 A very good evening aspirants. We are happy to share that the second test batch of pre-storming 2021 program of Shankara IS Academy has started from 11 December 2020. Pre-storming 2021 program is the prelims test series conducted by Shankara IS Academy for the upcoming UPSI preliminary examination 2021. Our pre-storming program is India's first full-fledged artificial intelligence supporter preliminary test series and the admissions for the same is going on now. All the required details regarding the admission process and about the pre-storming 2021 program is provided in the link that is given in the description of the video and also in the comment section. With this, let us move on to the Hindi news analysis. These are the list of news articles to sum up today's analysis. It has been provided along with the page numbers of different editions of Hindi newspaper. Let's start our discussion with this first article. This discussion is based on this editorial article which talks about the benefits of the PM Varni scheme which was recently launched. Author also talks about the loopholes in the scheme and how it can be bridged. So in this discussion we will see all these aspects. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. As you remember recently the government launched Prime Minister's Wi-Fi access network interface or in short PM Varni and many feel that this scheme has the potential to be a game changer in terms of internet connectivity and governance in India. It is because the scheme aims to bring large-scale deployment of Wi-Fi hot sports throughout the country to drive up connectivity options and to improve the digital access. And we have already seen in detail about this scheme last week on 10th December 2020. You can view that analysis to understand about PM Varni. Now we saw that the scheme is hailed as a game changer. One of the reasons for this is because its impact is expected to be huge. And before seeing about the advantages of this scheme, let us see why there was a need for this scheme. According to a recent telecom regulatory authority of India data that is TRY data, only 54 percentage of India's population has access to internet. So that means nearly half of the population is not having access to the internet. And this shows the widespread digital divide or the e-divide that is present in our country. In addition to this TRY data, even another survey showed that there is a lack of digital literacy in the country. Now this survey was the 75th round of national statistical organization survey. It found that only 20 percentage of the population has the ability to use internet. So that means there is a lack of digital literacy in our country. In addition to these two reports, there is an India internet 2019 report which is released by the internet and mobile association of India. This report has found that only for half of rural population, internet penetration has become a reality. At the same time rural areas also have twice as many urban population that actually access the internet less than once a week. That is once a week the population in rural areas access the internet twice as much as the population in the urban areas. Now here let us take the example of Umang app to understand why there is a need for bridging the digital divide and to enhance the digital literacy. As you know Umang is the acronym for unified mobile application for new age governance. It allows access to more than 2000 services across 194 government departments and on important sectors such as education, health, finance, social security etc. So a citizen must be able to access and use these services then only she can get the services that she is entitled to. However without full internet penetration we are focusing on digitization. So this leaves a vast chunk of population not able to access the government services and additionally it aggravates the digital poverty and because of these reasons and to overcome this the PM Vani is being introduced as a public call office model or the PCO model. This will help the scheme to be effective in the last mile delivery of services. So what is this PCO model? See anyone living in their house, a pawn shop owner or even a tea seller can provide public Wi-Fi hotspots and anyone within their range can access that Wi-Fi and this will ensure that anyone can get access to internet and they can get their services online. But here note that for a public hotspot to be successful two things are necessary according to a report by Try. The first aspect is the interoperability. This means that the user should be able to log in only once and the user should be able to stay connected across access points and the second important aspect is multiple payment options that is it should allow the user to pay both online and offline and regarding the public hotspots author provides two suggestions that is the products available through the system should start from low cost that is the service cost should be low and it should be as low as 2 rupees according to the author then only many will be able to access these services. Additionally giving OTP that is one time password every time during the access becomes a troublesome process. So to get rid of this author suggests KYC that is know your customer but as we know for KYC usage other becomes inevitable. Now if these suggestions are implemented then public Wi-Fi hotspots as envisaged by PM Warni will be successful. There is also one more advantage of PM Warni which is that it improvises the Bharat Net project as you know Bharat Net is also called as the National Optical Fiber Network. It proposes broadband connectivity to households under the village panchayats and even to the government institutions at the district level. Bharat Net intends to cover all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats for the provision of e-governance, e-healthcare, e-commerce, e-education and public interest access services. In short it wants to provide the e-services to the households under the gram panchayats. Now this Bharat Net project has missed deadlines multiple times and it has not even attained the intended benefits and it is expected that the PM Warni will help to overcome this problem. Now let us see why Bharat Net did not give or did not attain the intended benefits. The first one is because of the lack of digital literacy as we saw in the beginning and the second one is the lack of last mile availability of internet that is no proper infrastructure for internet exists in the rural areas and this is where PM Warni is a game changer as it overcomes these two main challenges. It also makes internet access similar to going to a tea shop and having a tea and it proposes to make the internet usage being influenced more by their local factors and social factors. So these are some of the advantages of this PM Warni scheme. Now apart from all these there are still some issues and these issues is with regard to the privacy and security. A recent study found that people while using public hotspot they leaked their own personal information and further a dry report also recommended that community interest data has to be stored locally rather than outside our country because if it is not stored locally then there is a danger of leaking of personal information and further all these are seen as a problem because our country is yet to have a comprehensive legislation on data security. So if we have this legislation then some of these issues regarding privacy and security could be overcome and thus as a conclusion author agrees that PM Warni scheme is really game changer because it tries to include all those who are otherwise excluded from the internet connectivity and that is why author has named this editorial as digital India will now become digital Bharat which means that digital India which focuses on urban India will now become digital Bharat which focuses on also the rural India. So these are some of the points that you should know with respect to this editorial now let's move on to the next discussion now this discussion is based on this opiate article which talks about the recently held elections in Ghana so today let's have a brief understanding about the political and geographical aspects of Ghana. Ghana is a country which lies in the western Africa it is situated on the coast of Gulf of Guinea and as you can see here Ghana is bordered by Burkina Faso in the northwest and north and it is bordered by the country Togo to its east and it borders Atlantic Ocean to its south and to its west it borders with the country Côte d'Ivoire and its capital is Accra and the unit of currency of Ghana is Ghanian Sedi now we can divide Ghana into three major geographic regions one is coastal second is forest and third one is northern Savanna and even the southwestern northwestern and the extreme northern parts of the country consists of a dissected penny plane see a penny plane is a relatively flat land surface that is produced by a long period of erosion now talking about its drainage system the country is dominated by the Volta river basin and it includes the lake Volta and then the black Volta white Volta and OT rivers other major rivers include Bra, Ancobra, Tano etc. also here know that Ghana's only true natural lake is Bosam 3 what about its economy Ghana's economy is a mixture of private and public enterprise as of now about three fifths of the GDP of Ghana is derived from the services sector and agriculture contributes almost one fifth and industry contributes about one fourth of the GDP it is also to be noted that Ghana is one of the leading countries of Africa even though it is relatively small in Aden population and this is partly because of its considerable natural wealth it may also be because it was the first black African country that was south of Sahara to achieve the independence from the colonial rule as mentioned by the author here know that Ghana won freedom from the colonial rule in the year 1957 here you should also know that Ghana joined Commonwealth in 1957 after its independence from the Britain now coming to its political scenario its constitution provides for a multi-party republic with the president as the head of the state and also vice president now the president is elected for a term of four years by universal adult suffrage and that is a possibility of re-election for another term for the president also know that the president of Ghana appoints the cabinet and there are around 20 and 25 members in the cabinet and there is also a broadly based council of state and it has deliberative and advisory functions and Ghana has a unicameral parliament whose members are directly elected to four-year terms and it is to be noted that Ghana is a vibrant democracy where elections are vigorously contested and the elections are generally free and fair and the voter participation rates are also high in this country there are two main political parties the new patriotic party and the national democratic congress these parties have dominated the political scene since 1992 and recently elections in this country has concluded both the parliamentary elections and also the presidential election and it was the eighth successive general election since the end of military rule in the country in 1992 and according to the oped article this election would be the first election to be financed without external assistance and the result of the presidential election is that the incumbent president Nana Adho Dhankwa Agufo Adho who belongs to the national patriotic party has won the re-election and in the parliamentary election there was a close call so as a result the election commission of Ghana has announced that there was a tie in the parliamentary race but both these results that is the results of presidential and parliamentary elections have been rejected by the opposition party and the former president of Ghana Mr. John Mahama he has alleged that the vote was rigged and he has also announced that he will take a legal challenge over the results and in the recent times also we are seeing that in many countries where the elections are happening the accusation of vote rigging is put on the winners of the election and in many countries that accusation is also true so let us wait and see what happens in Ghana's case so these are some of the information that you should know with respect to this oped article now let's move on to the next discussion now these news articles talk about the ongoing issues in the legislative council of karnataka so today we will see in detail about the legislative councils and also about the ongoing issue the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference first understand that in India there is no uniformity in the organization of state legislatures it is because most of the states have a unicameral system that is they have one legislative chamber known as legislative assembly while other states have a bicameral system this means they have two legislative chambers and these are to be called as the legislative assembly and the legislative council and this is as per article 168 clause 2 of indian constitution so based on this at present only six states have two houses they are Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and Karnataka also know that recently Andhra Pradesh assembly has passed a resolution for the abolition of the council but it is yet to be cleared by the parliament so at present Andhra Pradesh legislative council exists now let us see the composition membership of legislative councils now these aspects are dealt by the indian constitution under article 168 to article 212 these articles deal with the organization composition duration procedures etc of the state legislature and in this particularly article 169 of the constitution provides for the creation or abolition of the legislative councils in the states and according to this article parliament can abolish a legislative council or create it and this can be done if the legislative assembly of the concerned state passes a resolution to that effect and such a specific resolution must be passed by the state assembly by a special majority that is a majority of the total membership of the assembly and a majority of not less than two-thirds of the members of the assembly who are present in voting but here you should be clear about one point that is the constitution provides for the abolition or creation of legislative councils in states and accordingly parliament can abolish a legislative council or create it after a resolution is passed by the legislative assembly so the power to abolish or create a legislative council lies with the parliament and not with the legislative assembly of the state and for this purpose the parliament has to amend the constitution but remember that the act which will be passed by the parliament to amend the constitution is not to be deemed as an amendment of the constitution for the purposes of article 368 rather such an act is passed like an ordinary piece of legislation by a simple majority now next the composition of the legislative council is dealt by article 171 of Indian constitution according to this article the maximum strength of the council is fixed at one-third of the total strength of the assembly and the minimum strength is fixed at 40 now this is done to ensure the predominance of the directly elected house in the legislative affairs of the state which is the legislative assembly now coming to the method of election and legislative council out of the total number of members of the legislative council one-third of the members are elected by the members of local bodies in the state like the municipalities district boards etc then one-twelfth of the members are elected by graduates who have been graduates for three years and who reside within the state and then another one-twelfth is elected by those who have been teachers for three years but they should have been teachers at least in a standard in the secondary school and next the one-third of the members are elected by the members of legislative assembly of the state from amongst the persons who are not members of the assembly and finally the remaining members are nominated by the governor from amongst the persons who have special knowledge or practical experience of literature science arts cooperative movement and social service so this is the proportion in which the members are elected but what about the qualification of such members this is dealt by article 173 which speaks about the qualification for membership of the legislative council now to become a member of legislative council a person shall be a citizen of India and that person should at least be 30 years of age and after that the person shall subscribe to oath or affirmation that is set out for this purpose in the third schedule here just know that third schedule deals with the forms of oaths or affirmations for the officers that are established under the constitution now there is one important feature of legislative council which is spelt by article 172 it mentions that legislative council is a permanent body and it is not subject to dissolution this is same for rajasabha also but one-third of the members of legislative council retire on the expiration of every second year now what about the chairman or deputy chairman of the legislative council according to article 182 the legislative council shall choose two members of the council to be chairman and deputy chairman as soon as possible that means the chairman and deputy chairman are chosen from amongst the members of the legislative council now today's news article is with respect to the demand by a political party in karnataka for the removal of chairman so in this scenario you should understand that the chairman and the deputy chairman can vacate resign or they can be removed from the offices as per article 183 based on these three instances first instance is if a chairman or deputy chairman ceases to be a member of the council and second instance is that the chairman can write a resignation letter to the deputy chairman or even vice versa and the third instance is that if the chairman or deputy chairman is removed by resolution that is passed by a majority of all the then members of the council now based on this third instance only now the karnataka's ruling party is trying to oust the chairman of the legislative council and the reason for this as given in the article is that the chairman is a congress member so the ruling party which is the bharti janata party wanted to pass a no confidence motion for the removal of the chairman but this motion was rejected by the chairman so because of this the next day the chairman was stopped from entering the legislature and in his place the deputy chairman took the role of presiding officer and this is as per article 184 and 185 of indian constitution the article 184 clause 1 mentions that while the office of the chairman is vacant then at that time the deputy chairman shall perform the duties of the chairman's office and now the ruling party is demanding the removal of chairman based on another reason also because they have started the no confidence motion against the chairman so they argue that the chairman cannot preside the legislative council why a resolution is pending for his removal and they are stating this based on article 185 clause 1 which mentions that when any resolution for the removal of the chairman from his office is under consideration then the chairman shall not preside even though he is present at the legislative council but it also provides certain privileges to the chairman in the scenario under clause 2 which mentions that the chairman has the right to speak and also has the right to take part in the proceedings of the legislative council but he or she shall not preside the legislative council so we can understand that the scenario is getting worse in the case of the karnataka legislative council let us wait and see what happens next now with this let's move on to the next discussion our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about the proposal of election commission of india to extend the electronically transmitted postal ballot system to the overseas electors that is to the nr electors this proposal is pending with the law ministry so in this context let us understand about nr is and how they are eligible to vote in elections and also about the electronically transmitted postal ballot system or in short ed pbs see according to india's foreign exchange management act of 1999 an nr a that is non resident indian is an indian citizen who is resident outside india for the purposes of employment or for carrying on business or trade and an individual will also be considered nr i if her stay in india is less than 182 days during the preceding financial year now coming to overseas electors first know that there are three categories of electors in india one is general electors second overseas electors that is nr electors and then the service electors our today's focus is on the overseas electors and overseas electors is a person who is a citizen of india and who has not acquired citizenship of any other country so such overseas voter or nr a voter is otherwise eligible to be registered as a voter but is absent from his place of ordinary residence in india due to his employment education etc so based on the provisions of representation of people act of 1950 especially the section 20a an nr a settled in foreign land can become an elector in electoral role in india and to vote in an election she or he has to file an application before the electoral registration officer or the assistant electoral registration officer of the constituency and this constituency is the constituency within which the place of ordinary residence of the applicant falls in india and now eca has proposed to extend the etpbs to these overseas electors so what is this etpbs or electronically transmitted postal ballot system see this system was developed by election commission of india with the help of center for development of advanced computing and it was developed for the use of service voters it enables the entitled service voters to cast their vote using an electronically received postal ballot from anywhere outside their constituency so the voters who make such a choice will be entitled for postal ballot delivered through the electronic media for a particular election and this developed system is implemented in line with the existing postal ballot system now this etpbs is an easier option of facilitating voting by electors because it addresses the time constraint for dispatch of postal ballots which exists in the postal ballot system see in a postal ballot system first the ballot paper has to be sent to that person and then the person will vote and the voter then will send it back so this needs a lot of time and there were also issues with the postal ballot which is now eliminated by this etpbs because it is a fully secured system it has two layers of security it also provides secrecy and the secrecy is maintained through the use of otp and pin and also more importantly it is not possible to duplicate the vote casted in the electronically transmitted postal ballot because it has a unique qr code here in this representation you can see that the electronically transmitted postal ballot can be printed and then the person or individual can cast her vote and then it is sent to the designated constituency this is the whole process so these are some of the information that I should know with respect to etpbs and overseas voters with this let's move on to the next discussion this discussion is based on this lead editorial article which talks about the need for green revolution states like panjab and hariana to shift to high value crops and also to promote other non-farming activities so we'll see these aspects in this discussion first author talks about the emergence of panjab and hariana as traditional green revolution states with paddy and wheat being their dominant crops he also mentions the significant role of msp in paving the way for it and also finally author gives the suggestion to shift to high value crops and to promote other non-farming activities so before discussing the points discussed by author in the editorial let us first understand in detail about the green revolution paddy wheat and also about msp first if you talk about paddy or rice it is the staple food crop of majority indians as you know and it is a kharif crop so it requires high temperature of about 25 degrees celsius and it also requires high humidity along with annual rainfall of about 100 centimeter it is grown in the plains of north and northeastern india also in coastal areas and in the deltaic regions but however it is also grown in the areas of less rainfall and there it grows with the help of irrigation using canals and tube wells and the example for such states which receive less rainfall and that do paddy cultivation is panjab hariana and western utha pradesh and also parts of rajasthan in this map you can see the distribution of rice producing states and next if we talk about wheat it is the second most important cereal crop and also the main food crop in the north and northwestern part of the country and it is a rubby crop so it requires cool season and a bright sunshine at the time of ripening it also requires 50 to 75 centimeter of annual rainfall and this rainfall has to be evenly distributed over the growing season now india has got two important wheat growing regions or zones they are the ganga sattelage plains in the northwest and then the black soil region in the deccan thus india's major wheat producers include panjab hariana utha pradesh bihar rajasthan and also parts of madhya pradesh so this map gives you the distribution of wheat producing states so now what about green revolution green revolution refers to a period when indian agriculture was converted into an industrial system where modern methods and technologies were adopted and these modern methods and technologies included high yielding variety seeds tractors irrigation facilities pesticides and fertilizers now this green revolution was needed because around 75 percent of the country's population was dependent on agriculture during independence but there was stagnation in agriculture because there was less production due to the use of traditional methods and old methods and this created struggles for india for meeting its food security needs but this stagnation in agriculture was permanently broken by the green revolution which resulted in the increase in food grains and this increase in food grains was caused by the use of high yield variety seeds and these seeds required the use of fertilizer and pesticides especially for wheat and rice green revolution also resulted in the increased profit for both farmers and also consumers farmers profited through the marketed surplus and consumers profited through the fallen prices because there was surplus production and thus with the spread of green revolution technology india achieved self-sufficiency in food grains and india was in no longer need to import food grains for meeting the requirements so in short green revolution was successful now before discussing the article let us also understand in brief about MSP that is the minimum support price it is a safety net given to the farmers to ensure guaranteed prices and assured markets it aims to save the crops from price fluctuations now these price fluctuations may happen due to various unwarranted factors like fluctuations in monsoon lack of market integration and hoarding by middlemen etc so to overcome these price fluctuations MSP is set and is provided to the farmers to provide them with a handsome remuneration and this MSP is based on the recommendations of the commission for agricultural costs and prices which declares the minimum support price for more than 20 crops before the sowing season so MSP provides guaranteed price and also assured market so in this way MSPs are also advantageous as it encourages higher investment and increased adoption of modern technologies in agricultural activities for more yields so this is the basic information that you should know with respect to MSP wheat cultivation paddy cultivation and also about green revolution but the focus of our today's editorial is the need to shift from wheat and paddy production to high value crops and that too this should happen in the green revolution states like panjab and hariana see panjab hariana and western up where the early adopters of green revolution and there were also the beneficiaries of various policies that were adopted to spread modern agricultural technology in india now this reason helped these states to emerge as leading producers of paddy and wheat along with this there are also other factors listed by author which made these states to emerge as the leading producers of paddy and wheat the first such factor is the procurement of marketed surplus of paddy and wheat at the minimum support price see MSP protected the farmers from price and market risk and it also ensured a stable flow of income from these two crops so they wanted to produce these crops and secondly agricultural research and development also allocated their best resources and scientific manpower to these two crops only and this led to the technological advancement of rice and wheat production over other competing crops and the next factor that played a major role is the increased public and private investments in water land and input subsidies now these factors contributed for wheat and paddy to turn out to be the best in terms of productivity income price and yield risk and ease of cultivation among all the field crops so this attracted the farmers to produce the rice and wheat crops over the other field crops but during 1980s problems arose related to green revolution and rice wheat crop system since then a large number of reports and policy documents have been prepared to develop alternatives to reduce the areas under paddy and wheat cultivation serious concerns have also been expressed about plateauing productivity and stagnant income from rice wheat cultivation so when we say plateauing it means reaching a state of no change after a period of progress so there was also stagnancy in productivity now let us see how see even though the farmers per farmer agriculture incomes in harina and panjab are two to three times more than that of the national average there is a talk about distress among farmers this is mainly because of the loss of growth momentum and also due to dim prospects of further growth and the need for an increased msp further for more than 15 years government has procured from the farmers in harina and panjab and this has affected the entrepreneurial skills of farmers to sell their produce in a competitive market where prices are determined by demand and supply and competition so these created distress among farmers because they were not able to see any remunerative future in addition to this the growth of rice and wheat in this area has also got social and environmental implications such as it led to depletion of groundwater resources and also there was burning of paddy stubble which leads to air pollution and further it also lead to severe implications on the employment the rural youths see most of the farm work in these states is done by migrant laborers because the young generation in the rural areas is not willing to do manual work and they are looking for better paying jobs in non-farm occupations so there is a need to create jobs in private industry and the services sector and this requires private investments in modern industry and commerce besides agriculture so based on these reasons and implications only author is suggesting the green revelation states like panjab and hariana to move from high value crops from the rice and paddy and also author wants these states to promote other non-farming activities so that the youths in their states will be benefited so in this way author has given some suggestions as we just saw first author wants these states to promote non-farm activities and second he asks the governments to increase in the number of area specific enterprises and then he suggests direct marketing of farmers produced then there should also be promotion of food processing informal and informal sectors then the governments can establish a better network of agri-input industries then high technologies can be used in agriculture that is high-tech agriculture can be adopted and finally the states should embrace an innovative development strategy in agriculture and non-agriculture sector to secure and to improve the future of farming and also the future of rural youths so these are some of the points that you should know with respect to this editorial article now we have come to the last session the practice questions discussion session this question is based on India internet 2019 report the first statement is it is released by the international telecommunication union now this statement is incorrect because this report is released by the internet and mobile association of India and it is a not-for-profit industry body registered under the society's registration act now the second statement is as per the report Kerala has the highest internet penetration rate in the country now this statement is also incorrect because according to this report Delhi NCR that is Delhi national capital region has the highest internet penetration rate in the country at 69 percentage and here the question asks for the correct statements since both the statements are incorrect the correct answer to this question is option D neither one nor two now this next question asks consider the following categories of voters general voters service voters wife of a service voter overseas which of the above categories of voters are eligible to vote using etpbs now those who are eligible for etpbs are the service voters other than those who opt for proxy voting that is the classified service voters see the service voter who is belonging to the armed forces or forces to which the provisions of army act of 1950 are applicable has an option of either voting through postal ballot or even through a proxy voter who is duly appointed by her or him thus a service voter who opts for voting through a proxy is called as a classified service voter and a classified service voter is not eligible for etpbs and a service voter as you know is a voter having service qualification and according to the representation of people act service qualification means being a member of armed forces of the union being a member of force to which the army act is applicable or being a member of armed police force of a state and the person who is employed under the government of India in a post outside India these individuals are termed as service voters and they are eligible for etpbs and also know that the wife of a service voter who ordinarily resides with them is also eligible for etpbs additionally overseas voters are also eligible but general voters are not eligible see already overseas voters are eligible but today's news was that to send the postal ballots to NRIs electronically the code of election rules had to be amended so for that only election commission of India needed law ministries approval so the correct answer to this question is option b 2 3 and 4 only now this next question is a map based question recently the country Ghana appeared in news for its general elections which of the following does not share border with Ghana and the correct answer is option d red sea because other three shares border with Ghana now let us take two main questions this question is based on PM Vani and this question is regarding the need for core green revolution states to shift to high value crops and promote non-form activities you can write the answers for these questions and post it in the comment section with this we have come to the end of today's in the news analysis if you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and to subscribe to Shankar IS Academy YouTube channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation