 A very good evening aspirants. I have a small announcement for you. As you know Shankar Ice Academy is going to start the next prefit batch. This batch is called as prefit rapid morning evening batch. And in this batch the entrance test will be conducted on 20th March of 2022. And don't worry you can attend this test both online and offline. The test will be conducted from 2.30pm to 4.30pm at all Shankar Ice Academy centres and also online as I said. Now this prefit program will start on 28th March of 2022. So in order to facilitate students we have arranged for morning and evening batches in both online and offline formats. The course duration will be for 2 months that is from 28th of March to 29th of May. And on a total you will be having 45 tests. This will also include 3 mock tests. Now as you know the course fees for prefit general program is 2499 rupees. And the course fees for prefit with scholarship based on performance in entrance exam is 1250 rupees which is inclusive of GST. And to know about the registration process you can click the link given in the description box of this video. So these are the last months of your preparation. Take this opportunity and join our prefit rapid batch. Now let us get to the Hindi news analysis. Today we will be covering the Hindi news edition dated 13th of March 2022. And I have taken these news articles for discussion today. These topics have been chosen keeping in mind that prelims are nearing. And plus I have also taken two topics which are also important from the mains perspective. But unfortunately today there will be no previous questions discussion session. But I promise that in my next class I will be covering 3 to 4 previous year questions. Now pay attention to the news article discussion sessions because I have a quiz question at the end. So now let us get to the discussion of today. So we are going to start our news article discussion session with this news article. It talks about the vibrant village program. So this program was announced by the government in the union budget 2020 to 23. And now the news is that government is planning to open the villages along the Chinese border for tourists under this vibrant village program. Now to understand why this decision has been taken by the government. We have to know about this program and we will also see its benefits. See as the name suggests this vibrant villages program is for villages and it is focused on the villages on the borders that is the international border of India. For example India's international border with China, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. And as per today's news the villages along India's China border will be focused and this includes the states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Union Territory of Ladakh. But why border villages are being focused here? See it is because border villages of the country have sparse population and they also have limited connectivity and infrastructure. So they do not have that energetic high-spirited setting like that of a city. In addition to this, villages have difficult terrain, weak transport networks, plus they have suboptimal socio-economic indicators. This is because these border villages are often left out of the developmental benefits which the other parts of the states normally enjoy. Plus we also have to remember that these border population is a strategic asset to the country and they are an important element to maintain the border security. So to maintain them the government of India announced the new vibrant villages program in its union budget for 2022-23. And this program mainly aims to guarantee that these border areas are included in the mainstream gains. And this will be done by initiating the transformation of these border villages in India. But how it will bring transformation in these villages? Now for this five focus areas have been taken. Among this the first focus will be on basic infrastructure. See the primary activities under the project will focus on enhancing the village infrastructure, it will boost road connectivity and it will also establish proper housing and finally it will develop these villages as tourist centers. And the second focus will be on the livelihood of the inhabitants of these villages. So for this there is a need to generate skills and create livelihood opportunities in such villages. Now according to the government this will be done through direct home access to Durdashtan channel and other educational television channels in these villages. And third we know that energy is an important component in any part of development. So the plan also includes provisions to ensure decentralized renewable energy in these border areas. So this will be the third focus and the fourth focus will be on merging the existing schemes with the proposed plan. And this will also include provisions for additional funding. See if you take the schemes focused on rural areas, we have many schemes. We have the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. This is focused on rural employment. Then for rural livelihoods we have the Deen Deyal Antyodhya Yojana which is national rural livelihood mission. And as part of infrastructure development we have the Rural Connectivity Scheme which is Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana and then we have Pradhan Mantri Avas Yojana Gram in. So like this already many schemes are focused on the development of rural areas. So many of these schemes may be merged under this program. For example if you take the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana this scheme aims at enhancing rural road connectivity and the scheme provides connectivity to the habitations which have less connectivity or no connectivity at all. And this in a way helps in the reduction of poverty in these villages because they will promote access to economic services and social services. So this is the aim of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. But just now we saw that under this program also connectivity, especially road connectivity will be enhanced. So this scheme may be brought under this program. So these are some of the other schemes that is focused on rural areas just take note of it. And finally as the fifth focus it will be the regulatory mechanism. See for regular monitoring of this particular program a regular monitoring scheme will be set up by the government and for this the desired outcomes will be defined by the government soon. So by focusing on all these areas the vibrant villages program aims to initiate the transformation of India's border villages and these steps are critical in order to protect the country's sovereignty and it will also avoid any potential conflict with our neighbouring countries. So this will be the first benefit of this scheme and secondly definitely this scheme will help in promoting tourism sector. Why because these border areas are filled with beautiful sceneries. For example if you take the states that border China for example Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, unit area of Ladakh these are all hilly areas and they have scenic beauty. So once the villages in these states and unit territories are opened to the tourists we can even attract tourists from abroad. So this will generate employment thereby helping developing the livelihood of the inhabitants of the village and it will create revenue. And particularly if you look at the news article it proposes to make certain villages as dark sky destinations. So what are these see as you know urban light pollution makes it impossible for us to see the stars and constellations with our naked eye. Why because this light pollution removes the natural dark which is required for us to see the stars and constellations and there are only certain areas around the globe which is naturally dark at night and which are free of light pollution. So star gazers and astronomy enthusiasts visit these places to enjoy the universe and these places will be called as the dark sky destinations. So some villages in the states bordering China will be made as dark sky destinations and definitely these places will be free of light pollution. Now another benefit associated with this program is that it will be promoting inclusive growth. Since connectivity improves accessibility the border villagers will now be able to reap the same benefits like other states or even other parts of their own state. So this in way will promote growth and will lead to development. So these are the few benefits associated with this program and that is all about vibrant villages scheme. So what we saw about this scheme it is focused on the border villages. It aims to transform the border villages for this basic infrastructure will be developed like it will develop road connectivity it will provide proper housing and will also develop the villages as tourist centers. And then direct home access to channels like Durdarshan and other educational television channels will be provided for developing skills. Then decentralized renewable energy in these areas will be provided and along with that the program will be merging the existing schemes and there will also be a regulatory mechanism that will be set up by the government soon. And as part of the benefits we saw that it will help to protect our country's sovereignty it will avoid any potential conflict with the neighboring countries. Then it will promote tourism sector particularly it will help in developing dark sky destinations and then it will also help in inclusive growth. So these are the key facts that you have to remember from this news article discussion. Now let us get to the next discussion. So now let us take up this news article for discussion. What it says it says that Kaila has again achieved in a major health indicator. The news is that Kaila has reduced the maternal deaths in the state and this data is provided by the latest sample registration system special bulletin on maternal mortality in India. This bulletin was released for the period 2017 to 19. See basically sample registration system is a large-scale demographic survey. It provides reliable annual estimates of infant mortality rate birth rate death rate fertility and mortality indicators at the national and subnational levels and on those lines it releases bulletins and now it has released the bulletin on maternal mortality in India for the period 2017 to 19 and note that these bulletins are released by the office of registrar general of India. So in this discussion we will first see the definition of maternal mortality ratio then we will see some global level and national level data regarding the MMR and we will see the key measures taken by the Kaila government in achieving lower maternal mortality ratio and before that the syllabus relevant to this discussion is highlighted here for your reference you can just take note of it. So first what is maternal mortality ratio? See it is the key indicators of maternal mortality. So what is maternal mortality or maternal death mean? According to WHO maternal death is the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy or death of a woman as a result of complications due to childbirth. I note that maternal death is irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy but here the cause of the death should not be accidental or incidental. But why this maternal death occurs? See during pregnancy it occurs due to preeclampsia and eclampsia. These are the conditions that result from high blood pressure during pregnancy and termination of pregnancy is a reason due to unsafe abortion and then childbirth is also a reason because it results in severe bleeding or infections and complications from delivery. So due to all these reasons maternal death happens. Now when the number of maternal deaths during a given time period per 1 lakh live birds during the same time period is calculated it is called as the maternal mortality ratio. So number of maternal deaths per 1 lakh live birds. This is the definition of maternal mortality ratio and remember that we have a sustainable development goal target to reduce global maternal mortality ratio and this is under target 3.1. The target is to reduce maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 1 lakh live birds. So in this regard let us see the global and also the national data on maternal mortality ratio. Now in the global level first we have to look into the WHO's MMR data. According to the trends of MMR the WHO 2017 data says that India had one of the highest numbers of maternal deaths it stood at 145 and WHO also notes that India along with Nigeria accounted for approximately one third that is 35 percentage of all estimated global maternal deaths in 2017. Now if you look at this graph which is from 2001 to 2017 we can say that maternal mortality ratio is reducing in the last decades in our country. Now according to the sample registration system the maternal mortality rate has reduced from 2015 to 17 period to 2016 to 18 period it has reduced from 8.1 to 7.3. So remember maternal mortality ratio should not be confused with maternal mortality rate because in maternal mortality rate in the denominator we mentioned the number of women of reproductive age. But on the other hand in the maternal mortality ratio we mentioned the number of live birds in the denominator. So we can say that maternal mortality rate reflects the risk of maternal death per pregnancy or per birth and along with this it also provides data on level of fertility in the population. But maternal mortality ratio just indicates the risk once a woman becomes pregnant and thus it does not take fertility levels in the population into consideration. So here pay attention now when I said 8.1 to 7.3 I was talking about maternal mortality rate and not the ratio and this is at the national level and during the period 2017 to 2019 the national maternal mortality ratio was 103. So here you can see that during this period MMR is 103 and before that it was 113, 122 and 130 but it was never 145 according to Indian government. But WHO's data says that as of 2017 it was 145. So now let us look at the state-based data. Now from this data you can easily observe that Kerala is way ahead of the national MMR because Kerala's MMR is just 30 whereas national MMR is 103. It is even far less than the 50 percentage of what is at the national level. Further Kerala's MMR has dropped by 12 points. According to the last SRS bulletin that is for the period 2015 to 2017 Kerala had an MMR of 42 and now it has reduced to 30. Now along with Kerala there is another state which has made significant gains. This is the state of Maharashtra. In this state also MMR has reduced from 55 to 38. Now from the given data you can note that the southern states have less maternal mortality ratio. It is less than 90. So we can say that the southern states have performed better regarding maternal mortality ratio. But on the other hand there are also worst performing states in this regard. For example if you take Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan that is those states that are given in this first column almost many of their MMR is above 100 and for Assam shockingly it is above 200. And if you note except for Assam the remaining states are the EEG states that is Empowered Action Group states. See Empowered Action Groups are the states defined by the government and it includes eight states namely Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. And these are the eight socio economically backward states they lag behind in the demographic transition and they are also known for their highest infant mortality rates in the country. And now they also have the highest maternal mortality ratio. So this is the performance of the states. Now what were the measures taken by the Kerala government to reduce maternal mortality ratio? See first of all it developed the quality standards in obstetric care. Obstetric care means the care related to childbirth. Now here the government focused on the management of some common causes of maternal deaths. As I already said severe bleeding which is also called as postpartum haemorrhage and then pregnancy induced hypertension which are called preeclampsia and eclampsia and then sepsis etc. So all these common causes were given attention by the state government of Kerala. And secondly the state also considered depressive disorders such as postpartum depression amongst the young women because this depression leads to suicides among new mothers. Not only it considered depressive disorders but now it is also planning to address these disorders. And thirdly according to the news article Kerala even conducted the maternal near miss orders. So what is maternal near miss MNM? See when a woman survives life-threatening conditions during pregnancy abortion and childbirth or within 42 days of pregnancy termination irrespective of receiving emergency medical or surgical interventions then it will be called maternal near miss. That is the woman has survived. She has missed death. And this maternal near miss audit is done in all districts to analyze the critical events which resulted in the near maternal deaths. And according to the news article Kerala is the only state to have acted upon the operational guidelines for maternal near miss review. As per these guidelines certain procedures are given on how to calculate the maternal near miss and they have also provided preventive measures to be taken and how to estimate the near miss cases etc. So guidelines have been given on this matter. It was released in the year 2014 by the union health ministry and it also paved the way for the involvement of the districts. And it encouraged the private sector involvement in the prevention of maternal mortality. Now if you notice we saw that Kerala developed the quality standards in obstetric care and it managed the common causes of maternal deaths and this was as a part of this maternal near miss audit only. So by taking these measures Kerala has again stood as the best state in the health indicator of maternal mortality So that is all what we saw in the discussion we saw what is maternal death it is the death of a woman during pregnancy within 42 days of abortion or due to childbirth severe bleeding infection high blood pressure complications from delivery unsafe abortion and what is maternal mortality ratio it is the maternal death in a given time period per one like life births and we have a sustainable development goal target 3.1 which aims to reduce MMR to less than 70 per one like life births according to WHO 2017 data India's MMR was at 145 but according to the SRS system of India India's maternal mortality rate reduced from 8.1 to 7.3 on the other hand India's maternal mortality ratio was 103 during 2017 to 19 and among these states Kerala has performed better it has reduced its MMR from 42 to 30 along with this Maharashtra has also performed better and overall southern states have good performance but the EEG states that is empowered action group states have performed worst they have MMR more than 100 and then if you take Assam its MMR is more than 200 and some of the key measures taken by Kerala government was increasing its quality standards in obstetric care it managed the common causes of maternal deaths it also considered depressive disorders during pregnancy and after childbirth and then it also conducted maternal MMR audits so these are the key points that you have to remember from this discussion let us get to the next one now our next discussion is going to be based on this news article from the science page it talks about spicules on the sun see the news is that the formation of spicules on the sun has been explained by a team of interdisciplinary researchers from India and United Kingdom now this team was led by the astronomers from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bangalore now they used laboratory experiments as an analogy to describe the formation of solar spicules so that was the news and since problems is nearing I am going to tell you what are the solar spicules and before that we will see the different layers of sun see as you know sun is our closest star and it comprises of different layers it has the core radiative zone and convection zone and the outer layers include the photosphere the chromosphere the transition region and the corona you can see these in this map now here the surface of the sun is located in this convection zone only now the area which is 250 miles above from this surface of the sun is what is called as photosphere and the area from 250 miles to 1300 miles is called as chromosphere and the area from 1300 miles to above that is called as corona now one of the basic components of solar chromosphere is spicules so what are these spicules they are nothing but a dynamic jet of plasma in the sun's chromosphere so remember spicules are a part of chromosphere of the sun see they are a jet of dense gas which are ejected from the sun's chromosphere so at any given moment as many as 10 million wild jets of solar material burst from the sun's surface that is they rise like forests from the sun's chromosphere and they pierce the sun's atmosphere or corona now from earth these spicules may seem like small lines but it is not so a typical spicule maybe 4,000 to 12,000 kilometers long and it will be 300 to 1,000 kilometers wide and these spicules last for 15 minutes and they extend up to 10,000 kilometers now these spicules are the structures believed to transport the momentum to the solar wind and they are also believed to provide heat to the solar corona so remember this spicule can be a million degrees Celsius hotter than the chromosphere itself so where can we find these spicules on the sun they are found at high magnetic flux regions but the issue here is these tenuous structures are difficult to study from earth because our telescope's vision is frequently blurred by the atmosphere so there have been many attempts to theoretically explain how spicules are created and one such experiment was done by the researchers from india and united kingdom which is mentioned in the news so these are few facts that you have to know about the sun's different layers particularly about spicules now let us get to the next discussion so our next discussion is going to be an important one it is based on this feq article so this article is again concerned with the russia's armed invasion of ukraine but don't worry we are not going to see what led to the war and what are the measures taken by ukraine and russia rather today we are going to focus on a different perspective as you know there is a steady increase in hostile situation in ukraine and in many cases civilian infrastructure and even the non-combatants have been impacted here non-combatants would mean the civilians army chaplain and even the army doctors now the worrying factor here is that russian president vladimir putin has denied any responsibility for harming the civilians but we know that the casualties in ukraine are increasing so it is expected by the international experts that world will resort to geneva conventions see geneva convention is nothing but a set of principles which outlines the norms for combatant behavior during a war so in this discussion we are going to see what are these geneva convention and we'll also see the war crimes and the punishments for it under the convention and take note that these are the syllabus areas under which this topic comes now let us start our discussion see first what is geneva convention in the year 1949 an international conference of diplomats happened and they built upon the earlier treaties for the protection of war victims so they revised and updated earlier treaties into four new conventions and these conventions comprise totally of 429 articles of law and these together that is the four new conventions comprising 429 articles is what is known as the geneva conventions of august 12 1949 plus there is also additional protocols that supplement the geneva conventions these additional protocols are the protocols of 1977 and 2005 so now when does the geneva convention apply see these conventions apply in all cases of declared war or in any other armed conflict between nations they also apply in cases where a nation is partially or totally occupied by soldiers of another nation they also apply when there is no armed resistance to the occupation by soldiers of another nation now most importantly nations which ratify the geneva convention must abide by certain humanitarian principles and they should impose legal sanctions against those who violate these conventions so now let us see these conventions one by one now the first geneva convention it is the geneva convention for the amelioration of the condition of wounded and sick in armed forces in the field yes it was adopted in 1949 and this convention protects soldiers who are or the combo see or the combo is a french term which means out of the battle that is it protects the soldiers who are out of the battle and this convention has 64 articles and in this regard it protects wounded and sick soldiers it also protects medical personnel facilities and equipment it protects wounded and sick civilian support personnel who are accompanying the armed forces and it also protects the military chaplains see as you know chaplains have the responsibility to perform religious rites conduct worship services and they also provide confidential counseling and the military chaplains are the ones who are commissioned officers and they are stationed wherever there are military members so they are even stationed in a combat environment so in this regard these chaplains advise commanders on religious spiritual and moral matters see this is important because the soldiers will be seeing bloodshed on a daily basis so to save them from the trauma this becomes important now in addition to military chaplains the convention also protects the civilians who spontaneously take up arms to repel an invasion so this was the first convention now the second convention it is a convention for the amelioration of the condition of wounded sick and shipwrecked members of the armed forces at sea this was also adopted in 1949 and note that this is similar to the first convention but it will reflect the conditions at sea so it will protect the wounded and sick combatants who were onboard a ship or who were at sea and this convention has 63 articles and in this regard it applies to the armed force members who are wounded sick or shipwrecked it applies to hospital ships and medical personnel in the ships and it also applies to the civilians who accompany the armed forces in the ship now comes the third convention it is the Geneva convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war so you can say that this convention sets out specific rules for treatment of prisoners of war so who are prisoners of war this could include the members of armed forces volunteer militia including resistance movements then civilians who are accompanying the armed forces they all will be considered as prisoners of war and this third convention has 143 articles and it requires that the prisoners of wars must be treated humanely so on those lines they should be adequately housed they should receive sufficient food clothing and medical care and this convention also has established certain guidelines on labor discipline recreation and criminal trial so this was the third convention on prisoners of war now comes the fourth convention it is the Geneva convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war so it protects the civilians in areas of armed conflict and occupied territories it has 159 articles now here the protection in the sense means civilians are to be protected from murder torture or brutality they should also be protected from discrimination on the basis of race nationality religion or political opinion in addition to this the civilian hospitals and their staff are to be protected and then the safety honor family rights religious practices manners and customs of civilians are to be protected under this convention so you can understand that here protection of civilian person would not just mean the bodily protection but also protecting their safety honor and their rights and practices so this was the brief about all the four Geneva conventions which were adopted in the year 1949 now take note of these conventions and what is it about and note that who it applies to it will be helpful for you in your problems and main examination but i said that these conventions were supplemented by protocols now there are three protocols two protocols were adopted in the 1977 it was adopted by an international diplomatic conference to give greater protection to victims of both international armed conflicts and internal armed conflicts and then the third additional protocol was adopted in 2005 let us see about these protocols briefly now the first protocol or the protocol one it is the protocol additional to the Geneva conventions and relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts see this protocol expands protection for the civilian population as well as military and civilian medical workers when there is a international armed conflict now the protections are provided for women children and civilian medical personnel and the measures of protection for journalists are also specified in this protocol now the second protocol or the protocol two is the one relating to the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts now this protocol elaborates protections for victims who are caught up in high intensity internal conflicts such as civil wars but note that this protocol does not apply to the internal disturbances such as riots demonstrations and isolated acts of violence so this protocol expands and complements the non-international protections which are contained in article three see this article three consists of provisions relating to conflicts not of an international character now the last protocol is protocol three it is relating to the adoption additional distinctive emblem and this protocol provides for the emblem of the red crystal see while drafting the Geneva convention of 1864 those who drafted the convention foresaw the need for a universal symbol of protection and this symbol must be easily recognizable on the battlefield so in the honour of origin of this initiative the symbol of a red cross on a white background was identified as a protective emblem in conflict areas and then later in a diplomatic conference in 1929 a red crescent was also recognized as a protective emblem and then by the 2005 protocol governments adopted the third emblem of red crystal these are the emblems so overall we saw about the Geneva conventions and the protocols now note that the Geneva conventions have been ratified by all the member states of united nations but on the other hand the additional protocols have not yet reached the same level of acceptance actually these three protocols have been ratified only by 174 countries 169 countries and 79 states respectively but note India is not a state party to any of these protocols now we are talking about these Geneva conventions and the protocols on the context of war crimes but as you know there is no one single document in the international law that codifies all war crimes but we still have certain statutes that provide a basis for war crimes and punishment for it yes here I am talking about the Rome statute of the international criminal code especially under article 8 it defines war crimes as you know international criminal code has jurisdiction in respect of war crimes now under this statute war crimes refers to the grave breaches of Geneva conventions that is any of the acts that I am going to say now if they are conducted against persons or properties which are protected by the provisions of the Geneva conventions then it will be considered as war crimes so what are these actions first one will be willfully killing someone second torture or inhuman treatment including biological experiments on humans then will fully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health then extensive destruction and appropriation of property then compelling a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of hostile power then taking of hostages all these will constitute as war crimes so these actions are considered to be war crimes according to this ICC Rome's tattoo but don't forget that we are discussing this topic with respect to Russia especially the war crimes committed by Russia as you know the US vice president Kamala Harris has already called for an investigation into the allegations of Russia committing war crimes in Ukraine we can say there are examples for this for example Russia has bombed the maternity hospital in the southern city of Maripole in Ukraine then we have also seen the photographic evidence and video evidence of lethal firing on civilians who are trying to escape the war-ridden areas and there are also cell phone videos which show footages of bombed out schools houses and apartment buildings across Ukraine now definitely we can say that these are war crimes because these are willful killing but the analysts who are seeing this they are arguing that this evidence does not answer the central question of war crime prosecution so what is the central question it is who ordered which crime see the evidence that is required to answer this question should include information on orders received from commanding officers or by the president or even video or audio evidence of attacks executed and the aftermath so this is needed to prosecute the person who has committed the war crimes but on the face of it we can definitely say that Russia is violating the 4th Geneva Convention which protects civilian persons in times of war this is not the only example in the world there are many examples in the past for example the bombing of Raka in Syria which was conducted by US led coalition as an example this act left more than 1600 civilians dead and then Russian forces destructed the civilian infrastructure and lives of people in Aleppo and Idlib this led to mass displacement of millions and how can we forget Yemen here is where Saudi Arabian UAE led coalition killed and injured thousands of civilians which led to the humanitarian crisis of Yemen so all these are the crimes or the actions that violates the 4th Geneva Convention because they are the crimes against civilian persons especially in time of war now these examples also prove the fact that the Geneva Conventions even when they are backed by ICC rulings they cannot be enforced by third parties to any conflict here third party would mean the one who is not involved in the conflict but can we say these conventions and the protocols are not effective at all we cannot because in the past they have proven to be effective at raising global awareness of human rights violations across conflict zones and in some cases there have also been sanctions or trade restrictions against the aggressive participants of the conflict so let us wait and see what the international forum does in the case of Russia Ukraine war whether they could find any evidence regarding the war crimes and whether they are able to prosecute anyone now from exam perspective what you have to notice there are four Geneva Conventions and three protocols that supplement these conventions remember the definition of war crimes and remember that violating Geneva Conventions is what is called as war crimes so these are few facts that you have to remember from exam perspective now let us get to the next discussion now our next discussion is going to be based on this news article from the business page it says that two entities are going to start a domestic bullion spot exchange the two entities are national stock exchange of india limited and the india bullion and dwellers association and this bullion spot exchange will be set up as per sebi guidelines and according to the news article such a exchange offers a platform to the industry players for conducting spot bullion transactions and this joint initiative will also provide an opportunity to investors and consumers to directly participate on the exchange so in this regard let us learn about bullion spot exchange first of all what is a bullion see in general bullion is a physical precious metal that is pure or nearly pure after being refined so coins and bars of precious metals such as gold silver platinum and palladium are considered bullion this is the general scenario but officially bullion is gold silver or platinum with at least 99.5 percentage or 99.9 percentage purity and they are in the form of bars or ingots now if you take gold to create bullion first gold must be discovered by mining companies and removed from the earth in the form of gold ore this gold ore is a combination of gold and mineralized rock now this gold is then extracted from the ore with the use of chemicals or extreme heat and the resulting pure bullion is called as parted bullion now when the bullion contains more than one type of metal it will be called as unparted bullion now what are the uses of a bullion see it is often kept as a reserve asset by governments and central banks and it is used to protect against inflationary effects plus they can also be considered as legal tender and note that approximately 20 percentage of the mined gold is held by central banks worldwide and this gold is held as bullions and reserves so banks use these bullions to settle international debt or to stimulate the economy through gold lending so now what about the bullion spot exchange now to understand that let us know what is a spot exchange see in India spot exchanges refer to electronic trading platforms which facilitate the purchase and sale of specific commodities now here the commodities could include agricultural commodities metals and bullions and these are done by providing spot delivery contracts in these commodities that is they are ready delivery contracts that is why they are called as spot exchanges now here if you take gold spot exchange it enables the sale and purchase of physical gold with immediate settlement that is the delivery of gold and cash to the buyer and the seller immediately now this gold spot bullion focuses on price discovery and it provides the entire ecosystem around physical deliveries so it is expected that the bullion spot exchange or some sources even say it is going to be gold spot exchange of India it will be different from futures exchange of India because the futures exchanges primarily used to hedge against gold price risk and they make trading gains from gold price movement now if it is going to be a gold spot exchange it will be crucial for India because India is the second largest consumer of gold and also note that this will be the first time that a domestic bullion spot exchange is being set up under the aegis of sebi now what are the benefits of such a bullion spot exchange see first one is transparency bullion spot exchanges are expected to ensure complete transparency in the bullion transactions that are executed on its platform secondly such exchanges are conceptualized taking into consideration the industry requirements and they also integrate transactions of bullion dealers, jewellers, retailers and consumers on one single platform and finally such exchanges offers confidence to the investors about the quality of metal that is being delivered through the exchange platforms so these are the key benefits of bullion spot exchange now just for information know that there are three major commodity spot exchanges that are operating in India they are national spot exchange limited the national commodity and derivatives exchange and then reliance spot exchange so these are few facts that you need to know about bullion spot exchange now with this information let us get to the next discussion now before starting with the practice questions discussion i have taken this advertisement that has appeared in today's edition now i have taken this advertisement because it is not very often that we get chance to discuss history so sometimes these advertisements talk about places of historical significance some objects of historical significance so when that appears in news articles or advertisements you can take that opportunity to go and revise that topic so if you take this advertisement on Maharashtra as you can see it talks about its historical caves which includes Ajanta caves Ellora caves Pandavlini caves Karla bhaja and even several other caves in the state plus it also talks about some of the important protected areas in the state for example Sanjay Gandhi national park chandoli national park the doba national park pinch national park so as a revision you can just refer to your nct for the historical caves and you can refer to government websites to know about these protected areas and can revise regarding protected areas what you need to know is whether it is spread across one or two districts is there any river flowing through it or a prominent species in that protected area etc and from this you can also easily know which protected areas are located in Maharashtra so now with this let us get to the first question now this first question is about the vibrant villages program it is a two statement question first statement is the concept of vibrant villages program is to improve the living condition for the people living near the line of control now this statement is incorrect because this program focuses on developing the border areas and as of now the government has announced that it will be developing the villages in the northern borders and today's news was that it will be developing certain villages near the northern borders with china so first statement is incorrect now the second statement the program focuses on improving the social and financial infrastructure in these border villages now this statement is correct we saw that during the discussion now here be careful the question asks for the incorrect statements so the correct answer is option a one only now let us take the next question spicules sometimes seen in news is with reference to which of the following so this is a direct question we have to choose from one of these options option a an unidentified flying object option b an asteroid option c a jet of dense gas ejected from the sun's chromosphere option d an object in kuiper belt now we know that spicules are related to sun's chromosphere so the correct answer is option c now this next question is based on bullion spot exchange first statement is agricultural commodities can be traded in bullion spot exchange now this is incorrect because the name itself mentions bullion and we saw that bullion means coins and bars of precious metals such as gold silver platinum and palladium so only bullion can be traded here not agricultural commodities so first statement is incorrect now the second statement it offers confidence and transparency about the quality of commodity purchased this statement is correct this is the main benefit of bullion spot exchange now here the question asks for the correct statements so the correct answer to this question is option b two only so these three questions now let us take up this quiz question read each statement carefully it is a three statement question now if you arrive at the correct answer post the answer in the comment section i will tell you whether your answer is right or not now those who are unable to arrive at the correct answer please go back to the discussion listen to it and then try to solve this question so with this quiz question let us take up this mains practice question interested aspirants can write answer to this question and post it in the comment section and whenever we get time we'll review your answer so viewers today we have come to the end of hindi news analysis and practice question discussion sessions so don't forget to like comment and share and subscribe to our channel for receiving regular updates thank you