 A very good evening aspirants, welcome to Hindi news analysis brought to you by Shankar IAS Academy for the date 8th of August 2022. The list of articles we are going to discuss today is displayed on the screen. You can go through it. Now let's start our discussion. See this image here. The image shows tourists flocking the Borra caves. It says that tourism has picked up in this region after a two-year break. In this context, let us see about the Borra caves. See Borra caves are located in the Anantakiri Hills of the Arakko Valley. Anantakiri Hills is a part of the eastern guards which is located in Andhra Pradesh. These caves are over a million years old. Borra cave is basically a limestone cave. They are one of the largest and deepest caves in India. This cave was discovered by William King George of the Geological Survey of India in 1807. Having seen the basics about the caves, now let's revise some geography basics. I mentioned earlier that these Borra caves are limestone caves, right? Here what are limestone caves? Limestone caves are hollow formations that are formed by dissolution of limestone. See pure rainwater does not dissolve limestones. But when the rainwater is mixed with carbon dioxide, it turns into mild carbonic acid. This weak acid dissolves limestones. In areas of limestone topography, which is also called karst topography, the weak carbonic acid formed by mixing of rainwater and carbon dioxide slowly dissolves out the limestone along the joints, bedding plains and fractures. Over a period of time, the small fractures develop into large caves. In the case of limestone caves, two geographical features are a common sight. One is stalactites and other is stalagmites. I said that weak carbonic acid formed by rainwater and carbon dioxide dissolves limestone, right? This weak carbonic acid, when saturated with limestone, will populate down the soil. Sometimes they may reach underground cave formation. Here in the cave, degassing occurs. So carbonic acid, after losing its carbon dioxide content, turns into pure water and the pure water cannot dissolve limestone. So the dissolved limestone starts precipitating out. This phenomenon result in the formation of stalactites and stalagmites. When the precipitation happens in the ceiling of the cave, it forms stalactites. The stalactites hang from the ceiling of the caves. The stalactites are downward dripping. Okay? When the precipitation occurs on the floor of the cave, it forms stalagmites. Also a stalagmite is an upward growing amount of limestone deposits on the floor of a cave. Finally, before concluding, I am going to share with you how I remember the difference between stalactites and stalagmites. Since stalactites has the letter C in it, it will hang from the ceiling. And since stalagmites has the letter G in it, it is formed in the ground. Hope this was useful. So that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw about the borra caves, which is a limestone cave. Then we saw how the limestone caves are formed. And finally, we saw about stalactites and stalagmites. With these key learn points, let's move on to next news article discussion. Now have a look at this text and context article. It talks about the Great Barrier Reef. See it talks about the extent of recovery recorded in Australia's Great Barrier Reef and the potential threat to its health. This is the crux of the news article given here. In this context, let us learn about the recovery of this Great Barrier Reef. Before that, the syllabus relevant to this article discussion is highlighted here for your reference. You can go through it. First of all, what are coral reefs? See corals or marine invertebrates are animals which do not possess a spine. Just look at this image. You can see that it does not possess a spine, right? Corals are the largest living structures on the planet. Each coral is called a polyp. And thousands of such polyps live together to form a colony. The colony grows when polyps multiply to make copies of themselves. Just look at these images. You can see how the coral colonies look like. You have to know that corals live with algae in a type of a relationship called symbiosis. This means the organisms cooperate with each other. The algae called zooxanthalae live inside the corals. And these corals provide a tough outer shell made from calcium carbonate. So it protects the algae. In return for that protection, the algae provide their host with the food produced through photosynthesis. That means the corals provides the protection to the algae and in return algae provides the food to corals, okay? Zooxanthalae also provides coral with their striking colors. See, corals are of two types. They are hard corals and soft corals. These hard corals extract calcium carbonate from seawater to build hard white coral exoskeletons, okay? So hard corals are in a way the engineers of reef ecosystem. And measuring the extent of hard coral is a widely accepted metric for measuring the condition of the coral reefs, okay? So let's take the soft corals. They attach themselves to such skeletons and older skeletons built by their ancestors. Soft corals also add their own skeletons to the hard structure over the years. That means the soft corals do not produce calcium carbonate skeleton and do not form reefs. When you see these images, you can understand the difference between the hard corals and soft corals. As I already said, soft corals do not produce reef, but they may live on them, okay? And in general, the coral reefs acts as a protective nurseries to many fish species, giving the small fish a home and a chance to grow. Now let's see about Australia's Great Barrier Reef. See, it is the world's largest reef system stretching across 2300 kilometer and having nearly 3000 individual reefs. Coral reefs support over 25 percentage of marine biodiversity. The marine life supported by reefs further fuels global fishing industries. Then when we talk about the economic benefit, coral reef system generate $2.7 trillion in annual economic value through goods and service trade and tourism. And according to annual long-term monitoring report by the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences, the highest level of coral cover have been recorded in the northern and central part of Australia's Great Barrier Reef in past 36 years. The report also states that the reef system are resilient and capable of recovering after disturbances. The disturbances they mean is the accumulated heat stress, cyclones, predatory attacks and so on. See, they are resilient only when the frequency of such disturbances is low. Okay, see the coral cover is measured by the increase in the cover of hard corals. The hard coral cover in northern Great Barrier Reef had reached 36 percentage while that in the central region had reached 33 percentage. Meanwhile, coral cover levels decline in the southern region. Then the report says that the recovery was fueled largely by increase in the fast-growing acropora corals. These are a dominant type in the Great Barrier Reef. But these fast-growing corals are the most susceptible to environmental pressures such as rising temperatures, cyclones, pollution, crown of thorns, starfish attacks, etc. See these crown of thorns, starfishes prey on hard corals. And the report says that the reason for recovery of the reef is the low levels of acute stresses in the past 12 months. That is there were no tropical cyclones, lesser heat stress in 2020 and 2022 and a decrease in crown of thorns, starfish outbreaks. But note that the biggest threat to the health of the reef is climate change induced heat stress. They result in coral bleaching. Now what is this coral bleaching? See as I already said coral share a symbiotic relationship with single-celled algae called zooxanthole. When exposed to conditions like heat stress, pollution and high levels of ocean acidity, the zooxanthole start producing reactive oxygen species. This is not beneficial for the corals. So the corals kick out the color-giving algae from their polyps thus exposing their pale white exoskeleton. And this leads to coral starvation because coral cannot produce their own food. See these bleached corals can survive depending on the levels of bleaching. Also it depends on the recovery of sea temperature to normal levels. And note that severe bleaching and prolonged stress in the external environment can lead to coral death. See when you take the condition over the last couple of decades, climate change induced rise in temperature has made seas warmer than usual. Even when you take the U1 assessment in 2021, it says that the world is going to experience heating at 1.5 degree Celsius in the next decade. At this temperature, bleaching becomes more frequent and recovery becomes less. Okay, having seen about coral bleaching and how it is caused, let me give you a small data about the mass coral bleaches that has occurred so far. See the first mass bleaching event occurred in 1998. This occurred when the El Nino weather pattern caused sea surfaces to heat. This caused 8% of the world's coral to die. Then the second event took place in 2002. Then the longest and most damaging bleaching event took place from 2014 to 2017. Then this mass bleaching occurred again in 2020. Following this, the bleaching occurred earlier this year. So the recent report concludes by saying that though the observed recovery offers good news for the overall state of Great Barrier Reef, there is an increasing concern for its ability to maintain this state. Okay, so that's all regarding this news article. In this news article, we saw about coral reef, how it is formed and we saw about Great Barrier Reef. Then we ended our discussion by seeing what is coral bleaching. Okay, with these key learn points, let's move on to next news article discussion. See this editorial article. As you know, within a few days, India will be celebrating its 75th year of Independence Day. So this editorial article tries to evaluate whether India as a democracy have human development advancement or not. This is the crux of the news article given here. In this backdrop, let's quickly go through some of the important points mentioned in this editorial article. Before that, the syllabus relevant to this news article is given here. Just go through it. Firstly, let us understand what is democracy? As wisely said by Abraham Lincoln, democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people. Yes, democracy means people's rule. It is a form of government in which the rulers are elected by the people. So in this form of government, the supreme power is possessed by the people. In Indian context, the Indian constitution provides for representative parliamentary democracy. That is the executive is responsible to the legislature for all its policies and actions. Universal adult franchise, periodic elections, rule of law, independence of judiciary and absence of discrimination on certain grounds are the aspects of democratic character of Indian polity. See the most important feature of democracy is that it attempts to empower individuals to live the lives they desire. So here the article evaluates to what extent India has advanced human development on its 75th year of Independence Day. See, even though Indian economy lays foundation for enabling human development, the extent to which it has succeeded should be considered as a part of evaluation of democracy itself. That is why human development advancement is taken as a parameter to evaluate democracy. Okay, now coming back to the article, during independence, even Hiru was pessimistic about creating an equal opportunity India and the reality is even today we are far away from attaining this goal. A number of reasons are associated with this. See, in India, there is a layering of the population with respect to caste and gender, especially the gender-based inequality. Even today, gender-based inequality is widespread in India, that is within every social group women are still in a less advantageous position than their men. Women are less nourished, less educated. And when compared to their share of the population, they have very low representations in the institutions of governance. Even if they participate equally in the elections, they are not seated at the highest levels of government. This is evident from very low female labour participation in India when compared to the rest of the world. See, already women have social restrictions. In addition to this, economic deprivation is also added. This reinforces the secondary position of women in the society. And this condition continues to exist irrespective of time leading to widespread gender-based inequality. Also, you must note one thing here. The conditions which we discussed now is not prevalent in every part of India. There exist regional differences. That is the condition may vary from place to place. For example, according to Nithya Ayok data in 2021, multi-dimensional poverty in Bihar exceeds 50 percentage, while it is less than 1 percentage in Kerala. Here, you might have a doubt. Why in a country like India, which imposes almost uniform laws across it, have uneven social and economic development? The answer to this is very simple. Like many other institutions, democracy is also embedded in the society. Meaning, some of its functioning are decided by the social structure itself. For example, the south and west of India have seen more development as a result of more societal transformation. This includes weakening of the traditional hierarchy, allowing greater participation of previously excluded groups in governance. See, all these help the states to adopt public policy that promoted the well-being of the excluded groups. And that is why states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu have superior human development indicators. Despite such a progress, at some point, the traces of patriarchy and caste are still visible on the social maps of these states. This indicates that there is still a long way to go to achieve equality of opportunity. So when we look back into the history, it seems like Nehru anticipated all these during the framing of constitution itself. He felt that simply embracing democracy as a system of governance would not guarantee a fulfilling life for all Indians. That is why he emphasized on the importance of establishing the social, economic and political institutions that could permit this. And in reality, the state is not interested in building or even promoting such institutions. So to conclude, the author says a wonderful quote. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. That is, we as a citizen, instead of simply leaving things to our political representatives, we should nourish the democracy through participation and vigilance. So we as a citizen should realize our civil liberties and should use tools like the right to know and right to information. So that is all regarding this news article. In this editorial article, we saw about what is democracy and what India has achieved in this 75 year of independence. So with these takeaway points, let us move on to next news article discussion. See this news article, this news article talks about CSIR. CSIR is in use today because for the first time CSIR had appointed a woman director general in its 80 year history and the center had also announced the second phase of FAME program. FAME is expanded as faster adoption and manufacturing of hybrid and electric vehicles in India. And with respect to the second phase, India will be investing 10,000 crore in developing electric vehicle infrastructure. So this is the crux of the news article given here. In this context, let us quickly go through some of the important points with respect to CSIR. See the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research is a contemporary research and development organization. It functions as an autonomous body under the Societies Registration Act of 1860. It is funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology. Know that the Prime Minister of India serves as the President of CSIR and the Union Minister of Science and Technology serves as its Vice President. Further, the governing body of CSIR will be guided by a Director General. Okay, now talking about its functioning. It has a dynamic network of 38 national laboratories, 39 outreach centers, 3 innovation complexes and 5 units. So CSIR is among the 4 most scientific and industrial research organizations in the world. Note that the main mission of CSIR is to provide scientific, industrial research and development that maximizes the economic, environmental and social benefits for the people of India. It covers a wide spectrum of science and technology, that is from radio and space, physics, oceanography, geophysics, chemicals, drugs, genomics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, to mining, aeronautics, instrumentation, environmental engineering and information technology. It also provides significant technological intervention in many areas with regards to societal efforts which include environment, health, drinking water, food, housing, energy, farm and non-farm sectors. Additionally, know that CSIR is pioneer of India's intellectual property movement. CSIR is a leader in terms of filing and securing patents worldwide. On an average, CSIR filed about 200 Indian patents and 250 foreign patents per year. So in terms of submitting and obtaining patents globally, CSIR is a leader among its contemporaries in publicly funded research organizations in the world. So that's all regarding this news article. In this news article, we saw about CSIR and its functions. With these learned points, let's move on to next news article discussion. See these articles here. These are about the recent launch carried out by ISRO. See yesterday, ISRO's SSLV-D1 mission lifted off successfully from the space port at Stiharikota. In the initial stages, the SSLV performed as expected. But in the final stage, the SSLV suffered from data loss. This resulted in SSLV launching the satellites on board in an elliptical orbit rather than a circular orbit. You do this, the satellites are rendered useless. This is about the news article. So now let's see about SSLV-D1 mission. First of all, what is SSLV? See the small satellite launch vehicle is a small lift launch vehicle being developed by the Indian Space Research Organization. It has a payload capacity to deliver 500 kilograms to lower Earth orbit and 300 kg to sun synchronous orbit. It focuses on launching small satellites. Here, note that SSLV has the capabilities to support multiple orbital drop-offs. That is, it can drop off multiple satellites into orbit in a single launch. Finally, note that SSLV is a three-stage launch vehicle and all the three stages have solid fuel. Okay, see, SSLV has certain advantages associated with it. Firstly, it has launch on demand capability. That is, SSLV can be assembled in a fast manner for launch. Due to this capability, SSLV has the ability to place satellites into orbit as and when required. Next advantage is the low cost associated with SSLV and the infrastructure requirement for the launch of SSLV is very minimum. And we already saw that SSLV can launch multiple satellites in a single launch. Having seen about SSLV, now let's see about the payloads it carried. First, let's take a look at EOS02. See, EOS02 is an Earth observation satellite designed and realized by ISRO. It is a part of the MicroSat series. The EOS02 will provide advanced optical remote sensing operation with high spatial resolution. This will operate in the infrared band. Now let's take AzadiSat. It is a CubeSat weighting around 8 kg. It carries 75 different payloads, each weighting around 50 grams. Girl students from rural regions across the country were provided guidance to build these payloads. This is a first of its kind space mission with an all women concept to promote women in STEM education. STEM indicates science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. The payloads developed by them are integrated by the student team of SpaceKitsIndia. The ground system developed by SpaceKitsIndia will be utilized for receiving the data from this satellite. Here, SpaceKitsIndia is an organization that focuses on creating young scientists. This is about the news article. In this news article discussion, we saw about SSLV and the advantages of SSLV. Finally, we saw about the payloads carried by SSLV D1 mission. With these learned points, let's move on to next news article discussion. See this article here. The article says that earlier Assam had around 100 foreigners tribunals. But after the publication of the updated NRC in 2019, the union government decided to increase the number to 1000. This aims to deal with the expected increased litigation. So, 238 more appointments of ministerial staffs were made to deal with the increased workload. This appointment is not confirmed yet, and the people who got selected here still remain clueless. So, the Guwahati High Court has asked the center and the Assam government to decide whether or not to appoint the ministerial staff. This is about the news article. In this context, let us revise about the foreigners tribunal. See, the foreigners tribunal is a quasi-judicial body. What is this quasi-judicial body? A quasi-judicial body is a non-judicial body which can interpret law. That is, it has powers resembling a court of law. For example, arbitration panels, tribunals can be called as quasi-judicial body. See, this tribunal, that is the foreigners tribunal, decide whether the person under question is a foreigner or not according to the Foreigners Act of 1946. Under the provisions of Foreigners Act 1946 and Foreigners Tribunal Order 1964, only the foreigners tribunals are empowered to declare a person as a foreigner. See, according to section 9 of the Foreigners Act 1946, it is the responsibility of the person to prove that he or she is an Indian citizen by providing necessary documents. That means the individual in question has to provide evidence to prove his citizenship in the tribunal. That is, the burden of proof lies on him or her. Also note that an appeal against the order of the foreigners tribunal can be made only in the high courts. I have displayed the required qualifications of people who can become a member of foreigners tribunal. You can pause the video and go through it. Now let's see who can set up these tribunals. Earlier, the powers to constitute tribunals were vested only with the centre. After the Ministry of Home Affairs amended the Foreigners Tribunal Order in 2019, district magistrates in all states and union territories are empowered to set up these tribunals. So that's all regarding this news article. In this news article, we saw about foreigners tribunal and then we saw about the qualification of members of the tribunal. And finally, we saw who can set up these tribunals. With all these key learned points, let's move on to the next part of our news article discussion, which is preliminary practice questions discussion. Look at the first question. Among the following caste topography features, find the odd one out. Option A, stalactites. Option B, stalagmites. Option C, calcite pillars. Option D, sinkholes. See here, the answer will be option D, sinkholes. Because stalactites, stalagmites, and calcite pillars are underground features. Sinkhole is the above ground feature. See here, calcite pillars are formed when the stalactite hanging from the roof is eventually joined to the stalagmites growing from the floor to form a pillar. This pillar is called calcite pillar. Sinkholes are nothing but the depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. So the answer is option D, sinkholes. Look at the second question. Consider the following statements about SSLV. Statement 1, SSLV is capable of launching mini micro-anano-satellites to a 500 kilometer low earth orbit. Statement 2, the satellite insertion into the internet orbit is achieved through a liquid propulsion-based velocity trimming module. We have to find the correct statement here. See here, statement 1, it is correct. We saw in the discussion itself. Statement 2, it is also correct. Although the three stages of SSLV has solid fuels, the satellite insertion system which puts the satellite into the orbit has liquid propulsion system. So here, our correct answer will be option C, both 1 and 2. Look at the third question. Consider the following statements with reference to the FAME Scheme. Look at statement 1, it is correct. The faster adoption and manufacturing of electric vehicles was launched in April 2015 under the National Electric Mobility Mission to encourage electric and hybrid vehicle purchase by providing financial support. Its first phase ran for four years until 2019. Statement 2, it is also correct. The second phase is a three-year subsidy program aims at supporting the electrification of public and shared transportation. So our final answer will be option C, both 1 and 2. This is our last question for today. Consider the following statements about Foreigners Act 1946. The Act empowered the government to take such steps as are necessary to prevent illegal migrants, including the use of force. Statement 2, tribunals established under this Act has powers similar to a civil court. We have to find the correct statement here. Look at statement 1, it is the correct statement. The government can even use force to prevent illegal migrants. Statement 2, it is also correct. Foreigners tribunal has the power of court. So here also, our answer will be option C, both 1 and 2. The main questions based on today's discussion is displayed on the screen. You can write your answer and post it in the comment section. If you like the video, hit the like button, post your comments, and share the video with your friends. And don't forget to subscribe Shankar IIS Academy YouTube channel. Thanks for watching.