 Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar A.S. Academy for the date 15th of September 2022. Displayed here are the list of news articles we will be discussing today. See, today's articles are not only important, they are also very interesting. We are going to discuss about national list of essential medicines. We are going to discuss about the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. We are also going to discuss about the constitutional safeguards that is available for the scheduled tribe community. We are going to do a 360 degree analysis about the senior citizens in that we are going to focus on the challenges faced by the senior citizens and also the government's initiative to address the challenges. Then we are going to revise about the model code of conduct. And finally, we are going to take one article from yesterday's newspaper and see about the Fankoni anemia. Now, without wasting time, let's get into today's discussion. Let us start today's discussion with this text and context article. This is a very basic article. Basic in the sense, it is about something which is very common to the public. We all use medicines when we get sick, right? This article is about the medicines only. Now you may wonder, why should UPSC aspirants study about medicines? Don't worry, we are not going to study about medicines. See, government has released a list of certain drugs and we are going to see what is in that list and what is the criteria to add a particular drug to the list. And most importantly, what is the purpose of that list? We will see them one by one. First of all, the list is named as National List of Essential Medicines. Shortly, it is referred as NLEM. As the name suggests, it includes essential drugs which are used to treat diseases in our country. As a UPSC aspirant, what should be your next question? Yes, who prepares and releases the report? See, there is a history behind this. I will tell you shortly what it is. In the year 1977, WHO published a model list of essential medicines. The list contains medicines which are of utmost importance, basic, indispensable and necessary for the health needs of the population. And the criteria for selection was efficacy, safety, quality, and total cost. And this list served as an example for the member countries. But here, the member countries individually should decide what is essential medicines for them. They cannot simply follow the list released by WHO. Can you guess why? See, each country has different disease burden, right? For example, a country in the topical region will have heavy burden of communicable diseases like malaria, dengue, yellow fever, etc. But a developed country will have different kinds of burdens. People in the developed country will mainly face lifestyle and non-communicable diseases like diabetes and cancer. So, each country should decide their own list of essential medicines based on their disease burden. Now, coming back to India. See, based on this model list released by WHO, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare prepared and released the first national list of essential medicines of India in the year 1996. And after that, it was revised multiple times, first in the year 2003, and after that in 2011. And finally, it was revised in the year 2015. After 2015, now that is in 2022, this national list of essential medicines is being revised. See, as per the Press Information Bureau, an independent standing national committee on medicines was constituted by the Union Health Ministry in 2018. The committee, after detailed consultation with experts and stakeholders, revised the national list of essential medicines 2015 report. And the committee submitted the revised report to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. And finally, the ministry released the report. So, right now, we got the answer for the question, who prepares and release the report? Who prepares and releases the report? It is none other than Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Okay? Now, coming to the criteria part. See, NLEM demands certain criteria for the inclusion of drugs in the list. Let us see what they are. This information is as per the PIB. In order to include a particular drug in the national list of essential medicines list, the drug should be useful in treating diseases which is a public health problem in India. Next, the drug should be licensed and approved by the drug controller general of India. Thirdly, the drug should have proven efficacy and safety profile based on scientific evidence. After that, the drug should be comparatively cost effective. The next criteria is, the drug should be aligned with the current treatment guidelines. Finally, the drug should be recommended under the national health program of India. I will give you an example here. Take Ivermectin for example. It is part of the action plan for elimination of lymphatic filariasis. So, it is included in the list. Here, lymphatic filariasis or elephantiasis is a parasitic disease. This disease affects the lymphatic system which results in swelling of legs and genitals. Okay? Now, coming back. See, apart from this, other scenarios are also considered while including the drugs. I will explain them. Imagine there are two medicines available for a therapeutic class. It means two medicines are available for treating a particular disease and they both fulfill the criteria that we just saw. In that case, one prototype or the medically best suited medicine of that class will be included in the national list of essential medicines. The next scenario is that while including the drug in the list, the price of the total treatment is considered, not the unit price of a medicine. So, when the criteria says cost effective, it means whole treatment should be cost effective. Next, know that the fixed dose combination are usually not included. See, fixed dose combinations are nothing but combinations of two or more active drugs in a single dosage form. For example, you must have heard about the medicine anacin rate. It is a combination of paracetamol and caffeine. So, anacin is a classic example of fixed dose combination. Now, moving on. See, vaccines are also included in the list. They are included as and when they are included in the universal immunization program. For example, rotovirus vaccine is included in the national list of essential medicines. See, this is a very crucial fact. Remember this. If a statement is asked in the problems like NLEM includes vaccines also, then you should know that it is true. This is about the criteria for including a particular medicine or a drug into the national list of essential medicines. Now, moving on to the final part. What do you think is the purpose of this list? See, the primary purpose of the national list of essential medicines is to promote rational use of medicines. It is done by considering three important facts that are cost, safety and efficacy. Secondly, it helps in optimal utilization of health care resources. See, it also helps in improving the prescribing habits, medical education and training and finally drafting pharmacotical policies. Don't get confused here. Doctors do know what they are prescribing. See, in the national list of essential medicines, the medicines are categorized based on the level of health care system. So, it will be easy for the doctors to identify the affordable medicines through the national list of essential medicines. See, these are the main purpose of publishing the national list of essential medicines. So, know that NLEM is a dynamic document and it is revised on a regular basis considering the changing public health priorities as well as advancement in the pharmacotical knowledge. So, that's all regarding this discussion. See, in this discussion, we saw about national list of essential medicines. We saw who publishes the list. We saw the criteria for including a particular drug into the list and finally, we saw the purpose of publishing this particular list. That's all regarding this discussion. With this, let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Take a look at this article. This article here is taken from the foreign page. It is about yet another clash between Armenia and Azerbaijan. See, both the countries accused each other for violating the truce agreement and as usual, Russia stated it has negotiated a ceasefire between the countries and this is the crux of the news article given here. In this article discussion, we are going to solely concentrate on the reasons for the clash between the two countries. Buckle up, we are going to go to the past. It all started in the early 1900s. See, in 1920, the then Russian President Joseph Stalin conquered a large portion of the Caucasus. See the map here. You will understand where the Caucasus region is. See, the Caucasus is a strategically important mountainous region in the southeastern Europe and it covered the Christian majority Armenia and Muslim majority Azerbaijan. By the end of 1920, Armenia and Azerbaijan joined the Soviet Union. At this time, Stalin placed the region of Nagorno-Karabakh into Azerbaijan. This is where everything started. See, this Nagorno-Karabakh region is a ethnically Armenian dominated region, but it is in Azerbaijan. See the image here. You can clearly understand. See, in this map, you can see the Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan. But as we saw already, it is an ethnic Armenian dominated region. Obviously, clashes will come, right? See, within the same ethnic group itself, sometimes clashes will occur. Here, you don't even have to ask. Clashes here are inevitable. Now, you might have a question when the clashes started occurring. Let me tell you. It is when the erstwhile USSR or the Soviet Union started to collapse in the late 1980s. What happened at this time is that the Nagorno-Karabakh regional parliament officially voted to become part of Armenia. But Azerbaijan obviously refused this. So, the situation escalated into a separatist movement and since then Azerbaijan is trying to control it. Now, you may think how Armenia got involved in this. See, Armenia started supporting the separatist movement. There are two reasons for this act of Armenian government. One is the Nagorno-Karabakh region contains their people. It contains majority of Armenian ethnic group. The second reason is that the region voted to join Armenia only. So, the Armenian government is backing the separatist movement. And once Armenia and Azerbaijan declared independence from Moscow, a full-scale war started between the two. As a result of war, tens of thousands of people died on both sides. And up to a million were displaced due to ethnic cleansing and massacres committed by both sides. So, Russia negotiated a ceasefire between the countries in the year 1994. But before that itself, Armenian forces gained control of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the areas adjacent to it. The Armenian separatist declared the region as Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous oblast. So, after the peace deal, Nagorno-Karabakh region remained a part of Azerbaijan. But it was governed by separatists and run by ethnic Armenians. The fascinating fact here is that the Armenian government did not dragonize the region as an independent region. But it supported the region politically and militarily. So, what is the conclusion here? The clash between Azerbaijan and Armenia is due to territorial dispute. So, this is the story behind the clash between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Since 1980, there has been several instances of clash between the two countries. The article that we saw today is one such clash. And as we saw, Russia is also mediating between the two in every one of the clashes. Also know that peace talks are also taking place and this peace talk is mediated by the organization for security and cooperation in Europe. It is a Minsk based group. It is nothing but a body which is set up in 1992 and the body is chaired by France, Russia and United States. And this body is mediating the peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan. That's all regarding this article. Before moving on, let me tell you one more interesting fact here. Whenever fight or war happens, people will take sides, right? Here also countries have taken sides. Here Turkey is a close ally of Azerbaijan. And Turkey supports the Azerbaijan government because it is a Muslim majority region. And Russia is a close ally of Armenia because Russian base is in Armenia and both countries are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which is a military alliance. See, interestingly, here Russia and Turkey are supporting the opposite sides. Likewise, in the civil wars that is happening in Syria and Libya also, Russia and Turkey are supporting the opposite sides. This is an interesting coincidence. Now you may wonder how come Russia is able to negotiate between the two countries, even though it is supporting only Armenia. This is because Russia is maintaining good relations with Azerbaijan. And Russia supplies arms to both countries. So when there is a clash between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russia is the clear winner because it can sell more arms to both the countries. So that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw the historical base for the clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan. With this, let us conclude this discussion and move on to the next news article. Look at these news articles here. The news is that the Union Cabinet under the chairmanship of our Prime Minister has approved the addition of four tribes to the list of scheduled tribes. Here Hathi or the Hathi tribe is included in the scheduled tribe list of Himachal Pradesh, Narik Kauravan and Kururi Karan are included in the scheduled tribe list of Tamil Nadu. And Banjia is included in the scheduled tribe list of Chandigarh. In addition to this, the Goan the community residing in 13 districts of Uttar Pradesh, which were earlier placed under the scheduled caste list are now included in the scheduled tribe list. The article also says that the Union Cabinet approved the constitution scheduled tribes order 2nd Amendment Bill 2022. This bill seeks to make certain amendments to the constitution scheduled tribes order 1950. This is the crux of the news article given here. See, many a times we have discussed about the declaration of a particular community as scheduled tribes, right? How it is done? If you can't recall the facts, don't worry, I will tell you one more time. It is as per article 342. See, president issues the notification after consulting the governor of the state consent. The article says that the inclusion or exclusion of any caste or tribe from the presidential notification can be done only by the parliament. This is regarding the declaration of scheduled tribes. Go and read about article 342 fully again to keep the facts in your mind. Today we are going to concentrate on a different part regarding scheduled tribes. It is nothing but the constitutional provisions regarding scheduled tribes. See today I am going to give you a consolidated picture of all the provisions that are mentioned in the constitution regarding scheduled tribes. Why it is important? Suppose let us say a question is asked in the mains regarding scheduled tribes. At the time you don't have to think and waste time. Take notes of what I am going to tell you now. After that you can use those provisions anywhere in your mains answer. You can use it in the interaction, conclusion, etc. Okay, now let us start the discussion. The first and foremost one is article 342. Article 342 talks about the declaration of particular community or tribe as scheduled tribes. This we saw in the beginning itself. Next what I am going to do is I am going to do a simple thing. I am going to categorize the provisions. The first category that we are going to discuss now is the political safeguards for scheduled tribes. The first article that we are going to see under this category is article 243D. It is about the reservation of seeds for scheduled tribes in Panchayats. The second article is article 243D. You might have guessed what it is about. Yes, you are right. It is about the reservation of seeds for scheduled tribes in municipalities. The next one is article 330. It is about the reservation of seeds for scheduled cast and scheduled tribes in the house of the people, that is Lok Sabha. Next is article 332. It is about the reservation of seeds for scheduled cast and scheduled tribes in the legislative assemblies of the states. This is regarding the political safeguards that are available for scheduled tribes. The next category is regarding the society related safeguards. Here we have article 15. We all know what it is right. It is about the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. We also have article 19. It is the protection of certain rights regarding freedom of speech and expression. See, this is the beauty of fundamental rights. You can incorporate them anywhere. You just have to make a connection. That's all. The next category is the educational category. In this category, we have article 21a, which is right to education. After this, we have article 29 and article 30, which comprises of cultural and educational rights. Article 29 is about the protection of interest of minorities. And article 30 is about the rights of the minorities to establish and administer educational institution. These are the provisions under the educational category. Now moving on, the next category is economic and public employment related safeguards. Here, first we have article 16. It is about equality of opportunity in the matters of public employment. And we have article 46 here. Article 46 deals about the promotion of educational and economic interest of scheduled caste, scheduled tribes and other weaker section. Now moving on to the next category. It is the agency for monitoring safeguards. Think about what provision do we have under this category? Yeah, we have article 338a. Article 338a provides for the establishment of national commission for scheduled tribes. And this commission monitors whether the safeguards provided for scheduled tribes in the constitution is followed or not. See, categorizing like this is a simple task, but it has many fold advantages. First thing is, your notes will be very organized. The second thing is, we'll have organized notes like this. You can easily revise and this helps you to remember facts. See, one of the main skill you have to develop while writing a mains answer is time management. If you have a very organized notes like this, and if you regularly revise these notes, you can easily recall them during your answer writing and this will help you save time. And in turn, it will help you in your time management. So instead of just taking notes of the articles that I have discussed today, just observe the way I have organized the articles. If you organize the other parts of your notes like this, it will help you remember facts and it will also help you in the long term. Okay, so that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw how a particular community or a tribe is categorized as scheduled tribes. And we also saw various provisions of the constitutions that safeguards scheduled tribes in India. So with this, let us conclude this discussion and move on to the next news article. Take a look at this editorial article. This editorial article talks about the concerns of senior citizens in India. The author through this editorial stresses the need for universal social security net for the senior citizens in India. Here, the author mainly focuses on the national old age pension scheme and the issues with it. This is the essence of the article. In this context, in our discussion today, we will focus on the elderly population in general. So the plan for today is first we will see why is there an increase in elderly population in India. Then we will see the specific challenges faced by the senior citizens. Then we will see the constitutional and the legal safeguards for the elderly population in India. And finally, we will see some of the initiatives taken by the government for the senior citizens. This is the plan. But before getting into the discussion, I have highlighted here the syllabus regarding this discussion. You can go through it. Now let us start our discussion first coming to the increase in the population of elderly. The article reports that the share of elderly in Indian population was close to 9% age in 2011. It says that it may reach 18% by 2036. This is according to the National Commission on Population. Here elderly refers to people aged 60 years and above. So what we can observe from this data is in 25 years the population of elderly will double. Now we will see why there is a gradual and continued increase in elderly population in our country. There is two main reasons. First is lower fertility rate and the second is better health care facilities. First, let us take the lower fertility rate. Here fertility rate is nothing but the average number of children a woman gives birth in her total lifetime. See the falling fertility rate is causing an increase in percentage of elderly population in our country. See let us understand this with the example. Consider a hypothetical country with a population of just 100 people. In that in a particular year the proportion of elderly population is 10%. So in that 100 people 10 people are elderly. Say after 20 years due to high fertility the population of the country doubled to 200. The population of elderly also doubled from 10 to 20. So in this case since the total population doubled along with the population of elderly due to high fertility rate the proportion of elderly to the total population is 10%. But consider this scenario. If due to low fertility rate the population of the country has increased from just 100 to 120 but the population of the elderly doubled from 10 to 20. So in this case due to low fertility rate and the associated low population increase the percentage of elderly population in the total population increased from just 10% to 16%. See this is what is happening in India. If you have seen the National Family Health Survey 5 you might have noticed that the total fertility rate of India has reached 2. So the rate at which the population is increasing has reduced. So the percentage of elderly population in our country is increasing. So this is the first reason why the proportion of elderly population is increasing in our country. Now moving on to the second reason. Economic well-being coupled with good healthcare facilities is increasing the longevity of the population. This is also a main reason for increasing proportion of elderly population in our country. See these are the two main reasons for the increase in proportion of elderly population in our country. Having seen this now let us see the challenges faced by the senior citizens in our country. Though aging is a natural stage of human life it brings with it innumerable problems. Challenges generally varies from financial to psychological to social aspects. First let us take the financial issues faced by the senior citizens. With increasing age persons increasingly have to move out of the labour force leading to loss of employment and income. This leads to lack of adequate financial resources to handle age-related issues. Now moving on to the second issue that is health issues. See with increasing age the health of the people starts deteriorating. Cardiac output, eyesight and hearing problems emerges with age. This leads to frequent hospital visits. If they are financially sound this can be at least managed. If they are not financially sound the health problems leads to disastrous effect both in their health and in their minds. Third is the psychological problem. See post 1991 that is post the LPG reforms we are focusing more on the individual rights rather than the family bond. Due to this the number of nuclear families are increasing. Due to the increase in number of nuclear families the elderly population or the senior citizens are staying alone. They don't have anyone to even talk to. So this is causing psychological problems for them. This is the third major issue faced by the senior citizens. Moving on the fourth issue is with increasing age vulnerability of the population to crime also increases. They become soft targets for the criminal elements. Senior citizens are facing many problems such as murder theft, cheating, bag snatching etc. With increasing internet penetration and lack of internet literacy with the senior citizens they are also targeted online and frequently we are seeing in the news that cyber criminals are robbing the senior citizens of their savings. This is the fourth issue faced by the senior citizens. Finally coming to the less talked about aspect of the problems faced by senior citizens. See mostly elderly population lose social relevance with the increasing age. Here losing social relevance means these people are seen as liability by the younger generation. This aspect is also discussed in the editorial. See due to this many elderly citizens are forced into depression. Okay see these are the five major issues faced by the senior citizens or the elderly population in our country. Now let us move on to the constitutional and legal safeguards by the Indian government to alleviate these problems. First let us take up the constitutional safeguards. Here two articles in the DPSP are important that is article 41 and article 46. While article 41 mandates the state to provide public assistance to the old age population, article 46 wants to do away with the social injustice and all other forms of exploitation with respect to the weaker section of the society. Here weaker section includes elderly population. Now coming to the legal safeguards for the old age population. Indian government passed maintenance and welfare of parents and senior citizens act in their 2007. This act makes it a legal obligation for children and higher to provide maintenance to senior citizens and parents by providing monthly elements. It also provides for simple, speedy and inexpensive mechanism for the protection of life and property of senior citizens. See these are the constitutional and the legal safeguards provided to the senior citizens by our country. Finally before concluding let us see various schemes launched by our government especially for the senior citizens. Here the author of the editorial mentioned about the national old age pension scheme. See this is a non-contributory monthly pension schemes for widows, elderly persons and disabled citizens. Okay this is also called as national social assistance program. But note that this scheme is only entitled for below poverty line families. The author in this editorial is of the view that this scheme should be made universal to reduce the exclusionary errors since the data on below poverty line is made using outdated and unreliable sources. So this is the first scheme that is announced by the government for aiding the elderly. Now coming to the contributory old age pension scheme launched in 2015. It is none other than Atal Pension Yojana. The objective of this scheme is to create universal social security system for all Indians. Anyone in the age bracket of 18 to 40 can voluntarily contribute a certain sum of money to the corpus amount which will be returned to the subscriber after he or she attains the age of 60 in monthly installments. Then there is Rashtriya Vayyoshri Yojana. This scheme is run by the ministry of social justice and employment. It is a central sector scheme. It was launched in the year 2006. See this scheme provides aids and assistive living devices to senior citizens belonging to the below poverty line category. They are mainly provided to people suffering from age related disabilities such as low vision hearing impairment loss of teeth and low commuter disabilities. This is the third major scheme. Then there is the Pradhan Mantri Vayyavandana Yojana. This scheme was launched in 2017 and this scheme will be implemented by the life insurance corporation of India. See this is also a contributory pension scheme. Here instead of paying monthly installment a corpus amount between 1,50,000 or 7,50,000 is paid to the government. Once it is paid the senior citizens can get maximum pension of 5000 per month after they reach 60 years of age. Here 75% will be contributed by the central government and 25% will be contributed by the state government. Okay. See the Indian government is also trying to promote entrepreneurial efforts in the silver economy. Here government aims to provide up to 1 crore as financial assistance for silver economy entrepreneurs through equity participation through a portal called Senior Care Aging Growth Engine that is SAGE. Note that silver economy here refers to economic system aimed at using purchasing power potential of older and aging people to satisfy their consumption, living and health care needs. See these are the major schemes and programs launched by the government to aid the elderly. Let me repeat the schemes again National Social Assistance Program, Atal Pension Yojana, Rashtriya Vayyoshri Yojana, Pradhan Mandri Vaivandana Yojana and finally, Senior Care Aging Growth Engine. So that's all regarding this discussion. Through this discussion we have seen about why there is an increase in elderly population in India. We saw about the specific challenges faced by the community. Then we saw the constitutional and legal safeguards for the elderly population and finally we saw some of the initiatives of the government for this community. With this, let us conclude this discussion and move on to the next news article. Take a look at this article. This article discusses about the importance of having a law to curb hate speech during elections. It also reports that there has been repeated violations of model code of conduct by the political parties. In this context, let us learn about model code of contact with respect to Indian elections. First let us see about the term model code of conduct. Model code of conduct refers to a set of guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India for the conduct of political parties and candidates during elections. Now let's see a few additional facts relating to model code of conduct. It is a set of norms which have been evolved over the past six decades with the consensus of the political parties who have consented to abide by the principles. Here note that it doesn't have any statutory backing in any law. It comes into force from the announcement of elections and remains in force till the results are announced. Now coming to the question of what happens when the model code of conduct is violated. See, the Election Commission of India has no legal backing to punish the offenders for the violation of model code of conduct. However, certain provisions of the model code of conduct can be administered legally by invoking corresponding provisions in other laws. The violations need to be conjured with statutes under the Indian Penal Code 1860, the Code of Criminal Procedures 1973 and the Representation of People's Act 1951. But obviously this is not sufficient as there are too many transgressions against the model code of conduct. So the legal experts are of the opinion that the model code of conduct should have legal backup and there must be stringent punishments for the violators of the model code of conduct to keep the election procedure and the election campaigning process free of miscarriage. Now coming back to the issue of hate speech discussed in the article, note that Supreme Court in the Abhiram Singh case of 2017 has said that hate speech invoking religion, race, caste, community will amount to corrupt practices specified in section 123 of the Representation of People's Act 1951. So note this case law. You can expect a question using this in the prelims. Also you can quote this in your main censor as well. So this is regarding the Supreme Court judgment on hate speech during elections. See through this discussion we revised about the basics of model code of conduct and we also briefly saw about the Abhiram Singh case. With this, let us conclude this discussion and move on to the last news article discussion. See this news article appeared in yesterday's newspaper. The article says that a nine year old boy who is suffering from Fankoni anemia received a stem cell donation from Germany. See reading articles like this gives you a sense of hope. Just empathize with that boy. Put yourself in his shoes. You are nine years old and you are affected by a rare inherited disease. At this juncture all your hopes will be shattered but this boy held his hope only because of having a strong hope he received a stem cell donation from a donor far away from India that is from Germany. See this is a life lesson you must incorporate in your UPSC preparation also. See this preparation is not a short journey. It is a very long journey. During this journey you might face so much difficulties. Life will throw you its worst obstacles during this preparation journey. So even after facing so much difficulties you must always have hope. Only having hope and only working hard even past the difficulties thrown at you you can clear this exam. So before concluding this moral science lesson I must quote Andy Dufresne from the Saashank Redemption movie. It is one of my favorite quote. You can also use this quote in your ethics exam also. The quote goes like this Hope is a good thing may be the best of things and no good thing ever dies. And enough with the ethics lesson. For our prelims phanconia anemia is important. So now let us focus on phanconia anemia. See as I said phanconia anemia is a rare inherited disease. It affects the person's bone marrow. See this is a common form of aplastic anemia and aplastic anemia is a condition that occurs when your body stops producing enough new blood cells. When your body is affected with phanconia anemia the production of white blood cells red blood cells and platelets are affected. We know red blood cells helps in the transport of oxygen. Since red blood cell protection is affected a person suffering from phanconia anemia will have chronic fatigue. Since the production of white blood cells is also affected and since white blood cells helps in providing immunity to the body a person suffering from phanconia anemia will have reduced immunity and platelets which helps in blood clotting activity and since its production is also affected a person affected with phanconia anemia will have uncontrolled bleeding. See these are the main symptoms associated with phanconia anemia. In addition to these symptoms a person affected with phanconia anemia will have some physical abnormalities also. Now let us see these physical abnormalities. First is irregular skin coloring that is white and dark spots will appear in our skin. The next is malformed thumbs and forearms. In addition to this a person affected with phanconia anemia will also have short stature that is he will be very short. Then kidney will be absent in most cases and in some cases kidney will be malformed also. There will be issues in urinary tract. Also the heart of the person who has phanconia anemia will have defects. In addition to this the person affected with phanconia anemia will have eye abnormalities and ear abnormalities. Sometimes even leading to hearing loss. See the reproductive system of the person affected with phanconia anemia will also be affected. So in most males and 50% of the females suffering from this rare inherited disease will be infertile. That is they won't be able to bear biological children's okay. Finally in rare cases the central nervous system will be affected for people suffering from phanconia anemia. So what constitute the central nervous system the spinal cord and brain. Since brain is affected in some cases people with phanconia anemia will have smaller hits. That is microcephaly okay. These are the physical abnormalities associated with phanconia anemia. See in addition to all these the persons affected with phanconia anemia are also cancer prone. There is a high risk of acute myeloid leukemia. See acute myeloid leukemia is a rare type of blood cancer. Now let us see how this disease is transmitted. See we already saw it is a inherited disease. And this is carried from one generation to another generation by a x-linked resusciting. See here x is a sex chromosome. See in our school days we studied about two types of sex chromosomes right. One is the x chromosome and other is the y chromosome. A male person will have a x chromosome and one y chromosome. And a female person will have two x chromosomes. See in a male since there is one x and one y if the x chromosome has this recessive gene this person will be affected by phanconia anemia. But this is not the case with the female person. For a female person to be affected by phanconia anemia both the x chromosomes must have the phanconia anemia recessive gene. So men are more prone to phanconia anemia. Okay this is an additional fact regarding this disease. Finally let us see the distribution of this disease. See this is a very rare inherited disease. It occurs one in 160,000 individuals worldwide. This condition is very common among the peoples of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, the Roma people of Spain and the blacks of South Africa. Here Ashkenazi Jews are the Jewish people who resided in the Rhine Valley of Germany and Roma people are the Romantic tribe of Europe. So that's all regarding this discussion. See in this discussion we saw about phanconia anemia. We saw how it is transmitted and how it is inherited. And we also saw the various symptoms associated with phanconia anemia. Finally we saw about the distribution of phanconia anemia. With this let us conclude the news article discussion session and take up the practice problems questions. We have four practice problems questions today. Let us see them one by one. Let us take up the first question. See this question is in regards to national list of essential medicines. Three statements are given. We have to find the correct statement. Let us take up the first statement. Condoms are not included in the NLEM list. See this statement is incorrect. Condoms are included in the NLEM list. See this can be confusing. You should think why it is added. Condoms are added in the list to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV. Here you shouldn't get confused by seeing the name essential medicines. As we saw in our discussion the list not only includes drugs and medicines it also includes other products like vaccines also. We saw about the rotavirus vaccines right. So statement one is incorrect. Now let us take the statement two and statement three. If a drug is banned in India it will be deleted from the NLEM list. If a drug is considered to have concerns regarding its safety profile then it will be deleted from the NLEM list. See both these statements are correct. These are the criteria for drugs or medicines to be deleted from the list. See in our discussion we saw the criteria for inclusion in the list. Now let us see the deletion criteria. A drug will be deleted if the medicine is banned in India. A drug will be deleted if there is reports of concern on the safety profile of the medicine. A drug will be deleted if a medicine with better efficacy, favorable safety and better cost effectiveness is no available in the market. A drug will be deleted if the disease burden for which the medicine is indicated is no longer a national health concern in India. Finally a drug will be deleted in case of antimicrobials if the resistance has developed in the population in India. So these are the five criteria for the deletion of a drug from the NLEM list. So here coming back to the question statement two and statement three are correct. So the correct answer is option B213 only. Moving on to the second question. See this is a map based question. Four countries are given. We have to find which of the four countries share land border with Armenia. Look at the map here. See Armenia is a landlocked country. It is surrounded by four nations. The nations include Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey. Russia does not have a land border with Armenia. So the correct answer here is option B234 only. Moving on to the third question. Two statements regarding schedule traips are given. We have to find the correct statements. Let us take up the first statement. The constitution provides the criteria for specification of a community as schedule traip. See this statement is incorrect because the constitution only talks about who can notify communities as schedule traips and who can include and exclude communities or traips from the EST list. It does not provide for the criteria for specification of a community as schedule traips. Moving on to the second statement. Geographical isolation, backwardness, distinctive culture or some of the criteria for specification of a community as schedule traip. See this statement is correct. There are five criteria for specification of the community as schedule traip. The criteria are geographical isolation, backwardness, distinctive culture, indication of primitive traits and shyness of contact with the community at large. These are the five criteria for specification of a community as schedule traip. So statement two is correct. So the correct answer here is option B2 only. Moving on to the last question. See three statements regarding model code of conduct is given. We have to find the correct statements. See this is a quiz question for you. This question can be easily addressed by going through our discussion. Interested aspirants, write the answer for this question in the comment section. The main question based on today's discussion is displayed here. Let me read you the question. With respect to the growing voltage population of the country, list out the challenges which arises owing to the voltage and also about the recent initiatives by the government to address these problems. See this is a very simple question. All the points for this question can be derived from the discussion we had. In the introduction, you can write about the data we discussed. We saw right in 25 years, that is between 2011 and 2036, the proportion of voltage population is going to double. This you can add in the introduction part. Then in the body of the discussion, you can write about the challenges. We saw challenges under various heads. Actually, we saw the challenges under five heads. We can add that in the challenges part. And finally, in the recent initiatives part, we saw about four initiatives. In the discussion, you can write about the four initiatives. And finally, in the way forward, you can write a proper conclusion for this question. This will be suffice for this question. So, interested aspirants can write answers for this question and post the answers in the comment section. If you like today's discussion, like, comment and share it with your friends. For more updates regarding UPSC preparation, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thank you for listening.