 A very good evening aspirants, welcome to the Hindu news analysis brought to you by Shankar Iyer's Academy for the day 18th of November 2021. So these are the list of news articles that we have chosen for today's discussion and they are provided along with the page numbers of different editions and also the link for the handwritten notes in PDF format and the time stamping of the discussed articles is given below. So without wasting much time, come let us get into our discussion. Now let us take up this news article. It reports about a leak in the pipeline which carries fly hash and as per the news article here, due to the leak that has happened, the fly hash is found to make its way into the Koses Talayar. See this Koses Talayar is one of the three rivers that flow in the Chennai metropolitan area. So this is the news here. Now based on this context, let us quickly learn some important facts about the fly hash based on which this particular news article is written. See we all know that coal is the dominating fuel source which is used in the thermal power plants where it comes to the generation of electricity. So at these coal fired thermal power plants, what happens is the raw coal will first be crushed to the shape of flour and only then it is force fed into the furnace and this crushing process is referred to as a pulverization process. So what happens is during this process the clay particles which are entrapped in the cracks of coal, they get separated from the coal and then on the combustion of coal in the furnace, these clay particles along with other non-combustible matter, they will result in the production of coal ash and this coal ash which is produced at the coal fired thermal power plants is generally classified into two types and they are the fly ash and the bottom ash. So to put it simply, the fly ash is nothing but a byproduct that is gained from the burning of coal in the electric power generating plants. See this fly ash is the finest of coal ash particles and it is termed as fly ash because it is transported from the combustion chamber by exhaust gases and it is generally captured from the flue gases using electrostatic precipitators. Know that there is no standard properties of fly ash in the sense the properties of fly ash they generally vary based on the coal composition and also the plant operating conditions. But however, fly ash is generally light tannin color and it mostly consists of silt-sized particles which are spherical. See this fly ash is typically finer than the Portland cement and lime and just have in mind that it contains a substantial amount of the following chemical compounds which includes silicon dioxide, aluminum oxide, calcium oxide, ferric oxide, sodium oxide, potassium oxide, titanium and then magnesium oxide, sulphur trioxide and phosphorus pentoxide and generally this fly ash is used in concrete and cement products and also as a road base and then in oil stabilizer in clean fill and also as a filler in asphalt, metal recovery and mineral filler. See one important thing that you should know is that fly ash is composed of tiny airborne particles and it is thus considered to be a type of particulate matter or particle pollution. So this fly ash is a pollutant and it contains acidic, toxic as well as radioactive matter. So therefore a significant exposure to this fly ash and other components of coal ash is set to increase a person's risk of developing diseases like cancer and other respiratory diseases and then the inhalation or the ingestion of the toxins in fly ash they are found to have impacts on our human nervous system thereby causing cognitive defects and developmental delays as well as behavioral problems and it is also set to increase a person's chance of developing lung disease, kidney disease and also gastrointestinal illness. So when this ash is disposed of in dry landfills or wet ponds it leads to environmental effects as well and the toxic components of the ash they dissolve out and they percolate through water and this will lead to groundwater contamination which again will be harmful to human health especially when they are a source of drinking water and apart from this they also travel through the environment as a result of erosion runoff or even through the air as fine dust. So these are the important points about fly ash that we should be aware of whenever we come across this topic. So with these learned points in mind come let us move on to the next news article. Now let us take up this article from the economic column. See this news article it talks about the investor charter which was developed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India. So in this discussion we will see what is this charter and we will also see why it is necessary. The syllabus covered by this article is given below for your reference. So first of all what is a charter? See a charter is a written grant by the sovereign power or the legislative power of a country through which a body's rights and privileges are defined. So now the SEBI which is the protector of the investor's interest in securities they have developed an investor charter and this charter is for the investors in Indian securities market and if you remember a finance minister proposed this charter in our budget speech of 2021 to 22 and on that line this charter has been developed now. So now the investor charter is developed as a right of all financial investors across all financial products because it is a single document which contains different services pertaining to investors and different services of importance to investors along with their respective timelines for providing such services. So in this manner this charter it includes the vision and the mission statement the rights and responsibilities of investors and it also includes the do's and don'ts of investing in the securities market and it also mentions the different services which are provided to investors along with their timelines. So now you may wonder why such a charter is important and we are going to find the answer for it now. See this charter is important because it makes the investors aware of their rights. So therefore it is a step forward in investor grievance redressal mechanism because only when we know our rights we will know whether that right is breached or not right. So it is in this regard or it is in this manner a charter increases the protection to the investors. So now let's very briefly see the important contents which I mentioned in this charter. See first it provides the objective of the charter in its vision statement and its objective is to protect the interest of investors by enabling them to understand the various risks which are involved in a fair, transparent and a secure market and also to invest in the same. So along with this enabling the investors to get services in a timely and efficient manner is also mentioned in the charter. See this charter it aims to ensure that the SEBI registered intermediaries or the SEBI regulated entities adhere to their investor charters including the grievance redressal mechanism and this investor charter also ensures that the causes of the investor grievances are analyzed on a periodic basis and it also ensures that the appropriate policy amendments are made if required. Now what are the rights of investors which are listed in the charter? See the rights of investors which are listed in the charter includes the right to get a fair and equitable treatment and then expecting redressal of investor grievances which are filed in the scores portal in a time bound manner is also a right. See remember this scores portal which I mentioned now and the word scores in there it stands for the SEBI Complaints Redress System which is actually a web-based centralized grievance redress system of the Securities and Exchange Board of India. So it is designed to help the investors to lodge their complaints online with the SEBI and to subsequently view its status. So then the investors they also have the right of getting quality services from the SEBI recognized market infrastructure institutions. Note that the stock exchanges, the depositories and the clearing corporations are collectively referred to as the market infrastructure institutions of SEBI and then the investors they also have the right of getting quality services from the SEBI registered intermediaries, regulated entities and also the other set management companies and in addition to this it is the responsibility of the investor to ensure that all the grievances are taken up with the concerned entities that too within the prescribed time limits. So these are the other responsibilities. Now as a part of their right the investors should also do certain things such as before investing they have to read and they have to understand the documents carefully and they should also know about the investor grievance redressal mechanisms or you can also say that they should be really aware or be updated of the grievance redressal mechanism and there are also a certain things which the investors are not supposed to do. See what they shall not do is that they should not make payments in cash beyond the prescribed limit while making any investment in the securities market and similarly they should also not share any critical information say like that of account details or login IDs or passwords to anyone for that matters. So these are the important points about the investor charter that was developed by the Securities and the Exchange Board of India. So having learned about it now let's move on to see the next news article. Now for my next news discussion I have chosen this open article titled wide fault lines within the global climate risk index. So with this very title itself I hope you can have a fair guess on what this particular article is going to be on. See recently in the COP26 that took place in Glasgow Mia Motley the Prime Minister of Barbados delivered a speech and during her speech she remarked that the failure to provide critical adaptation finance and also the failure to measure the extent of loss which are caused by climate change with respect to the lives and livelihoods is found to be immoral and then she also added that this has brought in the difficulty of calculating climate risk to the limelight once more. So this particular opiate article is written in this background and the author here throws light on the flaws that are associated in calculating the climate risk. Now based on this context let us see the important points that are mentioned in this article. The syllabus covered by this opiate article is highlighted below for your reference. Now before knowing about the flaws in calculating the climate risk first let us see what is this climate risk. See the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change they define climate risk as the potential for adverse consequences that is it refers to the likelihood of unfavorable impacts that are occurring as a result of severe climate events which are interacting with vulnerable environmental social economic political or cultural conditions. So to put it in simple words climate risk is nothing but the product of the probability of a climate event occurring and its adverse consequences. So now the next question that comes to our mind is who calculates climate risk. See the recent discussions about the climate risk assessment and also its management were found to be made based on the Global Climate Risk Index. See this Global Climate Risk Index is published annually by Greenwatch which is an independent development and environmental organization that works for sustainable global development. So this index analyzes the extent to which the countries and the regions are being affected by the impacts of weather related loss events and these events include disasters like storms floods heat waves etc and the impact is calculated in terms of both fatalities as well as economic losses and remember this index is traditionally presented at the World Climate Conferences. So when you take the most recent version of this Global Climate Risk Index it was the one which was released in January 2021 and this index it ranked 180 nations from 2000 to 2019 based on the impact of extreme weather conditions and the accompanying socioeconomic statistics. See one thing you should notice that basically this index tries to make it clear that we can no longer afford to ignore the consequences of accelerating climate change in any continent or region for that matters and the rankings are also meant to alert the countries about the possibility for a more frequent or a more severe climate related events in the future and this particular index is based on the historical data and it provides information on how vulnerable people are to extreme disasters. So by now I hope you have a fair understanding about this climate risk index and what it deals with and on what it tries to tell the world also. So now let us move on to see the author's viewpoint with regard to this index. See the author here is of the view that this index cannot be used to make logical predictions about the future climate change. This is because the author feels that the methodology and the interpretation of the country rankings have serious flaws. So to substantiate this point the author puts forward four reasons as to prove why this index should be used with caution when it comes to making recommendations. So now let us move on to see the four points that are put forward by the author. Now firstly the index ranks countries based on four key indicators and among these four key indicators the first two are absolute or definite while the other two are relative or subjective and the issue here is that the report fails to explain why these micro indicators were chosen. So the author finds this to be the first flaw. Secondly the index is found to suffer from exclusion errors and selection bias and the process of identifying the effect of the laws of elements on GDP is said to be loaded with mistakes. So as per the author to avoid such errors composite indicators can be created by using micro indicators instead of macro indicators to measure losses and on that line a number of key micro indicators such as the total number of people injured the laws of livestock the laws of public and private infrastructure then crop laws and others can be used for estimating the composite laws which are caused by climate change events and thirdly the index accounts for information on whether related events like storms floods temperature extremes and also mass moments. Now this is a good thing but then however this index it omits geological incidents like earthquakes volcanic eruptions or tsunamis which has also got the potential to be triggered by climate change and can have economic and humanitarian impact and fourthly the ranking under the index is done based on data which is not verified at the ground level that is the data based on which it ranks are only estimated values of economic losses and they are not the exact values of economic losses. So this again is a flaw with regard to the index. So these are the four major flaws that were put forward by the author so having said that now let's see what can be done in this regard. See as we know without taking into consideration the concerns of uncertainty size and time delays between the action and response to climate change any discussion of climate risk management and its measurement will not be complete. So therefore to conclude the climate change can be best managed as a part of a comprehensive risk assessment framework that incorporates climate data to better cope with the effects of climate change and on that line the four flaws which were put forward with relation to the global climate risk index can also be addressed for a more effective climate risk assessment and with this let us wind up this editorial discussion and let's move on to know what the next news article is got to tell us. Now let us take up this news article. See this article here it reports that the center will invite financial bids for the privatization of up to six central public sector enterprises which is shortly known as CPSS. So now in this context let us learn about this central public sector enterprises and also its categories. So first let us understand what is a public sector undertaking. See public sector undertakings are the government owned corporations in India in which around 51 percent or more than 51 percent of the paid up share capital is owned by the government of India. See the public sector undertakings can be classified into three categories. The first is the central public sector enterprises. See companies which are under the direct control of the central government or of other CPSS by 51 percent or more than 51 percent of capital share ownerships are called as central public sector enterprises. Now the central public sector enterprises are further classified into strategic central public sector enterprises and non-strategic central public sector enterprises. So when you take the strategic central public sector enterprises see an industry is considered strategic if it has large innovative spillovers and if it provides a substantial infrastructure for other firms in the same or related industries. So such industries are termed as strategic central public sector enterprises and the rest of them are regarded as non-strategic central public sector enterprises. Now the second category of the public sector undertakings is the public sector banks. See these are banks which are under the direct control of the central government or of other public sector banks by 51 percent or more than 51 percent of capital share ownership. Now similarly the companies which are under the direct control of the state government or other state level public enterprises by 51 percent or more than 51 percent of capital share ownership are known as state level public enterprises and it is the third category of the public sector undertaking. See whenever you learn about the central public sector enterprises you should also be aware of the status of Maharatna Navaratna and Miniratna CPSC. See these status of Maharatna Navaratna or Miniratna to the central public sector enterprises is given by the department of public enterprises to the public sector enterprises according to their financial performance and growth. So these statuses they will provide them with more autonomy over financial and administrative matters to some extent and they will also enable them to compete with other market players domestically as well as internationally and they also award a prestigious title. So these statuses they also represent the consistent growth of a company and the list of the various Maharatna Navaratna or Miniratna central public sector enterprises are given below. So aspirants please go through it and with this let us wind up this particular discussion. So by now we are almost done with all the articles for today. So now let's move on to the next part of our end of news analysis which is going to be the practice question discussion. See in the year 2015 we had a prelims question on fly ash and we are going to discuss that question now. So when you look at the question it goes like with reference to fly ash produced by the power plants using the coal as fuel which of the following statements is or are correct. Statement 1 fly ash can be used in the production of bricks for building construction. Statement 2 fly ash can be used as a replacement for some of the Portland cement contents of concrete and statement 3 fly ash is made up of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide only and does not contain any toxic elements. So when you take the first statement that is fly ash can be used in the production of bricks for building construction we can easily find out that this statement is correct because even in our discussion we clearly saw that fly ash has got its applications in the concrete and cement products. So with that we can say the first statement is correct. Now coming to the second statement it says that fly ash can be used as a replacement for some of the Portland cement contents of concrete. See this statement again is correct because the fly ash is actually used as a replacement for some of the Portland cement and we even saw this point in our discussion. Now coming to this third statement see it says that fly ash is made up of silicon dioxide and calcium oxide only and it does not contain any toxic elements. See we clearly saw in our discussion the various chemical compounds that are present in fly ash which included compounds like silicon dioxide, aluminum oxide, calcium oxide, ferric oxide, sodium oxide, potassium oxide, titanium, magnesium oxide, sulphur trioxide and also phosphorus pentoxide. So with that we can easily guess that this statement is incorrect and since both the first and second statement are correct here the correct answer here is option A that is 1 and 2. Now look at this problem's practice question which of the following statements is not correct with reference to the investor charter unveiled by the SEBI recently. Statement A its objective is to protect the interest of investors by enabling them to understand the risks involved in a fair, transparent and secure market. Statement B the investors have the right of getting quality services from SEBI registered intermediaries and regulated entities except SEBI recognized market infrastructure institutions. And statement C its mission is to analyze the causes of investor grievances on a periodic basis and make appropriate policy amendments if required and option D is both B and C. See from our news discussion itself we can rightly infer that it is option B which is not correct with reference to the investor charter because the investors they also have the right of getting quality services from SEBI recognized market infrastructure institutions as well. So therefore the correct answer here is option B that is investors have the right of getting quality services from SEBI registered intermediaries and regulated entities except SEBI recognized market infrastructure institutions. Now look at this question consider the following statements with reference to Maharatna, Navratna and Mini Ratna companies. Statement 1 the Maharatna is the highest status given to a company and to qualify as Maharatna the company should first be a Navratna company. And statement 2 to qualify as a Navratna company the company should have the record of at least three excellent or very good memorandum of understanding rating during the last five years. See when you take the central public sector enterprises they have to meet the following criteria in order to be eligible to be considered for the grant of Maharatna status and the first and foremost eligibility criteria is that they should have a Navratna status and this shows that the first statement given here is correct. Now coming to the second statement see this statement is also right because in order to qualify as a Navratna company the company should first have the record of at least three excellent or very good memorandum of understanding rating during the last five years. So since both the first and second statement which is given here are correct the right answer here is option C that is both 1 and 2. The main question for today is displayed here interested aspirants please write your answers and post them in the comment section below. So with this we have come to the end of today's hinder news analysis and if you had liked our video then don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to our Shankar IA's Academy YouTube channel for more updates regarding UPSC civil services preparation.