 a very good evening aspirants we have a small announcement for you tomorrow at 7 p.m. we are publishing a free orientation class with reference to upc civil services preliminary examination for the preparation of history of india modern india part one the session will be explained by mr ganesh sir our renowned faculty for history at shankarae's academy the orientation will be based on analysis of 25 years of previous year question papers in the area of history particularly in modern india part one the session will navigate the viewers and aspirants through each area that is to be focused which book or study material is a good source of information for each area etc the aspirants will also be guided for test two of pre storming 2021 prince test series of shankarae's academy interested aspirants may take the test after watching the orientation aspirants are advised to utilize the opportunity with this information let us move on to the hindu news analysis for the date 21st january 2021 these are the list of news articles chosen for today's analysis it has been provided along with the page numbers of different editions of hindu newspaper let us start the discussion with this first news article our first discussion is based on this news article which talks about the second edition of india innovation index which was recently released by the niti ayog so in this context let us discuss about this index in detail and also about the key findings of this index the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference if you read the news article it mentions that karnataka has secured the top position and the states which followed karnataka in the first five positions are maharashtra tamalladu telangana and kerala and the most important point that you should note here is that except for maharashtra all the other states in the top five are from south india also as per the recent estimates the level of competitiveness among the states and unilateries have been found to be high in this index so now let us see about this india innovation index so first what is innovation innovation is the creation development and implementation of a new product process or service it is done with the aim of improving efficiency effectiveness or to have a competitive advantage thus innovation is an intrinsic path to harbor the spirit of competition so as to attain a healthy economy in the same lines this index aims to create an extensive framework for the continual evaluation of india's innovation environment this index is a result of an extensive research and analysis for evaluating india's innovation readiness at a sub-national level so it helps the states and unilateries in recognizing their opportunities and challenges and it also assists the states and unilateries in adapting government policies to encourage innovation now we saw that it is the second edition of india innovation index the first edition was launched in october 2019 now this india innovation index is released by nithya yog along with institute for competitiveness here just note that the institute for competitiveness india is an international initiative centered in india it is dedicated to enlarging and purposeful disseminating of the body of research and knowledge on competition and strategy this institute is the indian group in the global network of institute for strategy and competitiveness here you should note that the institute for strategy and competitiveness is a non-profit research and education organization based at the harvard business school in boston now coming back to the india innovation index from exam perspective we have to know about the key dimensions and the indicators of the index and this index has two key dimensions within which we have pillars now the two key dimensions are enabler and performance and we call the pillars under them as enabler pillars and performance pillars now the index measures innovation inputs through the enabler pillars and the innovation output is measured through the performance pillars here you should understand the difference between inputs and output in innovation in this the inputs are the variables that enable an economy to stimulate innovation while at the same time outputs are the outcomes of the innovative activities within the economy so that means the enabler pillars measure the degree to which a state has created an environment that is conducive to innovation now each of these pillars comprise relevant indicators and in total we have 36 indicators under these seven pillars these pillars are human capital investment safety and legal environment business environment knowledge workers knowledge output and knowledge diffusion these are the seven pillars and we have these indicators under them now you have to take note of these indicators because already we have many previous problems questions based on indicators of indices now here the point you should mainly notice that in the second edition of index three new indicators have been added the first indicator which has been added is the national achievement service course it has been added to the human capital pillar and then the second indicator added is the expenditure on research and development state government it has been added to the investment pillar and finally a new indicator has been added to the knowledge output pillar and this indicator is the new businesses registered now before moving on to the key findings of this index you should note that for ranking purposes the states have been bifurcated into three categories in this index they have been bifurcated into major states northeast and hill states and unit territories or city states or small states and here you can quickly see your state is under which category for example tamalladu is under the major states category and delhi is obviously under the unit territories and city states category now coming to the key findings of this report even though the report mainly focuses on the sub national level findings it also provides national level analysis this national level analysis offers a microscopic view of the indian innovation ecosystem this national level analysis presents an overview of the country's strengths and weaknesses on the innovation front so it helps the government to appraise policy strategies and related action plans at the national level so what is the overall score the indian states have achieved an overall average score of 23.4 in the india innovation index here you should note that the scale ranges from 0 to 100 and 0 is the worst case scenario and 100 means the best case scenario and as you can see on the whole indian states have scored only 23.4 which is closer to 0 that is which is closer to the worst case scenario that means the score shows that india has immense scope for improvement in the space of innovation but india also needs to put policies and strategies by analyzing the factors for improving these scores and among the pillars india has scored the highest in the safety and legal environment pillar it has scored 60.3 it has also scored better in human capital pillar but the lowest score can be seen in the investment pillar now the reason provided by the report for the high score in safety and legal environment pillar is the robust and agile cyber security ecosystem in india now to ensure secure cyberspace for businesses and innovators we have india's national cyber security policy 2013 we have indian computer emergency response team that is cert in and then we have the national critical information infrastructure protection center and we also have the national cyber security coordinator all these together provide a secure cyberspace for businesses and innovators which is the main reason for a high score in the safety and legal environment pillar now if we compare the performance and enablers the performance score is below the enabler score this indicates that the innovation capabilities of the country are not utilized to the optimum level for example our country has high number of engineering graduates but they have low employability so the report notes that because of their low employability in the knowledge economy it results in a level of knowledge output and knowledge diffusion that does not correspond with the level of human capital that is available to be leveraged for innovation in short it is saying that because of low employability less human capital is available for the innovation purposes and this is one of the reasons why the performance score is below the enablers so this is at the national level now coming to the state level as we saw the states have been bifurcated into three categories but if you see on a whole based on just the scores deli has scored the highest among the major states and union territories it has the score of 46.6 and thus it has also ranked the first among the utn city states so what is the reason for deli's highest scores it is because deli has recorded the highest number of trademark and patent applications in the last financial year and it has also established new startups and companies and the success is also attributed to the conducive business environment in deli especially in terms of internet penetration here you should note that the internet penetration in deli is the highest in the country because the national capital has 202.71 internet subscribers per hundred population and then coming to the major states category kanataka tops with the score of 42.5 as we saw already and this is due to its strong number of venture capital deals due to its highest number of registered geographical indications and also due to its highest information and communications technology exports that is ict exports along with this kanataka's high fda inflow has also enhanced the innovation capabilities of the state now coming to the third category which is the northeast and hill states among these states himachal pradesh is the best performer it has a score of 25 it is followed by manipur and sikkim respectively so what is the reason for himachal pradesh's best score among the northeast and hill states it is because according to the report almost 32 percentage of the total employment generated in himachal pradesh is knowledge intensive that is himachal pradesh benefits from a high number of knowledge workers and another characteristic that boosts the state's level of innovation is the industry friendly policies and incentives and this is one of the reasons why it has also scored a high rank in the ease of doing business index but however himachal pradesh still has a lot of untapped potential this is because there is a score gap between the enablers and performance and this shows that the innovation capabilities of himachal pradesh are not harnessed efficiently so on a whole the index allows the states to carefully study and analyze the performance of their peers and also to identify the best practices to foster innovation it encourages cooperative and competitive federalism amongst the states as well so if these states and uniteratories improve their performance in the innovation ecosystem then it will enable india to shift to a competitive good governance here you should note that already india has made to the top 15 nations of the global innovation index of 2020 now who releases this global innovation index and what is india's rank you can answer it in the comment section along with this you should note that the world intellectual property organization has declared india as one of the leading innovation achievers of 2019 to 20 in the central and southern asian region now all this together proves that india is working hard to be a innovation hub so these are some of the points that you should know with respect to the india innovation index and the key findings of this index now let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this editorial article which talks about the gender bias that is prevalent in household work so in this context let us discuss the article in detail the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference first let us understand what is this gender bias which is prevalent in household works see we all know that the roles women play and the work they do which are usually valued less than the roles which men play and the work they do we can take the example of our mothers and sisters and also that of our brothers and fathers we can clearly see the disparity we also realize that societies make distinctions between boys and girls this begins from a very young age in most societies including our own societies the roles men and women play or the work they do are not valued equally it means men and women do not have the same status for example we all know that women do a lot of work that is domestic work like sweeping and cleaning washing clothes and dishes cooking looking after the young children or the elderly etc etc etc and the work that women do within the home is not recognized as work at all and most worryingly this work is also assumed as something that comes naturally to women so there is no need to pay for it if you take particularly the example of India we know that our country is a country where this phenomenon is at its worst the traditional Indian imagination of a household takes it for granted that certain jobs within the household are to be performed only by women additionally society devalues these jobs also most domestic workers are women and wages for them are also low because domestic work does not have much value in the society in this regard the author of this editorial mentions that till 1851 no country had recognized the earnings of any sort as a right of the wife even if a housewife or homemaker worked for pay inside home or outside the home it was the right of her husband to collect her wages it was not her own right and this was until 1851 so to explain the current scenario author takes the example of many reports from national to international levels which shows gender inequality in household works if you take the 2011 census of our country a huge number of women that is around 16 crore women stated household work as their main occupation but only a mere 5.79 million that is less than 1 crore men referred to the household work as their main occupation so this makes a clear distinction and it shows us how gender inequality still prevails in India on a high level now to prove this point author talks about the time use in India 2019 report which was released by the national statistical office of government of India this time use in India or ensure TUS provides a framework for measuring time dispositions by the population on different activities the primary objective of the time use survey is to measure participation of men and women in paid and unpaid activities this TUS is an important source of information on the time spent in unpaid caregiving activities volunteer work unpaid domestic service producing activities of the household members etc it also provides information on time spent on the learning socializing leisure activities self-care activities etc by the household members and here just remember that the first time use survey in India was conducted during january to december 2019 now here this table which was taken from the survey shows the percentage of persons who are of age six years and above participating in different activities in a day here you can see that in unpaid service for household members we can find a great difference between the percentage of men and women who do unpaid work in this regard the report also notes that on an average an Indian woman spends 299 minutes a day that is almost five hours of a day on unpaid domestic services for household members but men spend just 97 minutes on the same additionally women also spend 135 minutes in a day on unpaid caregiving services for household members we also have evidence from a report by the international labour organization which was published in 2018 it shows that globally women perform 76.2 percentage of total hours of unpaid care work and this is more than the three times as much as what men do and this figure even rises to 80 percentage in the asia and the pacific region moreover as per a world economic forum report the proportion of unpaid work per day is far higher for women than men globally and as per an international monetary fund report if women's participation in the economy was raised to that of men then india could grow its gdp by 27 percentage this was what noted by the imf report so in this regard a report titled the woman's economic contribution through their unpaid work a case study of india had estimated the economic value of services by women and it found that this economic value is in the tune of a huge 612.8 billion dollars annually now all these statistics and estimations show how much the unpaid domestic work of women goes unrecognized this issue is in limelight since recently a political party of tamil nadu as part of its electoral campaign has promised salaries to house five so in this context let us also see about some of the initiatives taken by the civil society and government in national as well as international levels to give recognition to the unpaid work especially the domestic work done by women first let us see the global initiatives firstly here author talks about the second woman's rights convention of 1851 of usa it is commonly known as the worcester convention in this convention it was said that since the economy of the household is generally as much as the source of the family wealth as that of labor and enterprise of man so during life the woman should also have the same control over the joint earnings as that of husband and she should have the right to dispose the same proportion of earning at her death like her husband and this campaign achieved recognition of equal rights of wives in the matrimonial property and the second initiative which we can point to is the third national woman's liberation conference which was held in england in 1972 and in this for the first time explicitly the payment of wages for the household work was demanded and the third initiative was the international wages for housework campaign it was started in italy in 1972 as a feminist movement it highlighted the role of gendered labor in the home and its connection to the production of surplus value under capitalism and this movement further spread to britain and america also the fourth initiative which we can point to is the united nations c-door that is the united nations committee on the elimination of discrimination against women in 1991 it had recommended the measurement and quantification of undributed domestic activities of women and the recognition in gdp this was in order to highlight the de facto economic contribution of women so these were the international initiative so far now what about the indian initiative in this regard author has highlighted some of the legislative initiatives and judicial responses in india in this regard first author talks about the recent supreme court judgment in the kirti and another versus oriental insurance company in this judgment supreme court referred to the time use survey 2019 to point at the gender inequality in occupation in india we have already discussed about this time use survey now the second one which the author talks about is a supreme court judgment in arun kumar agarwal versus national insurance company which was a 2010 case law it acknowledged the contribution of the housewives as invaluable in this regard supreme court also observed that the contribution of housewives cannot be computed in terms of money as a virtue which is services are rendered with true love and affection so it cannot be equated with services rendered by others in this case law supreme court also referred to censors 2001 which categorized those who perform household duties as non-workers and clubbed them together with beggars prostitutes and prisoners who are not engaged in economically unproductive work in this observation supreme court was pointing at the discrimination which was present in the census with respect to the domestic work and household duties carried out by women now what does the author prescribes here according to the author the need of the hour is to recognize the work which women perform for the family and that too recognizing it equally with that of men's work and in this regard he opines that marriage agreements should have a clause on wife's right in husband's earnings see recognition is one of the most central processes in empowerment of women in our nation this recognition contributes not only to the family but it also contributes to the welfare of the nation state as a whole it gives women a claim to equality within the patriarchal Indian household that only recognizes the work done by men this recognition also moves us towards a more holistic understanding of labor and which will make us understand that labor isn't purely tied to the exchange value of a service on the market that means it recognizes an extremely intimate form of labor that has proved essential to keeping the unit of family intact and functional at the same time and once the domestic work done by women is recognized as work then this arena of unpaid domestic labor that is dominated almost entirely by women can become one where women can demand some degree of equality in terms of the time in energy that is spent on that domestic work so these are some of the points that I should take note of from this editorial article this will help you in answering a mains question regarding women's empowerment in GS paper one or GS paper two or also in an essay paper now let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article which mentions that the state bank of India has executed two interbank short-term money market deals with pricing linked to the SOFR that is security overnight financing rate so in this discussion we'll see what is SOFR first note that it is a replacement for LIBOR LIBOR stands for London Interbank Offered Rate first let us see about LIBOR then we will see about SOFR LIBOR was the most widely used benchmark interest rate across the globe it is a benchmark interest rate at which major global banks lend to one another in the international interbank market for short-term loans this LIBOR serves as a globally accepted key benchmark interest rate that indicates borrowing costs between banks now this rate is calculated and will continue to be published each day by the intercontinental exchange but due to the recent scandals and questions around its validity as a benchmark rate LIBOR is being phased out here just know that LIBOR is administered by intercontinental exchange this intercontinental exchange is an american fortune 500 company that operates global exchanges and provides listing services among others the company owns exchanges for financial and commodity markets now under this LIBOR which is administered by intercontinental exchange it asks major global banks how much they would charge other banks for short-term loans this means LIBOR is based on estimations rather than on real transactions see the 2012 was a landmark here in the world of financial benchmarks because the most widely used financial benchmark which was the LIBOR it was found to have been manipulated by individuals at various financial institutions this event created shock waves in the financial system because the credibility of the financial reference that is used to price and determine the payoffs for trillions of dollars of loans bonds and derivatives that is they could not trust LIBOR anymore and this is the reason LIBOR is now being replaced by secured overnight financing rate or in short SOFR it will be replaced on June 30th 2023 but here note that the phase out of its use will be beginning after 2021 so now what is this SOFR that is secured overnight financing rate it is a benchmark interest rate for dollar denominator derivatives and loans that is replacing the London interbank offered rate that is LIBOR this transition is expected to increase long-term liquidity and it is also expected to result in substantial short-term trading volatility in the derivatives as you know derivatives are financial instrument now this SOFR is based on transactions in the treasury repurchase market that is the repo market and this SOFR is seen as preferable to LIBOR since SOFR is based on data from observable transactions rather than on the estimated borrowing rates like the LIBOR now we saw that SOFR is becoming the benchmark rate for dollar denominated derivatives and loans so other countries have also sought their own alternative rates such as Sonia and Eonia etc Sonia stands for sterling overnight index average it is administered by Bank of England and then we have the Eonia which is Euro overnight index average it is administered by European Central Bank and like that we have Swiss average rate overnight and also Tokyo overnight average rate and as you can see here SOFR is administered by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York so these are some of the information that you should know with respect to LIBOR and SOFR now let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about an Israeli NGO that has accused the Jewish state of Israel of apartheid in its treatment of Palestinians we all know about the ongoing conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians which began in the mid 20th century and as the news article mentions the Arab Israelis or Palestinians make up about 20 percentage of Israel's population and by law the Palestinians have been given rights equal to those of Jewish citizens but they say that in practice the Palestinians suffered discrimination in employment housing and other essentials so in this context let us first have a brief understanding about apartheid see apartheid means apartheid in the language of Africans it was a system of legislation that upheld segregationist policies against the non-white citizens of South Africa although the racial segregation had long been in practice there the apartheid name was first used around 1948 after the national party gained power in the South Africa this national party was a all-white government and it immediately began enforcing existing policies of racial segregation now this apartheid dictated many terms on the basis of the race of South Africans such as where they could live and work the type of education they could receive and where they could vote or not etc so under apartheid non-white South Africans who formed the majority of the population were forced to live in separate areas from whites and they had to use separate public facilities and under apartheid contact between these two groups that is non-white South Africans and white South Africans would be limited and it is to be noted that despite strong and consistent opposition to apartheid within and outside of South Africa the laws in South Africa remained in effect for around 50 years till early 1990s only the events of 1990s marked the end of legislated apartheid here I should note that it was under the administration of South African president F. W. D. Clark that the legislation that supported apartheid was repealed in the early 1990s and in this regard a new constitution was adopted in 1993 in South Africa this new constitution liberated blacks and other racial groups in South Africa and subsequently all race national elections were held in 1994 and this resulted in a black majority government in South Africa and this black majority government was held by prominent anti-apartheid activist Mr. Nelson Mandela who belonged to the African National Congress Party but it should be noted that although these developments marked the end of legislated apartheid the social and economic effects of apartheid remain deeply entrenched in South African society even now but based on this only that is based on the segregation that was put by apartheid between the blacks and non-blacks of South Africa now the Israeli NGO has accused Israel of treating Palestinians and Jewish citizens separately so let's wait and see how these events unfold further that is all about this discussion now let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this editorial article which is about providing a quality 24 into 7 power for all as you remember the union power ministry claimed that with the promulgation of the electricity rights of consumers rules of 2020 the electricity consumers truly got empowered we have already discussed about these rules on our January 5th in the news analysis but in today's editorial article the authors question whether the consumers really got empowered because of these rules firstly here you should understand that many states have not been able to provide quality supply of electricity especially to the rural and small electricity consumers so the enactment of consumer-centric rules have sparked public debate that brings the rights of consumers to the forefront in this context the rules lay an emphasis on the national minimum standards for the performance parameters of electricity distribution companies without any distinction between urban and rural and this is especially for the new connections metering and buildings these rules also reiterate the need for automatically compensating consumers but will these rules really lead to better supply quality of electricity for that we have to see the limitations of these rules first it needs to be recognized that providing quality supply is primarily the responsibility of the states and discoms that is the distribution companies but similar or even better provisions by various state electricity regulatory commissions already exist in the standard of performance regulations in different states so from this it is clear that it is not because of the lack of rules or regulations that the quality supply is not provided rather it is not provided due to the lack of accountability systems to enforce such existing rules or regulations and unfortunately neither these new rules nor the past efforts address these accountability concerns next the rules emphasize the guarantee of round the clock supply which is missing in these state regulations but there are doubts on the efficacy of automatic compensation payments towards such a guarantee this is because the availability of power supply is inadequately monitored so consumers are skeptical as how they will be compensated without proper monitoring moreover such compensation will require serious commitment for example rural areas received about 20 hours of supply in august 2020 now according to the existing regulations this would entail compensation of hundreds of crores to consumers but the actual amount that was paid adds up to just a few lakhs in each state for the entire year so this highlights the need for the implementation of existing provisions in letter and spirit but also amending those existing legislations with strong accountability provisions further the rules also dilute the progressive mechanisms in few cases that already exist in state regulations for example if you see the rules say that faulty meters should be tested within 30 days of receipt of a complaint but if you see the regulations published in andhra pradesh according to it such testing needs to be conducted within seven days so now this has been diluted to 30 days because of these regulations so these are some of the issues that have been brought to notice by the author and one of the main issues which we have pointed out is the accountability so what can the central government do to ensure accountability first it should revise regulations more frequently and the state electricity regulatory commissions should organize public processes to help the consumers for raising their concerns secondly the forum of regulators that is the central collective of state electricity regulatory commissions they can come up with updated model of standard operating procedures regulations and thirdly the central electricity authority of india could be directed to collect supply quality data from discoms and they can publicly host these datas on online portals and prepare analysis reports on the same thus with a focused one-time effort the electrification drives could provide connections across the country but ensuring around the clock supply will require continuous efforts and we also noted that without accountability consumer compensation is restricted and if the same is asked to the government they are responding to this question with many ifs and buts in the implementation of the regulation like if this happens then we will do that like that but the problem is the enactment of the new rules will not change this status quo that is the existing scenario so in this regard author suggests the government's discoms and regulators to jointly work for reducing these ifs and buts that delay or deny justice additionally the government's discoms and regulators should also demonstrate the commitment and the willpower to implement the existing regulations then only a quality 24 into 7 power will be available for all so these are some of the points that you should know with respect to this editorial article now let's move on to the next discussion practice questions discussion this question is based on india innovation index the question asks which of the following are the enablers used by nithi iyog to compute india innovation index one human capital two knowledge diffusion three business environment select the correct answer using the code given below now the correct answer to this question is option d one and three only because knowledge diffusion is not an enabler it comes under the two performance pillars that are used to depict the performance now this next question is based on secured overnight financing rate the question asks which of the following statements is incorrect with reference to s o f r first statement it is a benchmark interest rate for dollar denominated derivatives and loans this statement is correct second statement it is based on transactions in the treasury repurchase markets this statement is also correct third statement it has been replaced with libor after the sub prime crisis of 2008 this statement is incorrect because even though it will be used in place of libor it will be implemented in the year 2023 and it will replace libor because of the 2012 financial issue in which it was found that libor was manipulated by individuals at various financial institutions so this is the incorrect statement in this question so the correct answer is option c statement d is also correct because it is expected to increase the long-term liquidity and it will reduce the volatility in substantial trading derivatives now this next question is based on apartheid first statement it was a form of racial discrimination which prevailed till 1948 in South Africa this statement is incorrect because it was a form of racial discrimination but the name apartheid was first used around 1948 after the all-white national party gained power in South Africa and it was eradicated in the legislations only in the early 1990s not in 1948 so the statement is incorrect now the second statement is under it non-white South Africans were forced to live in separate areas from whites and use separate public facilities this statement is correct now here the question asks for the correct statements so the correct answer is option b 2 only now let us take two main questions now this question is based on gender justice and this next question is based on india innovation index you can answer these questions and post it in the comment section with this we come to the end of today's hindi news analysis if you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and to subscribe to shankara is academy youtube channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation