 So, are you under any academy? Sir, I joined sir, but I came out in EOL sir. You came out? In EOL sir. EOL. Extraordinary. Extraordinary. So, the reason for this extraordinary leave is that you wanted to take the next job. Yes sir. You are not satisfied with the revenue service? Sir, I am happy only sir, but I want to give my chance, I want to take my chance for IAS, because I feel that IAS is more diverse in its opportunities and the interaction with the ground level people. The scope for interaction is much higher. So, I think that would give me a better job satisfaction. So, I want to try and get into IAS. Recently government has in the budget, government has imposed tax on digital gains, but at the same time like there is a ban on cryptocurrency and all that, how do you see that? Sir, the RBI had earlier imposed a ban on transactions in cryptocurrency, but that ban was revoked by the Supreme Court of India. It allowed transactions in investments in cryptocurrency, but it was not recognized as a legal tender till now. The government has also come up with a plan to bring about central government bank, the central bank backed digital currency. So, as of now it is not clear that whether it is a legal tender or not? Yes, so when it is not a legal tender, so in a way we are saying it is not legal tender on the other side, we are saying that you have to remit taxes on that. So, don't you find any contradiction in the policy? Sir, I think it is only for the investments and the gains that the people get, only that amount is taxed. As of now it is not recognized as a legal tender. So, you are basically from Ooty? Yes sir. Okay, tell me some famous monuments in Ooty, UNESCO recognized. Sir, the Nilgiri Mountain Railway, it is a World Heritage Site and Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve itself is recognized by UNESCO under the Man and Animal Biosphere Program. Okay, what is the specialty of Nilgiri Mountain Railway? It works on a particular system, technology. What is it? Sir, it is the rack and pinion system. It is the steepest railway of Asia and the rack and pinion system is basically like a tooth system where the train uses it for climbing up steep hills. Okay. You know that there is this man-animal conflict in Vodhar Mandala. Do you have any suggestions to solve that problem? Yes sir, there are man-animal conflicts. I think firstly we have to understand what are the reasons for man-animal conflict because the plantations are very closely located to the protected zones. So for that firstly we have to go with bio-fencing of these plantations that can keep away animals like elephants firstly. Secondly we also have to work with the local people to come up with, to understand their indigenous knowledge and that can be leveraged and that can be used for awareness creation about the do's and do's in case of a man-animal conflict. Thirdly we have to create the buffer zones must be well maintained so that the animals do not come out. The proper water and food reserves must be made available inside the forest itself. Okay. So can you name some of the tribes who occupy the footy hills? Sir, there are six PVTG's namely Todas, Irulas, Kottas, Kurumbas, Paniyas and Kartanayakas. Okay. So what is the status of like educational status of these tribes? Sir, certain tribes like Kottas and Todas are gaining more education. They are doing well in the literacy rates. But as a whole the tribes are not that much educated when compared to the mainstream society. But there are steps being taken like the Eklavya schools have been built in the indigenous to cater to their education needs. Okay. So did you undergo any sort of training in income tax so far? You have not. Okay. Then I will not ask you any questions on income tax. So you said I was asking about taxation on digital assets. Yes. Do you know what is the tax on digital assets that was bought in by the government? Sir, 30% is. And there is one specific clause which is different from the other assets. Sir, I am not available for this. Okay. So Ms. Swatishwari. Yes. You have taken agriculture as your option. Yes sir. And you also studied ESC agriculture. Yes sir. Tell me how is climate change going to impact agriculture and how prepared are you? Sir, climate change has both positive and negative impacts. The positive impact is basically because the carbon increase in carbon will have a fertilization effect. But if we see the total impact it is negative because of the increase in extreme events like floods and droughts. And the higher temperature it affects the crops by weakening the plants as well as increasing the risk of disease incidences. And soil erosion and soil salinity can also be a problem because of sea level rise. But if we see how India is equipped, India ICAR has taken some initiatives called NICRA which ensures climate resilience in our agriculture system. Research is being undertaken and specific projects are being promoted under this. Training is being given to the academy as well as the extension department. But we also have to work more on that. We have to increase the number of climate resilient varieties, drought tolerant flood resistant varieties. And we also have to work more with the farmers to understand their needs. So, when you talk about flood resistant varieties or pest resistant varieties, we need to increase. That is what you say. How do we do that? Sir, there are many steps that can be taken. We can go on reading of the good performing varieties. That is commercially viable varieties with wild cultivars which are more resistant to climate change. And we can also use technologies like genetic modification to impart resistance in the plants. Let us talk about genetic modification. Can you elaborate on what kind of genetic modification we can do? Sir, there would be genes available in the wild plants or in other species. So, that genes can be imparted into the plants. That is transgenic. What you are talking about is transgenic. Yes. Is there any other way? Because transgenic has some problems. There are certain issues. Is there any other way we can handle this? Have you heard about CRISPR-Cas9? Yes, sir. Tell us more about how it is going to have a revolutionary impact on our agriculture food security. Sir, CRISPR-Cas9 is a recent technology which is used to cut those gene which is required. The desired portion will be cut and that would be inserted into the crop varieties. It is revolutionary because the precision at which the CRISPR-Cas9 technology works is much better compared to the earlier technologies. So, that can be revolutionizing in agriculture. So, what is the impact of that? So, better varieties can be developed at a very short time and I am not able to think of anything else. Now, have you heard about gene drives? Yes, sir. Gene drives. We have the capacity now to completely change the whole species. Sir, I am not aware of that. You are not aware of that. Tell us about land degradation and what are the factors which is leading to land degradation? Sir, land degradation is the reduction in the ability of soil productivity and the causes for land degradation includes deforestation, over grazing. It is confined to agriculture land degradation. Yes, sir. Sir, cultivation practices like cultivating in a slopey area across the contour where erosion is more prominent. Secondly, indiscriminate use of fertilizers can lead to land degradation. Maybe you can broadly classify irrigated land, farmland and rain-fed farmland. So, let us focus on rain-fed farmland and how the climate change impact is going to degrade that and what should we do? Sir, is it land degradation in rain? Rain-fed, yes. One is irrigated. That is what you are pointing out. Yes, sir. Sir, in rain-fed area, the soil is more susceptible to soil erosion and hence land degradation can happen. Is the land degradation similar in Peninsular India compared to the Gangetic plain? When you talk about flood, because impact is going to be frequent, intensive flood. So, is the impact going to be similar in Peninsular region? These are the Gangetic or both are going to the same? Sir, I think the Gangetic plains are more susceptible to floods according to the geological survey of India. But floods are natural events and floods are important because they replenish the soil with alveol and that improves the fertility of the soil. That happens in Gangetic plain. Yes. But in case of Peninsular rivers, is that fluffy? In Delta regions, that is the case. But if it occurs in other areas, for example in Kerala, the floods actually increased soil erosion. Okay, thank you. Thank you, sir. Hello, Shruti. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, sir. To continue where the previous panel member was asking, you mentioned about Kerala floods. And you mentioned floods are natural. But the honorable IKOT of Kerala called that Kerala floods as man-made disaster. Why is that so? Sir, it was on the backdrop that several mining and quarrying activities are taking place in the western Ghats and many of them are illegal. And that increases the, that reduces the natural ability of the mountains to hold water and that increases flood in the downstream. Regarding western Ghats, have you heard of Kasturand in the final committee? Yes, sir. Do you know about the report? Can you tell me major recommendations by Kasturand in how to report? Sir, it suggested that 37% of the entire western Ghats should be classified as ecologically sensitive zone. And activities like mining, large-scale irrigation, hydropower projects, thermal power plants and other polluting industries must be completely restricted. And in the rest of the areas, sustainable development activities can be promoted. So in your opinion, tell me a simple word. What do you mean by sustainable development? Sir, a development that ensures the needs of the present generation without depriving the future generations of the resources. Why is there so much opposition for this Kasturandan committee implementation? Sir, there are concerns that it can affect the developmental projects. And there are also concerns that farmers who are located within the protected areas cannot carry out the agriculture as usual. That is application of pasty sites and all cannot be done as usual, so it can affect their produce. And the mining industry is also opposing it because mining activities are being restricted. Is there any particular recommendation by Kasturandan committee regarding agriculture in this? Sir, I think it is about the chemical application. They also spoke about commercial products. Sir, I am not aware about it. They were against the growing of commercial crops in these agriculture, in these soils, that was a major recommendation. That is why there is so much opposition in the state of Kerala because they grow a lot of commercial crops. Coming to commercial crops, which is the major commercial crop being grown in Ooty where you are, where you are native place of Ooty. Sir, it is tea. Can you tell me some geographical conditions required to grow tea? Sir, it is suitable to grow tea in high elevated areas above, so I am not exactly aware of the height, above certain altitude. And it requires slopes, which is well draining in nature. Okay, are you aware of any variety, there are many varieties of many regions where tea is grown. Are you aware of any region where tea is grown even on a flat surface? Sir, I am not aware about that. Okay, if you are indulging in sacks, they even grow tea on a flat surface also there. Coming to the state of Tamil Nadu, why is there so much opposition regarding this Hindi? What is the official stand of the state of Tamil Nadu against the statement made by Honorable Home Minister of India? Sir, to answer the first part of the question, the state has a historical reason. That is the states were headed the anti-Hindi agitations. Even when there were suggestions that Hindi to be made a national language, there were oppositions from Tamil Nadu stating that it is not possible for the southern states to go with the change. And hence English was made, English was also made the official language. And the recent statement made by the Home Minister, I think, so I am not exactly aware about the official statement, but in the state has... I will help you. Honorable Home Minister said that Hindi should be the link language to connect even the non-Hindi speaking. It should be the link language to connect multiple state governments and central and state governments. That was his official, his official statement. Sir, I think the state has been opposing the proposal. What is your view on that? State has been opposing, imposition or accepting Hindi. What is your view? Is it good or there is some change required in the policy of the state? Sir, I think promotion of Hindi, of development of Hindi is a constitutional mandate under Article 351. But promoting Hindi in such a manner I think can stir divisive politics among states that are non-Hindi speaking. So I think we can go on a better approach wherein Hindi can be promoted in return for development of the regional languages. So that people will feel it more, voluntarily will come forward and learn Hindi. And hence Hindi can be made a link language. Mr. Apti, good afternoon. Good afternoon, sir. Sir, have you aware about the Sendai framework? Sir, it is a disaster resilience framework. Sir, I am not able to reconnect. So you are from Utti, right? So Utti landslides are the major issues, particularly in disaster concerns. So we have been in history that from 1860 we have a lot of landslides. What may be the causes? Can you just tell me why it is happening in Utti? Sir, the major cause is the removal of vegetation and the developmental activities that are taking place like building of roads or unplanned buildings, construction activities that triggers landslides. And whenever there is a high rainfall, landslides are happening. In connection with that, have you heard about the soil bioengineering? Sir, I am exactly not aware, sir, but I can guess. Sir, soil bioengineering is to engineer the soil with the use of vegetation like trees. Correct. You can go ahead. Sir, when we plant more trees, the roots of the plant will hold the soil together and hence we can mitigate landslides. Correct. And again related to that, so is this a group of practices in the industries, whether it is leading to landslide disasters? Sir, in certain areas like old tea estates, it is leading to landslides. But mostly since the practice of agriculture is on terrace cultivation, I don't see any landslides because of terrace cultivation. Okay. And you are in Coimbatore, right? Yes, sir. So, I mean what about the seismic donation of India, not of India? Sir, the donation based on earthquakes is... Yeah, Coimbatore underground, with zoom? Sir, zoom, I think it is under zone 2. From 2 or so? Sir, I am not exactly sure. Okay. So, what are the other problems that you know related to earthquakes? So, generally, tentative comes in use, facing in Coimbatore. Any idea? Sir, I am not aware about this. There is a liquefaction in places like Ammankulam. Okay. My last question, so as you know this ground is a long term process, right? If you have a prolonged rainfall, we will have a drought. So, can you just suggest like as a agriculture engineer, can you just suggest some mitigating issues for meteorological problems? Sir, for droughts, we can go on contingency crop planning wherein instead of the existing crop, better crops can be sown that would tide over the drought times. Like better crops that are drought resistant like millets and better varieties which are drought resistant. Secondly, we can go for in situ water conservation, rail water harvesting within the fields itself like construction of farm ponds and adoption of better methods like construction of tall buns so that runoff is reduced. So, as to harvest the available moisture and we can also go for alternative land use patterns like agro-savvy pastoral systems, integrated farming system, etc. India has hostile nations as its neighbors. One side is Pakistan, another side is China. So, in the context of recent Russia-Ukraine conflict, what do you think, what can be the implications for India in such context where the international organizations have proved to be ineffective? What sort of scenarios you can think of? Sir, is it from Pakistan and China what impact India can have? Sir, there is always a threat of Chinese invasion into India because we have seen earlier the Galwan clashes had happened. There also can be a two-front war that Pakistan and China can come together. Where you find India? Do you think India is capable of handling such situation or what do you think India should go next in view of this conflict, learning lessons from this conflict, what India should do to strengthen itself either internally or diplomatically? Sir, in case of such events, India I think would be capable of putting strong resistance and even warding them off because we saw the Galwan clash. India was able to withstand that clash. But there are some lessons that need to be learned because we are not very advanced when compared to China in terms of border infrastructure. We need to strengthen that and in terms of military expenditure also, India is not spending that much on military compared to China. So we have to modernize our military. At the cost of our infrastructure, at the social cost of removing unemployment and poverty. Sir, that also is a priority for India but given that we have already faced threats from both these countries, it would be a pragmatic step to spend more on military because we are spending very less when compared to China. And we also can go for other steps like as you mentioned diplomatic steps. We are building good relations with USA as well as Russia both of which are good defence partners to India. We are also a part of Quad which ensures a free inclusive Indo-Pacific. And we also can build ties with other countries, especially other neighboring countries so that we have proper buffer zones like Nepal and Bhutan. You mentioned of US and Russia. See, especially in view of Russia-Ukrain conflict, do you think we can depend on US? And moreover because of India's stance, both Russia and US are unhappy with us. What do you say about that? Sir, I think that was a very tactful move because India could not have sided with either of them because both of the countries are good partners to India. And I think that was a very tactful move because siding with one country would make us more vulnerable to such invasions. What are the major problems India is facing socially, politically and economically? Sir, three problems each. In social front, the major problem is in my opinion gender equality, ensuring women empowerment, tackling with poverty and ensuring good brotherhood within the country. Economically, we have to strengthen our two backbones like agriculture and industry. We need to reduce our fiscal deficit, so we need to ensure more employment generation. And in political front, I think we need to go towards better women representation in politics. We need to improve the parliament in terms of better discussions, etc. And we also have to bring about reforms in our political parties, bringing in inner-party democracy. So I think overall it is excellent. Your communication is good, your confidence is good, your knowledge is good. So clarity in expression is there. So overall you were confident, but in between for two, three minutes, I found that you got little tense when perhaps you felt that you are not on a strong weekend. So maybe you can be little calm, it is very much normal if you don't know something. And you were honest when you said some few questions that you are not aware, so that is appreciated. So I think you are well prepared. If you perform like this in the interview, it is really good, there is no stopping for you. You are well prepared, for interview like from your desk, everything you are prepared very well. So the thing is, the candidates who are attending the interview, all of them will not have this much of knowledge. So even if you do not know one or two questions, it is not an issue, because you will be better than all the other candidates. So you don't worry about that, you just go to the other point. So regarding the question I asked about the attack on digital asset 30% age, the class is that you cannot set up your loss against the gains, gains already made. Usually in other capital asset transactions, this can be done, but in digital asset, this cannot be done. You cannot set up your losses against the gains made, that is the point. So if you do not know, tell them that you do not know, otherwise you are doing very good. So when we talk about agriculture, when we look at future and the climate change in fact, when we talk about genetic modification, there is nothing but this. Because the whole genetic modification is all gone. This is what happened in the last 10 years, in the last 5 years. So please try to know about how CRISPR-Cascade is going to revolutionize the whole genetic modifications of the plants. Particularly in terms of, you know, pest resistance and nutrition enhancement, all that together. In fact, there is another way, they are saying that we can introduce the nitrogen fixation to all the plants so that chemical fertilizers cannot be used. So there is a lot of possibilities and it is very precise and very precision based. It is not like previously the genetic modification where it is cumbersome and random, this is very precise. I am also trying to know more about gene drive because there is a ethical issue related to gene drive. Ethical related to CRISPR-Cascade is also about utilizing the... There is an issue here, so you might need to read more about it because this is very important. I think this other panelist mentioned one thing which I observed is I am not very sure if... You came out here sad without publishing. I am not sure if the chairperson is giving permission to do so. There is one small observation but it will have a huge impact. Be very careful. As soon as you entered you asked for permission but without permission please go and sit. Generally they will ask you to say, okay, sometime just to see how you conduct yourself may not ask. Then you wait or you... It could be the case they may be talking amongst themselves, they are not even observed when you are coming. So wait until they look at you as per... I mean they usually as the chairperson is saying they will never make a stand This is one small observation which I observed. That should not happen. Rest all your confidence and one thing I have noticed is your eye contact is very good. And one more good thing is when you are answering a member you are looking at other members also. Which means you are keeping other members engaged. It's a very good point. And your eye contact is good, your confidence, your knowledge. You know what you know and you don't know also. Which you don't know that you know that you don't know. That is very much important. And when you are not very sure asking for permission to guess, that's also good. Other things I felt like even one thing is since you are from Western Ghats region, better know about this Gandhi, Kastur-Rangan committee report. It's better because they expect... And Uttar is a very popular place. So the panelists will know much about Uttar. So they'll expect more about your local issues, local knowledge. And few more opinion-based questions I felt regarding this Hindi. You handled it well. See if it can polish it somehow. If not, you're ready. Thank you, sir. I think almost they have covered only one point like this disaster-related questions. And now the electorate is going to be the authority for the... It's like a chairperson for India as our prime minister. So you are the authority for your district on disaster particularly. So little more knowing about the Sendai framework here... IPCC and all other... Rest of the things are... You can have little more of this thing as my colleague mentioned regarding Hindi. Your answer could have been little better. So a little frame up your views. Okay, there are few issues which are going on. One is language. Another is the federalism with regard to Kaminadu. Actually regarding the role of governor, need agitation, need legislation and all that. So since you belong to Kaminadu, we can expect these questions maybe asked. So have more this thing. And my solution is that this sort of questions which can be little controversial. Middle path approach is the best. Yes, sir. Hindi, yes. Hindi need to be promoted. But note at the cost of... At the same time regional languages also have been recognized in our constitution. So we need and we have a rich heritage and culture in Tamil language. So we need to preserve and promote that also. So like that. So don't note one at the cost of other. So we have to say that diplomatically. Yes, both are essential, both are important, both need to be promoted. And we can also say that to some extent you mentioned that like impolition. See we can say that something which is done voluntarily is more sustainable. Rather than being imposed from outside. So we need to promote Hindi so that the people of Kaminadu when they go out of Kaminadu, they get opportunities. So something like that middle approach diplomatically in controversial this thing. Mind this thing is unless you are very, very confident, don't take extreme stand on this sort of things. Yes, sir. Okay, all the best. Thank you, sir. All the best. Thanks.