 A very good evening everyone. Welcome to the Hindi News Analysis brought here by Shankara Ayes Academy for the date 5th of October 2021. Let us take a moment to congratulate all 360 plus selections from our academy. I think that is a moment of inspiration for every one of us. So with that, let's move on to the discussion for today. See we have chosen about 8 articles for discussion. See the last article is about the Meka Dattu project we are not going to discuss in detail because it was already discussed on August 28th which is very recent. So we will be discussing 7 topics in detail. The first topic will be about the Forest Act. See the government is proposing about a couple of changes in the Forest Conservation Act and we will be talking about that and we will also be talking about the environmental ethical issues involved in this proposed change. So that will be a brief discussion and next we will be talking about the Nobel Prize that has been given away for physiology or medicine. So why has it been given and what is the discovery lying behind it. So that will be the discussion in the second part of our discussion today and next we will be talking about exercise millen. See this is a naval exercise and it is a biennial exercise that has been happening but it didn't happen last year because of the Covid and the government has proposed that it has proposed that it shall happen in 2020 to AFIB. So we will be discussing briefly about it. It is a prelims oriented topic and next we will be talking about drone based vaccine delivery and it has happened in northeast for the first time in India. So drones is an important topic right now because it has come into vogue very recently and it has been finding application especially in the pandemic situation. So we can be using that as a case study also. So based on that we will shape the discussion that way and apart from that we will be talking about smoke towers. There has been an editorial article on smoke towers. We will see how they function, how effective are they, are they really effective and also about the way forward to tackle the air pollution. And next we will be talking about an art and culture topic. We will be talking about wind instrument called Nadasvaram and this Nadasvaram occupies a very important space in the karnatic music that is the music of South India. So we will be talking about that and lastly we will also be talking about two practice preliminary questions and with that we will end the discussion for today. Now look at this news article. See this news article talks about the proposed amendments to the existing forest conservation act of 1980. See this piece of amendment or this piece of change can be interpreted for your ethics answers as well and apart from that it is also important for the GS paper too. So pay attention by the end of this segment I will also tell you how to utilize this particular discussion for your main exam. Okay so the central government is of the opinion that this law is outdated that is the forest conservation act is outdated. So an amendment is proposed to adjust the forest conservation act to the present circumstances focusing on accelerating the integration of the conservation and development. So first understand that forest conservation act was enacted with the objective of providing a higher level of protection to the forest. So as the name goes right forest conservation act and currently the forest conservation act is applicable to all the government forest lands and the areas recorded as the forest in any government record and the forest conservation act brought two major reforms when it was actually enacted. First is that it made the prior approval of the central government necessary for two issues. One is the deregervation of the already reserved forest. Okay so we know that reserved forests enjoy higher levels of protection. So when you deregerve a reserved forest the levels of protection goes down. So in order to make that stronger the deregervation of the reserved forest was brought under the central government. Second for diverting the use of forest land for non-forest purposes. So the central government approval is needed for this as well. So you may ask what is a non-forest purpose. So non-forest purpose means breaking up or clearing any forest land for one. The cultivation of tea, coffee, spices, rubber, palm, oil bearing plants, horticultural crops or medicinal plants. Basically converting the forest into a plantation or a commercial area is non-forest purpose. And the second criteria of non-forest purpose is any purpose other than re-off-forest station. So we have two criteria that determine the non-forest purposes. One is conversion into a commercial area and second is any purpose other than re-off-forest station that does not include planting of trees as a forest. So these two purposes if at all if it happens the central government approval is needed. Okay now note that the NFP that is non-forest purposes does not include any work that is relevant to conservation or development and management of forest and wildlife. For example establishment of a check post is not a non-forest purpose or for that matter say you are laying a pipeline to take water from the forest then that is also not a non-forest purpose or even construction of dam is not a non-forest purpose. Now second the Forest Conservation Act provides for the constitution of an advisory committee for advising the central government in granting the approval. So because of this it is mandatory for the state governments or for that matter a union territory administration to get prior approval of the central government before making an order for diversion, de-reservation or even assignment of lease of any forest land. So this is all about the Forest Conservation Act in the raw form. Now because the center believes that this particular act is outdated it has proposed two major amendments. First is the amendment to the definition of non-forest purposes. So as we already saw the definition provides which is to be considered as NFP and which is not to be considered as NFP. So in this manner it is proposed to keep certain activities outside the definition of NFP. So this includes establishment of zoos, safaris, establishment of forest training infrastructures and apparently the government considers these activities are relevant to conservation of forest and wildlife. We really don't know how these activities are relevant to the conservation of wildlife but anyways what we can see is the establishment of zoos and safaris is a measure of central governments income. So this is going to be a contentious amendments and I'll give you a heads up here a lot of people are going to write a lot of editorials on this so just be prepared. So have this basic understanding on this particular amendment that is proposed. Second it proposes to exempt certain projects from getting approval. So this includes strategic and security projects of national importance fair enough. So this is proposed so that states can permit non-forest use of forest land for implementation of such projects that are required to be completed in a given time frame. See it is because currently such projects require land and these lands come under the ambit of non-forestry use of forest. So the central government's approval is needed which delays the execution of the projects. So this could be seen in the case of development of infrastructure along with the international border areas. So the second amendment is quite fair enough because it involves the question of security in the forest and we know especially in the northeast and all the forests are being misused by the extremist elements to hide from the security agencies. So they want to strengthen the infrastructure in this particular area so that they can strengthen the security. See like I said I'll tell you how to use this information in your ethics answer. The second part that is the question of security versus infrastructure or for that matter even the first amendment which seeks to establish zoos and safaris in forest which is income yielding. See here note that India after the Covid and all is in need of lot of money to uplift the poor to enforce certain welfare schemes. So India is in need of lot of money and government is in search of avenues for revenue. So in that justification we can say that the first amendment that seeks to establish zoos and safaris is fair enough but on the other hand we can also see that under the name of revenue we are also infringing on the forest areas infringing on the greeneries especially in the context of climate change. So we can see that this is a classic debate between development versus environment okay. So if at all you face any question on ethics on development versus environment you can actually quote this particular proposed amendment in your paper so that your answer will have more value. Now coming to the second amendment this talks about the question of security versus environment. So development versus environment is one major area that is going into debate where a security and environment is another debate that actually you know does not have an answer especially in the border areas the security takes precedence always compared to the environment. So many experts will say the security should take precedence and many experts will say the environment should take precedence but this is a never-ending debate that is a potential question in your ethics answer as well. So when you're framing an ethics answer you can use these two proposed amendments in your answers as well. So basically this is a topic of environmental ethics and apart from that it is also important for your paper too. So keep in mind with that let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion. See this is already October and Nobel Prize announcements are being made and recently the Nobel Prize announcement for physiology has been made for the year 2021. So this award has been jointly given to two United States scientists one is David Julius and the next is Adam Patapautian. So first let us see what this Nobel Prize has been awarded for. Basically they both have discovered regarding the receptors of temperature and touch. So first let us understand what are these receptors and how are they perceived and everything first let us go through some basics before we actually get into their discovery. Okay our body has certain things called somato receptors. Okay see somato means body. Okay so receptors are something that actually receives the external changes be it heat be it cold. Okay so let us go with a familiar example. Say for example take tongue. Okay see you might have read in NCRT that entire tongue does not perceive the same set of tastes. Right say for example the posterior part of the tongue will be perceiving bitterness and the lateral part of the tongue will actually perceive salt taste. So likewise different sides of the tongue perceives different kinds of taste. It means different receptors are present at different areas of the tongue. See what are these receptors? See some receptors will be able to recognize salty taste. Some receptors will be able to recognize bitter taste and some receptors will be able to recognize sweet taste. How does it happen? So all the skin area or for that matter mucus area will have underlying neurons okay or the nerve endings. So neurons are nothing but neural cells and these cells are long just like this. So they are this long and they have like the trail like structure and at the end they open on to the skin. So when something impacts this neuron so some kind of electrical signal picks up and this travels through the neuron and one neuron transmits it to another neuron and this transmission actually happens at the nerve endings and these nerve endings have some things called neural transmitters. So these electrical signals they are picked up by neurons and they go on to the brain and there they are perceived either as salt or sweet or bitter. So based on the receptors and the reception the brain perceives what is the taste okay. So this is how the basic somatoreceptors work. Now coming back to this article see our skin also has certain receptors. Some receptors will be receptive to cold, some receptors will be receptive to warm temperatures. So some receptors will be able to detect some kind of sensation and this is exactly why the Nobel Prize has been awarded. Pay attention we will discuss it further. So in case of somatic senses that is bodily sensations the receptors detect and convert the physical properties of various stimuli such as mechanical and thermal properties into electrical signals just the way the taste is getting converted right. So then these signals are conveyed to the central nervous system right and the scientists who have won the Nobel Prize have discovered that these thermal and the mechanical receptors see thermal means something that can detect hot or cold and mechanical means that can detect the pressure on the skin or the body. So they have discovered these kind of receptors see here David Julius wanted to have fundamental insights into the mechanism of pain. So what he did was he studied something called capsaicin sounds familiar to you all see capsicum yeah. So capsaicin is a chemical compound that is actually found in chili peppers right basically chilies and the capsaicin causes the burning sensation when we come in contact with the chilies right everyone will not enjoy the sensation the burning sensation. So the scientist David Julius studied how it causes this burning sensation. See this is all the overview right how the receptor is impacted and how is it transmitted and how is it received in the brain and how is it perceived. This is all overview but all these are backed by genes. See already in many of our discussions we know that genes are the basic genetic material that determines our characters yeah. So say one gene is codes for brown eyes then the individual will have brown eyes say one gene codes for an individual to be tall then the individual will be tall and say similarly one gene codes for a person to perceive heat or touch then the person will be able to understand what is heat what is touch and what is pressure. Basically David Julius had discovered which is the gene that actually causes a person to understand what is heat what is cold and what is touch right. So he ultimately found that the capsaicin receptor called as TRPv1 was responsible for someone to perceive the burning sensation. So understand this say the gene TRPv1 says that the individual will be able to perceive heat then the individual will be able to perceive heat. Say the TRPv1 is absent then the individual will not be able to sense the heat. So this is the important discovery so basically TRPv1 is responsible for someone to perceive the burning sensation caused by capsaicin okay and after this discovery he further investigated the protein's ability to respond to heat and this led to the discovery that actually TRPv1 is a heat sensing receptor and it is activated at temperatures which are perceived as painful. So first he understood that TRPv1 was responsible for the detection of capsaicin and next he understood that it was a one that was responsible for someone to realize heat and it is activated at temperatures which are perceived as painful. So the temperature is really hot then we actually do not perceive it as heat we actually perceive it as pain right and that is exactly this discovery means and after the discovery of TRPv1 David Julius and Adam Patapautien independently made another important advance. So what are these two names initially we saw right the Nobel Prize is shared between these two individuals. So they discovered another gene this another gene is TRPm8 I repeat TRPm8 this is a cold sensitive receptor see we saw TRPv1 is heat sensitive receptor this TRPm8 is a cold sensitive receptor that is when someone or something that is cold touches you you will be able to say that this is cold the temperature of this particular object is very low so that is what is called as cold sensitive receptor. Now after this several additional TRP receptors were subsequently identified and overall TRPv1 led to the molecular understanding of the thermo sensation so that is the essence. So what is thermo sensation? Thermo means temperature so we were able to perceive the temperature that is the understanding that we actually got and apart from that additionally Adam discovered something called piezo channels just remember piezo channels is ion channels Adam found that these ion channels are activated by mechanical force what is mechanical force say someone punches you or say someone is holding you tight so these are mechanical forces and when this acts upon your skin what happens is that the piezo channels are activated so here there are two channels piezo 1 and piezo 2 and they were found to be directly activated by the exertion of pressure on the cell membranes say like I said here are the skin cells right so when the mechanical force acts these skin cells are activated only with the cell membranes and particularly piezo 2's discovery led to many breakthrough discoveries subsequently and especially piezo 2 was very relevant for the sense of touch and together piezo 1 and piezo 2 also regulated many important physiological processes like pressure like respiration like bladder control and everything so in short these discoveries allowed us to understand how heat cold and mechanical force can initiate the electrical impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world so in this discussion we saw about somatosensations what are somatosensations what are receptors we saw what are neurons how they function what are neurotransmitters and we also saw about the discovery that earned them the Nobel Prize okay and how the genes form the basis of any trait for an individual so this is all that we saw today so this is very important from the science and tech perspective okay and most of the discussion that we had today our static part which is covered in NCRT so I think that would have been a very good revision for you so with that let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion now look at this news article in this article we'll be talking about the exercise millen see remember exercise millen is a naval exercise okay that is the navy's conduct and this exercise millen is considered to be one of the largest naval exercise across the globe itself and previously the naval exercise was scheduled in 2020 last year and it was postponed due to the pandemic thanks to corona and now the navy has said that it is planning to conduct the naval exercise on 2022 February let us briefly know about this particular exercise see the exercise that is due in February 2022 will be the 11th edition of this particular exercise see this is a biennial exercise and it is a multilateral naval exercise that is many countries participate in this naval exercise and it all started in 1995 and see the navy has held 10 editions of this exercise already and generally it is conducted in the Andaman and Nekobar command that is in port Blair generally it is conducted there but right now the navy has shifted it to the vizag because vizag port apparently is much more spacious and it has better facilities and this exercise is quite strategic because the India has extended its invitation to about 46 countries and apparently many have even accepted it and what is more important is that all the coordination will be participating in this particular exercise that is planned for Feb 2020 and it generally comes under the eastern naval command and given that we have extended the invitation to 46 nations we can say probably the 2022 edition will be the largest of the Milan exercise in the history that is since 1995 so the exercise Milan is an important preliminary exam question okay so keep the information in mind with that let's move on to the next article see the next article talks about the drone based vaccine delivery see apparently a drone has delivered vaccines in the difficult terrains of northeast and by road apparently it's 26 kilometers and the drone had traveled about 15 kilometers on air and has delivered the vaccines in just 15 minutes and this is the first time that a make in India drone has been used in entire of South Asia to transport the covid vaccines so and the entire exercise was done in the state of Manipur keep that in mind see why are we discussing this article see basically drone is a potential area for paper 3 and as well as for essay paper see science based essays are also being asked so consider there is an essay that asks you to talk about the drones in that case you can actually talk about this as an application of drones that is serving the medicines in difficult terrains because India has a diverse geography right we have islands we have mountains we have plateaus we have rivers we have riverine islands right so sometimes when the weather goes bad or normally even even in northeast and all the transportation can be extremely difficult and the medicine access has been difficult in these areas and here is where drone comes into picture and it bridges the gap and delivers the medicines so that is exactly what has been done here so this particular incident can be quoted as a case study in your essay paper and apart from that even in your paper 3 if a question has been asked based on drones or their applications you can of course code the medicinal applications not just a delivery but also collection of samples from the area and if you think about it see drones they don't generally have physical contact and so the drones can actually be sent to those areas where there is a breakout of a disease a localized breakout of a deadly disease say consider like nipah in that case a drone can be used to deliver the medicines to those areas as well as collect blood samples from those areas without risking infection so this is the medical application of drones so you can use this as your example in your paper 3 and essay paper so with that let's move on to the next article now look at this news article this news article mentions about smock towers see recently two new smock towers have been inaugurated in Delhi if you know apart from that we also have Bangalore and Chandigarh which has smock towers and this news article is written in this backdrop before getting into the context of the article first let us know what are these smock towers and how they work and then we shall see about the points mentioned in the article one by one here is the syllabus relevant for this particular article see a smock tower is a structure designed as a large or medium scale air purifiers to reduce the air pollution and usually by forcing the air through the filters in simple words a smock tower should actually be called anti smock towers or smog free towers that is they remove the smog from the air and this tower is a large structure and it performs a function of a air purifier or air cleaning right and that is why it is a large scale air cleaning system or a large scale air purifier see they are usually fitted with multiple layers of air filters and these air filters clean the air pollutants as the air passes through them so after cleaning the tower releases clean air and the smock tower is usually of down draft type let us see what is it that is the polluted air enters from the top of the tower and the pure air exists from the bottom with the intention of minimizing the air pollution locally see it is very important when a smock tower is installed at particular place it means the pollution reduces only in that vicinity all right and that is exactly why you should remember that these smock towers minimize the air pollution only locally and there is also another type of smock tower in which the polluted air is collected from the bottom and the clean air is released from the top for example this smock tower installed in china that works on this particular principle and apart from that the tower located behind the sivaji stadium in cp also works on similar principle and this is all about the working of these smock towers now coming to the points mentioned in the article as we already saw recently two new smock towers have been inaugurated in delhi and apart from this mumbai's clean air plan estimates that installing air filtration systems at major intersections will cost up to 25 crore so even mumbai has plans of installing these kind of air filters while these initiatives show that the governments are concerned about air pollution and all the deployment is often driven by symbolism and it is not backed by science so what the author says is these smock towers are only symbolic but they really do not have a scientific backing that proves that these smock towers are valuable assets in reducing the air pollution okay for example the delhi government claims that the newly installed smock tower in cp could reduce the air pollution levels by 80 percentage but there is no scientific evidence of smock towers or any other outdoor air filtration system for that matter improving the air qualities in cities even these smock towers installed in china for that matter did not prove to be effective at all so smock towers according to the author provides an illusion of progress towards clean air and it is also a waste of money and that is what the author says so basically they mislead the policy makers and the public by diverting the attention away from the areas where actually there is a need for urgent attention therefore the author suggests the government to postpone their plans to invest in these outdoor filtration systems because 25 crores in Mumbai alone is not a joke right and data on the effectiveness of the newly installed smock towers should also be made publicly available for independent evaluation and every additional tower built is a waste of taxpayers money and residents trust because there is no scientific basis that backs the effectiveness of smock towers so this is basically the essence besides the author also gives some way forward also to combat the air pollution let's see that one by one first the author says air pollution monitoring should be expanded in places where there is little or no air quality monitoring and additionally forecasting capability should also be strengthened in these cities how do you forecast air pollution see we know there is an issue of stubble burning in and around Delhi and that causes pollution in Delhi during the months of october now or December so there is a spike in the air pollution in Delhi so based on these factors the air pollution can be checked in Delhi and apart from that climate also contributes to the pollution say a dust storm also contributes to the pollution so a forecast of the dust storm can actually help in reduction of the pollution okay now going on to the second part emission inventories at the city levels must be updated on a regular basis so what is an emission inventory see there is a industry and we have a definite amount of vehicles we also will have a projection on how much vehicles will be sold in the near future so based on all these things how much emissions will happen so that estimate is what is called as emission inventories so every city must have an emission inventory to combat the pollution so until last year approximately 75 percentage of our cities clean air plants lacked critical data on emissions from various polluting sources see these data are necessary for identifying major sources of air pollution and developing successful clean air programs that are specific for the local environment now next targeted efforts must be made to improve air quality for urban slum dwellers who have no access to clean cooking energy see in an urban slum okay what happens is the houses are all closely packed and they experience pollution from the industrial emissions vehicular emissions and apart from that the urban slum dwellers sometimes do not have access even to the LPG that is clean cooking fuel options so what they do they burn the woods and they cook so there is a high chance of indoor pollution so for an urban slum dweller the exposure to the air pollution is twice compared to a normal urban dweller so there should be efforts to target these set of people also so what should be done the policy makers must focus on providing LPG connections to these households along with ensuring sustained usage of LPG as a primary fuel and most importantly cities should strengthen their enforcement capacity by investing in people's and system that can keep a round the clock watch on both energy years and episodic polluters so what does this fancy sentence mean basically it means that the cities should make the people aware that is people themselves should be aware themselves they should be vigilant to the pollutions that they themselves make and what the neighbors make or what the bystander makes okay so self-behavior regulation is the key to bring down the pollutions in the air so in essence the author says that India is experiencing an increase in the demand for clean air but this cannot be met by unproven technological fixes like smoke towers instead we must vigorously pursue solutions that are rooted in science as well as taking into account the social factors that causes the pollution so this is all about this particular article see in this article we saw what is a smoke tower we saw about two types of smoke towers we saw about their workings as well and apart from that we also saw about the non-scientific basis in which these smoke towers have been making their own space in the cities and also we saw the way forward so this is all about this particular article with that let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion now look at this news article this news article talks about a instrument called nageshwaram or nadaswaram and sometimes it is even called as naayana okay see one notable feature of this particular instrument that you'll have to remember is it is a wind instrument that is the instrument is played by manipulating the wind through the instrument see as you can see from the picture it is a conical double reed wind instrument and it can be as long as about 95 centimeter that is about 37 inches and as you can see most of the instruments are made up of dark wood and it has a conical bore and it has a flaring wooden bell at the bottom and another thing that you should remember is there are about seven equidistant finger holes on the front side that is the side that faces outside and these holes are manipulated by the hands to produce the music and apart from that there are also holes on the other side and these holes are filled with waxes and why is it filled so that one can adjust these areas to adjust the tuning and apart from that extra reeds and the ivory needles for readjustment also are present in the instrument they generally hang from the instrument see when I say reeds look at the picture here is the reed through which the musician usually blows the wind inside the instrument see these reeds are made from the reeds found in the banks of river Kaveri in south India so as you can see they have made from the ingredients in the south India so they are south Indian music instrument that is they are an important part of karnatic music instrument see generally they are played with another percussion instrument and they find an important place in the south Indian rituals be it marriage or be it temple functions Nagasvaram plays an important role in these cultural events and one thing that you will have to remember here is about the circular breathing so what is circular breathing first the air is drawn in through the nose and it is expelled from the cheeks into the reed of the instrument so basically the air is drawn from the nose goes through the mouth into the cheeks and it is expelled and this is what is called as circular breathing and this is used in the playing of this particular instrument see if you have to equate it to a north Indian instrument it is Shani of north India generally it is used in the Hindustani music so in equivalent of that in the Hindustani music is Shani right so remember that keep this picture in mind so that you will be able to attempt any question based on this picture itself okay so this is a brief discussion on this particular wind instrument with that let's move on to the next segment of today's discussion see look at this article this article has been already discussed very recently say in august 28th discussion so we are not going to get into the details of this particular article this article is about make the two project so I request the aspirants to go back to august 28th and refer to the lecture then and now we are at the fag end of today's discussion in the practice preliminary question discussion so in that effect we have two questions for discussion today let's go over it one by one so the first question is a three statement question and this is in reference to the article we discussed today with respect to the Nobel Prize so let's go over it in the context of neural control and coordination which of the following statement is correct with reference to receptors see receptors are proteins crucial to body's communication process see when we were discussing even about the tongue or for that matter pressure receptors we saw every receptor has a unique reception capability which in turn transmits it to the neural cells so yes receptors are a part of the communication process and know that receptors are a protein also okay so most of our body is made up of protein and receptors are no exception so statement one is correct it's direct pick from ncrt statement two gustatory receptors detect smell see gustatory in itself means taste whereas all factory means so with that statement two is incorrect and coming to statement three statement three says the 2021 Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded for the discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch we just saw that so that is the basic essence of that particular article so statement three is correct so the correct option is option d one and three moving on to the next question this is in reference to the forest conservation act that we discussed in the beginning of the discussion so the question goes like this the clearing of forest land for so-and-so activities are considered as non-forest purposes we saw some list of NFPs so the first one is the cultivation of horticultural crops or medicinal plants, reforestation, construction of dams see the correct option is option a because like we saw any plantation crops or horticultural crops are non-forest purposes and we saw reforestation is a forest purpose yes we plant trees to grow forest right and we also saw this one particular peculiar exception as construction of dams as a forest purpose so with that we can say the right option is option a cultivation of horticultural crops or medicinal plants so with that let's wind up a practice preliminary question session so this is a main question inspired from our discussion today write the answers and post it in the comment section for peer review and with that let's wrap up our discussion for today get vaccinated veermask stay safe good day