 Hello friends, welcome to the Hindu news analysis of Shankar Air's Academy dated 15th April 2019. Here are the list of the articles that we will be discussing today along with their page numbers in the editions from Chennai, Bangalore, Delhi and Threvan Co. editions. Let us move on to our discussion first. This article appears on page number 10 of Chennai and Bangalore editions and page number 8 of Delhi and Tirunantapuram editions of the newspaper. It is important from both prelims and main's point of view. It falls under environment ecology, biodiversity and climate change and economic and social development and current events of national and international importance of preliminary examination syllabus and also important aspects of governance in GS paper 2 and infrastructure, energy ports, roads, airports, railways etc and conservation, environmental pollution and degradation of GS3 main's examination. Now let us know about the Chennai Salem Expressway project in the first place. It is a proposed eight lane green field project between Chennai and Salem which accounts to around 10,000 crores. It covers a distance of 277 kilometers and is slated to pass through Kanchipuram, Thiruvannamalai, Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri districts in Tamil Nadu. It will be taken up under the center's Bharatmala Pariyajana scheme, reducing the travel time between Chennai and Salem by half to nearly two and half hours. Bharatmala is a new umbrella program for the highway sector that focuses on optimizing the efficiency of freight and passenger movement across the country. It was introduced in 2015. It replaces the earlier national highway development program of 1998. Coming to the news article, the project has been facing several issues from its inception. Firstly, it passes through fertile agricultural fields and will affect 120 hectares of forest land and cause irreversible damage in eight reserve forests. Secondly, Madras High Court on last Monday quashed the land acquisition process for the project stating that it would have an adverse effect on the environment and water bodies. It also stated other reasons like arbitrary decision making and highlighted the way political class aggressively stifled all criticism and protests against the project. It also pointed out that national highways authority of India cannot acquire land without complying with the requirement of preparing an environment impact assessment report. This decision is important for affirming the principle of environmental clearance ought to be obtained before any project is allowed. And lastly, the court also highlighted the issues and the procedures the government followed. For example, the Chennai-Madurai highway and approved project under Bharatmala was dropped. Chennai Salem project was included in its place by stating it as a policy decision. In the context of this news article, it becomes vital for us to understand about EIA. EIA stands for environment impact assessment. It is an important management tool for ensuring optimal use of natural resources for sustainable development. EIA has been made mandatory under Environmental Protection Act of 1986 and thus has a statutory force. It begins its origin from United States where due to huge public pressure the government enacted National Environment Protection Act in 1970s. The role of EIA process was formally recognized at the Earth Summit of 1992 in which the Rio Declaration stated that EIA shall be taken as a national instrument for proposed projects which might adversely impact the environment. In India, it is mandatory for 29 categories of developmental activities involving investments of 50 crores and above. The process of EIA has been outlined through the EIA notification of 2006. The EIA notification 2006 broadly divides all the projects into two categories, category A and category B. Based on the potential impacts over an area and on human health and natural and man-made resources. According to the notification, all the category A projects have potentially significant impact and are required to carry out an EIA and undertake a public hearing before an environmental clearance may be granted by the union ministry. Category B projects have potentially less significant impacts and are evaluated and are given clearance by the state level authorities. Moreover, projects under category B are sub-categorized into B1 and B2. The projects under category B1 also require an EIA and public consultation, but those falling under B2 are exempted from the requirements of both EIA and public consultation. The notification outlines a four-stage EIA process, that is screening followed by scoping and then public hearing and lastly the appraisal process. The screening stage involves the project categorization into A and B which was discussed earlier. Scoping stage involves data collection, impact assessment, suggestion of alternatives, etc. In the public hearing stage, the State Pollution Control Board conducts a public hearing at the site or its close proximity, district-wise for ascertaining the concerns of local affected persons. Once public hearing is over, the project developer will get a no-objection certificate from SPCB. This will be taken up by the impact assessment agency which does the technical assessment and finally appraises the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Then, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change will grant the environmental clearance which is valid for a period of five years. This prelims question will be discussed at the end of the analysis. Moving forward to the next news article. This article appears on page number 8 of Chennai and Bangalore editions and page number 5 of Delhi edition of the newspaper. It is important from prelims point of view. It falls under current events of national and international importance and general signs of prelims exam syllabus. This news article speaks about the lipstick seeds grown by the tribals of Andhra Pradesh. Lipstick seeds are also called as anato seeds. These seeds are found inside spiky red and brown parts in the agricultural fields as you can see in this picture. These seeds are non-carcinogenic in nature that is they are not cancer-causing. Anato seeds are largely grown in these areas of the state of Andhra Pradesh and also in the area of eastern guards. They are also called as Jabra seeds in the local language. The cultivation of these seeds provide income to the local farmers at least three times in a year. These seeds are sold to the local cooperative located nearby or to the businessman or also exchange for clothes and other items. There is no fixed price for this crop. Generally, it is sold between rupees 80 or rupees 100 per kilogram. The local cooperative has stopped the procurement now for reasons unknown and the Anato seeds trade is largely unorganized in these tribal areas. These seeds command a higher value in the international market. Let us now see the uses of Anato seeds in detail. It is primarily used as a natural coloring agent in cosmetics and food industry at large owing to its non-carcinogenic nature. It is also used in lipsticks in cosmetic industry and hence we call it by the name lipstick seeds. It is also used in food industry such as in cheese production, bakery industry, sweets production and also in food preparations. Anato seeds also possess certain medicinal or healing properties. Some of them are listed in the news article. It reads digestive disorders, weak bones, headache, neural tube defects, eye ailments and respiratory problems. This problem's question will be discussed at the end of the analysis moving forward to the next news article. This article appears on page number 10 of Chennai and Bangalore editions and page number 8 of Delhi and Tiruvannanthapuram editions of the newspaper. It is important from both prelims and main point of view. It falls under economic and social development and current events of national and international importance of preliminary examination syllabus and also government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of the design and implementation, welfare schemes for the vulnerable sections of the population by the center in the states, mechanisms, laws, institutions and bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections, issues relating to poverty and hunger in GS paper 2 and inclusive growth and issues arising from it in GS 3. The author of the editorial has stressed the need that the elected government should provide basic services such as health, education, other public services instead of focusing too much on income support schemes. In this editorial, the author first discusses the start of poverty elevation programs since the rule of Indra Gandhi. Secondly, the author has explained the root costs of the poverty and then he moves on to compare the income support schemes of BJP and Congress and finally, he has explained the importance of providing public services rather than providing income support. Let us move on to the first part of the editorial. Almost 50 years ago, Indra Gandhi has brought the idea of eradicating poverty into the electoral arena of India with the slogan, Garibi Hatau, which means remove poverty in Hindi. She ruled in late 1960s till 1980s and as you can see in this graph, there was a reduction in poverty due to the economic growth in India which was aided by green revolution during her rule. Indra Gandhi's pragmatism made her realize that income generation by government is the only way to eradicate poverty. The green revolution that started during her rule in 1960s is the proof of the same. In the second part of the editorial, the author notes that all the poverty elevation schemes that have been introduced in the last 50 or so years have served as a palliative only, meaning it brought in temporary relief and reducing the poverty conditions instead of eradicating poverty. These poverty elevation programs failed to go to the root of the poverty which led to the capability deprivation of individuals. Here capability deprivation means the individual cannot earn sufficient income through work or entrepreneurship. If he or she cannot earn sufficient incomes, then it leads to income poverty. In the third part of the editorial, the author has compared the income guarantee or the income support schemes of two major political parties in India. He has compared the recently launched PM Kisan scheme of BJP and Nyai scheme of Congress that was a part of Congress manifesto in 2019. If we see the comparison here, PM Kisan provides income support of rupees 6000 per year whereas Nyai scheme provides an income support of 72000 per year. PM Kisan is an inequitable scheme providing income support to the farming community only in order to boost the food production. But the Nyai scheme is more or less nondiscriminatory and equitable one covering all the poor sections of the society. The main disadvantages of the PM Kisan scheme is that it has overshot the fiscal deficit target of the government leading to a state of fiscal imprudence. Here fiscal imprudence means borrowing money in order to spend for the schemes. In this context for the income support schemes, this would create a lot of fiscal deficit pressure over the government. Coming to the Nyai scheme, the real challenge of the scheme would be to identify the beneficiaries that is the 20% households as announced in Congress manifesto and also find a fiscal space for the program. If you see the calculation here at the rate of rupees 72000 per year income support for an individual, it would roughly amount to around 3.6 lakh crore per year which is a very huge amount. This number is equivalent to 13% of the budgetary outlay of India for the year 2019-20. The 13% equals to the entire centrally sponsored scheme of the government with the subsidies trimmed. This 13% is also slightly more than twice of the combined expenditure on health and education of the budget. There is an opportunity cost to be acknowledged of an income support scheme of this magnitude being implemented while there exists a severe deficit of social and physical infrastructure in the country. In the final part of the editorial, the author insists the fact that poverty is nothing but capability probation that is also the Amartya Sen's approach. The access to the basic public services such as water, sanitation and housing are central to the capabilities of individuals and it will also determine whether the poor will remain in poverty or come out of poverty permanently. Thus, it becomes the duty of the government to provide these universal basic services. The author finally concludes that in order to eliminate poverty, universal basic services should be more focused rather than providing universal basic income to the individuals. The funding for it can be sourced from budgetary sources that is from the consolidated fund of India and also from other public sources that is the public accounts. The concept of universal basic income originated in European nations. These nations are generally wealthy with a strong universal public services setup. Hence, it is easy for them to also focus on universal basic income. Whereas in India's case, India is still struggling to provide universal basic services. There is a clear evidence in India that providing these universal basic services would itself put the people out of poverty. If you see the spectral representation, the southern and the western states have a high human development index and a corresponding low poverty condition. The north center and the eastern states have a low human development index and correspondingly high poverty levels. Here, the human development indicator is based on health and education status of a population apart from the per capita income, bringing us back to the relevance of income generation to poverty. All these three together define the capability and capability deprivation leads to poverty. This varying trend across the state is largely because of the state level policies. In this context, author notes that the center's allocation for the national income support scheme would definitely demotivate the achievements made by the high performing states. Since this article has revolved around poverty, let us know in brief about the poverty line and the daily per capita expenditures for poverty line recommended by various committees like Rangarajan, Suresh Tendulkar and also by World Bank. Poverty line is an economic benchmark used to indicate the economic disadvantage so that these individuals and the households of economic disadvantage can be identified and provided the necessary government assistance and aid. Let us have a look at the table now. This table compares the findings of both Rangarajan and Suresh Tendulkar committee. Rangarajan committee which is the newer one has estimated the total percentage of poor in India to be at 29.5 percent with the per capita expenditure fixed at 47 rupees for urban areas and 32 rupees for the rural areas. Similarly, Suresh Tendulkar committee has estimated the total percentage of poverty in India at 21.9 percent with the per capita expenditure fixed at 33 rupees for the urban areas and 27 for the rural areas. The World Bank has fixed the daily per capita income at 1.9 dollars using 2011 prices. Try to know in detail about these committees and their significance. With this, we come to the end of the topic. This main question will be discussed at the end of the analysis moving forward to the next news article. This article appears on page number 15 of Chennai and Bangalore editions and page number 13 of Delhi and Tiruvannathapuram editions of the newspaper. It is important from both prelims point of view. It falls under current events of national and international importance and economic and social development of preliminary examination syllabus and Indian economy, developments of technology, their applications and effects in everyday life, awareness in the field of IT for GS3 main syllabus. The news article states that UPA or United Payments Interface is outperforming the e-Valids as people are now shifting the way from e-Valids to bank to bank method using UPA. The article is based on the analysis by Hindu using the data from RBA, NPCA and some industry players during the period April 2018 to March 2019. The analysis showed that UPA is outperforming the e-Valids in terms of value of transactions. Payments on UPA have seen a remarkable growth of over 400% since April 2018. The transaction size in e-Valids in February 2019 is around 16,000 crore whereas the transaction size on UPA in February 2019 is around 1.1 lakh crore. The analysis has also found that UPA is now eating the market share of e-Valids and coming to the UPA in comparison with credit card transaction credit card payments where of the size 1.5 times more than the payments on UPA in April 2018 but the patent reversed by February 2019 where we see the size of the payments on UPA more than 2 times of that of credit cards. With respect to debit card payments first the value of transaction using debit cards are far more than that of credit cards. It is found that in April 2018 the size of the payments on UPA is just 8.7% which by February 2019 became 35%. Thus UPA is fast catching up debit cards. The reasons for UPA outperforming e-Valids are because of the interoperability feature which means that one can send money from different accounts in different banks and receive it in different accounts in different banks. Also stronger adoption of smartphones with internet facility has strengthened the usage of UPA. Thirdly people prefer carrying out transactions from their bank accounts itself. This is also enabled by UPA. The United Payments Interface launched by NPCI that is National Payments Corporation of India is a system that empowers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application of any participating bank enabling money transfers using smartphones. It provides customer convenience as it eliminates the user of providing elaborate details such as bank account numbers, IFSE code, name of the account, name of the branch, bank etc. For transactions only a virtual payment address is required which is just a user ID. Also as mentioned already interoperability is another special feature. A bank account holder of X bank may download the UPA application of the bank Y and carry out transactions to different accounts in different banks. The main disadvantage with e-Valids is that the requirement of that sender and receiver should have an account in the same wallet and transactions are not instant as it is in UPA and money has to be transferred from the bank account to the e-Valid and then e-Valid to the receiver. We have displayed two questions that were asked by UPSC with reference to the digital payments in one in CSC 2017 and other in CSC 2018. One was with respect to NPCA and other was with respect to the beam application. This shows the growing importance of e-Valids and their prominence in UPSC syllabus. We have displayed a practice question on the seminal lines which will be displayed at the end of the analysis. Moving forward on to the next article. This news article appears on page number nine in Chennai and Bangalore editions and page number seven in Delhi and Tiruvannanthapuram editions of the newspaper. It is important from both prelims and main's point of view. It falls under the subtopic of current events of national importance and under the health and poverty in economic and social development of the preliminary examination syllabus and also issues relating to development and management of social sector or services relating to the health and human resources and issues relating to poverty of GS2 paper of main's exam. Article is about the findings of a research report highlighting the shortage of around 6 lakh doctors and 20 lakh nurses which means that at present Indian healthcare system is substandard. The news is based on the research study report by Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy. This institution produces independent multidisciplinary research to support better decision making in health policy so as to advance the health and well-being in United States and around the world. It is based in United States other than this it has an office in New Delhi. The article focus on the lack of access to life-saving drugs for the population. Here by life-saving drugs we mean the antibiotic drugs. The study found that there is a non-availability of trained staff in administering antibiotics and substandard healthcare facilities at present in India. Regarding the substandard facilities the article notes that at present the doctor to population ratio in India is 1 to 10189 and India needs around 6 lakh doctors to reach the WHO recommendation of 1S to 1000. The nurse to population ratio at present is 1S to 483 and India requires around 20 lakh nurses to achieve the standard of 1S to 250. The article finds that most antibiotic treatable deaths are occurring in low and middle income countries and these are the countries that need the antibiotic drugs the most. But we find most of the antibiotic drugs are not available in these countries. The lack of access to antibiotic drugs is killing more people than those dying because of the resistance to the antibiotic drugs which is often highlighted. The article notes that the irrational and medically unguided use of drugs is a reason for the treatment failure and antibiotic resistance. Thirdly it talks about the affordability. Here we can find that 65% of the health expenditure in India is out of pocket expenditure meaning that the patients do not have own money for their treatment rather they meet out by the other sources. We find that India is spending only 1.3% of its GDP for health care in contrast to USA which is spending around 18% of its GDP for health care. Thus the out of pocket expenditure reinforced with the limited government spending pushed around 5.7 crore Indians into poverty every year. Whenever there is a discovery of new antibiotic drugs there are regulatory hurdles along with substandard health facilities which all together prevent the market entry and availability of the new antibiotic drugs to the most needed population. Overall the article highlights the poor public health infrastructure in the country. This main question will be discussed at the end of the analysis moving forward to the next news article. This article appears on page number 11 of Chennai and Bangalore editions and page number 9 of Delhi and Thiruvannathapuram editions of the newspaper. It is important from both problems and main point of view. It falls under economic and social development and current events of national and international importance of prelim syllabus and also population and associated issues, poverty and development issues, urbanization, their problems and remedies in GS1 and issues relating to development and management of social sector or services relating to health, education, human resources in GS2 and Indian economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment of GS3 main exam. The picture that is displayed in this article is from the data point section. This picture is sourced from UN State of World Population report 2019. As of February 2019, the total population of the world exceeds 7.7 billion people and this number is growing continuously. However, in some areas the growth is slowing and others it's declining. China is the most populous country in the world with a population exceeding 1.4 billion. It is one of the just two countries with a population more than 1 billion with India being the second. Both India and China account for a third of world's population. As of 2018, India has a population of over 1.3 billion and its growth is expected to continue at least till 2050. By the year 2030, India is expected to become the most populous country in the world. This is because India's population will grow while China is projected to see a loss in population. The next 11 countries that are most populous are Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, USA, Russia, Japan, etc. Of these nations, all are expected to continue to grow except Russia and Japan, which will see the populations drop by 2030 before falling again significantly by 2050. Between 2010 and 2019, India's population rose by 1.2% and reached 1.3 billion. The global increase in the population in the same period was around 1.1%. The total fertility rate in India has been on the decline in India. Also other countries as well, the total fertility rate refers to the total number of children born or likely to be born to a woman in her lifetime. The total fertility rate in India is 2.3 as of 2016. While we aim to keep TFR at 2.1, which is the replacement level fertility rate, at replacement level fertility rate, population remains constant. The graph here links the higher fertility rate with the higher unmet need for family planning. Populations have grown the fastest in Arab and the African countries. Here the blue dots denote the Arab countries and the orange dots denote the African countries. But in African countries, the unmet need for family planning is the highest high total fertility rates as you can see in this quadrant. Global life expectancy has also improved in the recent years from 65 years in 1994 to 72 years in 2019, increasing the overall population life expectancy at birth to just over 70 years of age. The projected global life expectancy is only expected to continue to improve reaching nearly 77 years of age by the year 2050. High life expectancy is because of the ability to reduce age or HIV impact as well as reducing the rates of infectious and non-communicable diseases. India's life expectancy is in 69 years below the global average. With this, we come to the end of today's analysis. Let's move on to the practice questions discussion. Coming to the first question, it is with respect to environment impact assessment and it has the correct code. The first statement reads, it is a statutory tool of assessment. This is a correct statement because it is given a statutory force under environment protection at 1986. The second statement reads, public hearing is considered mandatory in the process of EIA. This is also a correct statement because public hearing is mandated under EIA notification 2006. So, the correct option here is both 1 and 2 C. Moving to the second question, it is with respect to the annatto seats and it has the correct code from below. Word lipstick might be a little misleading but because of its non-carcinogenic nature and coloring properties, it is directly used in food processing industries. So, options 1, 2, 3, 4 are correct but however it is not used in the paint industry because paint industry mostly relies on artificial colors. Moving to the third question, it is with respect to UPI and it also has the correct statement. The first statement reads, unified payment interface is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application of a participating bank merging several banking features, seamless fund routing and merchant payments into one hood. This is a direct definition of UPI. This is a correct statement. The second statement reads, while a smartphone is necessary, internet facility is not required for carrying out transactions using your platform. As already discussed in the analysis, we need a smartphone along with an internet facility. So, the second statement is wrong. So, the correct option here is 1 only. Moving to the next question, it is with respect to the total fertility rate and it asks for the correct statement. The first statement reads, total fertility rate is a total number of children born, likely to be born to a woman in her lifetime. This is a correct statement. The second statement says, the total fertility rate in India is 3.2 as of 2016 but this is wrong because it stands at 2.3 in 2016. So, the correct option here is A1 only. Now, let's discuss the main question. The question reads, the provision of health, education and public services matter more than income support schemes. Critically analyze. We can discuss this with the start of poverty elevation programs in India since the start of Green Revolution and then explain the root costs of poverty and also discuss about the capability deprivation. And we can enlist about the poverty regional level comparison and several points which have been discussed in the discussion. Moving to the second question, adequate health facilities and affordability are prerequisites to prevent antibiotic treatable deaths in India. Explain this. For this main questions, we may highlight points related to inadequate standards in India with respect to the doctors and nurses and about the problem of out-of-pocket expenditure and limited government spending in healthcare for enriching our answers. With this, we have completed our discussion. Please like, comment and share to the Shankar Ayes Academy YouTube channel for more updates.