 Good evening aspirants. Welcome to the Hindu news analysis by Shankar Aiz academy for the date 4th November 2020. 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 Hindu's paper. Let's move on to the first article discussion. This discussion is based on this news article which talks about the supreme court judgment on one of the convicts of Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. As we know the former prime minister of India Shri Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber in the year 1991 and he was assassinated in the Shri Pirmutur of Chennai in Tamil Nadu and it happened during an election rally. So for this crime all the accused were awarded death sentence in the year 1998. But over the years the case witnessed several twists and turns. Even few years back the Tamil Nadu government had recommended for a mission of sentence of one of the convicts to the governor when that person applied for pardon. But the governor has not decided on this recommendation yet. So in this regard now supreme court has expressed its unhappiness over the pendency of governor's decision and further supreme court had said that the governor can take decision on remission of sentence. So in this context it becomes important for us from problems and as well as main's perspective to know about the pardoning powers of governor. But in this discussion we'll also compare the pardoning powers of governor with that of the president of India. So let's start the discussion before that the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. First let us see about the pardoning powers of the president. See under article 72 of Indian constitution president is empowered to grant pardons. She is also empowered to suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain cases. And here note that the constitution empowers the president to grant pardons to persons who have been tried and convicted of any offenses in all cases but in three instances. The first instance is when the punishment or sentence is for an offense against a union law and the second instance is when the punishment or sentence is by a court martial that is by a military court and thirdly when the sentence is a death sentence or a sentence of death. So in all these instances the president can grant pardons to the persons who have been convicted of the offenses. But here you should note that the pardoning powers of the president is independent of the judiciary and it is an executive power. Also remember that while exercising this power the president does not sit as a court of appeal that is for example supreme court is the highest court of appeal in our judiciary but in this case when the president exercises this pardoning powers she does not sit as a court of appeal. So what are the objectives of conferring pardoning powers on the president? There are two main objectives. First is to keep the door open for correcting any judicial errors in the operation of law and the second objective is to afford relief from a sentence which the president regards as excessively harsh. So if the president considers that particular sentence has harsh she can use her pardoning powers to provide relief. So what are the pardoning powers of the president? It includes five powers pardon commutation remission respite and reprieve. Here pardon removes the sentence and also the conviction and it completely absolves the convict from all sentences punishments and disqualifications that is simply you can assume that the convict will be released. Now commutation denotes the substitution of one form of punishment for a lighter form for example if a person has been awarded death sentence the death sentence can be commuted to a rigorous punishment which is a lesser form of punishment than the death sentence. Then third one remission it means reducing the period of sentence without changing its character for example a person has been awarded a sentence of rigorous imprisonment for two years. Now this punishment can be remitted to a rigorous punishment for one year that is here only the period of sentence has been reduced. Now the next one is respite. It denotes awarding a lesser sentence in place of the sentence that was originally awarded due to some special fact and here the special fact could be the physical disability of the convict or the pregnancy of a woman offender. So if the convicted person is pregnant or is physically disabled then if in that case a lesser sentence is given in place of the original sentence then this is called as respite. Then the next one is reprieve. Now this implies a stay on the execution of a sentence especially the sentence of death and this is only for a temporary period that is the stay is only for a temporary period. Now the purpose of this reprieve is to enable the convict to have time to seek pardon or commutation from the president. So these are the pardoning powers of the president. Now if we talk about the governor article 161 of Indian constitution deals with the power of governor to grant pardons etc and also to suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain cases. So that means governor is also constitutionally empowered to grant pardons, reprise, respites and remissions of punishments or even suspend, remit and commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence against a state law. So you note that when the offence is against a state law one has to approach the governor when it is against a union law then we have to approach the president. But here you should note one important distinction between the pardoning powers of the governor and that of the president because they differ. While the president can pardon sentences which are inflicted by a court marshal that is the military court but the governor cannot. So that means the sentences offered by a court marshal cannot be pardoned by a governor. Also the president can pardon death sentence but the governor cannot. So you may ask what if a state law prescribes death sentence. Then in that case we need to approach governor only but no in this special case when a state law prescribes death sentence then also the power to grant pardon lies only with the president. But however the governor can suspend, remit or commuter death sentence but she cannot pardon it. Or in other words we can say that both the governor and the president have concurrent powers in respect of suspension, remission and commutation of death sentence. And that is why the convicts of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case have applied for remission of sentence to the governor. And according to today's news article Supreme Court has intervened now and has suggested to the governor to take a decision. So let us wait and see whether the governor takes a decision on this remission of sentence soon or not. So these are some of the information that you should know with respect to this discussion. Let's move on to the next discussion. This discussion is based on this editorial which severely criticizes the recent proposals of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana chief ministers to enact laws to curb what is so called as the Love Jihad. So regarding the issue in Uttar Pradesh you would have heard that recently the Alhabad High Court had dismissed a repetition filed by a married couple of different faiths. These married couples they sought police protection but this repetition was dismissed by the Alhabad High Court. And in its judgment the court also observed that religious conversion just for the purpose of marriage is unacceptable. So by referring to the decision of High Court the Uttar Pradesh chief minister has said that his government will ensure compliance of the ruling and he will also bring a strict law to put a check on Love Jihad. But ironically if you see the judgment had nothing to do with the allegations of Love Jihad but it simply pertained to the request of a Muslim woman and Hindu man. Then after Uttar Pradesh even Haryana and Mother Pradesh also hinted at new law against Love Jihad. And today we have another news article where the Karnataka government is planning to bring in laws to ban religious conversion for the sake of marriage. So in this context it becomes important for us to know about this extra legal term or the extra judicial term called as Love Jihad. We will also see the relevant provisions in the Special Marriage Act of 1954 to understand what is the legality regarding the interfaith marriages. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. Now first we should understand what is Love Jihad. See Love Jihad is also known as Romeo Jihad. It is a term used to describe an imaginary criminal conspiracy by Muslim men. And this conspiracy is supposed to be aimed at forcibly converting vulnerable Hindu women to Islam through trickery and marriage. So this Love Jihad term is an Islamophobic conspiracy theory that alleges that Muslim men target women who belong to non-Muslim communities and they target the women for the conversion to Islam by pretending love. So you should understand that this term Love Jihad is not defined under any law but we often hear about this in newspapers and social media platforms and that is why it becomes important to know it. This concept first came to national attention in India in the year 2009 and at that time there were claims of widespread conversions from one religion to another in Kerala and Karnataka. But these claims have subsequently spread throughout India and beyond. But in most of the cases no element of Love Jihad could be found by the investigation agencies. For example in the year 2010 the Karnataka government itself stated that although many women had converted to Islam there was no organized attempt to convince them to do so. So that means it was their own personal wish which they took as an independent woman. And similarly in the year 2014 Uttar Pradesh Polars also said that they found no evidence of attempted or forced conversion in the reported cases of Love Jihad. And another case which we know involving the term Love Jihad is the most prominent case of Hadia case. We discussed about this Hadia case on our September 4th interview analysis. So from this you can see that the interfaith marriages are often contentious in the Indian society especially when it involves a Hindu and a Muslim. So in this context it is important to know what kind of legal support is offered to the interfaith couples in India. And for this we need to understand the special marriage act of 1954. See it is an act of parliament. And this act is to allow the solemnization of marriages without going through any religious customs or rituals. It means people from different castes or religions or states they get married under this act in which marriage is solemnized by way of registration. The main objective of this act is to address inter-religious marriages and also to establish marriage as a secular institution in which all religious formalities are absent and it just requires registration. But at the same time if you note the act also gives certain conditions to be fulfilled for the inter-caste or inter-religious marriages. First condition is that both parties that are involved to get married should not have any other subsisting valid marriage. That is for both parties the resulting marriage should be monogamous. In other words at the end of this marriage they should be married to only one person. Then the second condition is the age of the couples. That is the groom must be minimum 21 years old and the bride must be a minimum of 18 years old. Then the third condition is that the parties should be competent in reference to their mental capacity to the extent that they are able to give valid consent for the marriage. Then the fourth condition is they shouldn't fall within the degree of prohibited relationship. See two persons are said to be within the degrees of prohibited relationships if one is a linear ascendant of the other. For example a daughter cannot marry her father and grandfather and similarly mother cannot marry her son or grandson and also a son cannot marry his stepmother or a person cannot marry his daughter-in-law or son-in-law. All these fall under the category of degrees of prohibited relationships. So if the parties fulfill all these conditions then they are legally eligible to get married even if they belong to different castes or different religions or they are from different states. So keeping this discussion in mind let us discuss the editorial. The author of this editorial is of the opinion that there shouldn't be any legislation based on an extra legal concept or the extra judicial concept of love jihad. Now we are again and again saying extra legal concept because this term is not legally defined or legally valid and further the author also notes that any legislative intervention in this regard in marriages that involve consenting adults is clearly unconstitutional in character. Now the author is saying unconstitutional for intervention in marriages involving consenting adults because while discussing about the hadya case on September 4th we saw about the supreme court judgment of 2018 in which the court noted that the right to marry a person of one's choice is integral to article 21 that is it is integral to write to life and liberty. So that means two consenting adults they want to get married and if to stop that any legislative intervention is done then it will be against this judgment which will be unconstitutional. But again if you read the article author is not against the al-habad high court verdict because author opines that the objective of the verdict was to just underscore that conversion to another religion should not become a device for marriage and for this purpose only al-habad high court gave that verdict and additionally if you look at these issues from another angle the propaganda around love jihad can be seen as a powerful intersection of communalism and patriarchy which fosters the idea that women are to be controlled by their communities. So in this regard the concept of love jihad is wrong and it is simply putting the blame on the muslim community. So there should be a fundamental change in the hearts and minds of the people to eliminate this concept from our society. Now when we discuss these kinds of concepts we advise the viewers to stay neutral and understand the positives and negatives of these concepts so that it will be helpful for you to answer a question in the UPS examination when supposedly a question appears in this context. Now let us move on to the next discussion. Now our next discussion is based on this news article which mentions that Sri Lanka's navy coast guard local volunteers and conservation experts all together have rescued nearly 120 stranded whales and they have pulled them back to the deep sea because otherwise the whales will die and the whale species which they rescued was the short finned pilot whales. So in this context let us know about this species now. First know that short finned pilot whales is a type of pilot whale. See pilot whales are named so because it was once believed that each observed group of these whales was navigated by a pilot or leader but now this has been denied but the name has stuck with this species and that is why even today it is known as pilot whales and their Latin name is globisaphella which means round head and it is one of the main identifying features of this species. Now there are two species of pilot whales one is the short finned pilot whales and they are mainly found in tropical and warm temperate regions and the second one is long finned pilot whales and these species inhabit in colder waters. Now our today's discussion is focused on short finned pilot whales know that they are also known as blackfish or pacific pilot whale they are found globally in tropical and temperate oceans which includes both near shore and open ocean waters also. Thus they are native or seasonally present in these countries and territories which are marked with light blue and the dark blue represents the countries or territories where long finned pilot whales are found. So as you can see Indian Ocean is also a native location for the short finned pilot whale species. Now this species is also nicknamed as cheetahs of the deep sea because they have been recorded swimming very quickly at depths and also sprinting after large squid because squid is their major diet. Now these short finned pilot whales are top predators they long live and they are slow to reproduce but they are highly social they live in stable groups of 15 to 30 animals which is comprised of close family relatives only and there are certain characteristics of pilot whales which is also applicable to this species like pilot whales are often active at the surface they may spy hop which means they poke their heads out of the water and they sometimes also lob tail which means they beat the surface of water with the flukes that is the aether lobe of the whale's tail sometimes they will also approach vessels that are moving at slow speeds and they will also allow the slow moving whale watch boards to approach them and see them. So now what are the threats to this species see the common threat to the pilot whales is also a threat to these short finned pilot whales like pilot whales are often involved in mass strandings as today's news but the reasons for this mass strandings is still unclear and they are involved in mass strandings throughout their range but there are several theories for this mass stranding which are not yet proved and these theories include accidents in navigation that lead the animals to unexpected shallow waters because of which they get stranded and sometimes it is also said that the anomalies in the earth's geomagnetic fields that is caused by the solar storms is also a reason for this mass stranding because this could have affected their echolocation echolocation is nothing but the location of objects by reflected sound and then other threat includes the entanglement in fishing gear or they're caught as a bycatch in the fishing gear especially the short finned pilot whales they are known to be subject of bycatch in several fisheries in the north pacific ocean the indian ocean and also the southwest atlantic ocean and as we saw they are top predators and because of this these pilot whales also suffer from bio accumulation of contaminants such as heavy metals in their tissues and researchers say that this may have serious long-term impacts on the health and reproduction of this species so now what are the conservation efforts to save this species first they are listed as least concerned by the icn red list and they are also listed in appendix two of these sites so these are some of the information that you should know with respect to short finned pilot whales let's move on to the next discussion this discussion is based on these three news articles that speak about e vehicles or electric vehicles so in this context let us try to understand about e vehicles and the schemes for promotion of e vehicles in india and then we'll discuss about these news articles the syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference see the conventional vehicles that are currently in use they operate on internal combustion engine that generates power by burning a mix of fuel and gases but if you take electric vehicles or e vehicles they operate on an electric motor instead of these internal combustion engines hence electric vehicles are seen as a possible replacement of current generation automobile in order to address the issue of rising pollution and related environment issues and here know that there are two basic types of e vehicles they are all electric vehicles that is a e v s and then plug in hybrid electric vehicles that is p h e v s now in this all electric vehicles or a e v s run on electricity that are powered by one or more electric motors they consume no petroleum based fuel and they also produce no tailpipe emissions like this and these a e v s are also of two types one is battery electric vehicles and then fuel cell electric vehicles now generally a e v s receive electricity by plugging into the grid and they store the electricity in the batteries now in addition to charging from the electrical grid both types of a e v s are charged in part also by the regenerative braking series generator braking means generating electricity from some of the energy that is normally lost when we use brakes then the next type is the plug in hybrid electric vehicles or p h e v s they use both electricity and fuel to run these p h e v s use batteries to power an electric motor they also can be plugged into the electric grid to charge and they also use petroleum based or alternative fuel to power the internal combustion engine you just know that some types of p h e v s are also called as extended range electric vehicles now even though the concept of electric vehicles has been around for a long time it has drawn a huge interest in the recent times only due to the various environmental issues like air pollution and in India particularly the first concrete decision to incentivize electric vehicles was taken in the year 2010 at that time the ministry of new and renewable energy announced a financial incentive of up to 20 percentage on x factory prices of electric vehicles sold in India but this scheme was later withdrawn in the year 2012 then again in the year 2013 India came up with the national electric mobility mission plan 2020 this policy intends to make a major shift to electric vehicles from the conventional vehicles and it aims to address the issues of national energy security vehicular pollution and it also focuses on the growth of domestic manufacturing capabilities we have covered about the national electric mobility mission plan on our january 18 2020 in the news analysis we request the viewers to view that analysis for better understanding so mainly this NEMMP scheme was to offer subsidies and create supporting infrastructure for e vehicles but this plan mostly remained on papers for some time and then in the union budget of 2015 to 16 as a part of this NEMMP 2020 India announced the launch of a new scheme called as fame that is faster adoption and manufacturing of electric vehicles this scheme was announced with an aim to offer incentives for clean fuel technology cars to boost their sales then in february 2019 the union cabinet also cleared a 10 000 crore rupees program under the fame 2 scheme and this scheme came into force from april 1st of 2019 the main objective of the fame 2 scheme is to encourage a faster adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles by offering upfront incentives on purchase of electric vehicles and also by establishing necessary charging infrastructures for evs so these are the two main objectives of fame 2 now to know more about this fame 2 scheme please refer to our target series for the month of october now apart from these schemes the government has also taken measures to promote the use of electric vehicles in india like under the new gst regime the gst on electric vehicles has been reduced to 5 percentage from the 12 percentage rate then exemption has also been provided from the requirement of permits to the battery operated transport vehicles and then in the budget of 2019 to 2020 the finance minister also announced a provision of additional income tax deduction of about 1.5 lakh rupees on the interest that is paid on the loans taken to purchase electric vehicles so like this government is taking several measures for the promotion of electric vehicles in our country so based on this fame 2 scheme and other additional measures the central government is trying to promote the use of electric or hybrid vehicles including the shared mobility in various parts of the country so in this regard various state governments are also taking measures to promote the use of ev vehicles in this context only we have three news articles today this first news article mentions that the tamilado government has passed an order for 100 percentage exemption of motor vehicle tax for battery operated vehicles here you should note that both the transport and non transport evs that is the commercial evs are exempted from payment of motor vehicle tax from november 3 2020 to december 31 2022 so this is one of the measures taken by the tamilado government to promote the electric vehicles then the second news article is also based on tamilado in which the tamilado electric vehicle policy of 2019 has mentioned that the evs public transport services will be starting all over tamilado by next year and according to the policy measures around 1000 electric vehicle buses may be introduced every year from the next year then similarly this third news article is about the andhra pradesh government which has decided to establish charging infrastructure across the state now this is being implemented as part of the go electric campaign now know that this go electric campaign is taken up by the bureau of energy efficiency which functions under the union ministry of power now this go electric campaign was taken up to address the issue of air pollution in urban areas and under this campaign ev vehicle charging stations are set up so from this discussion you can see that all these announcements from big states like tamilado and andhra pradesh would pave way for promoting the manufacture and also the sale of electric vehicles for commercial exploitation in a big way so these are some of the points that you should note regarding the topic of electric vehicles now this next discussion is based on this news article which talks about a declaration made by the emir of katar that is the monarch of katar the current monarch of katar is the sheikh tamim bin hamad al thani he has noted that a long delayed elections to the country's shower council will be held in october 2021 the shower council is the policy reviewing chamber of katar and if this election happens then it will mark the gulf emirates first national election so in this context let us have a brief understanding about the geography of katar and also about its political conditions know that katar is an independent emirate on the west coast of version gulf and the katar peninsula extends about 160 kilometer from the north to south and about 80 kilometer from east to west and generally we can say the country is rectangular in shape i know that it shares land border with south arabia where the katar peninsula connects to the mainland then katar lies northwest of united arab emirates and the island country of bahrain lies some 40 kilometers northwest of katar itself so that is why it shares maritime borders with bahrain united arab emirates and also with iran so remember it shares land border only with south arabia so if we talk about the topography of katar katar's area is flat low lying desert and hills rise to about 40 meters along the western and northern coast of katar and the country's highest point is 103 meters which is known as the abuel ball hill and here note that sand dunes and salt flats are the chief topographical features of the southern and southeastern sectors of katar and more importantly there are no permanent bodies of fresh water in the country the economic growth in the country began in 1970s and it created an economy that is dependent on foreign workers mostly from india pakistan and iran and currently because of that the foreign workers or foreign nationals outnumber the nationals of katar so now talking about katar's economy its economic prosperity is derived from the extraction and export of petroleum and natural gas and because of this by the 1970s the native kataris enjoyed one of the highest per capita incomes in the world so what about its political condition know that katar is a constitutional emirate with one advisory body called as shaura council now since katar is a constitutional emirate it is ruled by a hereditary emir or hereditary monarch from the al-thani so members of the ruling family hold almost all the major ministerial posts and they are appointed by the emir that is the monarch but even then a new constitution was approved by a referendum in the year 2003 and this constitution was enacted in 2005 and among its main provisions one of the provisions was a new national assembly and in this national assembly two third members will be popularly elected that is they will be elected among the people and one third will be appointed by the emir and for this only elections will be held next year so in this context remember that currently the shaura council is unelected it only advises the absolute ruler on draft laws but it does not create its own legislation and know that its laws can be overruled by a simple decree by the ruler so these are some of the information that you should know with respect to katar our next discussion is based on this opiate article which talks about academic freedom index and also about the academic freedom in india so in this context let us have a brief understanding about this index and what it has to say about india first let us see what is academic freedom index see it is an index published by global public policy institute which is based in berlin in cooperation with other organizations and institutions see academic freedom is important because it is fundamental to scientific progress for research collaboration and for quality higher education so in this regard the academic freedom index provides near global time series data on national levels of academic freedom it consists of eight new indicators and one existing indicator out of which five indicators are aggregated into this afi 2020 and the five new indicators which are aggregated they measure a different dimension of academic freedom and these are freedom to research and teach freedom to academic exchange and dissemination institutional autonomy then campus integrity and then finally freedom of academic and cultural expression then the other indicators include constitutional protection of academic freedom international legal commitment to academic freedom under the international covenant on economic social and cultural rights and existence of universities now these indicators are coded on a predefined scale from zero to four and they are coded on a country basis so accordingly countries are rated completely restricted if interference and restrictions are consistently applied across all disciplines in the academia and then countries are rated as severely restricted if in some disciplines interference and restrictions are consistently applied and then the remaining levels are moderately restricted mostly free fully free so based on this afi codes for more than 180 countries and territories from 1900 to 2019 so now let us see the important points mentioned in this opiate article with respect to India's academic freedom so in this regard first you need to know that India has scored considerably low in the academic freedom index India has just scored 0.352 even though India scored better than China but it has scored close to Saudi Arabia and Libya only and also in the last five years the AFI of India has reduced by 0.1 points but to our surprise if you see countries like Malaysia Pakistan Brazil Somalia and Ukraine have scored better than India in this graph you can see that before 2014 India's score remained above the global average whereas after 2014 it has remained below the global average so based on these data author of this opiate article is of the opinion that India is failing terribly in the freedom of scholars to discuss politically and culturally controversial topics and India is failing because the scholars are unable to discuss the controversial topics without fearing for life studies or profession but at the same time if you see now the new national educational policy offers the principles of creativity and critical thinking and the concept of envisioning an education system that is free from this political or external interference for example the policy states that faculty will be given the freedom to design their own curricular and pedagogical approaches including textbook and reading material selections assignments and assessments so based on this new education policy author is of the opinion that these promises and offers should be put into practice for India to improve the quality of India's demographic dividend so these are some of the points that you should know with respect to academic freedom index now we have come to the last session for the day which is the practice questions discussion session this first question is about electric vehicles or e-vehicles first statement is it uses internal combustion engines the statement is incorrect because e-vehicles uses electric motors but the current generation conventional vehicles uses internal combustion engines the second statement is they do not emit tailpipe emissions this statement is correct now the third statement is the batteries used in e-vehicles can be charged using regenerative braking now this statement is also correct because in a battery powered electric vehicle regenerative braking which is also in short called as regen is the conversion of vehicles kinetic energy into chemical energy that is stored in the battery where it can be used later to drive the vehicle it is breaking because it also serves to slow the vehicle and it is regenerative because the energy is recaptured in the battery where it can be used again and here the question asks for the incorrect statements and only statement one is incorrect so the correct answer is option a now this next question is a two statement question first statement is only the president and not the governor is constitutionally empowered to pardon death sentence prescribed by a union or state law this statement is correct because governor is not constitutionally empowered to pardon a death sentence statement two is both the governor and the president have concurrent power in respect of suspension remission and commutation of death sentence this statement is correct we discussed it during the article discussion and here the question asks for the correct statements so the correct answer is option c both 1 and 2 now this next question is a map based question it asks which of the following shares border with Qatar Oman Saudi Arabia Persian Gulf Yemen Arabian Sea now during discussion we saw that Saudi Arabia is the only country that shares land border with Qatar so two should be in answer you can eliminate option b then we also saw that it is on the west coast of Persian Gulf so three should also be in answer so you can eliminate option a also now apart from that Qatar also shares maritime borders with Bahrain United Arab Emirates and Iran but it does not shares border with Yemen or Arabian Sea as you can see in this picture so the correct answer is option c two and three only now let us take one main question based on GS paper one it is based on the issues and legal rights involved in interfaith marriages in India you can write the answer and post it in the comment section we'll review it an appropriate suggestion will be provided within a reasonable time frame whether this we come to the end of today's in the news analysis and practice questions discussion session if you like the video don't forget to like comment and share and to subscribe to chakras academy youtube channel for more updates related to civil service examination preparation