 A very good evening aspirants. Welcome to the Hindu newspaper analysis brought to you by Shankar IAS Academy. Today's date is 28th of August 2023, displayed here are the list of news articles that we are going to discuss today. As you can see, for the convenience of the students, we have chosen news articles from yesterday's newspaper as well. Now, before getting into the news article discussion, I have two important announcements to make. The first one is regarding the most awaited pre-storming problems 2024 test series. The orientation for the test series will be starting on 11th September 2023 and the first test will be on 18th September 2023. The fee structure is displayed here. You can go through it. The second announcement is regarding all India open mock test for Mainz 2023. The test will be starting on 1st September 2023. For further details, you can check the link in the description. Please don't miss the chance. Use it wisely to boost your answers in the Mainz 2023. So, with this announcement, let us move on to the news article discussion. Look at this FAQ article from yesterday's newspaper. As you all know, ISRO is engaging in a wide range of activities which includes research, satellite system development, collaboration with other agencies, rocket production, satellite operation, orbital debris management and many more. The article tries to explain the future missions of ISRO after Chandrayaan 3. It also talks about the research projects that ISRO is currently working on. So, we will see the important points mentioned in the news article. Very important news article. There might be a problem's question in this topic. Okay, so make note of it. And as we all know, on August 23rd, Chandrayaan 3's lander safely reached the moon's surface. With this, India became the fourth country to softly land a robotic device on the moon. This was the first successful soft landing in the moon's south pole region. This success has actually enhanced the trust in ISRO at international level. With this achievement of Chandrayaan 3, ISRO is currently focusing on several key projects. We will see them one by one. First in the list is Gaganyan mission. See, Gaganyan is India's first human space flight mission. Under this mission, three flights will be sent into orbit. There will be two unmanned flights and one manned space flight. The mission will send three astronauts to space for a minimum of seven days. Note that the spacecraft will be placed in a low earth orbit in short called as LEO of 300 to 400 kilometers. The mission is expected to be launched in 2024. This mission is significant one because it will make India the fourth country in the world to send human to space. ISRO is currently conducting tests on launch vehicle Mach 3, LVM-3 to ensure the safety of Gaganyan mission. Now, the second important project is reusable launch vehicle RLV. See, currently the rockets in ISRO can be used only once. But now they are developing a new launch vehicle called reusable launch vehicle, which can be used multiple times to launch satellites into space. RLV is expected to lift 20 times payload to low earth orbit. Its design resembles the NASA space shuttle with a winged body. Now, the third significant project is SE 200 or the semi cryogenic engine 200. See, it is a powerful rocket engine that uses refined kerosene and light oxygen as propellants. The engine is being developed for use in the next generation of ISRO rockets. Note that this engine will be used for the Gaganyan mission as well. Fourth important project is small satellite launch vehicle in short called as SSLV. See, ISRO is developing a small rocket than PSLV for launching small satellites. The SSLV is decided to be an affordable platform for mini micro or nano satellites. It has payload capacity to deliver 500 kg to low earth orbit or 300 kg to some synchronous orbit. Next important project that is under development is XPO SAT. See, XPO SAT stands for X-ray Polarimeter Satellite. It is a collaboration between ISRO and Raman Research Institute in Bengaluru. The mission is aimed at studying various dynamics of astronomical sources in extreme conditions. Note that it is the world's second polarimeter mission under X-ray. Another important future mission of ISRO is Lunar Polar Exploration in short called as Lupex mission. See, it is a joint mission between India and Japan. The mission will send a lander and a rover to the moon's south pole. The important thing about this mission is that it will demonstrate night survival. See, the night on moon lasts for 14 Earth days. During a lunar night, there is no light and the temperature could drop to minus 180 degree Celsius. So, this exploration will be a crucial mission to demonstrate the survival of rover in these extreme conditions. The lander will provide power and shelter for the rover during the lunar night. The launch vehicle and the rover for this mission will be provided by Japan and the lander will be provided by ISRO. Lastly, we will see about methalox, which is also an important project that is currently under development in ISRO. See, methalox is a type of rocket fuel that is made up of liquid methane and liquid oxygen. It is a new fuel and has several advantages over traditional rocket fuels like kerosene and hydrogen. It is more effective, safer and easier to handle than traditional rocket fuels. So, these are all some of the important missions of ISRO. Make note of them and revise it whenever you get time. In this news article discussion, we saw about ISRO's project in human spaceflight, reusable technology, advanced engines and efficient satellite launch. So, with these learnt points, now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this news article from Sunday's newspaper. According to the article, the Pradhan Mantri Jandan Yojana in short called as PMJDY completes 9 years of implementation today. So, the article provides some data on the performance of the scheme. The news article says that as of middle of August, more than 50 crore bank accounts have been opened under the PMJJ. And the total deposit with the Jandan accounts have crossed 2 lakh crore rupees. So, now the average deposit in PMJDY accounts has increased to around 4000 rupees. Since the average deposit amount increased, the government said that it is now working with banks and ministries to persuade Jandan account holders to opt for insurance schemes like Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bhima Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Shureksha Bhima Yojana. This is about the article given here. Using this as an opportunity, let us revise a few points about Pradhan Mantri Jandan Yojana. See, PMJDY was launched on 28th August 2014. It was started as a national mission to ensure financial inclusion of all the households in our country. Here the term financial inclusion means the method of offering banking and financial services to every individual in the society without any form of discrimination. In other words, the term financial inclusion refers to the policy of extending banking, financial and insurance services to the poor section of the population at affordable rates. In that line, PMJDY envisages to provide universal access to banking facilities. The scheme aims to make sure that every household has at least one basic bank account. Talking about the objectives of the scheme, the main objective of PMJDY is to provide access to various financial services to the excluded sections, that is weaker sections and low income groups. Under the scheme, some of the financial services like basic savings bank account, access to credit, remittances facility, insurance and pension are provided to the excluded sections. If you ask who can open bank accounts under PMJDY, see under the scheme any person who does not have any bank account can open a basic savings account. They can open an account in any bank branch or through a business correspondent called as Bank Mitra Outlets. So what are the benefits of the PMJDY scheme? See the first benefit is that an unbanked person will get one basic savings bank account under the Chandan scheme. The second benefit is that there is no requirement to maintain any minimum balance in PMJDY accounts. Thirdly, a rupee debit card is provided to the PMJDY account holder. Then fourthly, accident insurance cover of Rs. 2 lakh is provided to Pradhan Mantri Jantan Yojana account holders who are having rupee debit card. And finally, PMJDY accounts are eligible to get direct benefit transfer in short called as DBT and they can also enroll in some insurance schemes like Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bhima Yojana, PMJJBY, Pradhan Mantri Shuraksha Bhima Yojana, PMSBY and so on. That's all you have to know about Pradhan Mantri Jantan Yojana. With these learnt points, now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this data point. It provides some data about disease burden in India and in the world. Recently, a collaborative study was conducted by the Indian Institute of Science of Bangalore and the Leiden University of Netherlands. The study shows that there is a misalignment between funded research area and health challenges in India. This means that India is not conducting research on the priority health areas rather it focuses on inferior areas. The study also highlights that India's investment in health care research is very limited which means that India is not focusing more on health research. So the data point highlights that all the above mentioned factors have contributed to disease burden in India. This data point provides some valuable information about the burden of various diseases. So we'll understand these points in detail. See to have a better understanding about the data, we should first understand what is disability-adjust life year, in short called as DALYS. This is because the data that we are going to see now is expressed in DALYS. Basically the disability-adjusted life year is used to calculate disease burden. It is nothing but the sum of years that the person loses in his life due to premature death and disability. To put it in simple words, DALY is expressed as the number of years lost by a person due to ill health, disability or early death. Generally the lost year is compared with standardized life expectancy to arrive at a DALYS. If you find it a little bit confusing, let me explain it with an example. Now let us consider a person named Aarun. While he was 30, he met with an accident and he was severely injured. Because of severe injury, the doctor advised him to take bed rest for 2 years. So he wasn't able to work for 2 years. Here Aarun has lost 2 years of productive life. And let us assume that Aarun died at an age of 55. See in India, the life expectancy is around 70 years of age. But Aarun has died at the age of 55. So he lost another 15 years due to premature death. Now using this data, we will calculate the disability-adjusted life year of Aarun. Before that, just take a look at this formula. To arrive at DALY, we have to add the years lived with disability and years of life lost. Now coming to Aarun's case, Aarun had lived 2 years with disability and he lost 15 years of life due to early death. We have to add these 2 now. If we add, it would be 17 years, right? So the disability-adjusted life year of Aarun is 17 years. Here Aarun might have died early because he might have affected with diseases like cancer TB and so on. So like this way, DALY helps us to understand various disease burden. Now let us see what the data actually indicates. Look at this first chart. This chart shows India's relative disease burden against the health research publications in the same period. The relative disease burden is represented in dark sky blue color and the research efforts is represented in light sky blue color. By looking at this chart, we can observe some misalignments. See, some diseases like diabetismolitis, oral conditions and kidney diseases are having a high share of health research publications. But it is disproportionate to their burden. For example, let us take diabetismolitis. The share of diabetismolitis is total disease burden, which was just 3.1 percentage. But its share in research publication was 7.5 percentage. On the other hand, the share of neonatal condition in the DALY was 12.3 percentage. But its share in publication was only 1.3 percentage. Here we could witness a mismatch, right? So from this we can say that India is not conducting research on priority area. This is about chart 1. Now look at this chart 2. This chart contains 5 subcharts. These charts show relative disease burden against research efforts for certain diseases. It compares the data across various groups like high income groups, upper middle income nations, India and low income countries. Look at this chart 2A. This chart shows the relative disease burden against research efforts for neonatal conditions across regions. Here the research share reminds the same across different groups of countries. But if we take the disease burden, it is much higher in India and low income countries. So we can say that India is performing poorly in research on neonatal conditions. Look at this 2B chart. This chart shows that relative disease burden against research efforts for cardiovascular diseases. Here we could see that research share is low across all economic groups. Despite the high disease burden or DALY for cardiovascular diseases, the research efforts are low. Now coming to chart 2C. This chart shows the relative disease burden against research efforts for cancer. The disease burden for cancer is low across the groups. But there is a substantial research attention on cancer disease. For example in India, cancer contributed to less than 5% of disease burden. But they accounted for nearly 22% of its research publications. Now moving on to chart 2D. This chart shows that relative disease burden against research efforts for tuberculosis. Here we could witness that there is a good match between disease burden and considerable research focus across various groups. But if we take India, the disease burden of TB is around 7% and the research focus is around 5%. It is said that the rising threat of multi-drug resistant TB enhances the disease burden of TB in India. Now coming to the final chart. The chart 2E shows that the relative disease burden against research efforts for malaria. Here we could witness all the groups performed well. India is also focusing more on the research. But the problem here is that the disease may pose a considerable global threat. If we see the world average, the disease burden is higher than that of research efforts. So the world governments must collaborate to tackle malaria in future. That's all regarding this news article. With these learnt points, now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this news article. It talks about the Aditya L1 mission of ISRO. See this mission was expected to be launched next month to study the sun. The news article mentions about payloads, launch vehicles and the importance of the mission. So in this news article discussion, we'll understand some of the important points mentioned in the news article. Firstly, let us start with basics about Aditya L1 mission. See Aditya L1 will be the first Indian mission to study the sun. In Sanskrit, Aditya means the sun. That is why the mission is named as Aditya. The satellite will be placed at the Lagrangian Point 1. This point is 1.5 million kilometers from the earth. It is because of this point, the mission is named as Aditya L1 mission. So what is the specialty of placing the satellite at L1 point? See at this point, the satellite has a major advantage of continuously viewing the sun without any obstruction or eclipse. The spacecraft will carry 7 payloads to observe the photosphere, chromosphere and the outer mostly layer of the sun using electromagnetic and particle detectors. So with this basic information, let us discuss the important points mentioned in the article. See the payloads of Aditya L1 mission are developed by Space Physics Laboratory SPL. SPL is the National Laboratory of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, VSSC. And it is located in Trivanandapuram. It conducts research in atmosphere, space and planetary science. The Space Physics Laboratory contributed two payloads for Chandrayaan 3. They were Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment, in short called as CHA-SDE. And radioanatomy of moon bound hypersensitive ionosphere and atmosphere in short called as RUMBA. Just now I said Aditya L1 mission has totally 7 scientific payloads, right? One of them is Plasma Analyzer Packing for Aditya in short called as PAPA. This payload is developed by this Space Physics Laboratory. Its purpose is to study the composition of solar wind and enhance our understanding of it. Here the solar wind means the continuous flow of charged particles emitted by the sun. This PAPA payload will investigate the energy levels of electrons as well as the energy and mass of protons and ions within the solar wind. The study will also find the changes in direction of solar wind. ISRO will also use an Excel version of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV to launch the Aditya L1 spacecraft in a low Earth orbit. Once launched, it will require 125 days to reach its destination at Lagrangian Point 1 or L1 point. Since Aditya L1 is going to be launched next month, it is very important to know specific information about Aditya L1 mission. That is why we chose this news article from today's newspaper. So with these learnt points, now let us move on to the next news article discussion. Take a look at this text and context article. According to the article, in the past couple of years, the central government's budget allocation to the Ministry of Minority Affairs has declined. In addition to this, the government has discontinued two key educational schemes for religious minorities. This is about the article given here. So in this context, we shall focus on why squalorships are provided for religious minorities? What are the squalorships that are extended to the religious minorities? Some evidence is citing the decrease in budget allocation and finally the need for educational squalorships. Now before that, the syllabus relevant to this news article is highlighted here for your reference. You can go through it. First let us see why squalorship are provided to religious minorities, mainly the Muslim community. See, India is a diverse country with people practicing various religions. It is home to over 30 crore people from religious minority communities. Muslims are the largest religious minority. Despite being the largest minority community in India, Muslims in India face challenges in various sectors. First take the Satchar committee report. The Justice Rajinder Satchar committee was constituted by the UPA government. This committee was constituted to look into the social, economic and educational standing of Muslims in India. In its report, the committee mentioned that Muslim minority was neglected in almost all dimensions of development. The report stated that by and large Muslims rank somewhat above SC or ST but below Hindu OBCs and other minorities across all indicators. So to address this disparity, squalorships must be provided. The next reason is that Muslims in India are mainly engaging in informal jobs which lack social security. This is mainly due to the fact that literacy rate among Muslims is low. As per census 2011, the literacy rate of the minority communities like Christians, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists is higher than the national average of 72.98% except Muslims which is 68.54%. The reason why literacy rate is lower among Muslims is due to lack of affordability and higher dropout rate. So to improve affordability and incentivize Muslims to get educated, the government must provide some incentives like educational squalorships. Additionally, squalorships will also ensure retention of Muslim students in educational institutions and address the issue of dropouts. See, education alone can break the cycle of poverty and lack of opportunities faced by minority students. And to improve access to education, squalorships must be provided. It will also help Muslim students get into formal employment. Next, squalorship helps reduce disparities. See, educational squalorships help bridge the educational and socio-economic disparities between communities. Finally, providing squalorships signals the government's commitment to inclusion and the upliftment of minority communities. This helps in fostering social harmony and equality among communities. So these are the reasons why squalorships are provided to religious minorities, mainly Muslims. To address the problems faced by the minority community and give the minority community a focused attention, the government of India in 2006 established the Ministry of Minority Affairs. The government also formulated various welfare programs with special emphasis on religious minorities. These schemes and programs have been designed to address educational disparities among religious minorities in India by providing financial support. Now let us see some of these welfare programs. See the first one is the pre-metric squalorship scheme. The scheme aims to provide squalorship to minority students in classes 1 to 10 to encourage education. Financial incentive in the range of Rs 1000 to Rs 10,700 per candidate is provided under the scheme. But recently the government discontinued squalorships for class 1 to 8. So currently minority students in class 9 and 10 only are provided squalorship under this scheme. The second scheme is post-metric squalorship scheme. See as the name indicated, the scheme provides squalorships to minority students in class 11 and above. This squalorship is provided to ensure access to quality higher education. Financial incentive in the range of Rs 2,300 to Rs 15,000 per candidate is provided under the scheme. Recently the government increased funding for this scheme. It was increased from Rs 515 crore to Rs 1065 crore in the current fiscal year. The next one is the merit come means squalorship scheme. Through this scheme the government aims to provide access to professional and technical courses at undergraduate and post-graduate levels. See under this scheme eligible students that is meritorious students or reimbursed full course fees or Rs 20,000 per annum. Recently the fund allocated for this scheme was significantly reduced. It was reduced to Rs 44 crore from Rs 365 crore. The next scheme is the Maulana Azad National Fellowship in short called as MAINF. Through this scheme the government aims to provide financial assistance to research squalors pursuing MFIL and PhD. Under this scheme the government provides a grant of Rs 31,000 for junior research fellows. For senior research fellows, steepened off Rs 35,000 per month is provided. Till now this scheme has benefited over 6,700 candidates. But recently in 2022 the government has discontinued the scheme. The next scheme is Padho Pargesh scheme. This scheme provides financial support for economically weaker minority students who aims to pursue studies overseas. Under this scheme the government provides interest subsidies on their educational loans. But this scheme was also discontinued from 2022. Likewise there are other schemes like Beham Hazrath Mahal National scheme, then Naya Savira programme and schemes like providing education to mother Shahs and minorities in short called as SPEMM. So these are all some of the educational related programmes established for the welfare of the minorities. However you can clearly notice that except for the post-metric scholarship scheme all other programmes have either witnessed a budget cut or they are discontinued. The Centre for Budget and Governance Accountabilities 2022 report has also highlighted this only. The 2022 CBGA report highlighted that the budget expenditure for minority welfare was not in line with proportional representation. The report also highlighted that most of the allocated budget is utilised only in the last quarter of the financial year. This delayed utilisation of funds has also resulted in delayed scholarship disbursement and hampering the academic progress of beneficiaries. The decline in funding has led to some other negative impacts on religious minorities as well. The other negative impacts include reduced beneficiary numbers, low expenditure on scholarship and reduction in access to education and opportunities. Finally if you ask how these issues can be addressed see following the recommendation of NETIO can be the first step. Firstly NETIO suggests enhancing pre-metric, post-metric and metric come means scholarships along with national overseas scholarship through a 15% annual increase from 2019-20. Then to promote gender equality NETIO recommends a 10% annual increase in the number of scholarships for girls from minority communities. Implementing these NETIO recommendations can effectively enable the government to tackle the educational disparities experienced by religious minorities in our nation. So that's all regarding this news article. So these learnt points now let us move on to the next part of the news article discussion which is the preliminary practice question discussion. Today we have two questions. First question is regarding solar wind. You have to find the incorrect option. Here option C is the incorrect option. See solar wind emerges from the sun's outer layer called corona and it does not emerges from sun's core region except that all the other options are correct regarding solar wind. We saw that in the news article discussion part itself. So the correct answer for this question is option C. Now moving on this question is about Pradhan Mantri Chandan Yajna. The question asks PMJDY has been launched for option A providing housing loan to poor people at cheaper interest rates. Option B promoting women's self-help groups in backward areas. Option C promoting financial inclusion in the country and option D providing financial help to the marginalized communities. See here the options C and D are little bit confusing. Actually the correct answer is option C promoting financial inclusion in the country. See the aim of the scheme itself to avoid discrimination in financial inclusion. So the correct answer for the question is option C. Displayed here are the main practice questions for you today. Just go through the question try to answer it in the comment section. With this we came to the end of the news article discussion. If you like the video hit like, do comment and don't forget to subscribe to Shankar IAS Academy YouTube channel. Now thank you for listening.