 A very good evening aspirants welcome to the hindi news analysis by Shankara's academy for the date 19th march 2021 these are the list of news articles chosen for today's analysis it has been provided along with the page numbers of different editions of hindi newspaper now let us start over today's discussion with this first news article which discusses about gps-based toll collection systems see india is planning to do away with the physical toll booths and india wants to implement the gps-based toll collection within a year this information has been shared by the union minister for road transport and highways so in this discussion let us see why such a need to replace the physical toll booths then we'll also see about the gps-based toll collection system and finally we'll also see in detail about the gps the syllabus that is relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see over the last few years and especially in the last year indian government has been pushing for the mandatory use of fastag as you know fastag is a radio frequency identification based electronic toll collection system it was introduced for ease of payment and also for a near non-stop movement of vehicles that will ultimately lead to lower fuel cost but however still the system that is the toll system suffers from technological issues which makes the truckers and motorists often stuck for many hours at the toll booths so in order to address these issues the government is planning to implement a gps-based tolling system so it is a step further that is an advancement in toll collection so how does this gps-based tolling system work it works on the principle of detection of toll charges based on the movement of vehicles see this gps-based toll collection system tracks the coordinates of the moving vehicle now once the moving vehicle crosses a collection point then the system automatically deducts money from the vehicle's account so this also provides one advantage which is that the system ensures that the users only pay for the distance which they cover because currently flat rates are imposed in the toll booths so this is one of an important application of gps because as the name suggests it is a gps-based tolling system that is it uses global positioning system in its working so what is this global positioning system or simply gps see to put it simply gps is a global navigation satellite system that tells your position on earth it provides location it provides a velocity and time synchronization and note that gps is owned by the united states government now you should know about the important components of the gps to understand how it works see gps is made up of three different components called as segments and these segments are space ground control and user equipment now these three segments work together to provide the location information now first comes the space segment it consists of satellites circling the earth these satellites continuously send signals for the gps receivers to pick up and second comes the ground control segment it is made up of earth-based monitor stations master control stations and ground antennas now this ground control system tracks and operates the satellites and it also monitors the transmission of signals and for this purpose there are monitoring stations on almost every continent in the world now third comes the user equipment these are the gps receivers and the transmitters and the user equipment includes the watches and smartphones used by humans and it also includes the vehicles airplanes and other transports so these are the three segments of gps now let us see how it works it works through a technique called as trilateration so what is trilateration it is a concept based on measuring distances it literally means positioning from three distances now to understand this particular statement let us take a simple two dimensional example first imagine that we have three gps satellites and the position of each satellite in the space is known to us now these three satellites broadcast signals for your gps receiver to pick up now these signals are broadcasted with a specific time and distance now the first satellite broadcasts a signal which is picked up by our gps receiver and from this signal we can measure the distance between the satellite and the receiver now once this distance is known this distance forms a circle meaning that the distance is covered equally in all directions that is the distance will be the radius of this circle so what this means is our gps position could be anywhere on this circle at this specific radius now next comes the role of second satellite here our gps device receives a second signal from the second satellite now this signal can measure the distance between the second satellite and the receiver and this distance also forms a circle equal in all directions as it happened with the first satellite but this time we have two known distances from two satellites so that means the gps precise position could be any of the two points where the two circles intersect and that is why to confirm the position we need a third satellite because the third satellite will provide one more distance measurement now using these three distances trial adoration can pinpoint a precise location now the true precise location will be the point where all the three circles intersect and as you can see here each of these three satellites are at the center of the circle so as the position of the gps receiver moves the radius of each circle will also change and this radius is the distance so this was an example taken by us in the two dimension but in reality this process will be in three-dimensional space so instead of a circle the gps satellites will broadcast signals as a spear as you can see in this picture and each satellite will be at the center of a spear so where all these spears intersect it will be the position of the gps receiver and this is how the position of gps receiver is determined and note that in addition to this the gps system also uses a fourth satellite to confirm the location and this increases the accuracy of the location so this is how a gps system works so now what are its applications the gps is mainly used for location navigation tracking mapping and timing so it has applications in variety of sectors like farming construction mining surveying package delivery logistical supply chain management etc as all these heavily rely on gps then major communication networks banking systems financial markets and power grids they also depend on gps for precise time synchronization in addition to this gps also saves lives by preventing transportation accidents so using gps we know where the vehicle is exactly or the transport is exactly so colliding of large transport such as airplanes trains can be avoided using gps so in this way gps is also vital to the next gen air transportation system that is next gen as it will enhance the flight safety while increasing airspace capacity then gps also aids in search and rescue efforts thus it plays a vital role in emergency response see during an emergency or natural disasters first responders use gps for mapping for following and also for predicting weather they also use it for keeping track of emergency personnel so gps helps in speeding the delivery of emergency services and disaster relief then apart from this gps also advances scientific aims such as weather forecasting earthquake monitoring and environmental protection now next when it comes to entertainment gps is also incorporated into games and activities for example you remember the pokemon go games which make use of this technology particularly the next we talk about health and fitness then there also gps is used it is used in the smartwatchers and wearable technology which are used to track fitness activity here the gps tracks the running distance and thereby tracks our fitness activity and thus programs like fit in their movement benefits tremendously from gps then apart from this it is also used in construction mining and off-road trucking activities then it is used for locating equipment and measuring the assets then in the transportation sector gps improves driver productivity and safety because it is used to support route optimization fuel efficiency driver safety and compliance etc so based on its applications we can say that gps technology is now in everything from cell phones and watchers to bulldozers shipping containers and even in atms that means it has become an inevitable part of our day-to-day life and development so these are the information that you should know about global positioning system or gps here additionally you should note that there are three other global navigation satellite systems they are glonus galilio and beiju glonus stands for global navigation satellite system it is owned by russia and then galilio is owned by european union and then beiju is owned by china now these are the global navigation satellite systems now in addition to these there are also two regional systems one is qz ss which stands for quasi zenith satellite system it is owned by japan and then how can we forget about our irnss or navik that is the indian regional navigation satellite system or simply the navigation with indian constellation so these are some of the information that you should know regarding navigation satellite systems now let's move on to the next discussion now let us take up this news article which talks about tanzania the news article mentions that a 14-day morning period will be observed in tanzania this is due to the sudden death of the country's president mr john mogufuli and according to the news article he was an authoritarian leader so in this context let us discuss about tanzania its geography and political history in brief first note that tanzania is an east african country which is situated south of equator its administrative capital is dar es alam and its legislative capital is dodoma also note that dar es alam is the country's largest city and commercial center now coming to its borders you should note that tanzania is not a landlocked country because it shares border with indian ocean in its eastern part it also shares border with uganda lake victoria and kenya and its north then it also shares border with mozambique lake nayasa malawi and zambia in its south and southwest then to the west it is bordered by lake tanginica burundi and ramanda apart from all these tanzania also includes the autonomous region of zanzibar archipelago this zanzibar archipelago is comprised of two main islands which is the zanzibar island or the unguja island and then the pemba island it also includes this mafi island as you can see in this image now here note that most of main land tanzania is elevated except for the narrow coastal belt of the mainland and the offshore islands i note that africa's highest mountain which is kilimanjaro is situated in tanzania only it is of 5895 meters approximately then it also has one of the world's deepest lake which is lake tanginica now here you should note that the east african rift system runs in the two north south trending branches through the mainland tanzania so it leaves many narrow deep depressions which are often filled by lakes and this is one of the reasons why we can find many lakes in this country and this lake tanginica is also a rift lake so because of its cultural and environmental importance you should note that seven sites in this country have been provided the status of unoscope world heritage site and among these three are cultural sites three are natural sites and one is mixture site and here take note that the kilimanjaro national park and the serengeti national park is in tanzania which are unoscope world heritage natural sites now coming to people of tanzania its population includes more than 120 different indigenous african peoples now let us see about its political history note that mainland tanzania fell under german rule during the late 19th century and it was a part of german east africa then after first world war britain governed the mainland that is the current mainland tanzania as tanginica and at that time the zanzibar archipelago remained a separate colonial jurisdiction then shortly after achieving independence from britain in the early 1960s the mainland tanginica and then zanzibar archipelago merged to form the united republic of tanzania in 1964 so what about its government tanzania is a presidential republic the president is both the chief of state and the head of the government along with this it also has a cabinet headed by the prime minister who is appointed by the president from among the members of the national assembly or the parliament i note that the president and the vice president of tanzania are directly elected for a five-year term and they are also eligible for a second term but now the current president of tanzania has passed away so after the 14-day mourning period its vice president will become president of tanzania here the point to be noted is that the vice president of tanzania is a woman so now she is going to become the country's first female leader so these are some of the points that you should note regarding tanzania and its polity now let's move on to the next discussion based on this news article which mentions that rba has decided to conduct simultaneous purchase and sale of government securities under the open market operations and this will be for an amount of 10 000 crore rupees so in this discussion let us see in detail about government securities and also about open market operations the syllabus that is relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see first note that as you just saw rba is planning to simultaneously purchase and sell government securities particularly it is planning to purchase the long term securities and sell the short term securities now this simultaneous operation is informally called as operation twist now this operation twist is a federal bank novelty that is a method used by the central bank of usa it was used by it in 1961 and now india has adopted a desi version of this operation twist to fit its own requirements so now we will look into what are open market operations and what are government securities before we understand the rationale for this move first what are gsec or government securities gsec is a tradable instrument issued by the central government or the state government it acknowledges the government's debt with the purchaser of the security and note that gsecs are of two types one is short term securities and the second one is long term securities now these short term securities matures in less than one year and this is further divided into two types which are treasury bills and then cash management bills now when this treasury bills are also known as t bills these are money market instruments and obviously they are short term debt instruments which are issued by government of india i note that they are presently issued in three tenors that is for 91 days for 182 days and for 364 days also note that treasury bills are zero coupon securities which mean they pay no interest so you may wonder that what is the point in investing in a t bill if there is no interest see here this issue is offset with the fact that t bills are issued at a discount and they are redeemed at the face value at maturity let us take an example to understand this assume that there is a 91 day treasury bill of rupees 100 and it is issued at 98 rupees so here the tenor of this treasury bill is 91 days and the face value is 100 rupees and then they issue prices 90 rupees that is it has been provided at a 2 rupees discount now at its maturity this treasury bill will be redeemed at the face value of rupees 100 only so the return to the investors is the difference between the maturity value or the face value and the issue price that is here they will get the profit of 2 rupees now the next kind of short term bill is the cash management bills it was introduced by government of india in 2010 it was introduced to meet the temporary mismatches in the cash flow of the government of india now the cmbs have the generic character of t bills but note that cmbs are issued for maturities less than 91 days and we saw that t bills are issued for 91 and then after that in increasing number of days only so these two are the two short term securities now next type of government security is the long term securities this is usually called as government bonds or dated securities and it has original maturity of one year or more and note that in india central government issues both treasury bills and data securities but the state governments issue only dated securities and not the treasury bills and state governments issue the dated securities in the form of state development loans now the major advantage with g6 is that they practically carry no risk of default and that is why they are called as risk free guilt edged instruments so this is the basic about g6 now next comes the open market operations or in short omo open market operation is any purchases and sales of government securities and also sometimes purchase and sale of commercial paper by the central banking authority so that means omo is the purchase and sale of government securities by rba so here by buying or selling bonds bills and other financial instruments in the open market a central bank that is rba can expand or reduce the amount of reserves in the banking system and thus it can also ultimately influence the country's money supply so now let us understand how first hypothetically assume that rba is selling bonds now when the central bank sells such instruments it absorbs money from the system how see when sale is made rba takes money from banks in exchange for government security so the money pool available with the general public is absorbed or it is mopped up by the rba so this is what happens when rba sells government securities now conversely when rba buys government securities it injects money into the system that is if it is buying government securities rba has to pay so it will pay in rupees so now here the money is injected into the economy now this method of trading in the market to control the money supply is what is called as open market operations now in the beginning we saw that rba is planning to simultaneously buy the long term securities and then sell the short term securities which in other words is called as operation twist of india so what is the benefit of such a move first benefit is that it provides better monetary policy transmission and second it helps in absorption of excess liquidity see when long term maturity bonds are bought the money supplied to the banks in the long run gets enhanced and thereby it ensures a drop in the lending rate how when banks will have more liquid assets which are ready to lend it enables them to lower the interest rate on private lending now this in turn can stimulate credit disposal by the banks and this move is significant in the current context because it will help to revive the business environment that has been affected due to the pandemic and on the other hand when short term maturity bonds are sold the excess liquidity in the market is absorbed so these are some of the points that you should know about omo and government securities now let's move on to the next discussion now this discussion is based on this news article which talks about sabrimala issue the news article mentions about the speech made by the kehla chief minister during his election hearing campaign and in his speech he has expressed his views about the sabrimala issue in that he has stated that further moves on the issue will be made after the final judgment from the supreme court and he has also remarked that government will implement the verdict by taking all sections into confidence so in this context let us see about the sabrimala issue and the supreme court verdict on this issue then we'll also see certain arguments which are for and against the verdict the syllabus that is relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference you first know that the sabrimala temple is known as the sabrimala shridharma sastra temple it is located in the peria tiger reserve in patanam thitta district of kerala it is dedicated to the hindu celibate deity known as ayapan ayapan is believed to be the son of shiva and mohini here note that mohini is considered as the feminine incarnation of vishnu as per the hindu mythology now this temple is open for worship only during special occasions like the mandala puja, makara vilak, vishu and also during the first day of every malayalam month and most importantly note that for visiting this temple the pilgrims have to observe celibacy for 41 days before going to sabrimala so now what is the issue the issue is with respect to the entry of women of certain age into this temple see hinduism as a degrading and discriminating practice against women mainly when it comes to religion and worship of so-called gods and going to temple this degrading and discriminating practice is that menstruating women are barred from participating in religious rituals as they are regarded as unclean by the followers of hindu religion and unfortunately this practice is still followed in this 21st century by majority of followers of hindu religion now following this same practice sabrimala temple also bars or denies entry to women between the age group of 10 to 50 see this age group is set considering the facts of women attaining puberty when they are young and attaining menopause when they are old or we can say considering the childbearing age of women but as usual this reason is denied by the hindu devotees for denial of entry to women in this temple because according to them this ban on women regarding entry to sabrimala is not just about menstruation but it is also due to some other reasons such as keeping with the wish of the deity who is believed to have laid down the clear rules about the pilgrimage and they are also stating reasons such as women can be distraction to the male devotees and the other reason given is their humiliating belief that menstruating women will defile the premises of the temple now here also there are two different versions as to why menstruating women are not allowed inside the shrine one legend says that it is an honor of the malika purattama the goddess who is worshipped in the subsidiary shrine at the temple and the other legend is that Lord Ayyappa as a historical figure has shunned all worldly desires including contact with women and according to the temple's mythology Lord Ayyappa is a evolved bachelor who has taken an oath of celibacy so they believe that if women of childbearing age enter the temple it will go against the wishes of Lord Ayyappa see whatever might be the reason just remember that this is a very discriminating practice so stating these reasons for many years women were denied entry to this temple so women have been demanding entry into the temple for decades and in recent times it has gained popularity because in 2016 the temple's chief has given a derogatory remark that he would allow entry to women only after a machine was invented to detect if they were pure here what he is meaning is if there is a machine to detect whether women are menstruating or not then only he will allow the women belonging to childbearing age to enter the temple so this controversial statement by the temple's chief led to protest by people and following this petitioners appealed before the supreme court seeking the lift of the ban or the prohibition that is prejudiced against women and the custom which is against the right to worship of women because it clearly violates the equality guaranteed under India's constitution so after these petitions in september 2018 a five judge constitution bench of supreme court heard this case which challenged the constitutionality of this custom and in its judgment supreme court held that the practice is unconstitutional and this judgment was delivered with a four is to one majority that is four judges supported the judgment and one was against it here you should note that this practice or this custom of not allowing women to enter the temple was challenged on the grounds that it violates article 14 article 15 article 17 article 21 and article 25 of the constitution so it is against article 14 because article 14 deals with equality and here in this issue women are not treated equal with men and secondly it is against article 15 and as you know article 15 deals with prohibition of discrimination based on race caste sex or place of birth and clearly this issue discriminates women just because of their gender and then it is against article 17 because in a way you can see that it endorses untouchability but article 17 forbids untouchability in any of its form then this practice is also violative of article 21 which deals with protection of life and personal liberty because it is the personal liberty of the woman to worship the god of their choice and mainly it is violative of article 25 which comes under the right to freedom of religion and this article particularly provides for free profession practice and propagation of religion but the sabrimala practice is against this article and that is why it is said that this custom is violative of the fundamental rights guaranteed under India's constitution so considering all these facts supreme court granted unrestricted entry for women of childbearing age to the temple this was the landmark judgment given by supreme court but the followers of hindu religion were not happy so it led to a lot of protest by them and the protesters argued that supreme court's ruling goes against the wishes of their deity that is lord Ayyappa so this was the issue so far we saw the judgment and we also saw the arguments against the entry of women into temple now let us see some of the arguments which favours women's entry into the temple these are also the arguments which favours supreme court's judgment see as we already saw this custom violates the right of hindu women to freely practice their religion and exhibit their devotion towards lord Ayyappa so this denial deprives the women of their right to worship and this makes article 25 clause 1 ineffective because it doesn't allow women to freely practice their religion and moreover those who support this judgment argue that the notions of public order morality and health cannot be used as a device to restrict the freedom to freely practice religion and it cannot be used as a device to discriminate against women of certain age group by denying them their legal right to enter and offer their prayers because as we just saw constitution rejects discrimination on the basis of gender so these are the arguments in favour of women's entry into the sublimala temple so what is the current issue see the present scenario start a larger bench of supreme court is considering the review petitions of the sublimala issue these review petitions have been filed against the judgment of supreme court so now the court is likely to examine the matters related to article 25 of the constitution and it is also going to decide on the rights and limitations of the state and central governments over religious beliefs so let us wait and see whether supreme court upholds its judgment or it overcomes it so these are some of the matters that you should know with respect to sublimala issue now let us move on to the next discussion which is based on this news article it mentions that the insurance amendment bill of 2021 has been recently passed by Rajasabha see this bill aims to amend the insurance act of 1938 now this act provides the framework for functioning of insurance businesses in our country it also regulates the relationship between an insurer its policy holders its shareholders and the regulator here the regulator would be the insurance regulatory and development authority of india that is IRDAI now let us see certain provisions regarding the amendment we first know that the act allows foreign investors to hold up to 49 percentage of the capital in an Indian insurance company and such a company must be owned and controlled by an Indian entity now the bill aims to increase this limit on foreign investment it aims to increase the foreign investment in an Indian insurance company from 49 percentage to 74 percentage further it also removes the restrictions on ownership and control however it should be noted that such foreign investment may be subject to additional conditions as prescribed by the central government now secondly based on the present act it requires insurers to hold a minimum investment in assets which would be sufficient to clear their insurance claim liabilities here if the insurer is incorporated or domiciled outside india then such assets must be held in india in a trust and it should be vested with trustees who must be residents of india here the act also specifies that this provision will also apply to an insurer incorporated in india in which at least 33 percentage capital is owned by investor domiciled outside india and this provision will also apply to an insurer incorporated in india where 33 percentage of the members of the governing body of such insurer are domiciled outside india but now the bill aims to remove this explanation so based on this there are several criticisms against the bill the first criticism is with respect to the clause of the bill which enables control and ownership by foreign investors this is being widely criticized by the opposition parties they accuse the government of violating the assurance given in 2015 that indian ownership and control would remain in the insurance sector in this regard opposition parties also opine that the bill should have been sent to a standing committee for scrutiny now secondly the opposition also criticized the government's plan on disinvestment or privatization of insurance sector remember that the government in its budget 2021-22 had announced the plan to privatize two public sector banks and one general insurance company in this regard government has decided to go for a mega initial public offering that is IPO of LIC during the financial year that will begin in the April 2021 we have discussed about IPO just few days before now the third criticism is pointed out by one of the MPs who has noted that already none of the insurance firms had managed to get FDIs even up to the present limit of 49 percentage so in this regard he has questioned the justification to increase this limit further so these are some of the criticisms regarding this bill now after this bill gets the president's assent it will become an act and it will amend the insurance act of 1938 so these are some of the points that you should know about the amendment bill now let's move on to the next discussion this discussion is based on this editorial article which talks about some of the hurdles posed by adhar in availing legitimate benefits so today let us see in detail about adhar and then we'll see about the issues highlighted by the author the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference so first what is adhar adhar is a 12 digit individual identification number which is issued by the unique identification authority of India on behalf of the government of India so it is issued by UIDAI and this 12 digit number is called as the adhar number it is a 12 digit random number which is issued by UIDAI to the residents of India after satisfying the verification process now here just note that UIDAI is a statutory authority established for the purposes of adhar because it has been established under the provisions of adhar act of 2016 that is adhar targeted delivery of financial and other subsidies benefits and services act of 2016 and functions under the ministry of electronics and information technology so who can obtain adhar any individual irrespective of age and gender who is a resident of India may voluntarily enroll to obtain adhar number and for this the person who is willing to enroll has to provide certain information during the enrollment process and these information include the minimal demographic and biometric information i note that an individual needs to enroll for adhar only once and only one adhar will be generated after deduplication here deduplication means the process of using the demographic and biometric data collected from the enrollee that is a person who has enrolled to check against the rest of the data so that duplicate enrollments can be avoided so according to the government adhar is a strategic policy tool for social and financial inclusion it is a policy tool for public sector delivery reforms it is for managing fiscal budgets it is also to increase the convenience and promote hassle free people-centric governance so in this regard adhar program has already achieved several milestones and here note that adhar program is by far the largest biometric based identification system in the world so now what is this editorial about it is about the allegations that people without adhar were denied services see this editorial notes that nearly 90 percentage of india's projected population has been assigned the adhar number but ever since its implementation there have been allegations that people without adhar were denied services so in this regard most recently a petition has been filed in supreme court which alleged that three crore ration cards were cancelled for not being linked with the adhar database the petition also alleged that such cancellation of ration cards is also connected to reported starvation deaths in some states so based on this petition now the supreme court had sought answers from the center see in this regard you should note about the 2018 adhar case because in that case supreme court upheld the constitutionality of adhar after striking down certain provisions and most crucially majority opinion did not strike down section 7 which makes adhar mandatory for availing state subsidies and benefits so this shows that adhar is mandatory for availing state subsidies and benefits then again this year a review petition about the schemes validity for public purposes was also filed which was again rejected by the apex court so in this regard author has provided certain reasons for why such issues happen regarding adhar according to author this is due to several failures in the use of adhar and these failures include inefficiencies in biometric authentication and updating then inefficiency in linking of adhar with bank accounts and the next issue is also with respect to the adhar payment bridge see here note that adhar payment bridge or insured apb system is one of the unique payment systems implemented by the national payments corporation of india it uses adhar number as a central key for electronically channelizing government benefits and subsidies and this is done in the adhar enabled bank accounts of the intended beneficiaries so that means for availing benefits and subsidies given by the government using of this system is also important and this shows that to receive benefits under the pds that is the public distribution system or under the national rural employment guarantee act or even for receiving the benefits of LPG subsidy we need adhar number but according to the author these inefficiencies which we have just mentioned have led to inconvenience and this in turn has led to the suffering of the poor and due to these inefficiencies only there were also cases when legitimate beneficiaries were denied benefits and this happened mainly due to the authentication failures and the poor have suffered so much that according to author in states like jharkhand starvation debts have also been reported due to the denial of benefits and subsidies so what could be done to overcome these issues see we can agree that biometric authentication failures is bound to come in a large-scale project and technology intensive project like adhar so here first issue could be the false negatives that is there can be cases of false negatives where the biometric system does not recognize the authentic individual so the system blocks their access for example people who are engaged in manual and hard labor they are susceptible to fingerprint changes because due to the hard labor their fingerprints wear out or deteriorate and it changes over time and this in turn will lead to authentication failures so what could be done here a simple solution for this is to go for multi-factor authentication such as using a password or pin in combination with a biometric factor so this will ensure that the genuine beneficiaries will get their share of benefits then the second issue which could arise is the fraudulent beneficiaries so this problem can be addressed by using other verification cards and also by adopting decentralized dispersal of services so that it is easy to identify the beneficiary so these are some of the solutions offered by the author to overcome the issues in the availing of legitimate benefits through adhar now let's move on to the next discussion now let us take up this news article which mentions that the national company law tribunal in Chennai is approving the resolution plan which is submitted by the Haldia petrochemicals and this resolution plan is for Nagarjuna oil corporation limited or in short NOCL here it is to be noted that NOCL's refinery project in Kadalore in Tamil Nadu was supposed to begin its operations in 2012 but this project faced several delays and cost overruns so this ultimately resulted in bankruptcy thus in this regard a debt restructuring plan was initiated by a consortium of 17 banks but this also did not materialize and subsequently insolvency proceedings were initiated against NOCL and now the resolution plan under the insolvency proceedings have been approved by NCLT so in this context let us know from exam perspective about NCLT and NCLAT. NCLT stands for national company law tribunal it is established based on section 408 of Companies Act of 2013 it is established for the adjudication of corporate civil disputes under two legislations these legislations are Companies Act of 2013 and the insolvency and bankruptcy code of 2016 so we can say that the main function of NCLT is adjudicating the issues relating to Indian companies now know that it is a specialist body we are calling it a specialist body because it has both judicial and technical members now this combination of members and their specialized knowledge have well equipped the NCLT and as a result of this NCLT is able to provide speedy justice also less expensive justice and then effective justice in the areas of commercial and corporate law so what if one of the parties is not satisfied with the order of NCLT if a party is not satisfied with the order then they can move to the appellate tribunal for the first appeal now this appellate tribunal is called as the national company law appellate tribunal or in short NCLAT this NCLAT was constituted under section 410 of companies act of 2013 so remember that both NCLT and NCLAT are statutory bodies as they are constituted under an act of parliament now the main function of NCLAT is obviously hearing the appeals against the orders of NCLT in addition to this it also functions as appellate tribunal for hearing appeals against the orders passed by NCLT under section 61 of insolvency and bankruptcy code of 2016 then NCLAT also acts as appellate tribunal to hear and dispose the appeals against any order which is passed by competition commission of India and which is related to awarding compensation so these are some of the points that you should know about NCLT and NCLAT now let's move to the next discussion now let us take up this news article which talks about the first volume of teachers and teacher education report this report is released by the azim premji university this report is part of the series on issues in education the series aims to bring into focus the educational matters that are important for the development of the education system in our country so let us discuss some of the highlights of this first volume of the report it notes that India has about nine million teachers who are working in around 1.5 million schools and we know that almost all statements of education policy in the country recognize the central role of the teacher in education in this regard the national education policy of 2020 also emphasizes that teachers must be valued and empowered and that is why this report becomes important now as per the study out of 17,500 teacher education institutions in our country more than 90 percentage teacher education institutions are privately owned standalone institutions and these institutions offer only single programs that to localize in certain geographies report also notes that four states account for 54 percentage of all teacher education institutions in our country and these four states are Uttapadesh Rajasthan Maharashtra in Tamil Nadu and there are also states and UTs which have at least one teacher education institutions in each districts and like this we have only 12 states or UTs another finding is that the number of teacher education institutions in a district ranges from zero to maximum of 300 as you can see in this image now this reflects the deep inadequacy in our system because some states have large number of teacher education institutions while others have very few this asymmetry is not only reflected at the district level but it is also reflected in the states or ut levels as well as you can see here even some of the large states like Odisha have less number of teacher education institutions then the report also highlights the rampant corruption that is prevailing in the privately owned teacher education institutions it says that the curricular practices including pedagogical aspects are also woefully inadequate that is it was found that private TEIs that is a teacher education institutions do not have required number of teacher educators and they even adopt deliberate corrupt practices to hide this issue of inadequate teacher educators then the private TEIs also deliberately neglect the basic curricular requirements that are committed by them so as to get the approval to run the programs for example classes are neither conducted seriously nor they are taken seriously by these students then the private TEIs also do not have basic instructional facilities for example in more than 50 percentage of assessed teacher education institutions curriculum laboratories were not available and which is mandated as per the rules so we can see that there are many issues with respect to privately owned teacher education institutions but unfortunately those are the ones which are large in number in our country here we must know the observations made by the supreme court constituted justice j.s. verma commission of 2012 according to this commission a large proportion of the teaching colleges are not even attempting to provide a good education instead many are functioning as commercial shops where even the minimum curricular or the course requirements are not met and they function as commercial shops because the degrees are essentially available for a price the commission also said that the integrity of teacher education cannot be attained without first shutting down this practice so the issue of private TEIs has been highlighted by this commission and also now by this report then apart from this the report also focuses on the continued prevalence of contract teachers across the country these contract teachers are recruited for short periods through ad hoc processes that is temporary processes and these contract teachers are also provided with inadequate salaries with little or no benefits and according to the report these features have caused long-term damage not only to the teaching profession but also to the student learning so these are some of the important findings of this teachers and teacher education report now let's move on to the next discussion now we have come to the last session the practice questions discussion session now this first question is a map based question the question asks which of the above share border with Tanzania and the options given are Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, Indian Ocean, Red Sea now you can attend this question based on elimination method also Tanzania is an eastern African country and it is more towards the southeast part but as you know Red Sea connects Africa and Asia and it is in the northeast part of Africa from this we can easily eliminate Red Sea so that means five should not be in the final answer so we can eliminate options C and D now the remaining options are one two and three and then one two and four that means one and two are definitely sharing borders with Tanzania now the confusion is between Sudan and Indian Ocean now if you know that Tanzania is not a landlocked country and if you know that it is in the eastern part of Africa then you can at least guess that it will border Indian Ocean and yes it borders Indian Ocean and if you know this fact then you can easily attain the correct answer of option B whether you know that Sudan borders Tanzania or not and as you can see in this image Sudan doesn't border Tanzania Sudan borders the Red Sea so here the correct answer is option B one two and four only now this next question asks what do you understand by the term GLONUS which is recently seen in the news option A all-weather air defense system of Israel option B space-based satellite navigation system of Russia option C multi-layered air defense system of US option D global navigation satellite system of Europe now based on today's discussion you can easily say that it is a satellite navigation system so we can eliminate options A and C and we are left with B and D now in this you may be confused with option D as it mentions global navigation satellite system and its short form could be GLONUS GLNASS but remember that the correct answer is option B GLONUS belongs to Russia and the global navigation satellite system of Europe is Galileo and here the all-weather air defense system of Israel is iron dome and then the multi-layer air defense system of USA is that is terminal high-altitude area defense so the correct answer is option B now this next question is based on Aadhar payment bridge system first statement is it uses Aadhar number for electronically channelizing the government benefits and subsidies in the Aadhar enable bank accounts of the beneficiaries now this statement is correct we saw this during discussion the statement 2 is it is implemented by the state bank of India now this statement is incorrect because APB is implemented by national payments corporation of India and not by SBI so the correct answer will be option A one only because the question asks for the correct statements now this next question is based on national company law tribunal first statement states it is a quasi-judicial body established as per the provisions of companies act 2013 this statement is correct it is a quasi-judicial body now the second statement is it was formed based on the recommendations of justice V Balakrishna now this statement is also correct it was formed based on this committee's recommendations only and here the question asks for the correct statements so the correct answer is option C both one and two now this next question is with reference to dated securities first statement is dated securities are short-term securities now this statement is incorrect because during discussion we saw that dated securities are long-term securities actually dated securities is the other name for long-term securities or for government bonds and in India the central government issues both treasury bills and dated securities but the state governments issue only dated securities which are in the form of state development loans so that means statement two is correct and here the question asks for the incorrect statements so the correct answer is option A one only now this next question is based on IRDAI that is insurance regulatory and development authority of India statement one is it was established under insurance act of 1938 now this statement is incorrect because IRDAI is a statutory body but it was formed under the insurance regulatory and development authority act of 1999 and not under the insurance act of 1938 it was established for overall supervision and development of the insurance sector in our country but the powers and functions of the authority are laid down in the IRDAI act of 1999 and also in the insurance act of 1938 so the statement is incorrect now the second statement is entities regulated by IRDAI include life insurance companies general insurance companies, reinsurance companies and intermediaries now this statement is correct because entities regulated by includes life insurance companies which include both public and private sector companies then it also regulates the GICs and among them there are some standalone health insurance companies also which offer health insurance policies and then it also regulates intermediaries which include corporate agents brokers third party administrators surveyors and laws assessors and here the question asks for the correct statements so the correct answer is option b 2 only now let us take these two main questions this question is based on gsp3 and this is based on gsp2 you can answer these questions and post it in the comment section with this we have come to the end of today's in the news analysis and the practice questions and discussion session if you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and do subscribe to shankar eyes academy to the channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation