 Very good evening to all of our friends and welcome to The Hindu News analysis of Shankar IAIS Academy for the date 16th February 2021. The list of the relevant news articles taken of footage discussion from five different editions of The Hindu News paper along with their page numbers are given here for your reference. Also the handwritten notes in the PDF format and timestampings for all the news articles taken of footage 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. This opiate article is about the bilateral relations between India and Sri Lanka. Though this news article is in the context of the recent fallout of diplomatic relations between India and Sri Lanka. Let's have a brief understanding of entire India-Sri Lanka relations before we proceed to today's news article. The relevant syllabus is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. See Sri Lanka is an island country which is lying in the Indian Ocean near the southeast of India. India and Sri Lanka are separated by the Gulf of Manar and the Park Strait. And also know that the entire island lies north of the equator. Now let us look at the recent history of Sri Lanka. See Sri Lanka shares colonial history with India. Here the Portuguese came to trade in spices and later they were replaced by the Dutch and then by the British. And in 1815 the British established the rule over the entire island. Now let us look at the present demography of Sri Lanka. See it has a population of 21 million and 74 percentage of the population is Sinhalese. Other ethnic groups include the Sri Lankan Tamils who are long-settled descendants of the southeastern India. Then the Indian Tamils most of whom were migrant workers who were brought to Sri Lanka during the British rule. Then Sri Lanka also has Moors, Malais and Burgers who are of Portuguese and Dutch descent. And also know that Sri Lanka is a multi-religious country. Here Buddhist constitute the majority that is 69.3 percentage. And we should know that Buddhism was introduced in Sri Lanka in the 3rd century BC that is almost 2200 years ago. Then the other religious groups of Sri Lanka include Hindus, Muslims and Christians. So you can see that Sri Lanka is a multi-religious country. Coming to Sri Lanka's polity, it got independence from the British in 1948. At that time Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon and Ceylon became a republic in 1972 and changed its name to Sri Lanka. The legislative power is exercised by the parliament which is elected by a universal franchise. Then the executive power including defence is exercised by the president. The president is also elected by the people which we can understand because Sri Lanka became a republic. And in Sri Lanka's polity the president appoints a member of Sri Lanka's parliament as the prime minister. Now let us look at the bilateral relations between India and Sri Lanka. See after Sri Lanka's independence, tension arose between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority. And this resulted in a bloody civil war in Sri Lanka. The civil war started in the 1980s and ended only in 2009. Note that the president of Sri Lanka during this period was Mahindra Rajapaksha and he was the president from 2005 till 2015. Traditionally Sri Lanka has maintained good bilateral relation with India. But in the post civil war period under Mahindra Rajapaksha, Sri Lanka became more and more dependent on China. Especially for its investment to rebuild the country. And the end of Rajapaksha's rule when the civil war was in progress, his brother Gautabaya Rajapaksha was the defense secretary. So understand that the Rajapaksha's are viewed as Chinese friendly and they were a concern to India. Then in 2015 when the presidential elections were held, the Rajapaksha's were defeated. Again in November 2019 the presidential elections were held in Sri Lanka and the Rajapaksha's came back to power. And this time it was Gautabaya Rajapaksha who became the president. And once he became the president, he appointed his brother that is the ex-president Mahindra Rajapaksha as the prime minister of Sri Lanka. So you can see that the Rajapaksha's came back to power now. Now what is the current issue? After strong opposition from the trade unions across the country, Sri Lanka has unilaterally pulled out of a 2019 agreement with India and Japan for developing the strategic East container terminal at the Colombo port. And while many argue that the diplomatic problems arose because of this problematic decision of India-Sri Lanka ties, the issue also needs to be looked at through the lens of the India-Sri Lanka bilateral investment treaty. See this bilateral investment treaty forms the bedrock of international law which governs the foreign investment between the two countries. So what is the bilateral investment treaty? See this BITs are international agreements which establishes the terms and conditions for private investments by nationals and companies of one country in another country. See in 1997 Indian Sri Lanka signed a bilateral investment treaty to promote and protect foreign investments in each other's territories. The defining characteristic of this BIT like all other BITs is that it empowers individual foreign investors to directly sue the host state before an international tribunal if the investor believes that the host state has breached its treaty obligations. And this is known as investor state dispute settlement where the investor of other country can directly sue our country's government in case of a dispute. And as many expect, the pullout of Sri Lanka from the East container terminal can be brought before the international tribunal to protect the Indian investors who invested in Sri Lanka. But the twist here is the India Sri Lanka BIT in 2017. This termination is not just with Sri Lanka, it was part of a mass rejection of BITs that India undertook in 2017 as a result of several ISDS or investor state dispute settlement claims being brought against it. So in case of such unilateral termination, the survival clauses of BITs assume significance because they ensure that the foreign investments continue to receive protection during the survival period. A similar clause is there in the India Sri Lanka bilateral investment treaty, according to which in case of a unilateral termination of the treaty, the treaty shall continue to be effective for a further period of 15 years from the date of its termination. And this will be in respect of investments made or occurred before the date of termination. Thus the Indian investments in Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan investments in India before 2017 will continue to enjoy the treaty protection. But in case of the investment in developing the ECT at the Colombo Port, this survival clause will be inconsequential because this agreement or MOU was signed in 2019, that is after India unilaterally terminated the BIT. Hence the Indian investor will not be able to seal Sri Lanka before an ISDS tribunal. So what can we learn from this? See because of many ISDS claims in the last few years, India has developed a protectionist approach towards the bilateral investment treaties. So here the motivation appears to be to eliminate or at least minimize the future ISDS cases against India. However, an important attribute that hasn't received much attention is that BITs are reciprocal, that is not just it protects the interests of the other countries, but also our interests. Thus BITs do not empower merely the foreign investors to seal India, but also authorize Indian investors to make use of BITs to safeguard their investments in turbulent foreign markets. So India needs to adopt a balanced approach towards these BITs with an effective ISDS provision. And this will facilitate Indian investors in defending their investments under the international law. And this will protect our investors when a country like Sri Lanka reneges on its agreement. So this is all about this news article. In this discussion we saw about the recent history of Sri Lanka and also about the bilateral relations between India and Sri Lanka and the current issue. With this information, let us move on to the next news. And now let us take up this editorial. See recently in one of the worst fireworks unit blasts in Tamil Nadu, several people have lost their lives. So in this context, let us discuss this editorial which speaks about this particular issue. We will then elaborately discuss about the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization or PESO, which is mentioned in this editorial. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. See in the past, on many occasions, we have heard about fireworks unit blasts in Tamil Nadu. And in this regard, the author says that such tragedies are mainly caused by the gross violations of norms governing the hazardous industry, and also due to the human error in handling explosive substances. And every such unfortunate incident would end up with actions like the registration of cases, identification of causes, talk and inspections, etc. Now according to the author, many unlicensed fireworks units are functioning in Sivakasi, a town in Virudnagar district of Tamil Nadu. They function mainly due to the illegal sub-leasing of contracts for manufacturing crackers by the licensed units. So this sub-leasing generally undermines ensuring of the safety norms such as the limits of number of employees and the limits on chemicals that can be used or stored etc. And know that in this regard, the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization offers training for the workers in fireworks industry. But due to the shortage of labour, people without adequate skills or enough training are recruited and this results in such incidents. So what can be done to avoid another unfortunate accident in the future? The first and foremost is the automation of hazardous manufacturing process in this labour intensive fireworks sector. Also periodic inspections at the factory promises, then sustained crackdown and stringent penal action against the violators are non-negotiable aspects. The next is the need for technological innovations and also the labour reforms within the industry, the foremost being giving training to the workforce. So these are the main points which are mentioned by the author. Now let us see about Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization or PESO. See PESO was formerly known as the Department of Explosives and it was established long back in 1898. And ever since its establishment, PESO has been serving the nation as a nodal agency for regulating safety of hazardous substances such as explosives, compressed gas, petroleum etc. And its overall objective is to ensure safety and security of the public and property from fire and explosion. So at present PESO is interested with the administration of the Explosives Act of 1884, then the Petroleum Act of 1934, Inflammable Substances Act of 1952 and also the rules which are framed under these acts. At present it is headed by the chief controller of explosives with the headquarters at Nagpur. And importantly know that PESO comes under the Department of Promotion of Industries and Internal Trade under the Ministry of Commerce. And the important activities of PESO include the scrutiny and approval of site, layout and construction plans for explosive storage premises, auto LPG dispensing stations, fireworks manufacturing factories etc. Now coming to the objectives of PESO, it provides operational and technical advice and assistance to the central government, states, local bodies, law enforcement agencies, industry, trade and end users etc. with regard to petroleum products and explosives. It also aims to develop an alert, innovative and well-trained workforce to achieve these goals. So with the expertise in specialized technical and safety aspects to prevent fire and explosion of explosives, petroleum and other hazardous substances, PESO acts as a unique advisory board to the industry and the government bodies. Know that the chief controller of explosives is the member of the central crisis group which was constituted by the Ministry of Environment and in this regard the other officers also represent the state level and district level crisis management groups. And apart from this PESO takes leading role in formulation and revision of standards for the Bureau of Indian Standards, Oil Industry, Safety Direct Rate, National Safety Council etc. related to manufacture, storage, transportation of explosives, petroleum products, pipelines etc. So in this discussion we saw about the measures suggested by the author to avoid accidents in the fireworks units and we also saw about the petroleum and explosive safety organization. So with this information let us move on to the next news and now this editorial talks about the claims made by the proponents of the three farm laws based on the producer support estimate or PSE. So let us see what is this PSE then what are the claims and whether such claims are true. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. See one of the reasons given by the proponents of the three farm laws for its introduction was that the farmers were net taxed or there is a net taxation in the agriculture. This means that keeping the incomes of the farmers low artificially that is less than what they should have earned and this is done by policy measures including taxation policies that directly or indirectly affect the farmers. It also includes the administered price system of a country such as our MSP which doesn't provide higher domestic market prices to the farmers. See even though the MSP provides a constant price it doesn't provide higher prices when we take into consideration the market fluctuation of demand and supply. So the argument is that the three farm laws are necessary to end the net taxation of agriculture. And in order to substantiate this viewpoint farm low proponents use this produces support estimate indicator data. So what is this PSE? Know that it is a key indicator used by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or OECD in order to measure the support to agriculture producers. It estimates the annual monetary value of gross transfers from consumers and taxpayers to agricultural producers. So these are the monetary values arising from the policy measures that support agriculture regardless of the nature objectives or impacts on farm production or income. And know that it is measured at the farm gate level. So PSE expresses the monetary value of support transfers to agricultural producers. PSE is neither affected by inflation and nor by the size of the sector. So it allows the comparisons in the level of support to be made both over time and among countries. In short this indicator provides insights into the support or burden that agricultural policies place on producers, consumers and on taxpayers through negative or positive market price support or through budgetary transfers. How it is calculated is quite technical. So the author has simplified it for us. PSE is the sum of the market price support or MPS and the budgetary transfers or BOT. PSE is also expressed as a percentage of the value of agricultural production. In this the market price support is the transfers from consumers and taxpayers to the agricultural producers that arise from policy measures. And these are the policy measures that create a gap between domestic market prices and border prices of a specific agricultural commodity. Here know that border price or reference price is the import or export price of a commodity that is used for calculating the market price support price gap. And these are measured at the farm gate level. So in simple terms MPS is the price transfers to producers. Now MPS is calculated as the product of annual production and the difference between the international and domestic prices of a country. So a positive MPS reflects that the support measures make domestic prices higher than the international reference or border prices. And MPS close to zero indicates that the domestic prices are aligned with the world prices. Now what is a negative MPS? See it reflects that the interventions or support measures on prices led to the domestic price below or lesser than the international reference prices. So the general understanding provided by the OECD is that a positive MPS can have a large effect on production and trade but it imposes additional regressive costs on domestic consumers and it is not effective in improving farm income. Further it can have negative effects on the environment. On the other hand negative MPS taxes the producers and it is a disincentive to producing in line with effective demand. Now next is the budgetary transfers or BOT. See these are the most visible policy transfers. It includes the transfers through all government institutions both at national and subnational levels that is it includes all budgetary expenditures on policies that support agricultural production. Now what is the PSE for India? See the recent data available is for 2019. PSE for Indian agriculture was negative that is rupees 162,740 crores or minus 5.5 percentage of the value of production. The interpretation of OECD is that this negative PSE reflects the domestic producers overall continue to be implicitly taxed. It is because the budgetary payments to farmers did not offset the price depressing effect of our complex domestic regulations and trade policy measures. So within this the MPS or the market price support was negative while the budgetary transfer was positive. MPS was minus rupees 461,804 crores or minus 15.5 percentage of the value of production. Now based on the general understanding of the OECD or negative MPS we will think that the support measures actually taxes the producers and it is a disincentive to producing. So in this regard he lists the issues with the PSE. The first issue is that the market price support considers the international price with no reference to the actual possibilities of the domestic producers obtaining the price. That is if there is a commodity whose international price is higher than its domestic price and at the same time it is produced in large quantities. But this production does not reflect in excess export because that commodity is retained for domestic use that is for domestic food security. That means due to this excess production domestic price of that commodity will fall which in turn makes the domestic price less than the international prices and this results in a negative MPS as we saw already. So even though there is an excess production the negative MPS is implying that the support measures in our country are disincentivising the production which is extremely incorrect. This shows that the way in which MPS was calculated is wrong. The second issue is that often there are fluctuations in the value of MPS. According to the author this is due to the fact that international agriculture market are imperfect narrow and dominated by monopolistic multinational companies. So even some short-term fluctuations of international prices or shocks to global demand or supply is more pronounced in international agriculture markets which in turn affects the MPS. Further since PSE is based on MPS value, PSE also fluctuates widely and this fluctuation only mean that the international prices were volatile and it does not mean that there is taxation or subsidisation of producers. Now here the author stated this taking on the example of the commodity milk. In 2019 milk had the highest negative MPS among India's major agricultural commodities. It was minus 2,17,527 crore rupees or minus 37.5 percentage of the value of production. So based on OECD's general understanding milk was one of the most heavily taxed agricultural commodities in India. But is this true? No, because the negative MPS was caused due to the fact that the average international reference price for milk rose faster than the average domestic price for milk. You can see it in this table. Now this difference affected the MPS and shows that international market fluctuations affected the MPS negatively. So here the author concludes that MPS is a wrong measure of taxation in agriculture. This makes PSE as an indicator that does not offer any realistic assessment of the extent of taxation or subsidisation in a country. Thus using PSE data to substantiate that farm laws are necessary to end the net taxation of agriculture becomes invalid. So this is all about this editorial. With this information, let us move on to the next news. Now have a look at this question. It is based on this news article which speaks about the potential environmental impacts of the proposed tourism and pot development plans for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The author says that these proposals could be harmful for the nesting populations of the jain leatherback turtle in the Indian Ocean. So in this context, let us discuss in detail about the important marine turtles found along India's cost. As we know, India has a cost line of more than 8000 kilometres which is rich in biodiversity. Apart from sustaining fishing grounds, India's coastal waters and beaches provide foraging and nesting sites for a variety of marine species including the sea turtles. And know that five species of sea turtles are known to inhabit the Indian coastal waters and islands. And these are the olive ridley, the green turtle, the hawksbill turtle, the loggerhead turtle and the leatherback turtle. Except the loggerhead, the remaining four species nest along the Indian cost. The olive ridley turtle is considered the most abundant sea turtle in the world. And it has an estimated 8 lakh nesting females annually. Adults are relatively small, weighing on an average around 45 kilograms. And know that it is globally distributed in the tropical regions of the South Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Now coming to green turtle, it is the largest of all the hard shelled sea turtles. And it grows up to 1 meter long and weighs up to 130 to 160 kilograms. In the western Indian Ocean, adult females are larger than males. Also know that they are primarily herbivorous, that means they feed on seagrasses and algae. The next is the hawksbill turtle. It is small to medium sized compared to other sea turtle species. And in the Indian Ocean region, the adults weigh 45 to 70 grams. But they can grow to as large as 90 kilograms. And these species is most commonly associated with coral reefs and they are circumtropical, typically occurring from to 30 degrees south latitude. Now the loggerhead turtle may grow to over 1 meter long and weigh around 110 kilo or more. This turtle is characterized by a large head and powerful jaws. They are circum-global, occurring throughout the temperate and tropical regions of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Now coming to leatherback turtle, know that it is the largest turtle. Mature males and females can grow to 1 meter in total length and they may weigh almost 900 kilograms. It's surprising, right? Now unlike other marine turtles, the leatherbacks can nest on both tropical and subtropical beaches. It is the only sea turtle that lacks a hard shell. The leatherback is the most wide-ranging marine turtle species and its important nesting populations are found in and around the Indian Ocean, including Indonesia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and India's Andamanani Cobra Islands. So in this discussion, we saw about the five species of sea turtles which are known to inhabit the Indian coastal waters and islands. So with this information, have a look at this question, which of the following species of sea turtles are known to inhabit Indian coastal waters and islands? We have four sea turtle species given here, olive ridley turtles, hawksbill turtles, green turtles and leatherback turtles. We have seen that all these four species of sea turtles inhabit Indian coastal waters and islands. So the correct answer for this question is Auction D, 1, 2, 3 and 4. So now let us move on to the next news article. Now see this question which is based on this news article which talks about the new guidelines which were drafted by the government of India regarding geospatial data. See it is the guidelines for acquiring and producing geospatial data services including maps. So first what is geospatial data? See data types that have a spatial component are called as geospatial data. It means that data are connected to a place in Earth. So we can say that geospatial data is a data about objects, events or phenomena that have a location on the surface of Earth. The location may be static in the short term like the location of a road or could be dynamic like a moving object or a pedestrian. GD combines location information and attribute information and often also includes the temporal information. Here location information is usually the coordinates of the Earth. Attribute information refers to the characteristics of the object or event or the phenomena concerned. And temporal information is the time or the lifespan at which the location and the attributes exist. Thus the geospatial data includes location information data about the natural or manmade features, physical or imaginary features whether above the ground or below etc. It also includes natural phenomena, mobility data, weather patterns, statistical information etc. In the recent years technological progress has been made for capturing the GD through a variety of techniques or technologies including satellite-based remote sensing. Additionally, location information is an integral part of the modern digital ecosystem. We should know that it is critical for unlocking the economic, social and environmental opportunities for sustainable growth and development. It is critical to the success of modern industry which offers location-based services such as e-commerce, delivery and logistics and urban transport etc. Also essential for traditional sectors such as agriculture, construction and development, mines and minerals etc. Thus there is a need for the availability of comprehensive, highly accurate, granular and constantly updated representation of GD. But presently India relies heavily on foreign resources for mapping technologies and services. And that is why now the government of India has decided to liberalize the mapping industry and democratize the existing data sets. For this only the guidelines have been launched. Now let us talk about the guidelines. See the guidelines liberalized the norms for acquisition and production of GD as it removed the restrictions on collection, generation, preparation, dissemination, storage, publication and also on updating and or digitization of the geospatial data and maps within the territory of India. That is there is no requirement for prior approval, then security clearances, licenses etc. Further the individuals, companies, organizations and government agencies are free to process the acquired geospatial data and they are free to build applications and also develop solutions in relation to such data. They can also sell, distribute, share, swap, disseminate and publish such data products, applications, solutions etc. So this measure of the government of India will spur domestic innovation and also enables the Indian companies to compete in the global mapping ecosystem by leveraging modern geospatial technologies. Now with this information have a look at this question which of the following statements is or are correct with reference to geospatial data. The first statement reads it is the data exclusively about objects that have a location on the surface of the earth. See this statement is incorrect here exclusively means only it just doesn't provide data about the objects but also about the events and the phenomena including natural phenomena, mobility data, weather patterns and also statistical information. So the first statement is incorrect. Now the second statement reads it combines location information and attribute information. See this statement is correct and sometimes it also combines temporal information. Here temporal means time related. Now the third statement reads it has enormous use in modern industry offering location-based services but not useful in traditional sectors such as agriculture. See this statement is incorrect it is also useful in traditional sectors such as agriculture. So in this question we have to identify the correct statement of statements. We know that statement one and three are incorrect and statement two is correct. So the correct answer for this question is option C2 only. So with this we have analyzed 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 the first question. Consider the following statements regarding the petroleum and explosive safety organization or PESO. The first statement reads it is India's neural agency for regulating safety of hazardous substances such as explosives, compressed gas and petroleum. Yes this statement is correct. Now the second statement reads it is functioning under the ministry of petroleum and natural gas. See this statement is incorrect. We have seen that petroleum and explosive safety organization comes under the department for promotion of industry and internal trade under the ministry of commerce. So the second statement is incorrect and the first statement is correct. So we have to identify the correct statement or statements and the correct answer for this question is option A one only. And now we have two main questions. Please write your answers and post it in the comment section. Our feedback will be given in a reasonable time frame. 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. If you like this video please press the like button, comment, share and do subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel for more videos and updates related to civil service preparation. Thank you.