 a very good evening everyone welcome to the hindi news analysis brought to you by shankarae's academy i hope you all did not miss the session by former ambassador sir tp shrinivasan sir this session was based on the title a pandemic treaty and this is one of the series of capsules ire capsules that we have been releasing and this is the 23rd capsule of that series in case you have missed please go and watch because these capsules are very important for your ire papers right so with that let's move on into the discussion these are the list of news articles that we have chosen for discussion today and with the prelims approaching we came across a list of articles that are very important only from the preliminary perspective which requires a very brief visit so we have included those articles in a very brief manner at the initial part of our discussion and later on we have covered those articles that are important from both the preliminary and the mains perspective as well all right and we have ended the session as usual with the practice preliminary question so with that let's move into the discussion so in today's analysis we are going to deal with some of the topics that are exclusively important from the prelims perspective first and then we are going to jump into the mega articles so we are just going to cover the prelims aspect from these specific articles initially all right so let's go on to the first one the first article is this tetrapods may guard the coastline right for this we have to know what is a tetrapod see the tetrapod with a d is used to reduce the coastal erosion you can see in the picture so they are placed in the coastal areas to reduce the erosion tetrapod is an innovation that has been proposed in kerala where it will have a hollow core with mangrove seats inside and which can house the mangrove plants in the later date so it is an innovative approach to curb the coastal erosion all right so this you will have to remember moving on to the next this news article is about the dry day challenge see this was done in the kerala capital trivandrum see what is this dry day challenge the residents were asked to get rid of the sources of mosquito say stagnant water so this can be a breeding ground for mosquito right so they were asked to get rid of these sources of mosquito just to curb the spread of the vector-borne diseases that is mosquito-borne diseases like dengue chicken gunia malaria etc and in the latest drive what they did was the residents were asked to upload gps tagged photographs on the corporation website and this received an astounding response and so the kerala government has increased the dry day challenge by a day so dry day challenge is a kerala initiative a trivandrum-based initiative which tried to get rid of the mosquitoes by removing the source so that is what you'll have to know from the film's perspective now let us move on to another news article which is from andhra pradesh so this talks about arogyashree scheme see this arogyashree scheme by the andhra pradesh government is a very famous scheme so what is the scheme is that the government provides free treatment for some illness at all three levels that primary secondary and tertiary cares for the eligible patients in any m-paneled hospital in the state see the eligible patients criteria is decided by the bpl category and the hospitals that are chosen is all the government hospitals and a few of the m-paneled private hospitals are also eligible and the coverage is up to five lakhs for each family in one year so as you can see this is very similar to the central government scheme of aishman barat right so this is an andhra pradesh government scheme arogyashree is an andhra pradesh government scheme now moving on to the next this article talks about an approval given by fda to the alzheimer's drugs see alzheimer's is a very important disease that you will have to know see alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia what is a dementia dementia is loss of memory okay so this is a disease that has a very late onset that is it's a disease that sets in after 60s where the patient has a progressive memory loss and if you see this alzheimer's is a progressive disease as well as an irreversible disease all right and the symptoms gradually worsen over a number of years and if you see what causes the alzheimer's disease it is the abnormal build-up of some proteins like amyloid proteins or tau proteins the amyloid proteins and tau proteins they accumulate around the neurons that is the brain cells and cause the progression of these disease moving on to the next small topic is about the discovery of new plant subspecies what is this called rangia longifolia subspecies care lineances so if you see that this has been named after the state students remember this because in 2016 preliminary exam there was a question asked on musa andamanansis so that was a new discovery then which is a banana that was found in andaman but this is a new plant species that we are looking into in very similar lines see this subspecies is a flowering plant that has a pinkish white flower and it usually flowers and fruits between the august and february and the discovery was made in the western guts that is in the kerala state and the subspecies belongs to of course the rangia longifolia herb species this species is endemic to Sri Lanka and it is also found in some parts of shendurne wildlife sanctuary and also braymore forest which is also in trivandrum so with that let us move on to the next article so this article is about a rosewood tree that was cut down by some elements in the society that was present in the tribal land okay and rosewood tree is also a very important source of timber in India so in that context let us know about rosewood tree few years ago there was also a question on red sandals right so we can expect some question on rosewood trees as well see rosewood trees are traditionally called as dalbergia siso and commonly it is called as the rosewood or the sheesan and in it also made news in 2019 because india was trying to remove it from the sites appendix 2 it is still in sites appendix 2 but india was making some efforts to remove it from the list because it was a very important source of timber throughout india and the threat it is perceived for the rosewood is also very less in india right so if you see the distribution it is indigenous to india and it is distributed in the sub himalayan tract of the eastern up and up to until sikkim and if you see it also occurs in central western and the southern india as well and the temperature range for the rosewood trees to try was 30 degree Celsius to 50 degree Celsius and the minimum temperature it can withstand is up to 0 degree Celsius right and it requires an annual rainfall of 750 mm to 500 mm and the wood quality of the rosewood is very hard close grained and strong and because of this it finds a lot of application in furniture and also even in gun making all right now with that let's move on to the other part of the discussion which has detailed analysis of other important topics now look at this news article this news reports about farmers investment subsidy scheme named as raitu bandhu scheme so as we know the implementation of lockdown is still in practice and the telangana government's revenues are expected to drastically decline in the month of june hence this state government is struggling hard to fulfill the promise of crediting the amounts assured under its flagship raitu bandhu scheme so this scheme is very famous so in this context let us know in detail about raitu bandhu scheme see agriculture in telangana state is characterized by poor productivity and production this has been due to frequent occurrence of droughts lesser technological penetration and poor investment capacity of the farmers so as a result there existed a lower levels of income and lack of social security to the farmers and know that the majority of the farmers are small marginal and are dependent solely on farming for their livelihood and keeping this in view the government of telangana conceptualized the scheme raitu bandhu this scheme serves the purpose of investment as well as becoming an income support for the farming community see this welfare program supports farmers investments for two crops in one year and accordingly the farmers of telangana state are provided rupees four thousand per acre per season and know that this is to support the farm investments twice a year for both rabbi and cariff seasons and the eligibility criteria for the scheme is that the farmer should be a resident of telangana state and must own a farming land all right and till now we saw the details of the scheme and its purpose now let us see the benefits of the scheme in brief first the farmers need not approach private money lenders for marginal loans anymore because they are given money support right secondly raitu bandhu installment can aid their purchase of inputs like seeds fertilizers pesticides labor and other investments in the field operations also the farmer can decide the choice of crop for the season as the scheme does not dictate what crop the farmer should produce hence the scheme helps in breaking the vicious cycle of rural indebtedness and in addition it also ensures that the farmers do not fall again in the debt trap to the spurious money lenders right hence the government shall find suitable ways to create the amount rather than trying to delay or stop the funding support to the farmers with this we have come to the end of this topic discussion let's move on to the next segment our next news discussion is going to be based on this editorial article see it is written in the backdrop of the indian meteorological departments probabilistic forecast for the rainy season as a whole so in this slide let us have a comprehensive analysis of the forecast its possible implications and also some important points from this article so here is the syllabus for your reference see recently the imd projected that in 2021 the rainfall during the southwest monsoons for the country as a whole is likely to be one out one percentage of the long period average which is commonly called as lpa of 88 centimeter which is usually 88 centimeter see the lpa is nothing but the average rainfall recorded for a particular region for a given interval over a long period like say 30 years or 50 years etc and this acts as a benchmark while forecasting the quantitative rainfall for that region for a specific month or season and note that for the period 1961 to 2010 average annual precipitation across the nation was about 88 centimeter right now if you see in 2020 we received a rainfall of 109 percentage of the lpa and in 2019 it was 110 percentage of the lpa so on comparing the present estimations with the past years we can find that the present forecast of 101 percentage falls short of the rainfall received in these years but still it comes under the imd's range of normal rainfalls which is measured over a period of long years right and see normal or average rainfall is the amount of precipitation that we expect per year in a given area and it is obtained by calculating the average precipitation recorded in an area during many years so that is why the imd says that it falls in the normal range as per the estimation the distribution of rainfall is expected to be below normal in the northeast whereas in other regions it is expected to get above normal rainfall see a general pattern is that if the northeast india which usually has a higher base rainfall than the other parts encounters a weaker rains during the monsoon if the northeast encounters weaker rains then it is more likely that the rest of the india especially in the central india will have stronger rainfall this estimation of a favorable pattern of precipitation this year is done based on the forecasts from the indian and the global climate models and know that the sea surface temperature conditions over the pacific and the indian oceans are known to have a strong influence on the indian monsoon how the pacific sea surface temperature rise is called as elnino we all know that when there is an abnormal warming over pacific sea temperature we call it elnino and during the elnino years india experiences drought like conditions right and the forecasts say that there is no abnormal warming in the pacific so we are not expecting an elnino this year and the second factor that is influencing is the indian ocean dipole which is a phenomenon centered over the indian ocean that is basically the Bay of Bengal and the arabian sea see the forecast says we have a negative indian ocean dipole so before we just jump into the focus we'll just understand the dipole better see indian ocean dipole is characterized by alternative warming of the eastern and the western indian ocean okay a positive indian ocean dipole is where there is a warmer western indian ocean that is arabian sea and a colder eastern indian ocean which is over the Bay of Bengal and the indonesia so the dipole here that there are two poles here are the indonesia and the african region so in a positive indian ocean dipole as you can see from the figure the air rises over the indian ocean in the west and it showers rain over india resulting in a copious rainfall over india whereas in the negative indian ocean dipole what happens is the sea surface temperature over the arabian sea is much colder compared to the sea surface temperature over indonesia and the bay of bengal so this results in a negative indian ocean dipole which results in rains over indonesia and other areas but very little rainfall or reduction in rainfall in the indian subcontinent all right so what the forecast says is el nino is going to be absent and there is going to be a negative indian ocean dipole we know el nino is associated with drought like conditions in india and negative indian ocean dipole is associated with reduced rainfall so there is going to be no el nino but there is going to be a negative indian ocean dipole so what they say is the influence of these phenomenon over the monsoon in india is not going to be there so we are going to have a normal monsoon right so as per the current forecast an above normal rainfall is expected in the core agricultural zone which includes states like madhya pradesh, bihar, odisa, west bengal wherein the agriculture is significantly rain fed and in addition to a flourishing our agricultural sector we will also witness a boosted storage in the kerosoboyers which we can use in the rest of the year and however the expected precipitation has also got its own challenges like flash floods landslides disease outbreaks all these conditions require careful planning in advance therefore it is important for the government to use these inputs as a reason to improve and make better infrastructure because excess of rains have got the capacity to wipe out the potential gains for the agriculture we know agriculture is excessively rain dependent in our nation right so apart from this the farmer should also be encouraged to sow higher value crops than only rice which is usually done in india and this should be supported through msp so if everything gets aligned as expected it will enable india to witness a third consecutive year of surplus rainfall which is a good thing and this will greatly impact our indian agriculture and we know our economy is largely based on agriculture as well however we should note that three consecutive years above normal rain is something that is very rare and even the IMD itself has assigned only 22 percentage probability of it occurring and about 40 percentage of normal rainfall to take place so these are some of the takeaway points from this editorial article in this discussion we saw briefly about el nino we also saw about indian ocean dipole and the monsoon forecast for this particular year and the planning that in the government should be taking thereof so with this information let's move on to the next segment now let us take up this news article it reports about maldiv's winning the 76th un general assembly presidency so in this regard let us learn some important details about the united nation general assembly see the united nation general assembly is one of the main organs of the six main organs of the united nations the other six main organs are the security council the economic and the social council the trusteeship council the international court of justice and the un secretariat so that is just additional information now coming back to unga the united nation general assembly was established in 1945 under the charter of united nations and it is the chief deliberative policymaking and representative organ of the united nations and all the 193 members of the united nations are represented in the united nation general assembly it makes it the only body with universal representation see the assembly provides a unique forum for multilateral discussions involving international issues that are covered by the charter and the decisions on important questions such as those on peace and security admission of new members budgetary matters all these requires two-third majority but discussion on other questions like simple questions like day-to-day happenings on the international arena they are passed by simple majority and the assembly also plays a significant role in the process of standard setting and codification of international law and remember each year in september the full un membership meets in the general assembly hall which is located in new york for the annual general assembly session and know that the assembly's president changes with each annual session and is elected by the body itself and the president of the general assembly is elected every year by a secret ballot and requires a simple majority of vote of the general assembly this is about the election to the presidency of the united nation general assembly remember that all right and note that the presidency of the general assembly rotates among the five regional groups see what are these five regional groups they are the group of asian states group of eastern european states group of latin american states the group of african states and the western european and the other state groups and as per the established rules of the regional rotation the president of the 76th session of the general assembly was to be elected from the group of asia pacific states and that is why maldives has been elected and this united nation general assembly elix the non permanent members of the security council as well and other bodies such as a human rights council and apart from this its other functions include the consideration of reports from other organs of the united nations assessing the financial situation of member states and also to approve the un budget so with this information in mind we have come to the end of the discussion on united nation general assembly let's move on to the next part of the discussion now look at this news article this article says that tea and water resource department expects krishna water to be released around mid june and this will improve storages in the poondi reservoir one of the major water bodies that distributes drinking water to the chennai city so in this context let us discuss in detail about krishna river its tribute trees etc and also the krishna river water dispute in brief so as we know the godavari is the largest peninsular river the krishna is the second largest and it is a eastward draining river and it is an interstate river as well which is in the peninsular india rises in the western guards at an altitude of 1337 meters just north of mahabalesh river in maharashtra and then it flows from west to east and joins the bay of bengal downstream of vijayavada and the krishna drains an area of more than 2.5 lakh square kilometer which is nearly eight percentage of the total geographical area of our country and know that the basin covers large areas in the states of maharashtra karnataka telangana and andhra pradesh across four states have a look at this map for a better understanding see the krishna basin is bounded on the north by the ridge separating it from godavari basin it is bounded on the south and east by the eastern guards and on the west by the western guards and it is clear that the basin is roughly triangular in shape with the base along the western guards and the apex at the vijayavada see there are about 13 major tribute trees which join the river krishna along its 1400 kilometer course among the six are right bank tributaries and about seven are left bank tributaries uh ghataprabha malaprabha thungabhatra are some of the principal right bank tributaries they together account for 35.45 percentage of the total catchment of krishna and know that bima musian munneru are the principal left bank tributaries and they together constitute about 35.62 percentage of the total catchment area have a look at this figure have a rough idea on the important tributaries of river krishna now let us discuss in brief about krishna water dispute see the dispute over the sharing of krishna water has been ongoing for several decades it began with the erstwhile hydra bad and mysore states itself later it continued between the successors who are karnataka andhra pradesh and telangana together with its tributaries krishna forms a vast basin of 33 percentage of the total areas of the four states and see the krishna water dispute tribunal was constituted as late as 1969 for the adjudication of disputes regarding the sharing of waters and the krishna water dispute tribunal gave its award in 1973 and it was published in 1976 and the tribunal allocated krishna water among the four states that is three states initially that is Maharashtra, karnataka and andhra pradesh and telangana was also involved after the bifurcation of andhra pradesh in 2014 so this brings us to the end of discussion on krishna river let's move on to the next segment now have a look at this news article so this news article is about the mental health problems prevailing all over the world and especially in india so in this context we will be discussing about mental health measures taken by indian government and the data analysis from the lanset public health report right here is the syllabus for your reference first let's start with the exact definition for mental health as provided by who see mental health is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential in addition he or she can cope with the normal stresses of life and can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make contributions to his or her community this is the exact definition as provided by who and if you see the mental health of an individual is becoming important as it plays a significant role in life expectancy as well see and note that according to the world health organization there is a 10 to 25 years life expectancy reduction in patients with severe mental disorder see what is this life expectancy it is the number of years a baby is expected to survive right and if there is a reduction of 10 to 25 years say if a baby is expected to survive about for 75 years in a country right and if it is cut short by 25 about one third of the baby's life is lost right so individual's life is lost so that is what is life expectancy and who has pointed out that mental health also has implications on the life expectancy so with this the article mentions about two components of mental health mental illness and mental disorder see mental illness are a set of conditions involving change in the emotions behavior and thinking it includes the anxiety disorders the psychotic disorders the mood disorders etc this is a serious concern to the society as the majority of suicides in the world are related to this problem next is the problem of mental disorder it includes depression bipolar disorders and other disorders and here note that the recent reports published in the land set revealed that one in seven people in India had a mental disorder ranging from mild to severe in 2017 now let us study the measures taken by the Indian government to address the mental health issues in our country see as per the 2011 census about 15 lakh individuals in our country were mentally challenged right hence the need for a comprehensive policy on mental health care arose and as a result the national mental health policy kicked in in 2014 and the vision for the national mental health policy is very broad where it includes solution to multiple issues arising out of mental illness and the vision document emphasizes on promoting mental health care prevention and treatment of mental illness and others and one of the important area it focused on was on promoting de-stigmatization and ensuring socioeconomic inclusion of the persons affected by mental illness see if you see mental illness is seen as a taboo topic no one really wants to include a mentally challenged person right and there is a stigma surrounding that and this policy document tries to reverse this trend it tries to de-stigmatize and include the mentally challenged people into the mainstream right hence in short we can say that this policy tries to provide integrated mental care alongside ensuring equity and justice now coming to mental health care act this act was enacted in 2017 and this act when it was enacted it was considered very revolutionary so let us see some important provisions of it see these provisions are important both from mains as well as preliminary point of view okay see this act creates a justiciable right to mental health care in India in addition the law takes a rights-based approach to many aspects of the mental health care to be more specific this act makes provision for writing an advance directive so what is this advance directive see we all know that there are times when persons with mental illness are unable to communicate their preference for treatment to their psychiatrist therefore the new act makes provision for writing an advance directive where people can make their choices of treatment as well as their future okay in addition to it the act also provides rights like right to information about their illness right to confidentiality of their medical condition right to access their medical records and many others importantly this act has also decriminalized suicide attempts by the person with mental illness and the other measures from the government side includes initiators such as national health mission and Ayushman Bharat that have the necessary components to address the mental health issues of all the sections of the population now coming back to the article the author does a comparative analysis based on the data from the Lancet public health studies of 2019 see according to the study there is a wide variation among the countries in terms of mental health care expenditure for example considering the low income countries they spend only 0.5 percentage of their health budget for mental health care purposes but high income countries spend 5.1 percentage of their total health budget on mental health care that is about 10 percent higher right and for lower middle income countries it was around 1.9 percentage and this article has also highlighted some datas provided by WHO specific for our country you can quote these datas for your mains examination especially for those questions pertaining to mental health care right so just go through this data by highlighting the data the author says that these low rankings are due to the lack of focused attention given to mental health care in our country and in the final part of the article the author lists a few suggestions to improve the mental health care in our country so let's go over it one by one firstly to address the mental health issues india should increase the number of personnel in the mental health sector to reduce the treatment gap for the mental disorders we already saw in the facts that in india the share of mental hospitals per lack of population is as low as 0.01 right so the number of hospitals and the treatment personnel the doctors the psychiatrists and the psychologists should be increased so that is what he means by the first suggestion secondly india should devise an integrated approach for detecting treating and managing patient needs at the same time work towards reducing the discriminatory attitudes that is being existent in the society the other suggestion is that about the counseling facilities see he wants the counseling facilities in the rural areas to be ramped up in rural areas if you see the awareness for mental health is very very less and establishment of these kind of counseling facilities will not only spread awareness about mental health but also help the rural areas in combating any kind of mental health issues and especially the author highlights the need to support women women's mental health care is often neglected in the social setup of india and that is why author emphasizes the need to support women mental health care and he also adds the importance of digital health care and telemedicine facilities as other strategies to address the mental health care and above all this the author stresses on the community-based programs and these community-based programs have the potential to create awareness and can ramp up the private sector for promoting mental health care right so in this article we comprehensively saw about the mental health issues not faced not only in india but across the world and about the national mental health policy and about the statute that governs this issue as well as some of the ways to overcome this issue in india and this article becomes more relevant in the current context because of the rising mental health issues in the context of pandemic so with this information let's move on to the next segment now let us take up this editorial see this editorial is an analysis of the recently released performance grading index PGI 2019-2020 for states and union territories see we'll be referring to performance grading index PGI as PGI subsequently in our discussions right so here is the syllabus for your reference first let us see about the performance grading index PGI the PGI is a tool to provide insight on the status of the school education in states as well as in union territories including key parameters that drive their performances and critical areas required for their improvement right the performance grading index of 2019-2020 for states and union territories is the third publication in the series and the PGI for states and union territories was first published in 2019 with reference year of 2017 and 18 now let us discuss the methodology incorporated in PGI in brief see PGI grades all states and union territories on their performances and there are about 70 indicators for this on school education these indicators have been grouped into two categories the first one is outcomes and the second one is governance and management and these are the two categories and there are various domains under these categories as well for example they are learning outcomes and quality access infrastructure and facilities equity and others and the 70 indicators in PGI are designed to a total weightage of 1000 all right and the information on the indicators is drawn from the data available from various sources as you can see in the slide so this is the information relating to the methodology of performance grading index see according to the author of the editorial the union education ministry has been attempting to get states into a competitive mode by recognizing progress with the PGI and this is what he calls as the hall of frame approach so a lot of states are competing to get famous by achieving right so in the latest performance grading index 2019-2020 the Andaman and Nicobar islands Chandigarh Kerala Punjab and Tamil Nadu have performed the best but they still fall short of the 951 to 1000 points slab this slab is the highest possible score under the PGI so even the best of the best performing states are failing to achieve the best when it comes to education which is a sad thing to note and also in the latest PGI 33 states and union territories have improved their PGI scores over the previous years which is a good news and states and union territories like Andaman and Nicobar Punjab Arnachal Pradesh have improved their score by about 20 percentage this is a phenomenal increase isn't it so there is a lot of good news to celebrate but at the same time there are major shortcomings as well for example many states have shown only marginal progress in the latest PGI also some states have improved their performance merely by tweaking their data and when it comes to states like Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh they have actually regressed in their performance so we can observe that a lot more is desired when it comes to educational process and see the author of the editorial appreciates the government's aim in realizing the index and according to author the central government through its transparent scores and data for each parameter and subtopic that has been made available in the public domain seeks to create a resource sharing system this resource sharing system can be used by the low performing states to improve their scores such an initiative is laudable right so what is this resource sharing system basically the ways the policies the resource allocations done by better performing states has been made transparent and open so that the low performing states can adopt all these things right but it can work only if the government and the opposition parties see value in strong and open school education they should also work to strengthen the education's access equity and infrastructure and many southeast Asian countries showed great progress in education by following these reforms and also the PGI for the year 2019-2020 is the latest of the entire series so the data used in the index are from the pre-pandemic period and the current covid pandemic as we may all realize might have worsened the performance of several states and union territories so how can we improve our performance in this covid era according to author we have to strengthen our digital tools and infrastructure in order to better our education during this pandemic firstly and we should also subsidize access to education that is the second thing and thirdly the southern and the western states already have good scores on PGI so they are in a form ground to achieve the new goals of the pandemic whereas the states in the central India and parts of east and the northeast are less resourced so they may struggle more during this pandemic to better their performance in education the governments have to take appropriate steps to overcome these hurdles and channelize more resources towards these areas to better the education all right so this brings us to the end of discussion on the editorial based on performance grading index but this let's move on to the next segment now have a look at this news article so this can be called as a very cliche news article on the future course of the pandemic and what we should do to prevent the future course of the pandemic and everything but it is also a refreshing reminder about the ways that we have to adopt to prevent the third wave right and in that context the author has given a dots framework that is DOTS framework to combat the pandemic and he has also talked about the reproduction number that is R in the discussion so we will also cover that from the problem's perspective right so here is the syllabus for your reference students so with that in mind let's jump into the discussion right so before we start with the dots let us understand what is reproduction number is the reproduction number is a measure of the transmission potential of a disease that is it is the average number of a secondary infection produced by a typical case of an infection in a population where everyone is equally susceptible that is how much can an infected person who comes in contact with other people can transmit the infection that is what is called as the reproduction number the author says that understanding the changing pattern of R can help us mitigate a third wave see R depends on four factors and that is what he calls as dots here these stands for duration of a person how long a person is infectious that is duration of an infectivity of the person and O is the opportunities for the infected individual to spread the infection to the others that is a person who is coming in contact with the others very often will have greater opportunity to spread the infection to the others right say consider a vegetable vendor right or consider a food delivery person they come in contact with a lot of people or even for that matter consider an infected doctor right so these are the components of O then T is the probability of transmission during the contact anyone having a prolonged contact with the infected person will have a greater probability of transmission during the contact right and S stands for the average susceptibility of a population or a subpopulation to the transmission in general for an epidemic to occur in a susceptible population R must be greater than one so the number of cases keeps on increasing right and that is at least one person should be able to transmit the infection to one other person at least for the infection chain to be alive right now the solution is simple bring down each of the dots component as far as possible so that the next wave can be avoided so the author starts with yes we saw that S stands for susceptibility of infection right here the author cites a national zero prevalence survey which says that an average of 25 percentage of Indians had antibodies against COVID-19 see what is the zero prevalence survey see this is also important from the prince perspective you should know what is a zero prevalence survey so this zero prevalence survey is where the serum of some random population is collected from a particular geographic location and serum is nothing but blood and antibodies in that samples of the blood is analyzed right that is specific for COVID-19 so some percentage of those samples will have antibodies specific for COVID-19 right so that specific population the percentage is the zero prevalence say which 25 percent in India it is assumed that about 25 percentage of India has been already infected and they have the antibodies for that particular disease and in our context it is COVID-19 right and this is what a zero prevalence survey so zero prevalence survey is more like a post infection epidemiological tool right that is how much is the spread of the infection in a population is being assessed by the zero prevalence so coming back to the discussion this could have helped due to the huge exposure to the virus in certain regions and to achieve the herd immunity right but 25 person won't be sufficient as the susceptible population in India those who lack immunity through prior infection or vaccination is still high because 25 percent is just one fourth right the rest of the population still remains susceptible so the S is still high so what do we do to bring down the S the only solution is vaccination right the reason announcement by the prime minister to provide free vaccine to stage for inoculation for people above age 18 from June 21 is a right step in that direction next is O stands for the opportunities for transmission so beginning of 2021 we all have eased ourselves from wearing masks and ensuring social distancing thinking that the worst part of COVID is already over but then came the massive second wave and the author says that in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh about 80 percentage of all the secondary infection was caused by five percentage of the infected individuals only right hence we must all ensure that the COVID related restrictions are obeyed we must be responsible individuals to reduce the opportunities for transmission by wearing masks and ensuring social distancing are failure to take necessary precautions led to the third factor that is T that is the probability of transmission so as we know certain COVID variants such as B1, 6172 or the delta variant are more transmissible right so the only solution to minimize this aspect is taking all necessary precautions and the final factor is D D is the duration of infectiousness this requires more research as different variants are found to cause different durations of infections some resolve within three days and some end up being positive for up to even two months right if not properly studied this factor might lead to the next wave of the pandemic see several reports have suggested that there will be a third wave very soon and its intensity will be huge both in terms of rate of infection and death rate and authority shall focus more on the dynamics of the dots and minimize each factors to mitigate the upcoming COVID-19 waves and we as a responsible citizens meanwhile shall take necessary precautions and adhere to the restrictions as the worst part may not be over yet so with that information let's move on to the next segment so with that topic let's come to the last segment of today's discussion practice preliminary question we have four questions for discussion today let's go over it one by one this first question is about El Nino we have three statements the first statement is that it refers to this name given to the occasional development of warm ocean surface waters along the coast of Ecuador and Peru see during the discussion we saw that El Nino is the abnormal sea surface temperature warming of the Pacific and this statement lies very close to that discussion of us so yes this statement is correct coming to the second statement it normally occurs around Christmas and usually lasts for a few weeks to a few months see the second statement is also correct because the word El Nino means Christ child because this current appears around the Christmas in December and the December is the summer month in Peru which is the southern hemisphere so second statement is also correct now coming to the third statement it is used in India for forecasting long-range monsoon rainfall and in during the course of discussion we saw that the occurrence of El Nino is associated with drought-like conditions in India right and so it influences the monsoon also yes and that is why we use to study this condition for forecasting the long-range monsoon rainfall so the correct option for this question is option D 1 2 and 3 moving on to the next question this is about the Raitu-Bantu scheme that we saw in the discussion this scheme is associated with which of the following states we know from the discussion that it is associated with the state of Telangana so the correct option is option D Telangana moving on to the next question which of the following are the tributaries of river Krishna so we have four options and the important tributaries of Krishna are Koina, Panchganga, Dutganga, Halya, Mosi, Paler so we know that two and four are right and important tributaries of Godavari are Pradhara, Purna, Manjeera, Pranahita and Indravati and Penganga is also another tributary of Godavari so one and three are incorrect so the correct option for us is option C 2 and 4 now moving on to the next question this question is about United Nations General Assembly it asks us which is not a function of UNGA so the first one is a function of UNGA we saw it in the discussion the second statement is to settle the legal dispute submitted to it by the states in accordance with the international law see this statement is wrong because settling disputes is not a function of UNGA but it is a function of the International Court of Justice which is another organ of the United Nations so this is the answer so the correct option is option B which is not the function of UNGA so with that we are looking at some of the main's questions inspired from the discussion today write those answers and post it in the comment sections for peer review writing few answers main's answers every day will help you with your main's preparation so that's it for today's discussion we are wrapping up today's discussion if you like the video like share comment and subscribe stay home stay safe good day