 Good evening aspirants. We have an announcement regarding pre-storming 2021 program of Shankar Ayes academy. It is the prelims test series for upcoming UPSA preliminary exam 2021. We are happy to announce that Shankar Ayes academy has started admissions for the second test batch and the test is starting from 11 December 2020. Our pre-storming program is India's first full-fledged artificial intelligence supported preliminary test series. All the required details of pre-storming 2021 are provided in the description of the video and also in the comment section. With this, let us move on to the Hindi news analysis for the date 5 December 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 Hindi newspaper. Now let us take this first article for discussion. This discussion is based on this article which talks about euthanasia. According to the news, a couple from Ajay Pradesh approached a local court and they have appealed for euthanasia for their child who is ailing from cerebral palsy. So in today's discussion, we will discuss in detail about euthanasia in India. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. First know that euthanasia is also called as mercy killing or assisted suicide. It is the painless killing of a patient who is suffering from an incurable painful disease and there are two types of euthanasia or we can say that mercy killing can be done in two ways. One is active euthanasia and the second one is passive euthanasia. Active euthanasia involves taking specific steps such as injecting the patient with a lethal substance. Another example of such lethal substance is the use of sodium pentatol and this causes the person to go in deep sleep in a few seconds and then the person dies painlessly in sleep. So it amounts to killing a person by a positive act which has been done in order to end the suffering of a person who is in a state of terminal illness. But active euthanasia is considered to be a crime all over the world even if the patient is willing to go for it. That is irrespective of the will of the patient, active euthanasia is considered to be a crime unless it is permitted by a legislation. Why? Because then anyone can administer such lethal substance and they may kill anyone saying that they have only committed active euthanasia and to prevent such kinds of illegal activities active euthanasia is considered to be a crime unless it is permitted by a proper legislation. So in India too active euthanasia is illegal and it is a crime under section 302 or section 304 of Indian Penal Code. Section 302 deals with the punishment for murder and section 304 deals with the punishment for culpable homicide that is not amounting to murder. Further physician assisted suicide is also a crime in India under section 306 of Indian Penal Code. Section 306 deals with abatement of suicide. See abatement means the act of helping or encouraging someone to do something wrong or illegal. So if someone encourages a person to commit suicide then it is called as abatement to suicide and in India physician assisted suicide is considered as abatement to suicide because in active euthanasia the physician will be administering a lethal substance. But if you talk about passive euthanasia which is known as negative euthanasia it stands on a different footing. Passive euthanasia involves withholding of medical treatment or withholding life support system for continuance of life. For example withholding of antibiotic where without administering the antibiotic the patient is likely to die and it also involves removing the heart lung machine from a patient who is in coma. See in a coma when the person is having a very minimal brain function or when the brain function is severely affected then the heart and lung machine is removed from the patient in coma if passive euthanasia is agreed upon. See this heart and lung machine is an apparatus that does the work of the heart and as well as the lungs that is it pumps the blood and it also oxygenates the blood. So when the person is in coma where the brain function is affected then this machine is used to keep the person alive and in a passive euthanasia this machine is removed which allows the patient to die naturally. Here I am saying naturally because if after removing that machine the patient lives then the person is not administered any lethal substance to kill them. They continue to live but if after removing such machine if the patient dies then the passive euthanasia is concluded and this passive euthanasia is legal even without legislation but here certain conditions and safeguards are to be maintained and further here note that passive euthanasia is classified as voluntary and non-voluntary. It is voluntary euthanasia when the consent is taken from the patient itself. For example if the patient is severely injured or is having an incurable painful disease then with the consent of the patient they can withdraw the life support such as the heart lung machine or they withhold the administering of antibiotic like that. But in an involuntary euthanasia this consent is unavailable because the patient may be in coma that is the patient is not in a condition to provide the consent then in such condition the relatives of the patient takes the decision. Now what about euthanasia in India? See with respect to the status of euthanasia in India we need to know about an important development which came in the Arunashambhav judgment of Supreme court India 2011. See here simply know that Arunashambhav was a nurse and she was sexual and physically assaulted by another member of the hospital in the year 1973 and that physical assault cut off the oxygen supply from her brain so it left her blind deaf paralyzed and she was in a vegetative state for almost 42 to 43 years. So her relatives were applying for the approval of the court for carrying out passive euthanasia. In this case law the apex court held that the right to death if any it is inherently inconsistent with the right to life but along with this the court also emphasized that right to life under article 21 would include the right to live with human dignity up to the end of natural life and thus it includes a dignified procedure of death also in its ambit. In simple words we can say that the right to die with dignity is subsumed within the right to life it was also clarified that the right to die with dignity at the end of the life is not to be confused or it should not be equated with the right to die and unnatural death which curtails the natural span of life of a person. So along with these Supreme court also gave several guidelines for passive euthanasia it observed that the decision to discontinue life support should be taken by the parents or spouse or close relatives of the patient and the decision should be in the best interest of the patient and such a decision requires the approval from High Court. So Aruna Shamburg case is an important case with respect to euthanasia in India apart from this there are also important developments which reflected in the reports of law commission. In its 196th and 241st report law commission suggested that a legislation titled as medical treatment to terminally ill patients protection of patients and medical practitioners bill and in line with this the government brought in the draft bill in the year 2016. This bill provides protection to patients and doctors from any liability for withholding the medical treatment the bill makes the decision of the patient binding on the doctor but only if the doctor is satisfied that the patient has taken the decision on free will this bill only deals with passive euthanasia but despite such a bill at present there is no legislation in India that legalizes passive euthanasia it is because the bill is pending in the Indian parliament. So based on the conditions which we discussed so far the couple from Andhra Pradesh approached a local court they have appealed for euthanasia for their child who is ailing from cerebral palsy. So these are some of the important points that we should know with respect to euthanasia and right to die with dignity. Now let's move on to the next discussion. Now this news article is with reference to China's artificial sun. See this artificial sun is a nuclear fusion reactor that is developed by China and it is the China's largest and most advanced nuclear fusion experimental research device. It uses a powerful magnetic field to fuse hot plasma and it can reach temperatures of over 150 million degrees Celsius and this is approximately 10 times hotter than the core of the sun and due to the enormous heat and power which is produced by this nuclear fusion reactor developed by China it is often called as artificial sun. So in today's discussion we'll see what is a nuclear reactor and what are the processes performed in a nuclear reactor. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. When we say a nuclear reactor it means we are talking about a controlled nuclear reaction that is mainly used for producing clean energy. Even in India we are having nuclear reactors in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu that are producing electricity. Then why is China's artificial sun so special? It is because the artificial sun is a fusion reactor. See almost all the nuclear reactors across the world that are generating electricity are fusion reactors including the reactors in India and as you would have learned in school days both fusion and fusion are nuclear processes by which atoms are altered to create energy. But what is the difference between these two? In simple terms fusion is the division of one atom into two and fusion is the combination of two lighter atoms into a larger one. See the word fusion means splitting or breaking up into parts and the nuclear fusion releases heat energy by splitting atoms. Nuclear fusion takes place when a large somewhat unstable atom is bombarded by high speed particles and these high speed particles are usually neutrons. These neutrons are accelerated and they are then slammed into the unstable atom and this causes fission that is it breaks the atom into smaller particles. And in majority of the reactors the target nucleus is the uranium 235 and the reactor splits the target nucleus and it releases a large amount of energy. Now the energy released by fission in these reactors heats the water and the water is converted into steam. The steam is used to spin a turbine and this turbine is for producing carbon free electricity and here note that uranium and plutonium are most used for fission reactions in nuclear power reactors because they are easy to initiate and control. Now what about fusion? The word fusion literally means merging of two entities or merging of separate elements into a unified whole. So the nuclear fusion refers to the union of atomic nuclei to form heavier nuclei which results in the release of enormous amounts of energy. See the fusion takes place when two low mass atoms unite under conditions of extreme pressure and temperature and here the low mass atoms are mostly hydrogen and this is the same process that powers the sun and creates huge amounts of energy and this energy is several times greater than fission. So this is one of the advantage of fusion reactors. Additionally fusion reactors does not produce or they very minimally produce highly radioactive fission products that is fusion reactors does not produce or generate unstable nuclei or radioactive nuclear waste which is otherwise produced by the nuclear fission. Now this is an advantage for nuclear fusion reactors because these radioactive nuclear waste are radioactive for millions of years and that is why we sometimes call these fission products as long lived radioactive nuclear waste. Then additionally nuclear fusion energy is long term it is sustainable it is economic and it is safe energy source for electricity generation. See it is sustainable and economic because the fuel used for nuclear fusion is inexpensive and it is abundant in nature. See there are two sources of fuel for nuclear fusion reactors. One is hydrogen and the other one is lithium and these two are widely available in many parts of the earth. In addition to this there are no carbon dioxide emissions or other harmful atmospheric emissions from the fusion process which means that fusion does not contribute to greenhouse gas emissions or global warming. So these are some of the advantages of nuclear fusion reactors and scientists are studying fusion reactions continuously to make the technology better. So these are some of the points that you should know with respect to nuclear reactors what are fusion reactors and fission reactors and what happens in these two. Now let's move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is based on this news article which is with reference to an order of Delhi High Court regarding the Sexual Harassment of a Minute Workplace Act of 2013. The High Court has ruled that the majority members of the internal complaints committee that is constituted under the act they should preferably not from the same department or ministry and this is to avoid allegations of unfairness and bias in case of complaints of sexual harassment against high rank officers of the government. See the sexual harassment of women at workplace prevention prohibition and reversal act of 2013 or in short the prevention of sexual harassment act it was enacted as a comprehensive legislation to provide a safe secure and enabling environment to every woman and an environment that is free from sexual harassment. This statute was enacted to fill the legislative void which had been partially addressed by the judiciary in the Vishakha case. In this case the Supreme Court of India had framed a set of guidelines known as Vishakha guidelines for dealing with the instances of sexual harassment at the workplace and these guidelines have been codified comprehensively in this prevention of sexual harassment act. Now under this act an employer is legally required to comply with certain statutory requirements and one of such requirement is the constitution of an internal complaints committee as per section four of the act. Now this internal complaints committee is envisaged to receive complaints on sexual harassment at the workplace from an aggrieved woman. Such committee will also inquire into the complaints made and it also has to make recommendations to the employer on the action that is required to be taken in percent of such inquiry. Now according to the act as per section four clause one the internal complaints committee should be located at all workplaces where the offices of the workplace are located at different places or when the officers have divisional or subdivisional levels then the ICC shall be located at all administrative units or offices. This is what is standardarily required by this act. So you can make sure that whether if you are a working person your office or company has ICC in every administrative units or offices or not. Now today's discussion is with respect to the composition of this ICC. According to the act ICC shall constitute a presiding officer and then members. The presiding officer should be a woman who is employed at a senior level at the workplace from amongst the employees and then there should be minimum of two internal members. These internal members are to be nominated from employees and there should be such employees who are committed to the cause of women or who have experience in social work or who have at least the legal knowledge and then there should be one external member. Such member should be from amongst the non-governmental organizations or associations that is committed to the cause of women or such a member should be a person who is familiar with the issues relating to sexual harassment and on a whole at least one half of the total members of the internal complaints committee shall be women according to section 4 clause 2 of this act and the tenure of the presiding officer and all the members is three years that is for three years they shall hold office from the date of their nomination. Now in this context only Delhi High Court has ruled that majority of the internal complaints committee members should not be from the same ministry or department and as we saw it is to avoid the allegations of unfairness and bias in case of complaints of sexual harassment against the high rank officers of the government. So these are some of the points that you should know with respect to internal complaints committee that is constituted according to the prevention of sexual harassment act of 2013. Now let's move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is based on this news article which talks about a new device developed by Indian Institute of Science that can measure the rate of evaporation within a couple of minutes. So in this discussion let us understand evaporation and its significance. See as you know water in all its three phases that is solid phase, liquid phase and gaseous phase ties together the major parts of the earth's climate system and one of the integral component of earth's climate system is the water cycle which shows the continuous movement of water within the earth and atmosphere. The water cycle is a complex system that includes many different processes like the liquid water evaporates into water vapor then it condenses to form clouds and then it precipitates back to earth in the form of rain and snow. Now the water cycle is often taught as a simple circular system of evaporation, condensation and precipitation but the reality is that the process is much more complicated. So today let us just focus on evaporation. Evaporation is the process by which water changes from a liquid to a gas or vapor. Evaporation is the primary pathway that water moves from the liquid state back into the water cycle as atmospheric water vapor. Studies have shown that oceans seas lakes and rivers provide nearly 90 percentage of the moisture in the atmosphere via evaporation and the remaining 10 percent is contributed by plant transpiration and even a very small amount of water vapor enters the atmosphere through sublimation. See sublimation is the process by which water changes from a solid state to a gaseous state that is from ice or snow to vapor and it bypasses the liquid phase. Now what drives evaporation? See heat energy is necessary for evaporation to occur. This energy is used to break the bonds that hold water molecules together and the net evaporation occurs when the rate of evaporation exceeds the rate of condensation and a state of saturation exists when these two process rates are equal and at this equal point of saturation the relative humidity of the air is 100 percentage. Now as you know condensation is the opposite of evaporation it occurs when saturated air is cooled below the dew point and dew point is the temperature to which air must be cooled at a constant pressure for it to become fully saturated with water. Now why evaporation is important? See the process of evaporation removes heat from the environment and this is why water evaporation from our body cools us and the rate at which evaporation happens is affected by number of factors such as temperature, wind velocity and humidity. Now there are instruments for measuring the rate of evaporation of water in the atmosphere and one such instrument is the evaporimeter. Now why is it significant to measure evaporation? Why do we need to know rate of evaporation? It is because evaporation rate is useful for farmers to measure water requirements for their fields. It also helps the weather stations to characterize the local atmospheric conditions and the evaporation rate is also used by botanists to study the dynamics present in the physiological process of transpiration in plants and already there are evaporimeter instruments that measures the evaporation rate but they take almost a day to measure evaporation. So now the Indian Institute of Science has developed a new device that can measure this rate of evaporation in just a couple of minutes. So these are some of the points that you should know with respect to evaporation, evaporation rate and why it is significant. Now let's move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is based on this Ground Zero article which talks about the problems faced by pregnant and lactating mothers in our country. The author of this article talks about the status of implementation of certain government programs which are related to women and child. So in today's analysis let us see these programs and we'll also see what are the issues with these programs. The syllabus relevant to this discussion is given here for your reference. First the author talks about Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matrithu Abhyan. See in this Surakshit means safe, Matrithu in Hindi means motherhood or maternity. So this scheme is about safe maternity. It is a scheme of Union Health Ministry. The program aims to provide assured comprehensive and quality antenatal care that is the care during pregnancy universally to all pregnant women in their second and third trimesters of pregnancy and this will be provided on the ninth of every month and that too at free of cost. So in this regard the program guarantees a minimum package of antenatal care at designated government health facilities. The package includes investigations and drugs and it would be provided at identified public health facilities in both urban and rural areas in addition to the routine antenatal care and through this the program aims to improve the quality and coverage of antenatal care. Now such care includes diagnostic and counseling services as part of reproductive maternal neonatal child and adolescent health strategy. So know that all pregnant women, newborns and mothers of six months of delivery will be able to avail several free health services under this program and these are the objectives of this program. Now this program also follows a systematic approach for engagement with private sector. This includes motivating private practitioners to volunteer for the campaign which is for generating awareness and it also includes appealing to the private sector to participate in the scheme at government health facilities. Now other features of the scheme include the distribution of mother and child protection cards and safe motherhood booklets to the pregnant women. Now one of the critical components of the scheme is the identification and follow up of high risk pregnancies. A sticker indicating the condition and risk factor of the pregnant women could be added on to the mother and child protection cards for each visit. But according to the author the objective of the scheme is not always achieved due to the poor implementation of other related schemes like integrated child development services. See this ICDS is one of the flagship programs of government of India that was launched in 1975. It is one of the world's largest and unique programs for early childhood care and development. Thus the beneficiaries under the scheme are the children in the age group of zero to six years. Then the beneficiaries also include pregnant women and lactating mothers and these are the objectives of this scheme. Now this scheme offers a package of six services which includes supplementary nutrition, preschool non-formal education, health checkup, immunization etc. And as you can see here under these services the provision of supplementary nutrition for pregnant and lactating women is also present. But this is not properly implemented according to the author which leads to the poor implementation of this scheme. See there is erratic or irregular supply of ration to the Anganwadi centers which provide the supplementary nutrition to the pregnant women. So due to this irregular supply of ration many pregnant women are not benefiting from the scheme. In addition to this even when the pregnant women get their part of supplementary nutrition but that part is consumed by their whole family due to poverty rather than just the pregnant women. So the supplementary nutrition that should be available to the pregnant women is not properly available. So these are some of the issues with respect to ICDS. Now next author talks about another scheme which is the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. So it is a maternity benefit program. It is the scheme of Ministry of Women and Child Development and it is a centrally sponsored program which is being implemented in all districts of the country from 2017. Now under this scheme cash benefits are provided to pregnant women in their bank account through direct benefit transfer. Now this cash benefit is to meet the enhanced nutritional needs and to partially compensate for the wage loss which the women suffer during pregnancy and the beneficiaries of the scheme includes pregnant women, lactating mothers but those who are employed with the central government, PSUs and state governments or those who receive similar benefits under other laws they are not eligible under this scheme. So what is the cash benefit provided under this scheme? The beneficiaries receive a cash benefit of 5000 rupees in three installments on fulfilling certain conditions. These conditions include early registration of pregnancy then antenatal checkup and then registration of the birth of the child and completion of first cycle of vaccination for the first living child of the family. In addition to this the eligible beneficiaries also receive cash incentive under the Janani Shraksha Yojana thus on an average a woman gets rupees 6000 under this scheme. Now the problem with this scheme is also its poor implementation and this poor implementation is due to the lack of awareness among the pregnant women and the lactating mothers. Since they are not aware of this program they are not availing these cash benefits. In addition to this relevant documents are not collected from the beneficiaries of the scheme which leads to their exclusion from the scheme because as we saw different conditions have to be fulfilled for each cash installment. So if the mother is unable to provide such documents then the remaining cash benefit will not be provided to that pregnant woman or lactating mother. So these are some of the problems with respect to Pradhan Mantri Matruvandana Yojana. Now the other programs which are discussed with the author are the Potion Abhyan and the ICDS CAS that is ICDS Common Application Software. Now as you know Potion Abhyan is also known as National Nutrition Mission. It was launched by the government in 2018. The program strives to reduce the level of stunting under nutrition anemia and low birth weight in children and it also aims to focus on adolescent girls pregnant women and lactating mothers through use of technology. Now this ICDS CAS it is an IT based nutrition monitoring system which was launched by the central government in 2018 and it comes under the Potion Abhyan scheme. See the Potion Abhyan impose the frontline functionaries that is the Anganwadi workers and the lady supervisors by providing them with smartphones and in this regard the ICDS CAS was specially developed to enable the Anganwadi workers to capture the beneficiary details to ensure assigned service delivery and to provide prompt interventions whenever required and the data collected under this will be available in near real time to the supervisory staff for monitoring at different levels but however the issue with the Potion Abhyan is due to the problem with ICDS CAS because there is lack of online data and this is caused due to the poor internet and server issues. Now this lack of publicly available nutrition data not only affects India's nutrition goals but it is also pushing states into thinking of other ways of setting up their own systems to tackle this issue. See sometimes there is poor internet connectivity because of which the data could not be uploaded and many of the times the CAS system itself is crashed. Now since this ICDS CAS platform is common for the whole country this means that when the system crashes the monitoring activities across more than 26 states where the system is running will be hampered. So many states are coming up with their own systems and they are also demanding the center's cooperation and convergence of all the programs between the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Women and Child Development's ICDS through a common data portal. So these are some of the issues with respect to Potion Abhyan and ICDS CAS. So we can see that there are many programs in our country for the benefit of children under the age of 0 to 6 then for pregnant women and lactating mothers but since all these programs are not properly implemented it is difficult to achieve the health targets set by the government. So in this regard author provides some suggestions for creating an efficient monitoring system. First technology can be used which can simplify a lot of problems that are occurring in the implementation of these schemes. For example use of ICT ensures efficient Russian supply at the Anganwadis because the software can alert program supervisors at block levels during the shortage of stocks. So whenever there is shortage immediately supply can be provided. In addition to this technology can also be used to alert Anganwadi workers when vaccinations are due. They can also be used to maintain a list of malnourishment levels of the entire village population and the technology can be used to identify children at risk of being malnourished. This will help the government to enhance its programs according to the targeted beneficiaries. And of all these suggestions the main requirement is proper internal facilities and server facilities so that all these technology based interventions can be applied properly. These are some of the suggestions that can be taken by the government for providing the benefits to the pregnant women and lactating mothers that is due to them under these schemes. Now let's move on to the next discussion. Our next discussion is based on this advertisement which talks about Thailand. This advertisement has appeared on the occasion of national day of Thailand and this advertisement talks about the economy of Thailand. It talks about the sustainable development and growth of Thailand. And recently Thailand was in news due to its anti-government protests and rival royalist protests where the protesters called for the stepping down of Prime Minister of Thailand and they were calling for the reforms to the monarchy. And we have discussed these details on our September 21st and October 22nd Hindi news analysis where we have discussed about these issues and also about the geography of Thailand. I request the viewers to view both these analysis and then attend this question which is a map based question. The question asks which of the following shares border with Thailand? Red Sea Gulf of Siam, Andaman Sea, straight off Malacca. This is a very simple question. As you know Red Sea is an inlet of Indian ocean between Africa and Asia and Thailand is a southeastern country. So one should not be in answer. If you eliminate one from the even options you can arrive at the correct answer which is option C 2 and 3 only. As you can see here it borders Gulf of Siam which is also known as Gulf of Thailand and then Andaman Sea. Now we have come to the last session the practice questions discussion session. This first question is based on nuclear fusion and nuclear fusion. First statement is two atoms fuse together in a nuclear fusion reaction releasing energy while one atom split into parts in a nuclear fusion reaction. This statement is incorrect because it is the other way around. In a fusion the atom splits and in a fusion two atoms fuse together. The second statement is the byproduct in a nuclear fusion reaction are long lived radioactive waste. Now this statement is also incorrect because the byproduct in a nuclear fusion reaction are long lived radioactive nuclear waste. They are also known as nuclear fusion products whereas fusion reactor produces helium which is an inert gas. It also produces and consumes a tritium within the plant in a closed circuit. Now this tritium is radioactive but its half life is short. Half life in radioactivity is the interval of time required for one half of the atomic nuclei of a radioactive sample to decay. And also it is only used in low amounts. So unlike the long lived radioactive nuclei it cannot produce any serious danger. So second statement is also incorrect and here the question asks for the correct statements. Since both the statements are incorrect the correct answer to this question is option D in either 1 nor 2. Now this next question is based on Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. First statement is it is a scheme of ministry of women and child development. This statement is correct. It is a central sector maternity benefit program implemented in all districts of the country. This statement is incorrect because it is a centrally sponsored program which provides maternity benefit. Now the third statement is under the scheme cash benefits are provided to pregnant women in their bank account through dbt. This statement is also correct. Now when you know statement 2 is incorrect you can directly arrive at the correct answer which is option B 1 and 3 only because the question asks for the correct statements. Now the next question is based on evaporation. First statement is evaporation is the primary pathway that water moves from the liquid state back into the water cycle as atmospheric water vapor. This statement is correct. Second statement is the oceans seas lakes and rivers provide nearly 90 percent of the moisture in the atmosphere via evaporation. This statement is also correct and here also question asks for the correct statements. So the correct answer is option C both 1 and 2. Now let us take two main questions based on GS paper 2. This question is based on the initiatives of government to improve the nutritional and health status of women and newborn and this question is based on euthanasia. You can write the answer and post it in the comment section. With this we have come to the end of today's in the news analysis. 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