 Hello, a very good evening to all of our friends and welcome to the Hindu News Analysis of Shankar IAS Academy for the date 7th March 2021. Before we begin our news analysis, we would like to inform you that Shankar IAS Academy is starting a new exclusive batch under the Prefit Program. And this batch will start from 22nd March 2021. See, we are starting another fresh batch under the Prefit Program because of the numerous requests which we have received after the launch of the Prefit Batch 1, which started from February 15, 2021. And batch 1 will conclude by 16th May 2021. Now with respect to the new batch, the Academy is conducting free entrance exam on 14th March 2021, that is on next Sunday. And the syllabus for this entrance exam will be the UPSC civil service preliminary syllabus for general studies and CSAT. Know that it is a free entrance exam, but the registration is mandatory. 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Now, with this information, let us start our news analysis for today. The list of the relevant news articles taken for today's discussion from five different editions of The Hindu newspaper along with their page numbers are given here for your reference. Also, the handwritten notes in the PDF format and time stampings for all the news articles taken for today's discussion is given in the description box and also in the comment section for the best interest of the viewers. Let us now start with our first news article. Now, as per this news article, the Union Minister of State for Finance has said that the government is open to evaluate and explore new technologies under the crypto currencies and this is for improving the governance. And in this regard, recently the high-level Interministerial Committee under the Economic Affairs Secretary on digital currencies has submitted its report. The minister says that based on the recommendations, a legislative proposal would be introduced in the parliament. And remember, recently, the RBI governor has reached some concerns about the impact of cryptocurrencies on the financial stability in the economy. And as we know, the RBI had banned cryptocurrency trading in 2018, but the Supreme Court struck down these and asked the center to frame policies for cryptocurrency. So, in this context, let us discuss in brief about cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. See, cryptocurrency is a digital money and that means there is no physical coin or bill and it's online. One can transfer cryptocurrency to someone online without an intermediator like a bank. And you might have heard about Bitcoin and other their well-known cryptocurrencies and new cryptocurrencies continue to be created. And it is to be noted that some people use cryptocurrencies for quick payments and to avoid transaction fees. And some might get cryptocurrencies as an investment hoping that the value goes up. So, we can say that cryptocurrencies have no legislated or intrinsic value. They are simply worth what people are willing to pay for them in the market. And this is in contrast to national currencies which get the part of their value from being legislated as a legal tender. And recently, activities in cryptocurrency markets has increased significantly and prices of cryptocurrencies have also risen rapidly. So, the fascination with these currencies appear to have been more speculative than related to their use as a new and unique system for making payments. And related to this, there has also been a high degree of volatility in the prices of many cryptocurrencies. For example, the price of Bitcoin increased from around US$1,000 at the start of 2017 to around US$20,000 at the end of 2017 before falling to around US$7,000 in early 2018. Another reason for the extraordinary interest in cryptocurrencies is also due to the growing amount of computing power which is used to ensure that the system is not corrupted. Now, to understand how a Bitcoin transaction works, have a look at this figure. Know that Bitcoin system uses blockchain technology to record transactions and also the ownership of Bitcoins. And this technology connects groups of transactions called blocks together over time in a chain. And each time a transaction occurs, it forms part of a new block that is added to the chain. Now know that blockchain is seen as a technology with the potential to transform almost all industries and economies. It is estimated that blockchain could generate US$3 trillion per year in business value by 2030. The World Economic Forum anticipates that 10% of the global GDP will be stored on blockchain by 2025. And in this regard, WEF also lists blockchain as one of the seven technologies that are anticipated to revolutionize various aspects of our life. Know that blockchain is a system of recording information in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack or cheat the system. A blockchain is essentially a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems operating on the blockchain. And each block in the chain contains a number of transactions and every time a new transaction occurs on the blockchain, a record of that transaction is added to every participant's ledger. The decentralized database which is managed by multiple participants is known as distributed ledger technology or DLT. Blockchain is a type of DLT in which transactions are recorded with an immutable cryptographic signature which is called as a hash. So this is about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. So with this information, let us move on to the next news. And now this news article talks about the slowing of Gulfstream. See, Gulfstream is an ocean current. So today, let us discuss in detail about ocean currents, their formation, then important ocean currents of the world, their effects, impacts, etc. The relevant syllabus is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. First, what is an ocean current? See, a current is a steady predictable movement of a fluid within a larger body of that fluid. So what is an ocean current? See, ocean water moves in two directions, namely horizontally and vertically. The horizontal movements are referred to as currents and the ocean has an interconnected current or circulation. And the vertical changes are called as upwellings or downwellings. See, ocean currents are like river flow in oceans and they represent a regular volume of a great stream of water in a definite path and direction. Thus, ocean currents are the continuous predictable directional movement of sea water. And this movement is driven by some primary forces which include heating by the solar energy, gravity, wind, Coriolis effect that is Earth's rotation and the water density. So now let us see how these primary forces act with each other to create a current. First is heating by the solar energy. See, this causes the water to expand. So the ocean water near the equator is about 8 cm higher in level than in the middle latitudes. And this causes a very slight gradient or slope and the water tends to flow down the slope. Now here comes the second force of wind. See, the wind blowing on the surface of the ocean pushes the water to move. And this friction between the wind and the water surface affects the movement of the water body in its course. Then gravity plays its role of pulling the water down the pile and creating gradient variations. Here the Coriolis force or Coriolis effect intervenes. It causes the water to move to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. So this movement is the ocean current. In other words, the Coriolis effect sets the current flowing clockwise in a circular pattern in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere. Now what is the role of the water density? See, differences in the water density affects the vertical mobility of ocean currents. And this water density itself is affected by many factors like the temperature of the water, the salinity or saltiness and also the depth of the water. Here we should know that the water with high salinity is denser than the water with low salinity. Further, cold water is denser than warm water. So denser water tends to sink while the relatively lighter water tends to rise. And this brings variations in the ocean currents as some are cold water ocean currents and some are warm water ocean currents. So this is the classification of ocean currents based on temperature. Now cold water ocean currents occur when the cold water at the poles sink because we saw that cold water is denser and this ocean water slowly moves towards the equator. So cold current brings cold water into the warm water areas. In the same manner, the warm water ocean currents travel out from the equator along the surface and flows towards the poles to replace the sinking cold water. So warm currents bring warm water into the cold water areas. And as a result here what happens is the cold dense water sinks and flows under the warm light water. So in this way the ocean current is created. Here note that there are certain factors which influence the ocean currents such as the topography and shape of the ocean basins and the nearby land masses etc. So these forces and physical characteristics also affect the size, shape, speed and direction of the ocean currents. Here we should also know about an important classification of ocean currents based on their depth. See they are surface currents or surface ocean currents and deep water currents or deep ocean currents. In this the surface currents are located at the ocean surface and they occur on local as well as global scales. Surface currents constitute about 10% of all the water in the ocean and these waters are the upper 400 meters of the ocean. It should be noted that surface currents are typically wind driven which results in both horizontal and vertical water moment. Now horizontal surface currents that are local and typically short term include the rip currents, long shore currents and tidal currents. On the other hand in vertical or upwelling currents there is a vertical water moment and also the mixing. So this brings cold nutrient rich water towards the surface and at the same time it pushes the warmer water downwards where it condenses and sinks. Now this creates a cycle of upwelling and downwelling. The next is the deep ocean currents. See they make up the other 90% of the ocean water. They are density driven and differ from surface currents in scale, speed and also energy. Here they move around the ocean basins due to variations in density and gravity. And note that deep waters sink into the deep ocean basins at high latitudes where the temperatures are cold enough to cause the density to increase. Next let us see the major ocean currents around the world. See one of the most important ocean currents is Gulf Stream. About which today's news is, see Gulf Stream is a warm current and it is very powerful. This means Gulf Stream conveys warm surface water from the equator to the north and deeper cold low salinity water to down the south. As you can see in these depictions, it flows from the Gulf of Mexico around the US state of Florida up the eastern coast of US and Canada before crossing the Atlantic Ocean towards the Europe. So here we should know that Gulf Stream raises the temperature near the eastern coast of North America and the west coast of Europe. Now today's news article is that a study which reconstructed the Gulf Stream's flow shows that the Gulf Stream has been slow in the last decade unlike the 1000 years before. And the possible reasons for this found by the study is increased rainfall and also the melting of the Greenland Ice Street. So this is about the Gulf Stream. Next similarly one important cold current is the Labrador Current. See it lowers the temperature near the northeast coast of North America. And now we will see other major currents around the world. See in the warm current category it includes the North Equatorial Current, the South Equatorial Current, the Equatorial Counter Current, the Corosio Current, Alaska Current etc. And in the cold current category it includes the California Current, the Canaries or Canary Current, the Humboldt Current or Peru Current, then the Oyesio Current and the West Wind Drift. Now these ocean currents occur on both local and global scales. So in this regard they circumnavigate the world and fulfill certain important tasks. Now the first task is carrying heat to different areas of the world. That is these ocean currents are responsible for the transfer of heat to different parts of the world. See ocean covers 71% of the planet and holds 97% of its water. So this makes the ocean a key factor in the storage and also the transfer of heat energy across the globe. Now secondly this movement of heat through local and global ocean currents affects the regulation of the local weather conditions and also the temperature extremes. It is also responsible for stabilization of global climate patterns, then cycling of gases and importantly delivery of nutrients and lava to the marine ecosystems. Now how this is done? See the mixing of warm and cold currents helps to replenish the oxygen in the ocean and it favours the growth of plankton. See plankton are the primary food for fish population. So that is why the best fishing grounds of the world exist mainly in these mixing zones. For example, seas around Japan and eastern cost of North America are some of the best fishing grounds of the world. Because here the cold ocean current and the warm ocean currents mix. So in short, this abiotic system of ocean currents is responsible for variations in the biodiversity and also Earth's climate system. Here abiotic means the non-living part of ecosystem that shapes its environment. So this is in brief about ocean currents. Let us move on to the next news. And now let us take up this news article from the Science and Tech page which is titled Clustering Educational Institutes and Research Center. As the title suggests, the news article explains on how clustering of universities can play a major role in facilitating a promising growth in the field of research. Let us see them in detail. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. Now before going into the article, you need to understand the concept of cluster university. See it is a process in which one major institute will be leading around three to five institutes which are placed under it. And under this method, gifted students of a particular grade level are first identified and assigned to one classroom with a teacher who has special training in teaching these gifted students. And the remaining students in the assigned class are of mixed ability. Note that gifted students mentioned here are those with general or higher level of intellectual ability. Moving back to the news article, the clustering we are dealing with here is related to universities and research. The article remarks that clustering of educational institutes and research centers is a promising model to achieve a significant amount of strength in universities to energize the field of research. As we have already learned the national education policy of 2020, which envisions to set up large multidisciplinary universities for the purpose of promoting research that are directed towards solving contemporary national problems. The policy also provides with an option for the establishment of clusters in higher educational institutions. And such cluster based institutions are expected to increase the strength of faculties both in terms of number as well as in the diversity of disciplines. Also, it would facilitate the conducting of research on real life problems. Now, whenever we talk about research, we can find the significant role played by the doctoral students in it. See, it is the doctoral students who form the base for any sort of researches in universities. And like in Indian universities, many other countries also provide with the opportunity of off campus doctoral programs in research laboratories. An example for this would be the external registration program. See, it is an off campus program which is offered by the Indian Institute of Science. And this program enables the employees who are working in laboratories or industries to register for a doctoral program under the supervision of its faculty. And also, they were given a provision to carry out a major part of the research in their workplace itself. And note that the concept of external registration program is now being adopted by a greater number of higher educational institutions. And in most cases, the topics that were chosen for research under the off campus program were found to be in relevance to their workplace. Here it is to be noted that at such a juncture, it is also possible to go a step ahead and make the workplaces that are pursuing knowledge based work as a part of a cluster based university. And now the author gives examples of cluster based universities like that of the Homi Baba National Institute which is located in Mumbai, then Soken Dai or the Graduate Institute for Advanced Studies Placed in Japan and Paris, the SACLE University. As we know, every country has got its own unique framework for the establishment of universities. And though there are many differences in the structure, the primary objective will always be to benefit from synergies, that is to produce a combined effect through interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations. And this combined effect is expected to be greater in comparison to the sum of their separate effects. And such initiative will always help in conducting better academic research on focus areas. And also, it will enable the pursuit of academic and post-academic research in the same university in addition to a rapid deployment of results in research. Now coming to India, the author notes that it is advisable for India to sincerely pursue clustering of universities. And the institutions chosen for clustering can be based on different concepts like those located in close proximity or pursuing similar objectives. It is also to be noted that in a cluster based university, the rewards should be assigned based on the recognition of all aspects of talent and knowledge based output. So therefore, in our longer run in moving away from single discipline institutions to multi-disciplinary universities, clustering seems to be a promising model. That is, it can help in achieving a critical mass of universities which can be used to rejuvenate research. So this is all about this news article. With this information, let us move on to the next news. And now have a look at this question. It is based on this news article which says that the National School of Drama might get the Institute of National Importance tag. See, INA is a type of university level institution in India. So some of the institutions established by an act of parliament are declared as institutions of national importance. For example, the National Institute of Design has been declared as institution of national importance by the act of parliament. Now at present, there are more than 90 institutions of national importance in India. And these include several IITs and NITs, etc. Know that the institution of national importance comes under union list of the seventh schedule of the Indian constitution. The union list entry 64 is about institutions for scientific or technical education financed by the government of India wholly or in part and declared by the parliament by law to be the institutions of national importance. Now let us discuss in detail about the National School of Drama. See, it is one of the four most theatre training institutions in the world and the only one in its kind in India. See, it was set up by the Sangeet Natak Academy as one of its constituent units in 1959. As we know, the Sangeet Natak Academy is India's national academy for music, dance and drama which was created in 1952. Now coming back to National School of Drama, in 1975, it became an independent entity. It is registered as an autonomous organization under the Society's Registration Act of 1860 and it is fully financed by the Ministry of Culture. Know that the training in NSD is highly intensive and is based on a comprehensive, carefully planned syllabus which covers every aspect of theatre. Know that National School of Drama has two performing wings, the Repertory Company and the Theatre in Education Company. The Repertory Company was started in 1964 with an objective of providing a platform where the graduates of schools could perform plays in a professional manner. And the Repertory Company also tours and performs extensively in India and abroad. Now the Theatre in Education Company was established in 1989 as one of the most important theatre education resource centers in the country. It consists of a group of actor-teachers who are working with and also performing for children. The major focus of the Theatre in Education Company is to perform creative, curriculum-based and participatory plays in schools, specially designed and prepared for children of different age groups. And in addition to these two wings, the National School of Drama also has an active extension program, a publication section and a literary forum which is named as Shruti. The extension program under which the NSD faculty and the alumni conduct workshops in various parts of the country was launched in 1978. And the publication unit of the National School of Drama is responsible for publishing textbooks on theatre. And it also translates important books on theatre from English to Hindi. So this is in brief about the Institute of National Importance Tag and the National School of Drama. So with this information, have a look at this question. Consider the following statements regarding National School of Drama. The first statement reads, It is India's foremost theatre training institute functioning under the Ministry of Education. See this statement is incorrect. We have seen that it comes under the Ministry of Culture. Now the second statement reads, It is a statutory body formed as a constituent of the Sangeet Natak Academy. See this statement is also incorrect. It is not a statutory body, but it is registered as an autonomous organization under the Society's Registration Act of 1860. So in this question, we have to identify the correct statement or statements. Since both the statements are incorrect, the correct answer for this question is option D, neither one nor two. Now with this information, let us move on to the next news. And now have a look at this second question. It is based on this news article which talks about the celestial bodies which are named as Centurs. So what are these Centurs? See they are small celestial bodies orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Neptune. It is one of the most enduring mysteries of astrophysics because they have confounded or amazed the astronomers for resembling both asteroids and comets. As you know, comets are cosmic snowballs or the frozen leftovers from the formation of our solar system. And they are composed of dust, rock and ice. And they may be a few miles wide to tens of miles wide. But as they orbit closer to the sun, they heat up and spew or discharge gases and dust into a glowing head that can be larger than a planet. And the dust and gases form a tail that stretches away from the sun for millions of miles. On the other hand, asteroids are rocky, airless remnants left over from the early formation of our solar system. So they are sometimes called as minor planets. See most of the asteroids are irregularly shaped but some are nearly spherical. Asteroids are often pitted or cratered and they can be found orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter within the main asteroid belt. Now coming to Centurs, they are named after the mythical half-horse half-human creatures called as Centurs due to the dual nature of resembling both asteroids and comets. And it was observed by the NASA's Neowise project that roughly two-thirds of the Centur population have cometary origin hailing from the frigid outer reaches of our solar system. Here cometary origin means an object that is likely made from the same material as a comet. So it may have been an active comet in the past and may be active again in the future. But it is not clear if the remaining one-third of the population is made up of asteroids. Now today's news article is that Centurs that are travelling towards the sun have been temporarily settled near the Trojans. And this is the reason why the article is titled as Celestial Parking Lot. And these Centurs show signs of comet activity such as a tail. Here know that Trojans are asteroids. They share an orbit with a larger planet but do not collide with it because they gather around two special places in the orbit which are called as L4 and L5 Lagrangian points. And there the gravitational pull from the sun and also the planets are balanced by a Trojan's tendency to otherwise fly out of the orbit. So this means due to the gravitational pull of sun and planets the Trojans won't be able to escape their orbit. And here it should be noted that the Jupiter Trojans form the most significant population of Trojan asteroids. It is thought that they are as numerous as the asteroids which are present in the asteroid belt. And know that there are also Mars and Neptune Trojans and the NASA also announced the discovery of an Earth Trojan in 2011. So in this discussion we saw about Centurs, asteroids, comets and also about Trojan asteroids. So with this information have a look at this question. Consider the following statements. Trojans are comets and share an orbit with a larger planet. See this statement is incorrect. We have seen that Trojans are asteroids and not comets. Now the second statement reads Centurs are the small asteroids orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Neptune. See this statement is also incorrect. We have seen that Centurs exhibit the characters of both comets and asteroids. So in this question we have to identify the incorrect statement or statements. Since both the statements are incorrect the correct answer for this question is option C both 1 and 2. So with this we have discussed almost all the relevant news articles from today's The Hindu newspaper. Now let us move on to the practice questions discussion section based on today's news analysis. Now see this first question. It is a previous year question which was asked in Pilms 2012. Consider the following factors. Rotation of the Earth, air pressure and wind, density of ocean water, revolution of the Earth. Which of the above factors influence the ocean currents? See here the correct answer is option B. Here it should be noted that the rotation of Earth which leads to Coriolis effect is a factor that influences ocean currents. But revolution of Earth is not a factor. And all other three are correct. So the correct answer for this question is option B, 1, 2 and 3. Now we have a second question which was asked in Pilms 2013. The most important fishing grounds of the world are found in the region's world. So the correct answer is option C, warm and cold oceanic currents meet. And now we have two main questions. Please write your answers and post it in the comment section. Now we have come to the end of analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion. And also the discussion of practice questions. 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