 Good evening. Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar A.S. Academy for the date 17 April 2019. The list of articles which has been chosen for today's analysis, along with their Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram Editions page number are provided here. The first article for the day is about the recent election commissions act against the communal speeches. This article appears on page number 1 of Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram edition. The essence of this article can be fit in the civil service examination syllabus under the preliminary level in the current events of national importance and in Indian polity and governance and also in the GS paper 2 under the area salient features of representation of people's act and in functions and responsibilities of various constitutional bodies. This news article discusses about the restraining order issued by the election commission of India for their communally provocative and divisive speeches during the election campaign. This started when an NRI filed a petition that called for action against political leaders and party representatives spreading hatred on religious and caste lines through the media, especially social media platforms. And ECA responded saying that they are toothless and powerless and helpless if the candidates engage in communal diatribe. Diatribe means a forceful and bitter verbal attack during the election campaign, for which the Supreme Court said that the election commission of India was duty bound to act promptly against hate speech given in violation of model code of conduct. Hate speech has not been defined in any law in India. However, legal provisions inserted in legislations prohibit select forms of speech as an exception to freedom of speech. Hence, the following legislations have bearing on hate speech, which are firstly the Indian penal code of 1860, which penalizes sedition under the section 124A. Sedition is defined as whoever by words either spoken or written or by science or by visible representation incites people to rebel against the authority of a state or the government established by law and under section 153A IPC, which penalizes promotion of enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc. and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony. Secondly, the representation of people act of 1951 under the sections 123A and section 125 prohibits promotion of enmity on grounds of religion, race, caste, community or language in connection with election as a corrupt electoral practice and prohibits. And then the Cable Television Network Regulation Act of 1995 under the sections 5 and 6 prohibits transmission or retransmission of a program through Cable Network Interconvention to the Prescribed Program Code or Advertisement Code. And also some sections under the Cinematograph Act of 1952, like sections 4, 5B and 7, empower the Board of Film Certification to prohibit and regulate the screening of a film. In the context of this news article, it is important to know about the Election Commission of India. The Election Commission of India is an autonomous constitutional authority responsible for administering union and state election processes in India. The body administers elections to the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, state legislative assemblies in India and also elections to the offices of the President and the Vice President. And it also exercises the superintendent's direction and control of the entire process of conduct of election. It consists of a Chief Election Commissioner and two Election Commissioners who are appointed by the President. And moreover, the Chief Election Commissioner can be removed from office only through impeachment by Parliament. The Election Commission prepares, maintains and periodically updates the electoral roles, which show who is entitled to vote and it supervises the nomination of candidates, registers political parties, monitors the election campaign, including the funding by candidates. It also facilitates the coverage of the election process by the media and it organizes the polling booth where voting takes place and also looks after the counting of votes and declaration of the results. All this is done to ensure that elections can take place in an orderly and fair manner. The Commission, as a part of its quasi-judicial jurisdiction, also settles disputes between the sprinter groups of recognized parties. And the Commission also has advisory jurisdiction in the matter of post-election disqualification of sitting members of Parliament and state legislative. It has the power to disqualify a candidate who has failed to lodge an account of his election expenses within the time and in the manner prescribed by law. And it also has the power for removing or reducing the period of such disqualification. The ECI ensures the prevention of electoral offenses, malpractices and corrupt practices such as impersonation, bribing and inducement of voters through threat and intimidation to the voters by all means. With this, we come to the end of this topic. The displayed problems and main questions will be discussed in the class. The next article is based on the India-Indonesia relations. This article appears on page number 10 in Chennai, Bengaluru and Tiruvannamalapuram editions and on page 8 of Delhi edition. The information given under this article is relevant under subtopic current events of national and international importance and India and world geography of preliminary examination syllabus. And also in GS paper 2 of main syllabus under the areas bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and or affecting India's interests. And also in effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India's interests Indian diaspora. Before going into the editorial, let us first see few points about the geographical significance of Indonesia. Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia lying between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. It is the world's largest island country with more than 17,000 islands. Its capital city is Jakarta which is a part of Java islands. As you can see in the map, it is located below the equator and to the north of it is the Sabang port and the Bali island is to its south. Indonesia is separated from Malaysia through the Malacca Straits. It is the main shipping channel between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world. Quality wise, it follows a presidential form of government. Lastly, Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world. These facts are important for the prelims exam. Now, coming to the editorial, it mentions about the Indonesia's election between the incumbent president, Joko Widodo of the Indonesian Democratic Party and his challenger, Subhiyanto, of the Great Indonesia Movement Party. This election will decide what trajectory the country will take over the next five years. Indonesian foreign engagements will also see a change depending on whether Indonesia pursues its own Indo-Pacific strategy and an association of Southeast Asian nations that is ASEAN Plus foreign policy. Here, ASEAN Plus also includes China, Japan and Korea along with ASEAN members. Let us move forward to understand the India-Indonesia relations in the context of the current regime and also in the context of the possible change in regime in the future. The current regime under Joko Widodo is seen to be pro-Chinese as he has pledged his support for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and also he gave a vocal support for the Belt and Road Initiative. Further, he has supported China to build infrastructure in the country. For example, he has even handed over to China a prestigious high-speed railway that was proposed by the Japanese in 2015 but it has still not taken off. This along with the slow pace of the projects, many public sector units have serious debt issues. This is a similar situation for countries like Maldives or Africa that are collaborating with China. However, the engagement between Indonesia and China has not affected India-Indonesia relations negatively. It can be seen from the following, like Mr. Joko Widodo paid a bilateral visit in 2016 and again in 2018 for the ASEAN Commemorative Summit in New Delhi. The two leaders have given shape to several ideas on infrastructure, strategic partnership, navy and army cooperation and trade and commerce. With respect to these strategic partnerships, we are focusing to combat illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing and to promote sustainable fisheries governance and also they assigned the memorandum of understanding on youth and sports cooperation. Besides these, both countries decided to strengthen their defense and maritime security relations and also resolved to effectively address the issue of terrorism. With respect to the army and navy cooperation, Khorpat exercise needs to be mentioned. Navies of both countries have been carrying out coordinated patrolling or Khorpat twice a year since 2002. It is an effort to keep Indian Ocean region safe. India has launched massive humanitarian operation Samudra Maitri to provide assistance to earthquake and tsunami victims in Indonesia. Further, Indonesia is very crucial for India in terms of its actist policy. This can be achieved through effective cooperation in ASEAN. Finally, India is also cooperating in the field of conservation of rhinos. India will collaborate with Bhutan, Nepal, Indonesia and Malaysia to increase the population of three species of Asian rhinos, declaration for the same, namely the New Delhi declaration on Asian rhinos 2019. Even in the context of possible regime change, Subhiyanto presents a more nationalistic image with an emphasis on security and a balanced foreign policy. At an Indonesian economic summit in 2018, he highlighted his inclination to be more open to partnerships with countries besides China. This will be positive with respect to India's role in the region. With this, we come to the end of this topic discussion. The displayed prelims and main questions will be discussed in the last session. The next article for the day is about the Saturn's moon Titan, which appeared only on page 18 of the Delhi edition. The essence of this article can be fit in the civil service examination syllabus under the preliminary level in the areas, current events of international importance and general science. Stepping into the main discussion, let's first see about Titan, on which the news article is based on. Titan is one of the Saturn's moon and it is the largest. Titan is also the second largest moon on the solar system, among the other 150 known moons of the solar system and it is larger than the planet Mercury. Since the same side of Titan always faces Saturn, it takes 15 days and 22 hours to orbit Saturn and rotate once. Titan has no rings around it like Saturn. Titan's surface is an icy world whose surface is completely obscured by a golden hazy atmosphere and is one of the most Earth-like places in the solar system. Moreover, Titan is an icy moon with the surface of rock hard water ice, but Titan also likely has a liquid water ocean beneath its surface. Titan is the only moon in the solar system known to have a substantial atmosphere, which is primarily nitrogen like Earth and plus a small amount of methane. Titan has clouds, rain, rivers, lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons like methane and ethane. Titan's subsurface ocean might be a place where life, as we know now, could exist. While its surface, lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons might be places to look for life, which makes it potentially habitable and all these findings were possible only because of the Cassini-Huygens mission, about which we will discuss later in this analysis. Now moving on to the new findings which was the focus of the news article. They are the first confirmation of just how deep some of Titan's lakes are, that is more than 30 feet or 100 meter deep and about their composition also. And the deep lakes are likely formed when the surrounding bedrock of ice and solid organics chemically dissolved and collapsed. On Earth, similar water lakes are known as caustic lakes occurring in areas like Germany, Croatia and the United States. They form when water dissolves limestone bedrocks. Scientists have known that the much larger northern seas are filled with methane, but finding the smaller northern lakes filled mostly with methane was a surprise here and Titan's hydrologic cycle, that is the water cycle, works similarly to Earth, but with one major difference. Instead of water vapor, water evaporating from seas, forming clouds and rain, Titan does it all with methane and ethane. We tend to think of these hydrocarbons as a gas on Earth, unless they are pressurized in a tank. And one more finding is that the hydrology on one side of the northern hemisphere is completely different than that of other side of Titan. Now some facts about the planet Saturn. Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and is the second largest in our solar system. It is adorned with thousands of beautiful ringlets. Saturn is unique among the planets and it is not the only planet to have rings. Saturn's atmosphere is mostly made of hydrogen and helium. Now let's see about the Cassini-Huygens mission. Cassini-Huygens was the first largest interplanetary spacecraft which was first launched in 1997. The spacecraft arrived at Saturn in July 2004. It is a joint endeavor of NASA, European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The spacecraft was equipped with 18 instruments, 12 on the Cassini orbiter and 6 on the Huygens probe. NASA's Cassini spacecraft orbited Saturn making an extensive survey of the ringlet planet and its moons. The Huygens probe of European Space Agency was the first to land on world in the outer solar system that is on the surface of Titan. With this we come to the end of this analysis. The practice freelance question displayed here will be discussed in the last session. The next article is based on the export of cotton textiles and this article appears on page 16 in Chennai, Bengaluru and Tiruvannadupuram editions and on page 14 of Delhi edition. The information given under this article is relevant under the subtopic of preliminary examination syllabus in the areas India and world geography, Indian economic and social development and current events of national and international importance and also in GS paper 1 of main syllabus in the areas salient features of world physical geography and in GS paper 3 in the areas effects of liberalization of the economy, changes in industrial policy and their effects on industrial growth. Stepping into the main discussion, according to the cotton textiles export promotion council or text prosil, raw cotton and yarn exports increased in the last financial year. Between April 2018 and February 2019, exports of cotton textiles increased 69% as compared with the same period in 2017-18. The increased export of cotton textiles had also contributed to reducing the trade deficit between the two countries, that is India and China and it has possibility of bringing in investments to India. However, the issue is that there is tariff disadvantage of 3.5% to 10% as suffered by India in comparison with Vietnam, Pakistan and Indonesia on textile products. If this can be addressed, we can push the exports further. Now, let us know few points about text prosil or the cotton textile export promotion council which is important from prelims perspective. It is an autonomous non-profit body dedicated to the promotion of exports under Ministry of Textiles. It was formed in the year 1954. It has been the international phase of cotton textiles from India facilitating exports worldwide. It promotes raw cotton, yarn, fabrics, home textiles and technical textiles. Now, let us see few basics about cotton crop. It is a kharif crop which is planted during March to September and harvested during October to February. It requires high temperature of around 24 degree Celsius and light rainfall of around 55-100 cm. It requires 210 frost-free days for its cultivation. It grows well on both black and aloeval soils. According to the data based on Ministry textiles in 2017, India is the largest cotton producer surpassing China and India is now the second largest exporter after China. Finally, let us know about CCI. CCI or Cotton Corporation of India was established in 1970 under Companies Act of 1956. It is a corporate agency of Government of India which is engaged in diverse activities relating to trade, procurement and export of cotton. CCI is governed by Textile Policy of 1985 which was issued by Ministry of Textiles. We will be discussing the displayed print question in the last session. Moving on to the next article which appears on page 11 of Chennai, Bengaluru and Tiruvannathapuram editions and on page 9 of Delhi edition. The information given under this article is relevant under subtopic current events of national and international importance and economic and social development and under the main syllabus under GS2 paper in the areas bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and or affecting India's interests and also in effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries in India's interests Indian diaspora and also in GS paper 3 under the area Indian economy. The name of the article here is Cloud in the Horizon which is an idiom meaning something that that tends to cause problems or unhappiness in the future. This article discusses about the IMF projections of the growth rates of the world economy and the reasons behind it. The report also covers the state of the US economy in brief. Additionally we shall also analyze the implications of IMF projections for our Indian economy as well. Stepping into the main discussion in the recent spring meeting of IMF and World Bank held at Washington the finance minister and the central bank's governors of the member nations have expressed hopes of a reviving world economy by putting down fears. They largely attribute this to the recent status quo that is being maintained by the US Federal Reserve on its policy rate and the easing of USA-China trade relations and the reducing risk of an hard Brexit that is British exit from the European Union where the EU has accommodated British plea to postpone the deadline. But the International Monetary Fund has expressed a grin outlook in its projections on the account of deteriorating trade climate across the world and in the context of ongoing US-China trade war. The IMF has projected the global growth rate of 3.3 percent for April 2009. It had earlier projected a 3.7 percent growth rate in October 2018 and 3.5 percent growth rate during January 2019. The current growth rate forecast has further been reduced. The two main reasons for the low growth rate that the IMF has projected is number one trade protectionism and number two flight of capital. Let us see what trade protectionism is in brief. The world is at present witnessing a deteriorating trade climate due to the trade protectionist policies of the major economies especially the ongoing US-China trade war. This has led to the fall of imports and exports in the world economy. The growth in the imports and exports were at its peak of 4.6 percent in the year 2017 but it fell to 3 percent last year that is in the 2018 because of the US-China trade war. Its growth is further projected IMF to be less than 3 percent this year. The second reason stated by IMF for projected slowdown in growth is the flight of capital from the vulnerable emerging economies. One big reason here is the tight monetary policy that is followed by the USA. Any hike in federal rates are attractive to investors who pull out the capital invested in the emerging economies and invest in USA since the returns would be high. This causes us slowdown in growth of majority of the world's economies. The situation is further aggravated and made more complex because of the frequent trade war between the nations as well. IMF has also made some comments on the US economy which is a major influencer of the world's other economies including India. USA has witnessed a year-on-year growth rate of 2.9 percent in the past few years but IMF has projected a growth rate of 2.3 percent for 2019. In fact the US Federal Reserve had itself projected a growth rates slightly lower than that of IMF at 2.1 percent. The main reasons for these low projections with respect to USA include the following. The imports and exports between USA and Germany have caused a downfall in the growth and the USA-China trade conflict is the second major reason affecting its growth and finally the growing uncertainty over brexit is causing a confusion among the investors and this has an impact over the growth rate as well. Finally the IMF has projected a global rate of 3.6 percent for the year 2020 provided these issues mentioned here are resolved. It includes the easing of USA-China trade relations and also the countries such as Argentina and Turkey recovering from the recession. All these would boost the global growth factor. Let us now see the implications of India based on the IMF projections. We shall approach this combined with two reasons stated by IMF. We can say that the USA-China trade war has benefited India partially since the exports from India to China increased for a brief time when the USA-China trade standard was at its peak. India has huge negative implications like other emerging economies with regards to the tight US monetary policy. A tight monetary policy by US implies costlier imports for India. Also the fluctuations in Indian stock markets are likely to be higher due to the investors pulling out the capital from the markets. Any hike in the USA policy rates would be detrimental to the emerging economies. As we saw earlier since the capital flows would start moving towards USA. This would lead to less FDI in India and other emerging economies. Also Indian currency will weaken and keep fluctuating. All these are the negative implications of tight monetary policy on Indian economy. There is one positive implication where the exports would become cheaper for India. Therefore India can earn more forex. There is one positive implication where the exports would become cheaper for India. Thereby India can earn some forex. But this is largely on the tariffs imposed by USA which might again end up affecting our economy. This has had already been analysed in our generalised system of preferences discussion under the USA-India relations topic by our colleague Mr. Shanmuga on 14th April 2019. With this we come to the end of discussion. The displayed main question will be discussed in the later session. The final article for the day is based on the new exoplanet discovered by NASA. This article appears on page 20 in all the said editions of the newspaper. The information given under this article is relevant under subtopic general science and in current events of national and international importance under the preliminary examination syllabus. And also in the main syllabus under GS paper 3 in the area awareness in the field stepping into the main discussion NASA's new exoplanet Hunter, TESS or Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has discovered its first earth-sized world. The planet orbits a star named HD 21479 which is around 70% of the mass of sun. This star is located 53 light years away from earth. Light year refers to the distance travelled by light in an year. Let us now know few points that will be important from prelims perspective. Firstly, about the exoplanet. Exoplanets can also be referred as extra solar planet. It is a planet that orbits a star other than sun. Secondly, about TESS or Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. It is a NASA sponsored astrophysics explorer class mission that is performing an all-sky survey to search for planets which are transiting nearby stars. The primary goal of TESS is to discover planets that transit bright stars near earth. It was launched in the year 2018. It is led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that is MIT which is responsible for the overall direction of the mission and receives funding from Google. It uses transit method to detect exoplanets. Transit method refers to watching distant stars for small dips in brightness which can indicate that the planet has passed in front of them where repeated dips will indicate planets passing in front of its star. Kepler mission was its predecessor. It was a four-year mission from 2009 to 2013. A comparison between TESS and Kepler is shown here to make it easy for understanding. They include two main differences. The TESS mission is designed to survey over 85% of the sky which is 400 times larger than covered by Kepler which is only 0.5% of the sky. TESS stars will typically be 30 to 100 times brighter than those surveyed by the Kepler satellite. Thus Kepler surveys less bright stars. With this we come to the end of the news analysis. Let us move on to the practice question discussion session now. First question is election commission of India is responsible for the free and fair elections of which of the following. First House of the people, second council of states, third office of the speaker, fourth office of the president, fifth is the state legislature. Choose the correct code given below. From our discussion we know that election commission of India is responsible for the free and fair elections of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. So as we know House of people is known as Lok Sabha and council of states is known as Rajya Sabha. So one and two are obviously correct. But ECI does not conduct elections for the office of speaker. Hence option three is wrong and we know from our discussion that four is correct and for five the state legislator includes the state legislative council and the state legislative assembly. Hence option five is also correct. So our final option B which includes one, two, four and five is the correct option. The second question is arrange the following places from north to south. First Singapore, second Sabhang port, third Bali, fourth Jakarta. Select the correct code from below. As already mentioned in the discussion Sabhang port lies to the north of Jakarta while Bali lies to its south. However Singapore is to the south of Sabhang but north of Jakarta. So the correct order is two, one, three, four, our option B is the correct answer to this question. The third question is consider the following statements with reference to Cassini Huygens mission. First statement it was the first interplanetary spacecraft which was launched in 1997. Second statement it is a joint mission of the national aeronautics and space administration and the european space agency only. Third statement this mission studied Saturn and its moons which among the above statements is or are correct. As we know from our discussion first statement is correct. It was the first interplanetary spacecraft and the second statement states that it is a joint mission of national aeronautics and space administration which is in short called as NASA and european space agency that is ESA. But its statement states that these are the only two agencies which were in a part of joint mission. We know from our discussion Italian space agency is also a part of this joint mission. Hence option two is wrong and the statement three states this mission studied Saturn and its moons. We know from our discussion that this statement is also correct. Hence the final option one and three only is the correct answer for this question. Fourth question consider the following statements first statement textiles export promotion council or text procell is government of India's corporate agency engaged in diverse activities related to trade procurement and export of cotton. Second statement cotton corporation of India is an autonomous non-profit body dedicated to promotion of exports under ministry of textiles. Select the correct code from below. So we have to choose for the correct code. Both the statements are interchanged here text procell is an autonomous body for export promotion whereas CCI is an corporate body of government of India. This has been discussed in our discussion. Hence option D is the correct answer. Next question consider the following statements first statement an exoplanet is a planet that orbits a star other than sun. Second statement test is a NASA mission for finding exoplanets that orbits bright stars near earth. Which of the above statements is or are correct. So we have to look for the correct statement as we know from our discussion first and second statement both are correct. So our answer C is the correct option. Let's see first question on mains. Examine the constitutional and statutory provisions in India in order to conduct free and fair elections. For the answer for this question list out the points discussed in our analysis along with the legal provision which has been provided there. The next question in mains is analyze the growing relations between India and Indonesia in the context of the recent presidential elections in Indonesia. The points from our discussion are sufficient to answer this question. Mention areas of cooperation like strategic partnership, conservation, naval exercises in the current regime despite Indonesia's closeness with China. Highlight that a possible regime change will still signal positive for India. The final question for the day is what are the reasons for the projected low growth rates by IMF and discuss its implications on Indian economy. Include and discuss the global growth projections by IMF then discuss two major economies both USA and China and how their trade war is having an impact world economy and include their implications on Indian economy as we have covered in our analysis session. Don't forget to like, comment and share and subscribe to our Shankara Ace Academy YouTube channel for more updates on UPSC civil service examination preparation. Thank you.