 Good evening aspirants welcome to the hindi news analysis by Shankar Ayes academy These are the list of articles which has been chosen for today's analysis The link for the handwritten notes is provided in the description box below and it is also provided in the comment section Let's move on to our first article discussion. This discussion is based on a eagle species known as step eagle The discussion can be linked to the syllabus that is given here for your reference The news article mentions that a lone step eagle has been cited by a group of bird watchers in a paddy field near Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh The bird watchers recorded the step eagle during the Asian water bird census Now just remember that eagle is not a water bird but it was cited by the group of bird watchers during this Asian water bird census Now this Asian water bird census is a part of the global international water bird census and it is a citizen science program which means that the collection and analysis of data relating to the natural world will be done by the members of the general public and it will be done as a part of a collaborative project with professional scientists So this citizen science program is supporting conservation and management of wetlands and water birds worldwide and this program is coordinated by wetlands international Now according to this news article this step eagle has been cited in Andhra Pradesh state for the second time in the past two decades and according to this news article step eagle is believed to be the second largest migratory eagle species to India So in the context of this news article let us see some facts related to this step eagle species This species breeds in European Russia from the Republic of Kalmykia across Kazakhstan and they also breed in Kyrgyzstan, China and Mongolia and in 2015 it was proven that they also breed in a small area of Turkey and these birds winter in the Middle East, Arabia, East and South Africa, South Asia and South East Asia Now here when we say winter or wintering it means to spend the winter in a particular place Birds migrate so that they can winter in a warmer country So like that this species winters in Middle East, Arabia, East and South Africa, South and South Asia and this species inhibits in the areas of steppe and also in semi desert Now here steppe means it is a large area of flat, unforested grassland which is present in the southeastern Europe or Siberia and it is also recorded that this species breeds in the mountainous regions and that too up to 2300 meters and this species feeds mainly on small mammals which are present on its breeding grounds Now we saw that this is a migratory bird which migrates to winter in a warmer country Now these migrants leave their breeding grounds between August and October and they return between January and May and probably during this returning period only the bird watchers in Andhra Pradesh have witnessed this step eagle Now the species has declined in the west of its breeding range Now this happened as a result of the conversion of steps to agricultural land and also due to direct persecution Here the word persecution could take the meaning of teasing, torture, etc and the species is also adversely affected by power lines and it is highly vulnerable to the impacts of potential wind energy developments and it was also found in a study in the western Kazakhstan that this raptor is most frequently electrocuted by power lines So that means it clearly says that this species is adversely affected by power lines Apart from this, three sets of factors have been identified as having detrimental impacts on this species in Russia and Kazakhstan The first factor is the increased mortality and this increased mortality is due to the collisions with power lines then pesticide poisoning and direct persecution then second factor is reduction in the area of suitable habitat and reduction in available food and the third factor is that poor breeding success due to the destruction of nests and juvenile mortality during spring fires and there is also poor breeding success due to the disturbance by people and livestock and then another threat to this species is that young eagles are taken out of the nest in order to sell them to the western European countries and this species is vulnerable to a veterinary drug named dichlofenac This dichlofenac is a non-steroid anti-inflammatory drug and the veterinary use of this drug has been the main cause of catastrophic decline of several species of vultures in South Asia and it also is a reason for the decline in the species of steppe eagle and this drug is intensively used in the species wintering range especially in Pakistan and India so it is an additional threat to this species in our country so these are some of the threats associated with this steppe eagle now since this species is declining some important conservation measures are needed to save this species so for that purpose this species has been listed in the IUCN red list of threatened species and it is listed under the endangered category and then it is also listed in the convention on the conservation of migratory species of wild animals that is in short CMS it is listed in the appendix one now the appendix one of CMS comprises of migratory species that have been assessed as being in danger of extinction throughout all of their range or in a significant portion of their range so parties that are range state to any migratory species which is listed in this appendix one should attempt to strictly protect these species by prohibiting the taking of such species with very restricted scope for exceptions and the range states should also conserve these species habitats and they should also restore these habitats now since this species is listed in appendix one it provides us a protection to this species and then this species is also listed in appendix two of sites also so these are the information that you should know with respect to this species steppe eagle in this discussion we discussed about the distribution range of this species where they winter and we also saw the threats and the conservation measures with respect to this species with this we come to the end of this news article discussion the displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session moving on to the next discussion this discussion is based on this editorial which is based on make in India initiative according to the author of this editorial the make in India initiative of government of India has failed so the author has given some reasons to prove why this initiative has failed so in the context of this editorial we will see about the make in India initiative and also about the reasons given by the author for the failure of this initiative the syllabus that is relevant to the analysis of this discussion is given here for your reference as we know the Indian government announced the make in India initiative in September 2014 the primary goal of this initiative is to make India a global manufacturing hub and this has to be done by encouraging both multinational as well as domestic companies to manufacture their products within the country itself this initiative targets 25 sectors of the economy and these sectors range from automobile to information technology this initiative also seeks to facilitate job creation it seeks to foster innovation it seeks to enhance skill development and it also aims to protect the intellectual property and this initiative is led by the department for promotion of industry and internal trade which comes under the ministry of commerce and industry and there are three major objectives of this make in India scheme the first objective is to increase the manufacturing sectors growth rate to 12 to 14 percentage per annum and this objective is to increase the manufacturing sectors share in the economy and the second objective is to create 100 million additional manufacturing jobs in the Indian economy by the year 2022 and the third objective is to ensure that the manufacturing sectors contribution to GDP is increased to 25 percentage by the year 2025 so these were the three major objectives of this make in India initiative or scheme now in this initiative the policy approach was used it was used to create a conducive environment for investments to develop modern and efficient infrastructure and also to open up new sectors for foreign capital and the policy changes with respect to the above approach are intended to push the growth in three key variables of the manufacturing sector three key variables are the investments, output and employment growth so the author of this editorial has examined these three variables in order to know whether the make in India initiative is a success or not first the author discusses about the investment variable according to the author the last five years has seen slow growth of investment in the economy especially there is a slow growth in the capital investments in the manufacturing sector now author is saying this based on one indicator which is the gross fixed capital formation this gross fixed capital formation is also called as investment and it is defined as the acquisition of produced assets including the production of such assets by producers for their own use minus disposals and this gross fixed capital formation is one indicator to know the amount of investment made in India and from the data available in the economic survey you see that the share of private sector in gross fixed capital formation has decreased in the financial year 2017-18 if we compare the same value with the financial year of 2013-14 but at the same time if you see the public sector share is more or less same and even the overall gross fixed capital formation has decreased in the financial year 2017-18 as compared to financial year 2013-14 so this data shows that there is a slow growth of investment in the economy now the author has given one reason that why there is a decrease in investment according to the author this decline is due to the decline in the savings rate in the economy if you see in this graph we can see that household savings have declined where the private corporate sector savings have increased so now the scenario is that the private sector savings have increased but the private sector investments have decreased so from this we can say that the private sector is hesitating to invest in India and this has happened despite the policy measures of the government to provide a good investment climate in India so based on this only author is saying that India has failed in this investment variable now if you come to the second variable which is the output we need to see if there is any growth in the manufacturing outputs for this we need to see the index of industrial production which is released on a monthly basis by the national statistical organization under the ministry of statistics and program implementation and according to the author the IAP pertaining to the manufacturing sector has registered double digit growth rates only on two occasions during the period April 2012 to November 2019 and for majority of the months the growth in the manufacturing IAP was either 3 percentage or below 3 percentage and even this was even negative for some months the negative growth means that there is contraction happening in the manufacturing sector so from this we can say that the manufacturing sector is not really growing at a high rate in India which was one of the primary goal of this make in India initiative so that is why author is saying that this variable has failed in India now next comes the third variable which is employment growth and according to the author especially the industrial employment has not grown much in India even if you see the unemployment rate of our country it is at 6.1 percentage and this was the highest in the 45 years and this unemployment rate was given by the periodic labour force survey for 2017 to 2018 which was released by the ministry of statistics and program implementation in May 2019 so based on this also we can say that the unemployment rate is increasing that means employment growth is decreasing so from this we can say that the third variable has also failed so based on these three variables only author is saying that the make in India initiative has failed in our country now after this author is giving why the policy is not working in our country as it was intended to be one of the main reason why this policy is not working is because there is policy casualness in India according to the author the present government accuses the previous governments of policy paralysis and the present government makes continuous policy announcement at the same time the government is not prepared with adequate resources to implement those policy announcement this is what the author is calling as policy casualness in addition to this there are two more issues with the policy announcements the first issue is that most of these schemes too much rely on foreign capital for the investments and they also rely on the global markets for sourcing the produce to manufacture so based on this author is saying that an inbuilt uncertainty has been created in the policy since the domestic production had to be planned according to the demand and supply conditions that are prevailing outside the country then the second issue is that the policy makers neglected the third deficit in the economy and this third deficit is the implementation deficit that is the policy has been announced but there is poor implementation so that is why author is saying that we can see the attitude of policy casualness in our country where continuous policy announcements are made by the government but at the same time the government is not prepared with adequate resources to implement them then the next reason for the failure of a make in India initiative according to the author is that the target is ambitious because as we saw in the beginning one of the objectives of this make in India initiative was to increase the manufacturing sector's growth rate to 12 to 14% per annum but just now we saw that there is so when there is the implementation deficit attaining such a target is not possible according to the author so this is one of the reason then the another reason is that this initiative has included too many sectors so it has led to a loss of policy focus see in the beginning we saw that this initiative focuses on 25 sectors so according to the author there is not a stable focus on one of the sectors he even adds that the policy makers did not look into the comparative advantages of Indian economy when framing the policies then another reason which author tells is that this make in India initiative was spectacularly ill timed that is it was introduced in a wrong time when there are uncertainties in the global economy and it was also introduced at a time and there was an increase in trade protectionism like in the case of ongoing US-China trade war so these were the reasons given by the author on why make in India initiative has failed according to him and as a conclusion to this problem of failure of make in India initiative the author is suggesting that effective policy changes are required for increasing the manufacturing activity in our economy so these were the comments given by the author on the make in India initiative with this we come to the end of this editorial discussion the displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session moving on to the next discussion this discussion is also based on the area biodiversity in this discussion we will be discussing about the species of Irawadi dolphin and we will also see about Chilika lake the discussion can be linked to the syllabus that is given here for your reference this news article mentions that dolphin senses has begun in Chilika lake and in Biturkanika national park in the Ganjum and Kendrapara districts of Odisha according to this news article around 146 Irawadi dolphins have been sighted in the Chilika lake so the direct sighting of 146 dolphins meant that its population in the lake would stabilize well above 150 if you see according to last year's census the Irawadi dolphin population in Chilika was 151 now for this year final counting has not yet been published but according to the chief executive officer of the Chilika development authority the estimated population range for the species is 133 272 now the census assumes significance because Chilika lake has the highest single lagoon population of this aquatic animal Irawadi dolphin in the world so in the context of this news article and also since the prelims examination is nearby it becomes important for us to discuss about Irawadi dolphins and also about the Chilika lake so first let us see about this Irawadi dolphins these dolphins have a bulging forehead as you can see in this picture they have short beak and they have 12 to 19 teeth on each side of both jaws and these Irawadi dolphins occur in Southeast Asia they are limited to shallow coastal waters which are usually associated with freshwater inputs and they are limited to three large river systems two brackish lagoons or marine appended lakes and one sound now here the word sound in geography refers to an ocean or a sea inlet with distinct characteristics that differentiate it from a bay or a sea channel so here sound is a geographical feature now we saw that they are limited to three large river systems these rivers are the Irawadi river in Myanmar then the Mahakam river in Indonesia and the Mekong river this Mekong river Irawadi dolphins inhabit a 118 mile stretch of the river between Cambodia and Laos and there are also three other sub-populations of this species which inhabit in the marine appended brackish water bodies and these water bodies are the Chilika lagoon in India then Songkla lagoon in Thailand and then Malampaya sound in Philippines now in this you should note that Chilika is the natural abode of highly endangered Irawadi dolphins and the population in Chilika is considered to be the highest single lagoon population so always remember this now the sub-population sizes of this species are very small but there is only one exception which is Bangladesh in Bangladesh this species are in abundance as it is estimated that around 5800 individuals are present in Bangladesh now if you see the distribution of this species there are fragmented distribution in the coastal waters near river mouths and in deep pools of large rivers now this means that the species is exposed to intensive anthropogenic threats because human activities are generally concentrated in these areas so what are the threats to this species now as mentioned already the patchy and fragmented distribution of Irawadi dolphins in both coastal waters and rivers makes them particularly vulnerable to threats from human activities which are concentrated in these areas and the most severe threat to the most sub-populations is the incidental mortality which happens due to the entanglement of the species in fishing gear particularly in the gill nets then another threat is habitat loss and this happens particularly from dams and riverine populations and then degradation from declining or altered freshwater flows which affects the estuarine populations is also leading cause to the habitat loss and this habitat loss due to these reasons is a looming conservation threat and it has the potential for extirpating the sub-populations extirpating means completely destroying the populations and this habitat loss also leads to further fragmenting of the already patchy distribution of the species another threat is the degradation of both freshwater and estuarine systems by pollutants such as oil, pesticides, industrial waste coal dust etc and the degradation also happens due to the siltation caused by the poor land practices then another threat is the life capture of the species this species is captured for aquarium display and according to IOCN in the Mekong river basin Irawadi dolphins were also killed by marine bombing and they were also killed by explosives which were used to catch fishes so this has become a reason for the decreased population of Irawadi dolphins in the Mekong river basin then another reason is deforestation and then gold mining, sand mining and gravel mining because this deforestation along with these mining are causing major changes to the geomorphic and hydraulic features of the rivers and of the marine appended lakes where these Irawadi dolphins occur so as you can see there are many threats to this Irawadi dolphins so we need a strong conservation policy so that is why this species is listed as endangered in the IOCN red list and then this species is also listed in appendix one of sites as well as in the appendix one of convention on migratory species that is CMS these were the international conservation methods if you see in India this species is protected by the wildlife protection act because this species is listed under the schedule one part one of this wildlife protection act of 1972 now because of these conservation measures and strict rules the population of this species in the Chilika lake could be stabilized above 150 so let us wait and see the final counting after it is published so these were the information that you should know with respect to this Irawadi dolphins now from the examination point of view let us also see about Chilika lake now this Chilika lake is a shallow brackish water lake it lies in the districts of Puri, Kurda district in Ganjum district on the eastern part of Odisha and one important point is that it is Asia's largest brackish water lake when we say brackish water we mean that the water which is present in this lake is saltier than the freshwater but it is not as salty as sea water and this Chilika lake is roughly pier shaped and it is fed by 52 rivers and rivulets and even the area of the Chilika lake varies in the dry and wet seasons between 560 square kilometers and 1,100 square kilometers and this Chilika lake was formed due to the silting action of the Mahanadi river and this river drains into the northern end of this lake now we saw that it is a shallow brackish water lake in addition to this this lake is also a shallow lagoon which was formed due to the northernly currents in the Bay of Bengal and they also created a sand bar along the eastern shore so what do we mean by lagoon a lagoon is a shallow body of water that may have an opening to a larger body of water but it is also protected from the large body of water by a sandbar or a coral reef now since a sandbar along the eastern shore is created due to the northernly currents of Bay of Bengal we call this Chilika lake as a shallow lagoon now this lake is divided into an outer channel with a narrow neck leading into the sea the main body of the lake has a muddy bottom which is richer in organic matter along with this there are varying degrees of salinity in different parts of this lake and because of this the fauna in this lake is interestingly diverse and variety of animals are adapting to the marine and riverine existence so as to survive in the different parts of this lake and the animal life which is recorded in this lake ranges from planktonic microorganisms to a vast variety of fish and they sustain the migratory birds population in the winter that is because of rich organic matter and the availability of diverse fauna this Chilika lake is one of the hotspot of biodiversity in our country so some rare vulnerable and endangered species which are listed in the ice thin red list also inhabit in this lagoon for at least part of their life cycle in this way our today's discussion which was based on Irrawaddy dolphins are also found in this Chilika lake and this lake has the highest single population of this aquatic mammal in the world now another interesting factor in this Chilika lake is that many islands are present in this lagoon some are with habitation and some are without habitation and the prominent islands are Krishnaprasad, then Nalaban, Kalijay, Somolo, honeymoon island, breakfast island and birds island don't confuse these are really the names of the islands only it is not made up by me and with respect to the islands in this Chilika lake what you should notice that Nalaban is one of the biggest islands and this Nalaban island was notified as a bird sanctuary in 1987 under the wildlife protection act of 1972 so remember that Chilika lake in general and the Nalaban area in particular are among the most important waterfowl habitats in India it is because if you see the total number of waterfowl in this Chilika lake it is close to 8 lakh birds so because of its special features and importance the Chilika lake is included in the list of wetlands which are selected for the intensive conservation and management by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change so this was the initiative taken by Government of India but if you see internationally because of the rich biodiversity and ecological significance Chilika lake was designated as the first Ramsar site of India which means it is the wetland of international importance now here you have to note one point which has been designated as a Ramsar site since 1981 and this lake was included in the Montreux record in 1993 now this Montreux record is a threatened list under this Ramsar list so in 1993 the Chilika lake was included in the threatened list it was included because of the change in the ecological character of the lake ecosystem but later due to the initiatives of the Chilika development authority the lake was successfully restored to its original ecosystem so after that Chilika lake was removed from the Montreux record in 2002 so internationally what you have to remember is that Chilika lake was the first Ramsar site of India and in 1993 it was included in the Montreux record but it was removed from the Montreux record in 2002 and still it continues to be a Ramsar site under the Ramsar convention so these are the information that you should know with respect to Chilika lake in this discussion we discussed the dolphins the threats faced by these dolphins and we also saw about the significant features of the Chilika lake and the importance of the Chilika lake with this we come to the end of this news article discussion the respect practice questions will be discussed in the last session moving on to the next discussion which is based on this news article this news article is about the supreme court judgment on extending the benefits of provident fund to the contractual employees so in this context we will be in brief about the concept of provident fund we will discuss about contract employees and what does the law say the syllabus that can be linked to this discussion is given here for your reference so first let us understand the concept of provident fund in this the word provident means planning carefully for the future and provident fund is a fund in which deposits of any classes of employees are received and the deposits are held on their individual accounts so employees are given permission of their salaries to the provident fund and the employers also must contribute on behalf of their employees and after this this money is then controlled by the government and in our country the employees provident fund comes under the employees provident funds and miscellaneous provisions act of 1952 and this scheme is managed under the ages of employees provident fund organization and the employees provident fund act of 1952 covers every establishment in which 20 or more persons are employed in addition to this certain organizations are also covered even if they employ less than 20 persons and this is subject to certain conditions and exemptions so as we saw under the provident fund that employers and employees have to contribute to this fund in the same way under this employees provident fund scheme also an employee has to pay certain contribution towards the scheme and an equal contribution is paid by the employer also and more importantly according to section 12 of this EPF act the employer cannot deduct employers share of PF that is provident fund from the wages of employees and any such deduction is a criminal offense so the advantage of this kind of scheme is that when the employee retires the employee gets a lump sum amount including the amount paid by him and the amount paid by the employer with interest on both so for today's discussion we are not going deep into the scheme now just know that in a company there are two types of employees one is regular employee and the other one is contract employees a regular employee is the one who receives salary directly from the principal employer and all the employees or the persons who are not employed directly by the principal employer but who are employed through the third agency that is who are employed through a contractor are termed as contract employers or contract employees and these workers may be employed with or without the knowledge of the principal employer so this is the background that you should know with respect to provident fund and contract employees now keeping this in mind let us discuss the news article now this news article mentions that the supreme court has said that the benefits of provident fund should be extended to contractual employees this judgment came on the basis of a petition filed by pavan hunts limited which is a government company that provides helicopter services according to this news article a section of the total workforce of the company are contract employees and the company had provided provident fund only to the regular employees so the employees union in the company had sought uniformity in the service conditions among the employees so they also demanded pf for contractual employees because of this demand the company filed the petition in the supreme court so in the final verdict the supreme court had said that the benefits of the provident fund should be extended to the contractual employees now the supreme court has said this based on the epf act of 1952 only because section 2 clause f of the ad defines an employee as any person who is employed for wages in any kind of work whether it could be manual or otherwise any other work and that person could be employed in connection with the work of an establishment or the person who is employed gets wages directly or indirectly from the employer and it also includes any person who is employed by a contractor or through a contractor or in connection with the work of the establishment so from this definition you can see that a person employed by a contractor is also termed as a employee under this act so the act itself says that contract employees or employees drawing salaries indirectly from a company are entitled to provident fund benefits so the supreme court judgment has upheld the law by this verdict the supreme court has provided the required social security benefits to the contract employees so these are the information that you should know with respect to this news article whether we come to the end of this discussion the split practice question will be discussed in the last session moving on to the next discussion this discussion is based on the pulse polio program the syllabus that can be linked to this discussion is given here for your reference this news article mentions that a state level pulse polio drive was launched yesterday at the community health center in Tirunandapuram so what do we mean by pulse polio drive this pulse polio drive is nothing but the pulse polio immunization program in India this program was launched in 1995 and this pulse polio immunization program is commonly known as national immunization days and it is conducted twice in early part of each year and this program was launched in India following the global initiative to eradicate polio this global initiative is the global polio eradication initiative or in short GPEI which was formed in 1988 after the leaders at the world health assembly decided to tackle polio at that time there were 350,000 cases of polio every year so to eradicate polio this global initiative was launched and the goal of this global initiative was initially to eradicate the polio disease by the year 2000 but until now this target has not been achieved yet but today polio is 99.9 percentage eradicated and it remains endemic in only 3 countries in 2019 these 3 countries are Afghanistan Pakistan and Nigeria so for this global initiative a resolution was passed by the world health assembly and India committed to this resolution and subsequently India launched the polio immunization program in 1995 so under this Indian program children in the age group of 0 to 5 years are administered polio drops during the national immunization rounds and during subnational immunization rounds every year and additionally multiple rounds of subnational immunization days have been conducted over the years in the high risk states or high risk areas and this polio immunization program or the PPI program aims to achieve 100% coverage under oral polio vaccine now prior to the introduction of this PPI program in 1995 there were estimated 50,000 polio cases annually in India but after this program the number of cases were reduced and the last polio case in the country was reported in 2011 and thereafter no polio case has been reported in the country after may 2012 also so based on these achievements by India the world health organization removed India from the list of endemic countries with active polio virus transmission in February 2012 and subsequently in March 2014 the regional certification commission of world health organization also certified the southeast Asia region of WHO which includes India as polio free so this means it is a remarkable achievement because in 2009 India accounted for half of the total number of polio cases globally and there were an estimated 2 lakh cases of polio every year in the country in the year 1978 so you can see how severe was the disease in our country so now you may think that in 2012 itself India was removed from the list of endemic countries with active polio virus transmission and even 2014 the region which includes India was declared as polio free world health organization then why suddenly a state level pulse polio drive was launched yesterday now it was launched because even though India had been declared polio free risks still persist because of the circulation of wild polio virus in the neighboring countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan so to maintain the status of polio free the government of India has launched the pulse polio immunization drive again in the country for 3 days and under this drive both level immunization and door to door visits to administer the polio drops to the children who are under the age of 5 will be carried out so this is the reason why this drive has been introduced again so in the context of this editorial it becomes important to know about the polio disease this polio disease is caused by a virus and the virus is polio myelitis and this polio myelitis is a highly infectious viral disease which mainly affects young children under 5 years of age and the effect of this polio myelitis virus on the spinal cord leads to paralysis they are type 1 type 2 and type 3 strains and if you see the transmission of this virus it is transmitted by person to person and it spreads mainly through the fecal oral route and very rarely this virus is transmitted by a common vehicle with for example through contamination of water or food now once this virus gets into the body the virus multiplies through the intestine and from there it invades the nervous system and it can cause paralysis now we are saying it can cause paralysis because only in small proportion of cases the disease causes paralysis and when it is caused it is often permanent so what are the symptoms of this disease the initial symptoms are fever fatigue headache vomiting stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs now even though a small proportion of paralysis still there is no cure for polio and it can be only prevented by immunization and polio is among the small number of limited diseases which can be eradicated and it can be eradicated by using the prevention method of immunization because there is no cure for polio and it can be eradicated because it affects only humans and there is no animal reservoir so if humans are immunized properly then the polio strains can be eradicated if you see in September 2015 the wild polio virus type 2 strain was officially declared eradicated and it is said that since November 2012 the wild polio virus type 3 and has not been detected but if you see the wild polio virus type 1 it still remains in circulation and it is the only wild polio virus that is in circulation because one strain has been eradicated and the other strain has not been detected in November 2012. Now the major concern which is associated with this disease is that as long as a single child remains infected with polio virus children in all countries are at risk of contracting this disease and this polio virus can easily be imported into a polio free country and it can spread rapidly amongst the unimmunized populations. So that is why polio vaccine has to be given multiple times to the children to protect their life. In this line only again our government polio immunization drive. So once this polio is eradicated the world can celebrate the delivery of a major global public good that will benefit all people equally no matter where they live. Not only it will result in a global public good but some studies also found that the eradication of polio would save at least 40 to 50 billion dollars in the low income countries and more importantly the eradication of polio will mean that no child will ever again suffer the terrible effects of lifelong polio paralysis. So in this way our government is working very hard to maintain this polio free status. So these are the information that you should know with respect to polio and polio eradication. With this we come to the end of this discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the last session. Moving on to the next discussion. This news article is about the successful test of the 3500 kilometer range submarine launched ballistic missile which is named as K-4. So in this context we will be discussing in brief about the K-4 ballistic missile. We will discuss about the INS Arihant and also the relevance of the present development. The discussion can be linked to the syllabus that is given here for your reference. First let us discuss about this K-4 missile. This K-4 is a submarine launched ballistic missile or in short SLBM and it has been developed by the defense research and development organization that is DRDO. Now in this SLBM or the submarine launched ballistic missile as the name suggests it is a ballistic missile which can be launched from a submarine and this K-4 is an intermediate range SLBM. It is a 10 meter long missile weighing 20 tons and it is capable of carrying a 1 ton payload up to a range of 3500 kilometer. Now this missile is expected to arm the INS Arihant which is India's first and only operational SSBN. In this SSBN stands for Submersible Ship Ballistic Nuclear. In simple terms SSBN is a nuclear powered ballistic carrying submarine and also know that INS Arihant is the first among the Arihant class of indigenous ballistic missile nuclear submarines and according to some sources India began the advanced technology vessel project in the late 1980s to build nuclear powered submarines. The first SSBN developed as a part of this is the INS Arihant and Indian Navy plans to build a few more nuclear powered submarines in the future. So with the successful induction of INS Arihant India had become a nuclear triad. A nuclear triad means achieving capability to deliver nuclear weapons from air that is by aircraft then from land that is through ballistic missiles and from water that is through submarine launched missiles. So due to the successful induction of INS Arihant India has become a nuclear triad and with this India joined the elite club of USA, Russia China etc. So this is the background about the K-4 missile and INS Arihant. Now today's news is that a test was carried out by DRDO from a submerged pontoon near Vishagapatnam coast. Now when there is a pontoon helps to stimulate the situation of a launch from a submarine that means instead of testing from INS Arihant DRDO has tested the missile by creating a similar environment and according to this news article the most difficult part in launching the missile from the submarine is ejecting the missile from a submerged platform to the surface or to the sea. But this feat or exercise has been successfully achieved by DRDO during this present test. So it is one of the achievements of DRDO. Then if you see the news article it mentions a term circular error probability or in short CEP. This circular error probability is the measure of the precision or accuracy of a weapon system. Simply we can say that it is the radius around the target where a missile may possibly land. So that means if the CEP is smaller then the accuracy of the missile is more. And according to this news article the K-4 missiles have a much better CEP than similar Chinese missiles. So from this discussion we can say that the successful induction of K-4 missiles will increase the capability of INS Arihant to launch nuclear weapons. With this we come to the end of this news article discussion. Moving on to the last discussion for the day which is based on this news article. This news article mentions that students launch satellites using helium balloon. And this helium filled balloon is used by the school students to launch 12 payloads of satellites. These satellites are launched during the National Space Challenge of 2020 which is organized by the National Design and Research Forum. So in this context we will discuss about the helium filled balloons and about the challenge and also about the forum. The syllabus that can be linked to this discussion is given here for your reference. So as we saw as a part of the National Space Challenge the students used helium filled balloons to launch the satellites. The balloon is expected to reach an altitude of 20 kilometers. This helium filled balloon is also known as high altitude balloon. So now a question arises that why helium is used? It is because helium is lighter than air and it is an inert gas or a noble gas and this helium is chemically non-reactive and it is also non-combustible. That is it is not easily flammable or explodable. Therefore it is safer to use helium in the balloons so that payloads can be safely placed in the targeted altitude. And as we discussed in the beginning this helium filled balloon was launched as a part of National Space Challenge of 2020. Now this National Space Challenge gives wonderful opportunity to school students to design, explore and innovate in making own satellites with the guidance of National Design and Research Forum and with the guidance of Space Kids India. We will discuss about these two organizations later in the discussion. Now this Space Challenge is an exclusive competition for school students who are studying 8th to 12th standard all over India. The basic guidance for this challenge will be given by the National Design and Research Forum only to students. And in this challenge, school students are challenged to design small payloads. These payloads should weigh less than 50 g and they should fit inside a 3.8 x 3.8 x 3.8 cm cube. And once the payloads are finished they will be launched into near space. That is they will be launched at an altitude from 20 km to 100 km. And they will be launched in a high altitude balloon which is nothing but the helium and after this the payloads will be retrieved and they will be given back to the respective teams for further study. Now this challenge will require students to use team work creativity to design the payload to fly into near space. And this exclusive space challenge was created to mark the golden jibbly year of 2019-20 of National Design and Research Forum. So what is this forum? This forum is an autonomous forum of the institution of engineers India. This forum promotes research design, development and innovation through collaborative efforts and it is doing this since 1969. And this NDRF plays a major role in deploying engineering and technology services technology system and technology solutions for nation building. So this was in brief about NDRF. Next is the organization which is Space Kids India. It is an organization which creates young scientists for the country. This Space Kids India spreads awareness among children for a borderless world. And this organization creates international experiential learning for students in the field of science, technology, art and culture. Now you may be thinking why we are discussing about these two institution in brief. It is because sometimes in UPSC questions are also asked about some international and national organizations. So you should know at least something about some organization. Like in this context we saw about these two organizations. So just remember this. With this we come to the end of this discussion. The displayed practice question will be discussed in the next session which is the practice questions discussion session. This question is based on polio. Three statements are given and we have to choose the incorrect statement. The first statement is it is caused by a virus which mainly affects young children under 5 years of age. This statement is correct because polio is caused by a highly infectious virus which is known as poliomyelitis and it mainly affects the young children under the age of 5 years only. So this statement is correct. Now since this statement is correct and the question asks for the incorrect statement that means statement one should not be in the final answer. So you can eliminate option A, C and D. So the correct answer to this question is option B 2 and 3 only. Now let us see why these two statements are incorrect. The second statement it spreads through human to human transmission and animal to human transmission. This statement is wrong because this virus is transmitted through human to human transmission and it spreads mainly through the fecal oral route and this virus affects only humans and there is no animal reservoir. That means there is no animal to human transmission that is it is not a zoonotic disease. So this statement is wrong because of it. Then the third statement states once affected it can be cured only by chemotherapy. Now here the word chemotherapy you would have heard with respect to cancer. Chemotherapy is a treatment that is used to treat cancer. So this statement is wrong and it is also wrong because so far there is no cure for polio and it can only be prevented by immunization. So this polio virus can be eradicated only through the prevention method only. So that is why this statement is also wrong. Hence the answer is option B 2 and 3 only. Now this next question is based on helium gas. The question asks why is helium gas used in high altitude balloons. First statement helium is lighter than hydrogen. Now remember that helium gas is used in high altitude balloons because helium is lighter than air. It is not lighter than hydrogen and hydrogen is the only gas which is lighter than helium. So this statement is wrong. Now the second statement states helium is chemically non-reactive and non-combustible gas and more safe to use. Now this is the reason why helium gas is used in high altitude balloons which is not in the case of hydrogen because hydrogen is flammable. So it will not be safe to use that gas. So here the question asks for the correct reasons. So here the second reason is the correct reason. So the final correct answer is option B 2 only. Now this question is based on Iravadi dolphins. First statement, the question in Chilika is considered to be the highest single Lagunal population. Now this statement is correct. This is one of the important features of Chilika Lake. The second statement states the highest population of this species is found in India. Now this statement is wrong. Now because of the first statement you should not think that the highest population of this species is found in India because the highest population is found in Bangladesh which has more than 5800 individuals. Now since the second statement is wrong the question asks for the correct statement. You can eliminate option B and D. Now let us see third statement is correct or not. It is protected by Schedule 1 of Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. This statement is correct. There are many threats to this Iravadi Dolphin such as incidental mortality, habitat loss, degradation of the habitat in life captures etc. So to protect it, it has been placed in the Schedule 1 part 1 of Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. And it is also listed in the Endangered category in the IUCN Red List. So the correct answer to this question is option C 1 and 3 only. Now this next question is based on Employees Provident Fund. The first statement is Employees Provident Fund is mandatory for all establishments in India in which 10 or more persons are employed. Now this statement is incorrect because this fund is mandatory for the establishments in India in which 20 or more persons are employed and this is as per the Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act of 1952. Now the second statement states the contractual workers receiving salary indirectly from the employer are not eligible for Provident Fund scheme. Now this statement is wrong because under the definition of employee in the 1952 act, contractual workers who are receiving salary indirectly from the employer are also employee of an establishment. And even the recent Supreme Court judgment also upheld this 1952 act saying that Provident Fund scheme should extend to contractual workers also. So here both the statements are incorrect and the question asks for the correct statement. So the correct answer to this question is neither 1 nor 2. Now this question is a previous year question which appeared in 2015. The question asks consider the following diseases dipteria chickenpox smallpox which of the above diseases has or have been eradicated in India. Now if you are reading newspaper regularly then you can easily attempt this question and the correct answer to this question is option B3 only because smallpox was eradicated in 1979 itself. The other 2 that is dipteria and chickenpox have not yet been eradicated in India. Now this is also a previous year question which appeared in 2011. This is based on the red data books published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resource which is nothing but a UCN. Now this red data book contain lists of which among the 3 or whether it consists all of them or not. First, entomic plant and animal species present in the biodiversity hotspots. Second, threatened plant and animal species. Third, protected sites for conservation of nature and natural resources in various countries. Now if you see the options given below, 3 is present in 3 options. First let us see whether that third option is correct or not. Whether UCN red list contains protected sites for conservation of nature and natural resources in various countries? No, it does not. So that means they should not be in the final answer so the correct answer to this question is option B 2 only which means it contains threatened plant and animal species. Now this is also a previous year question which appeared in 2014. It is based on Ganges River Dolphins. Other than poaching, what are the possible reasons for declining the population of Ganges River Dolphins? 4 reasons are given construction of dams and barrages on rivers, increase in the population of crocodiles in rivers, getting trapped in fishing nets using of synthetic fertilizers and other agricultural chemicals in crop fields in the vicinity of rivers. Now construction of dams and barrages is one of the reasons. Then obviously getting trapped in fishing nets accidentally is another reason like the Irrawaddy Dolphins. So the final answer should contain 1 and 3. That means either C is correct or D is correct. Now let us see whether statement 2 is correct or not. Increase in the population of crocodiles in the river. Now this statement is wrong because crocodile population has nothing to do with the declining population of dolphins. It is the human activities that are mainly responsible for the population of Ganges River Dolphins. So 2 should not be in the answer. So the correct answer to this question is option C, 1, 3 and 4 only. Now let us see one main question based on GS paper 2. Make in India is one of the flagship initiatives by Government of India to make India as a global manufacturing hub. Critically analyze the progress of Make in India initiative and its contribution towards India's economic growth. Now today's editorial discussion was based on Make in India only. You can take points from that analysis and you can also add your own viewpoints. You can write the answer and post it in the comment section. Your answer will be reviewed and appropriate suggestion will be given in 7 to 10 working days. With this we have come to the end of today's sessions. If you like the video don't forget to like, comment and share and do subscribe to civil service examination preparation.