 A very good evening aspirants. Welcome to Hindi newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankarae's Academy for the date 28th of February 2022. So this is the last day of the month. Tomorrow we are going to enter a brand new month and the exam is also fast approaching us. So I wanted to tell you a few things about the exams. Keep updating your current affairs materials like your current affairs notes and start revising your basics again and again. It will help you a lot trust me and finally solve as many question papers as possible to evaluate where you are standing. So these are all the things that I wanted to share with you and now let us take a look at the articles that we are going to discuss today. See the first article here is about the swift sanctions on Russia. We all know that how things got escalated between Russia and Ukraine right. So these sanctions are a result of it and we will see what these swift sanctions are and what are all the consequences of it for Russia. The second article here it is about the local body elections. Under this article discussion we are going to see the election of members and chair persons and reservation and some of the constitutional provisions. And the third article here is about polio and at this article discussion we are going to see about the polio disease and the transmission symptoms and about the pulse polio immunization program. And the fourth article here is about the Satavahanas. So we are going to see some of the characteristics of Satavahanas dynasty and we are going to see who is the founder of the dynasty and some of the notable points regarding the era. And finally we have this biodiversity hotspot article and at this we are going to see the criteria and the biodiversity hotspots in India. See today we have chosen a variety of articles. We have a science based article. We have an environment based article, polity based article, history based article and IR based article also. So without any delay let's get into our article discussion. See this discussion is based on the text and context article which discusses an economic sanction imposed on Russia. See due to the recent military advancements made by Russia and Ukraine other countries like US, UK are imposing sanctions on Russia. And one such sanction is removing Russian banks from SWIFT platform and banning them from using its services. So let us understand what is the SWIFT and its benefits and what Russia will lose if it is removed from SWIFT. But before that the syllabus relevant to the article is given here for your reference please go through it. First of all know that SWIFT stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. See the SWIFT is a global cooperative that is owned by its members. It is headquartered in Belgium. It has 25 member board which is responsible for oversight and management of the company. See SWIFT is regulated by National Bank of Belgium which acts as the lead overseer and it is supported by G10 central banks of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland and Sweden. The European central bank is also a part of it. But in 2012 the SWIFT oversight forum was established. This includes the G10 central banks along with the central banks of other countries including India. The list of central banks that has joined the SWIFT oversight forum has given here for your reference please go through it. So now what SWIFT does? See it is the world's leading provider of secure financial messaging services. See basically SWIFT is a communications channel for financial institutions and it performs the primary role of message carrier. That is it provides a cost effective and reliable way of transmitting financial messages. So SWIFT is the messaging network that financial institutions use to securely transmit information and instructions. See the notable point here is it securely transmits the information and instructions. It does not transfer any money. See SWIFT uses a standard system of codes and in this way it connects the payment systems across countries. Now we will have this doubt. What is this financial message? See these messages deal with the financial transactions relating to payments, securities, treasury and trade and that is exactly why experts call SWIFT as an internet for financial services. Now let us see how it works. See first of all the SWIFT it assigns a unique ID code to each member institution. This code is called the bank identifier code BIC or the SWIFT code or SWIFT ID or ISO 9362 code. This code has eight characters or eleven characters and it identifies the bank name, the country, city and also the branch. So once the code is assigned the messages can be sent and received. Let us take an example here to understand the process involved. See assume that you want to send money to a friend who is in New York and he is having a bank accountant Bank of America. Now you live in Delhi and you have an accountant State Bank of India. So what you will do? You will go to the Delhi SBI branch and will submit your friends account number and the BIC. We saw before right the bank identifier code or the SWIFT code of Bank of America. So now what will happen? SBI that is the Delhi branch will send a SWIFT message containing payment transfer information. Note that they are sending payment transfer information to the New York branch of Bank of America over the Secure SWIFT network. Once the Bank of America receives the SWIFT message about the incoming payment, it will clear and credit the money to the friends account. So in this manner SWIFT provides a powerful messaging system and it oversees the sending and receiving of over 5 billion financial messages. But remember SWIFT is not a payment system like I said before but rather a transport network for which only all major payment and securities infrastructures and plus SWIFT is not a bank or a clearing and settlement institution because it does not manage accounts on behalf of customers and it also does not hold funds. See SWIFT is just used to send and receive information about financial transactions. Like we saw in our example, if you are going to send money to your friend, it will just send the message of you sending the money to your friend. So based on that the bank in the foreign country will clear the credit money to your friends account. So this is just the information about the financial transactions. See even such financial information is not maintained on an ongoing basis rather the data are only held for a limited period of time. So overall SWIFT is responsible for providing the network, standards, products and services that allow the member institutions to connect and exchange the financial information and it is the backbone of global financial communication. This is because it forms the core part of the financial services infrastructure. See currently SWIFT's messaging services support more than 11,000 financial institutions around the world. These financial institutions operate in more than 200 countries. But remember that SWIFT replaced another technology called the TELIX technology. Before SWIFT TELIX was widely used by banks to communicate instructions related to cross-border transfers. And having seen that now let us see about the benefits of the SWIFT network. See SWIFT is unique in the sense that it helps the global financial community to move value in a reliable, safe and secure approach. See it is safe because the core messaging platform operates with a layered security model. The model is backed by a secure application development process and the state of art hardware based public key infrastructure technology. Then it is secure because it has confidentiality controls which protects the customer's message data from unauthorized disclosure. And it is also reliable due to its extensive integrity controls built into the applications. This protect against the unauthorized changes to messages and also detects the corruption of messages. And moreover SWIFT allows individuals and businesses to take electronic or card payments even if the customer or vendor uses a different bank than the payee. See all these enable smooth cross-border payments. So if Russian banks are removed from these SWIFT what will be the consequence? Simply they will not be able to make overseas payment. That is it will make sending and receiving money difficult. So it will make the exports and imports difficult. It will also lead to missed payments and giant overdrafts. See this will put pressure on Russia's financial systems and it might lead to the collapse of Russian economy. See but the experts are saying that Russia is taking measures to avoid this. Already in 2014 Russia has developed its own messaging system that works within the country. It is called the SPFS. Now Russia is planning to integrate it with the China's messaging system called cross-border inter-bank payment system CIPS. See if this happens it will facilitate trade between Russia and China. So the experts are saying Russia will counter this sanction by using this facility and if similar measures are taken by other countries it will not affect Russia to a major extent. So that is all about the article discussion. We'll have a quick recap. What all we saw? We saw about the SWIFT network which stands for Society for Worldwide Inter-Bank Financial Telecommunication and we saw that it is regulated by National Bank of Belgium and supported by G10 central banks. And we saw that in the year 2012 SWIFT oversight forum was established and it included G10 central banks along with the central banks of other countries including India. And after that we saw that SWIFT is the leading provider of secure financial messaging services and it is a communications channel for financial institutions. And we saw about this financial message. And what is that? It deals with financial transactions relating to payments, securities, treasury and trade. And we saw that SWIFT is called as Internet for Financial Services. And after this we moved on to see the mechanism of working of SWIFT which includes the assignment of a unique ID code called as the Bank Identifier Code or the SWIFT code which identifies the bank name, country, city and the branch. So when you're making cross-border payments, this code is given to the bank for clearance of money. And we saw that SWIFT provides a powerful messaging system and we saw that it is not a payment system nor a bank. It does not hold funds and even the messages, they are only held for a limited period of time. And after that we saw that SWIFT is responsible for providing the network, standards, products, services that allow member institutions to connect and exchange financial information and it is the backbone of global financial communication. And after that we saw some of the benefits which is the safety, reliability and secure approach to financial community. We saw that it has layered security model and we saw that it has confidentiality controls. We saw that it has extensive integrity controls that are built into the applications. And we finally ended our discussion by seeing some of the consequences for Russian banks if they are removed from SWIFT. And what are they? It will make the overseas payment difficult. It will put a constraint on exports and imports and it will put pressure on Russian financial institutions. And we saw a brief about how Russia is countering this sanction. And with these key take away points, let's move on to the next article discussion. See this news article here, it talks about the indirect election of the heads of the urban local bodies. See we are not going to go deep into the article because it is about the parties choosing candidates for the election. Instead, let us discuss about the constitutional provisions for the appointment of members and chairpersons of Punjayat and municipal corporation. Also, we will discuss about the reservation of seats for these positions. So first of all let us see the elections of members and chairpersons of Punjayats. See all the members of Punjayats at the village, intermediate and district levels shall be elected directly by the people. Further, the chairperson of the Punjayats at the intermediate and district levels shall be elected indirectly by and from amongst the elected members thereof. However, the chairperson of the Punjayat at village level shall be elected in such a manner as the state legislature determines. So this is about the election of members and chairpersons of Punjayat. Now, let's see about the reservation of seats for Punjayat elections. See the 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act provides for the reservation of seats for schedule cast and schedule tribes in every Punjayat. That is at all the three levels that is the village level, intermediate level and district level. This is done in proportion of their population to the total population in that particular Punjayat area. Further, the state legislature shall provide for the reservation of offices of chairperson in the Punjayat at the village or any other level for the SCs and STs. So there is reservation for members and there is reservation for chairpersons also. Note that the act provides for the reservation of not less than one-third of the total number of seats for women. See this includes the number of seats reserved for women belonging to the SCs and STs. And again not less than one-third of the total number of offices of chairpersons in the Punjayats at each level shall be reserved for women. See the act also authorizes the legislature of a state to make any provision for reservation of seats in any Punjayat or offices of chairperson in the Punjayat at any level in the favor of backward classes. See the reservation of seats for the municipality elections are similar to that of the Punjayats. See this is mentioned in 74th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1992. The change here is that the reservation is for municipality instead of Punjayats. Okay now let us see about the elections in municipal corporation. See a municipal corporation has three authorities namely the council, the standing committees and the commissioner. Firstly the council is the deliberative and legislative wing of the corporation. It consists of the councillors directly elected by the people as well as a few nominated persons having knowledge or experience of municipal administration. Note that the council is headed by a mayor, he or she is assisted by a deputy mayor. And again he or she is elected in a majority of states for a one-year renewable term. Now let's come to the second authority that is the standing committee. See these standing committees are created to facilitate the working of the council that is the legislative wing of the corporation. And note that the standing committees they are too large in size. They deal with the public works, education, health, taxation, finance and so on. They take decisions in their fields. And finally the municipal commissioner. See he or she is responsible for the implementation of decision taken by the council and its standing committees. Thus he is the chief executive authority of the corporation and he is appointed by the state government and is generally a member of the Indian administrative service. So that's all about this article. Now let's have a quick recap. What all we saw? We saw about the election of members and chairpersons of the panjayat at village, intermediate and district level. We saw that the members of panjayat at all levels are elected directly by the people and the chairpersons at intermediate and district level are elected indirectly by the elected members and the chair person at the village level shall be elected in such a manner as the state legislature determines. See the 73rd constitutional amendment act provided for the reservation of seats for SCs and STs in all three levels in proportion of their population to the total population in panjayat area. See the act provides for the reservation of not less than one-third of the total number of seats for women and this includes the number of seats reserved for women belonging to SCs and STs. When it comes to the offices of chairpersons then also one-third of the total number of offices are reserved for women and we saw that the reservation of seats for the municipality elections are similar to that of the panjayats and finally we ended our discussion by seeing the elections in municipal corporation we saw that municipal corporation has three authorities council which is the legislative wing of the corporation consists of councillors directly elected by people and it has a few nominated persons having knowledge or experience of municipal administration. The council is headed by mayor and assisted by deputy mayor and after that we saw about the standing committee which are created to facilitate the working of the council it deals with public works education health taxation and finance and after that we saw about the municipal commissioner who is responsible for the implementation of the decisions taken by the council and its standing committees. He is the chief executive authority of the corporation appointed by state government and is generally a member of Indian administrative service. With these key points in mind let's move on to the next article discussion. See this news article here it talks about the intensified pulse polio immunization campaign. See it was conducted at 43,051 boots across the state of Tamil Nadu on Sunday. It achieved a coverage of 97.53 percentage. See of the target population of 57.61 lakh children up to the five years of age 56.18 lakh were immunized. So in this context let us learn about the polio in detail. See this article discussion will be helpful in your problems. Okay so pay close attention to it. First of all let us see about the polio disease. See polio mildews that is polio it is a highly infectious viral disease. See this mainly affects young children under the five years of age. The words polio and mylon are derived from the Greek. Here polio means gray and mylon means maro indicating the spinal cord. See it is the effect of polio mildews virus on the spinal cord that leads to paralysis. See there are three strains of wild polio virus that is type 1, type 2 and type 3. The virus is transmitted from person to person. It spreads mainly through the fecal oral root and rarely the virus is transmitted by common vehicle. Here common vehicle in the sense contaminated water or contaminated food. See once it gets into the body the virus multiplies in the intestine. From this it can invade the nervous system and can cause paralysis. So that's all about the polio virus and the disease and its transmission. Now let us see about the symptoms. See initial symptoms of polio include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs. In a small proportion of cases the disease causes paralysis which is often permanent. See the notable point here is there is no cure for polio. It can only be prevented by immunization. But if you see polio is one of the small limited number of diseases that can be eradicated. See it affects only humans and there is no animal reservoir. In September 2015 the wild polio virus type 2 was officially declared eradicated and also note that since November 2012 the type 3 polio virus has not been detected. So going by this type 1 is probably the only wild polio virus type that remains in circulation. See the major concern about the disease is that as long as a single child remains infected with polio virus children in all countries are at risk of contracting the disease. See the polio virus can easily be imported into a polio free country and can spread rapidly amongst unimmunized populations. See polio vaccine given multiple times can protect a child for life. As we saw that polio has no cure, vaccine is our only option. And having said that now let us discuss in brief about the Pulse Polio Immunization Program in India. See pulse here means post resuscitation and initial utility life-saving efforts. This program was launched in India in 1995. See the days of immunization are known as national immunization days. Note that following the global initiative that is the global polio eradication initiative, this pulse polio immunization program was launched in India. It is mainly to eradicate polio in the country. See the goal of this global initiative was to eradicate the polio disease by the year 2000. Although this target is not achieved today polio is 99.9 percentage eradicated. See it reminds endemic in only three countries in 2019. Those three countries are Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. Also note that India committed to the resolution passed by World Health Assembly for global polio eradication in 1988. See these are some of the measures that India has committed itself for the eradication of polio. Now we'll see the aim of the pulse polio immunization program. See firstly it aims to immunize children through improved social mobilization. Secondly it plans for mop-up operations in areas where polio virus has almost disappeared and lastly it aims to maintain high level of morale among the public. See under this immunization program children in the age group of zero to five years administered polio drops during the national and sub national immunization rounds every year. See this program aims in achieving 100 percentage coverage under the oral polio vaccine and the efficiency of the program is seen from the decrease in polio cases in India. See prior to the introduction of pulse polio program there were nearly 50,000 cases annually but after the program the last polio case in the country was reported from the Haurad district of West Bengal on 13th January 2012. Thereafter no polio case has been reported in the country. See this table here gives you the date of the reported last case with regards to type 1, type 2 and type 3 polio virus. So based on these information WHO that is the World Health Organization on 24th February 2012 it removed India from the list of endemic countries with active polio virus transmission and also note that on 27th March 2014 the Regional Certification Commission of the World Health Organization certified Southeast Asian region of the WHO as polio free. Note that this includes India also and this isn't remarkable achievement from the Indian side right. So with this we have come to the end of our article discussion we'll have a quick recap now. What all we saw in this discussion we saw about the polio disease and it is caused by virus and we saw that there are three strains of wild polio virus that is the type 1, type 2 and type 3. We saw about its transmission it spreads mainly through fecal oral rate rarely transmitted by common vehicles such as contaminated water or food and after that we moved on to see about the symptoms which includes fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck, pain in the limbs and in some proportion of cases it causes paralysis which is often permanent and after that we moved on to see about the pulse polio immunization program which is based on the global initiative that is the global polio eradication initiative and under this pulse polio immunization program we saw the aims of it which is to immunize children to plan mop-up operations to maintain high level of morel among the public and we saw that children in the age group of 0 to 5 years are administered polio drops during the national and sub-national immunization rounds every year and we saw that this program aims in achieving 100 percentage coverage under the oral polio vaccine and we saw the table of the last cases of polio virus with regards to three strains that is the type 1, type 2 and type 3 and finally we ended our discussion by seeing that the regional certification commission of world health organization certified the southeast asian region which includes India as polio free and on february 2012 the world health organization removed India from the list of endemic countries with active polio virus transmission these are all the remarkable achievements of India in eradicating the polio virus so with these points in mind let's move on to the next article discussion see this news article here it mentions that a new Satavahana era site has been discovered in Telangana it is in the Telukunta village in the site a raised platform has been found which is about 130 meters diameter so taking this as an opportunity let us see a few relevant facts about the Satavahana dynasty see the Satavahanas ruled over parts of western India and the Deccan they ruled during the second century BCE to second century CE and it was only under Satavahana dynasty the Deccan prospered initially note that the Satavahana dynasty is the first known historical dynasty of Maharashtra the capital was the Kotilingala in the present Karimnagar district of Telangana it was the capital from 230 BCE to 220 CE then the capital moved to other popular capitals like Paitan in present Maharashtra and Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh see the epigraphic evidence shows that the Satavahanas ruled a larger area of the peninsula with oceans as borders on the three sides and Buddhism prospered under them both in the western India and in Andhra also note that the literature and art were prominent in their period the literature like Gathasabdashakti or the paintings like Ajanta flourished during their rule also during this period Nashik was very prosperous and the Nashik silk was also famous even many european historians believe that the style of silk and gold brocade that Marco Polo found being over at Baghdad and called as the Nashik and Naag actually originally came from Nashik now coming to their kings see the founder of the dynasty was Simuka or the Shrimuka Satakarni the best known ruler of the dynasty is Gotamiputta Sri Satakarni also called as Gautami Putra he conquered all Maharashtra according to the inscriptions and coins Gotamiputta ruled over a large kingdom extending from Konkan in the west to Andhra Desha in the east he issued many types of coins including the ship type lead coins and this indicated his rule on the maritime province of the Coromandel coast some other important kings are Krishna Satakarni one Satarni two Apilaka Kuntala Satakarni Pulamari Yajnashree Satakarni and among them Yajnashree Satakarni was the last great king of the dynasty now let us see some notable characteristics of Satavagna rulers see they are polygenus that means they had more than one wife also the rulers were identified through metronomics that is the names derived from that of their mother for example Gautami Putra means son of Gautami but by and large the succession to the throne was generally patlinial that is from the father's side see it is found that Satavagnas were liberal patterns of learning and religion even some kings performed Vedic sacrifices and gifted lavish items to the Brahmanas many kings like Krishna Gautami Putra, Pulamavi, Yajnashree they even excavated caves and donated villages to provide for the maintenance clothing and medicines of the Buddhist monks also some sources say that Satavagnas were orthodox brahmanas even it is said that Gautami Putra, Sri Satakarni, claimed to be both a unique brahmana and a destroyer of the pride of Kshatriyas he also claimed to have ensured that there was no intermarriage amongst members of the four varnas we all know what these four varnas are right they are the brahmanas the Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and sutras so it is claimed that Gautami Putra had ensured that there was no intermarriage between these forecasts but these claims are contradicting because according to the Brahmanas or Vedas kings ought to have been Kshatriyas right but here it is claimed that Gautami Putra was both a unique brahmana and a Kshatriya so here without proper evidence we can't come to any conclusion and plus Satavagnas also entered into marriage alliances with people who were supposed to be excluded from the system according to Brahmanas or Vedas and more importantly Satavagnas practiced endogamy that is they married within a unit such as kin group, caste or a group of living in the same locality so Satavagnas practiced marriage between these groups but Brahmanical texts recommended the exogamous system which means marriage outside the unit or group so there are these contradictory information about Satavagnas and finally know that the dynasty was fragmented into various parts by the mid third century and with this we have come to the end of our article discussion we'll have a quick recap what all we saw we saw about the Satavagna dynasty which ruled over the parts of western India and Deccan from the period of second century BCE to second century CE and after that we saw the capital of Satavagna dynasty which is Koti Lingala in the present Karimnagar district of Telangana it was the capital from 230 BCE to 220 CE and afterwards the capital was moved to popular cities like Paitan in present Maharashtra and Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh and after that we saw about the literature and art during this period see the literature like Gatha Saptashati or the paintings like Ajanta flourished during their rule and Nashik was very prosperous and after that we saw the founder of the dynasty and his name is Simuka or Srimuka Satakarni and the best known ruler of the dynasty was Gautami Putra and after that we saw about other important kings and after that we saw the notable characteristics of Satavagna rulers that they are polygynous they had more than one wife and they were identified through metronomics that is the names derived from their mother but the succession to the throne was patilineal and we saw that they were liberal patterns of learning and religion they excavated caves and donated villages to provide for the maintenance clothing and medicines of monks and we saw some contradictory informations about the Satavagna rulers with these points in mind let's move on to the next article discussion see this news article talks about the noble prize-winning physicist C.V. Raman see question like why do flowers have colors were making him think so he made his efforts on studying floral colors also he studied about their roles in attracting pollinators and shielding flowers from predators see all these studies were made by him during his final years note that the national science day was celebrated on Monday to commemorate the discovery of Raman effect see according to the article given here a lab was named after him and it also says that many scholars has compared the floral spectral reflectance of 700 odd invasive and non-invasive species and this is done through expeditions made to several biodiversity hotspots on western guards including Ponmudi, Munar, Banasura, Brahmagiri and Chambhara see most interesting result is that the flower color perception among humans and bees are varying for instance jasmine might appear white in color but they are green for the pollinators this is because the bee pollinators have floral color preference towards ultraviolet, UV blue and blue flowers this is the crux of the article given here see western guards has served as sample space for many studies because it has rich biodiversity since this article talks about the expeditions to western guards let us learn about the biodiversity hotspot in detail okay first of all what is biodiversity biodiversity is a contraction of the term biological diversity it refers to variety among and between living organisms that is variety within species and the availability of a number of species now let us see what is this biodiversity hotspot see the term biodiversity hotspot was coined by Norman Myers in 1988 he recognized 10 tropical forests as hotspots on the basis of extraordinary level of plant endemiscent and high level of habitat loss see it is done without any quantitative criteria for the designation of hotspot status thus the tropical zones with high level of species diversity have been identified as biodiversity hotspots subsequently two strict quantitative criteria for a region to qualify as a hotspot was made the first one is it must contain at least 1500 species of vascular plants that is more than 0.5 percentage of the world's total as endemis so it should contain at least 1500 species of vascular plants as endemis and the second criteria it has to have lost equal to or more than 70 percentage of its original native habitat so these are the two criteria for a region to be qualified as hotspot now let us see biodiversity hotspots in India see India is one of the 17 mega diversity countries in the world according to a recent estimation the country has a total of 18,800 taxonomy of angiosperms 82 taxa of gymnosperms 1,307 taxa of pteridophytes 2,786 taxa of bryophytes besides 15,447 taxa of fungi 7,434 taxa of algae 2,917 taxa of lichens and 1,239 species of microbes that is viruses and bacteria see these represent 8 percentage of the total recorded plant species of the world this includes algae fungi lichens viruses and bacteria now let us see the biodiversity hotspots particularly in India see they include Himalayan region Indo-Barma region that is the north-eastern region of India and the Andaman islands thirdly it includes the Sunda lands that is the Nicobar Islands and western Ghats region in India now let us see the area that encompasses these four hotspot region firstly the Himalayas which includes the entire Indian Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir Himachal Pradesh, Uttarkhand northern part of West Bengal Sikkim northern part of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh see this is with regards to India but this biodiversity hotspot region also extends to Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal Bhutan, China and Myanmar now let us come to the second region that is the Indo-Barma region which covers the regions in Myanmar Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and southern China see in India it includes north-eastern Indian states of Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Tripura and the Andaman groups of islands see Bangladesh and Malaysia is also covered under this part thirdly the Sunda land see it covers the regions of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Philippines in India it includes Nicobar group of islands and lastly the western Ghats region in India see it also extends to Sri Lanka also the western Ghats region covers the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat so that's all about this article discussion now let's have a quick recap what all we saw? we saw about the biodiversity hotspot it was coined by Norman Myers and we saw the quantitative criteria for a region to be qualified as hotspot that is it must contain at least 1500 species of vascular plants as endomics and it has to have lost equal to or more than 70% of its original native habitat and after that we saw the four biodiversity hotspots in India that is the Himalayan region, Indobarma region, Sunda lands and the western Ghats region and after that we moved on to see the areas that encompasses these four biodiversity hotspots see with these key takeaway points let's move on to the next part of our discussion that is the practice problems questions see today we have four problems practice questions I'll solve three of them and one is a quiz question for you now let's see the first question consider the following statements with reference to panjayatan municipal corporation statement one the council of the municipal corporations is headed by a surpunch the statement is incorrect because we saw in a discussion that the council of the municipal corporations is headed by a mayor and he or she is assisted by deputy mayor so the first statement here is incorrect moving on to the second statement there is reservation of not less than one-third of the total number of the offices of the chairpersons in the panjayat at each level for women so this statement is correct because we saw in a discussion there is reservation of not less than one-third of the total number of offices of chairmen in panjayat at each level for women so the correct option here will be option b 2 only moving on to the second question consider the following statements with reference to polio statement one polio is a bacterial disease this statement is entirely wrong because polio is a viral disease now statement two india is in the list of endemic countries with active polio virus transmission this statement is also incorrect because we saw that on 24th february 2012 w h o that is the world health organization removed india from the list of endemic countries with active polio virus transmission what we have to do here we have to identify the correct statements so the correct option here will be option d neither one nor two moving on to the third question consider the following statements about the satavahana dynasty statement one gautami putha also called as gautami putra siri satakani is the founder of the dynasty this statement is incorrect because in our discussion we saw that the founder of the dynasty was simukha or shreemukha satakani now coming to statement two buddhism prospered under satavahanas rule this statement is correct see during their reign buddhism prospered both in western india and in the andhra country now coming to statement three amravati stupa in andhra pradesh was built during the rule of satavahanas this statement is correct see amravati stupa in gunpur district is the most famous stupa in andhra pradesh this was built during the rule of satavahanas about 1900 years ago but today the amravati stupa is just a mound of rubble actually the stupa was covered with panels of sculptures depicting the buddha and his teachings but these panels were found by the british and were taken away to london some of the panels that could not be transported were kept in madras museum in this image you can see one such panel so here statement two and statement three are correct so the correct option here will be option d two and three one lee now coming to the last question this is only the quiz question for you consider the following statements with reference to biodiversity hotspots statement one india has four biodiversity hotspots and statement two there is some quantitative criteria to declare a region as a biodiversity hotspot so which of the following statements given above is or are correct option a one only option b two only option c both one and two option d neither one nor two so this is the quiz question for you read it carefully we saw everything in our discussion itself so try to attempt this question and post your answer in the comment section i have given a mains question for your practice so interested aspirants write it and post it in the comment section if you have any queries regarding the articles that we discussed today post that also in the comment section and with this we have come to the end if you find the video useful like share and comment and do subscribe to shankarae's academy's youtube channel for further updates thank you