 A very good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankarae's Academy. Today's date is 30th of August 2022. So before getting into the list of articles, I have an announcement for you. See the pre-storming test series batch one is going to start in Ananahar. Starts on 12th of September 2022 and the first test will be on 19th of September 2022. The series will be covering 66 tests which also includes general studies, CSAT and three mock tests. All the tests will be conducted in offline mode on the scheduled dates from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. followed by live discussion from 4 30 p.m. to 7 30 p.m. The students who missed the offline test can take the test after two days in online and they will be provided with recorded discussions. The availability of online mode test is until our mock test before Praline's 2023 examination. The explanation key will also be provided to the students. So with this announcement displayed here or the list of news articles that we are going to discuss today, let's get into the first news article discussion. Now let us take up this open article for our news article discussion. See in this article the author has discussed about how the state's finances have a greater impact on centers budget. Through this, the author explores the recent issues in the fiscal federalism. Here, author's opinions are important because he is advisor to the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council. So in this news article discussion, we'll see what is fiscal federalism, the issues in it, as cited by the author and what needs to be done to resolve the issues. Now let us first look at the term fiscal federalism. What does the term mean? See in the context of India, it refers to financial relation between the union and the state governments. See it generally deals with how the revenues and expenditures are shared by the two governments. Now regarding the fiscal relation between the center and the state, the author has pointed out three recent issues that needed immediate attention. So let us briefly see what these issues are and the suggestions of the author to address them. Firstly, the issue of goods and services tax that is GST is taken up. See the concern in GST includes mainly the rate structure. Here, rate structure means the different slabs of GST. See as you all know, in India GST rate for various goods and services is divided into four slabs. They are 5%, 12%, 18%, and 28%. You should note that there has been growing calls from the states to simplify GST into three slabs for promoting ease of doing business. Many proposals were made in this regard, but currently GST council is considering a three-tier GST structure of 8%, 18% and 28%. From this, you can understand that they are aiming to increase the lowest tax slab from 5% to 8%. Other than this, the inclusion and exclusion of commodities is also an issue of friction between the center and the states. That is inclusion and exclusion of commodities from one GST tax bracket to another is a problem here. See, recently you would have heard about the inclusion of essential commodities under the GST regime. It was done to increase the revenue collection. For example, take rice, it is an essential commodity. Before July 2022 only branded rice attracted GST tax rate of 5%. But from July 2022 onwards, even the unbranded rice will attract a 5% GST when they are pre-packed and labeled for selling. The same change is done for unbranded pulses, wheat and flour as well. This change has caused issue between the center and states because the change has increased the price of these essential commodities. Additionally, when we talk about GST, the major problem between the center and the state is the GST compensation. See, as you know, GST compensation concluded on June 30, 2022, but states like Tamil Nadu are asking for an extension of compensation. So this also triggers the center. So overall, the issue in GST among center and status tax rate, inclusion or exclusion of commodities and finally the compensation issue. Now regarding this, author has pointed out the importance of GST council in resolving that issue. See, since a proper institutional mechanism is already in place in the name of GST council, according to the author, problems relating to GST mechanism can be addressed effectively only through GST council. Now let us come to the second problem. It is regarding the state level expenditure patterns, especially relating to the welfare schemes. This is much relevant in light of the recent freebies issue. The argument is the states are excessively spending for the welfare schemes. So here you might get a doubt what these schemes have to do with fiscal fudgism. See, schemes need money. So the states have to spend. Sometimes they borrow and spend for welfare schemes. This increases the depth to GSTP ratio of states. Such high depth to GSTP ratio lowers the fiscal position of the states. Now again, you may ask why this worries the center. It is because this has impact on the depth to GDP ratio of the country as a whole, which in turn affects India's credit rating. So this was the second issue. Now coming to the third one, it is the issues in implementation of centrally sponsored scheme by the states. See, in India, certain centrally sponsored schemes fiscal burdens are shared by the states too. So it leads to fiscal strains in states budget. Now from issue two and three, we can understand the emphasis is on states expenditure mainly regarding the expenditure for welfare schemes. Author suggests to divide the expenditure of the states into two categories and prioritize spending accordingly. In the first category mandatory spending is listed, which includes expenditure on education, health, etc. See, these are essential. So needs to be prioritized and spending cannot be reduced in these part. But in the second category, discretionary expenditure is included. The expenditure is called discretionary when it is governed by annual or other periodic appropriations. See, the aim of discretionary public expenditure is to stimulate the economy during period of excess slack. So authors suggest to reduce this expenditure and only take it up for short period of time during the time of need. Now the second suggestion is to go for subnational fiscal correction. Here the subnational fiscal correction refers to the fiscal consolidation of states finances. Fiscal consolidation is nothing but the ways and means of narrowing the fiscal deficit. Other than this, the following measures can also be done like expenditure prioritization need to be done diligently by both levels of the government. Also institutional mechanisms for solving these fiscal problems between the center and the state need to be revitalized. For example, the Interstate Council constituted under article 263 of the constitution needs to be rejuvenated where it could act as a medium for solving the fiscal issues between center and the states. So these are also some of the important points that you have to make note of from this news article discussion. So in this news article discussion, we saw in detail about what is fiscal federalism and we saw the three recent issues which needs immediate attention. Apart from discussing the issues, we also saw some of the suggestions given by the author. So these learnt points. Now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now take a look at this news article. See, according to this news article, the Metra's High Court has directed the Tamil Nadu government to geo-reference all the wetlands in the state. After geo-referencing, the court has asked to superimpose the geo-reference on satellite imagery of the 24,684 wetlands mapped in the state under the National Wetland Inventory and Assessment that is NWIA Initiative. Okay? The government has asked the Tamil Nadu government to do this exercise so that the exact location of the wetlands could be identified and their present status could be determined. Only after finding their exact location and present status, they can be notified under the Wetlands Conservation and Management Rules 2017. So this is about the news article given here. In this context, let us know about water wetlands, what is geo-reference and a few facts about National Wetland Inventory and Assessment that is NWIA. First, let us begin with water wetlands. See, wetlands or areas where water is the primary factor that controls the environment and the associated plants and animal species. Okay? According to Ramser Convention, wetlands include area of marsh, fin, peatland, natural or artificial water bodies, temporary or permanent water bodies, lakes, rivers, brackish water and finally marine water and the depth of the marine water at low tide does not exceed 6 meters. So wetlands includes all type of water bodies but the only condition here is water is the primary controlling factor that controls the environment and the associated plants and animal species. Okay? Now having seen the basics about wetlands, now let us see about what is geo-referencing. See geo-referencing is the process of assigning locations to geographical objects within a geographic frame of reference. To put it in simple words, geo-referencing involves assigning exact geographical coordinates to an object in a map or a digital image. So the process of geo-referencing involves taking a digital image. It could be an air photo, a scanned geologic map or a place of a topographic map and adding geographic information to the image. Now look at this image. This is a geo-referenced scanned map of South India. Here real world coordinates that is the geographical coordinates or assigned to each pixel of the scanned map. The geographical coordinates can be found at the bottom here. See the news article said the Madras High Court has directed the Tamil Nadu government to geo-reference all the wetlands in the state, right? Why is the court asking the Tamil Nadu to do that? This is because if the wetlands in the state of Tamil Nadu are properly geo-referenced, a digital database can be created. This database can be used to prevent encroachment of wetlands. So that's all about geo-referencing. Now finally let's see a few facts about national wetland inventory and assessment. See NWIA is a national level wetland inventory created by the Space Application Center Ahmadabad. Here SAC or the Space Application Center comes under ISRO. CSAAC is involved in using the resources of ISRO for national and social benefits. Likewise using data from the remote sensing satellites of ISRO, the SAC created a wetland inventory for India. As a part of this exercise SAC in 2010 released the national wetland atlas. Look at this image. This is the wetland atlas of District of Tiruvallur in Tamil Nadu. The issue with the national wetland atlas is the scale. See the Tiruvallur map is drawn at the scale of 1 is to 10. That is 1 centimeter on map is 10 kilometer on ground. So this is not very accurate. When this map is properly geo-referenced as instructed by the Madras High Court the accuracy can be increased vastly. So that's all about NWAI. So in this news article discussion we saw about what are all the wetlands. Then we saw about geo-reference how geo-reference actually works and then we saw about national wetland inventory and assessment initiative. So with these learnt points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Have a look at this news article. This news article talks about the scheme for economic empowerment of denotified nomadic semi-nomadic tribes. In short the scheme is called as SEED. See for the implementation of this scheme the union social justice ministry has been allocated 200 crore rupees. Now the problem is none of the applications received so far under SEED's online portal has been approved yet. The reason that the official site for this delay is the delay in categorization of all 1400 communities under the scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and other backward classes into these groups. See the categorization of DNT's NTS and SNT's is essential for the implementation of SEED because there is no separate schedule in the constitution provided for their reservation right. So the state governments were asked to uniformly categorize these communities under scheduled cast, scheduled tribes or other backward caste lists and then provide a sub-categorization in their certificates declaring them as either DNT, NT or SNT. Okay so this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context let us see who are denotified tribes or DNT's. We'll see about their culture and tradition, livelihood, their status in India and then we'll discuss how SEED will empower them. Okay before that the syllabus relevant to this news article is highlighted here for a reference just go through it. First let us start with who are denotified tribes or DNT's. See denotified tribes or DNT's or communities that were notified as being born criminal during the British regime under a series of laws starting with the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. So through a series of laws starting with the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 a number of acts were enforced by the British Raj between 1871 and 1947. All these acts notified certain communities as criminals by birth. Later these acts were repealed by the independent Indian government in the year 1952 and these communities were formally denotified. Okay now what you have to note here is a few of these communities which were listed as denotified were also nomadic. I hope you know the meaning of nomadic. Here nomadic and semi-nomadic communities are defined as those who move from one place to another rather than living at one place all the time. Here the distinction between nomads and semi-nomads just lies in the degree of mobility practiced by them. For example the duration distance and frequency of movement is short for semi-nomads when compared to nomads. Okay so now coming to the culture and tradition of denotified nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes. See they have diverse ideological patterns, culture, political and social lifestyles. Most importantly they have a very traditional customs and their practices have an ancient heritage. Then they have their own gods and goddesses. Likewise their own festivals and celebrations are also diversified. See the social and cultural characteristics of nomadic communities are closely related with their economic activities. For example most of the families move in groups of five to twenty with a senior member who is responsible for settling disputes and he or she leads the group. And in some communities there is a system of meeting on annual customary camping where reunions, marriages and even cattle trading takes place. And remember in the case of India large majority of denotified and nomadic communities are primarily patriarchal. Okay then when we talk about their livelihoods they are nomadic which means they move from place to place for making tools and utensils supplying basic goods like salt, wool, providing medicines and herbs and even for entertaining people. So with their skills and ability to travel for long distances with their kin they provide essential goods and services to sedentary agrarian communities. And historically nomadic tribes and denotified tribes never had access to private land or home ownership. These tribes used forest and grazing lands for their livelihood and residential use. Because of this these communities had strong ecological connections and the current changes in ecology and environment seriously affect their livelihood options. Okay now coming to their status in India see it has been estimated that South Asia has the world's largest nomadic population. In India roughly 10% of the population is denotified and nomadic. While the denotified tribes have almost settled in various states of the country the nomadic communities they still continue to be largely nomadic in pursuit of their traditional professions. Okay so the government in the year 2014 had constituted national commission for denotified nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes which is in short called as NCDNT. They worked for a period of three years and they worked to prepare a statewide list of cast belonging to denotified and nomadic tribes. Also the commission worked to suggest appropriate measures in respect of denotified and nomadic tribes that may be undertaken by the central government or the state government. Okay earlier in the year 2008 also there was this Renke commission to identify and list the D&D communities. And then in the year 2019 a development and welfare board for denotified nomadic and semi-nomadic communities has been constituted. This is for development and welfare of denotified nomadic and semi-nomadic communities. Okay lastly let us see how this seed scheme will empower them. See firstly know that this scheme is for the empowerment of denotified nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes. This scheme is formulated for families having income from all sources of Rs. 250,000 or less per annum and they should not avail any benefits from similar schemes of central government or the state government. Okay this scheme is for a period of five years starting from the financial year 2021 to 2022 to 2025 to 2026. Okay and it has four components. First is to provide coaching of good quality for D&D, NT or S&T candidates. This is to enable them to appear in competitive examinations. Secondly is to provide health insurance to D&T, NT and S&T communities. Third is to facilitate livelihood initiative at community level. This component is to build and strengthen small clusters of D&T, NT and S&T communities institutions. And the last component is to provide financial assistance for construction of houses to the members of the D&T, NT or S&T communities. Okay so remember the scheme will be implemented through a portal developed by the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment and this scheme comes under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. As I already said for the implementation of this scheme, Rs. 200 crore were allocated and it is expected that the SEED scheme will empower the denotified tribes. But the news article reports that there is delay in categorization and because of that applications received on the SEEDs online portal has not been approved yet. So government has to keep a check on this and make sure the funds allocated is wisely used for the needy. So in this news article discussion we saw in brief about denotified tribes or D&Ts and we saw in detail about SEED initiative. So with these learnt the points now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Now take a look at this news article. See the news article says the IAF is set to receive its first unit of indigenous light combat helicopters that is LCH in Jaipur in the first week of October. See while the Indian Army plans to acquire 95 LCH the IAF is still working out the total number of LCH to be acquired. So this is about the news article given here. In this context let us see some of the important points about LCH in preliminary perspective. First let us see when the need for LCH was realized by India. See during the Kargil conflict of 1999 the absence of an attack helicopter which could operate in ultra high altitude areas was felt acutely by the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force. At that time India operated Russia made MI-17 helicopters and the MI-17 helicopters were not designed to operate at greater heights. Due to this itself the Pakistani army intruded into our side of the LOC. So after the war the government started taking measures to develop indigenous LCH. In 2006 the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited that is HAL announced its intention to develop a LCH which could operate in the harsh desert conditions as well as the high altitude areas of Ladakh including the CH in Malaysia. So with this basic information now let us see some of the features of LCH. See the LCH is designed and developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited that is HAL which we saw earlier. It is an indigenous helicopter containing 45 percentage of indigenous content by value. The LCH is powered by two Shakti engines. It has a maximum takeoff weight of 5800 kilogram. The LCH has a maximum speed of 268 kilometer per hour and it has a range of 550 kilometer. It has an operation ceiling of 6.5 kilometers that is the LCH can operate up to the height of 6.5 kilometers. The LCH has several stealth features armor protection and night attack capabilities and it is equipped with air to air and air to ground missiles and it also has a 20 mm gun and 70 mm rockets. These are some of the features of the LCH. Finally let us see the role that the LCH will play once it is deployed. See as the LCH can operate in high altitude conditions the army is planning to deploy the LCH for combat roles in the mountains. It will be mainly deployed in the eastern command along the LAC. Secondly due to the LCH ability to fly at low height at a very greater speed it can be used in the anti-tank operations by the army. Thirdly due to its stealth capability it can also be used to scout enemy presence and relay useful information to the army. Fourthly the LCH is also suitable for air defense roles and destruction of enemy air defense assets like the surface to air missiles. And finally the LCH can also be used in urban warfare missions and combat search and rescue operations. So these are some of the important points about light combat helicopters very important topic make note of it. In this news article discussion we saw about some of the important features of LCH and we also saw about the role that the LCH will play once it is deployed. So with these learned points we came to the end of the news article discussion now let us move on to the next part of the news article discussion which is the preliminary practice questions. See today we have two preliminary practice questions and there is no quiz question for you today. Now look at this first question let me read out the question which one of the following is an artificial lake. Option A Kodaikanal, Option B Kulleru, Option C Nainital and Option D Renuka. See the correct answer for the question is option A Kodaikanal. See Kodaikanal is a man-made lake located in the Kodaikanal city in the Nikal district in Tamil Nadu. Kulleru lake is present in Andhra Pradesh and it is the largest freshwater lake of India between the deltas of Krishna and Godavari river. Nainital, it is located in Uttarakhand it is situated in the foothills of the Himalayas. Then coming to Renuka, see this lake is located in Himajal Pradesh. So the correct answer for the question is option A Kodaikanal. Now moving on with reference to India's defense consider the following helicopters. First one is Cheetah, second one is Cheetak, third one is Rudra which of the above has Torrent gun, rocket system and air to air missile. See the correct answer for the question is option D 3 only. See Rudra is the weaponized version of the advanced light helicopter named Dhruv. It was designed and developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd that is HAL and it was developed to meet the requirements of Indian Army and Air Force. This multi-role helicopter of 5.8 ton class is powered by two Shakti engines and it has 20 mm torrent gun. Apart from this it also has 70 mm rocket system along with air to air missile. So the correct answer for the question is option D 3 only. Now moving on the questions displayed here or the main question for you today just go through the questions write an answer and post the answer in the comment section. So with this we came to the end of the news article discussion. If you like the video hit like, do comment and don't forget to subscribe to Shankar Reyes Academy YouTube channel. Thank you.