which a performing asset is transferred to an entity for a limited period of time. It may also include disposing of non-strategic or underperforming assets to an entity. So what is the motto behind this? See this is done to unlock idle capital and reinvest it in other assets or projects that deliver improved or additional benefits. So instead of keeping the asset idle in asset monetization the government will transfer the performing assets or underperforming assets to an entity which will be further developed by the entity to whom the asset is transferred. Remember this is for a limited period of time. Now let us see who and why this asset monetization is important. See government and public sector organizations which own and operate such assets can adopt this concept to meet the ever increasing needs of the population for improved quality of public assets and services. See the government and public sector organizations they are primarily responsible for delivering infrastructure services to the public. So if such organizations they own or operate any asset which is well performing or underperforming those kinds of organization can adopt this concept to meet the increasing needs of the population. So this will in turn actually improve the quality of public asset and services as simple as that. Apart from this it also presents an opportunity for public asset owners that is the government to avail new financial structures and vehicles for tapping capital from private sector investors. See most of the time the private sector investors they don't easily volunteer to invest in strategic sectors right. So in such cases asset monetization actually provides an opportunity for the government to tap capital from private sector investors. Apart from this it also assists public sector authorities or entities in elevating financial restrictions and freeing up balance sheet to pursue greater green field infrastructure developments. Apart from this asset monetization actually allows the government to allocate resources to the social sector and other public objectives. So to sum up actually asset monetization refers to asset or capital recycling in which a performing asset or an underperforming asset or a non-strategic asset is transferred to an entity for a limited period of time. This is done to unlock the idle capital and reinvesting it in other assets in order to get improved or additional benefits. So asset monetization it actually helps the government to meet the increasing needs of the population for improved quality of public assets and services and asset monetization it helps the government to tap capital from private sector investors. Apart from this it also helps in freeing up the balance sheet for taking up more green field infrastructure creation and finally it actually enables deployment of resources by government towards social sector and other public priorities. So with this context the national monetization pipeline that is the NMP was announced in the union budget 2021-22 and Niti Ayog has been interested with the mandate to develop national monetization pipeline. Just remember the national monetization pipeline that is the NMP actually envisages an aggregate monetization potential of 6 lakh crore rupees through the leasing of core assets of the central government in sectors such as roads, railways, power, oil and gas pipeline. Apart from this telecom, civil aviation, shipping ports and waterways, mining, food and public distribution, coal, housing and urban affairs and stadiums and sports complexes. See as asset monetization is linked to the creation of new infrastructure the national infrastructure pipelines remaining four year period has been planned to coincide with the national infrastructure pipeline. For the four year period from financial year 2022 to financial year 2025 the NMP will establish a baseline for asset owning ministries to monitor and analyze investment performance and data on potential assets. So the objectives of the national monetization pipeline is given here for your reference just go through it. Now let us see some of the major significance of NMP. See the national monetization pipeline it actually helps us to define the difference between privatization and development and finally it will help us to create a virtuous cycle of development, commission, monetize and invest. Apart from this it will also help in identifying potential monetization ready projects across multiple infrastructure sectors and ministries. Apart from this it will also ensure transparency to the investors. So these are some of the significance of the national monetization pipeline which you have to make a note of. So far we have a basic understanding of what is national monetization pipeline and we also understood some of its significance. Now we shall see the impacts of it as discussed by the author in this article. See the author is saying that it is critical for the policy makers to intercept the decline of profit making government assets. Instead of monetizing the assets that are non-performing government should find a way to make it a performing asset. This is because the nation may find itself in a vicious cycle of creating new assets and then monetizing the same when they become liability for the government at a later stage. So in order to avoid this the author actually suggests the policy makers to intercept the decline of profit making government assets. Now why it is crucial to make public enterprises as performing assets? See according to annual report 2020-2021 of Department of Public Enterprises government of India there are 256 operationally run central public sector undertakings that is there are 256 operationally run CPSUs which employs about 1 million people and the net profit from these CPSUs is of about 93,294 crore rupees which is in the financial year 2019-20. I hope now you can understand why because it includes livelihood of 1 million people and the profit can use to elevate poverty and invest in development project in the country. So this is the first reason the another reason is that see according to the economic survey 2019-20 public enterprises should be in focus. This is because India needs to invest about 1.5 trillion dollars on infrastructure development in order to aspire to become 5 trillion dollar economy by the year 2024-25. So it is crucial for these reasons now let us just recall what all we learnt so far we saw what is the national monetization pipeline in that we saw what is asset monetization we understood that asset monetization is actually asset or capital recycling in which the government transfer performing asset or underperforming asset to an entity for a limited period of time. So this will help the government to unlock the idle capital and reinvest it in other assets which will in turn deliver improved or additional benefits. So we also saw who can actually monetize assets apart from that we saw why asset monetization is important in that we saw it will provide the government to avail new financial structures and vehicles for tapping from private sector investors. We also saw that it will help the government to improve the quality of public assets and services which is growing every day. We also saw that the asset monetization will help the government to free up the balance sheets to take up more green field infrastructure creations and finally we saw that asset monetization actually enables deployment of resources by government towards social sector and other public priorities and then we saw about national monetization pipeline we saw some of the objectives of national monetization pipeline and we saw the significance of national monetization pipeline and we understood the impact of asset monetization in that we saw two suggestions given by the author in that first we saw about instead of monetizing the assets that are not performing government should find ways to make it a performing asset because this might lead to a vicious cycle of creating new assets and then monetizing the same when they become liabilities for the government at a later stage so in order to avoid that government should find ways to make it a performing asset so we saw this suggestion and then we discussed about another suggestion in that we saw in order to become and 5 trillion dollar economy by 2024 we need to invest more in infrastructure development now so with these basic understandings now we shall see why profit making government assets are on decline we shall see some of the important points mentioned by the author and we'll see the reason behind the decline of profit making government assets see the reason for the failure of public sector enterprises is cost overruns in some cases project completion is exceeded and it leads to elevated project cost so the first reason for the decline of profit making government asset is the cost overrun this is because the author says that delay in project completion is also adding to the elevator project cost so when a project is exceeding beyond the time either the project itself become unviable at the time of its launch or it will delay its breakeven point see breakeven point is nothing but it is a point at which total cost and total revenue are equal meaning there is no gain or loss in other words you have reached the level of production at which the cost of production equals to the revenue for a product so when a project gets delay it might reach this breakeven point or it might go beyond the breakeven point beyond the breakeven point whatever the money is invested is just expenditure which will also elevate the project cost so this is what the author suggests secondly optimum input output ratio is hardly observed in government infrastructural projects leading to their over capitalization see the relevant project needed the relevant investment the input output ratio also means the same whatever you invest should have a double outcome but this is hardly observed in government infrastructural projects because at times in government infrastructural projects the government allocate far more than what is required see we know that this project will provide only this amount of returns so is there any meaning to invest more than that no right if we invest more also the return is same so after a period of time they will become a non performing asset only right this is what the author tries to convey here thirdly a reluctance to implement labor reforms a lack of inter ministerial or departmental coordination poor decision making inefficient governance and excessive government control or other reasons for the failure of public infrastructure assets so far we saw about some of the reasons mentioned by the author for the decline in profit making government assets now we shall see some of the initiatives and suggestions given by the author to address the issue let us see them one by one firstly the author mentions about the Pradhan Gatti Shakti national master plan for multimodal connectivity see we have already discussed about PM Gatti Shakti national master plan its aim is to synchronize the operations of different departments of 16 ministries it is done for seamless planning and coordinated execution of infrastructure projects in a timely manner so it entails analytical decision making tools and prioritizing key infrastructure projects so it actually fosters a periodical review and monitoring of the progress of infrastructure projects through the GIS platform so proper implementation of this PM Gatti Shakti will help us in the long run secondly according to economic survey 2020-2021 an important step for the government to take to strengthen public sector businesses is to completely revamp their corporate governance structure see this should be done in order to enhance operational autonomy augmented with strong governance practices including listing on stock exchange for greater transparency and accountability so this is what the author suggests so on that line the department of public enterprises has initiated revamping of the performance monitoring system of central public sector enterprises to make them more transparent and objective apart from this the economic survey also highlights the government's initiative was part of the Atma Nirbar Abhyan in order to boost domestic production in the steel sector which includes recommending four different types of steels for incentives under the production linked incentive scheme selling steel to micro small and medium enterprises at export parity price that is the price that a producer gets or can expect to get for its produce if exported protecting industries from unfair trade through appropriate remedial measures such as imposition of anti-dumping duties and countervailing duties on the projects on which unfair trade practices were adopted by the other countries so these are some of the suggestions given by the author to come up with and these are some of the initiatives that can be taken to enhance the performance of public enterprises rather than monetizing the assets so in this discussion we saw what is the national monetization pipeline we saw the significance of national monetization pipeline we saw the impact of the NMP and then we saw some of the reasons why the profit making government assets are on decline finally we saw some of the initiatives and suggestions given by the author to enhance the performance of public enterprises rather than monetizing the assets so with these learned points now let us move on to the next news article discussion now let us take up this article for our next discussion see this news article is about M sand the cracks of the news is that a red petition was filed in the metras high court for declaring a state law of Tamil Nadu as illegal and unconstitutional it seems that this law considers M sand as mineral and thus imposes certain regulatory measures on it but the manufacturers of the M sand are arguing that M sand is not a mineral so this is the cracks of the news article so in this context let us see about M sand see as you can see it contains the term sand so M sand is a type of sand and basically sand is an aggregate for those who are not aware aggregates are nothing but the mineral materials which are used with a binding medium to form compound materials such as bituminous concrete and cement concrete here the binding medium could be water bitumen lime etc therefore the mineral materials such as sand gravel and crushed stones these are called aggregates such aggregates can be classified into two namely coarse aggregates and fine aggregates further these could be of two types they can be natural or manufactured so sand is which type of aggregate see it is a natural fine aggregate so generally whenever we say sand we are referring to the natural sand it is also known as the river sand and this sand results from the natural disintegration of rock mainly it is the fine aggregate that has deposited by steams or glacial agencies and it is the preferred choice of fine aggregate material in concrete and construction works here note that there are also other types of fine aggregates they are crushed sand which includes crushed stone sand or crushed gravel sand secondly mixed sand thirdly manufactured fine aggregates which is also known as manufactured sand this manufactured sand is which is abbreviated as m sand so m sand is nothing but a manufactured sand so from the term manufactured itself you can easily understand that it does not occur naturally therefore m sand is the fine aggregates which are manufactured from other than natural sources it is manufactured by processing materials and by using thermal or other processes such as separation washing crushing and scrubbing here the materials include recycled concrete aggregate which are obtained from construction and demolition waste it also obtained by crushing of minerals or overburden see overburden is the material that lies above a coal seam or a ore body it includes rock soil etc so overburden is removed to extract the coal or ore so in simple terms m sand is produced by crushing rocks quarry stones or larger aggregate pieces they are crushed into natural sand sized particles after crushing it is seized and washed to remove fine particles and impurities so far we saw what is m sand and how it is manufactured first we had a brief idea about what is a sand and where it is used and we saw some of the types of aggregates we saw that aggregates are nothing but the mineral materials which are used with the binding medium to form compound materials such as bitumen concrete and cement concrete such aggregates can be classified into two namely the coarse aggregate and fine aggregate and they are further classified natural or manufactured in that we saw that sand is a type of natural fine aggregate so other types of fine aggregate includes crushed sands which includes crushed stone sands or crushed gravel sand secondly mixed sand and thirdly comes the manufactured fine aggregate that is the m sand so after that we saw what is a m sand m sand is nothing but the fine aggregate which are manufactured from other than natural sources how it is manufactured it is manufactured by processing materials and by using thermal or other processes such as separation washing crushing and scrubbing now let us see why do we actually need m sand see its need arises due to the scarce availability of natural sand and reduction in the existing availability of natural sand is also a reason why there is a reduction see there is a reduction because of the escalating demand for quality river sand every year but due to the scarcity of natural sand the supply is dwindling additionally excessive mining of river bed for natural sand lead to ecological imbalance because it destroys habitats changes the course of river erodes riverbank it may even cause flooding etc therefore m sand is needed as an alternative or supplement to the natural sand so these are all the points that you have to make note of in the prelims perspective about m sand with these learned points in mind now let us move on to the next news article discussion now look at this article see this article here explains about karnataka's high court order the high court director state government to accept the recommendations made by karnataka state backward classes commission the commission recommended to use the words kodawa or kodawaru instead of kodagaru in the list of backward classes the issue here is that the state government rejected the recommendations claiming that the competent authority did not approve the changes for this the court has observed that the government has failed to point out which was the competent authority let's not get deep into this issue instead let us learn about kodawa's from prelims perspective see kodawa's also known as kodagu or a martial race with a tiny community in kurk they are unique and excel in sports as well as armed forces for many years kodawa's have been cultivating fields maintaining cattle and carrying arms for a war so to put it in simple words kodawa families they kept themselves engaged in agriculture and military according to skandapurana or kaveripurana the fierce race of kodawa's are descended from a chandravanshi chathriya called chandravarma see he was on a pilgrimage to several holy places in india when he came upon kurk or kodagu district the source of the river kaveri he settled there and became the first king of the kurk principality so his descendants they cultivated and populated the land and these people apparently came to be called the kodawa race so the kodawa people are martial race with a tiny community in kurk the important point to note here is that kurk is the source of river kaveri and this community they are unique and excel in sports as well as armed forces now coming to the festivals see the main festival of the community include puttari and kaveri sankramana see puttari is a festival related to rice harvest so during this festival the entire family they get together to celebrate the festival kaveri sankramana means worship of the river kaveri so for this festival thousands of devotees gather and take a dip in the holy water additionally the kurds they worship guns also to be specific their festival kail murtha is solely dedicated to the worship of guns which is more like aida puja there is a separate festival for harvesting the harvest festival of puttari starts by firing a gunshot now coming to the conception behavior see rice being the main crop boiled rice is the main diet of the people of kodagu they also consume fish pork and chicken now coming to the entire part see the ceremonial dress of kurk is extremely different from other indian traditional wear men wear black knee length overcoat that reaches until elbow with a scarlet sash carrying a silver dagger and a gilded turban as you can see them in the image here whereas women wear indian saree with the pleats running through the chest from behind and end of which is clipped with a traditional pin in the right collarbone see these traditional dresses or worn on marriage festival or other community gatherings so this is all you have to know about the kodawa community so in this discussion we saw about the origin of the kodawa race we saw who are the kodawa people and then we saw some of the main festivals of the community we saw their conception behavior and then we finally saw about their attire part so with these learned point in minds now let us move on to the next part of the news article discussion so with this we came to the end of the news article discussion part now let us move on to the next part of the news article discussion which is the preliminary practice questions now look at this first question this question is about cmi with reference to center for monitoring indian economy cmi consider the following statements first statement it is a privately owned company second statement it is headquartered at delhi third statement according to cmi the unemployment rate of india has increased in november 2021 when compared to october 2021 now as we discussed the first statement is actually correct because it is a privately owned company it was established in 1976 as a independent think tank now coming to the second statement it is headquartered at mumbai not at delhi so the second statement is incorrect now coming to the third statement see the unemployment rate actually decreased overall to 7 percentage in november 2021 from 7.8 percentage in october 2021 so the statement is actually wrong unemployment rate in india has decreased it has not increased in november 2021 when compared to october so the correct answer for this question is option a 1 1 link now moving on to the next question see this question is about m sands which of the following is our or the benefits of m sand over natural river sand statement 1 non presence of organic or deleterious materials statement 2 increase in the strength characteristics of concrete statement 3 higher water permissibility select the correct answer using the code given below option a 1 only option b 1 and 3 only option c 1 and 2 only and option d 3 only see m sands has several benefits first thing is there is no presence of organic or deleterious materials in m sand which are normally present in natural sand see deleterious materials mean any harmful material which affects the strength or durability of the concrete it includes pirates coal lignite mica clay sea cells organic impurities etc particularly natural sands has more clay and silk content which affects the strength of the concrete but the m sands they do not have any organic or deleterious material so the first statement is correct now coming to the second statement see the required sand size and shape could be achieved which assist in achieving desired result in the final product so we can uptime required grading which is not possible in natural sand because we do not have any control over the natural process right thoroughly it leads to increase in the strength characteristics of concrete made with natural river sand this is mainly due to the fact that in manufactured sand the particles are densely packed and so it has higher bond strength this in turn enhances the durability of the concrete so the second statement is also correct because increase in the strength characteristics of concrete is one of the main advantage of m sand now coming to the third statement see m sands has low water permissibility this actually leads to dense structure of concrete which is not the case with natural sand so the third statement is wrong because it mentions higher water permissibility m sands have lower water permissibility when compared to the natural sands so the correct answer for this question is option c 1 and 2 only now going on to the next question see this question is regarding the kodavas consider the following statements regarding kodava the first statement they are hunter gatherers residing in the mountains of fist and guards second statement they worship gun and celebrate keel mudra festival which of the statement is or or correct option a 1 only option b 2 only option c both 1 and 2 and option d neither 1 nor 2 see the first statement is incorrect because kodavas also known as kodahu are a martial race with a tiny community in kurk they are unique and excellent sports as well as armed forces we saw that in our discussion for many years kodavas have been cultivating fields maintaining cattle and carrying arms for a war kodavas families they kept themselves engaged in agriculture and military so they are actually not hunters and gatherers residing in the mountains of western guards so the first statement is incorrect now moving on to the second statement the second statement is correct because kodava worship gun their festival keel mudra is solely dedicated to the worship of guns more like the aida puja and the harvest festival of puttari actually starts by firing a gunshot so the second statement is correct now the correct answer for the question is option b 2 only the main questions 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